September 08, 2004

I guess that would make Al Gore the one-eyed guy with the monkey

This bit in the Telegraph is priceless:

Watching Mr Kerry try to take on Mr Bush brings to mind a classic moment in that cult film of the 1980s, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones is trapped in a back-alley in an Egyptian souk.

A crowd closes in as a giant Arab steps forward wielding a scimitar. Snick-snack it goes through the air, faster and faster. The audience tenses. Indie shudders.

Then he draws a pistol from his belt and shoots the Arab in the forehead. Game over. The crowd drifts away.

Such is America's polarisation that the crowd enveloping the two presidential candidates is not yet drifting away. But, notwithstanding his own twists over Iraq, Mr Bush plays a convincing straight shooter. His pistol is already drawn and all the while Mr Kerry seems happier whirling a scimitar than reaching for a gun.

The whole article is both hilarious and insightful.

Posted by Steve at 10:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I know I'm Not Supposed To Enjoy This, But....

Yes, yes, I'd still bloviate here even if no one but my Dad ever read a word I wrote. Yes, yes, I do this mostly for myself and for Steve-O. Yes, yes, I really, really like the circle of blogfriends we've made around here.

But owing to Steve getting Instalanched again last night, we just passed 2000 hits for the day, which is better than 10 times our normal daily average (and we've still got better than six hours to go), and I just have to say......

I love it! I love it! I love it! Oh, gimme summore o' those bee-uuteeful hits! Gimme, gimme, gimme! Aaaaa-Ha-Ha-Ha-Haaaa!!!!!

YIPS from Steve: We're #257!!!! Woo-hoo! In your face, ABC's The Note!

Yeah, I know these things don't last, but what the hey: this is still a lot more fun than burning down other civilizations playing Age of Empires: The Conquerors.

Posted by Robert at 05:31 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

More Musical Thoughts

Last evening I was able to take some time to play some of my favorite Haydn piano sonatas. This afternoon, as I'm putting together some document request letters, I'm listening to Alfred Brendel playing Beethoven's early sonatas, Opus 2, Nos. 1-3, written when he was quite young and dedicated to Haydn.

The link between Haydn and Beethoven's musical ideas is perfectly obvious to my ear but almost impossible for me to explain. That is the most aggravating part about never having seriously studied theory - by not practicing the academic analysis of music I have not developed the vocabulary necessary to talk about it intelligently.

If you want an extremely intelligent discussion of classical theory (by "classical" I mean the works of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven), may I suggest the writings of Charles Rosen. Rosen has the ability to explain these things even to slacker dilettantes like me. Unfortunately, while I can follow along perfectly well as long as I'm reading, I lose it as soon as I put the book down.

Posted by Robert at 04:59 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

"'W' stands for "Wrong'"

But of course "F" stands for "French", "Fecklessness", and, of course, "Fraud."

Kathleen Parker nails it:

Kerry's decision to impugn all those people now seems a near-fatal miscalculation. Yet, characteristic of the entitled class to which he belongs, Kerry seeks to blame others, especially his campaign managers, for his flagging popularity.

In the past few days he has turned to his party's godfather, Bill Clinton, and his apparatchiks, campaign advisers James Carville and Paul Begala. Talk about heaping insult atop injury: No sooner does Kerry escape the shadow of Clinton's autobiographical oeuvre-in-one, "My Life," than the former president seizes the kliegs with chest pains.

Doling advice from his hospital bed, in between interviews with Larry King, Clinton urged Kerry to drop the Vietnam gig. The rest of the world would like to respectfully add that he also abandon windsurfing and lose the sporting wardrobe.

Given today's climate, in which girlie-men are juxtaposed against child-butchering terrorists, Kerry's daily checklist might include the question: What would Hemingway do?

Posted by Steve at 04:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Khaaaaaaan!!!!!

Genesis space probe goes down in Utah. Location of U.S.S. Reliant currently unknown.

UPDATE: Kevin at Wizbang has a larger photo of the mess. If you check out the upper left quadrant, you can almost make out the curly blond locks of Dr. David Marcus. No loss there.

Posted by Robert at 04:03 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

PANIC TIME

Robert Kuttner, in today's Boston Globe:


Five big things are wrong, and each can (belatedly) be fixed.

