SHOCKER!!

THE WARMING IS OVER

FORMER VEEP AL GORE SPLITS FROM WIFE TIPPER
AFTER 40 YEARS

For those of us who can barely tolerate this egomaniacal windbag for 40 seconds, all our sympathy tips to Tipper, who has finally had enough of the obsessed fat-head and is moving on. Wonder who will get the brand new estate on the California coast with a carbon footprint the size of Oahu.

The Drudge report breaks the unhappy news, and makes appropriate use of a snapshot of the infamous sexual assault Tipper was forced to endure in front of a monster television audience, when Al tried once again, without success, to prove he was a hip, down, groovy guy, by engaging in a painful public mauling of his wife at the 2000 convention. I never understood how anybody could pretend to buy into this moment -- it made me cringe the instant it happened, and I don't know how she resisted the defensive reflex to kick the creep in the groin.



Well, she's kicked him pretty good now. He's been a sad spectacle for quite some time now, and this makes him just that much sadder. Can't imagine we'll be hearing much from him in the near future. All the best to her.

SEEMS THAT OIL ISN'T THE ONLY THING
BP IS PUMPING RANDOMLY
INTO THE AMERICAN NEIGHBOURHOOD

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[hat-tip: The Politico, via Dennis Miller]



OBAMA SALUTES THE FALLEN

EVENTUALLY

A last-minute venue was contrived at Andrews Air Force Base for the President to deliver his soggy Memorial Day address, which had been rained out in Illinois, where a venue had also been contrived at the local military cemetery since the President couldn't be bothered to attend anything at Arlington.

It was late in the evening and Mr. Obama delivered his usual gush of hollow cliches in an especially wooden manner, stumbling over words and marring the syntax as if he had only just been handed the text for the first time and was looking for the teleprompter that wasn't there. It was a massively unimpressive offering from an increasingly underwhelming little man. [At least this year he seems to have mastered the distinctions between May 30 and November 11.]

Meanwhile back at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, Jumpin' Joe Biden rose to the occasion and delivered his wreath and remarks with genuine feeling, making his boss look even weaker by comparison. Good on ya, Joe -- full credit is due to those who know enough to make the right noises when called upon, whatever their own personal and political blind spots. It shows a regard for the Office -- something that continues to escape the little man who holds the Big One.

IT'S LATE AT NIGHT --
BUT NEVER TOO LATE
TO PASS ALONG ONE SMALL...

MEMORIAL DAY MOMENT

J.D. Johannes at Outside the Wire shares a memory of one "ordinary" man who gave the gift of life to 100 or more, all in a day's work.

Sgt. Jason Stegall lived to fight another day, through multiple tours of Iraq where he stared down snipers and massive truck bombs, only to die this past December of complications from an excess of cold & flu medication. In the end, life is nothing but fragile. But for the men who owe their lives to his courage and clear-headed reflexes, even a life cut short is more than worth the living.

A life to remember on Memorial Day.

[hat-tip Power Line]


And a million times a million thanks again to Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna for hosting a Memorial Day Concert in the front yard of the Capitol -- while the President lounged the day away in his Chicago Chateau Rezko mansion.

[Anybody out there really miss him? hmmm.... thought not.]

NEWSFLASH!

THE ROCK-'EM-SOCK'EM ONE-TWO PUNCH OF BRITISH NATIONAL HEALTH AND BRITISH SOCIAL COLLAPSE:

Woman dies of surgical complications after drunken collision with toilet brush handle.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends.....

We are so screwed. [hat-tip: Drudge]

NOT DEAD, JUST AWOL

It's six days till C-Day (Chester Cycle play, bright and early at 8:30 a.m. the 24th -- somebody wake me up by 8:25!!!), but I still observe the world at stolen moments.

BEST BET ON THE 'NET

Is there any better window on that world than American Thinker? Everything on the page seems worth a look (when I have more time) but attention should be paid to a couple of points of curiosity.

Did Tom Hanks' dumba#s remarks about his own production, The Pacific, make you wonder if the series was going to be any good? Reviews have been mixed and "yes, but..." (bad sign), but wonder no more -- Bernie Reeves lays it out cold, and it's not pretty.

