Monday, December 07, 2009
An Explanation for What I Have Perceived as a Cultural Divide
Steven Den Beste writes of the difference between materialism and teleology. As I understand the point, teleologists support pacifism and socialism because they are beautiful ideas and it would be so nice if they worked. Materialists, such as myself, believe in free markets and peace through strength, because experience says they produce superior results.
Read the whole thing for a better explanation. The dichotomy addresses what I have observed and puzzled over in our society and offers a more detailed and persuasive explanation than anything I have come up with.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Read the whole thing for a better explanation. The dichotomy addresses what I have observed and puzzled over in our society and offers a more detailed and persuasive explanation than anything I have come up with.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: cultural divide
Sunday, December 06, 2009
For the Love of Gaia, For the Love of Money---It's All so Confusing
Bill Whittle blogs about a poorly remember part of the same speech in which Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex. Ike was concerned about both the corrupting effect of federal money on scientific research and the risk that the federal funding mechanisms could become captive to research interests.
They say the earth is warming and the climate we are harming,
All manner of more evil deeds we just keep on performing.
If they want a research grant, they surely must repeat the chant,
To keep the money flowing, key is that they don’t recant.
Of cataclysm they're the prophet, and they know they cannot stop it,
Yes, there is no god but Gaia, and researchers nicely profit.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.Climaquiddick may be the most dramatic example of the latter ever to hit the public consciousness. And so, along the lines of an earlier post, I post this bit of doggerel:
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
They say the earth is warming and the climate we are harming,
All manner of more evil deeds we just keep on performing.
If they want a research grant, they surely must repeat the chant,
To keep the money flowing, key is that they don’t recant.
Of cataclysm they're the prophet, and they know they cannot stop it,
Yes, there is no god but Gaia, and researchers nicely profit.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: doggerel, global warming
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Whipping the Whistleblower
Senator Barbara Boxer (D. Cuckoo Land) has let it be known that, in her view, the person revealing the Climaquiddick fraud should be prosecuted. It is possible that release of the data was a crime, and I don't regard criminal activity lightly. But ask yourself which is worse: perpetrating a fraud on the public or revealing the fraud. Boxer was apparently happy enough with the fraud that she wants to go after the person disclosing it.
The stories we heard were greatly alarming,
Stories of dangerous global warming.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
The stories we heard were greatly alarming,
Stories of dangerous global warming.
Now hackers reveal that some of it’s fraud,
An attempt by the left to sack and maraud.
Which, you might ask, appears the worst crime:
Lying about the state of the clime
Or letting the public discover the truth?
Should we go after the ingenious sleuth?
Boxer believes you can’t handle the truth,
Boxer believes you can’t handle the truth,
That showing the fraud was oh so uncouth.
She would prefer that we stayed deceived.
Now that we’re not, the senator’s peeved.To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: doggerel, global warming
Monday, November 30, 2009
The Watermelons Want Your Iced Water
Roger Pielke reports on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change head Rajendra Pachauri proclaiming on reducing consumption on the West:
The greenies begrudge the ice in your water,
Because of their fear the world’s getting hotter.
They want you cut back; your consumption’s excessive,
And they cannot see that they’re highly obsessive.
Their focus on detail is what’s so alarming.
They’ll make you live on subsistence farming.
Prosperity hinders collectivist visions,
And their plan for you is abject submission.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Hotel guests should have their electricity monitored; hefty aviation taxes should be introduced to deter people from flying; and iced water in restaurants should be curtailed . . . .With busybodies such as he running our lives, what could go wrong?
The greenies begrudge the ice in your water,
Because of their fear the world’s getting hotter.
They want you cut back; your consumption’s excessive,
And they cannot see that they’re highly obsessive.
Their focus on detail is what’s so alarming.
They’ll make you live on subsistence farming.
Prosperity hinders collectivist visions,
And their plan for you is abject submission.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: doggerel, global warming
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Joe Lieberman a Traitor?
MadKane has a post calling Joe Lieberman a traitor to the Democratic Party for his opposition to the so-called public-option part of Obamacare. Her characterization misses an important fact: Lieberman isn't a Democrat anymore. The voters of Connecticut denied him the Democratic nomination. In effect, the Democratic Party kicked him out. How can you be a traitor to an organization that you not only no longer belong to, but one that kicked you out?
According to Madeleine Kane,
Lieberman’s a traitor profane,
But the Dems kicked him out,
And now they just pout
That his seat the man still retained.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
According to Madeleine Kane,
Lieberman’s a traitor profane,
But the Dems kicked him out,
And now they just pout
That his seat the man still retained.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: Congress, doggerel, Obamacare
Private Contracts Justifying Statutory Breaches?
My eye caught this sentence in an article on Climaquiddick:
I have often had opposing parties attempt to insert confidentiality clauses into contracts with public entities. Under Texas law, their choice is to acquiesce in legally mandated disclosure or walk away from the deal. Brits like to sneer at wild and wooly Americans, especially Texans. Could it be that their law is less comprehensive than ours?
The law requires that they make full disclosure.
Their bobbling and weaving are acts of a poseur.
They hide behind contracts to keep their stuff private,
But that’s a diversion, a way just to jive us.
When law provides that your data is public,
Contrary contracts don’t let you snub it.
Assassins with contracts still are just killers.
Crime is not lessened by crooks getting shriller.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
In a statement welcomed by climate change sceptics, the university said it would make all the data accessible as soon as possible, once its Climatic Research Unit (CRU) had negotiated its release from a range of non-publication agreements.I must disclaim any knowledge of British law, but I have some experience with Texas public information laws. This sounds ridiculous to me. Surely British law does not permit an entity otherwise subject to public disclosure requirements to evade the requirements by private contract. Otherwise public entities could, and no doubt would, evade public disclosure entirely.
I have often had opposing parties attempt to insert confidentiality clauses into contracts with public entities. Under Texas law, their choice is to acquiesce in legally mandated disclosure or walk away from the deal. Brits like to sneer at wild and wooly Americans, especially Texans. Could it be that their law is less comprehensive than ours?
The law requires that they make full disclosure.
Their bobbling and weaving are acts of a poseur.
They hide behind contracts to keep their stuff private,
But that’s a diversion, a way just to jive us.
When law provides that your data is public,
Contrary contracts don’t let you snub it.
Assassins with contracts still are just killers.
Crime is not lessened by crooks getting shriller.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: doggerel, global warming
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Jihad and War on Terror
Until recently one of my labels for posts was "war on terror." Reading leftist criticism of the war brought back to mind my earlier view that the phrase "war on terror" was probably chosen by the Bush administration for political reasons and was calculated to obscure what is really happening. What we are really doing is resisting an anti-western jihad by some elements of the Muslim world. For that reason, I shifted the label to "jihad."
I do not mean to criticize the Bush administration for the circumlocution. The government must balance many concerns. Calling resistance to jihad what it actually is may alienate potential allies in the Muslim world. At least the possibility seems logical, so I am willing to give Bush a pass for obfuscating what may be in the interests of the U.S. to obfuscate at least some of the time.
But I'm not the government and have no need to mince words. I believe calling things what they really are contributes to clarity of thought. Hence the "jihad" label.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
I do not mean to criticize the Bush administration for the circumlocution. The government must balance many concerns. Calling resistance to jihad what it actually is may alienate potential allies in the Muslim world. At least the possibility seems logical, so I am willing to give Bush a pass for obfuscating what may be in the interests of the U.S. to obfuscate at least some of the time.
But I'm not the government and have no need to mince words. I believe calling things what they really are contributes to clarity of thought. Hence the "jihad" label.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: jihad
More on Climate Oil Salesmen
What has been dubbed "Climategate" continues to churn and has been the occasion to use the term "watermelon". Referring to people for whom environmentalism is a tool by which to put into effect leftist policy prescriptions, the term means green on the outside but red on the inside.
Their data are terribly flawed.
It all just might be a fraud.
They're just watermelons,
Perhaps even felons,
But their chutzpah we've got to applaud.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Their data are terribly flawed.
It all just might be a fraud.
They're just watermelons,
Perhaps even felons,
But their chutzpah we've got to applaud.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: doggerel, global warming
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Climate Oil Salesmen
The hacked documents from East Anglia's Climate Research Unit increasingly make it appear that the anthropogenic warming advocates so intensely believed in their conclusions they felt justified in manufacturing data and suppressing contrary views. That is despicable, especially given how devastating some of their prescriptions could be.
The climate oil salesmen have fudged up their numbers,
But tell us we all should continue our slumbers.
Twas hardly discreet
To connive and to cheat.
They must think we're a bunch of cucumbers.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
The climate oil salesmen have fudged up their numbers,
But tell us we all should continue our slumbers.
Twas hardly discreet
To connive and to cheat.
They must think we're a bunch of cucumbers.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: doggerel, global warming
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
$6.4 Billion Allocated to Fictitious Congressional Districts
Watchdog.org reports that stimulus money went to 440 fictitious congressional districts, districts that do not exist. You would think that someone trying to hide graft would do a better job that that, but apparently you would be wrong.
At least $6.4 billion taxpayer dollars seems likely to have been stolen. I say "at least," because why would one assume that money was spent as advertised just because some staffer found a real congressional district number to peg it to?
The stimulus bucks would give us a boost;
That was the pitch we were sold,
But the grifters and con men quickly were loosed,
And now we find we were rolled.
Our money was sent to fictional places,
Districts that do not exist.
The usual suspects were off to the races,
And government graft still persists.
Our money now lines some rent seekers’ pockets,
And Congressmens’ probably too.
It’s lost in the ether just like a rocket,
And no one’s around we can sue.
Now here’s just one reason among many others
Why government needs to stand down.
It’s not looking after us as would our mothers;
If you believe that you’re beclowned.
It spends like a sailor with one night ashore;
It’s wastefulness always expands.
There’s never enough; it always needs more.
We’re left in the worst of all hands.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
At least $6.4 billion taxpayer dollars seems likely to have been stolen. I say "at least," because why would one assume that money was spent as advertised just because some staffer found a real congressional district number to peg it to?
