You First Sheryl

Ok at first clance I admit Sheryl Crow’s idea really stinks: 

Although my ideas are in the earliest stages of development, they are, in my mind, worth investigating. One of my favorites is in the area of forest conservation which we heavily rely on for oxygen. I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. Now, I don’t want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required. When presenting this idea to my younger brother, who’s judgment I trust implicitly, he proposed taking it one step further. I believe his quote was, “how bout just washing the one square out

However Crow’s idea does have a plus size  The idea of limiting your use of toilet paper to one sheet per sitting, can be implemented by the individual,without governmnet action.   So if Crow thinks that one sheet is good, let her lead by example.   Better yet Crow can go back to leaves or corn cobs.  

(H/T:  Allahpundit, Hot Air )

Addendum:  Sister Toldjah  adds that “Crow, by the way, has sealed her place in goofball history.”

* There’s a lesson in this AP photo, by way of Fox News:

The caption provided is: “Two opposing groups of Cambodian Buddhist monks fight in a street in Phnom Penh, Cambodia”

The lesson, requires an understanding of Buddhism and it’s commitment to non-violence. Apparently, even the supposedly commitedly non-violent, think there are some things worth fighting for. Would that the defeatist left in this country could learn that lesson.

*It seems to me that many of the arguments being put forward about lowering the drinking age, to save lives, can also be made in the argument over gun control, and the relaxing thereof, for many of the same reasons. it’s interesting how nobody wants to talk about those parallels, however; even the ones making the arguments.  It strikes me, that perhaps the reason behind that is that they are not arguing from principals, but from other positions.

* I watched the movie “The Enemy Below” last night.  I’ve actually had a floating around on my TIVO for several days.  From the movie:

Doctor: Well, in time we’ll all get back to our own stuff again. The war will get swallowed up, and seem like it never happened.
Captain Murrell: Yes, but it won’t be the same as it was. We won’t have that feeling of permanency that we had before. We’ve learned a hard truth.
Doctor: How do you mean?
Captain Murrell: That there’s no end to misery and destruction. You cut the head off a snake, and it grows another one. You cut that one off, and you find another. You can’t kill it, because it’s something within ourselves. You can call it the enemy if you want to, but it’s part of us; we’re all men.

Therein, dear reader, lies wisdom that many of today don’t want to acknowledge.  The reason that we are in so much difficulty right now with the Middle East, is because we have ignored the evil occurring there, for too long; and the snake Murrell speaks of is now strong enough to give us serious problems getting it back under control, again. Many of today would rather have things the way they were.  And the lesson being cut here, is that is an impossibility.

Still further, there are many who cry we are being too Militaristic. I submit, that our problem has developed to the point it has because since sometime around the end of the cold war, we as a nation, have not been militaristic enough.  Nature, as a rule, hates a vacuum.  What we are now seeing, is certain groups, sensing weakness on our part.  They take our easygoing ways, and they see a weakness in it; and they exploit it.

We’d better set our minds to the idea that the beast simply cannot be killed; it must, rather, be controlled.  Controlled by us.  Because if we do not, it will control us.

* Speaking of such matters, I notice a story are running on Q and O today, reporting that Iranian made IED’s are being found in Iraq, along with Iranian munitions.  Gee.  Big surprise, huh? Friends, Iraq is not involved in a civil war.  A civil war by definition is an internal matter.  Iran’s involvement, makes this anything but a civil war.

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* I see Canada has finally woken up to the sham that is the Kyoto accord. Good.
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*Yes, I was watching the Buffalo Sabres mop up the New York Islanders last night.  The Islanders went home, tails between their legs.  If I’m concerned about anything that I saw last night, it’s the way Buffalo essentially went to sleep in the third period.  That aside, a satisfying ending to the series.

I may have a newfound respect for the Rutgers women’s basketball team.

Kathyrn Jean Lopez, National Review Online

Think Progress[sic] is upset with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.   Welcome to the club.  Who isn’t upset with Gonzales?  There plenty of words which would describe Gonzales.

Howver there a couple words which do not describe Gonzales.   The first is kidnapper:

The second is butcher:

The ‘rats aided and abetted Janet “The Butcher” Reno’s eight year reign of terror.   Getting Reno out of office reduced domestic terrorism and  should be considered progress in anybody’s book.

