Air Jordans

Eric’s local mall’s  doors opens at seven-thirty. At such a time, the mall is typically is only populated with mall walkers. The food court is open, but the stores are generally closed. Today, two Bitblog reporters, a/k/a breakfast patrons, reported long lines outside the local Footlocker. The stores were letting shoppers in one or two at time,and had a reported five security guards. No local incidents of which I am aware. However this may explain the mayhem:

SEATTLE (AP) – The release of Nike’s new Air Jordan basketball shoes caused a frenzy at stores across the nation Friday as scuffles broke out and police were brought in to stamp out unrest that nearly turned into riots in some places.

Shoppers stood in long lines through the night to get their hands on a retro version of one of the most popular models of Air Jordans ever made. The fights were reminiscent of violence that broke out in the early 1990s on streets across America as the shoes became popular targets for thieves.

It does seem the idea of a bargain does trump Christmas spirit.

There is no moral imperative driving this message, tonight — no calls for a life of self sacrifice, no direct calls for intensive reflection this night, not even a real punch line of the story.  I will let you decide if these thoughts call for that.

Tonight, I’m thinking back…. decades gone by, in fact.

Indeed, I’m going to relate to a tale of a Christmas Eve more years ago than I care to tell you. I could not been much more than 12 or 14 years old.

For some reason, and I don’t fully recall why, we happened to be at my maternal grandmother’s farmhouse.  We weren’t there for long — perhaps 20 minutes or so. I think she must have come with us to Christmas services that night, and apparently, my father was performing transportation duty.

You see, my grandmother sometime in the late fifties had bought a farmhouse about 60 miles out of town, and perhaps five miles off the nearest paved road.  She was one who loved nature in all its forms.  For a lot of years, she had two houses.  She had one in the city, in a neighborhood which had never been all that good, in my memory.  She lived in town during the week, because she worked at a manufacturing plant just around the corner.  On the weekends, though, she jumped into that battered 1952 Chevy she had, and came down to this somewhat beat up and certainly ancient farmhouse.  The place had to be over 100 years old when she got it — closer to 200 years old, now.  It was far enough off the beaten path that at the time, it was a long distance call to contact the fire department, or the police.  Grandma tended to come down here on holidays too, in fact every chance she had, really.  I can see her, in my mind’s eye, sitting on the porch in the summertime, bird book in one hand and a really good set of binos in the other.

Not for this night, though. Far too cold for birds, and besides, the porch swing was covered with snow.

We got to the farmhouse, and everyone but myself went inside.  I knew we’d be leaving shortly, so I saw no need for going in. Anyway, the darkness and the cold night was somehow calling to me.  As I say, it was a cold clear night…. nearly zero in fact. Cold and clear.  The kind of night where the stars far outshone any Christmas ornaments that might have been in someone’s outdoor display, looking like, as Charlie Daniels once said, diamonds on black velvet stretching from horizon to horizon.

Being the young boy I was at the time, I suspect that between being dressed up for Christmas services, sitting through those services, and another hour in the car getting there, I hadn’t had any chance to blow off steam in several hours.  My mother expressed mild reservations about the welfare of my good clothes particularly my shoes, and then let it pass when she noted I had my boots on, and went about attending what she’d come down to do.

So, off I walked into the cold night for a brief respite from being around people all evening.  I suppose there was a certain level of boyish excitement over Christmas, and the gifts that would certainly come in the morning.  These quickened my steps somewhat as I plodded through the snow.  The cold did too.  For some reason I always find myself walking just a shade faster when it’s cold outside.

Suddenly, I found myself about a half a mile away from the farmhouse.  In my speed and being centered on my own thoughts, I’d covered rather more ground than I had intended.  I stopped to turn around and look at the farmhouse. I remember the sight of the house lights through the windows, and the porch light over the distance covered.  It looked warm and inviting. But something wanted me to stay for a moment.

I remember that it was a moonlit night that night, and that the farmhouse, which was painted white, gave off a rather surreal blue-tinted glow as it reflected the moonlight. It was at that point that I noticed that the snow that had fallen for the last few days, which was fairly well unspoiled this far away from the city, also had the same glow. The entire valley, in fact, was bathed in moonlight and shadows. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen the place look so beautiful before, or, for that matter, since. I had always thought of farm fields in winter as being bereft of life, and for that matter, of joy. Not so, tonight. Instead, I found to my surprise that there was a beauty here.  Beauty, despite the isolation, or was it because of it?