The stimulus bucks would give us a boost;
That was the pitch we were sold,
But the grifters and con men quickly were loosed,
And now we find we were rolled.
Our money was sent to fictional places,
Districts that do not exist.
The usual suspects were off to the races,
And government graft still persists.
Our money now lines some rent seekers’ pockets,
And Congressmens’ probably too.
It’s lost in the ether just like a rocket,
And no one’s around we can sue.
Now here’s just one reason among many others
Why government needs to stand down.
It’s not looking after us as would our mothers;
If you believe that you’re beclowned.
It spends like a sailor with one night ashore;
It’s wastefulness always expands.
There’s never enough; it always needs more.
We’re left in the worst of all hands.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: Congress, doggerel, taxation, Tea Party
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Muslims in America
In the linked article, Mark Steyn rightly decries the unwillingness of many in the media and elsewhere to confront Islam's role in the murders perpetrated by U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan. That is a serious problem that, if we are to survive the Jihad being waged against us, we must overcome. Still while honestly confronting the threat radical Islam poses to our way of life, we must not regard all Muslims as enemies.
Western European countries have serious problems with their Muslim-immigrant populations. One reason is that. no matter what a Turk does, he can never be truly German, and no matter what an Algerian does, he can never be truly French.
Anyone can be an American. All you have to do is voluntarily integrate yourself into our culture and adopt our mores. I know that assimilation is anathema to the multi-culti crowd, but assimilation is how this country works. Assimilation isn't a question of whether you worship at a church or synagogue instead of a mosque. It's a question of accepting American ideals.
Nidal Malik Hasan was not assimilated and apparently did not want to be assimilated, even though he was born here. I am personally acquainted with Muslims who are well assimilated even though they were born elsewhere.
We must welcome all who want to be Americans, while still guarding against those who secretly harbor grievances against us or who, for religious reasons, feel compelled to bring us into dar al Islam. It will be difficult to be continuously vigilant of extremists while treating others fairly, but we must nevertheless do so.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Western European countries have serious problems with their Muslim-immigrant populations. One reason is that. no matter what a Turk does, he can never be truly German, and no matter what an Algerian does, he can never be truly French.
Anyone can be an American. All you have to do is voluntarily integrate yourself into our culture and adopt our mores. I know that assimilation is anathema to the multi-culti crowd, but assimilation is how this country works. Assimilation isn't a question of whether you worship at a church or synagogue instead of a mosque. It's a question of accepting American ideals.
Nidal Malik Hasan was not assimilated and apparently did not want to be assimilated, even though he was born here. I am personally acquainted with Muslims who are well assimilated even though they were born elsewhere.
We must welcome all who want to be Americans, while still guarding against those who secretly harbor grievances against us or who, for religious reasons, feel compelled to bring us into dar al Islam. It will be difficult to be continuously vigilant of extremists while treating others fairly, but we must nevertheless do so.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: jihad
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Senator Burris: "Nobody Told me There Would be a Quiz"
CNS News reports:
Caligula sent a horse to the Senate,
But let’s give the monster a pass.
Burris doesn’t know the Constitution,
So Illinois sent a horse’s ass.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
When asked by CNSNews.com what specific part of the Constitution authorizes Congress to mandate that individuals must purchase health insurance, Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) pointed to the part of the Constitution that he says authorizes the federal government "to provide for the health, welfare and the defense of the country." In fact, the word "health" appears nowhere in the Constitution.I wager Burris never before considered the constitutional foundation of Obamacare. It was enough for him that Democrats want the bill enacted.
Caligula sent a horse to the Senate,
But let’s give the monster a pass.
Burris doesn’t know the Constitution,
So Illinois sent a horse’s ass.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: Congress, doggerel, Obamacare
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Terrorists, Bears, and Schadenfreude
The BBC reports:
If you’re a terrorist in Kashmir,
There’s one more thing for you to fear.
If you are hiding in a cave,
Averting danger's what you crave,
You’d better check on if you share
Your hideaway with a bear.
Rockets just might get you good,
And worry of them you clearly should.
Sharpshooting snipers are a danger,
But some risks are even stranger.
If you are careless, I’ve a hunch
That you might be what is for lunch
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
A bear killed two militants after discovering them in its den in Indian-administered KashmirAn inspiration for doggerel if there ever was one:
If you’re a terrorist in Kashmir,
There’s one more thing for you to fear.
If you are hiding in a cave,
Averting danger's what you crave,
You’d better check on if you share
Your hideaway with a bear.
Rockets just might get you good,
And worry of them you clearly should.
Sharpshooting snipers are a danger,
But some risks are even stranger.
If you are careless, I’ve a hunch
That you might be what is for lunch
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
It's All Just Bush's Fault
Charles Krauthammer's October 30 column discusses Obama's propensity, even this far into his administration, to blame all problems on George Bush. In so doing, he compare's Barack's behavior to an old Soviet joke. The joke presupposes that, as he lies on his death bed, Stalin calls in Nikita Khrushchev, who succeeded him:
Unemployment’s through the roof.
They’re emptying out the vault,
But poor Obama stands aloof.
It’s Georgie Dubya’s fault.
The stimulus has blown the budget
And could lead to default.
Now poor Barack will have to fudge it.
It’s Georgie Dubya’s fault.
Afghanistan has gone to Hell,
Pull out or now assault?
How can Obama even tell?
It’s Georgie Dubya’s fault.
Obamacare will kill us quick
And government exalt,
And if you find that you get sick,
It’s Georgie Dubya’s fault.
Cap and trade will stultify
And make some go John Galt.
Let’s be just a teensy sly,
And say it’s Dubya’s fault.
The Left feels wounds from Dubya still,
So let’s get out some salt,
And rub it in their wounds until
They say it’s Dubya’s fault.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
"Niki, I'm dying. Don't have much to leave you. Just three envelopes. Open them, one at a time, when you get into big trouble."Wouldn't you know that elicited some doggerel from me:
A few years later, first crisis. Khrushchev opens envelope 1: "Blame everything on me. Uncle Joe."
A few years later, a really big crisis. Opens envelope 2: "Blame everything on me. Again. Good luck, Uncle Joe."
Third crisis. Opens envelope 3: "Prepare three envelopes."
Unemployment’s through the roof.
They’re emptying out the vault,
But poor Obama stands aloof.
It’s Georgie Dubya’s fault.
The stimulus has blown the budget
And could lead to default.
Now poor Barack will have to fudge it.
It’s Georgie Dubya’s fault.
Afghanistan has gone to Hell,
Pull out or now assault?
How can Obama even tell?
It’s Georgie Dubya’s fault.
Obamacare will kill us quick
And government exalt,
And if you find that you get sick,
It’s Georgie Dubya’s fault.
Cap and trade will stultify
And make some go John Galt.
Let’s be just a teensy sly,
And say it’s Dubya’s fault.
The Left feels wounds from Dubya still,
So let’s get out some salt,
And rub it in their wounds until
They say it’s Dubya’s fault.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: Barack Obama, doggerel
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Obama's Promise and his Reality
The American Digest has a parody of the Yorick scene from Hamlet. Called Obamlet, the parody puts Obama in the role of Hamlet anguishing over how to proceed in Afghanistan. It is well done and on point, but beyond how to proceed in Afghanistan, the parody's point is symptomatic of how the Obama administration has failed to live up to what supporters projected onto Obama in the election.
Obama’s election some thought was auspicious.
The policy changes they thought quite delicious,
But now it’s in doubt
How things’ll pan out.
His promise now seems meretricious.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Obama’s election some thought was auspicious.
The policy changes they thought quite delicious,
But now it’s in doubt
How things’ll pan out.
His promise now seems meretricious.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: Barack Obama, doggerel
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Dejah Thoris Calling for John Carter
Eugene Volokh reports on a Canadian suit in which the plaintiff, a Rene Joly, alleges that he is a Martian and that others, including those sinister Americans, are conspiring to prevent him from proving it. The judge, however, explores the relevant law and finds that, to have standing in his court, one must be either a corporation or a human being. Since a Martian is neither, the plaintiff gets poured out. Who says there's no justice in the trial courts?
Joly alleges that he is from Mars,
And blames us Americans for psychic scars,
But the ruling says Martians will always lack standing.
Beware all you aliens, you better start banding
And working together so you still can sue
And keep on enjoying an earthly mileu.
Martian equality is now our new cry.
Rouse up your brothers; you must not be shy.
Illegal aliens are common, I know,
But here’s a new twist, you’ll see that it’s so.
Go look in the mirror to pose and to preen,
For unlike most aliens, like Kermit, you’re green.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Joly alleges that he is from Mars,
And blames us Americans for psychic scars,
But the ruling says Martians will always lack standing.
Beware all you aliens, you better start banding
And working together so you still can sue
And keep on enjoying an earthly mileu.
Martian equality is now our new cry.
Rouse up your brothers; you must not be shy.
Illegal aliens are common, I know,
But here’s a new twist, you’ll see that it’s so.
Go look in the mirror to pose and to preen,
For unlike most aliens, like Kermit, you’re green.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: doggerel, Miscellaneous
Disingenuous Testimony Regarding Canadian Human Rights Commissions
"Scary Fundamentalist" reports on testimony by Jennifer Lynch about Canadian Human Rights commissions. Canada's experience with these censors is a warning of what will happen to us if we drink too much multi-culti Koolaid. Though I gather the hearing did not go well for Ms. Lynch, it apparently went better for her than she deserved.
