Apology? No Sale, Dick.

So, Durbin put on an ‘apology’ yesterday… a brilliantly scripted, tightly parsed in a way that would make the Clintons proud, and in the end, a totally unconvincing apology yesterday.

One thing I found amusing was the parade of usual suspects that stood up after his sideshow and told America what a great guy this slimeball, Durbin, is. John McCain. Obama, DiFi, Joe Perfect.  What a difference between this incident and another in recent memory.

Well, MY memory, at least. Apparently there are too many who have forgotten it.

Does anyone remember Trent Lott? If you’ll recall all Lott did was speak warmly about a fellow Senator at his retirement dinner.. and for that was drubbed out of the leadership.

Durbin, meanwhile, slighted the American people, and sided with the enemies of America.  His policies and that of his party, for that matter…still operate from the words he spoke. And he’s still the number two man among Congressional Democrats… and we’re supposed to be satisfied with this outcome? 

An apology simply doesn’t cut it. Durbin needs to be gone. That he’s not tells me that fairness and moral integrity is not what Democrats are about.

Len Kutchma at RITE TURN ONLY points up a story in the National Post today.

If the liberals are not out of office as a result of this, I fear our neighbors to the north are all done… Canada itself is a dead man walking… and rightly so.

Lonsberry is worried about his bottom’s line.

Just in case there was any question of my thoughts on the matter.

Dick Durbin needs to be the EX senator.
One way or the other. It would be helpful to Democrats if he resigned, but lacking that, forcing him out is the only remaining option.

But either way, he needs to get gone.
Now.

Michelle Malkin puts up a link to an onit you’ve gotta see to understand.

The family balmes the idiots demiase on…you guessed it.. the right wing.

He had strong political opinions and followed Amy Goodman's radio broadcast "Democracy Now." Alas the stolen election of 2000 and living with right-winged Americans finally brought him to his early demise. Stress from living in this unjust country brought about several heart attacks rendering him disabled. Cory, a great man, so very talented, compassionate and intelligent, .....

… blah, blah, freakin’ blah.

If I were his family, I’d have been embarassed. Thing is, his family wrote it.

Given that, I have a question:
Tell me, Zimbleman family… is it possible that the stress he died of was the direct result of being force-fed the paranoia existing in the family he grew up in? In reading what you wrote, I can think of no more logical reason than this.

I almost feel sorry for the guy, having to grow up like that.

I’ve not said muc at all about the so-called “Downing street Memoes” because I’ve had serious doubts about their origins… and as it turns out, it’s starting to look like it was the correct posiiton to take. Captain’s Quarters lays into the things with some serious weaponry;The Facts.

The source is questionable at best, the documents are not the originals, and and the threads of the story from the left on these documents keeps unraveling.

James at Outside The Beltway notes something that’s bothered me of late. He points to, of all places, the NYT’s John Tierney, who wonders…..

......why Homer Simpson has managed to replace Ward Cleaver as the archetype of fatherhood in American situation comedies.

It’s hardly limited to this, James.
With young Children in the house over the last several years, I’ve become something of a watcher of younger fare, again. Toy story was just on recently. No father figure at all, in either of the two households represented in the story, is the one thing that leaps out at you before the story is half way through. Another Disney Movie, the (mildly amusing) remake of Freaky Friday, once again lacks a serious father figure.. the mother’s getting remarried.

This isn’t pick on Disney day, though… they’re simply an easy target. Heidi McDonald, in the New Pittsburgh Courier remarked on this last January;

Fathers, in the movies, are generally represented as emotionally distant, absent, abusive, uninvolved, or bumbling.

Anna at Undefined has questions, as well.The only time you see a father figure who isn’t an idiot, he’s a bad guy;

And why do the (successful, jetsetting, business-minded) fathers in the movies have to be the bad ones?

Roger Ebert goes one father, suggesting at one point ina review on Imaginary Heroes that

...fathers in the movies, as a group, supply only a few more heroes than Nazis.

Guess we can’t state the problem any clearer than this.