And I paused. It was hard not to.

Have you ever sat back or stood alone and simply listened to the quiet?  Particularly, at night.  Your senses, used to being flooded with sounds and sights, become starved for input; you start paying closer attention to what little sound and sight there is… you become more attuned, more aware. And somehow, more alive.

I listened to the little bit of wind that was coming down the valley, and chilling the tips of my ears, and of my fingers.  I often did that, here… simply focused on available noise…. But not often, in winter and seldom at night.  Normally, during the day in the summer months in this valley you can hear all sorts of animals and insects and birds. All that being what my grandmother to found attractive in the first place.  Usually, you can also hear jet planes going overhead, back in that day, turboprops. This was, after all, the mid- sixties.  Not tonight for that, but there was a train, I recall. The Erie Railroad put up a mainline in 1852, through here and still owned it at the time a little over 100 years later….  perhaps six miles to the north of the house.  It belongs to Norfolk Southern these days. On most summer nights if the crickets were quiet enough you could hear the horn.  Often, you could hear the diesel engines.  Tonight, it was so quiet, you could hear every wheel on that train.  You could count every axle as it bounced over the switch just to the west of the little town.  You could hear every knuckle’s squeak it strained against the others going over uneven spaces of track. I stood frozen still in the cold, breath rising in steam about my head, listening; amazed I could hear so much detail from such great distance, even being carried on the cold north wind that night.

Once the train passed, and faded out of hearing, I could hear voices.  Now, understand… The nearest house, other than the farmhouse, was three miles or so away, and in the middle of that deep valley, the echoes were rather pronounced and confusing.  I had no idea where they were coming from, or what they were saying, even, but it didn’t really matter, in truth.  I could hear, though, they certainly sounded happy. And yes, you could hear, just by listening, the happiness…. no…. the JOY...in their voices. It was that quiet. Remarkable!

I don’t fully understand why I found this experience such a moving one.  Maybe it was the combination of the cold and the blackness of the night sky (aside from the moon and stars of course) that made me feel particularly lonely.

Well, maybe lonely isn’t exactly the right word.  Because I swear to you I almost felt that I could hear the voice of God himself speaking to me, in that place.

Just as I started entertaining that odd thought, midnight came, and with it, the sound of bells.  To the south, a single joyous chime over and over and over again.  To the north and a bit to the east, a Clarion that previously I didn’t even know existed, started to play “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”.  And I sang along, softly. Reverently. The situation seemed to call for some degree of reverence. There was a kind of awe in all of this, the degree of which I’ve never felt in any church I’ve ever been in, and I’ve been in many, in the years since that night.

Winter Moon, watercolor, Chris Tessnear courtesy Blisstree.com

After a time, the cold started to seep in, and so, I turned around and started back to the house. I observed my shadow in the snow as I walked along, placed there by the moonlight behind me, and the sound of the snow as it cracked and crunched beneath my feet.  It was easy enough to imagine that if it turned around, a host of angels would be there, ready to burst into song.  The moon was certainly bright enough that night, and the small miracles that I had been exposed to on a simple Christmas Eve walk, had prepared me for no less. I didn’t dare turn around, for fear of breaking the spell, somehow.

About this time I heard my mother’s voice sweeping up the valley on the wind, calling my name.  My parents were ready to leave. I shook my head, smiling. My timing, apparently, was perfect. We got back in the 66 Chevy BelAir that Dad drove at the time, and drove the 60 miles to our home.  I remember that I was rather subdued on the trip home.  If either of my parents noticed the change, they didn’t say anything.  Perhaps they thought, it being a long day that I was tired.  That wasn’t it at all, however.  Truth is, I was still reveling in the experience. I felt I’d been given a special gift, that night. That regardless of whatever gifts may have been waiting for me under the tree at home, I’d always have this one.

I was right, too.