What caught my eye was that "Scary Fundamentalist" included doggerel in the post, so here's some doggerel not by me:
There once was a Justice Committee,
Where Lynch went to plead for pity,
With faux grin displayed,
The members waylaid,
Time’s up and she’s still sitting pretty.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
What caught my eye was that "Scary Fundamentalist" included doggerel in the post, so here's some doggerel not by me:
There once was a Justice Committee,
Where Lynch went to plead for pity,
With faux grin displayed,
The members waylaid,
Time’s up and she’s still sitting pretty.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: cultural divide, doggerel
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Ortega Succeeds Where Zelaya, so far, Has Failed
The Wall Street Journal reports that Daniel Ortega, unsurprisingly, has made an end run around Nicaragua's constitutional term limits. He will now no doubt become president for life or as long as he can possibly hold on. Nicaragua returns to jail without passing go or collecting anything resembling freedom. This is the same fate the Obama administration is trying to foist on Honduras.
Ortega’s now stolen Nicaragua,
In a move that was tried by Zelaya.
He’s leader for life,
Despite all the strife,
And that’s how they cut the papaya.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Ortega’s now stolen Nicaragua,
In a move that was tried by Zelaya.
He’s leader for life,
Despite all the strife,
And that’s how they cut the papaya.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: Barack Obama, doggerel, foreign policy
Sunday, October 25, 2009
White House War Against Fox News
The Obama White House's Nixonian war against Fox News is much to be regretted in a country where political speech is supposed to be unsuppressed. But Obama comes naturally to the impetus to suppress things he does not like.
With rules that are used in Chicago,
Like Bolsheviks chasing Zhivago,
When you’re on the run,
They pull out the gun.
Barack, he learned well and evolved so.
10/26/09 Update:
A reader emailed me the following:
With the pattern that I see.
But my heart o’er that won’t bleed.
I’m delighted someone reads.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
With rules that are used in Chicago,
Like Bolsheviks chasing Zhivago,
When you’re on the run,
They pull out the gun.
Barack, he learned well and evolved so.
10/26/09 Update:
A reader emailed me the following:
Dude, you talk real nice, but considering how short it is, you sure do leave a massive load of easily-debunked pus in this fevered wound of a blog entry. I guess my first question would have to be what your definition of "a war on Fox News" is.The guy who wrote this disagrees.
The White House hasn't denied any of their reporters credentials, and hasn't tried to take Fox off the air. They just don't feel like sitting down and having to deflect massively spun questions, distortions and half-truths from what they've rightly described as the propaganda wing of the GOP.
("Nixonian"? Look up Roger Ailes' background sometime.)
This "war" is entirely in the drug-addled mind of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk. The White House's "attacks" are to merely say "nope - don't want to be interviewed by you." The remainder of their input is to explain this reasonable policy, when asked. It's Fox making the actual attacks.
So, how is this a war? I'm just curious.
Oh, and “Nixonian”?
It was Ailes whose guns were all large-bore,
And he used to give newspapers what-for.
Just because all his tricks
Were to calm Tricky Dick’s
Paranoia doesn’t make him a man-whore
With the pattern that I see.
But my heart o’er that won’t bleed.
I’m delighted someone reads.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: Barack Obama, doggerel
Friday, October 23, 2009
Danish Cartoon About Mohammed
This cartoon used to appear on this site, and I still get a lot of people looking for it.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: jihad
Abrogating Contracts by Executive Fiat
The blogosphere is replete with comment on Obama's abrogating compensation agreements at firms receiving TARP money. Professor Bainbridge has a cogent post that includes this point:
Abrogating contracts is Barack Obama’s plan.
Cutting back excessive pay, he sticks it to the man.
Why should Obama care that contracts aren’t enforced?
He blows away your vested rights, not feeling your remorse.
Contracts were the settled way we planned into the future.
The recent abrogations leave a rift without a suture.
Undermining confidence, Obama's biggest feature.
Trust in government alone, now, that’s the message from our teacher.
If he can cut back pay because he thinks its way too high,
He can change the price on all the things that you have gone to buy.
If you’re the one who sells things, then you have no way to know
If Obama will just change the price and tell you where to go.
When you can’t rely on business terms of all the deals you’ve made,
You cannot know if you can keep the sums that you’ve been paid.
You’re left to plead your case to distant bureaucrats,
Officious functionaries knowing less than mewling cats.
Success will not depend upon your marketplace acumen.
You’ll need to cultivate a set of skills that don’t like excess lumens.
Who you know and who you stroke, to whom you give out favors,
These are things that now will set the outcome of your labors.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
The bottom line thus is that Obama is having his minion coerce TARP executives and employees into ripping up contracts Obama doesn't like so as to assuage the populist public. In doing so, Obama and his appropriately entitled "czar" are exhibiting a basic lack of respect for the rule of law.Despite the wailing of the left-wing Cassandras at the time, Bush was never the threat to the rule of law that Obama is.
Abrogating contracts is Barack Obama’s plan.
Cutting back excessive pay, he sticks it to the man.
Why should Obama care that contracts aren’t enforced?
He blows away your vested rights, not feeling your remorse.
Contracts were the settled way we planned into the future.
The recent abrogations leave a rift without a suture.
Undermining confidence, Obama's biggest feature.
Trust in government alone, now, that’s the message from our teacher.
If he can cut back pay because he thinks its way too high,
He can change the price on all the things that you have gone to buy.
If you’re the one who sells things, then you have no way to know
If Obama will just change the price and tell you where to go.
When you can’t rely on business terms of all the deals you’ve made,
You cannot know if you can keep the sums that you’ve been paid.
You’re left to plead your case to distant bureaucrats,
Officious functionaries knowing less than mewling cats.
Success will not depend upon your marketplace acumen.
You’ll need to cultivate a set of skills that don’t like excess lumens.
Who you know and who you stroke, to whom you give out favors,
These are things that now will set the outcome of your labors.
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Labels: Barack Obama, doggerel
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Of Mass Murderers and Philosophers
Ricketyclick on White House Communication Director Anita Dunn:
What can you do but say wow?
A murderous old brute,
The thug sure could shoot.
His insights, they ended with pow!
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Mao Tse Tung, ladies and gentlemen. Seventy million dead, one of the oldest, richest cultures on Earth burned to the ground and replaced by gray concrete and black pajamas, the worst genocide in all history, and the architect of this chaos is the “favorite philosopher” of the woman who sits with the President of the United States and passes His Holy Words to you unwashed proletarian masses and your children.Dunn’s favorite philosopher’s old Mao!
What can you do but say wow?
A murderous old brute,
The thug sure could shoot.
His insights, they ended with pow!
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: cultural divide, doggerel
Monday, October 19, 2009
Trade Your Cadillac in for a Yugo, Even-Steven
Politico reports on the Senate health care bill's proposed tax on so-called Cadillac plans:
From private health care we must be reprieved.
I’ve always assumed they mean to imply
Public health care beats what we can buy.
It’s high-end health plans they now want to tax,
But not for the things that plans like that lack.
It’s high-end health plans they want to reduce;
It’s high-end health plans they deem an abuse.
With high end health plans the bar is too high;
Public health plans can’t reach for the sky.
Tear down the good things the people now have;
The poor public option will seem like a salve.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
The tax is designed to pay for reform and lower costs by making the so-called Cadillac plans less attractive for insurers to offer.The Democrats tell us that we must believe
From private health care we must be reprieved.
I’ve always assumed they mean to imply
Public health care beats what we can buy.
It’s high-end health plans they now want to tax,
But not for the things that plans like that lack.
It’s high-end health plans they want to reduce;
It’s high-end health plans they deem an abuse.
With high end health plans the bar is too high;
Public health plans can’t reach for the sky.
Tear down the good things the people now have;
The poor public option will seem like a salve.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Higgs Bosons and Legislative Bozos
The New York Times reports:
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A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.The article goes on the suggest:
This malign influence from the future, they argue, could explain why the United States Superconducting Supercollider, also designed to find the Higgs, was canceled in 1993 after billions of dollars had already been spent, an event so unlikely that Dr. Nielsen calls it an “anti-miracle.”I am utterly innocent of advanced physics, but I am skeptical of this explanation of the fate of the U.S. supercollider. To explain what happened, all one need suppose is legislative incompetence, a far less exotic explanation than that the Higgs boson is altering the past. Occam's Razor.
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Labels: Miscellaneous
Monday, October 12, 2009
Barack of the Khyber Rifles
Yahoo News reports:
The war in Iraq, Dems often did knock
It strayed from the war in the ‘stan.
“The Afghani war we prize more by far,”
The Democrats cried to a man.
Hail to Barack of the Khyber Rifles.
The votes were collected, Barack was elected,
The war in the ‘stan’s getting harder.
Now the Dems aren’t so sure of Afghanistan’s cure,
Or of guarding the Pakistan border.
Hail to Barack of the Khyber Rifles.
“We don’t need to win” is now the new spin,
They’re selling us, oh, such a sleek horse.
Their idea’s so neat, let’s go for defeat,
Embrace being bin Laden’s weak horse.
Hail to Barack of the Khyber Rifles.
Talk of the Taliban there in Afghanistan,
Clearly a salesman’s slick pitch.
Feared weak after ’Nam, they posed like Van Damme.
Naught but a bait and a switch.
Hail to Barack of the Khyber Rifles.
From old talking points, they’re now out of joint;
Their prior positions are trifles.
Barack is the man who adds to the plan
Charisma and charm by the eyefuls.
Hail to Barack of the Khyber Rifles.
Hail, hail, hail, hail to Barack of the Khyber Rifles.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Saying the U.S. mission in Afghanistan is in "serious jeopardy," the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee says more troops are needed to combat an increasingly potent Taliban.That's Dianne Feinstein talking. Similar stories of Democrat waffling on Afghanistan abound. What to do is ultimately in the President's hands. To quote Stevie Wonder, heaven help us all.
The war in Iraq, Dems often did knock
It strayed from the war in the ‘stan.
“The Afghani war we prize more by far,”
The Democrats cried to a man.
Hail to Barack of the Khyber Rifles.
The votes were collected, Barack was elected,
The war in the ‘stan’s getting harder.
Now the Dems aren’t so sure of Afghanistan’s cure,
Or of guarding the Pakistan border.
Hail to Barack of the Khyber Rifles.
“We don’t need to win” is now the new spin,
They’re selling us, oh, such a sleek horse.
