Otdel, I had not thought of it that way. I too loved the book, and have read it many times. But I find that I just couldn't stomach all the violence. Me.

One of my favorites is <i>Citizen of the Galaxy</i>, another juvie book.

Never read it. Who wrote it?

Heinlein. One of his juvenalia. Also <i>Starman Jones</i>, which has a computer which is so primitive that it's hilarious. Worth the read though. Frankly I like his young novels better than the adult ones, excepting Harsh Mistress. The old ones seem almost trying to be cool in the sense of a film noir in the future. Tunnel in the Sky is good. Double Star, quite good, rings the changes on the old Dorian Gray story. Glory Road is good too. Space Cadet, the Rolling Stones--very nice that one. Some of the same characters as in Harsh Mistress. Red Planet, Have Spacesuit Will Travel. That's one of the ultimate bright high-school geek stories.

Ah. Such memories. While remembering I visited Amazon and since my old copies are falling apart or have fallen apart some selected new ones are coming.

Have you ever read Harry Harrison's Deathworld Trilogy? It involves a grifter hired by a people who live on a planet where everything is biologically designed to kill. Even the bunkers they live in have to be constantly upgraded to keep out the acidic molds that grow on them.

Why hire a grifter? To be a politician of sorts!

Brilliant story with a nice "reversal of roles" romance (she's a badass, he thought he was...)


Harry's Stainless Steel Rat Series is excellent as well. When the main character of Jim diGriz needs to break out his sons early from prison to find their mother, he tells the warden the Tax Bureau has got her.

Suddenly the boys are outside with spare equipment and ready to go!

I've virtually quit reading fiction at my advanced age; I find that I've seen enough strangeness in my life that fiction somehow pales. I've told the story elsewhere of the screeching queen in the El Paso hotel. Still, 25 years on, get shivers. That's how I can look at Miss Nansky without crossing my legs and holding the jewels.

But I am waiting on new versions of some of the Heinleins.

Another guilty pleasure is the Nero Wolfe stories; I got a lot of my vocabulary from there, and a lot of the rest from Bill Buckley. A&E did some really good ones produced by, and starring, Timothy Hutton, but they didn't take off. It's the setting that I like. The ultimate in conservatives. Things are done because they're <i>right</i>. Things don't change just for the sake of change. People are bound utterly by ethics. The opposite of that Fletch series; you an always tell the leftist in a writer because he is always gaming something.

I'm currently exploring my latest idée fixe that most people are searching for some sort of salvation and it doesn't matter if it's supernatural or secular or even human, which explains cult leaders. Some of the reading that I've done, one in particular, <i>Slavecraft</i>, a frightening book, is about a man who wants to be a slave to another man, and it's how he found, get ready, his "inner slave." He wanted someone he could trust to do his thinking for him, to take care of him, to make sure that he would not fail in life, as we all ultimately do.

Sound anything like the Obamania?

It does indeed. I hold that most people (he was voted by a majority, ya' know...) want this regardless of their conscious thoughts.

"Calgon (ACORN), take me away!" personified.

Have you ever been to KY? I seem to remember you mentioning Erlanger once upon a dream...? That locale is VERY close to me, relatively speaking. Even our Dems here are saner than the rest of the known Obamaverse. Says a lot about a small town insular mentality versus the globally aware neopolitans.

Yes, but when I was 18. My grandfather was the youngest son of a sheriff named Stephens, I think it was--possibly bums. Don't know.

Years go my parents, being conservative, were game for the Republicans when Texas was a one-party state. A friend, a conservative Democrat, said, "No! Don't abandon the Democrats to the lunatics in the People's Republic of Austin!" He was at the time the dean of the Texas House. There are some exceptions, like the moonbat Sheila Jackson Leigh, who questioned NASA about the mission to Mars: "Will you see the flag that you left there before?"

Commissar Theocritus wrote:Another guilty pleasure is the Nero Wolfe stories;

Nero Wolfe was my first real foray into detective novels. I'd stay awake at night there in Michigan listening with lights off to a read of his novels on a local radio station. After that it was Dashiell Hammett and Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christy; then my bro got into Heinlein and Niven and Cherryh and I delved into that realm too.

Commissar Theocritus wrote: I'm currently exploring my latest idée fixe that most people are searching for some sort of salvation and it doesn't matter if it's supernatural or secular or even human, which explains cult leaders. Some of the reading that I've done, one in particular, <i>Slavecraft</i>, a frightening book, is about a man who wants to be a slave to another man, and it's how he found, get ready, his "inner slave." He wanted someone he could trust to do his thinking for him, to take care of him, to make sure that he would not fail in life, as we all ultimately do.

