I Don’t See a Theme Developing, Here

I have to tell you, folks, after a few days of playing with themes for WordPress, I’m disappointed.

As developed, the theme we’re using here… Originally called “Boxy But Gold” (Details and contact links in the page footer) needed a little work to fit in with what we’re doing here at BitsBlog.  In the end it was pretty much plug and play, and then a few weeks worth of tweaking. I was able to add the feed pages quickly, and the tabbing display at the top of the page under the header works better than I’d hoped.

What we ended up with is a theme that’s easy to read, even for those gifted with less than 20/20 vision, one that flows with graphics nicely… I love the way pictures get text wrapped in this theme… (took a little toying with the CSS, but we got it) It’s briht enough to attract attention to itself.. and despite being overloaded with scripts and such, it still loads in a reasonable amount of time.

And finally, I like the way this theme adapts to whatever screen it happens to be on… I can run the screen resolution all the way down to 640*480, and take it all the way out to 2560*1024… it doesn’t matter… the screen is still quite readable; element widths are set on percentage of the window, or of the elements they’re in as appropriate, not a hard set. The whole thing floats.  That’s a real issue because most if not all the themes I’ve liked the look of, were hard set and won’t drop down. Nor do they expand to fill the screen on higher resolutions.  Granted that most… a little under half are running 1024, as you see in this fruit pie graph that Sitemeter made up for me. the rest though, are running something a little odd, resolution-wise and I’d just as soon not lose that traffic.

So why have I wanted to move off it it?

I dunno. Kinda like wanting to paint the room.. just a redecoration thing.

And for all the work I’ve put into this theme, it still has a few shortcomings.

For one thing, bullets (As in my Nightly Ramble) don’t space the way I’d like. I’d like each new point to have a paragraph line between them, and I don’t see a clear way to accomplish that, in this theme without a major re-write which will likely screw up a lot of other stuff.

Second, I see great things coming in the area of Sidebar Widgets, and this theme doesn’t seem to accommodate them all that well.  Likely, this one is something stupid, but I haven’t found it yet.

I’d like to place a grahpic in the header under the blog name, instead of just the plain background.  I’ve never seen a way to do that. I can insert the gfx ok, but the text wraps around it. I’d like to add different graphics to the herald lines as holidays and such roll around. Can’t do that with this right now.

Why do I got through all of this in this post? Well, it’s actually an apology. I’ve had the blog down and or squirrelly for the last few evenings, on and off, and all of the above is why.

Now you know.

What am I going to do? I dunno. Perhaps I’ll find someone better versed in dealing with WP themes, that’s willing to help. Maybe I’ll just suck it up and continue with this one, I don’t know.