Their idea’s so neat, let’s go for defeat,
Embrace being bin Laden’s weak horse.
Hail to Barack of the Khyber Rifles.
Talk of the Taliban there in Afghanistan,
Clearly a salesman’s slick pitch.
Feared weak after ’Nam, they posed like Van Damme.
Naught but a bait and a switch.
Hail to Barack of the Khyber Rifles.
From old talking points, they’re now out of joint;
Their prior positions are trifles.
Barack is the man who adds to the plan
Charisma and charm by the eyefuls.
Hail to Barack of the Khyber Rifles.
Hail, hail, hail, hail to Barack of the Khyber Rifles.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Friday, October 09, 2009
Peace Plan for Afghanistan
I was searching for other political doggerel sites and was disappointed in how little I found. Then I ran across a site with the linked poem. Here's a excerpt:
Send Clowns without Borders into the 'stan?
That by golly's a Hell of a plan.
They'll tell the Talib to lay down their guns.
"Let's twist up balloons and have some real fun."
Incredulous Taliban, standing dumbstruck,
May take a whole minute to run full amok.
Let's warn all the clowns to take a quick chill:
They best had not go without making a will.
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send Clowns without BordersWhat do you suppose the Taliban, never mind al Qaeda, would do to Clowns without Borders or people handing out musical instruments? Has this person ever seen "The Kite Runner"? Read the whole poem for full effect.
into the cities and mountains
hand out lutes and fiddles, harps and drums.
Soldiers, fresh from Boot Camp of the Arts,
would distribute cameras and watercolors
Send Clowns without Borders into the 'stan?
That by golly's a Hell of a plan.
They'll tell the Talib to lay down their guns.
"Let's twist up balloons and have some real fun."
Incredulous Taliban, standing dumbstruck,
May take a whole minute to run full amok.
Let's warn all the clowns to take a quick chill:
They best had not go without making a will.
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Labels: cultural divide, doggerel, jihad
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Carnival of the Vanities
This week's Carnival of the Vanities is up.
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Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Mohammed El Baradei Says Israel's Nuclear Weapons Biggest Threat to Middle East
China View reports:
Could Israel be the number one threat to peace in the Middle East?
Israel’s missiles, are we to suppose, might possibly be released?
Mohammed El Baradei is the man who makes the accusation.
But why would Israelis want to start a nuclear conflagration?
Now Israel is such a tiny place, just over the size of Vermont.
For self preservation, it’s better advised to try to get détente.
The only reason for Israelis to use their nuclear option, you see,
Is if there’s a knife against their throat, and Israel may soon cease to be.
And this is why the nuclear missiles cause so much consternation.
The Arabs know, if they take the Jews down, they’ll get the conflagration.
So El Baradei thinks the danger to peace is not from the Arab attack.
The danger he fears is the one that comes from Israel fighting back.
10/8/09 Update:
1. After I completed this, I realized I had relied on my own probable mispronunciation of "Baradei." I have no idea what the correct Arabic pronunciation is, but for the purposes of the doggerel, I was thinking of BAR a day.
2. The number one threat to Middle East peace is Arab hatred. Generally speaking, Arabs hate everyone else, but they have a special hatred of Jews. It vastly predates the creation of Israel, stemming instead from Mohammed's interaction with and slaughter of Jews in Medina.
3. At the risk of making the same mistake I criticized when made by Janeane Garofalo, I suspect El Baradei of sharing the Jew hatred of most Arabs. If so, while it is so marvelously multi-culti of us to have a Jew hater as head of the IAEA, let's don't let his title mislead us into according any weight to his thoughts on Israel.
4. I don't remember who first formulated this next point: I've read it more than once and heard it from others in conversation. If Arabs laid down their arms, they could have virtually immediate peace. No doubt there would be some delay arising from Jews being initially skeptical. (Wouldn't you be?) There would also be some initial squabbling over the exact location of a boundary on the West Bank, but in the overall scheme of things, that is small potatoes.
On the other hand, if Israelis laid down their arms, they would be immediately annihilated. Israel can be considered the primary threat to Middle East peace only if you take Arab hatred and violence as a given.
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Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei said Sunday that "Israel is number one threat to Middle East" with its nuclear arms, the official IRNA news agency reported.This brings to mind a childhood incident in which my mother wanted to know what my brother and I were fighting about. I told her it all started when he hit me back.
Could Israel be the number one threat to peace in the Middle East?
Israel’s missiles, are we to suppose, might possibly be released?
Mohammed El Baradei is the man who makes the accusation.
But why would Israelis want to start a nuclear conflagration?
Now Israel is such a tiny place, just over the size of Vermont.
For self preservation, it’s better advised to try to get détente.
The only reason for Israelis to use their nuclear option, you see,
Is if there’s a knife against their throat, and Israel may soon cease to be.
And this is why the nuclear missiles cause so much consternation.
The Arabs know, if they take the Jews down, they’ll get the conflagration.
So El Baradei thinks the danger to peace is not from the Arab attack.
The danger he fears is the one that comes from Israel fighting back.
10/8/09 Update:
1. After I completed this, I realized I had relied on my own probable mispronunciation of "Baradei." I have no idea what the correct Arabic pronunciation is, but for the purposes of the doggerel, I was thinking of BAR a day.
2. The number one threat to Middle East peace is Arab hatred. Generally speaking, Arabs hate everyone else, but they have a special hatred of Jews. It vastly predates the creation of Israel, stemming instead from Mohammed's interaction with and slaughter of Jews in Medina.
3. At the risk of making the same mistake I criticized when made by Janeane Garofalo, I suspect El Baradei of sharing the Jew hatred of most Arabs. If so, while it is so marvelously multi-culti of us to have a Jew hater as head of the IAEA, let's don't let his title mislead us into according any weight to his thoughts on Israel.
4. I don't remember who first formulated this next point: I've read it more than once and heard it from others in conversation. If Arabs laid down their arms, they could have virtually immediate peace. No doubt there would be some delay arising from Jews being initially skeptical. (Wouldn't you be?) There would also be some initial squabbling over the exact location of a boundary on the West Bank, but in the overall scheme of things, that is small potatoes.
On the other hand, if Israelis laid down their arms, they would be immediately annihilated. Israel can be considered the primary threat to Middle East peace only if you take Arab hatred and violence as a given.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
What's a Little Tax Fraud Among Friends?
Breitbart reports:
Feared he might dangle.
For cheating on taxes and such,
But along came the House,
Which forgave the louse
And saved him for being in dutch.
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House Republicans have failed for a third time to oust Rep. Charles Rangel as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.Poor Charlie Rangel
Feared he might dangle.
For cheating on taxes and such,
But along came the House,
Which forgave the louse
And saved him for being in dutch.
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Shut up and Salute!
There was a time when the mainstream media would have had us believe it was a major failing of George Bush that he did not follow the advice of certain generals whose advice the liberals agreed with. Apparently Eugene Robinson, no doubt among others, does not agree with the advice of General McChrystal.
Bush had a problem with the war in Iraq,
But Bush is long gone; the Pres is Barack.
“Listen to generals,” George Bush was then told,
For some generals lined up with liberal scolds.
Afghanistan’s where the troubles are now,
And listening to generals puts you out on a bough.
You don’t need to listen if you don’t want to hear.
We can’t let the facts with our plans interfere.
Obama is weighing the options, transfixed,
On which course of action best helps politics.
Now General McChrystal, he asks for more troops.
Why won’t the warmonger shut up and salute?
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Bush had a problem with the war in Iraq,
But Bush is long gone; the Pres is Barack.
“Listen to generals,” George Bush was then told,
For some generals lined up with liberal scolds.
Afghanistan’s where the troubles are now,
And listening to generals puts you out on a bough.
You don’t need to listen if you don’t want to hear.
We can’t let the facts with our plans interfere.
Obama is weighing the options, transfixed,
On which course of action best helps politics.
Now General McChrystal, he asks for more troops.
Why won’t the warmonger shut up and salute?
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: Barack Obama, doggerel, jihad
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Garofalo and Hateful Nonsense
JammieWearingFool links to a video in which Janeane Garofalo vehemently accuses all Obama opponents of racism. Lord have mercy.
Janeane Garofalo spews her slurs;
Republicans are, she says, just curs.
Opposing Obama has got to be racist:
She can’t imagine another basis.
The limits of Janie’s imagination
Suggest a lot more, in my estimation,
Of Janie, herself, and how she thinks
Than suggesting Republican-hate group links.
Political control of the economy’s at stake,
And liberals want to cut up the cake.
Conservatives think that will make us much poorer
And fear the liberals will put up a fuhrer.
Janeane’s apparently not even able
To comprehend what we see on the table:
The total remaking of American life,
Fostering envy and fomenting strife.
Though Janie sure shows lack of insight,
It's not that she is not very bright.
Instead I think she’s so blinded by hate,
That all she can do is erupt and berate.
This sort of invective comes often, of course,
Given what passes for public discourse.
I sometimes wonder how mankind’s survived,
With serious debate so greatly contrived.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Janeane Garofalo spews her slurs;
Republicans are, she says, just curs.
Opposing Obama has got to be racist:
She can’t imagine another basis.
The limits of Janie’s imagination
Suggest a lot more, in my estimation,
Of Janie, herself, and how she thinks
Than suggesting Republican-hate group links.
Political control of the economy’s at stake,
And liberals want to cut up the cake.
Conservatives think that will make us much poorer
And fear the liberals will put up a fuhrer.
Janeane’s apparently not even able
To comprehend what we see on the table:
The total remaking of American life,
Fostering envy and fomenting strife.
Though Janie sure shows lack of insight,
It's not that she is not very bright.
Instead I think she’s so blinded by hate,
That all she can do is erupt and berate.
This sort of invective comes often, of course,
Given what passes for public discourse.