Toughness. First, Kerry waited too long to forcefully criticize Bush's ample defects and vulnerabilities. The campaign's grand strategists made two big decisions for the Democratic convention that seemed like good ideas at the time. First, they decided that the tone needed to be relentlessly positive. This became such a mantra that whenever a rare speaker actually landed a good punch on Bush, TV commentators tsk-tsked that the speaker was "off message."

Please. The whole point of challenging a sitting president is to question his record. Better late than never, but Kerry should have been a lot tougher a lot earlier.

Clarity. The convention's second big mistake was to mistake biography for a strategy. Yes, Kerry needed to be introduced to the broad public, and yes, he needed to be credible as a leader on defens, and yes, his Vietnam record made for a compelling personal story as well as a contrast with Bush.

But they overdid it. Elections are about the competence of the incumbent and the challenger's vision for the future, not about candidate biographies. If they were, Bush never would have been elected (actually, he wasn't elected).

You can't blame Kerry's Vietnam emphasis for the right-wing veterans' smear. That was orchestrated in advance and ready to go in any case. But by overemphasizing Vietnam, the convention message inadvertently reminded voters that Kerry had both fought in the war and then opposed it. Many Americans, of course, did. But in Kerry's case, this could seem another flip-flop.

Most important, the Vietnam focus diverted attention from Kerry's vision for the future. Bush's actual policies and new proposals are so bogus and so disconnected from the problems they purport to solve that Kerry should be having a field day knocking them down and advancing his affirmative vision for America. He needs to stick to a few strong themes.

Too Many Cooks. While I respect most of the people newly brought into the Kerry campaign, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach when I heard of the latest shake-up. If anything, the campaign already has too many hands on the steering wheel. Yes, it's a source of strength to listen to multiple views -- Roosevelt and JFK certainly did. But Kerry needs to clarify the chain of command or the campaign will degenerate into a dynamic where a lowest common denominator defines a feeble consensus position or, worse, positions will shift depending on which adviser is momentarily on top. That dynamic did in Al Gore.

Hostile Media. The press (with some heroic exceptions) continues to cut Bush and the right-wing smears a lot more slack than they cut Kerry. There is no offsetting left-wing Fox.

Likability. Bush is one likable fellow. Some believe it is hard for the candidate who is less likable to utter tough criticisms of a sitting president who is liked personally, even if voters mistrust his policies. But that's just not so.

Each of these problems has the same solution: toughness. If Kerry is much tougher on Bush, he will come across as tougher generally, including on defense -- tough enough to lead. By being decisive, he will lay to rest the sense of a drifting campaign. He will get more respect from the media. And even voters who might prefer to go out for a beer with Bush will take Kerry more seriously as a potential president.

Because the Globe is an objective and independent analyst of the news, here's the link to Kutner's equally slashing criticisms of the pre-prepated slander by Kitty Kelley

(insert sound of crickets chirping)

Posted by Steve at 03:58 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Another Torpedo In The Water, Captain!

StolenHonor.com is the site of a group of former POW's that has been putting together a documentary about how "Hanoi John" Kerry's war record directly affected them.

A couple of these guys have already spoken out, I believe. The film they're putting together looks like one-stop shopping for all your Kerry-bashing needs. I gather it makes its debut tomorrow morning here in Washington.

This is far, far worse than either a) squabbling over Kerry's medals or b) looking for gaps in Dubya's National Guard service records.

Geesh. At first I thought Kerry was playing a gutsy game making his Vietnam service the focal point of his campaign. Now it's beginning to look more and more like the man is playing Russian Roulette with an automatic pistol.

Yips! to Kate O'Beirne over in The Corner.

Posted by Robert at 03:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I'm sure Ron Reagan Jr. will have something snide and irrelevant to say about this

Oh yeah, that's right: his second 15 minutes of fame are up. Sorry Ron: back to community theater productions of Peter Pan.

Anyhoo, the city of Krakow, Poland is renaming its Central Square--seen of Solidarity and anti-Soviet demonstrations in the 1970s and 1980s---after Ronald Reagan.

Somehow, this is a far more fitting tribute than that horrible office building in downtown Dee-Cee.

Posted by Steve at 03:52 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Geez-louise!

French failure to get their hostages back? Must be the fault of Amerika!

Later in the day, another French Muslim leader who visited Iraq wondered whether the US offensive around Latifiya, in an area south of Baghdad where the hostages are thought to be held, had been a deliberate effort to thwart their release.

I bet the Chimperor personally ordered this, right before sitting down to a nice lunch of cold peasant salad with a blood smoothie!

