Hand-lettered signs.
Carried by people who paid their own way to the rally.
30,000 registered online, but many many more showed up on their own.
You know...AstroTurf.
Pelosi can continue to believe that if she wishes.
Hand-lettered sign of the day: Having government manage your health care is like having Michael Vick watch your dog.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Even the NY Times Admits Something Is Happening--How About ObamaBob?
After months of disparaging reporting, breathlessly parroting the Dems line that the protests against the explosive growth of government are just so much 'AstroTurf', tens upon tens of thousands of ordinary citizens showed this morning in Washington, D.C.
Even the New York Times had to cover it.
It was huge.
It was loud.
It was undeniable.
Robert Gibbs, Himself's press secretary, professed to know nothing of it.
OldSouth is reminded of Baghdad Bob, who was briefing western reporters on the victorious forces of Saddam Hussein routing the infidels, while the US Marines were securing the block across the street from the hotel where Bob was holding the briefing.
Bob's link contains some of his most priceless quotes, as well as updates on his career since.
ObamaBob might want to get in touch with him. Everyone needs a mentor, and some former press secretaries, like Ron Nessen(who worked for Nixon) discovered the world can be a cold place for people with his sort of resume.
Even the New York Times had to cover it.
It was huge.
It was loud.
It was undeniable.
Robert Gibbs, Himself's press secretary, professed to know nothing of it.
OldSouth is reminded of Baghdad Bob, who was briefing western reporters on the victorious forces of Saddam Hussein routing the infidels, while the US Marines were securing the block across the street from the hotel where Bob was holding the briefing.
Bob's link contains some of his most priceless quotes, as well as updates on his career since.
ObamaBob might want to get in touch with him. Everyone needs a mentor, and some former press secretaries, like Ron Nessen(who worked for Nixon) discovered the world can be a cold place for people with his sort of resume.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Project 2996
A Green Shoots nomination for Project 2996, a cooperative project to remember those who were murdered on Sept. 11, 2001.
The shock can wear off after time, 2996 on September 11, untold thousands at places like Shiloh and Gettysburg, the some 2500 lost on D-Day, the horrendous casualties taken by the Marines on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the fire-bombing of Dresden(in response to the fire-bombing of Coventry, in response to the air-raids on Munich, in a war seeking vengeance for 1914-1918...on it goes.)
OldSouth hopes the shock never wears off on this one. These people were guilty of nothing more than going about their lives, and many died because they chose to stay behind and assist those around them.
They were killed because...we won't know the whole story for some decades. That's how history works. But they were the victims of one of the sickest forms of religious zealotry in history, sourced in Islam.
Project 2996 will help keep that sense of shock alive, by putting a name and face to each innocent victim. We will continue to need it, since our politicians and cultural mavens wish to somehow tuck it away in the dark file cabinets of memory.
The shock can wear off after time, 2996 on September 11, untold thousands at places like Shiloh and Gettysburg, the some 2500 lost on D-Day, the horrendous casualties taken by the Marines on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the fire-bombing of Dresden(in response to the fire-bombing of Coventry, in response to the air-raids on Munich, in a war seeking vengeance for 1914-1918...on it goes.)
OldSouth hopes the shock never wears off on this one. These people were guilty of nothing more than going about their lives, and many died because they chose to stay behind and assist those around them.
They were killed because...we won't know the whole story for some decades. That's how history works. But they were the victims of one of the sickest forms of religious zealotry in history, sourced in Islam.
Project 2996 will help keep that sense of shock alive, by putting a name and face to each innocent victim. We will continue to need it, since our politicians and cultural mavens wish to somehow tuck it away in the dark file cabinets of memory.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Don'tcha Just LOVE Bankers
Nominee for the 2009 Chutzpah Award, the high exec from Wells Fargo who decided the best use of a house surrendered by one of Madoff's victims was to move in herself, free of charge!
OldSouth would pretend incredulity, except that he knows the woman's only real mistake was to get caught, as the neighbors ratted on her.
Read on.
Then there are the Rover executive team of four who ran the company into the ground while pocketing millions via a clever 'triangulation' scheme. Ingenious, really.
Robert Peston tells the tale best.
Until ethics are recovered, there is no economic recovery.
The culture shapes the economy before the economy shapes the culture.
OldSouth would pretend incredulity, except that he knows the woman's only real mistake was to get caught, as the neighbors ratted on her.
Read on.
Then there are the Rover executive team of four who ran the company into the ground while pocketing millions via a clever 'triangulation' scheme. Ingenious, really.
Robert Peston tells the tale best.
Until ethics are recovered, there is no economic recovery.
The culture shapes the economy before the economy shapes the culture.