That very special and irreplaceable gift is refreshed and renewed every time I hear a Christmas Clarion.  Loud or soft, near or far, I’m always straining to hear it come down the valley on the clear midnight wind, with the cold nipping my ears… and the moon… or is that a band of angels… over my shoulder.

Author’s Note: I want to take a moment to gratefully acknowledge the proofreading and editing efforts of Lorie Byrd.

And yes, I will be reposting “A Bithead’s Christmas” tomorrow night. -E

Whoopie Goldberg and the girls of the View are  heartbroken over the death of Kim Jung Il.   Goldberg admits that socialism has utterly failed everywhere it has been tried, but continues to hold out hope, via Karen, the Lonely Conservative:

No, it doesn’t matter. Because, you know, if you say that this is how our culture is and then you send your child to a Swiss boarding school- You know, this is what happens with communism. It’s a great concept. On paper it makes perfect sense. But once you put a human being in power, it shifts. We saw it in Russia, we’ve seen it all around the world. It’s nuts. But, I keep my fingers crossed.

The late Dr. Milton Friedman utterly destroys Goldberg, and he did so in 1979, video:

Socialism requires unselfish leaders and as Dr. Friedman points out, they simply do not exist. Please nobody tell Whoopie.

Newt Gingrich just got another reason for the republican wing of the republican party to support him, gift wrapped courtesy of Mitt Romney and George (41) Bush, via Allah Pundit, Hot Air:

Choosing his words carefully, the former president said he knew Gingrich relatively well. “I’m not his biggest advocate,” he said.

“I had a conflict with him at one point,” Bush recalled, alluding to the crucial moment in 1990 when a recession drove him to renege on his “no new taxes” pledge. He needed a bipartisan group of party leaders, including then-House Whip Gingrich, to stand with him.

“He was there, right outside the Oval Office. I met with all the Republican leaders, all the Democratic leaders,” Bush recalled. “The plan was, we were all going to walk out into the Rose Garden and announce this deal. Newt was right there. Got ready to go out in the Rose Garden, and I said, ‘Where’s Gingrich?’ Went up to Capitol Hill. He was here a minute ago. Went up there and started lobbying against the thing.

“He told me one time later on, he said, ‘This is the most difficult thing I ever had to do.’ I said, ‘I didn’t like it much myself, Newt.'”

If you support tax and spend republicans, support Romney. If you admire politicians who buck their party to support the American tax payer, consider Gingrich.

Forty-One is hard to figure on this one. Reneging on his no new taxes promise, cost him his second term. Yet Forty-One seems to bear a grudge against the man who tried to save him. Go figure.

Further, the history professor demonstrates he under stand the history behind the Second Amendment, text:

“The right to bear arms is not about hunting, it is not about target practice. The right to bear arms is a political right designed to safeguard freedom so that no government can take away from you the rights which God has given you and it was written by people who had spent their lifetime fighting the greatest empire in the world and they knew that if they had not had the right to bear arms they would have been enslaved and they did not want us to be enslaved, and that is why they guaranteed us the right to protect ourselves. It is a political right of the deepest importance to survival of freedom in America.” (starting at 13:00)

video:

Hat tips, quote and video: William A. Jacobson. Legal Insurrection.

Speaker Gingrich understands freedom, both economic, freedom from undue taxation, and physical, the right to keep and bear arms. Governor Romney appears to understand neither.

About time!

From Betsy Rothstein, Fishbowl DC:

Hat tip: Syllable Soup

[Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.)] Sensenbrenner was overheard saying that after buying all their “crap” (his word) a woman approached him and praised first lady Michelle Obama.  He told the woman that Michelle should practice what she preaches — “she lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself.”

[…]

At this juncture we’d like to point out that Sensenbrenner, who typically celebrates his birthdays by eating Cheetos and shrimp, has no business discussing fat asses while having quite the big butt himself.  And we realize that our picture is only head shot, but if this is what his noggin looks like, just imagine his backside. A note to the Congressman: “Let’s Move” could do you a WORLD of good. And lay off the Cheetos!

Points:

• One, Ms Rothstein has no problems publishing the contents of private conversation. Evidently expectation of privacy only applies to democrats.
• Two, Ms Rothstein seems to feel that Congresscritter’s Sensebrenner’s rather large butt precludes the congresscritter from commenting on Michelle “Moochelle” Obama own very large posterior.
• Three, Ms Rothstein’s were to applied consistently, it would preclude Moochelle from lecturing the nation on how fat we are.