On the current front page, AT examines two aspects of human irrationality that helped to elect Barack Obama: sex and racism. [I won't call it "reverse racism", a common term for favouring a racial minority out of guilt and pity -- when you favour or disfavour based on race, it's just racism, impure and simple].

The racism piece is especially interesting, in that it is aimed at black Christians by a one of their own, who reminds his community that the black genocide being carried out in the country's abortion mills has the full and unqualified support of their, as it were, president of choice: in his short and undistinguished political career, Barack Obama has oiled the machine that kills the babies, pre-born, part-born, and post-born alike.


"We are the ones we've been waiting for."


Let's hope that November 2010 is the dawn of the morning after, and by 2012 will see the end of the affair.

2012 Rumor of the Week.

FUN FACTS
about Supreme Court nominee ELENA KAGAN
[important, because, well..... there are so FEW of them]

Evan Gahr, over at Jewish World Review, begins:

Only Barack Obama, who ran for president just two years into his first senate term and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for accomplishments to be named later, could make inexperience a virtue.

And when you're fishing around for evidence of experience, go with what you know -- that is, Kagan and Obama both held the prestigious post of Editor of the Harvard Law Review. [Kagan wrote Very Little, but that's way more than Obama, who wrote Almost Nothing.] In her role as editor, Kagan apparently had an eye for the fiction, which is to say that she may well be the first editor to permit fictional short stories to be published in any law review.

Say what?, you ask -- why would anybody do that? Read on, and it becomes clear: fiction was the vehicle for an anti-white racist professor (Derrick Bell) to publish his wacko theories about the meaninglessness of law in a hopelessly racist America. Mmmm, heady stuff -- thoughtful, original, responsible journalism. Bell, to his credit, gives Elena Kagan full credit for being his enabler.

Fun facts you ought to know -- because there are so few.

Also at JWR, top-flight political analyst Michael Barone weighs in on a similar theme:

...behind their [Obama's and Kagan's] careful avoidance of incendiary issue positions one can find evidence that both the appointer and the appointee share the standpoint of the professor. They bring to public service attitudes that are commonplace in the faculty lounge but not nearly so common in the rest of America...

Obama himself... has pushed big government policies that seem like no-brainers to most professors but have aroused passionate and principled opposition from the public at large. We are seeing what government by the faculty lounge looks like.

[Fun facts on Obama at Harvard -- again, because there are so few.]









"They call me Strider. I will help you take the Ring to Mount Doom."

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Archepiscopessa Pelosi instructs the Church as to its role in furthering the Democratic party's agenda -- struggles with concepts of hierarchical structure and magisterium, stops just short of calling Bishops' teaching authority a "thingy", and moves on to the main point of her address, which is that the Church must tell the unwashed masses how to vote their (her) "theology".

This one's a keeper.




Whoa. You gotta hand it to the woman, she tempts fate with the best of 'em.

Once we had the MAMAS AND THE PAPAS,
the MOTHERS OF INVENTION,
PAPA JOHN CREECH....

Welcome to the FOUNDING FATHERS
music video!

hat-tip to American Thinker

Enjoy.



Nota Bene: my prolonged blogging absences are due to my up-to-the eyeballs involvement in THIS (click pic):


It's the University of Toronto 2010 presentation of the complete Chester Cycle Mystery Plays, May 22-24. So we've got a few weeks. So it's not yet time to

PANIC!

"Embolden our enemies. Undermine our allies. Diminish our country."

Reagan Administration Dep.Asst.Sec-Def Frank Gaffney calls it: this is the Obama Doctrine.

The "embolden and "undermine" elements, one could argue, are not deliberate on Obama's part, but there is no question that the "diminish" element is precisely what he thinks the United States of America needs and deserves, and he has been out to make it happen from the moment he threw his kaffiya into the ring. Gaffney does a compact analysis of the global implications of the Obama "reset" strategy with Russia, and if you're not shuddering by the end of it, you're not paying attention.

Ronald Reagan was some people's idea of "a dangerous man" (as a friend of mine from California once characterized him early in his presidency). But, as we now know, we were never safer.