In memoriam
2,996 people, whose only crime was to be about their lives on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Let us remember, and remember to teach our children (and theirs) about the examples of courage and character shown us that day.
And, to those who perpetrated the crime: Be assured, you haven't been forgotten by the citizens of this country.
Ask not for whom the drone buzzes.
It buzzes for you.
Let us remember, and remember to teach our children (and theirs) about the examples of courage and character shown us that day.
And, to those who perpetrated the crime: Be assured, you haven't been forgotten by the citizens of this country.
Ask not for whom the drone buzzes.
It buzzes for you.
Selective Outrage
OK, so maybe Joe Wilson let his passion run ahead of his judgment.
But, Himself was lying. The Dems won't allow any means to enforce the exclusion of illegal aliens from the guv'mint health care scheme. And Joe knew it.
On the other hand, here we have a moment from 2005 when President Bush is telling the truth about the actuarial impossibility of Social Security, and the Democrats are heckling him.
For telling the truth.
Selective outrage, selective adulation.
If you're a conservative, keep your mouth shut in the presence of your 'betters'.
If you're a liberal, you can leave a girl to die of oxygen deprivation, live as a raging and abusive alcoholic, and be lionized.
OK, now I understand...
But, Himself was lying. The Dems won't allow any means to enforce the exclusion of illegal aliens from the guv'mint health care scheme. And Joe knew it.
On the other hand, here we have a moment from 2005 when President Bush is telling the truth about the actuarial impossibility of Social Security, and the Democrats are heckling him.
For telling the truth.
Selective outrage, selective adulation.
If you're a conservative, keep your mouth shut in the presence of your 'betters'.
If you're a liberal, you can leave a girl to die of oxygen deprivation, live as a raging and abusive alcoholic, and be lionized.
OK, now I understand...
Thursday, September 10, 2009
He Lies
Congressman Joe Wilson probably should not have shouted 'He Lies' during Himself's address last night. It was impolite and ill-timed. Not his best moment, but a very human one.
Best to leave that sort of tasteless behavior to the Democrats. You know, like evoking Chappaquidick Teddy's name at the end of a speech, to attempt emotional manipulation from beyond the grave. Like dummying up fake military documents to release two weeks before the 2004 election, and attempting to pass them off as genuine. Like jeering Republican presidents during State of the Union addresses. You know, that sort of stuff...
If a Senator from Massachusetts can abandon a young woman in a wrecked car to die slowly of oxygen deprivation, and still be forgiven and loved, we can perhaps cut MC Joe from South Carolina a wee bit of slack. He's not likely to do anything outrageous again, unlike certain Massachusetts senators were known to do.
'Cuz you see, Joe was right. Himself and the Democrats have no intention of including any means of verification or enforcement to bar illegal immigrants from fully participating in the coming government health care scheme.
The Democrat leadership have one basic difference of world-view from Normal People: Normal People believe that Words convey Meaning. People like the Clintons, Pelosi, Frank, Reid and BHO understand that Words convey whatever they wish them to convey at any given moment. Words are noises produced in order to get one's way in the world, nothing more, nothing less.
Without any enforcement mechanism included in a law, verbiage is just verbiage.
Himself is a lawyer, and knows that. He just counts on the Normal People to not notice.
Joe's a Normal Person, and when the President of The United States told a whopper, Joe lost his temper.
Joe was right.
He Lies.
Best to leave that sort of tasteless behavior to the Democrats. You know, like evoking Chappaquidick Teddy's name at the end of a speech, to attempt emotional manipulation from beyond the grave. Like dummying up fake military documents to release two weeks before the 2004 election, and attempting to pass them off as genuine. Like jeering Republican presidents during State of the Union addresses. You know, that sort of stuff...
If a Senator from Massachusetts can abandon a young woman in a wrecked car to die slowly of oxygen deprivation, and still be forgiven and loved, we can perhaps cut MC Joe from South Carolina a wee bit of slack. He's not likely to do anything outrageous again, unlike certain Massachusetts senators were known to do.
'Cuz you see, Joe was right. Himself and the Democrats have no intention of including any means of verification or enforcement to bar illegal immigrants from fully participating in the coming government health care scheme.
The Democrat leadership have one basic difference of world-view from Normal People: Normal People believe that Words convey Meaning. People like the Clintons, Pelosi, Frank, Reid and BHO understand that Words convey whatever they wish them to convey at any given moment. Words are noises produced in order to get one's way in the world, nothing more, nothing less.
Without any enforcement mechanism included in a law, verbiage is just verbiage.
Himself is a lawyer, and knows that. He just counts on the Normal People to not notice.
Joe's a Normal Person, and when the President of The United States told a whopper, Joe lost his temper.