Seriously, though, the article from the Jordan Times is interesting as it shows the fear in France that appeasement and flattery are not getting the desired results. If that doesn't work, what's left?

Oh, right....

Posted by Steve at 03:25 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

We don't need no education.....

I've always hated Pink Floyd, and have been a firm believer that their music is the sort of overrated crap composed by an unholy combination of electric guitars and electroshock therapy.

Apparently I was right: Allahpundit of course has the graphics to prove it.

Posted by Steve at 03:10 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

This has easily got to be the stupidest story of the year

The IHT breathlessly reports that in a survery of "world" public opinion, Kerry trounces Bush.

If the world could cast a vote in the United States presidential election, John Kerry would beat George W. Bush by a landslide, according to a poll released on Wednesday that is described as the largest sample of global opinion on the race. . "It is absolutely clear that John Kerry would win handily if the people of the world could vote," said Steve Kull, director of The Program on International Policy Attitudes of the University of Maryland, a co-sponsor of the survey. "It is rather striking that just one in five people surveyed around the world support the re-election of President Bush."

It is rather striking that Professor Kull (I wonder, does his mate call him "Kull the Conqueror" in bed? Maybe it's just me....) thinks that is so amazing, really, on a number of levels. First, it somehow is premised on the idea that to be an effective promoter of American interests equates to remaining popular in certain areas abroad. Second, it's part of the Adlai Stevenson Fallacy subscribed to by the hardcore left in America (excuse me, Amerika) that somehow citizens would look up from their morning NYT, drop their scone, and say, "Mon dieu! We can't let this happen! How will we be received next sabbatical at our favorite cafe in Provence if this were to happen?" Respected abroad is not the same thing as being safe at home, as we found out because of our foreign policy under Warren Christopher and Madeline Albright.


The most negative attitude toward the U.S. came from France, Germany and Mexico, where roughly 80 percent of those surveyed thought that the foreign policies of President Bush had made them feel worse about the United States.

Hmmmmm, if you ran the same poll in, say, 1942 you'd probably get the same result. Let's just face the facts: to the left, the "international community" translates to just that: France and Germany. And the foreign policy of these two benighted countries translates to one thing: appeasement.

It's also the Cornelius Fudge Theory of Leadership and Public Opinion in action as well: when faced with overwhelming evidence that your world view is shattered by the presence of evil, it's much better to demonize the messenger than confront the demon. Of course the US is unpopular, because the fecklessness and paper soldier mentality of the UN has been proved to be the ridiculous sham that it is. "Never Again" has become "Never again be reminded of the need to do the unpopular and difficult thing in the face of danger and difficulty, when it's much easier to slouch off to Starbucks for a latte and to check out the latest Ted Rall cartoon in the weekly free newspaper."

Posted by Steve at 02:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

What the......?

Wizbang reports that Koffi & Co. are ticked off with the US because we destroyed or allowed to be removed from Iraq machinery capable of making WMD..... you know, the stuff that they didn't have.

So it's really a two-fer: smack Amerika for invading Iraq over its WMD program by claiming it doesn't exist, and then smack Amerika again for removing Iraq's WMD capabilities!

Got that straight? Errr, didn't think so.

Posted by Steve at 02:37 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Embracing The Dark Side

John Kerry is officially a Neo-McGovernite.

Well, he's always been one. But now at least he's coming out and saying it.

Posted by Robert at 02:26 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Auntie Em! Auntie Em!

Tornado warning just went up for my neck of the woods. Apparently, there's a storm just south of the Beltway Mixing Bowl headed in. Dutiful Dad just called home to go over which room the Missus and the Llama-ettes should flee to in the event of trouble.

I used to date a girl named Frances, but we broke up reasonably amicably. I'd hate to think she was hexing me now.

UPDATE: It's gone to play in Montgomery County now.

Posted by Robert at 02:17 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Now This Is Weird

We're getting an awful lot of traffic today from Salam Pax, the Blogger of Baghdad. That in itself is great. The strange part is that he's been on hiatus since September 3 and linked to one of Steve-O's pieces of silliness way back on August 28. We got a bit of a boost back then. I don't understand why we're getting another one now. Is it possible that today is just a big day for traffic on his site?

Posted by Robert at 02:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Bizarre Meme of the week

Annika has the update on the whole John Kerry brandishing a shotgun he would have banned story.