Sound anything like the Obamania?

By Thoth, sounds like that graphic example of Armin Meiwes in Germany. Disgusting. But, then, proof that Aristotle was correct in his opinion of the natural slave being someone who, by choice, relinquishes his own free will and becomes incapable of governing himself. "People can only handle so much reality," I think Orwell said, and as a race we seem prone to the senseless, sedentary, and demeaning instead of the hardwork of thinking and doing.

At least Comrade Meiwes provide the inspiration for a pretty awesome Rammstein song...

-OV

Meiwes's victim wanted the extinction of his life. This fellow wanted to submit, and yes, in the fashion of Aristotle. Looking back on it I see that everyone I was involved with wanted in some sense to submit to me and just today I saw, with a blinding flash of light, something that I had ignored, or couldn't see, for years. It's been 25 years since I was involved with him, or will be March 11 (disgustingly good head for that party trick with dates). I really think that he wanted me to treat him like an animal, which simply nauseated me, and still does. But he'd make animal noises.

Liberal Democrat, of course. State bureaucrat now. Intelligent, but emotionally about three, which explains I think a lot.

Today I was talking to the contractor who will remove that wretched latticework over the courtyard at the Rancho, and his wife came along. Both working class, which I refuse to sneer at. She said that she thought that liberals were childish, demanding things just like a baby. And it is true. It is true.

Dr. Lyle Rossiter, a shrink, delivered himself of the verdict that liberals are mentally ill. <a href="https://www.jessicaswell.com/mt/archive ... php">Grist for my mill.</a>

Rush said he'd continue until everyone agreed with him. A joke of course; people wanting to submit won't. Conservatism is the belief in self-sufficiency and as long as there are people who desire submission more than they love their pride, there will be people who may agree with him, because he leads, or will more likely agree with people who promise the security of not having to think or be responsible.

----

Love Dorothy Sayers; they've released the 70s BBC series of Wimsey staring Ian Carmichael. Terrible video and audio quality, but fun nonetheless. I've been to Europe only once, and as a bon voyage gift a friend gave me Chandler and Hammett and so my memories of those mean streets in California are intermingled with Parisian hotel rooms and Swiss inns--with curly-headed men in lederhosen drunkenly yodeling, and waitresses who spoke only German phonetically singing along with Jerry Jeff Walker.

And one time in Mexico City I ran out of something to read. Never happened before or since. An English
bookstore on the Paseo de la Reforma had <i>Red Harvest</i> with the Continental Op. While moving I came on that book and the flood of memories...

Red Harvest - been meaning to dust that off and read it (I horde books in proper Dragonish way and take them out later to read) - right now reading Amity Shlaes (sp.?) book "The Forgotten Man" = good stuff. Also "A Storm In Flanders" about WW1 (in addition to the typical schoolwork, articles & texts).

The Ian Carmichael D. Sayers is fairly good, but my fave is Edward Petherbridge; much better characterization of Wimsey and closer in appearance - also the Harriet Vain in that series is superior and Bunter is a great deal more fun. I also am a fan of Evelyn Waugh and have enjoyed the Brideshead Revisited which my wife gave me for Christmas; poor Charles and miserable Sebastian with the bear - Rex Mottram believing there were monkeys in the Vatican - and the horrible predatory Anthony Blanche. What a great version that was with Irons and Andrews. I don't suspect the recent film was worth a piss in a pot but I'll probably try and see it anyway.

I recommend, if you will, Handful of Dust and Bright Young Things as the two other great adaptations of his works. Handful stars Kristen Scott Thomas and Rupert Graves while the Bright Young Things is Steven Fry's excellent adaptation of "Vile Bodies".

The list goes on... Grahame Greene, Flannery O'Connor, Oscar Wilde...

Brenda and the Beaver from "Handful of Dust"
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Alec Guinness as the menacing "Mr Todd"
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I gotta stop posting videos...

Thanks for the Edward Petherbridge recommendation; Bezos will send me another air kiss in a minute. I do love Waugh and had a very limited correspondence with his son Bron, but who wrote out of politeness and not out of interest in me. Evelyn's sixth child was named Septimus.

You'll laugh at this, but in 1979 I read <i>Brideshead Revisited</i>, just out of college and entirely missed the homoerotic bits, and I was in the middle of my puppy love. I kid you not. I've wondered about that for years. Too interested in other things and blinded by them? Or was I so involved with the warp and woof of my existence that I didn't notice it?

I have that new DVD but haven't seen it. I just reread <i>Scoop</i> and found it a great deal of fun.