I sometimes wonder how mankind’s survived,
With serious debate so greatly contrived.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: cultural divide, doggerel
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Marcus was a Little Lamb
John Birmingham of the Brisbane Times reports on an Australian school teaching children about animal husbandry. Among the animals was a lamb named Marcus. At some point, the kids voted to send Marcus to the slaughter house, and the animal rights-types came forth with predictable laments.
The doggerel potential was too obvious to pass up:
Marcus was a little lamb.
He lived at school, you know.
The kids thought he’d be good to eat.
The greenies all said “No!”
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
The doggerel potential was too obvious to pass up:
Marcus was a little lamb.
He lived at school, you know.
The kids thought he’d be good to eat.
The greenies all said “No!”
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: cultural divide, doggerel, Miscellaneous
Monday, September 28, 2009
William Safire, Rest in Peace
William Safire is dead at 79 of pancreatic cancer. I was particularly fond of his "On Language" columns.
Rest in peace.
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Rest in peace.
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Labels: Miscellaneous
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Carnival of the Vanities
Andrew Ian Dodge hosts Carnival of the Vanities.
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Saturday, September 26, 2009
Nanny Bloomberg
Of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Slate's Jacob Weiss reports:
Oh Nanny boy, the Coca-Cola’s calling,
From store to store and down 5th Avenue.
Tobacco’s gone, your nanny drive is stalling.
Go after Cokes and then find something new.
You must not stop, we need you as Big Brother
Without you, I'd know not what to do,
For at times our thoughts might turn to burgers.
Oh Nanny boy, oh Nanny boy, you so and so.
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By 2012, the mayor hopes "to lower the proportion of adults who drink one or more sugar-sweetened beverages each day by 20 percent."Not satisfied with being mayor Bloomberg wants to be our mother.
Oh Nanny boy, the Coca-Cola’s calling,
From store to store and down 5th Avenue.
Tobacco’s gone, your nanny drive is stalling.
Go after Cokes and then find something new.
You must not stop, we need you as Big Brother
Without you, I'd know not what to do,
For at times our thoughts might turn to burgers.
Oh Nanny boy, oh Nanny boy, you so and so.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: cultural divide, doggerel, nanny state
Marching Forward into the (Not so Good) Old Times
Politico reports:
Obama would surely respond with derision,
But when the thought is expressed with concision,
And when, on the murk, the sun has risen,
Obama's imposing a debtor's prison.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.So not to put too fine a point on it:
Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty . . . .
Obama would surely respond with derision,
But when the thought is expressed with concision,
And when, on the murk, the sun has risen,
Obama's imposing a debtor's prison.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Friday, September 25, 2009
To the Commenter Who Called me an Imbecile
Is it just Obama men
Attracted to ad hominem?
I’m not sure; I have my doubts.
Perhaps we’re all a bunch of louts.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Attracted to ad hominem?
I’m not sure; I have my doubts.
Perhaps we’re all a bunch of louts.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: cultural divide, doggerel
Obamacare Will Be Just as Good as Medicare
We're told that Medicare is great, and Obamacare will be just as great. But we know Medicare is stretched thin and will have to reduce costs. And Medicare covers only a small, albeit increasing, percentage of the population. When you drag in all the population, what is stretched thin will break.
The Democrats say Obamacare’s good,
For Medicare works just as it should.
Now Medicare starts at sixty-five,
A small percentage of who’s still alive.
A lot more people are paying in
Than are taking out benefits at the end.
But even with such a favorable ratio,
It’s not all rosey, though some may say so.
Medicare cuts what doctors are paid,
So doctors are cutting their Medicare trade,
But cutting what doctor’s are paid’s not enough.
What happens next is going to be rough.
The President says he’s going to cut waste.
Why drag you in first; why all the haste?
He’s got to pare back that which is covered.
He wants you locked in, before that’s discovered.
There may be treatments you think that you need,
But you will be told to diminish your greed.
When society needs to cut down on cost,
It’ll just be too bad that a few lives are lost.
Obamacare means, I tell you no lies,
That government sets who lives and who dies.
That can’t coexist with American freedom.
Madison and Jefferson! Go tell them we need them!
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
The Democrats say Obamacare’s good,
For Medicare works just as it should.
Now Medicare starts at sixty-five,
A small percentage of who’s still alive.
A lot more people are paying in
Than are taking out benefits at the end.
But even with such a favorable ratio,
It’s not all rosey, though some may say so.
Medicare cuts what doctors are paid,
So doctors are cutting their Medicare trade,
But cutting what doctor’s are paid’s not enough.
What happens next is going to be rough.
The President says he’s going to cut waste.
Why drag you in first; why all the haste?
He’s got to pare back that which is covered.
He wants you locked in, before that’s discovered.
There may be treatments you think that you need,
But you will be told to diminish your greed.
When society needs to cut down on cost,
It’ll just be too bad that a few lives are lost.
Obamacare means, I tell you no lies,
That government sets who lives and who dies.
That can’t coexist with American freedom.
Madison and Jefferson! Go tell them we need them!
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Down Like a Dog on the Highway, With a Government Boot at Your Throat
David Henderson reports: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is squelching the speech of insurance companies expressing concerns about Obamacare to their insureds. Many a liberal acquaintance were dismayed at George Bush's civil liberties shortcomings, but I don't recall a single incident of the Bush administration trying to silence its critics.
Being who I am, I provide some doggerel. What came to my mind was Alfred Noyes' The Highwayman, perhaps appropriate since we are being robbed not only of our money but also of our freedom.
Obamacare critics cry out; they desperately want to be heard.
They post their views on blogs and such, getting out the word.
The media ignore them studiously, hoping they’ll all go away,
And HHS comes censoring, censoring, censoring,
And HHS comes censoring,
Denying the critics their say.
Critics, it says, are misleading, confusing the proletariat.
Keep all the critics quiet, its says, round them up with a lariat.
It sends out threatening letters, abusing its government power
And the HHS is threatening, threatening, threatening,
And the HHS is threatening;
Beware the government’s glower
We’ve got to resist the thuggishness, asserting our right to be free.
They’re taking away all our freedoms, away from you and from me.
Recall that this is America; preserve its ideals when you vote,
Or they’ll drag you down into serfdom,
Down like a dog into serfdom,
With a government boot at your throat.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Being who I am, I provide some doggerel. What came to my mind was Alfred Noyes' The Highwayman, perhaps appropriate since we are being robbed not only of our money but also of our freedom.
Obamacare critics cry out; they desperately want to be heard.
They post their views on blogs and such, getting out the word.
The media ignore them studiously, hoping they’ll all go away,
And HHS comes censoring, censoring, censoring,
And HHS comes censoring,
Denying the critics their say.
Critics, it says, are misleading, confusing the proletariat.
Keep all the critics quiet, its says, round them up with a lariat.
It sends out threatening letters, abusing its government power
And the HHS is threatening, threatening, threatening,
And the HHS is threatening;
Beware the government’s glower
We’ve got to resist the thuggishness, asserting our right to be free.
They’re taking away all our freedoms, away from you and from me.
Recall that this is America; preserve its ideals when you vote,
Or they’ll drag you down into serfdom,
Down like a dog into serfdom,
With a government boot at your throat.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: cultural divide, doggerel, Obamacare
Senator Hutchison Wants to be Gov
U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is making progress in her attempt to wrest the GOP gubernatorial from Rick Perry. I do not particularly support Rick Perry, though neither do I particularly oppose him. He hasn't screwed things up too badly.
Kay Bailey is another story altogether. She has been resistant to earmark reform , an issue contributing to Republican defeats at the federal level. For that reason alone, she deserves to lose.
Senator Hutchison wants to be gov,
But when asked about earmarks, she gave us a shove.
No matter however she gives it a spin,
I'll not trust Hutchison ever again.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Kay Bailey is another story altogether. She has been resistant to earmark reform , an issue contributing to Republican defeats at the federal level. For that reason alone, she deserves to lose.
Senator Hutchison wants to be gov,
But when asked about earmarks, she gave us a shove.
No matter however she gives it a spin,
I'll not trust Hutchison ever again.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: doggerel, gubernatorial race, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas
Sunday, September 20, 2009
You Know How to Whistle Don't You?
Josh Marshall reports: Lauren Bacall and Shimon Peres are first cousins. Maybe Shimon could get me her autograph.
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Labels: Miscellaneous
Friday, September 18, 2009
Stuffing Papers Down Your Pants XII
In an article on Pajamas Media, Annie Jacobsen offers a possible explanation for the papers Sandy Berger was stuffing down his pants way back in 2004. It appears the Clinton administration may have tried to assassinate Osama Bin Laden well before 9/11.
If only they had succeeded . . .
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If only they had succeeded . . .
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Labels: Papers in Your Pants
Nancy Has a Cry
Regarding Nancy Pelosi's tearful bemoaning of opposition to the Democratic agenda, Ann Althouse observes:
Poor, poor, Nan,
Poor, poor little thing,
Rich was her acting,
She stood right there and cried.
Poor, poor, Nan,
Poor, poor was the show,
Rich that we all know,
She thought she’d try to cry.
Poor Nancy heave a sigh.
Up there’s our speaker,
Trying something new.
She sure looks weaker;
She runs a zoo.
She was an ogre,
Til she pulled this.
Goodbye to all that
We’ll never miss.
Bye bye, Nan,
Bye bye surliness,
Hello girliness,
She stood right there and cried,
Bye bye, Nan, you cried.
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And I hope you will take responsibility for this embarrassing display. You haven't done your job and now you are crying in public — you, the first female Speaker of the House. Crying. Pretending to be afraid of violence when the talk that troubles you so hasn't even included threats of violence.My expectations of Nancy Pelosi are so low, I had not looked at it that way, but Ann has a point. So of course I composed some doggerel. For whatever reason, the Everly Brothers' "Bye, Bye Love" came to mind:
Poor, poor, Nan,
Poor, poor little thing,
Rich was her acting,
She stood right there and cried.
Poor, poor, Nan,
Poor, poor was the show,
Rich that we all know,
She thought she’d try to cry.
Poor Nancy heave a sigh.