One of the hallmarks of insanity, is a disconnection from reality.  As an example;

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The same people who think Mitt Romney being a Mormon is a problem, ignore that Harry Reid is a Mormon, too.

Another example;

After years of screaming about wanting to fight corruption, we find out of the million dollar secret land deals Senator Reid was involved in, that the Democrats would rather you didn’t know about…
Yet another example…

Dirty Harry came out yesterday making disappointed noises about the partial birth abortion ban being upheld by the USSC. Well, if you didn’t want the ban, Harry, why’d ya VOTE for it, originally?

Maybe this latest sign of being disconnected from reality a sign of insanity, or perhaps this obvious lie was a smoke screen… and an attempt to take the edge off the voter response to his latest outrage, which Boortz points to yesterday;

How’s this for supporting our troops? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat (of course) has now declared that the United States has lost the war in Iraq. He told President Bush that the war could not be won through military force … in effect saying that the U.S. military is incapable of defeating the Islamic fascist enemy.

Know this … there is no way in hell that you can say you support our troops when you say that our troops cannot win the battle.

Ah, yes… the Democrat party. Like what you see, America?

There’s a word for people like Reid. Actually, there are several…. only one of which I’ll put here: Traitor. And by the way, that would include anyone who supports Mr. Reid. Yes, it really comes down to that, dear readers.

OK, OK… Perhaps I’m being unfair; I’m speaking in anger.  But it seems to me we’re being left with one of two choices ; either Senator Reid is a traitor or he is insane.  If his actions and his words are those of a sane man, ‘traitor’ is the only answer.

(Shrug) Perhaps the kinder answer is insanity.  And, of course, your Bitmaster is a generous sort of guy. (Ahem)…
There is a level of insanity here, that needs to be explored;

Anybody who can say that in public, and still claim that they are “Supporting the troops” , is suffering from a disconnection from reality, that is unheard of in the leadership roles of our government previously.

At the very least, Senator Reid should understand that he is giving reinforcement to our enemy.It’s time to ask… How many lives, senator, have you cost with your slip of the lip?

Michelle (Sigh) has a bunch of letters from the service people that Harry supposedly supports. They seem to agree with my take on what Harry… and the Democrats as a whole, are…. to put it mildly.

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Dr. Charles Krauthammer Thursday, said it best, on Hume’s show:

This is a classic definition of a gaffe. The definition of a gaffe in Washington is when a politician accidentally says what’s in his heart, because it’s a rare occasion and obviously, the fact that Reid had to go out on the floor of the Senate and then restate it in a different way is an example of how he knew he’d made a gaffe.

He went out on the floor and said, no, I didn’t say it was lost. In fact, he did. He not only said it was lost, but in that clip that we saw he said the secretary of state, secretary of defense know it’s lost as well. Then he goes out on the floor and says, no, it’s only lost if we follow the policy of the president. It’s not if you follow mine.

Now, if you parse that, what he means is if we continue with the surge, which is a new strategy of counterinsurgency and a new way to approach the war, we are lost. But, if you do what I’m recommending, which is to abandon the war and to leave the field of battle . . . we’re going to win. Now, this is so illogical that it’s obvious that he’s not sure what he wants to say, but he knows that admitting it’s lost, as we said here earlier, is politically disastrous. Because American people have worries about the war, but saying it’s lost is only a minority opinion and many people do not want what follows logically, which is abandoning the field of battle.

Emph is mine.

Now let’s remember, that doctor Krauthammer is a trained psychologist. A pretty good one, too, by all accounts.  Certainly, his perception about what’s going on inside of the head of Mr. Reid, is going to carry significantly more weight than is the opinion of his defenders about what’s going on inside his head.

Other examples of a gaffe, would be Bill Clinton saying we worry too much about our rights.  If, as Doctor Krauthammer suggests, this is really what’s going on inside of Senator Reid then we’re really must assume a level of insanity is what is driving these comments, and the Senator’s actions, as well.
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The question becomes just how widespread the insanity is, given the level of support he’s getting from his fellow Democrats. as a matter of fact, it’s interesting, that the only person with the stones to object to all of this, was Joe Lieberman.  Which ought to give you a clue as to just how deeply rooted insanity is among Democrats, today.  None of them, save one, recognizes the danger in their current course.