Bitsblog to Ms Rothstein, STFU.

Fultonville, NY– I’m at a rest area along the New York Thruway, after having turned around 500 miles today. Not much to report, really.

• Saithood?  I commend to your reading an article by Thomas Sowell. I made a point last week about Gingrich’s legislative record vs Romney’s… and Sowell does as well:
  

  While the televised debates are what gave Newt Gingrich’s candidacy a big boost, concrete accomplishments when in office are the real test. Gingrich engineered the first Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 40 years — followed by the first balanced budget in 40 years. The media called it “the Clinton surplus” but all spending bills start in the House of Representatives, and Gingrich was Speaker of the House.

  Speaker Gingrich also produced some long overdue welfare reforms, despite howls from liberals that the poor would be devastated. But nobody makes that claim any more.

  Did Gingrich ruffle some feathers when he was Speaker of the House? Yes, enough for it to cost him that position. But he also showed that he could produce results.

  In a world where we can make our choices only among the alternatives actually available, the question is whether Newt Gingrich is better than Barack Obama — and better than Mitt Romney.

  Romney is a smooth talker, but what did he actually accomplish as governor of Massachusetts, compared to what Gingrich accomplished as Speaker of the House? When you don’t accomplish much, you don’t ruffle many feathers. But is that what we want?

  My answer of course, is not only no, but HELL NO.

• It’s up to 90? Daily caller says; Now, 90 congressmen have ‘no confidence’ in Holder or believe he should quit. Of course the question is why it’s taken this long to get to that choice and why the rest aren’t on board.
• Voting rights?
  69% Say Photo ID Voting Laws Are Not Discriminatory – Rasmussen Reports Do you suppose the Dems will be trumpeting that message? Me, neither.
  

Nor much of anything else, for that matter.

What CBS left on the Sixty Minutes cutting room floor, via Karen, the Lonely Conservative:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, we’re not done yet. I’ve got five more years of stuff to do. But not only saving this country from a great depression. Not only saving the auto industry. But putting in place a system in which we’re gonna start lowering health care costs and you’re never gonna go bankrupt because you get sick or somebody in your family gets sick. Making sure that we have reformed the financial system, so we never again have taxpayer-funded bailouts, and the system is more stable and secure. Making sure that we’ve got millions of kids out here who are able to go to college because we’ve expanded student loans and made college more affordable. Ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Decimating al Qaeda, including Bin Laden being taken off the field. Restoring America’s respect around the world.

The issue here is not gonna be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln — just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we’ve got a lot more work to do. And we’re gonna keep on at it.

Karen’s reax:

Wow! He’s living in La La Land!

Further reax, John Hinderacker, Powerline:

So Obama thinks his record so far-nearly three years, not just two-stacks up favorably against any president with the “possible exceptions” of Lyndon Johnson, FDR, and Abraham Lincoln. The man is simply delusional. This is a game one could play for a long time, but let’s just compare President Obama’s record in his first three years (almost) in office with that of Ronald Reagan over the same time. Reagan inherited a worse crisis than Obama: interest rates and inflation at unprecedented levels; our national defenses in a state of near collapse, with the Soviet Union advancing aggressively around the world; recession, high unemployment and a stratospheric cost of living. His solutions to these problems, of course, were quite different from Obama’s approach. Let’s compare how they did

I quibble with using Obama and think in the same sentence. Obama gray matter, such as it is, simply dose not get much work.

I assume that Obama  a/k/a Dim Won,. a/k/a Dumbo, was referring to Lyndon Johnson and not Andrew   Dumbo selection of L.B.J. as great president is revealing.  Johnson is noted for having fought two war, one the War in Vietnam and two the War on Poverty.   Johns9n lost them both.  It does seem that Dumbo does value nobility of proclaimed intent over actual effectiveness any day.

Those who can, do.  Those who can not, protest.  Ace digs up this gem:

Some of the excesses of "Occupy Wall Street" leaking out

Analysis of OWS Psychological Types Shows Rank and File To Be Lost Souls Looking To Lose Themselves In Something Bigger, and “Leadership” Animated By Need For Validation and Control

This is probably not surprising to you, so much as it is a sharpening of your gut-level vibe.