Gaffney nails it. With our new "danger man", we haven't been this unsafe since the Cuban missile crisis. Mr. Obama wants us to think he's a J. Pierpont Finch, but sorry, this time I'm with the Suits: we gotta stop that man.




[Actually, now that I think of it, J. Pierpont Finch was a flattering, calculating, disingenuous climber who went from the mailroom to the executive suite by halfway through Act One. An apt comparison after all.]

JOKE:

A NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIAL GOES INTO A BAR AND ASKS,

"HEY! HOW MUCH COVERAGE DO YOU THINK THIS WOULD GET IF MY PRESIDENT WAS A REPUBLICAN?"

A truly disturbing moment from the unfortunately-named General Jim Jones. I'm with the Marine who writes in the comments, "General you need to honor the Marine Corps by resigning immediately."

P.S., General: Your President is a joke too -- more and more every day. Remember 2004? -- when he told the Democratic convention

Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America.

But today, this post-partisan post-racial President lays his race-cards on the table in a pathetic plea for votes this coming Remember-November.

What a towering figure in American history:



This is a man so small, he's a perfect fit for the fine print at the bottom of the page.

NOT DEAD, JUST BUSY AND AWOL, part deux

OREGON, MY OREGON

I still remember the State Song, learned at age 7, though I haven't been there in about 35 years.

First verse:

Land of the Empire Builders, land of the Golden West
Conquered and held by free men, fairest and the best
Onward and upward ever, forward and on and on
Hail to thee, land of heroes, my Oregon.

Fairest, best, golden, free, heroes. Nice work.

My personal favorite from Sarah Palin's recent trip to Eugene, home of the University of Oregon:

Heh.

And who could forget that earlier Golden Oregon moment, at a Portland anti-war[Bush] rally.

I call it "The Peace Movement."

REMEMBER -- MAY 20 is "EVERYBODY DRAW MOHAMMAD DAY"

A tribute to the Fatwa of Death proclaimed upon the lives of South Park cartoonists Parker and Stone. I've got a few ideas.......

This whole phenomenon of inter-religious bigotry and hatred has brought me to tears.

No, wait. It's the F#$@-ing pollen.




I wish all the trees would just eschew the Public Display of Affection.



Eschew.


Gesundheit.

SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO STAND BACK,
AND LET EVENTS UNFOLD.

[posting date approximate -- small Blogger meltdown]

As my old Dad used to say....

WHAT COMES AFTER 75?

'76!
THAT'S THE SPIRIT!





HILARIOUS

While vast swathes of the left have proved themselves blindly vicious when protesting en masse,





















or when confronting their opponents in little clumps, occasionally beating the living snot out of them, the spirit of the new American Tea-Party retains the sense of humor you KNEW was going to save the day ever since November 2000 when they came up with

When the desperate left showed its hand by publicly recruiting tea-party crashers, the patriots were ready and came out swinging -- that is to say, came out prepared to merely point out the obvious, and let the hilarity ensue.

They did exactly the right thing, and, as is clear once again from the one-off home-made signs [not the Soros-funded mass-produced slick graphics]

nobody had to orchestrate their response and feed them their lines. Gotta love these people.

He who laughs last, laughs best.

He who laughs in the face of anger and duplicity, takes the high ground.




Oh, I forgot -- people on the left have been known to do their own home-made signs too:

NOT DEAD -- JUST BUSY AND AWOL

The Anchoress will speak for me, with observations on the sight of Saul Obamsky, Destroyer of Economies, poking his digit at Canadian PM Stephen Harper, the one leader in the Western world whose government has boringly shepherded their country through the world's recent fiscal crises with a remarkably steady hand, as we watch the Canadian dollar creeping up to par, and our Maple Leafy investments looking more promising than the their near neighbours.

You tell him how to do it, Mr. President.


The Anchoress speaks to this crisis too, and I have my say at comment #5.

TWO RUMORS:

President Obama's speech to the troops in Afghanistan:

GREAT ~ EFFECTIVE ~ COMMANDER-IN-CHIEFLY

[or was it....]