No wonder people like Reid would rather Joe Lieberman wasn’t calling himself a Democrat anymore.  OTOH, one might think Joe was thinking the same thing of Reid.

Then again, nobody’s been saying Lieberman is insane, that I’m aware of.

It must be getting contagious.  First MSNBC disses Mrs. Clinton by giving a gig to Michael Smerconish  and now the Rutgers Girl’s Basketball team gives her the skiv:

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton finally dropped by Rutgers to meet with the school’s women’s basketball coach — but the players themselves skipped the half-hour meeting, citing their studies and Imus fatigue.

First Don Imus fatigue, what next Hillary fatigue?

Media Matter should learn to  be careful for what you wish.   After waging media war to get the liberal icon Don Imus off the air, MSNBC has hired the conservative talk radio host,  Michael Smerconish.   Mrs. Clinton will not be happy.

Media Matters is already whining it up.

Don Riehl, Riehl World View, is not without comment.

The speech bigots at Media Matters went after possibly the least conservative talker of them all, Don Imus. Well, they got him – now look what they get? Ha!

This could get interesting.

There has been much talk on the board about the wussificiation of America, here and here.   Yet there is good news and bad news.   First the good, we still have people with foritude and balls.   Sadly they are not all guys.

Kimball Perry has a story of a chick with balls:

Venus Ramey has earned lots of fame in her 82 years.

She was Miss America 1944 and later a candidate for Cincinnati City Council and worked to save Over-the-Rhine’s historic buildings. She performed on Broadway and in movies.

Now, though, she’s in the news for another reason.

After confronting a man she said was stealing from her Kentucky farm, Ramey pulled out a gun and shot out a tire on his truck so he couldn’t leave, allowing police to arrest him and two others.

And a gun.

Holly Hollman reports on yet another chick with balls:

“He then ordered her to perform oral sex,” Blakely said. “That’s when she bit him.”

And teeth.

( H/T: Allahpudit. Hot Air; Ace, Ace of Spades; photo,  Miss America )

Addendum:  More, Don Surber, “Miss America packs heat.”

An ass serves one useful function.

The liberals rail about the coarsing on the culture,   Yet their cultural icons are jerks.   Baldwin has a daughter and he can’t even remember how old she is.   Little wonder she doesn’t feel close to her father.

Don Surber has a good summary of Baldwin’s latest meltdown.  

I’ll bet that Ireland’s mother, Kim Basinger, or her lawyer, released the entire tape as part of an effort to win a temporary restraining order preventing Baldwin from visiting his daughter.   Am not a judge, however in light of the tape it is hard to see how a judge could turn down such request.

We know that liberals have passion.  Never said they had brains.

Aside:  I am forced to wonder if Barack Obama will revise and extend hs Macaca definition of violence to include threatening eleven year olds?

(H/T photo:  Times Square Gossip )

Don Imus gets fired for calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy headed hos”, everyone gets ‘outraged’ by it and demands apologies and heads on platters, while rapper “Akon” simulates bruising, brutal sex on stage with an underage girl, tosses her away like a rag doll, and is laughing all the way to the bank – and no one cares, especially not Russell Simmons

Sister Toldjah.

The Sister also has a link to the video, (graphic content warning).

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First, a belated nod to Rodney Dill, who awarded your Bitmaster an Honorable Mention in the latest OTB Caption Contest.

*The Music: Tonight, I’m doing the internet radio thing… at SmoothJazz.com

Print media is not the only medium loving to the Internet; radio is quickly joining that move, as well.  Most radio stations around the country have some kind of an Internet presence, and generally are streaming to the net, as well.  Back in the day, it was a rare person indeed who could listen to out of town radio stations on a regular basis.  I’ve done that for a number of years.  Even though I am some 400 miles from NYC, and perhaps 650 miles from Boston, Baltimore, Washington DC, and further to Nashville to name a few places, I listen to them all quite regularly… in the truck, usually. But let’s face it, I’m a rarity, there.

But there are some people, who started are not radio stations and just for the Internet , not as an offshoot of a regular mainline broadcast station.  Smoothjazz.com is one of these.