And then there's Wodehouse... Jonathan Cecil does some marvelous narrations of the Bertie and Jeeves novels and if you can get a copy of <i>The Last Salmon of Doubt</i> you'll hear Douglas Adams talk about Sir Plum. Unfortunately when I moved to Vita Nova that CD set grew lets and walked off...

Otdel, I've read and enjoyed the Harry Harrison stuff you mentioned. He also did a nice alternate history trilogy called The Hammer and the Cross set in the 800s.

Are you in KY? I'm down in the Southeast corner just off I-75.

Erlanger? The military relics show?

Commissar Theocritus wrote:
And then there's Wodehouse... Jonathan Cecil does some marvelous narrations of the Bertie and Jeeves novels and if you can get a copy of <i>The Last Salmon of Doubt</i> you'll hear Douglas Adams talk about Sir Plum. Unfortunately when I moved to Vita Nova that CD set grew lets and walked off...

Have you seen the Steven Fry Wodehouse series? Marvelous. I had a priest buddy down there in Corpus who was part of the Wodehouse society. When hurricanes would approach the coast they'd all get together and play indoor rugby. Wierdos!

I bought the Steven Fry/Hugh Laurie series on DVD a year ago and it sits winking at me on a shelf at the Rancho. I have watched a few of them. The problem is that with Wodehouse it's hard to remember how the plots go. Sir Plum, working in New York, said that he started by typing and sticking the pages to the wall, and as soon as he thought he was going insane it all came together.

I recall being impressed by its accuracy, insofar as I could determine. During the dinner at Berkley Mansions for Sir Roderick Glossop to see Bertie's suitability for marriage to their daughter Honoria, "with a laugh like a freight train going through a tunnel," Jeeves paid street urchins go put cats in Bertie's bedroom, knowing that the eminent loony doctor (who would sit on the head of your Uncle Fred who was seeing things) hated cats. The television showed three. Plum had 24.

Listing to Jonathan Cecil read <i>The Code of the Woosters</i> however is simply sidesplitting. Sir Roderick Spode (why did Plum hate the name Roderick?), the fascist in black footer-bags, patterned obviously on Oswald Moseley who married one of those rather dreadful Mitford women, said, "Wooster, I'm going to butter the lawn with you and dance on you with hob-nailed boots. And I have brought a pair of hob-nailed boots for such a purpose."

I recall driving on vacation somewhere in Oklahoma listening to Gussie Fink-Nottle's school treat. The children were mimicking a London review in which the girls threw oranges into the audience. They were cotton-wool oranges in London; Gussie had the children throw real ones. The tough eggs [sic] threw them back, and one orange hit Bertie in the nose and things got dim. Inimitable of course. I laughed so hard I had to pull over to keep from being run over by the trucks, which get even stupider on the roads of Oklahoma, which were last paved by WPA labor in the Great Depression.

Commissar Theocritus wrote:I laughed so hard I had to pull over to keep from being run over by the trucks, which get even stupider on the roads of Oklahoma, which were last paved by WPA labor in the Great Depression.

Go Go Gadget STIMULUS!! Yes Comrades, 30 of the 700+ billion CEU bill, originally proposed as an infrastructure repair bill, are in some vague way connected to infrastructure. You too might see a line of modern day Joads toiling away on an asphalt Lane of Progress!

-OV

Ivan Betinov, Yep, I'm just off I-75/71 in the Cincinnati Area (Big Hint Where...).

I looked for Harry Harrison today, and of all his prolific writing, he is hard to find. I shudder to say it, but I think that he is falling out of favor. People are probably more interested in Dan Brown or Anne Rice. The vacuous and vain over the thinly veiled satire and social critique.

Progress, eh?

Commissar Theocritus,

The reason why Wodehouse is so hard to keep track of plot-wise, is his usage of the same plot for every story. This is not a negative, in fact, he used it to great effect. He mastered the idea of using a simple plot device consistantly without ever making it seem stretched or tedious. Bertie (or his friends) gets into a funny and socially damaging situation, Bertie's Aunt complains, Jeeves saves the day. Works every time. Important lesson in there for Hollywood I think, since this is the year of the remake...

>:(

And add to that my strong suspicion that lots of the novels were serialized first and then put together in novels. His cast is perfect as it is; why do we need more?

I didn't read any of Sir Plum until I'd nearly memorized the short stories of Saki. A strange thing for a kid in Texas to have more of an understanding of life in the privileged English upper classes at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries than of his own civil war. But of course I assumed that I'd be one of the upper crust, which my heritage wouldn't support. Wonder if that's kin to the moonbats who think that they'd be in the limousines riding in the center lanes of Moscow streets.

