HOTTEST THING ON TV
IN THE LAST MILLION YEARS

For obvious reasons.

It's sharp and witty and funky and gritty and chock-a-block with suspense -- and there are these two guys, a Mutt and Jeff combo, each strangely endearing in his own weird way.

There's this fellow here, Martin Freeman, who plays the eminent Dr. Watson [here in the 21st century, he's a demobilised army doc wounded in Afghanistan -- oh! that's what he was in the 19th century too]. He's dry and a bit broody, but trying very hard to be normal, which is hopeless when you get a look at his new roomie. And he's as cute as a hobbit -- which works in his favour, since he's playing Bilbo Baggins in the hobbitty prequel (if it ever gets made).

But the real headline is the overnight blast of stardust lingering over and around the other fellow, whose name sounds like a spell taught at Hogwort's: Benedict Cumberbatch. [gesundheit] He's utterly brilliant and original as the all-new blackberry-toting Sherlock Holmes.

Suddenly the adolescent world is swooning over this tall stringbean with an angular face above a near-Leno jaw, who's been picking up acting awards and publicity by the bushelful. He's the hottest thing going, friends -- he's on top of the world, what could he possibly want that he doesn't already have?????

Answer: kids. Well, that was unexpected. He's had a co-vivant for years, who better watch out, because there could soon be girls lining up around the block ready to have his baby. Hmmm, try to imagine.....

That's it! All the little Cumberbundles will look like Freddie Highmore! Could do worse.

Three TV movies have been aired so far, and we'll have to wait [we can't wait!] until fall for the next instalments. Hurry, hurry, Mutt and Jeff. And congratulations on the well-earned success, Mr. Cumberbuns. You've got the world on a string --- SO WHY THE LONG FACE?!!!

Ha ha ha har har hee hee hee.

Watch for it -- when the leaves start to fall.

OH MAMA!

PALIN REDUCES ENTIRE SOTU TO ITS ESSENCE



"Winning the Future" = WTF

Too funny. Too true.

UNLIKE THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

I REMEMBER SPUTNIK

It was 1957, we lived in Anderson, Indiana; my sister was in school and I wasn't. She came home with her latest art project, a cork ball studded with toothpicks, painted tourquoise blue and sprinkled with glitter. The world had officially ushered in The Space Age, and America was WAY behind.

What a perfect image for the condition to which Barack Obama has willfully reduced the United States of America.

As the rest of the world wheels and deals for oil money, and China collects its billions by flooding the nation with bright shiny trinkets, the United States stands tall in its sophomore's purity: oil is off-limits; endangered beetles and public sector workers are comfy on a pillow of privilege -- regular guy workers are asked to delight in the prospect of years on the dole; the military is stretched and slated for reduced numbers with which to act out super-sensitive Rules of Engagement; Orwell's language police preaching 'civility' with all the politesse of the Seven Words You Can't Say On Television; government lumbers on under a party and a president whose grasp of their job is to economy and geo-politics what 'Professor' Harold Hill's 'Think System' is to music.

The President has literally bowed and abased himself to every unsavoury global thug he could seek out. He has done everything in his power to turn the nation of pioneers into one of indentured servants. He has lately wined and dined our monetary master, who [Hu] leered with satisfaction and repaid our hospitality by stopping just short of taking a poop on the banquet table.

And the NASA budget has been slashed to where we'd need a bank loan to produce a Sputnik. I'm not even sure we could afford the cork ball and the toothpicks.

I popped in and out of the SOTU panto last night [Pillars of the Earth was on another channel] because, between the self-congratulatory hot-air issuing from the podium and the robotic jack-in-the-box action out on the floor, it has all become meaningless ballet to the delicate strains of Stockhausen.

I have this mental image of one of those tennis-ball lobbing machines for practicing one's serve solo, except this machine is center-stage on the congressional daïs and what it's lobbing has been collected, bolus by bolus, from the loose hay on the stable floor. Out on the floor, standing is actually the normal position, and the sitting is a ducking reflex. [By the way, if your tennis ball server remains in this position for more than four hours, consult a physician.]