There’s another consideration, here besides the image we’re sending to ourselves and our kids with this stuff; and it’s a question I’ve asked before What kind of image are we sending to a world market eager to either adopt or eschew western ways?

Hollywood has set itself up as the documentor of western culture. Is this dismal picture of fathers we’re projecting, though Hollywood, harming western culture both from within, and from outside it as well?

Ed at Captain’s Quarters passes on some news I’d not heard… Bit’sBlog regular and fellow blogger Everything I Know is Wrong author Sean is having some health problems.

Ed’s family, so will be the best place to track Sean’s problems and recovery.
Prayer will help.

Update: Apparently the hospital released Sean on Sunday, father’s day. He’s not fully out of the woods, yet, but as I gather it, this is very good news.

Steven Coffman mentions a need for a 12v fridge for under $100.

I have found the Thermo-electric Coleman cooler, (http://www.avidoutdoors.com/co40quthco.html) to be very useful. It’s a shade over $100 list, add the 110v power supply and you go to $140, but Walmart usually has ’em with the power supply for under $100.

I’ve found though a few years of use, though that this thing really works best when you help it along.

First, I’ve found that the fridge running all the time will kill any car battery in about an hour. It’s simply not practical to keep ’em running all the time on the vehicle battery.

Secondly, even asuming no power consumption issues, the thing will only keep stuff at 40 degrees below the temp of the outside air, without help. (Or, if you wire it backwards, it’ll get 100degrees warmer than outside air. (Great for hauling Thanksgiving goodies to Grandma’s house… and yes, it’s designed to do that.)

So, by the numbers, if it gets to be 80 outside the fridge, 40 degees is the best you’re gonna do INside it. If it’s 90-110 outside, hang it up, son, you’re done, and so is the stuff in your fridge.

What I’ve done to counter this situation in my van, is to wire it to a 12v feed that is only on when the van’s running.  This requires a change of attitude about what is the primary coolant.; Your attituude should be that the primary cooling isn’t the powered part, but rather, the gallon jugs of ice. To keep the thing cold during those times when the van is powered off I keep one or two gallon jugs of ice. (How much ice I start with depends on how hot it is for the week, and what kinda space I need inside the box) With this system, we’re able to do quite well for several days; it keeps everything quite cold. The longer we run hte truck per day, the longer the things stays cold.

Most of our trips are camping type trips, or just straight road trips… and they run under four days, so this works just fine. I suppose some of these ideas are from the pop-up-camper’s mindset; make use out of every ounce of space and power you can, for multiple purposes. See what you think.

I keep one- gallon milk jugs of ice…  two in the van fridge and two in the freezer at home. In this fashion, I’ve found myself able to get about 4 days out of the van fridge, before I need to change out the ice, even in high summer. That’s far longer than just a regular cooler. When the first pair of ice jugs is melted, I simply switch them out with the ones in the basement freezer.  I keep at least a couple six packs of drinks and or a gallon of kool-aid on hand at all times durning the summer, even when not over the road. It’s nice, coming hom from work with a cool lemonaide in hand. There’s always one waiting for me.

Additionally, I’ve found that there’s an advantage to this system I’d not planned for; We’re able to bring water from home, without wasting space.  You see, my wife has a problem, sometimes, with water from other sources. So, the water I freeze is filtered water from home. A couple of days from refill/refreeze point, we’ll have water to drink.

Sometimes, I even make a gallon of kool-aid, or iced tea, or something, and freeze THAT, as one of the gallons.  We’re experimenting with freeing the Juice pouches you get at the store, just now. The kids like them, and they minimize spillage inside the van, of course… plus they are great for tight packing in the fridge. But we’re using some of them as ice bags, too… First time worked OK. Keep ’em near the top and they’ll melt in a day or two. My concern is will they burst… but so far we’ve been OK. Keep some unfrozen for immidiate consumption, but freeze some, and pack ’em right, and you’ll extend the life of your ice bottles, is the idea… while adding no space requirements inside the box.