Interesting comparison, but for one major difference:

At some point you "came to".

Right?

Or did you actually *gasp* work for it?

Er, and I say this in camera, and don't tell Meow, I, gasped, er, worked. Some. Not much.

Your secret is safe with me comrade.

Oh wait, this is the...um...internet...

Damn...

I'll have Sasha re-educate me later, I promise...

I alkways start to laugh when I pass the sign for "Big Bone Lick" when I'm headed that way.

My favorite Hugh Laurie role(s) are George the Prince Regent in "Blackadder the Third" and Leftenant George in "Blackadder Goes Fourth."

I used to listen to Bob and Tom and they had a novelty song, "Paging Richard Smoker. Paging Big Dick Smoker."

During the McCarthy witch-hunts (not bad in conception, only in execution; those moonbats really were there and getting entrenched), the mood in the Pentagon was such that they wouldn't eat a hot dog except from the side. Now on campuses I read hand-holding is considered more intimate than a Monica. I know a woman who thinks that kissing is more intimate than sex, but she might be blowing sunshine up my ass--she wanted to marry me and we did spend some time kissing. She's a tenured professor of Russian surrounded by 200-proof moonbat feminazis who have convinced her that the cards are stacked against her by males. Translation: do nothing and bitch all you want.

Innostranyi Otdel wrote:I looked for Harry Harrison today, and of all his prolific writing, he is hard to find. I shudder to say it, but I think that he is falling out of favor. People are probably more interested in Dan Brown or Anne Rice. The vacuous and vain over the thinly veiled satire and social critique.

Progress, eh?

I don't live in the US. Who's Dan Brown, the DaVinci Code guy?

Though I've never read her, Anne Rice writes about vampires, right? For readers from the Me Generation on, what's not to like? Perpetual youth and great power sustained by sucking everyone else dry. They all deserved it, anyway. Why, it's like a political platform.

You're a Cinci chili man, then, I assume. Skyline?

Ivan Betinov wrote:I alkways start to laugh when I pass the sign for "Big Bone Lick" when I'm headed that way.

Have you by any chance entered southern Indiana for French Lick, Floyd's Knobs, and Gnaw Bone?

Representative Pelosinski wrote:Tax cuts as stimulus has failed before. Please ignore the almost 30 years of unprecidented growth beginning under the Evil dictator Ronald Reagan.

-His O'liness (WaPo OP Ed)

What? But Paul Krugman (PBUH) in the New York Times (PBUThem) said Reagan caused terrible things, undoing all Carter did, just to push the country into recession for the fun of it.

Have you by any chance entered southern Indiana for French Lick, Floyd's Knobs, and Gnaw Bone?

No, but I have been to Alabama for Intercourse.

Comrade T-

Yessir, Dan Brown is the Dumb Vinci Code guy...

Anne Rice irks me not for the subject material, but rather the handling. ALL her vampires are gay.

I'm sorry, but if I was granted eternal (or near to) life, I don't think I'd wake up one night and suddenly say, "Hunh, I wonder what pole tastes like?"

I'd be content with the simple pleasures of a new batch of women every night.

Yep, I'd be just fine with that.

Oh, and yes, Skyline is good, but I prefer Gold Star Chili.

Anne Rice's first book, or the first I read, was <i>Cry to Heaven</i> about castrati. I learned a lot about that practice, which was as much political as musical. Gore Vidal in <i>Creation</i> had a very amusing/horrifying story about the Babylonian civil service and castrati.

Rice said that she was a gay man in a woman's body. Precious. Her son is a novelist, and he is gay. I know for a fact, having been around that block, that you're not recruited to be gay.

I read a couple of her vampire novels in the early 80s and found them to be rather hothouse. Straight men simply don't take the time to worry about all the little things that Rice does. Thank god. I will reprint a deed to get the spacing right, or to put in a missing period. Which has no practical effect on the world. There is something rather inward about homosexuality, either male or female, and I'm convinced that gays have elevated a lot of things in the world (Alan Turing, Tchaikovsky, Alexander the Great) but the world needs straight men who simply don't have time for a lot of the navel gazing.

I saw a documentary about a woman who became, insofar as she could, a man. The testosterone, he said, did amazing things. First it let him just do things without regarding his emotions. He learned to compartmentalize, which is said as a sneer, but I think is a necessary survival skill.

For an interesting read, try Self-made Man by Nora Vincent.

VERY intriguing. She goes in drag as a man and "infiltrates" our lives (even in a monastery!).

She pulls it off for a year, even the relationships with women (she's a lesbian), and it gives her a new perspective and a large amount of respect for us XY chromo types.