Guess I'll do my patriotic duty and, after a suitable period of mourning, read the text of the SOTU address, unimpeded by all the jumpin' jack flash.




By the way, how did that Sputnik thing work out for the Big Russian Bear, anyway?


























Ahh..... Miracle on Ice.

Henderson scores for Canada.

Da, Da, Ca-na-da -- Nyet, Nyet, So-vi-et.

Big Sputnikin' Deal.

Heady days.



So, as long as we're into 'the big con' and 'never let a crisis go to waste' -- well, listen to the master. No Sputniks required.

MEMO TO FILE -- NOTE TO SELF

This is what it looks like when somebody practices what the President preaches:


Dr. Gosnell Arrested for Murdering 7 Babies Who Survived Abortion – A Practice Barack Obama Supports & Has Voted For 4 Times








And on a related note,

PDS*/"Palinoia" DIAGNOSED AND 'SPLAINED

James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal has the goods on Why They Hate Her [Sarah Palin] -- he's not the first to say it [some of us have been making this case for two years now], but he says it well, and that's not easy coming from a man.

It's not very complicated, really. Women hate her more than men, and that's because she's a good-looking, successful, professional woman with a good-looking supportive non-metrosexual husband; she's held good jobs, made good money, kept her figure, pursued her dreams, and had five children.

That's not supposed to happen at the turn of the 21st century. There was this myth for awhile that a woman could "have it all", but most women just couldn't shake the biggest obstacles to their success: men, and kids. They just seemed hopelessly drawn to these corrosive forces. And when they found themselves stuck, trapped by traditional domestic shackles, who was in their corner but the friendly abortionist, the sine qua non of modern female ambition?

But Sarah Palin got on with life and career and family without the services of the abortionist, and even dares to suggest that other women ought to do the same -- even when they discover that they are set to be burdened by the greatest obstacle of all, a handicapped child.



Sarah Palin is hated partly because she's an ordinary woman (and doesn't pretend to be otherwise) who has done extraordinary things; but mostly because of the most ordinary thing she ever did: she let this child live. 90% of women in her position had their children destroyed.

They're out there. They know who they are. And they are the driving force behind *Palin Derangement Syndrome.

BYRON YORK PUTS CNN

IN THE CROSSHAIRS

Over at the Washington Examiner, Byron York does an in-depth analysis of CNN's usage of the Crosshairs metaphor in just the one month prior to the Tucson shootings.

And, like all sane people, Byron thinks it's nothing to go all wobbly about, like John King did on a recent broadcast.

He's all, like, Dude! It's okay! Um.... KEEP YOUR POWDER DRY!



See, everybody's got a crosshairs fantasy. Some were actually good ideas....












Others were a form of inflammatory and uncivil rhetoric responsible for the death of Marcel Marceau. I knew it!

"... after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live."

Shakespeare -- Hamlet


The air has been thick with ill reports since last Saturday's murder spree in Tucson, most of them lazy and brainless slanders proffered as explanations for Grade-A insanity. I will make no attempt to behave like a news source, since others have done it better already [the usual kudos to clearing houses such as Instapundit and American Thinker], nor to catalogue the long list of journalists, pundits, and politicos who have gone so far beyond the borders of partisanship that the wonderful neo-verb "beclowning" is inadequate to the situation, and we must settle for the more mundane "disgraced" to describe what, in their foaming extremism, they have done to themselves.

As a minor bump on the cosmic log, I have enjoyed the luxury of waiting out a suitable period of time, to pluck some actual facts from out of the whirlwind of shrieking din, and have chosen to draw attention to this morning's interview with Zach Osler, an old friend of the accused [Jared Loughner], and a sweet-looking young man who has taken on an unnecessary and onerous burden of guilt for having failed to intervene where others, in genuine positions of responsibility, should have done the job.



The mad rush from left field to score political points off the Tucson tragedy has manifested itself in safe generalities, making passing use of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords by name, but avoiding too much reference to the few other victims whose names have been released, most particularly the remarkable, beautiful 9-year-old symbol of all that it means to "choose life", the late and much lamented Christina Taylor Green -- born in the national shadow of September 11, 2001 -- died in the radiant morning of her little life, in the instant of one jerk on the trigger. [Video of a very moving but dignified interview with her father has been rolled up by ABC -- transcript of much of it is here.]