AWFUL

Instapundit told me that the speech was being praised at National Review Online, which was, er, at odds with what I had heard. So I watched the five-minute video version (limp) and then went in deeper search for the full twenty-minute monty, and made my assessment to the delightful but misinformed Kathryn Jean Lopez. Here's my letter:

Let me preface my remarks by saying that I am a double military mom, with one in the Marines (veteran of two Iraq tours) and one in the Navy (NFO training on F-18's); and my sister has one in the Navy, currently deployed on Individual Augmentation in Khost, Afghanistan. I first caught a ten-second cut of the President's speech to the troops and found it lacklustre, but my sister had seen the whole thing and gave me her take on it: AWFUL. So I looked for the video: there's the 5-minutes of edited highlights, again lacklustre, but also a distorted fraction of the full 20-minute performance.

The fact that it was 20 minutes says a lot -- that's about 12 minutes too long for cheering up the troops, and they responded as could be expected, with prolonged, deafening silence through most of it. But 20 minutes did give the President ample time to say the word "I" fifty-one times, plus variations of "me" and "my". It also allowed for seemingly endless and, in that context, weirdly extraneous references to all the civilians and politicians and members of every army not in the room, hard at work on the only aspect of the campaign that Mr. Obama appears to relate to, "international relations". Because, believe me, he does NOT relate to the troops.

It's hard to decide what was worse: was it the repeated (albeit more subtle than usual) slaps at Bush's "war of choice" in Iraq, through characterizations of this war that Mr. Obama has now chosen to adopt as his own being one with a "clear mission and the right strategy...and the equipment you need"; where America's institutions will not fail its military and we won't be "meddling in other people's business" [yeah, that happens a lot]? Or was it all the references to the "suffering...on your second or your third or your fourth tour of duty"? -- all the while oblivious to the fact that some of those in the room on their fourth tour of duty spent their earlier ones in that pointless, meddling war of choice in Iraq -- sucks to be you, guys.

No, I think the worst part was his litany of images borrowed from Tokyo Rose. I really want my kid to be sitting in a hall on the other side of the world, surrounded by evil men with bombs, listening to his president drone on about PTSD, traumatic brain injury, fighting to stand or walk again, flag-draped coffins, headstones, and a deceased comrade whose parents just received the (incorrectly named) "Medal of Honor" -- to say nothing of how much I miss my wife and children. Ooh-rah!

Robbed of his teleprompter, the President was forced to head-bob towards his text on the podium, which he did with reasonable success, but increasingly, as the minutes wore on, without heart and sometimes without sense -- his delivery broke up in strange places, and words written for emphasis got lost (though the "Tahleebahn" and "Pahkeestahn" got their customary careful enunciation). By minute 18 he looked bored.

Maybe you just have to be a military parent, mindful of how carefully you speak to your kid just before deployment, or when he or she gets to a war zone phone, or how carefully you write emails, letters, and Facebook shout-outs, always on full mental alert to sound confident and encouraging without being a Pollyanna, editing your accounts of spending time with his family back home, wondering just how many videos of his little boy at the beach or his birthday party to put on that flashdrive you're sending to Iraq, or how much to talk about that kid he graduated with whose helicopter crashed in Afghanistan and whose name is now on the college monument and his football number retired.

There has been much long-distance psychoanalysis of Mr. Obama, even by licensed professionals who have never met him, and I don't approve of that. But from my seat in the amateur section, having waved goodbye to my kid a couple of times now before his imminent deployment to Anbar, I feel more than qualified to declare that President Obama has a breathtaking empathy deficit. Additional criticisms are easy to make, based on his clear record of personal alienation from the American project, and continuing adolescent romance with the failed Socialist (hell, let's call it Communist) project. He is, as Rush has wisely put it, the least experienced and least qualified person in any room he walks into these days. That accounts for some of it. But the rank obtuseness of his speech to the troops last week is one for the books.

Looking ridiculous in his flight costume, more Club Monaco "blouson" than Bomber Command, he could not have drawn a more stark contrast between himself and that bungling Chimpy McBushHitler who had the troops shouting the roof off in Baghdad a few years ago, speaking briefly and from the heart, and giving so much heart where it was needed.