Kind of refreshing to hear a onetime Femi-nazi apologize for her gender.

Her experience scarred her though, she had to check herself "in" after. Bad case of ID crisis.

I highly recommend it.

Innostranyi Otdel wrote:Oh, and yes, Skyline is good, but I prefer Gold Star Chili.

Screw that, Comrade. I lived in Fairfield for 4 years and neither one of those capitalist ventures passed my lips more than once. EWWWWWWWWWW! I represent the Northwest side, Biatch! Der' be coffee n' mountains fo shizzle! Ye ye!!!

Either you like the "secret" ingredient in Cincy-style chili, or you don't...

Otdel, thanks. I just ordered it. This reminds me of a man who married a woman and was astonished that they'd never had sex. Coitus. Turns out she was a man, and he didn't get it when she wanted power tools for her birthday. I'm not making this up.

Being a Texan I have very definite ideas of chili. No beans. Perhaps some cheese as the only addition.

AbecedariusRex wrote:I saw it all again on HULU the other night.

I love the 6000SUX and when the black dude gets one and the main baddie blows it up with that tank buster! Priceless. My favorite line, though, "Dick, you're fired!" Robo: "thank you" blam blam blam blam blam blam blam!


That Tank buster was known at the time as the Barret Arms Light 50 assault cannon.

Now used by armies around the globe as a sniper rifle - M107, M82A Barret .50 cal BMG variant is available [for now] to be purchased by citizens...

<img width="550" src="https://www.barrettrifles.com/images/rifles/82a1.gif">

Ivan Betinov wrote:

Have you by any chance entered southern Indiana for French Lick, Floyd's Knobs, and Gnaw Bone?

No, but I have been to Alabama for Intercourse.

Oh, my. I believe there's an Intercourse, PA, in an Amish-heavy area. I read their population has doubled over the last decade or two. Hmm.

A progressive former colleague of mine told me that years ago he had driven to Alabama for a conference or something. At the state line, along with the official state welcome, was another that said in effect "200,000 Southern Baptists welcome you!" He said he interpreted it as "200,000 Southern bastards."

Or, "The farmers of Plains, Georgia apologize for Jimmy Carter."

Innostranyi Otdel wrote:For an interesting read, try Self-made Man by Nora Vincent.

I shall put it on my reading list, which sadly contains so many books I know I'll never get around to. Perhaps the movie Into Great Silence about the lives of French monks would go well with it. I've not seen the movie, but I am interested in it. Apparently heavy on silence and scenery but, well, of course it would be.

Project Gutenberg's free etexts are very addictive and the supply keeps growing. I downloaded and converted Aristotle's Ethics the other night. I recommend their RSS feed of new additions. Amazing what pops up. I tossed them a few dollars again out of gratitude.

When Obama (well, anyone) says we (not I) need to fund education, I want to see the money (that I cannot staunch) go to PG instead of Big Ed and teachers' unions. After all, it's only fair.

I love Project Gutenberg, I once read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in one sitting while at work in an office.

This is not as caddish as it might sound. The office was the Admin for a certain 3-star General, and I was on my "way out".

For two tours, I figured the People could pay me to read a classic...

"Tax him until he's dead, than tax him some more" -Joe Biden

"A roll in Michael Moore gathers no moss (or mold for this matter)"-Michael Moore

I'll get some more if I can find them.

One of the things that I find so entertaining about this site is that I, of all people, find myself in agreement with all these military types. Well, it's not astonishing when you think of it. I went to Rice which prides itself on being home to a lot of brainy types. And they were smart. But they were all so self-directed that there was no sense of community. I spent years there and have no friends. A very good education, but no friends. Rice students were inward looking and loyal to themselves. (Understandable; they were loners in high school, having virtually no one with common interests.)

But the people whom I agree with the most are Texas Aggie corpsmen. We both hate the same bullshit. And the same here. Now here's the question. How did I, who ought to be, if you believe in statistics, in New York or SF or Houston or Dallas, find myself in tune with servicemen?

It's not being a groupie, God knows. I am looking in from the outside but there are two things that I've noticed about the military.

One is the sheer practicality. College professors, who are more often than not moonbats, tend to build up fancy structures in their minds and then, with a pensive sigh, say, "We can change the world if we just..." Then they try to set up some structure which tries to replace humanity with their own callow structure. Barking mad, and totalitarian. I'm of the view that people are people and what needs to be done should be done in a way that will get it done. It is delusional to say, "The world ought to be..."

The second is there are things bigger than yourself. Modern liberalism is a tantrum, and the modern liberal is a posturing, preening poseur who wafts into a room, delivers himself of an opinion and expects to mug people into accepting it. It's a sort of intellectual thuggery based on the emotional maturity of a three-year old.