• April 15th. Tax day. It occurs to me as I watch the mail delivery guy in his jeep dropping off more bills for me to pay, that the tax bill may be due today, but by some estimates we don’t actually get the amounts of money spent on taxes, paid each year, until sometime in late May or early June.  Also occurrs to me that I’d better steer clear of the main post office, tonight. There’s invariably a traffic jam around the place on tax day… late filers.
• Regarding Rep. Geoff Davis… No question that the guy is a bit of a jerk, but he’s no racist, whatever the racial ambulance chasers have to say about it. And in reality that’s what’s going on here… It’s not racism, but what the responses are, though, is opportunism. More than granted the guy shouldn’t have said it. But WHY?  nt because he’s a racist… he isn’t. Not even close. The problem is the opportunistic reaction to it. And I guess frankly, I’m wondering, of the two, which is the larger problem for society… that such statements are still made, however innocently, or that there’s a bunch of racial ambulance chasers out there ready to leap into the frey screaming ‘racist’ wherever there’s the slightest chance of gaining any political ground for themselves in the screaming sessions afterward. We have a group of people out there… seeking legitimacy and thereby, power, by way of searching out and reacting to keywords, regardless of the context in which they’re spoken.That way, for example, lies Jeremiah Wright, Julian Bond, and Jessee Jackson, Al Sharpton, and so on.
  Understand me; This is not to suggest that there are never legit beefs about racism, or what have you. But how does one measure such things? There’s opportunism on both sides, certainly, and there’s also legit beefs on both sides. Yet, how do we determine if there’s a genuine beef with a given statement, or that it’s simply a great tool to beat up the political opposition with?Such questions in total, to my mind, come down to the one question… the of motivation of the speaker at issue. Does Rockefeller think that way, or are we taking his words out of the context of a lifetime? Same question for Davis’ comment. For that matter, same question for the ‘bitterness’ comments of Obama, the other day. For the record, in the case of Obama, I’d say there’s enough of a pattern in his political history to aver that yes, he really DOES think that way… and similarly, jay Rockefeller. Davis, I don’t have enough history on, and so can’t make that judgement, but it seems to me if the man were a flaming racist, we’d have discussed him previously. But what we see in the case of Davis is a judgement process that doesn’t seem to work within a context of the person’s history, or of the subject(s) at hand, but rather work strictly on the basis of the presence of individual words. That smacks to me of at best knee jerk reactions and in truth, opportunism of the worst kind.  Look, gang; How many times are we going to kneel on the alter of ‘I’m offended’?  This isn’t just race, mind you; If you want to take this same dynamic to a different venue, we could cite similar situations invaolving ther claims of being offended, I find CIAR to be equally bogus.  So commented at OTB and O&O.
• I see by way of Billy that Delta and Northwest are merging. Both are financially troubled, of course. And I wonder, if the fuel prices weren’t so high, would this be happening? With that in mind….
• I wonder if it’d be worth my time to try and write up all of the ripple effects of the high fuel prices, caused by shortages which are in turn caused by our own government’s legal roadblocks to drilling for more and blocking more refining capacity. I doubt it.
• I’m watching the business with Jimmah Carter’s meeting with terrorists unfold with a jaundiced eye. I guess I have a rather different idea of actual Peace… I see peace in that region being accomplished by the utter elimination of Hamas, and the PLO… by military means, if needs be. Remember the principle: ‘Negotiation and capitulation do not bring peace. What brings peace is judicious use of high explosives pointed at those who would claim power over others”.  Does anyone really think that the elimination of such groups wouldn’t bring peace? Imagine with me, if you will…  a world without Hamas, and without the PLO. Imagine the nations of the world banding together and pounding the crap out of the roving thug bands taht infest that region… the very thing the UN was supposed to do.. and never did… Imagine a world where terrorists are not given legitimacy by crackpot former presidents.  Does anyone not think that attacks against the free nations of the world wouldn’t slow by a substantial margin, under those conditions?  Remember, dear reader; Peace isn’t had by us dropping a warlike stance, but by maintaining it. Peace is a product of winning the war against those who have declared war on US.
• I note Code Pink has come out for Obama, and is bundling donations. Oughta be a clue, there. Thing is, so are a lot of corporations. Oil, Lawyers, security, Hollywood, they’re all chipping n. Obama is the largest recipiant of Oil Company executives donantions. Ought be a clue there, as well.
• When even George Will gets what we’ve been saying about Obama to the point where have to link him, things are getting pretty damned obvious. More predictable, but no less potent, are John Fund’s comments. See-Dubya notes it, too., adding Lileks to the mix. John Lott weighs in, too. And to think it wasn’t so long ago we labeled John Edwards a snob.

Give your local search and rescue team a new reason for living…. GET LOST!!!

 

“The reality is that people are dying already,” said Jacques Diouf, of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). “Naturally people won’t be sitting dying of starvation, they will react,” he said.

The UN says it takes 232kg of corn to fill a 50-litre car tank with ethanol. That is enough to feed a child for a year. Last week, the UN predicted “massacres” unless the biofuel policy is halted.

A litle snippet from the Telegraph, this morning.

And to think… all of this is because of the myth of global warming.

The only moral thing to do?

Open up more areas for oil drilling and refining. 

We must act now, this ia a crisis situation.

After all, it’s for the Children.

Do we know, as Rush Limbaugh, George Will and Bill Kristol argue that Barack Obama(BO) is a Marxist?   Not for one hundred percent dead certain.   What do we know one hundred percent dead certain about BO is that he has never hunted a duck in his entire life and knows even less about hunting than, say, Elmer Fudd… video:

[wp_youtube]bzQxFtM9cfk[/wp_youtube]

It sure seems that BO’s politics of reconcilation sounds just like the old-fashioned politics of derision.   And here I was worried that Bitsblog was going to have to dark for the balance of the campaign season.