Sorry, K-Lo -- Mr. Obama looked like something, but Commander-in-Chief it was not.

Down the memory hole:

GOD BLESS THE PRO-LIFE DEMOCRATS WHO STOOD FIRM

The Stupak-pack flip made the difference --
without him and two allies,
THEY DIDN'T HAVE THE VOTES.

BART STUPAK, HEAD FOR THE SHOWERS, START WORKING ON YOUR GOLF GAME, FIND A FRIED EGG TO BE YOUR FRIEND, 'CUZ YOU ARE TOAST

Start going through the couch for loose change, America, to fund the Congressional campaign of Dan Benishek to unseat Stupak in Michigan's 1st District in November.

He Facebooks here. No donation link yet (who knew?) but he's got an address, and the checks are flying into the mail.

However, I gotta admit I'm feeling pretty good about the American people and their unwillingness to buckle under the withering contempt of their elected representatives. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, this whole ugly process has been recorded for history, and more of the folks in flyover country are better informed than they have been in generations. The fat lady ain't sung yet. And the tight-faced lady better enjoy her triumph while she can, because the pitchforks are being honed.

No Democrat with two functioning brain cells can believe that their party will not get spanked for what they have done, in the face of the clear opposition of a substantial majority of the American people. Their willingness to commit seppuku on this issue demonstrates that the party is largely constituted of hardened leftist ideologues, and served by a leadership so secure in its incumbency that it doesn't give a flying fig-newton what happens to their fellows who have to face real elections back home.

I believe they are true believers in what they have just done -- that they are so deeply and willfully ignorant of basic economics, they think all their tricks and gimmicks might actually work. [They've been sneaky about them, especially with the CBO, because to be honest is to invite the scrutiny and interference of the fools back in the constiuency -- so tiresome.] They genuinely do not see that the United States has now taken the first step down the road to being a vassal of the Chinese Communist government. What they believe instead, and desire with all their hearts, is that this massive overhaul will be paid for by "the rich", individually and corporately, thereby eliminating the existence of the rich and of the corporate entity -- a consummation devoutly to be wished. [Also, of course, a recipe for becoming a vassal of the Chinese government.]

Oh, and it will also be paid for by the decimation of the American military, thereby eliminating America's role in policing the world's fascist maniacs -- added bonus.

The President is just now shoveling the self-congratulatory sh#t so fast [about how this vote is a victory for the little people whose voice has been heard] I just have to duck. Why is he still campaigning???? Stop! Stop! STOP!!!!!!

"This is what change looks like," he just said. Remember that, folks. It's the first genuine truth he has uttered this evening.

[Michael Ramirez again -- an oldie (last July) but a goodie.]

Update on the updated update: STUPAK CAVES
LET ONE HUNDRED FLOWERS BLOOM

Update on the update: Stupak still a no?

In times of fear and crisis, change your FIRST THINGS blog consultation from GATEWAY PUNDIT to

THE ANCHORESS

She has a way of distilling not just what's important among the issues, but what's the most important thing to be quietly praying for between clenched teeth. Pay heed, and your teeth might loosen up.

[While you're at it, pray for Bart Stupak and all the pro-life Democrats -- they need the courage of conviction right about now, since they are undergoing the modern-day political equivalent of La Peine forte et dure at the hands of Speakress of the Chambre d'horreurs Madame Tussaud.]


UPDATE: apparently the pile-on strategy still works (as it did so often in centuries past). "Pro-life" Democrat Bart Stupak has caved. He needs prayers now more than ever, I guess.

Meanwhile, Pelosi stands out side the Chamber, with an ENORMOUS gavel -- she's so obtuse that she doesn't see the symbolism invested in a giant instrument with which to hammer the peasants into submission. Will get that picture up as soon as it's available.


First hat-tip item: the work of military chaplains in Afghanistan, from the Sacramento Bee. A post to truly inspire.



Next hat-tip, a surprisingly informative 90-second version of how the American House of Reprehensibles came to be voting on health care today [talk about your "servile work on the Sabbath!]:



Heh.