I developed the habit just after they first put up their 128 kilobit stream, of rolling tape on whatever their output was.  The idea being that I had some fairly unique listening in the truck on long hauls.  I still have a few hundred hours of tapes set up like that. Beats the heck out of most local stations, anymore.

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* Jon Voight just made up for the Jane Fondle Movie he made, years ago.

* My view of it is this: they say our president lied to us. Well, he didn’t lie to us, everybody else had the information he had, and they voted for that tactic. And the idea of weapons of mass destruction, whether they were in fact removed to other places, to Lebanon, to Syria, that’s still in play, we don’t know the full answer of where all that stuff went, because they had it, they have the pieces. Now, whether someone else has them or whether we’re playing a careful game not to reveal that we know where things are, that’s another big aspect of it. The Administration’s in a tough spot, because if they say they know where these pieces are, and they can’t get at them, they’re alerting other energies to know where they are.

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The question for me is: who are you and where are your sensibilities? If you’re part of a left-wing bias and want to turn what I say in favor of someone on your agenda, I would say I don’t want to talk about it with you. It’s difficult for me … because I see so many people go in the wrong direction. I see it all the time and it’s very, very disturbing. What’s being said in so many places in the country is just dangerous.

While you might not hear people say, “I don’t support the troops”, the country and the media on the whole are increasingly caustic and critical of the president and Iraq. Does that bother you?
It’s a tidal wave going in this direction. It’s sad for me. The attack on George Bush I find to be reprehensible. From the beginning it was politically motivated, and it’s been very successful, the disrespect for our president and for our country and for our government. I have a great regard for our government. We have all sorts of checks and balances that are afforded to us by our constitution. We have a lot of wonderful hardworking people in the government. Once it gets to be partisan, it takes the energy in another direction. There was a big movement to impeach Lincoln during the Civil War, but it is not healthy at this time when we are fighting a very vicious enemy that has made it very clear in their attacks on American embassies and the Twin Towers, and on our forces what they intend.

So I imagine you’re a supporter of the Patriot Act?
Yes, I’m a supporter of the Patriot Act. I support protecting us and investigating anyone who indicates they’re going to be dangerous to our country.

FanTAStic!!!  There’s much more at the link, of course.

Well done, Jon.

* Alec Baldwin is going round the bend, folks.

* Yes, I know, I didn’t get to posting a nightly ramble, last night.  My time was occupied with the Buffalo Sabres.  There’s nothing like a playoff run, to divert your attention.  Usually, to be honest, I’m not that much into hockey.  I could even tell you who is on our local hockey team, much less some of the other players in the American hockey league.  But the national hockey league, is another story, because the Buffalo Sabres of employing extraordinarily well that year, and look like they’re going to go very far in the playoffs, if not all the way.

I like winners.  Americans generally do.  When those winners, happen to be a fairly local team, it makes it interesting to me.  So, if I’m not here, on a given night, you can pretty much bad that I am stuck in front of it to someplace, watching the unfolding drama.  I guess that if I had my druthers I would just as soon they played the playoffs a little earlier in the year, so that we were not dealing with such crappy ice conditions.  (Shrug)

Odd timing.

 LYNCHBURG, Va. (AP) _ Brant Parker, who for decades illustrated “The Wizard of Id” comic strip, has died just days after the passing of his collaborator. He was 86.

Parker died Sunday at a nursing facility in Lynchburg of complications from Alzheimer’s disease and a stroke he suffered last year, said Kathy Kei, an editor of “The Wizard of Id” at Creators Syndicate.

Eight days earlier, the strip’s writer, cartoonist Johnny Hart, died of a stroke, according to his wife. He was 76.

“The worst mass murder in U.S. history”

(H/T:  Don Surber, Michelle Malkin, Jawa Report )

(Shame:  Google )

Ace makes an interesting point today, almost offhandedly while discussing a different angle… which is often… indeed, in my experience, usually, how such points are made. Even he admidts this is off the cuff on his part.  He speaks of how we may have gotten ourselves into this through our oh-so-Politically correct leanings toward non-judgementalism:

There’s a a downside to nonjudgmentalism, of course. Our brains are wired to make snap decisions about people in all regards, but particularly as regards (naturally) sex and death. We know instantly if someone is a likely romantic prospect. We also know instantly if someone is a likely threat.