Up there’s our speaker,
Trying something new.
She sure looks weaker;
She runs a zoo.
She was an ogre,
Til she pulled this.
Goodbye to all that
We’ll never miss.
Bye bye, Nan,
Bye bye surliness,
Hello girliness,
She stood right there and cried,
Bye bye, Nan, you cried.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: doggerel, Nancy Pelosi, town halls
Diluting the Sting of Racism Charges
MSNBC (yes, really, I had to look twice) carries an AP analysis (yes, AP, really) decrying profligate charges of racism.
Our society is not free of genuine racism, though mercifully racism is less common than it used to be. We should not relent in rooting out genuine racism, but in so doing, we should not use the term loosely.
Labeling opposition to Barack Obama's policy proposals as necessarily racist is an abuse of the term, because it unfairly libels innocent people with a vile charge. But worse than that abuse, doing so leads to resentment of charges of racism and to taking the charges less seriously. That result is counter-productive of eliminating racism.
Once upon a time calling someone a Communist was a serious slur in the eyes of almost all Americans. At least partly because of the excesses of the McCarthy era, the charge lost its sting in many quarters and some now regard the charge itself as antiquated even when it fits, as in the case of Hugo Chaves.
We must all hope that a consequence of Barack Obama's presidency is not to lessen the sting of a racism charge. That is not the direction in which our society needs to go. Those throwing the charge around need to bear that in mind.
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Our society is not free of genuine racism, though mercifully racism is less common than it used to be. We should not relent in rooting out genuine racism, but in so doing, we should not use the term loosely.
Labeling opposition to Barack Obama's policy proposals as necessarily racist is an abuse of the term, because it unfairly libels innocent people with a vile charge. But worse than that abuse, doing so leads to resentment of charges of racism and to taking the charges less seriously. That result is counter-productive of eliminating racism.
Once upon a time calling someone a Communist was a serious slur in the eyes of almost all Americans. At least partly because of the excesses of the McCarthy era, the charge lost its sting in many quarters and some now regard the charge itself as antiquated even when it fits, as in the case of Hugo Chaves.
We must all hope that a consequence of Barack Obama's presidency is not to lessen the sting of a racism charge. That is not the direction in which our society needs to go. Those throwing the charge around need to bear that in mind.
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Labels: Barack Obama, cultural divide
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Acorn Didn't Know it Sat on a Wall
Acorn the org has been known to all.
Acorn the org had a great fall,
And all the spin doctors and all Barack’s men
Couldn’t put Acorn back together again.
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Acorn the org had a great fall,
And all the spin doctors and all Barack’s men
Couldn’t put Acorn back together again.
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Labels: Acorn, Barack Obama, doggerel
No Missile Defense for Eastern Europe
Dubya Bush thought it made sense
To give Eastern Europe missile defense.
Barack Obama says au contraire,
With Eastern Europe he will not share.
We used to fear proliferation,
Because it could lead to conflagration.
Our defense we said we’d share,
If from the bomb you would forbear.
The message now is loud and clear:
If you’re a target and danger's near,
America won’t protect you pukes.
You'd better get your own damn nukes.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
To give Eastern Europe missile defense.
Barack Obama says au contraire,
With Eastern Europe he will not share.
We used to fear proliferation,
Because it could lead to conflagration.
Our defense we said we’d share,
If from the bomb you would forbear.
The message now is loud and clear:
If you’re a target and danger's near,
America won’t protect you pukes.
You'd better get your own damn nukes.
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Labels: Barack Obama, doggerel, foreign policy
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Politico Claims the Word "Politico" as a Trademark
Dan Reihl reports that Politico is throwing its weight around against small sites using the word "politico" in their names. But "politico" is a word and therefore a poor mark. Sheesh!
Politico is a site on the web.
It’s also a word used without ebb,
But the site now claims its rights are exclusive,
Though the reasoning seems entirely elusive.
If you want a mark that can be protected,
You really ought to have quickly rejected
A word that appears in common use,
Or else your claims seem an abuse.
Politico ought to retract and then chill,
Though what are the odds, you think, that it will?
Let’s hope Politico will change the decision
That has caused it’s claims to suffer derision.
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Politico is a site on the web.
It’s also a word used without ebb,
But the site now claims its rights are exclusive,
Though the reasoning seems entirely elusive.
If you want a mark that can be protected,
You really ought to have quickly rejected
A word that appears in common use,
Or else your claims seem an abuse.
Politico ought to retract and then chill,
Though what are the odds, you think, that it will?
Let’s hope Politico will change the decision
That has caused it’s claims to suffer derision.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: doggerel
MadKane and I Don't Agree on Much . . .
But I do agree with her criticism of Amazon for surreptitiously removing material from customers' Kindles. Refunding their money is not good enough. It was a breach of trust.
I have had two Kindles, and I loved them, but I don't have one now. Just before the one-year warranty expired, I tripped on steps while carrying my Kindle. I threw my hands out to catch myself, and the Kindle went flying. It no longer worked, so I called Amazon about repairs. Kindles apparently cannot be repaired, and the warranty did not cover customer "abuse," but they did sell me a second Kindle at half price.
I was reasonably satisfied with that until a few months later when the second Kindle inexplicably stopped working. I called Amazon, but the message was tough cookies. My original one-year warranty had expired. If I wanted a new Kindle, it would be full price.
So now I am Kindle-less and peeved.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
I have had two Kindles, and I loved them, but I don't have one now. Just before the one-year warranty expired, I tripped on steps while carrying my Kindle. I threw my hands out to catch myself, and the Kindle went flying. It no longer worked, so I called Amazon about repairs. Kindles apparently cannot be repaired, and the warranty did not cover customer "abuse," but they did sell me a second Kindle at half price.
I was reasonably satisfied with that until a few months later when the second Kindle inexplicably stopped working. I called Amazon, but the message was tough cookies. My original one-year warranty had expired. If I wanted a new Kindle, it would be full price.
So now I am Kindle-less and peeved.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: Kindle
Monday, September 14, 2009
Obama's Secret Plan to Fix Social Security
Many have warned to no avail
That social security's doomed to fail,
But stop despairing; lift the pall.
Obamacare will save us all.
You may think that Obamacare
And social security aren't a pair,
But Obamacare's to preserve your health,
So marvel here at Obama’s stealth.
Social security, you get when you’re old,
When Obamacare cuts back what's doled.
For social security, now don’t be dejected.
You just won’t live long while you collect it.
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That social security's doomed to fail,
But stop despairing; lift the pall.
Obamacare will save us all.
You may think that Obamacare
And social security aren't a pair,
But Obamacare's to preserve your health,
So marvel here at Obama’s stealth.
Social security, you get when you’re old,
When Obamacare cuts back what's doled.
For social security, now don’t be dejected.
You just won’t live long while you collect it.
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Labels: doggerel, Obamacare, social security
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Ask Sitting Bull How it Worked Out
Negative rights and positive rights are the dividing line.
Obama promises positive rights, offering things so fine.
He’ll give us all our health care and all our hearts desire,
If, in return, we’ll close our eyes and step into the fire,
For when the government gives us things, they’re not spun from thin air.
No, others must produce those things, and Barack will make them share.
There’s a word for when another takes the things that we produce,
And applies them to the taker’s thoughts of what’s a better use.
Conscripting labor from another is the vilest form of knavery.
We’ll find our labor has become nothing more than slavery.
If we don’t own what we produce, we own almost nothing.
We have just what they leave us with. Do not believe their puffing.
Negative rights are things that the government must not do,
Ways in which it’s not allowed to interfere with you.
Freedom of speech and of petition, such things they cannot stop,
If we insist on being free; we’ll know just what we’ve got,
But when they pass out goodies by taking things from others,
What we get was necessarily taken from our brothers.
Now if you think they’ll take from them, but not take things from you,
I’ve got a bridge to sell you, pal, a deal you’ll come to rue.
They see the proletariat as the class where we belong.
Trading freedom for state care is just a siren song.
If you are tempted to believe the state’s care will be great,
Ask Sitting Bull how it worked out; what was his people’s fate?
We can all be citizens, free and independent,
Or we can be just vassals, on the state dependent.
Freedom is quite costly, and it’s often very hard,
But you must throw it all away to choose to be a ward.
I know not what all may choose, freedom or dependence.
But as for me our negative rights are all that can defend us.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Obama promises positive rights, offering things so fine.
He’ll give us all our health care and all our hearts desire,
If, in return, we’ll close our eyes and step into the fire,
For when the government gives us things, they’re not spun from thin air.
No, others must produce those things, and Barack will make them share.
There’s a word for when another takes the things that we produce,
And applies them to the taker’s thoughts of what’s a better use.
Conscripting labor from another is the vilest form of knavery.
We’ll find our labor has become nothing more than slavery.
If we don’t own what we produce, we own almost nothing.
We have just what they leave us with. Do not believe their puffing.
Negative rights are things that the government must not do,
Ways in which it’s not allowed to interfere with you.
Freedom of speech and of petition, such things they cannot stop,
If we insist on being free; we’ll know just what we’ve got,
But when they pass out goodies by taking things from others,
What we get was necessarily taken from our brothers.
Now if you think they’ll take from them, but not take things from you,
I’ve got a bridge to sell you, pal, a deal you’ll come to rue.
They see the proletariat as the class where we belong.
Trading freedom for state care is just a siren song.
If you are tempted to believe the state’s care will be great,
Ask Sitting Bull how it worked out; what was his people’s fate?
We can all be citizens, free and independent,
Or we can be just vassals, on the state dependent.
Freedom is quite costly, and it’s often very hard,
But you must throw it all away to choose to be a ward.
I know not what all may choose, freedom or dependence.
But as for me our negative rights are all that can defend us.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: Barack Obama, doggerel, Obamacare
Friday, September 11, 2009
Barack as Caudillo
Barack has got plans for you and for me,
But they’re not embraced by the bourgeoisie.
His spending and taxes will soon fill the bill.
Stagflation will pauper us, leave us with nil.