Sometimes, I’ll also partially freeze bottles of storebought lemonade and such, too.  And of course if you’re camping, freezing the burger, chicken, dogs, and so on… even bread and rolls you’re packing for the trip, will also help extend the life of your bottled ice, and will give you a little peace of mind of the stuff being fresh when you need it.  I’m even playng at cooking up a couple lbs of bacon, and breaking it into bits and freezing in a couple smaller containers for use in eggs and such. Saves space and weight over uncooked bacon, and in frozen form helps keep the ice going, and keeps longer, too.

I do have a 110v supply for the thing, which I will use in Camp mode; the van is wired for 110VAC… which is connected the moment we make camp… so the fridge is basicly running 24/7 which will keep the thing cold well over a month before the ice melts. That may not be practical for your car, but I’m just sayin’.

Hope these ideas help.

Mark Steyn joins the throngs nailing Dick Durban… only he does it better.. in this morning’s WaTi.

Update:
Some wise-guy left a suggestin for bumper-stickers for Durbin’s next election in my mailbox:

Wear a Turban?
Vote Durbin!!

(Chuckle, shake of the head)

Fathers day was yesterday. I wrote somethng for Bit’s Bits, on Father’s day morning, and then never posted what I wrote because it needed some serious touching up. And given the events of Father’s day itself…(A road trip, and some yard work) I didn’t get much time to post it.

But, here it is.

It’s been nearly five years my father’s been gone, now. Actually, I’m surprised by the length of time. Like an unwatched pot… “Oh, that’s boiling already?”

I’ve always considered it something of a cruel, ironic joke, that he should have passed on, so close in the rolling year, to the day we’ve come to know as “Father’s day”… A hair longer than a week before it. There seems no particular significance to the relationships between the dates, but there’s no denying their closeness has always left me vaguely discomforted for reasons I’ve never fully worked out. Anyway;

I’ve come to understand quite a bit about my father in the last 15 years, or so. Oddly, most of my understanding came after he’d died a few years ago, and most of the revelations have been as a result of my having lived life. He’s never far from my thoughts, and so as life events unfold, I always have his guidance nearby to lean on, and his guideposts to measure by. And, as I go though this process, I’m leaning more about both who I am, and who he was.

And, oh boy has a lot ever happened since his death. Think about the changes in the last five years, in your own life. I suppose it could be fairly said that nothing has happened to me, though, that he hadn’t prepared me for. The funny part is, I didn’t know I was being prepared for it, at the time. I think he didn’t know what the future would bring, either. All he could do is impart the basic values, and hope I was able to apply them correctly. Apparently I have, for the most part.

What amazes me is how well I can hear his voice now that he’s passed on; in many ways, better than I ever could while he was alive. Those of you who have lost a parent will understand what I’m saying, here, I think. It is yet another cruel irony, I guess, that his voice seems to ring louder in my ears, in my head, now that he’s gone…. This is particularly true when value judgments come up. I suspect this is as it should be… Those being his most important lessons… But I still marvel at it all.

I also, within the last several years, find myself dimly aware that I’ve managed to pick up some of the traits he had, without trying. These are not things I’d picked up consciously… In fact, when I was seventeen, I think I might have made the choice to avoid these traits. Now at nearly three times that age, I have begun to regard adopting these things as the natural progression… That all is as it should be.

Dad was a product of his times. This is a crucial point to me of late, is the understanding of that one fact, because I still catch myself judging how I’m doing as a father, with my two boys, using his methods, and his… (what I will call for simplicity, though I mean nothing so flippant)… Style points…. As guideposts… And usually, in my estimation, coming up well short of that ideal in the judgment. It’s taken me quite a while… More time than most, I tend to think… To understand that those style points are nigh on useless given the difference between the times in which we live now, and the times then… That I have to look deeper than this. It’s something like allowing for inflation in an adjusted income figure over time, one adjusts the perception through for the times of each of us, there are more traits we share than we don’t.

I am reminded of this, today more than most days, as my two boys spend their day trying to make me feel special. I can see myself doing this at their age, and I marvel as history repeats itself. They tell me “Happy Father’s Day!” and mean it, and other than “thank you” (and a hug) I find myself unsure how to respond.