Posted by Steve at 01:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Ethical Cowardice of Al Gore

From the New Yorker:

“I’m not of the school that questions his intelligence,” Gore went on. “There are different kinds of intelligence, and it’s arrogant for a person with one kind of intelligence to question someone with another kind. He certainly is a master at some things, and he has a following. He seeks strength in simplicity. But, in today’s world, that’s often a problem. I don’t think that he’s weak intellectually. I think that he is incurious. It’s astonishing to me that he’d spend an hour with his incoming Secretary of the Treasury and not ask him a single question. But I think his weakness is a moral weakness. I think he is a bully, and, like all bullies, he’s a coward when confronted with a force that he’s fearful of. His reaction to the extravagant and unbelievably selfish wish list of the wealthy interest groups that put him in the White House is obsequious. The degree of obsequiousness that is involved in saying ‘yes, yes, yes, yes, yes’ to whatever these people want, no matter the damage and harm done to the nation as a whole—that can come only from genuine moral cowardice. I don’t see any other explanation for it, because it’s not a question of principle. The only common denominator is each of the groups has a lot of money that they’re willing to put in service to his political fortunes and their ferocious and unyielding pursuit of public policies that benefit them at the expense of the nation.”

I have only one thing to say to Al Gore about this:

chung.jpg

Remember Johnny Chung? We do.

Posted by Steve at 01:11 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

The Literary Life

My mother is convinced that my blogging here at the Butcher's Shop is a warm up for an eventual foray into the world of book authorship. At this point, I don't see it. If I have a book in me, it's locked away deep in the vault somewhere.

At any rate, Terry Teachout has some excellent advice for novice authors today. His Prime Directive:

Anyone who writes a serious book with the expectation of making a lot of money and/or becoming famous is a fool. If you can’t afford to write a book in your spare time for its own sake, you’re in the wrong business.
Posted by Robert at 01:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Religion of Irony Update

The Sandcrawler has the details.

Posted by Steve at 12:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Polls? POLLS? We got yer stinkin' polls right here!

NE Republican has the poll roundup with all the linkety-links you need.

Posted by Steve at 12:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A Message from the Crack Young Staff

Our good friends at The Hatemonger's Quarterly report that Blogspot is on the fritz and preventing them from posting their daily installment of erudite ranting. What a shame. All we can suggest that you go over and flip through the archives. THQ posts suffer none at all with age.

(As Dave Barry would say, "Blogspot on the Fritz" would make a great name for a rock band.)

UPDATE: They'e BAAAAAA-aaaaaack!

Posted by Robert at 12:42 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Beslan Update

Freakin' Jen has the latest.

Posted by Steve at 12:41 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Happy September 8

Rocket Jones commemorates today, which includes the birthdays of Patsy Cline, Lyndon LaRouche, the original Star Trek franchise, and of course Rocket Jones!

Posted by Steve at 12:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Dems Going Postal

J. McIntyre has a good post up over at RealClearPolitics about the media's newfound interest in restoking the Bush/National Guard/AWOL meme.

Frankly, I don't think this business is going to go anywhere. In fact, it may very well wind up hurting the Donks, smacking as it does of whiney despair. I think there is a psychological "Sleeze Event Horizon" in most people's minds, below which they stop paying attention to the substance of the attacks and start looking more at the motives behind making them. The Left has been hammering Bush without result about this business for years - pushing it ever closer to this SEH. All most people are likely to see now is the desire of the Dems to tar Bush with something, anything, in order to discredit him.

Posted by Robert at 12:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Llama Bleg

Here at the Butcher's Shop, we're always on the lookout for ways to improve our product. (Okay, we don't have any graphics up right now and we haven't figured out the problem with the columns yet, but we're working on it.)

Anyway, we thought it might be cool to install that blogroll thingum that lets you know when a site has been updated. Anyone know where we can get our little hooves on that? Thanks!

Posted by Robert at 09:29 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Wodehouse Roundup

The perfect way to start the morning! Mark Shea has links to Stephen Fry and George Orwell on Wodehouse, plus a very funny poem Plum wrote on the alarums and excursions caused by printing errors.

Yips! to Ramesh Ponnuru over at the Corner.

UPDATE: Mr. Enoch Soames, Esq. , is all over these links as well. Plus, he gives us a divvy in the form of the Official Drones Club tie! Oh, make my day!