Commissar, I can tell you from personal experience that the military mind is something that is made and not often instinctive.

I was a liberal bordering on the anarchic in my youth, and after almost completely destroying any vestige of human decency, decided to do the one thing that I knew would redeem me as a person.

USMC.

After two tours in Iraq as an Infantry Grunt, I discovered a great ability for personal responsibility, TRUE human compassion (not the variety that sacrifices itself for the sake of a lofty and utopic ideal), and a sense of what my Father (USAF LTCOL) called True Superiority:

The idea that it stems from tolerance (again, a misconstrued word that means less of acceptance, and more of allowing the unnecessary dross to pass by unnoticed).

If our intelligence is comprised of anything, it is a mind with very few moving parts, and as indestructible as a nun's chastity belt.

Of course, we are also trained to listen. Otherwise, people die.

We consider and ponder, because there is always another avenue of approach, another door to make entry on, and another bombing angle.

We would die for this country and even its people's right to slander it in their ignorance. Our friends, whom we carried back, would command no less.

We did what we did for a different reason that what we had originally thought. We came for the money, the better life, the college, the pride...

...but we stayed because we never want our Families and Friends to see or do the things we have.

Otdel, do you hear how different that is from the culture of unearned self-esteem?

Innostranyi Otdel wrote:I was a liberal bordering on the anarchic in my youth, and after almost completely destroying any vestige of human decency, decided to do the one thing that I knew would redeem me as a person.

Now let's see. You could have whined that the world didn't turn around you. Or you could have entered a very tough training ground, the Marines, and subjected yourself to that. Whining that the world doesn't respect you is progressive for it's utterly self-centered. You on the other hand recognized a need, a void, a gap, and remedied it.

Have you read C. S. Lewis <i>Screwtape Letters</i>? I'm not at all religious but enjoy a lot of the writing of the better Christian apologists. Screwtape (as I recall), a demon writes to his nephew Wormwood on how to corrupt people. He says that he ought to get people to pray for high-minded things--the abolition of world hunger, cure for disease, and to dismiss as being unworthy prayer for Aunt Agnes' lumbago.

In this way things are depersonalized. Mao was capable of ordering the execution of dozens of millions, or effectively ordering it. And remember Potempkin villages? Would this have happened had people been concerned with the day-to-day lives of other people?

When we abstract ourselves from reality, thinking it more efficient to take a broader view, we find it convenient. And from this are borne broad nostrums of how to fix the world, which have the pleasing side effect of not requiring the personal involvement of the one proposing it.

Better, and more human, I think, to learn who people are. I have been somewhat astonished, given my age and upbringing, to find that people were very accepting of me, in a small town in West Texas, because they knew me as an individual. And extrapolating from that, nearly all of my charitable work, if it is that, is one-on-one--to a cousin raising her grandchildren; to my housekeeper; to people who are having troubles, troubles which require my involvement rather than passing them off to others.

I think that I've finally deciphered why so many wealthy people are liberals. They've learned to buy the best houses, cars, and wardrobe. Buy the best ostensible compassion and leave the driving to someone else.

I have been recommended to the Screwtape Letters before, and no, not yet (I'm still trying to get through The Tale of Genji and Atlas Shrugged, simultaneously. It's fun...).

"The idea is always easier than the action, ask any stoner."

"The only problem with activism is you have to be active."

The "Big Picture" viewpoint has its uses, but it is not the only way to look at your surroundings, certainly. Helping one person is a "Big Picture" action. You never know who they might become, or tell about your help.

I guess I consider most Liberals to be wanting to do the right things, but they allow themselves to be clouded by the kinds of ideas that are often times counter-productive or intuitive to their purposes and the intended outcomes of such.

"I hate oppression." (Viewing Israel, I see a powerful entity attacking a weaker one, utilizing lesser technologically advanced means. Regardless of real or imagined provocation, I observe an underdog fighting against a friend of the world's premier superpower.)

Ergo- "I hate Israel."

"I think life is precious," two moments later with no connection mentally or logically, "I support abortion." (Regardless of your views here, there is a cross-purpose at work here...)

The real enemy to Liberals is Cognitive Dissonance.

The kind that allows for a group like Queers for Palestine to be formed, when they would be persecuted there for their lifestyles.

Oh yeah, and NO sense of Irony!

"Queers for Palestine"? Hilarious. They would be more than prosecuted; they'd be killed.

I'm always astonished by the leftist conceit that they can all get together and talk talk talk and then have a group hug and it will all be alright.

