The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

John Adams, July 3, 1776

Adams was revved up by the mere public reading of the Declaration -- he couldn't wait the two days it took until the signing got underway, to kick up his heels and admit to himself that he and his compatriots had made history -- world history, even. Well, good for him. He deserved a headstart.

One of these days, when we've finished paying for remote maritime residences, weddings, and other nonsense, one of these days I'm gonna get down to the lower 48 and celebrate Independence Day in the U.S.of A. -- I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I can't remember the last time I did that.

Meanwhile, I have recently experienced Dominion Day (called, as I understand it, "Canada Day" by the Trudeapian generation -- blech) July 1st -- here's how it looks in Newfoundland:















And here's how Independence Day, July 4th, looks in Newfoundland, in my front yard:


[Is it FOGGY enough?]


SARAH BOWS OUT AS ALASKA'S CEO

I'm bummed and benumbed by the announcement that Sarah Palin is stepping aside as Alaska's governor just over halfway through her term, though I'm not entirely convinced that this turn of events is: (1) an omen of some terrible scandal she is only two steps ahead of, and/or (2) a sign that she's been pulverized by her deranged media enemies, and/or (3) a heralding of a 2012 presidential run. Just don't know at this point.

But it does bring to mind the whole baffling, repulsive tidal wave of mindless raging hate which has washed over her unceasingly for nearly a year now. Beating her politically was not enough. She must be beaten personally, socially, tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail, stripped and shaven-headed, branded as a Jezebel, shunned as a leper, humiliated, degraded, and subjected to journalistic gang-rape until there's nothing left to spit on. It does give one pause.

Despite the unprecedented onslaught of crude and cruel attacks upon Palin and her family members, one can only hope that her decision to leave isn't due solely to the effect of the abuse. What that would teach the current Governing Party is that all you have to do to dispatch an annoying female opponent is call her a moron and a slut, call her children ree-tards and whores, and you can run her out of politics. Since the Governing Party has absolutely no compunction about using, or permitting its operatives and surrogates to use, precisely those terms, then such a strategy would seem to be a winner for them.

Of all the manifold public cases of Palin Derangement Syndrome, none has been more strange -- inexplicable, deviant, relentless, bizarro -- than the ongoing campaign by the formerly sane Andrew Sullivan to unmask Sarah Palin as not-mother to baby Trig. Sullivan has been convinced from the get-go that Trig is the child of Sarah's daughter Bristol, and that her claim to recent motherhood is a sham, to cover up the scandal of.......

WHAT?

Can anybody guess why she would claim her daughter's handicapped baby as her own? As the detectives and barristers are known to ask, cui bono? Who or what would benefit from such a claim? What's in it for Palin? For Bristol? For Trig?

Anything? Beuller?

Beuller???

Your guess is as good as mine. If Sullivan has proffered an answer to the cui bono question in the 533 posts about Trig on his blog, I haven't heard of it. As far as I know he just doesn't find the labor and birth circumstances plausible.

While it's been nothing if not entertaining to witness Sully laboring through the first ever spasms of interest in female reproductive functions in his long and publicly gay life, one longs for him to break down and admit that he is totally out of his element, in over his head, and several deep breaths short of a contraction. Please, Andrew, give it up before you hurt yourself.

Prof. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection analyzes PDS and concludes that it has all, always been about Trig. I'm not sure I buy that as a sweeping generalization, but I'm prepared to sweep it fairly broadly in respect of female/feminist PDS. A million babies a year are aborted. Nearly 5,000 of those have Down Syndrome (that's more than 90% of the Down's babies conceived -- all figures for U.S., updated). And who knows how many others among the million are aborted for being "imperfect" in various ways, from spina bifida to cleft palates. Each of those rejected children has a mother who knows what she did.

Sarah Palin, and any other mother who chooses to carry such a pregnancy to term, is a rebuke to the rejecting mothers, and to all those advocates of "choice" who have abstracted the unborn child into a perverse principle of autonomy. Sarah Palin doesn't need to address such women in any specific name -- all she needs to do is love and want her child, and treat him as she would treat any of her other children as she pursues her career, and she is a slap in the face of "choice". And they hate her for it. For militant advocates of "choice", it is all about Trig. They will do banshee howls to the contrary, but they lie -- it's all about Trig, and it always has been. It was deranged, and it yielded filth like this.

For the information of Andrew Sullivan and his fellow birth-truthers and Trig-obsessives, BTW, people who actually have children with Down syndrome would be the first to tell you that in the presence of large crowds and high levels of conversational din, a baby with Down's is inclined to sleep. Trig's presence in large crowds at late hours was less disturbing to him than it would be to non-Down's babies. So you can stop pretending that you care about the child's welfare and his mother doesn't. I suspect she's read the literature, and I know you haven't.

Riddle me this, leftosphere: John-John and Caroline Kennedy in Daddy's office or in their blue coats at the funeral? -- American icons.

Pelosi's grandchildren all over the Speaker's podium? -- an inspiration.

Sasha and Malia critiquing Mommy's convention speech and going off-script to Daddy on-screen from St. Louis (or was it Kansas City? he didn't know at the time)? -- cute as a button, "case closed".

But Piper and Bristol and Trig and and Willow at the convention and on the campaign trail? -- props, human shields, PR devices being pimped.

Riddle me this. I'm stumped.

How coincidental to these new developments that the oh-so-sophisticated Vanity Fair magazine is featuring a massive hatchet-job on Palin in its August iss-yew. Stenographer Todd Purdum carves her up pretty good, and finds McCain staffers to do the same.

But there's another theme running through the article... Memo to Purdum: seek medical help for an erection lasting longer than four hours.

Come to think of it, I just read Serious Historian (!?) Douglas Brinkley's breathless Vanity Fair profile of Johnny Depp. Like I said to the other guy, Dougie: seek medical help for an erection lasting longer than four hours or a week on a private yacht.