Posted by Robert at 09:22 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Sports and Politics

Has the Curse of the Bambino left the Sox and settled on a new host? Bill Whalen suggests J. Francois Kerry may be facing more trouble than he thinks.

Posted by Robert at 09:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

This Is Going To Be Interesting....

So today is the first day of school for the Llama-ettes, including my youngest who starts preschool. I think she is going to thrive in the place. Montessori preschool puts lots of emphasis on tactile activities and this girl has the hands of a raccoon. Her classroom is loaded down with all sorts of puzzles, gadgets and props and I don't doubt she is going to go right through all of them within the first half hour or so.

In a way, I feel rather sorry for her teacher, the long-suffering, patient Mrs. Wood. You see, the preschool/kindergarten program at the girls' school is a three year cycle and my oldest girl just graduated from Mrs. Wood's class up to the lower elementary class. My youngest doesn't actually turn three until January, so she is starting the preschool program a bit early and will be there for four years before going upstairs. Seven solid years of Llama-ettes is enough to merit any teacher combat pay and some kind of medal.

Speaking of my oldest, her eyes were practically blazing last night as she picked out which uniform she was going to wear her first day. She is also excited because this is going to be her first experience with what she calls a "boy teacher". As if this isn't enough, she also gets her own locker and finally gets to take her backpack to school - something she's been dreaming of for years. Her new class is a mix of first, second and third graders. Fortunately, she's going in with three or four of her friends from last year, so it should be a smooth transition.

Meanwhile, the middle child [Gasp! Don't SAY that! - Ed.] is on her third year in the preschool/kindergarten program. (She started early, too, so will be there another year after this.) She has a reputation around school as a natural leader because she has always gone out of her way to help out the smaller kids and to make friend with new students. She also has a reputation for fearlessness and indestructability - last year she fell off the monkey bars and landed flat on her back. After brushing herself off, she was right back on them. Alas, she has recently got considerably more snippy than she used to be. I fear she may gain yet another reputation this year. Fortunately, her teacher, Ms. Reichner, does not stand for uppity behavior from her charges.

I used to be a bit dubious about Montessori. It's got something of a bad reputation as a hippie-dippie do-your-own-thing kind of education. But this is largely confined to places that call themselves Montessori but really aren't. The purists manage to combine both structure and creativity in the same setting. And I must say that my older girls have done splendidly in this environment. My six year old reads better than many second graders and is well into multiplication and division, while the four year old is getting to the point of being able to read simple sentences. Combine that with all the exposure they get to art, music, geography, natural science, etc., etc., and I think they're in good hands.

Posted by Robert at 08:56 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

More staff shake-up for the Kerry Campaign

Dennis at Classical Values has the scoop.

(Of course, he'll help make Joe Lockhart and Begala look sane, rational, and believable!)

(BTW, but of course I'm kicking myself for not thinking of this one first....)

Posted by Steve at 08:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Gratuitous Domestic Posting (TM) - Garden Division

Just a random note from the garden - perhaps its the rain we're supposed to get from the remains of Frances that makes me think about this today.

I can well see now where the Blackberry Lily gets its name and why Thomas Jefferson was so interested in it. The seed pods on mine are opening up, revealing big clusters of large, round, dark seeds. Damme if they don't look like blackberries. I can also see why this plant is so prolific a self-spreader. There is something about these seeds that just oozes life and heartiness. You know perfectly well that anywhere they drop they're going to thrive. My godparents started out with a single specimen two or three years ago and now the stuff is all over their garden. I won't mind if that happens with mine too.

(Oh, speaking of the garden, I finally gave in and decided to give Kathy the Cake Eater's anti-rabbit folk remedy a try. With all the hamburger I'd eaten over the weekend, I reckoned it was time to lock and load. Sorry, no pictures. I'll let you know how it turns out.)

Posted by Robert at 08:21 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Yips! To Steve-O

Another Instalanche in his pocket this morning for his slumming with tawdry blogskanks fearless questioning of one of today's leading voices in the Blogsphere.

By the way, the pictures! Where are the pictures?

YIPS from Steve: I'm not being a tease (although that would be page 1 in the "blog like wonkette!" book now wouldn't it be?), I just lost the durn USB cable and have to get a new one (this afternoon, I promise!)

Also, all thanks and gratitude to Pixy Misa for doing a lightning fast fixxy fix to our archive pages which it dawned on me that we didn't have sitemeter on. Thanks Andrew!

Posted by Robert at 07:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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