More cognitive dissonance on the left: in two operating rooms one woman wants desperately to have a child and the doctors are doing all that they can to save that eight-month fetus. In the next operating room a woman is saying, "A woman has control of her body." As the doctors suck out an eight-month-old fetus.

More dissonance? A man who kidnaps, rapes and murders a four-year-old girl cannot get the death penalty. But a fetus near to term, which has done <i>nothing</i> can be destroyed on the whim of the mother.

SF opened a $15M animal shelter in which the dogs all had their own rooms, with television. The bums asked, with reason, why they didn't have such good accommodations.

SF has a no-kill pet-adoption policy. If you adopt a pet, instead of take ownership of it, as I own my cats Calvin and Hobbes, horribly spoiled, they the vet bills will be paid for. So that they do not kill a sickly animal.

But if it's an innocent fetus...

And no, I'm not entirely pro-life. I figure that the first three months it's unpleasant but then it's not viable. And I don't even believe in souls. But it is an essential legal fiction that babies be granted human status. For if we don't grant the helpless human status, when Nanners et al give us socialized medicine, one of the first things that they'll do is appoint "health guardians" to "help" us make medical decisions and this is how they'll ration health care.

By eugenics.

Recently a 12yo girl gave a Youtube speech (for a class project/contest, which she won...) on the subject. She pointed out the fact that a five month old "Preemie" has the right to life, yet 5 month, late-term abortions occur all the time. She also sighted the fact that only 1% of all abortions deal with the ethically sound reasons of rape, incest, and maternal safety.

BTW, I am currently compiling statistics for a blog tentatively entitled, "Black Facts for Mr. Holder".

It will revolve around Welfare, and the addiction to it that the Left uses for the purposes of garnering votes.

Any suggestions?

Let's do all welfare--social security and its constant creeping enlargement, medicare, CHiPS, if that's it, farms subsidies. One could make a case that every government expenditure except for defense, criminal prosecution, enforcing contracts, and the infrastructure is an attempt to addict people.

Theocritus wrote

"Queers for Palestine"? Hilarious. They would be more than prosecuted; they'd be killed.

Not only is it hilarious, it's reality.

What's ever more ridiculous is the self loathing Jewish Queer for Palestine. That's sorta like "Ants for Aardvarks" or "Seals for Orcas"..."Salmon for Grizzlys"...etc....


Another Ushanka tip to Zombie, Friend of The Cube and Friend of The People.

Laika the Space Dog wrote:What's ever more ridiculous is the self loathing Jewish Queer for Palestine. That's sorta like "Ants for Aardvarks" or "Seals for Orcas"..."Salmon for Grizzlys"...etc....

That's as unthinkable as:
Smart People for Republicans
Caring People for Republicans
Nice People for Republicans
Open-Minded People for Republicans
Tolerant People for Republicans

Just Human Beings in General for Republicans

Kittens, Puppies, and Fluffy Bunnies for Republicans

Comrade Otdel,
The military provided me with the requisite discipline that saved me from despair and perhaps some mildly self-destructive rage or misdirection. I wasn't happy about it at the time, but I'm glad I did it now.

Chickens for Colonel Sanders.
Workers for the IRS
Oil companies for the EPA
Doctors for Michael Moore [Don't laugh; my physician, Smith, Phi Beta Kappa, very talented, saw the movie with some others who bought into his lies.]
Clap for penicillin.

Objectivists for Obama.....

Oh look!
Hell has just frozen over!

Socialists reading <i>Atlas Shrugged</i>.

Laika, dear Laika, I'm quite sure that there are all sorts of objectivists for His O'liness. For He has decreed that all will partake in the bounty of His beneficence.

Liberals for Ironic Humor...?

Nah, that's just silly...

Moonbats Who Just Want to Leave Bush Alone!
Europeans for a Strong Defense against Islamofascism.
Palestinians Who Just Want to Live Somewhere Else!
Swedes against Socialized Healthcare
Netherlanders for Drug Reform
French for the Judicious Use of Deodorant

Neo-Hippies for Soap
San Fransicans against Extremism
Atheists for Strong Belief in ...Anything
Christians against Blind Faith
Marijuana Growers for Law Enforcement

Commissar, it is finished.

- https://righteousrantings.blogspot.com/ ... neral.html

Enjoy.

Otdel, unfortunately clicking on it tells me that my Apache web server is properly installed but that there isn't anything to display. That it can display. Let's call His O'liness for a dispensation.

Did you remove the parenthesis?

Innostranyi Otdel - We don't need no stinkin' parenthesis!

I edited your original post to remove the parenthesis and made it a normal link. Don't be shy. Posting a link to valid information - even if it was written by you - is not spamming.