The fact of the matter lunatics — florid lunatics, “quiet loners,” etc. — aren’t usually able to hide the fact that they’re touched. But our country has a culture — positive in many ways — of making no judgments about people based on looks or the vibe they give off, or, rather, at least not sharing such forbidden judging-a-book-by-its-cover thoughts with others. Especially not someone in a position of authority. We’ve been conditioned since infancy with thousands of morality plays that just because someone seems weird doesn’t mean they are weird. Or bad. Or dangerous.

The trouble is that weirdness has a pretty high correlation with badness and dangerousness. If someone has a dysfunction that prevents the normal sort of interaction and empathy with one’s fellow human beings, well, that’s not likely to be a person that’s otherwise well-adjusted. The very fact of his socio-psychological defect probably isolates him, and makes him angry and resentful in his isolation.

That weird kid you knew in third grade who everyone thought was psycho? Well, there’s a pretty fair chance he was a psycho.

Almost as if in answer, we have situations developing in other parts of the country. NY city, for example:

The sister of a Queens woman killed in a triple murder-suicide yesterday says the shootings could have been prevented.

Police say they received a 911 call from a house in Cambria Heights just before noon yesterday, with the caller warning that if police didn’t come soon, something terrible would happen.

Police arrived to find the caller, Sonia Taylor, her wheelchair bound boyfriend Arnold Lawson and home health aide Syndia Brye shot dead. Taylor’s son, Jimmie Dawkins, was also found dead with self inflicted gunshot wounds.

The victim’s sister says Taylor had been complaining to police about her nephew’s mental condition.

“My sister pleaded to the Police Department. My sister even called the internal affairs when they wouldn’t cooperate, but no one wanted to cooperate. No one wanted to get the crazy boy – the boy who was obviously suffering from a mental disorder. No one would get him out of the house,” said Annette Taylor. “He was threatening my sister. The internal affairs wouldn’t do anything. She exhausted every method, and nobody did anything – until this tragedy happened.”

Now, mind you, this murder-suicide was going on while the folks down at VT were still trying to dig themselves out of THEIR situation.

Have we, with our multi-cultural, don’t judge, don’t fight back, let the government take care of your defense, etc attituide, brought this upon ourselves? I know it’s not a popular question to ask,  but in light of recent events, it doesn’t make sense to NOT ask such a question.

Yesterday, April 18, 2007, was an ironic day.   At 30 Rockefeller Plaza, what can  be described as a mult-media version of the Unabomber Manifesto was delivered to NBC News, from the Blacksburg killer, Cho Seung-Hui a.k.a. Ismael Ax.

Meanwhile in Webster, New York, Darrell Scott addressed the students of Webster-Schroeder school..   Scott’s daughter, Rachel, as the first  person murdered in the Columbine shootings in 1999.

Seung-Hui’s manifesto is thick, dense and confusing.  I haven’t seem much of what it contains.   Those that have access to the all the documents can not honestly profess to understand it.   Certainly I do not.   I proceed not on what I understand  but rather on what I believe.

Seung-Hui mentioned the Columbine killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, on his video.   Seeing that a connection was mentioned by Seung-Hui between Columbine and Blacksburg,  it seems reasonable to explore one.

The last paragraph of the story on Scott:

Scott also talked about the need for a backward shift in the education system. He says there is so much focus on academic achievement today, and not enough on the heart and character building.

If you assume Scott’s identified problem to be correct, we have a problem.  You can not teach character, if you can not teach morals, and you can not teach morals when you profess to the values of multiculturalism.   I firmly believe it is better to be good than to be famous.   It seems that Klebold, Harris and Seung-Hui beleived it was better to be famous than to be alive.   It is as the idea of fifteen minutes of fame has become a non-negotiable demand.

Modern educational theory seems to hold that feeling good, a.k.a. self esteem, is more imporant than being good.   In contrast, the classic Judao-Christian  belief do unto your neighbor as you would do unto yourself, the Golden Rule, values being good over feeling good.

In a society that professes to value multicultalism, we are willing to poison our children’s minds with crap like self-esteem but prohibit the teaching of the Golden Rule.   We have it exactly backwards.