A group called “Frontier Lab” employed market-research type surveys, peering beyond surface-level questions that pollsters usually asks, to get at what really animates OWS.

Snippet:

First, that many of the rank-and-file occupiers feel isolated in their lives, and appear to lack basic community ties such as are provided by participation in clubs, churches, and strong families…. They thus attach to their political causes with something like a religious fervor. For many, a commitment to “social justice” is “not the end, but rather a means to an inflated sense of self and purpose in their own lives.” Crucially, involvement with others who agree with them provides an “overwhelming feeling of being part of a family.” I noticed this on my first trip down to Zuccotti Park, when I saw a telling sign adorning the entrance to the tent city: “For the first time in my life, I feel at home.” On subsequent visits I was struck by the importance of the commune to the project. As much as anything else, vast swathes of occupiers were simply looking for a new club. This group, Frontier Lab dubs the “Communitarians.”

Hat tip: McCain, the Other Smitty

We humans are social animals, and have a natural desire, indeed need to belong.   We need to be part of something bigger.   The left has waged relentless war on those very institutions that gave life meaning and structure. such as the family and the church.    Now wayward souls are driven to join movements dedicated to public defecation  Are you shocked?

Karen asks,  from the Lonely Conservative:

Just off the top of my head I can think of a few reasons [Erick] Holder should resign. The biggest is the reckless Operation Fast and Furious that resulted in the death of Border Agent Brian Terry, and who knows how many others. Then there was the dropped case against the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation. Speaking of voters, he’s now making a concerted effort to help Democrats engage in voter fraud. What have I forgotten?

I have one:

Gee... looks to ME like he was taken at the point of a gun...

This is a child, Elian Gonzalez, being kidnapped at the point machine gun under the color of authority. Was the JBT (Jack Booted Thug) going to shoot Eliam if he resisted:

There is no more cherished liberal myth than the belief that one in ten Americans are homosexual, all based on an incompetent researcher and gross misrepresentation of his published findings, from an apparently upset Alan Colmes:

Michele Bachmann Calls The Kinsey Report A “Myth”

When Kathy Schnell met the Bachmanns in Iowa she remarked that 10% of the population is gay. Bachmann discounted that as being a “myth” from the Kinsey Report.

From Jim Burroway, Box Turtle Bulletin:

And indeed, the size of Kinsey’s dataset was massive. But size doesn’t guarantee proportional representativeness. Gebhard & Johnson likened Kinsey’s approach to the brand new field of sex research to that of a “lunar astronaut,” starting with the most basic techniques, observing the result, and making modifications as he saw fit. If he felt that a group was undersampled, then he would simply find more people of that group to interview.

Drs. Gebhard & Johnson called this technique “quota sampling accompanied by opportunistic collection,”16 which they described this way: if, for example, Kinsey determined that there were too few never-married females over the age of thirty-five, he might correct this problem by interviewing female teachers at their schools, which might then open opportunities for finding additional subjects at PTA conferences and Sunday Schools. And with these subsequent interviews, he might find more opportunities to interview never-married females over thirty-five, while simultaneously adding other people into his interviewing dragnet along the way and enlarging other demographic categories in the process.

As Kinsey’s survey population was neither random nor representative of the general population, and Kinsey was not competent to conduct a random survey, his reported results can not be said to reflect the general population.   Congratulations to Representative Bachmann for being brave enough to speak the truth.

Carlisle, PA--After three highly unusual weeks of running to the west it appears as though I will be spending the remainder of this year running east.  That’s a bit more normal for this truck line.  Frankly, we’re experiencing a bit of a pre Christmas slowdown. I’m not worried.  I’ve seen this before.  From here, I will run to Schenectady, New York.  And then from there, well, we’ll find out tomorrow.

• Tim Tebow: Yes, I know… His team lost yesterday, but that hardly matters to my point. Erikson tweets tweets:
  

  Regarding Tim Tebow, the last time this many people were interested in a white bronco was when OJ Simpson drove slowly down the road.