It took no time at all for the twisted perverts of the Fred Phelps Westboro "Baptist Church" clan to seize this particular tragedy as an opportunity to crow their deranged message to the world, and quickly announce their utterly incomprehensible plan to picket the funeral of this lovely child -- an act so grotesque that even their jittery clots of synapses recoiled at it within a couple of days. [Or was it just the devil's bargain -- the offer of radio airtime in Phoenix and Toronto, if they called off the hounds and bitches at the Green funeral -- that caused them to relent??]

The creatures have now re-set their sites on the funeral of the other high-profile victim, District Judge John Roll. It's not yet clear whether the Patriot Guard Riders will officially perform their usual intervention services, but rest assured there will be patriot riders who will guard the victim families from being "Phelpsed".

And may all the slain innocents, victims of their interest in the free exercise of rights among a free people, rest in the sleep of peace.


SATURDAY

While all this mayhem was going down in Arizona, back in Pennsylvania, a soldier came home.

Another death -- a peaceful end to a long and ordinary life -- briefly interrupted by violent conflict, grueling hardships, and inexpressible courage

MAJOR RICHARD WINTERS,
leader of the Band of Brothers
Dead at age 92

It's a good week to remember the nobility to which ordinary men can rise when called upon to be of service to their fellows. God welcome and bless Dick Winters as he strides into the heavenly reunion of Easy Company of the 101st Airborne, who drifted into and around Ste. Mere Eglise in Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944, and forever planted their boots in the history of man's humanity to man. And God bless writer Stephen Ambrose for reminding a wider world of what they did.

Read and salute, here here here and even better here

If (and only if) you have reason to be there, Major Winters will be memorialized on (appropriately) St. Joseph's Day, March 19, at his church in Hershey, PA. The public is invited, but, for God's sake, make a hole and leave room for his Band of Brothers.

Requiescat in pace.

I love a boy in uniform.

SURPRISING FOOTNOTE TO PREVIOUS POST

#1 Son has just arrived home from deployment, having spent some months as a resident Marine on a Navy Amphibious Readiness mini-aircraft carrier thingy. We had a brief conversation which touched on baby brother's former commander, the notorious OPH (Owen P. Honors -- see below).

Level of sympathy on the part of our Marine for the predicament of Captain Honors?

Absolute zero.

XO's are supposed to be iron-gut enforcers, not the class clowns with an inexplicable amount of time on their hands. That is all.

Well, I defer to the expert.

All I would add (my two-cents) is that, since Honors has long since ceased his childish shenanigans, had never been reprimanded for them by anyone until now, and has already been a successful commander of another aircraft carrier, the USS Mount Whitney, for more than two years without complaint or incident or repetition of questionable conduct that we know of, I think the statute of limitations on former jackass-dom should be considered passed.

A reprimand on record, some sort of probation, a fine, or just the public embarrassment would seem to be sufficient punishment. And if what he did was so terrible, his then-commander should receive equal, if not greater, punishment for his negligent approach to discipline.

Marines. Hard-ass. It works.

DEAR UNITED STATES NAVY:

GROW A PAIR

[scroll down for UPDATE]

Captain Owen Honors was considered the best man for the job, and had been on the job since last May.


The best man for the job until last weekend, that is.

Now, just a week or so from deployment to missions over Afghanistan, MY SON’S commanding officer on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise will be the second best man for the job.

THANKS A HEAP, UNITED STATES NAVY.

Why this sudden change of heart, oh fickle lover? Because Captain Honors is a career Navy guy, with all that this implies, and the Navy culture is what it is and always has been – rough, coarse, vulgar, edgy, raunchy, excessive, pushing the envelope, anything to get you through the long and tedious hours at sea between the moments of knife-edge tension and microscopic finesse points on the dial that launches a $40 million aircraft off an ironing board.