Hat tip:  Allah Pundit, Hot Air; Perfunction.

Oh, I can’t wait for the reaction on this one... Fox news:

Ruggedly handsome actor Jason Beghe was best man at the wedding of “X Files” star David Duchovny (his childhood pal) and actress Tea Leoni. In 1998, he starred as Demi Moore’s love interest in “G.I. Jane.” He’s been featured in numerous TV dramas such as ‘Criminal Minds,’ ‘Numb3rs’, and ‘CSI.’

In 2005, Beghe appeared in promotional spots for the Church of Scientology.

But now Beghe has escaped the Church after taking courses since 1994. He’s made a video that’s up on YouTube.

And here ’tis…

[wp_youtube]07m-IvvpK2E[/wp_youtube]

Interesting. I thought the Church of Scientology was kinda like Hotel California. You couldn’t leave.

• Scott Fybush over at NERW reports:

*Former MASSACHUSETTS governor Mitt Romney guest-hosted the Paul Harvey show on Thursday, the latest in a line of personalities helping out with the show in the absence of the ailing Harvey, who’s now 89. NERW hears that Romney hosted the show from the studios of former Harvey affiliate WBZ (1030 Boston); his guest-host stint wasn’t actually heard in Boston, where nobody’s carrying Harvey now that WTTT (1150) has flipped to Spanish-language religion.

That’s Odd; I thought he was on 1030/WBZ. I nkow they had ‘Rest of the Story” on during the 7 oclock hour, but WBZ’s been a little hard to get around here of late, with Bob Savage’s WYSL/1040 ripping up BZ’s sidebands… (and BZ, by the way, returning the favor, after Bob goes to night pattern…particularly with that damn digital hash) Course, with all the shuffling over there in Boston, who knows, anymore?

Speaking of Harvey…. Ya know, I have to say this; When Paul Harvey goes, it will be a loss, the size of which cannot be estimated, i think.  He is a link back to an America we need to be reminded of and refocused on. That need is seen on an instinctive level by so many Americans. I can’t help bu think that’s a major reason why he’s still so much in demand.And from an old radio hand, he represents hands on radio, as it used to be.

• According to Rasmussen Reports, 56% of Americans disagree with Obama’s comments on Rural America. I guess I’m a little suprised the figure is that low. But guess which party is the 44%? Assuming Obama makes it to the general election… as now seems likely… how do you suppose that’s going to play out?
• Ed Morrissey makes excellent points on Iraq.
  

  We are in Iraq, and al-Qaeda is arrayed against our troops. In fact, this is the best possible situation if we want to fight terrorists — to have them on a battlefield in straight-up fights against our military. It’s exactly what terrorists don’t want. If they wanted to fight our military, they wouldn’t use bomb commuter trains and fly civilian airplanes into their targets.
  We have plenty of politicians who still don’t understand the strategic advantage this gives us. Instead of forcing them to defend ground and fight against the best military machine in history, these politicians want the military to retreat and allow them safe haven in Iraq. The best commitment they’re willing to offer is that if they get too comfortable in their new digs, we’ll stage another invasion of Iraq — without considering the costs involved, both logistically and in human lives, and that it depends on finding another country willing to host us after twice leaving the Iraqis twisting in the wind.
  It also presupposes that we’ll get welcomed back for a third round of destruction by the people we would have abandoned twice. If we betray them a second time, don’t expect a third welcome. They already mistrust our honor after the 1991 bug-out that left them in the hands of Saddam Hussein. And it won’t just be the Iraqis who watch whether we keep our word; the Afghanis, the Saudis, the Jordanians all will take note of another retreat — and they will make their deals with radical Islamist terrorists accordingly.

  In short, the fastest way to damage our staning in the world (you may remember the left complaining on that subject) is to pull out of Iraq before the job’s done.

• In case you’re curious, you may like to know that the housing crunch isn’t just in the US, nor is it driven by US policy.
• Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell says we need to investigate Big oil on gasoline prices. Tell us, Senator, will this investigation inclue the fact that you voted against drilling in ANWR in 2005, thus helping to create our current shortage situation?  I mean, let’s put the blame on those keeping supplies low, such as yourself, Senator.

?