  Heh… yeah there is that. But let’s try a little experiment. Let’s imagine Tebow is Muslim. Does he still get the negative reaction he’s getting now from the usual suspects? Somehow, I think not. Just sayin’…

• Then from the other end… Hitch: Sorry to see him go….  But an interesting side snipe. Joyner tweets:
  

  Hitchens to a waiter at an allegedly anti-Semitic country club: “This won’t do. I NEED THE KOSHER MENU!”

  That seems to me and interesting response, given that his calling card was his steadfast objections to organized religion. Forgive me, something seems a little out of kilter, here.  Derek Hunter adds to the story:

  Later, I would invite him to a different event. He responded he wished he could go,  but it was a Jewish holiday and he would be in Temple. He added “(I know, I know.)” This was, after all, at the same time his book, God Is Not Great, was on the bestseller list.

  

  Christopher Hitchens

  This might seem like hypocrisy, but it wasn’t. Christopher’s wife, Carol Blue, or just “Blue,” is Jewish, and she wanted him go go with her. Christopher’s family was Jewish, though he didn’t know it growing up. So maybe it also was his way of nodding to his family. I don’t know, I didn’t ask. But that’s how he was. Accepting.

  It’s my view the man claimed to be a devout atheist, but was in fact an agnostic. And no, I’m not going to take the time to explain the difference.

• Beck and Coulter:    The only reason I can see why you’d back Romney is that the GOP establishment likes him and you want to be in their good graces.Perhaps it’s time, however, that you look at the polling that Romney’s been doing.  He hasn’t managed to get beyond 30% many state he’s tried. Rank and file GOP voters now see Gingrich overwhelmingly as the most electable against Obama. Does that give you any indication of how many of the GOP rank and file you have teed off?  You’ve lost an awful lot of respect among your biggest supporters, because you were not smart enough to recognize that Romney has none. I will remind you that Romney lost to John McCain because bad as McCain was in terms of his leaning left at will, he still came down to the right of Romney.  That record hasn’t changed.Certainly, Romney can Beat Obama….  Then again, anyone can.  The question is if Romney selected what have conservatives won?  We’ve won Obama Light… And most voters find that unacceptable.  The only people that all this surprises are those that are backing Romney.  Including, apparently, yourselves.   Just shut up, the both of you. It’s the only way you’re going to minimize the damage both to yourself, and the country.
• Comparisons: I ask again…Why is Jon Corzine not in jail?  For all the screaming about Bernie Madoff, one would think Corzine would make a similar target.
• IRAQ: OVER? No. I see much in the way of celebration going on as regards the supposedly end of the Iraq war.  I’ve got a news flash for you, people .  That war is far from over.  It isn’t over anymore than the war in Vietnam was when we left there.  It’s just that our leadership decided to walk away from it just in time for the election.
• Barry Bonds gets home confinement: Here. Just about anybody else with god and jail time.  As a miscarriage of justice if I’ve ever seen one. If that it was unexpected would be a flat out lie.  And that, I think, is a measurement of how far we’ve gone down the wrong road.
• Role Reversals: One of the things that I’ve found fascinating about this primary season is the number of role reversals from what we’ve seen in previous years .  A couple examples would be the Des Moines Register endorsing Mitt Romney and the New Hampshire Union Leaderendorsing Newt Gingrich.The Registerendorsing Romney is something of a laugher, because Romney has hardly campaigned in that state this year, having been basically laughed out of the state in the last primary.Where Romney has been spending all of his time, is in new Hampshire. Yet he fails to get the endorsement there. In looking at this, one wonders if the reason isn’t that the more exposure one gets to Romney, the more one dislikes the man.Then too, there is the traditional mistrust of the mainstream media by the GOP rank and file. And that mistrust, in my view, is well founded. On that basis, one wonders if the endorsements will have any effect whatsoever, other than perhaps in reverse.In any event, Romney is unquestionably the choice of the establishment GOP. The rank and file, on the other hand, seems to have other ideas. That Ron Paul and Rick Perry are still in the running, here, is suggestive to me of some serious questions among the GOP a rank and file about the establishments choice for the nomination. The establishment GOP doubts that anybody but a candidate who is willing to kiss the backsides of the Liberal intelligentsia will win the national election. Of course, such sentiments tend to ignore the party’s own history vis’ Ronald Reagan.I point out once again that Reagan was not tremendously popular among the GOP establishment back in the day, either… including Romney, himself. That seems to me very telling about the reason behind the establishments position this time around.