What a shock to learn that modern technology has created new ways for bored men in the military to channel their inner Belushi. [You remember Belushi, folks -- that frantic, over-the-top comedian who was, and remains, one of the hottest talents ever to win the admiration of hip, ivy-league, liberal sophisticates as they toked up on a Saturday night when classes were over, probably at their prof's house. That guy -- the one who went on to fame in various instalments of Animal House.]

Military command has always taken a sideways glance away from certain aspects of the day-to-day grind among the rank and file. Camp-following concubines have been around for more centuries than we can count. In HMS Pinafore, W.S. Gilbert heaps hilarious mockery upon the land-locked Admiralty Lord who professes profound shock, and sends the Captain to his quarters, because the word “damme” [that’s “damn me”] was uttered within earshot of the ladies – it was Gilbert’s way of saying, “Dude, this is the NAVY – are you F#&*-ing kiddin’ me???”

[UPDATE: Here's the opening appearance of the Captain, with the first super-absurd send-up of the notion that any British sailor might be called "exceedingly polite" and refrain from "bad language or abuse". Ironically, this particular clip also incorporates the Captain's later fall from grace, and demotion, caused by something only slightly more ridiculous than a lewd sense of humor: the discovery that he was born a peasant instead of an aristocrat. Enjoy.]



What about the British tradition of the Concert Party for their soldiers in the Great War? There were always a few, er, transsexual moments involved. The Canadians even had a troop of entertainers called the Dumbbells, whose skits en travestie were legendary.

And remember the cross-dressing Honey Bun number from South Pacific? Classic Navy hijinks. [Apparently this stuff is perfectly acceptable if you're Alec Baldwin doing it at Carnegie Hall.]






And can you say "WWII Nose Art"? Google it, and see if it twits your tweeter.





The arenas of battle in both world wars were serviced by tent-city brothels that were more or less official encampments.

I could go on and on.

So when Captain Honors is demoted and his career destroyed for being part of some crude, sophomoric home videos [yes, he even eats the Oh Henry bar masquerading as a turd from the toilet – whoa, TREASON!!!!!] created for the crew’s amusement three or more years ago when he was the XO on the Enterprise, all I can do is quote my paraphrased Gilbert above, and say “Are you F#&*-ing kidding me?” Everybody, and that means everybody (hello, Captain) knew that these videos were part of the XO’s movie night, and they could take them or leave them.

Not so lucky was my dad in 1945, an innocent Catholic boy from Duluth who could not escape the pornography of the day, when a copy of the banned book Tropic of Capricorn was obtained at some port and then read aloud over the public address system to while away the hours at sea. No freedom of choice, no religious exception there, swabbies – and hardly possible without the full consent of the captain of Destroyer Escort 152.

My father emerged from the Coast Guard with a lifelong revulsion at “dirty” language and entertainment. He’d have been delighted to be on a ship where it was optional, or to have an XO who clearly recognized the true absurdity of the constant invoking of the “F-bomb” among Naval personnel (one of then-XO Honors’ well-edited sketches in the viral video).

So did Captain Honors really lose his livelihood over the vulgarity and periodic sexism of his “morale” videos? No, of course not.

He lost it over the repeated use of one word: “gay”. You know it, and I know it, world. The video opened a window (for the twelve people in the universe who had been unaware) on the Navy version of the military culture that has traditionally been dismissive and scornful (if not downright hostile) to homosexual men. (Lesbians, I suspect, have a different and less high-profile experience in their much more recent presence among military out in the field.)

Yes, friends, buy a paper – that’s the culture. Destroying Captain Honors may temporarily appear to have closed the window that the video opened, but the culture will remain – that’s guaranteed. In fact, when the guys below decks see a popular, effective, and highly accomplished XO sacrificed on the altar of gay-positive Political Correctness, it’s fair to predict that the culture (one which, by the way, is devoted to mocking everybody in one way or another) will simply stiffen its resolve and dig in, with the dismissive tilting more towards the hostile. I’ll be curious to find out.

And I will find out, because my real concern will be MY KID, heading off into enemy territory with the next-best Captain at the helm, on less than two weeks’ notice. Or perhaps they’ll delay deployment while the new guy finds his sea-legs – an even more genius move on the part of upper management.