Joe was right.
He Lies.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Words to Meditate Upon as Himself Mounts the Podium Tonight
From 2006, from the mouth of Senator Obama:
Democrats in control of Congress, including then-Sen. Obama (Ill.), blasted President George W. Bush for failing to contain spending when he oversaw increased deficits and raised the debt ceiling.
“Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren,” Obama said in a 2006 floor speech that preceded a Senate vote to extend the debt limit. “America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.”
Now, Congress will be asked(and most will vote yes) to raise the debt ceiling to over 12 trillion dollars.
12 trillion dollars, and the real spending has just begun!
Words and numbers, in our real world, have meaning.
Apparently, for the President and most of Congress, they don't.
Democrats in control of Congress, including then-Sen. Obama (Ill.), blasted President George W. Bush for failing to contain spending when he oversaw increased deficits and raised the debt ceiling.
“Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren,” Obama said in a 2006 floor speech that preceded a Senate vote to extend the debt limit. “America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.”
Now, Congress will be asked(and most will vote yes) to raise the debt ceiling to over 12 trillion dollars.
12 trillion dollars, and the real spending has just begun!
Words and numbers, in our real world, have meaning.
Apparently, for the President and most of Congress, they don't.
Monday, September 7, 2009
The Joys of the Weekend
So grateful for the short respite of the US Labor Day weekend.
I've done strenuous things like walk the golf course, buy an inexpensive set of cookware with my bride (after nineteen years, maybe it's time to own a matched set!), work my way through A.N. Wilson's fabulous book After The Victorians, drink coffee, listen to the rain fall, pile my border collie into the pickup for a trip to the local skip(no home trash service out here in the country...), go to the grocery, the local feed store, the ice-cream store in the nearby village.
Etc., etc.
It's been wonderful. I've had time to exhale.
I'm tired.
At some point today, it dawned on me that Mrs. OldSouth and I have lived with our proverbial 'foot to the floor' since childhood, to some extent by choice, but mainly from necessity. We live in a hurried culture, which has for most of the past fifty or so years promoted consumption at the expense of production; without consciously acknowledging it, we've been doing battle with it the whole time. It hasn't been a losing battle in general, but it has been tiring.
For today, the border collie has the right plan: Curled up next to Mrs. OldSouth on the couch, snoozing.
Much to be done, and will have to jump into it tomorrow.
But for tonight...back to Mr. Wilson.
So grateful for this life I've been given.
I've done strenuous things like walk the golf course, buy an inexpensive set of cookware with my bride (after nineteen years, maybe it's time to own a matched set!), work my way through A.N. Wilson's fabulous book After The Victorians, drink coffee, listen to the rain fall, pile my border collie into the pickup for a trip to the local skip(no home trash service out here in the country...), go to the grocery, the local feed store, the ice-cream store in the nearby village.
Etc., etc.
It's been wonderful. I've had time to exhale.
I'm tired.
At some point today, it dawned on me that Mrs. OldSouth and I have lived with our proverbial 'foot to the floor' since childhood, to some extent by choice, but mainly from necessity. We live in a hurried culture, which has for most of the past fifty or so years promoted consumption at the expense of production; without consciously acknowledging it, we've been doing battle with it the whole time. It hasn't been a losing battle in general, but it has been tiring.
For today, the border collie has the right plan: Curled up next to Mrs. OldSouth on the couch, snoozing.
Much to be done, and will have to jump into it tomorrow.
But for tonight...back to Mr. Wilson.
So grateful for this life I've been given.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Jesse's September 5 Post
Jesse's Crossroads Cafe is a wonderful read, where theology, culture, and financial insight cross paths.
Today's post will hopefully 'go viral', and circle the globe a few times this week. He quotes thoughts of Cardinal Newman we all need to hear, and may well need to hang on to, if things start to go south on us.
As they may.
In any case, they are wonderful words for any time and place. To give you a taste, just a few follow here:
Let us feel what we really are--sinners attempting great things. Let us simply obey God's will, whatever may come. He can turn all things to our eternal good. Easter day is preceded by the forty days of Lent, to show us that they only who sow in tears shall reap in joy.
Today's post will hopefully 'go viral', and circle the globe a few times this week. He quotes thoughts of Cardinal Newman we all need to hear, and may well need to hang on to, if things start to go south on us.
As they may.
In any case, they are wonderful words for any time and place. To give you a taste, just a few follow here:
Let us feel what we really are--sinners attempting great things. Let us simply obey God's will, whatever may come. He can turn all things to our eternal good. Easter day is preceded by the forty days of Lent, to show us that they only who sow in tears shall reap in joy.
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