Bruce McQuain, last night on the BlogTalkRadio show he and Dale Franks do, made reference to a 2004 appearance on the ostensibly friendly confines of Charlie Rose’s show. Bruce makes the point that Obama here is expressing pretty much the same one he did in the ‘bitterness’ comments that have gotten so much milage of late. I did some looking around and managed to find what Bruce was talking about. Here ’tis:

[wp_youtube]6oGF3cyHE7M[/wp_youtube]

And OK, it’s said here with a bit more in the way of sensitivity than the more recent comments… But still, note his focus; Union workers, and how government can bail them out.

I mean, ignore, just for the moment, that it was Obama and people like Obama, with the help of the unions who added texes and relugation and expense to the point where they were the ones responsible for pushing the jobs out of those areas in the first place.

And still, he’s suggesting, not that such things as their freedoms, and their religion is the cornerstone on which all else is built… No, he’s suggesting they turn to this only when government isn’t their end all and be all, anymore.

Still quite condescending, still quite high handed, and still in the end, a discinnected -from -reality limo liberal. He still manages to illustrate quite clearly, that, as Gingrich said in David’s quote yesterday,  the values of ordinary Americans are flat out absurd in his view, and that he can’t really connect to them.

Not that Hillary clinton is any different, mind you.

Seen this morning on the back of a pickup truck, that had been set up to haul a 5th wheel camper:

If you can read this, I’ve lost the trailer!!!!

Barack Obama took direct aim at Mrs. Clinton and promptly shot off his own toe,  On the campaign trail, BO invoked Annie Oakley.   In response, Jeralyn, Talk Left  suggested:

Obama doesn’t seem to know much about Annie Oakely:

True, in so far as it goes.   While BO doesn’t know much about Annie Oakley, he knows even less about the Second Amendment,  ABC News:

“She’s[Mrs. Clnton] running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsmen, how she values the Second Amendment, she’s talking like she’s Annie Oakley! Hillary Clinton’s out there like she’s on the duck blind every Sunday, she’s packin’ a six shooter! C’mon! She knows better. That’s some politics being played by Hillary Clinton. I want to see that picture of her out there in the duck blinds.”

The Second Amendment has nothing at all to do with duck hunting .    The Second Amendment is intended to  give free citizens the power to resist state tyranny.   Marxists, like BO, love the power of the state and are afraid of the peoples’ power to resist state tyranny.    The Second Amendment is about freedom.    BO is about oppression.

?

SCRANTON, Pennsylvania (CNN) – After a weekend spent making direct appeals to gun owners and church goers, Hillary Clinton said Sunday a query about the last time she fired a gun or attended church services “is not a relevant question in this debate” …

Laughable.
Here is Hillary Clinton, so wrapped up in herself, she can’t capitalize on the Obama ‘bitterness’ gaffe.

Obviously, it IS important to the voters, (You remember them, don’t you, Hil?) …or she’d not have been asked the question.

Now, granted, that there is a bit of a Democrat meme about this, that I find troublesome… and it’s one HIllary Clinton has used to her own advantage, as has Obama… that being that only a black can effectively represent blacks, only women can effectively represent women, and so on. You know, the group politics I’ve written about before in these spaces. But on that basis, isn’t it also true then that only people who attend church regularly and have shot a gun recently, can represent religious firearm users?  Guess that leaves both Clinton and Obama wondering what happened to their support.

Now… as to the last time Hillary used a gun, why does the name Vince Foster come to mind?

But what has Barack Obama accomplished that entitles him to look down on his fellow Americans?

William Kristol, New York Times.

?

Dan Drezner grew a bit, apparently, over the weekend. He’s still got a long way to go, in this, but the progress is notable.

Remember when I said earlier this week that, “Glenn Greenwald might be a good blogger/collumnist, but he’s not that great at social science”? I apologize — I was clearly in error. Replace “good” with “simplistic and Jacobin” and replace “not that great at social science” with “not aware of the concept of social science.”

What it took for the change in perception, is, however, less than encouraging:

Here’s how Greenwald resonds to responded to my prior post. He first tries to rebut points I made about his methodology… but let’s get to the good stuff:

I want to leave their specific claims behind and focus on what is actually important here. What really underlies the mentality of people like McArdle and Drezner are two pervasive though toxic afflictions — a drooling, self-loving American exceptionalism, along with a self-interested refusal to acknowledge that there is anything truly wrong with our political and media establishment because they both support and are part of that establishment….And then there is the self-absorbed motivation to defend the establishment which they support. Both of them supported the Bush administration and advocated for the invasion of Iraq. Hence, the absolute last thing they want to face — just as is true for most of our political and media establishment — is that the things they cheered on have spawned grave atrocities and vast destruction.