I’m sure Captain Honors wasn’t the only guy available who has what it takes to command an aircraft carrier. Presumably his replacement will be qualified. But the cost of chucking out a highly respected and much beloved known quantity, at the very very last minute, goes extremely deep, and could prove to be a cost that will affect the good order of the ship, under very dangerous conditions.

Forget the possible deepening of hostility to homosexuals in the military -- what about a general loss of confidence, reaching well beyond the 6,000 residents of the Enterprise township, as a whole branch of the armed forces is forced to wonder, "What the hell kind of Navy am I in, anyway? Do they really have my back?"

Let us hope, and pray, that all involved will just dig in, rise to the occasion, and get ‘er done.

But I will expect a full report on all the repercussions from MY KID upon his return. And if there’s been any erosion of the good order of the ship, I am Mom, hear me roar.

Food for thought:

Can you be a good XO and make naughty videos with your underlings? I will let the better-informed voices of Blackfive address that question.

Many folks have been pointing out that, once upon a time, the ultimate penalties were reserved for officers who (a) negligently got their people killed, (b) negligently destroyed their vessels, (c) flagrantly disobeyed orders, (d) wantonly played footsie with the enemy. Stuff like that. What kind of an officer was Owen P. Honors?

Mrs. Grundy rides again, in the person of the notorious Amy Goodman. Check out this smirking latter-day Salem witch-sniffer, this woman with face like an old boot and a flagpole up her [BLEEP]. Is she not straight out of some nightmare film about sadistic nuns? Clearly she's shocked, SHOCKED, that there are profanities, vulgarity, and sex-talk on a Navy vessel at sea! WEEK AFTER WEEK!!! [Says the Yale Law School professor in his earth-toned civvies: "An aircraft carrier is not a fraternity house." What's your evidence for that statement?!]

One or two media outlets are irresponsibly referring to this episode as "Tailhook scandal", presumably showing off their vast knowledge of aircraft carrier mechanics. Sorry, folks, but Tailhook scandal is a virtually copyrighted name for a particular bad scene, involving criminal assaults. So knock it off. Let's see what J.D. Gordon, a former Navy public affairs officer familiar with the actual Tailhook affair, has to say about the present Navy surrender.

And we will take note of the Support Captain Owen Honors Facebook page, which reportedly has jumped in “likes” from 1200 to over 20,000 in the past few days.

We must also ask, was Corinne Reilly, reporter for the Hampton Roads-based Virginian-Pilot (she who broke XO Honors' video story, of such earth-shattering importance) totally ALL OVER the Ft. Hood massacre story, with all its Virginia connections? Uh.....not so much. She was right on top of a 4-part PTSD story (army abandons violent vet) and a Navy SEAL story ( SEALS prosecuted for prisoner abuse) this past year though, showing great interest in military affairs. Are we seeing a pattern here?

People seem to think it only fair that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas -- with the clear implication that some real nasty stuff may have gone down, along with a lot of tequila. And what has Vegas ever done for the safety and security of the United States and the world? But what happens on a fine old ship carrying thousands of the world's volunteer protectors, in often hostile waters, sending planes over hostile lands -- well that's dirty laundry for the international public washline. Nice. Thanks Corinne -- you're a credit to womanhood.

Would I want to be Owen Honors' wife? Not my call. Would I want him in charge of my boat? Not my call either. My kid's call. I'll wait to hear the fallout.

That is all. Dis-miss.

IT'S A NEW YEAR,

MAYBE A NEW COUNTRY

After decades of attempted genocide by the Muslim north visited upon the Christian south, January 9, 2011 will see a referendum for separation in South Sudan. Should the vote for independence succeed, it will be interesting to see whether the world's professional do-gooders will be prepared to support the new free people of the south when, as is almost inevitable, they will be attacked from the north without a pause for breath in the ongoing campaign of slaughter -- a campaign so far ignored by most of the world because it has been a religious war against Christians, and who cares about crap like that? Ask a Copt in Egypt, and they'll tell you: nobody much.

Here's the bold referendum cheer, for those in the south with electricity.



Everybody say your prayers.

[hat-tip Gateway Pundit]