Another way to post a link is this:

Innostranyi Otdel, in a parallel universe, wrote:Commissar, it is finished.

Otdel, I am impressed. I am not nearly that energetic. Or disciplined.

To the Glorious and Ever Watchful Red Square,

I was unsure about linking my hideously subversive diatribe here, but the primary purpose behind the (parenthesis) was to prohibit 'bots from swarming the site. I appreciate the encouragement, and no, it will not become a habit.

To Commissar Theocritus, Uberfuhrer of The People's Republic of Texas,

Thank you for your words, I try. I must now go and submit myself for re-education at the hands of the ever faithful and never merciful Sasha the Dancing Gulag Bear.

Commissar Otdel, thank you. I find that my energies are now being absorbed by beating over the head and shoulders a micromanaging queen in California. If you wake tomorrow and find that I have made headlines by reaching through the telephone and dragging her him through the telephone line to finish throttling, then you may say that you know a Nobel winner for I will have discovered a new branch of physics.

As it is, I got my hand in up to the elbow but she he was using a speaker phone. Had I had two witnesses, like for a hole in one, I'd be packing my bags for Stockholm.

Yes, the feat you describe would have qualified as teleportation. Quite the accomplishment, and you say you aren't disciplined, you sly Carpathian...

Only when I'm taunted by silly queens. I never had a flashback from acid but this queen gave me flashbacks from the 80s--the last queen that operated like that I sat on in an El Paso hotel bedroom, while it gnashed its teeth. When I was finished it was absent a good hunk of hair.

Tomorrow to finish off that business from El Paso on another one but in California. I'm going to feed him to a liberal Democrat lawyer.

Oh the horror!

I'm convinced that those...things... don't really have any real priciples to speak of. They just sort of revert to their reset position politically when in disuse. Show them a gob of money and they'll buy into anything you pay them to.

Did you hear about the man who parked an ambulance in a Wal-Mart parking lot with a sign that said, "Free Scotch" and shot the lawyers?

He was arrested for hunting in a baited field.

And this morning I'm going back down to work to practice law.

I'm not a lawyer, but have been practicing real-estate law for 38 years come Sunday.

What's the difference between a dead skunk and a dead lawyer in the middle of the road?

There are skid marks in front of the skunk.

You know it's a cold day when you see a lawyer walking with his hands in his own pockets.

pWnt.

Opiate of the People wrote: Our opponents' money is the root of all their evil.

I'd say simply "YOUR money is the root of all their evil."

In fact, there are some doctrinal differences. For example, it perfectly illustrates that socialism is a softer version of communism:

COMMUNIST: "Money is the root of all their evil!"
SOCIALIST: "My neighbor's money is the root of all their evil!"

Red, their camps are a softer version too--sensitivity training instead of barbed wire.

Comrades,

At the risk of sparking a round of lawyer-oppression through ridicule of such an exalted leadership class, allow me to relay a joke told me by a former lawyer (not real estate) who tired of doing unethical things, acquired a PhD in some arcane area of (non-social) science, and became a house-husband.

To wit:
Q: What is the difference between a sperm cell and a lawyer?
A: A sperm cell has a one-in-a-million chance of becoming a human being.

Did you hear the progressive joke?

Of course not. Anally retentive collectivists do not laugh.
This world is a sad and terrible place that can only
be corrected through our benevolent and wise
redistributionism. Until then, next week perhaps,
laughing is not permitted. Someone will report you
to the Thought Police.

"Life is nasty, brutish, and short." - Thomas Hobbes

He sounds like one of us, comrades. A true optimist.

Comrade CFL,

A good point.

My favorite joke is: "Bush!" Ah, I can barely write it, I am laughing so hard. It is the ultimate punchline; for example:

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: It was Bush's fault!

Knock knock!
Who's there?
Bush!

Little Johnny smiled then pointed at the teacher and said, "Bush!"

It is almost as if the namesake of "compassionate conservatism" is the gift that keeps giving, if less than President Awesome.

What's the difference between a porcupine and a Porsche with two lawyers in it?

The porcupine has the pricks on the outside.

Comrade Commissar Theocritus,

While a zoologist might be required officially to allay collective concerns about potentially offending porcupines, is it not possible the porcupine has penile bones (perhaps a baculum, as found in the walrus and other creatures?

I believe that the female seal has two uteri. How many does Nanski have? It's impossible for only one woman to be as big a, er, well, you know as she is without doing some serious work.

It's like Minerva at work: she is hosted on an eight-core Mac. That would just about get a normal, well, you know, up to half of Nanski's, well, you know, strength.