  The big story this year, and it has been largely ignored, it is how unhappy the GOP voter is. The GOP lake and file. That on happiness, to my mind, is the biggest variable in this race. There’s no question to my mind that such voters are unhappy with Obama and his rampant socialism. The problem is they are apparently unconvinced that the GOP establishments choice is capable of doing anything about it. That doesn’t bode well for get out the vote efforts…. indeed, looks to me like Romney is McCain v2.0… where the GOP rank and file sat on it’s hands, giving us Obama as Presdient.

• OIL and it’s FUTURE..and ours: Billy Beck the other day, makes mention of predictions that oil is about to have a bonanza. He suggests that there’s a couple factors that will stop that happening.
  

  In the case of energy, what’s “backwards” is that producers await permission from commissars. This is not how the original energy revolution took place, and there will not be another one as long as that is the political state of affairs.

  Quite correct. I read it as close to zero chance as possible that such a bonanza will happen under the current administration. At the same time, I read it has no better than 50/50 that such a bonanza will happen under what the GOP is offering. There again, the politics of the thing enters the issue. Billy goes on:

  What’s also backwards are public estimations of internal combustion vs. all other energies: there is still nothing available that even approaches the energy-density per-pound of gasoline. This is a fact (you know: physics & stuff), and it has enormous implications for an economy on the scale of ours: one that delivers what ours does. I keep asking people to look around the rooms they’re sitting in right now, and realize that almost nothing in them arrives without petro-fuels or petro-chemicals in one way or another. I keep waiting for the light to go on, when they understand that we simply cannot live anything like 21st-century lives without these materials, and that to condemn them in all the terms which are popular now goes quite beyond senseless: it’s madness.

  New technologies and material discoveries (as well as discovery methods) have made all “resource conservation” arguments completely impertinent and irrelevant. We can burn oil for a long, long time, and one very important implication of this is that we have time for authentic geniuses to invent and refine new energies, instead of being force-driven in blind panics by politicians playing the future to pressure-group herds for peanuts.

  What’s “backwards” is the belief that government has anything to do with production. It’s perfectly atavistic: it comes from a time before America demonstrated the actual material value of freedom for the first time in human history.

  Exactly so. And that is also precisely why the left has been putting such emphasis on “green” initiatives. The history of the thing is that oil keeps being found at phenomenal rates, well beyond what the experts reportedly expect. (There’s that “unexpected” word again… how many times did we hear “unexpected” in relationship to how poorly the economy’s doing under liberal policies? One would almost thnk we were dealing with wishful thikning. ) So, the only control that such people can exert on the consumption of energy, and therefore the growth of America, is claims of air pollution.

  Understand; I take is a given that any one of the candidates of the GOP is going to create at least a minor boom in energy production, and energy consumption, and thereby some degree of an economic recovery. That said, I also take it as a given that such a recovery will be stymied to the direct degree that we bend over backwards to kiss the backsides of the Liberal intelligentsia. There’s another thing the GOP establishment still hasn’t figured out. They really don’t need to.  Given that Obama’s re-election chances stand right now at 43%,  one wonders why they are worried at all. Perhaps the GOP establishment has less disagreements with the socialist left, than the rank and file does, hmmmmm?

• Another Vacation? Apparently so. The Obama family is jetting off to Hawaii separately...at a cost of get this hundred thousand dollars to the taxpayer. Which ignores the millions this vacation will cost the taxpayers in total. Out of touch, maybe?
• Eric Holder: Mike Hashimoto has a great column up on the topic in the Dallas Morning News.A taste:
  

  Holder last week had another bob-and-weave session with a congressional committee, managing to reveal as little as possible. However, he did let us know that while Justice did dump hundreds of emails in response to a subpoena, none were addressed to him or had been sent by him. And that he has a personal email account, along with his government account. And that lying isn’t the same as not telling the truth, depending on one’s “state of mind.”