If you really want to know the truth, I’ve never been fully comfortable in the role of ‘father’, because I’m never sure I can fill the role I knew as father… Being, inside, the same scared- to- death twelve year old kid I was all those years ago. In thinking on this, I guess we, none of us, ever really grow up to the point where that small scared child is ever completely silent. We’d better hope not, anyway… That twelve year old kid is needed to keep us from falling into the Scrooge-like insanity, I think… as I wrote last Christmas. Still, we try to balance that twelve year old inside us with reality… A hellish task I don’t wish on anyone, but one we all face, I think.

An old Moody Blues tune comes into my mind, unbidden. It seems to speak to this situation rather clearly.

All my life, I
Never really knew me
’till today
Now, I know why;
I’m just another step
Along the way

I don’t know what I’m searching for
I never have opened the door,
Tomorrow might find me at last,
Turning my back on the past,
But, time will tell, of stars that fell,
A million years ago.
Memories can never take you back, home, sweet home.
You can never go home anymore.

That’s the reality that twelve year old inside us, doesn’t want to hear. But… And I don’t care if you’re a hundred and five years old; that twelve year old is still inside us, and still of a mindset that he’s waiting for his adult life to begin, and that mindset dims our vision to the reality that our adult life has ALREADY, long past begun. In many ways, I finally see this is a conflict we play out internally, all our lives. Implicit in that understanding, however, is the recognition that, for all that I held him to be when I was a child, Dad still had that twelve year old in HIM, too. Like the milestone of five years gone… Like the waking up in the morning, through the aches and pains and understanding that the grey-bearded guy in the bathroom mirror really IS me…it’s a startling discovery.

Its amazing, if you think on it for very long… All our childhood, we champ at the bit like race horses spoiling for a race to get started. Even at the very young ages, we yearn for adulthood…(“I’ll do it MYSELF, Daddy…”) When we finally do get to adulthood, we end up spending a lot of our young adult lives in this in-between stage, not fully understanding that the green flag has dropped, the race is on, and the turtle’s already got a 30 length lead, Mister Rabbit… And some of us never do make it beyond this stage at all, on ANY level.

It’s what Hayward of the Moodies was talking about in that same song I quoted before;

I lie awake for hours, I’m just waiting for the sign
When the journey we are making has begun,
Don’t deny the feeling that is stealing through your heart,
Every happy ending needs to have a start.

Perhaps I now have a working definition of a mid-life crisis; the feeling that I need to get going on things, because I’m running out of time.

Such are my thoughts this Father’s day.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad. This is me saying “I get it, now… at least part of it… better than I did. We were more alike than I knew.”, and it’s my Father’s day gift. More of you survives than either of us knew… and is with me every day.

And yet, I miss you.

The Jawa Report notes the latest Kos idiocy, this time about Durbin.
Jawa makes a serious attempt to help Kos get his cranium out of his rectum. I doubt it’ll work, but it was a good try, Jawa.

TTLB looks nice now that the bandages are off. Check it out

(style=”rant”)
Will someone please explain to me why I should give a hot steaming crap about Tom Cruise proposing to a girl half his age, much less the degree of coverage I’m seeing in the press this morning?

I certainly don’t at the moment.

Even if I did, it’s certainly not worth the drooling I see going on on the part of the press.

The biggest part of their relationship, it would seem is their sharing of a religion whose founder was so moved by it’s implications, he offed himself. Oh, yeah… there’s a foundation for a lasting relationship.

And that’s even exclusive of his history.

Yes, history. Remember Nichole Kidman? I don’t recall Cruise doing his ‘look at me I’m in love” act with her, do you? I mean, this time he sounds like the one he’s having the hardest time convincing, is…. Tom Cruise.

And yet, there’s the press, doing their thing. I guess now that the Jackson trial is over, the wall-to-wall units needs something else to spend their time on.

Of course, they could get down to doing a better job on Iraq, but perhaps that’s asking too much.
(/style)