Sob.

Thanks again, and a tip of the chapeau to the Anchoress, aptly-named Island of Calm in a Turbulent Sea as Lily-Agnes used to say.

TOO BUSY TO BLOG,

BUT SOMETIMES THERE'S NO POINT

Not when there's a guy who can say it better, faster.

Michael Ramirez strikes again. And again. And again.

And my personal favorite.........

You gotta laugh or you'll cry.

And you gotta hand it to Ramirez, for his handling of matters so absurd that they are almost beyond satire.

Memo to Hollywood: not sure that Hope actually floats.

TOO BUSY TO BLOG
GIANT PILE OF BLOGGERY IN THE IN-BASKET

Meanwhile.... the Oscars go to....

THE HURT LOCKER

I've been very confused since last Sunday.
Let me see if I have this right.


Dateline: Hollywood

Republican President: War = BAD.

Democrat President: War = GOOD.

Matt Damon's latest film =
biggest miscalculation of his so far stellar career, destined to be a GI-NORMOUS FLOPPOLA, like all the rest of the "We support our troops, but not their mission because they are homicidal animals, idiots, dupes, rapists, knuckle-dragging troglodytes" movies of the past several years.

War = SO EASY A CAVEMAN COULD DO IT.

Timing is everything, little Mattie. For eight years Hollywood and its leftist mentors were convinced that only one man was fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan [all personnel other than the President were just a faceless mass of non-persons] and they therefore wanted total defeat for him. Now Private Bush has come home and mustered out, and maybe those folks in camouflage aren't so confoundedly evil after all.

So now, under the New Regime of Barack Obama, war president, we keep our screaming, obscenity-laced pacifism to ourselves, don't we Tinsel Town? Yet, despite the resounding abject failure of every anti-American, military-loathing film cranked out since "Mission Accomplished", little Mattie follows the siren song of Zinn-inspired Amerikka hatred, and stakes his present stature on the biggest bugger-the-U.S. movie of all time, The Green Zone. Good move, junior. Take one for the Hollywood team.

Update: Now class, let's review:

Passion of the Christ -- opening weekend $84 million (2004 dollars) from 3000 theatres -- budget $30 million

Avatar -- opening weekend $77 million (2010 dollars) from 3500 theatres

Green Zone -- opening weekend $14.5 million from 3000 theatres -- budget $100 million

John Hinderaker at PowerLine tackles the musical question, "Does Hollywood make you stupid?" and provides a powerful sheaf of evidence for a big ol' "YES" by quoting the increasingly strident and incoherent Tom Hanks, on the subject of his new docu-drama on the War in the Pacific, a subject about which he clearly knows absolutely nothing.


ON COMPETING CHANNELS TONIGHT:

(1) Eastern Promises, dark movie about the Russian mob slithering around the dark underbelly of present-day London, directed by Canadian ghoul David Cronenberg, and featuring one of his favourite cinematic motifs, naked Viggo, as well as what Daily Mail critic Christopher Tookey calls "a kind of character virtually unknown in the Cronenberg canon: a good person."


(2) The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, funny old movie from the Cold War days (1966) about a Russian submarine accidentally grounded near Cape Cod, directed by Canadian Norman Jewison, who has a sense of humour, and got hilarious work out of Carl Reiner and Alan Arkin.

Unforgettable quote: "Eemehrrrgency, eemehrrrgency!!! Everyboddy to get from street!!"

Heh.

BEST. OLYMPIC. HOCKEY. EVER.

Thank you, Team U.S.A. , for not making it easy.


And now, as the flame is extinguished, Canada's greatest living dust bunny, Neil Young, looking like a porky gaucho, sings Long May You Run, which has about four lines relevant to the events of the evening, and the rest of them a bunch of stuck-in-the-sixties blather, but, hey, it's better than that ungrammatical Believe anthem, eh?

OMG, it's the dancing Mounties! The less said about the "I am Canadian" segment the better. It was all going so well until now..... Actually, I kind of like the giant beavers and flying moose, with their happy lumberjacks and voyageurs. But where's the beer?

Anyway, he shoots, he scores.