It can never be the case that there is anything profoundly wrong — fundamentally wrong — with the American political establishment. Why not? Because the McArdles and Drezners both support it and are part of it, and they are Good and thus can’t possibly be responsible for things like “war crimes” or “torture regimes” or illegal wars of aggression.

Well, of course, and as usual, Greenwald has it exactly backwards… they are good in large part because they are not guilty of what Greenwald charges. What Greenwald won’t admit is he sees them as not being good because they’re not running under his chosen brand name. And in any event, unlike Greenwald, and a few others, I don’t see torture, including Drezner, under some conditions, as a bad thing, and thereby I’m unwilling to paste a Greenwaldian label on it. To be fair, neither is Drezner, But, Greenwald sees it as bad, I suspect, because it’s done to support the American brand… a brand Greenwald has problems with… problems, that like Sullivan, are at the very center of his politics. You guess which they might be.

The real reason Drezner is reconsidering Greenwald, in the end?

I’ve defended Greenwald as of late, and I actually enjoyed my prior blog exchanges with him. After his latest column, however, I don’t see the point of engaging with him anymore. If Greenwald is incapable of distinguishing between different streams of thought, if he is incapable of distinguishing positive analysis from normative advocacy, if he is incapable of doing anything other than indicting the “establishment” as an undifferentiated mass of lickspittle imperialists, then there’s no point in debating him. As Megan put it, “Mr Greenwald’s anger at the establishment power structure seems to be rapidly transmuting into anger at the non-Glenn-Greenwald power structure:”

Well, of course, Dan. The difference between us is, I’ve never considered that Greenwald’s bitching was anything more than this. What disturbs me is that you did, and that it took personal attacks from him to get you to see what he is about.

Now… about this drooling idiot, Juan Cole…. the one you spent an entire interview giving a tounge bath to… Had it occurred to you that Cole and Greenwald have been working the same political side of the street, and are equally vacuous and have been for quite a while, now?

Oh, never mind. I suppose there’s only so much learning that can be done in a day. You’ve already got a lot to think about, already.

John Hawkins has put together a great list of quotes that to my mind personifies conservatism. A couple examples:

“A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.” — Samuel Adams

“By government giveaway programs, individuals are often hurt far more than they are helped. The recipients of these programs become dependent on the government and their dignity is destroyed. Is it compassionate to enslave more and more people by making them a part of the government dependency cycle? I think compassion should be measured by how many people no longer need it. Helping people to become self-sufficient is much more compassionate than drugging them with the narcotic of welfare.” — Rush Limbaugh

There’s a lot of meat, here.

And screw the vegans if they don’t like it.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s secret service has declined to assist U.S. agents guarding former U.S. President Jimmy Carter during a visit in which Israeli leaders have shunned him, U.S. sources close to the matter said on Monday.

 

Carter angered the Israeli government with plans to meet Hamas’s top leader, Khaled Meshaal, in Syria, and for describing Israeli policy in the occupied Palestinian territories as “a system of apartheid” in a 2006 book.

 

The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who brokered Israel’s first peace treaty with an Arab neighbor, Egypt, signed in 1979, met Israel’s largely ceremonial president, Shimon Peres, on Sunday but was shunned by the political leadership, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Israel has also rejected Carter’s request to meet jailed Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouthi, who is seen as a possible successor to President Mahmoud Abbas, a spokesman for Carter said.

Well, good. 

Good for Israel, good for the world.  

“I think there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process,” Carter told U.S. television network ABC News’s “This Week”.

Your problem, Jimmah, is that Hamas doesn’t WANT peace. It never has. It wants there to be no Israel. You sir, have bencome a willing tool to that end.

Side note to President Bush… Why is this guy still getting Secret Service protection, instead of being arrested and held by the same? Why are we in effect paying large sums of money to protect someone who is working against both us, and Israel to say nothing of against the cause of real peace?

* Post picked up by Reuters. Thanks!