  You’ve seen people who did it and didn’t in your life. Is this how an innocent person behaves? Is it plausible that the attorney general of the United States had no idea what was going on in Arizona within his own shifting time parameters?

  Several dozen Republicans in Congress have called for his resignation. Others have demanded he hold Justice subordinates accountable. (And, no, shifting a few folks into no-work, no-speak jobs isn’t accountability.) Meanwhile, a Border Patrol agent is dead and his family still has no clarity on who is responsible.

  At some point, one might think, Holder becomes more of a liability to the Obama re-election campaign than a 50-50 incumbent can stand. At the very least, I can’t imagine congressional Republicans letting this drop, and the longer Holder stonewalls, the longer his name — and connection to his boss — stays in the news.

  I’m not sure about this. But it’s my guess that the Obama administration has figured out that Holder is going to be in the spotlight for the duration of the election regardless of whether he’s dismissed from office or not. IN fact, he’s figured out that Holder being dismissed would simply fanned the flames a little higher. Obama’s people are hoping, apparently, that the whole thing can get brushed under the rug. I will say it again; it’s time for this guy to be frog-marched from the White House. And let’s not forget who it was that was his boss, and likely set the whole thing in motion. Obama.

  Think I’m kidding about that? Consider this; Do you consider that the  attack on our second amendment rights is going to go away if Holder does, and Obama doesn’t? I don’t.

• Ron Paul: Look, let’s just save ourselves some time in stipulate at the outset that Ron Paul is a nutbag, and go on from there, shall we?

.Drill picture for story

There appears to be more real men, albeit in better a world they would be in skirts,  in Egypt than is State College, PA.    If this be the Arab Spring, I hate to see what wrath winter brings.

Some folks at the New York Times seem to think this is a  reason for celebration, via Doug Mataconis, Otside the Beltway:

BAGHDAD — The last convoy of American troops to leave Iraq drove into Kuwait on Sunday morning, marking the end of the nearly nine-year war.

The convoy’s departure, which included about 110 vehicles and 500 soldiers, came three days after the American military folded its flag in a muted ceremony here to celebrate the end of its mission.

Call me old-fashioned, or just plain cynical, but as a veteran with an interest in military history, victory has not been defined by which side got to issue the first press release proclaiming victory.    After all Baghdad Bob will be remembered as a buffoon and a liar.    No the traditional claim  of military victory has been the last side left standing on or over the battlefield.

Reax,Mataconis  :

So, after 3,196 days, and 4,484 soldiers’  lives (plus 318 deaths among other coalition members), it’s finally over. I shared my thoughts on the end of the Iraq War late last week.

In contrast the United States Army lost nineteen thousand in the Battle of the Bulge. However, after the battle Germany was spent.   The Battle of the Bulge was victory for American forces of arms.   It is an open question who will secure victory in the battle for Iraq.

Mike McQueary’s account of his action upon witnessing a rape of a minor, via Jill, Pundit & Pundette:

“I stepped back and didn’t want to see it anymore. I slammed the locker shut, and when I looked in, they had separated. I know they saw me, they both looked directly into my eyes, and neither said anything to me.”

The difference between a turd and McQueary is that you at least use the former as fertilizer.

Reax, Jill:

Dear God. Did anyone give a thought to what kind of weekend the anonymous, totally disregarded little boy was having? Not that I can tell. But they worried about their own and each other’s feelings.

Evidence Pennsylvania State University has no course offerings on the topic of shame.

Where ever the Occutads go they create a mess and leave to others to clean it up.   The mayor of DC wants you to foot the bill, from Politico, via Karen, Lonely Conservative:

D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray is planning to ask the federal government to reimburse the city for costs related to the Occupy protests.

Gray on Thursday told NewsChannel 8 that the protesters in McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza have cost the city $1.6 million since October. He says the city has a budget for protests but doesn’t have “this kind of money.”

Reax, Karen:

I have an idea – the cities that have incurred costs to police and clean up after these filthy encampments should send the Occupiers the bills. They’ve collected plenty of donations, and they always seem to have a steady stream of rich donors to keep them in business, so they should be able to afford it.

I have a better idea. The Occutards are agents of the Obama campaign, Organizing for America, send the bill to Obama’s campaign. The Occutard repreent the Obama campaign and not the public.