Over the past two weeks, Canadians have experienced what may be their first wave of raw patriotism since Trudeaupian post-war deconstruction sucked away the nation's heart and soul. And that is not a bad thing.

And how unexpected that it was all summed up in a rehabilitation of the long-abandoned politically incorrect anthem The Maple Leaf Forever (new words, but it's a start).

BACK HOME AGAIN

Sing-along La Mancha car karaoke proceeding splendidly: while bellowing away in the voice of Aldonza (I do them all, you know), I got slightly light-headed and ran a red light. Fortunately it was long after dark and the streets were coated in today's three inches of slushy white Global Warming, so nobody was around to see me or catch me (or be harmed by my negligence).



FAIR IS FOUL, AND FOUL IS FAIR

Speaking of the fairy-tale world of Climate Change, Instapundit alerts us to this little item by Claudia Rosett among the Pajama people, regarding the UN eco-pimps who will be jetting to the tropics by the hundreds, to get hammered hammer out carbon footprint remedies, or some such bunkum. To the folks who put the "hip" in "hypocrite", Glenn Reynolds says

I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANY MORE ABOUT MY CARBON FOOTPRINT when U.N. “climate change” commissars are meeting on Bali — again.

[Rosett]“Yet again, we are asked to believe the UN deserves special exemptions from its own preachings. Its conferees are jetting to Bali for the greater good of all the little folk, whose job is merely to pay the bills for such pleasures, and live with any resulting rationing and regulation. According to the Jakarta Post, some 1,500 people from 192 countries are expected to attend this shindig — where UNEP claims that envoys of some 140 governments will be present.”

Somebody tell these people about Skype.

It continues to be just so weird that the whole universe of fat-cats and bigwigs appears wedded to the delusion that nobody's paying attention.

Hello-o-o.


COMMON SENSE FROM SOMEONE NAMED "MARX"
AT THE VILLAGE VOICE !

Even the cradle of the Beats has learned to recognize overbearing nanny (literally) statism when it rears its ugly little mob-capped head. Enjoy the response to latest research-based excretions from the American Academy of Pediatrics, who have so much time on their hands they can't think of anything more useful to do than to advocate the complete re-design of the all-American tube-steak, which has been deemed a choking hazard due to its elongated shape.

Rebecca Marx has this radical piece of advice:

"It's hard to think of how one would redesign a hot dog to be choke-proof, aside from selling it pre-chewed, but here's a novel idea: Perhaps parents could take it upon themselves to cut them up into small, bite-sized pieces before serving them to their kids. But why settle for common sense and personal responsibility when you can get a government agency or two to pick up the slack instead?"

Put a fork in that idea -- it's done.

LOOSE ENDS,
AS WE LEAVE SANDY-EGGO

a) I guess I got my answer as to whether Yevgeni Plushenko's "I'm-too-sexy-for-my-shirt" aura was real or just part of the performance: he's been spewing sour grapes about his second-place finish, as if the execution of a quadruple jump is the sine qua non of a first-place finish. Bollocks, borscht-boy.

You didn't have the "it" that night (and certainly not for the short program either-- blech). Evan Lysacek had the "it": that indefinable quality that courses through your veins and tells you it is your night.

Brian Boitano had it the night he be beat Brian Orser in '88 (sigh)-- Canadians wanted it not to be so, but when you watched Boitano skate you knew what a winner looked like.

Go suck a lemon, Goldilocks -- don't want to hear from you.


b) I was entirely right in my prediction that I'd walk into the local Borders and find my copy of the original Broadway cast recording of Man of La Mancha.

[Barnes & Noble had a "new Broadway cast" version featuring a bunch of people I never heard of. Uh, I think not.]

At last.


c) While surfing around the bio's of long-ago Bard buddies, I neglected to note that Powers Boothe is also one of those rare Hollywood birds with a 40th wedding anniversary and a coupla kids to his credit.

Kudos, Dudos.

I'm just feelin' the warmth.




d) Farewell to So-Cal, where it's been sunny and clear and frighteningly comfortable. Astonishing views all round us, and this just down the road:


I could get to enjoy this -- even for extended periods. But not all year, every year. No changing seasons is bad for the soul.