Just like in the song called "Government Cheese",
When we’re all beggars, we’re easily pleased.
A banana republic is how it will end,
With Barack as caudillo, an endless downtrend.
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But they’re not embraced by the bourgeoisie.
His spending and taxes will soon fill the bill.
Stagflation will pauper us, leave us with nil.
Just like in the song called "Government Cheese",
When we’re all beggars, we’re easily pleased.
A banana republic is how it will end,
With Barack as caudillo, an endless downtrend.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: Barack Obama, doggerel, Obamacare
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Jack Be Nimble on Obamacare
Barack is nimble and he's quick.
He'll give you care when you are sick,
Unless, of course the cost's too high,
Which is when he'll let you die.
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He'll give you care when you are sick,
Unless, of course the cost's too high,
Which is when he'll let you die.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: Barack Obama, doggerel, Obamacare
Friday, September 04, 2009
The Zimbabwe Option
Power Line points to a Jeffrey Roger Hummel article discussing our future.
According to the article, we have three options:
1. We can try to get off cheap on repaying treasury securities through comparatively modest inflation.
2. We can default on treasury securities.
or
3. We can adopt the Zimbabwe option, repudiating the national debt indirectly through hyper inflation.
Mr Hummel is optimistic enough to believe the political class would avoid option 3 and does not believe option 1 will work. That leaves us with option 2. I don't know whether option 1 would work, but Mr. Hummel offers plausible reasons why not.
No option is good. Option 1 would severely damage the American economy. Option 2 would put an end to America as we know it, dramatically reducing our standard of living. Option 3 would leave us streaming into Mexico, looking for something to eat. My seat-of-the-pants guess is something in between 2 and 3.
Oh frabjous day. Obama is The One.
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According to the article, we have three options:
1. We can try to get off cheap on repaying treasury securities through comparatively modest inflation.
2. We can default on treasury securities.
or
3. We can adopt the Zimbabwe option, repudiating the national debt indirectly through hyper inflation.
Mr Hummel is optimistic enough to believe the political class would avoid option 3 and does not believe option 1 will work. That leaves us with option 2. I don't know whether option 1 would work, but Mr. Hummel offers plausible reasons why not.
No option is good. Option 1 would severely damage the American economy. Option 2 would put an end to America as we know it, dramatically reducing our standard of living. Option 3 would leave us streaming into Mexico, looking for something to eat. My seat-of-the-pants guess is something in between 2 and 3.
Oh frabjous day. Obama is The One.
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Labels: Barack Obama
Thursday, September 03, 2009
The Role of the IRS in Obamacare
[I]f the plan envisioned by President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats is enacted, the primary federal bureaucracy responsible for implementing and enforcing national health care will be an old and familiar one: the Internal Revenue Service.Giving a new perspective on the use of the word "internal" in the Internal Revenue Service.
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Labels: Obamacare
Coinage of the Day
Daniel Henninger gets it with the term "lumpen bureaucratariat," as in:
In short, the lumpen electorate works, and the lumpen bureaucratariat spends. They get away with it because they have perfected the illusion that no human hand causes these commitments. The payroll tax just happens. Entitlements are "off-budget," presumably in the hands of God. This is government without the responsibility of governance.To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: quote of the day, Tea Party
Use of the term "Death Panels" is a vile GOP distortion?
The Telegraph reports:
Defenders of Obamacare will say it is my own personality defect that I cannot put aside such trivial concerns and rest assured that:
Obama loves me, this I know,
For Pelosi tells me so.
All of us to him belong
For we are weak and he is strong.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.But fears of death panels in Obamacare are fear-mongering distortions? If the Dems want to hold up European health care systems are the model to which they aspire, do they not have to address the negative aspects of those systems?
But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn.
Defenders of Obamacare will say it is my own personality defect that I cannot put aside such trivial concerns and rest assured that:
Obama loves me, this I know,
For Pelosi tells me so.
All of us to him belong
For we are weak and he is strong.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: Barack Obama, doggerel, Obamacare
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Tax All the Rubes in the Wildwood
Some may be familiar with the hymn titled "Little Brown Church in the Vale." It's one of the old-time, pleasant sounding hymns that, ironically in light of the lyrics, I recall from my childhood. And it has inspired doggerel:
Tax, tax, tax, tax,
Tax all the rubes in the wildwood,
Tax all the rubes in the vale.
No sport is as dear to a Congresshood
As taxing all the rubes in the vale.
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Tax, tax, tax, tax,
Tax all the rubes in the wildwood,
Tax all the rubes in the vale.
No sport is as dear to a Congresshood
As taxing all the rubes in the vale.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Contrasting Obama and LBJ
Keith Hennessey writes of how poor leadership from the Obama administration has contributed to the legislative problems in enacting Obamacare.
I am profoundly grateful that, unlike LBJ, Barack Obama never bothered with the drudge work of getting legislation enacted.
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I think much of the chaos we are seeing results from a combination of:Contrast that with Lyndon Johnson's approach to getting Great Society legislation enacted. A consummate leader in the Senate, Johnson's personality and skill were major factors in the success of his legislative agenda. I was young and naive enough at the time to be excited about the quantity of reform legislation pouring out of Washington.
Presidential indecision about which path to take and a lack of preparedness for the different paths;
an ever-changing message from the White House;
and a flawed set of policies and substantive arguments to which American citizens are reacting harshly.
I am profoundly grateful that, unlike LBJ, Barack Obama never bothered with the drudge work of getting legislation enacted.
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Labels: Barack Obama, Obamacare
Sunday, August 30, 2009
A Missing Moral Connection
Apparently Teddy Kennedy liked and laughed at Chappaquiddick jokes.
I can understand though not condone that he panicked after the accident, perhaps leaving Ms. Kopechne struggling vainly for life. I can understand though not condone that he later used political power and family connections to avoid legal responsibility for his derelict conduct. But I cannot understand laughing at the events after the fact, much less condone it.
Human weakness is understandable. The perverseness of finding humor in one's own responsibility for the accidental death of another is incomprehensible.
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I can understand though not condone that he panicked after the accident, perhaps leaving Ms. Kopechne struggling vainly for life. I can understand though not condone that he later used political power and family connections to avoid legal responsibility for his derelict conduct. But I cannot understand laughing at the events after the fact, much less condone it.
Human weakness is understandable. The perverseness of finding humor in one's own responsibility for the accidental death of another is incomprehensible.
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Labels: Kennedy
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Blowing Smoke About Detainee Interrogation
The techniques we used to extract information from al Qaeda prisoners has been a source of continuing controversy. One recent development is the disclosure that we apparently blew cigar smoke into the face of some of them. Well . . . .
Our doing enhanced interrogation
Is, we’re told, beyond explanation.
Among our crimes, and this is no joke,
In terrorists’ faces, they blew cigar smoke.
This is a thing we surely should rue then,
Unless, of course, the cigars were Cuban.
If that was the case, and they did it for free,
Please ask them to come and do it to me.
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Our doing enhanced interrogation
Is, we’re told, beyond explanation.
Among our crimes, and this is no joke,
In terrorists’ faces, they blew cigar smoke.
This is a thing we surely should rue then,
Unless, of course, the cigars were Cuban.
If that was the case, and they did it for free,
Please ask them to come and do it to me.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: doggerel, interrogation, jihad
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Nancy Pelosi Really Should Go See
The link is to a blog post on Kenneth Gladney's beating by Democrat-supporting SEIU thugs. Herewith some doggerel:
Nancy Pelosi should really go see
Who comes to a town hall,
But probably soon she’d turn loose her goons,
Thus turning it into a brawl.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Nancy Pelosi should really go see
Who comes to a town hall,
But probably soon she’d turn loose her goons,
Thus turning it into a brawl.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: doggerel, Nancy Pelosi, Tea Party, town halls
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Yanqui Doodle Hugo
Hugo Chavez struts around
And crows just like a rooster.
He thumbs his nose at the U.S.
And is his own best booster.
Refrain:
Hugo Chavez keep it up,
Hugo, the dear leader.
Keep on blaming someone else,
Or you will hit your nadir.
Pose for pictures; take a bow;
Shut down another paper.
Blame the Yanquis for your poor.
Try to make them quaver.
Refrain
Arm the rebels right next door;
Complain about aggression.
You may think that these conflict,
But it’s all just projection.
Refrain
Rattle missiles; rattle swords.
Rattle all your marbles.
Rattle anything you like,
But all your rants are garbles.
Refrain
Venezuela is his toy;
He sets who wins and loses.
If you are even half-way smart,
You’ll do just what he chooses.
Refrain
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And crows just like a rooster.
He thumbs his nose at the U.S.
And is his own best booster.
Refrain:
Hugo Chavez keep it up,
Hugo, the dear leader.
Keep on blaming someone else,
Or you will hit your nadir.
Pose for pictures; take a bow;
Shut down another paper.
Blame the Yanquis for your poor.
Try to make them quaver.
Refrain
Arm the rebels right next door;
Complain about aggression.
You may think that these conflict,
But it’s all just projection.
Refrain
Rattle missiles; rattle swords.
Rattle all your marbles.
Rattle anything you like,
But all your rants are garbles.
Refrain
Venezuela is his toy;
He sets who wins and loses.
If you are even half-way smart,
You’ll do just what he chooses.
Refrain
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Labels: doggerel, Hugo Chavez
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Hail, All Hail Barack ObaMA
Dissent is not merely a schism.
It's the highest form of patriotism,
Except, of course, when it is not.
That's when the Dems are the ones who are got.
Dissing Obama is one of the basest
Things ever done by a GOP racist.
Bush was like Hitler and also a moron,
But Barack is a genius, an angel, and so on.
Barack will save you from insurance greed,
And give you the health care he thinks that you need.
Don't ever you worry; there's no cause to sigh.
Barack will know when it's your time to die.
Obstructing Obama is not very nice.
Don't you impede his workers' paradise.
Hail, all hail Barack ObaMA,
Who will lead us all to Shangri-la-la.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
It's the highest form of patriotism,
Except, of course, when it is not.
That's when the Dems are the ones who are got.
Dissing Obama is one of the basest
Things ever done by a GOP racist.
Bush was like Hitler and also a moron,
But Barack is a genius, an angel, and so on.
Barack will save you from insurance greed,
And give you the health care he thinks that you need.
Don't ever you worry; there's no cause to sigh.
Barack will know when it's your time to die.
Obstructing Obama is not very nice.
Don't you impede his workers' paradise.
Hail, all hail Barack ObaMA,
Who will lead us all to Shangri-la-la.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: Barack Obama, dissent, doggerel, Obamacare
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Amusingly and Pithily-Made Point of the Day
"I'm not sure that the degree to which someone agrees with me is a reliable indicator of how great they are." Orin Kerr
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Labels: law, quote of the day, Supreme Court
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
When it's hot and dry in Texas
When it’s hot and dry in Texas, it’s hot and dry for sure.
The cattle turn to skeletons; the dust is fine and pure.
The sun will bake your skin on through, yep, right on down to bone.
The roosters give up crowing, and the goats can hardly moan.
You see mirages dancing on the highway up ahead.
If you count on them for water, you are going to wind up dead.
The rivers stop their flowing, and the tanks get filled with dust,
And the hogs’ll eat on prickly pear, just doing what they must.
The crops all shrivel in the fields, just turning brown and crisp.
If you get a cotton boll, it’s nothing but a whisp.
The sorghum won’t keep mice alive, the corn is worthless, too.
Farming dry in Texas is a thing you’ll come to rue.
The ranchers keep on struggling, asking God for rain,
But the bankers look for payments, feeling their own pain.
There ain’t two ways about it. When the weather’s hot and dry,
In the parched dust of Texas, things are going to die.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
The cattle turn to skeletons; the dust is fine and pure.
The sun will bake your skin on through, yep, right on down to bone.
The roosters give up crowing, and the goats can hardly moan.
You see mirages dancing on the highway up ahead.
If you count on them for water, you are going to wind up dead.
The rivers stop their flowing, and the tanks get filled with dust,
And the hogs’ll eat on prickly pear, just doing what they must.
The crops all shrivel in the fields, just turning brown and crisp.
If you get a cotton boll, it’s nothing but a whisp.
The sorghum won’t keep mice alive, the corn is worthless, too.
Farming dry in Texas is a thing you’ll come to rue.
The ranchers keep on struggling, asking God for rain,
But the bankers look for payments, feeling their own pain.
There ain’t two ways about it. When the weather’s hot and dry,
In the parched dust of Texas, things are going to die.
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Coinage of the Day
"Postalizing health care." From James Taranto.
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Labels: Obamacare
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Of Teaching to Fish and Giving a Fish
If you teach a man to fish, you give him the opportunity for self sufficiency so that he may choose to be independent.
If you give a man a fish, you may increase your own power and prestige by encouraging him to be dependent on you.
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If you give a man a fish, you may increase your own power and prestige by encouraging him to be dependent on you.
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Labels: cultural divide, Obamacare
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Miscellaneous Doggerel
I recently vacationed in New Orleans and was reminded that NOLA is an acronym for New Orleans, Louisiana. Reflecting on that and the woman's name "Nola," I wrote some doggerel. My mind then turned to my hometown, which is sometimes referred to as COSA (City of San Antonio). Then a friend suggested the first line of a limerick and things went downhill from there.
Nola from NOLA liked to drink cola;
While sitting out on the levee,
But later a gator snuck up and ate her;
Wow! Man, that story’s so heavy.
Rosa from COSA drank a mimosa,
While sitting out on the river,
But the spider beside her could not abide her,
And bit her, thus causing a shiver.
There was an old lady who swallowed a fly
That laid all its eggs before it could die.
The maggots all hatched
When the fly was dispatched.
And crawled out her ear in July.
There once was a man from Vesuvius,
Who liked to drink Orange Julius.
He ordered a cup
And drank it all up
And said that it was the grooviest.
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Nola from NOLA liked to drink cola;
While sitting out on the levee,
But later a gator snuck up and ate her;
Wow! Man, that story’s so heavy.
Rosa from COSA drank a mimosa,
While sitting out on the river,
But the spider beside her could not abide her,
And bit her, thus causing a shiver.
There was an old lady who swallowed a fly
That laid all its eggs before it could die.
The maggots all hatched
When the fly was dispatched.
And crawled out her ear in July.
There once was a man from Vesuvius,
Who liked to drink Orange Julius.
He ordered a cup
And drank it all up
And said that it was the grooviest.
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Labels: doggerel
Thursday, July 02, 2009
There is no God but Gaia
The Earth is getting hotter, and the seas will drown us all;
The Earth is desiccating, and the rains will never fall;
The desert is expanding, and none of us can stop it;
For there is no god but Gaia, and the Albert is her prophet.
The desert is expanding, and none of us can stop it;
For there is no god but Gaia, and the Albert is her prophet.
Albert preaches sternly that the planet soon will die;
You must change your way of living, for the Albert would not lie.
But as to Albert’s own high living, he will never stop it,
For there is no god but Gaia, and the Albert is her prophet.
You must change your way of living, for the Albert would not lie.
But as to Albert’s own high living, he will never stop it,
For there is no god but Gaia, and the Albert is her prophet.
Sacrifices must be placed upon our Gaia’s altar;
Killing virgins will not work, but you should never falter.
The sin is greenhouse gases; you must work to stop it,
For there is no god but Gaia, and the Albert is her prophet.
Agriculture’s doomed, because the crops will never grow,
Except for GM crops, of course, and those you’d best not sow;
Eating kills the planet, which is why that you must stop it,
For there is no god but Gaia, and the Albert is her prophet.
Driving cars has got to stop to hold down CO2,
No matter if it ends the jobs performed by such as you.
Your breath’s a greenhouse gas, so get on board and stop it,
For there is no god but Gaia, and the Albert is her prophet.
Cap and trade will shut us down, destroying what we've built;
Embracing that's a dandy way to mitigate our guilt;
Don't plan to keep on living; you have surely got to stop it,
For there is no god but Gaia, and the Albert is her prophet.
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Labels: doggerel, global warming
Monday, June 30, 2008
Blogger Censoring Anti-Obama Blogs?
At Protein Wisdom, Dan Collins notes an apparent trend at Blogger to block anti-Obama sites. This blog hasn't been active, but rest assured it is anti-Obama.
I see Obama as a socialist. He will increase the tax burden, take over many parts of the economy, and regulate away the market mechanism in other parts. We will be much poorer after eight years of him, but he may nevertheless be loved, because he will rail against evil corporations and compound the problem by messing further in the economy. Obama's socialism will do for us what Peronismo did for Argentina. And in counter point to "Bush's preemptive wars," Obama will preemptively capitulate to America's enemies. We're in for a rough stretch, one from which America might never recover. Alas.
McCain is a bad candidate from my perspective. It is a measure of the low esteem in which I hold Obama that I have the slightest bit of enthusiasm about McCain.
So, do I get blocked? Or I am too low profile? (Lord knows I'm about as low profile as you can get.)
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
I see Obama as a socialist. He will increase the tax burden, take over many parts of the economy, and regulate away the market mechanism in other parts. We will be much poorer after eight years of him, but he may nevertheless be loved, because he will rail against evil corporations and compound the problem by messing further in the economy. Obama's socialism will do for us what Peronismo did for Argentina. And in counter point to "Bush's preemptive wars," Obama will preemptively capitulate to America's enemies. We're in for a rough stretch, one from which America might never recover. Alas.
McCain is a bad candidate from my perspective. It is a measure of the low esteem in which I hold Obama that I have the slightest bit of enthusiasm about McCain.
So, do I get blocked? Or I am too low profile? (Lord knows I'm about as low profile as you can get.)
To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Significant Contributor to Global Warming
Drudge reports (Drudge changes his links, so the above link likely won't be good for long) Albert Gore as proclaiming:
Significant contributor. No doubt as are trans fats and voting Republican, all of which likely in his view should be banned.
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Cigarette smoking is a "significant contributor to global warming!"
Significant contributor. No doubt as are trans fats and voting Republican, all of which likely in his view should be banned.
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Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Bumper Sticker Foreign Policy
I have recently seen several cars with this bumper sticker:
"Yeehah! is not a foreign policy."
Neither is "Let's be nice to them, and maybe they won't hurt us as badly."
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"Yeehah! is not a foreign policy."
Neither is "Let's be nice to them, and maybe they won't hurt us as badly."
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Sunday, December 11, 2005
Suspension of Blog
I regret that I must suspend this blog. I do not know whether I will pick it back up some day, but I will not be posting in the near future. Thank you to those who have been regular readers.
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To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Unattended Children Will be Given an Expresso and a Free Puppy
A sign I saw recently that I thought was amusing.
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Monday, November 28, 2005
Saddam's Complaints
Reuters gives an account of Saddam's complaints:
They brought me here to the door and I was handcuffed. They cannot bring in the defendant in handcuffs," Saddam rejoined.Where's the Geneva Convention when you need it? Handcuffs, stairs, and a lack of writing implements. All for killing a few thousand people. My, my, my.
. . .
Saddam complained he had had to walk up four flights of stairs because of a broken elevator in the courthouse.
. . .
Saddam then argued with the judge about his rights and his jailers' action in taking away his pen and paper.
The Butcher of Baghdad has lost his pen.To reply, email texthepontificator at yahoo dot com.
The Americans took it. Oh! What a sin!
They made the old coot walk up some stairs,
And the handcuffs impair putting on airs.
Boy, once a dictator has been deposed,
They shove the disgrace right up his nose.
He lectured the judge, demanding his rights;
He's still the President in his own sights.
But one day the piper will come with his bill,
And then Saddam's voice will start to get shrill.
The man may beg, he may even wheedle,
But the murderous old bastard will still get the needle.
Labels: doggerel