Sign at the lovely ravine inside the neighbourhood compound, where my grandson rode his trike today: "BEWARE -- FIRE HAZARD, POISON OAK, RATTLE SNAKES."

...and that's just the state government...

Rim shot.

IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

My rumbly tumbly seems to have righted itself in time for us to have fun in the sun [my pasty-white-from-Canada self actually got some colour!] on the good ship Hornblower Adventure, off to sea whales and other beasts.

One whale, to be precise, but quite the performer-- kept our attention for half-an-hour or so. Dolphins, on the other hand, numbered in the hundreds, visible -- meaning there could have been a thousand taking turns coming up for air.

Great miracles of nature, all witnessed with patience and wonder by the wide blue eyes of our little 3-year-old companion, whom it is our pleasure to spoil.


RANDOM BITS OF NADA

Best Headline of the Month:
People Magazine, February 10

Celine Dion:
MY PRIVATE HEARTBREAK

PRIVATE?

Celine puts her feet up in the tabloid stirrups again to give us all a stolen glimpse of her inner torment and her medical charts, with the blow by blow history of her quest for fertility.

Next time you're in Vegas, drop in on the show and give her that standing Ovum. She'll return the favour by giving you a free ear-piercing.

This is not a remedy for infertility, Celine, or even an old wives' tonic for any ailment that I know of, but here's my two-cents' worth of advice, Madame: put a sock in it.


VANCOUVER OLYMPICS
Dept. of Poofters-on-Ice

Worst kept secret of the games?
Newsflash!! For the short program, Plushenko's going with basic black and a string of sparklies, plus dainty black gloves. Pass it on.

So one after another, male skaters hit the ice sporting some variation of the very same (including the inexplicable pinky-poo tassle on Johnny Whatsit). By contrast, this Italian hillbilly was a huge relief.

Day 2: we're not even into the final group, and I've seen one matador with gloves -- at least his bolero area was red. It was a beautiful costume, actually -- on Kozuka of Japan, if I'm not mistaken.

I know, I know -- they all skate the same routines throughout the Olympic prep competitions, and wear the same costumes. But somebody, somewhere along the line, started the glove thing, and everybody followed. My money's on Yevgeny.

And here they are at last!
Plushenko: full black suit with a rhinestone tie and weskit -- and gloves.
Johnny: black and dove grey, with sparklies, and gloves (white).
The lanky Evan Lysacek: all black with sparkly snaky thing, but sporting his own hands.

As I write this, I'm watching the final round on time delay, so in fact I already know that Lysacek did the deed. I couldn't be happier for him, because a) he seems like a very natural person, not a pretty boy but a thing of grace and beauty to watch, due in large part to his great height. Yeah, so is Plushenko, if you like that sort of imperious flash. I found his short program irritating (unattractive choreography, unsuited to the music), and his I'm-too-sexy-for-my-shirt persona equally so.

But b) mostly I want to see Plushenko nudged aside because he puts me too much in mind of his Russian predecessor who in 1998 combined his fluffy hair with his fluffy shirt to ROB Canada's Elvis Stojko of the gold, even though he was wearing some ice on his ass. Elvis was all man, in leather and studs -- the Russian (Kulik) all Romeo shirt and angst. Seduced the judges, but not me.

Plushenko's probably a perfectly nice fella. I am unmoved.

Evan Lysacek says, "Enough of all that jazz." Dump the black, and paint it red, white, and blue. First time in 22 years!

Mm-mm-mm.


As a footnote to this: I'm happy and all that when an American wins a medal, but the truth is that after 38 years in Canada, one of the few loyalties I have developed for Maple Syrup Country is a genuine desire to see Canada on the podium, especially in hockey and skating, but most other sports too. And on the whole, I would rather watch Canadian coverage of the Olympics than American any day of the week -- the "personal story" disease has sneaked in over recent years, I'm sorry to say, but the coverage otherwise remains a very respectable show, with more objective and informed analysis of just about everything, and a decided lack of schmalz.

On to hockey victory, eh?