May 31, 2009
Deviant Behavior--Because You Count On Us To Ask The Really Important Questions
One of Mrs. LMC's women's magazines (Self, Shape--they are all the same to me) ran a full page ad featuring the rear view of a nekkid gal heading into the surf to announce something to the effect that "42 percent of those who responded [to their survey] admitted to skinny dipping with a member of the opposite sex." One wonders:
1. Was it with their (present) spouse/significant other/squeeze/ concubine?
2. Was it because it seemed like a good idea at the time (as to being bored, nothing better to do, or because everyone else was doing)?
3. Did adult beverages fuel the decision-making process?
4. Would they anwer the survey truthfully knowing that their spouse/signficant other/squeeze/concubine might find out the answer?
5. Having done it, would they do it again? If so, under what circumstances?
6. What about skinny hot-tubbing? Skinny skiing (snow or water)?"Going to bullfights on acid"?*
Feel free to comment, add your own personal experiences, and everything is, of course, completely confidential.
*Lifetime free subscription to this blog for anyone who can figure out the connection.
LONG DISTANCE DEDICATION TO ALL WHO HAVE GONE SWIMMING ON A STARRY NIGHT:
Special thanks to Monica for the R.E.M. reference.
May 30, 2009
Coo-ell
Solar activity report is here, via Drudge. The dearth of sunspot activity seems to have produced less "body art" on the beach today and fewer UFOs (Unidentified Frying Objects).
Playing Offense
Liz Cheney smokes Lawrence O'Donnell on the subject of enhanced interrogation. Via El Rusho and the good folks at the EIB network. Cheney's AEI speech on the subject was great. Two takeaways: waterboarding was used on hardened terrorists when other methods failed and it saved lives.
Funky Cold Medina
The local fishwrapper is reporting that Tone Loc wound up in a Florida hospital after being overcome by the heat so here is one of his Eighties classics:
May 29, 2009
Random Commuter Observation
I can't help noticing as I shuffle back and forth between the office and the metro that there don't seem to be nearly as many busloads of slacker teenagers and other tourons roaming about Your Nation's Capital this year as in the past.
Of course, it could just be my imagination, but I don't think so. After all, I am a wise old Llama.
Somebody Did Not Get the Memo
Sotomayer is described as a "terror on the bench" in this article. Her defenders claim it is because she "does not suffer fools gladly." This is a departure from the generally glowing articles on the nominee, her intellectual heft, and judicial demeanor.
My appellate practice experience is limited but I had the chance as a law clerk to spend a week at the Fourth Circuit. The best approach to a bad appeal was taken by a panel headed by J. Harvie Wilkinson. The appeal was frivolous, concerned issues that had already been decided in the Sixth Circuit, and never should have been filed. The appellant's lawyer argued first and made his pitch to a bench was completely motionless: no notes, no movement-the judges sat perfectly still, looked straight ahead, and said nothing. When the appellant's counsel was finished, his opponent stood up, addressed the court, and barely got out his name when Wilkinson uttered the first sound to come from that side of courtroom: "Counsel, let us turn to the question of sanctions" and for the next few minutes had an informal discussion with the appellee's attorney about the best way to fix sanctions on his opponent for filing such a baseless appeal. The opinion came out a few days later and remanded the case to the trial court for the sole purpose of taking evidence on the measure of the monetary award to be imposed on appellant's counsel.
North Korea
Tensions are escalating on the peninsula as the North renouces the armistice that ended the Korean war, conducts a second muclear test, and masses forces along the DMZ. Is anyone paying attention?
May 28, 2009
Gratuitous Nats Posting - "Feel The Anger FLOWING In You!" Division
I must be becoming a real fan or something, because I was genuinely infuriated by last night's sweeper of the Nats by the Mets. I mean yelling at the teevee, beating the children and kicking the cat infuriated.
Here's the recap. Typical Nats outing - solid through 5 or 6 innings. In fact, up to that point, it was a pretty durn good duel between Zimmerman and Santana.
But then.....ka-BLOOOIE!!
Let me just say a few things about Murphy's "home run" in the 6th.
First, instant replay review is more pernicious to baseball than either artificial turf or the DH rule and I seriously hope the league gets rid of it instanter.
Second, I was mostly joking in my last post about the umpire bias. Not any more.
Third, if the ball did bounce off the Subway sign on the front of the upper deck, how the heck did it then leap from the front of the warning track and hit the Modell's sign below it? As Seinfeld might say, "That was one magic loogie."
Grrrrrr.......
At this rate we're going to be looking back on last year's 102 losses as the Good Old Days. And I am going to have gone completely over to the Dark Side.
UPDATE: In response to several alarumed queries to the Tasty Bits (TM) Mail Sack, no, of course I didn't really kick the cat.
May 26, 2009
Gratuitous Nats Posting (TM) - "Haiku For Gary" Division
*Ahem*
Umps cause two Mets wins.
Nanny Bloomburg greasing palms?
All Natstown wonders.
It had to be said.
UPDATE: A response from the Tasty Bits (TM) Mail Sack:
Need to bribe the umps?
The way the Nats are playing?
Mets: Save your money.
Here's hoping we dodge the sweep tonight anyhow.
May 25, 2009
Reunion
Last night Mrs. LMC and I had an early dinner with my first battalion commander. He long since retired from active duty and he works for a defense contractor. I had spoken to him only once since he left command 22 years ago when I bumped into him at a graduation in 1995. About a week ago, he was in Europe, ran into one of my brothers, they eventually figured out the connection, and my brother gave him my contact information.
He was one of the best soldiers I have ever known and one of the toughest bosses I ever had. He saw his mission in life to get us ready for war and lived by a few simple rules: do the right thing no matter the consequences, officers should set the example, and lead from the front. He had no use for substandard officers and ruthlessly weeded them out. (I can think of five whose careers ended at the end of his pen.) As a lieutenant and a captain, he saw the Army at its worst in the closing days of Vietnam, and maxed out every dope smoker who wound up in front of his desk.
He knew his business and worked us until we mastered every operation expected of an air assault infantry battalion and then worked us until we mastered doing it at night. He believed in "tough love" and had no problems letting us know it (I still cringe at the memory of the first range for which I was the officer in charge: M16A1 qualification in the spring of 1986). As demanding as he was, if you busted your ass for him and found yourself in a tight corner and needed someone to go to bat for you, he would do it and not care who he pissed off.
Much of the success I had in the Middle East was the result of working for him so many years ago and last night I finally had the chance to tell him.
May 24, 2009
Whoa
Yesterday our Munuvian Overlord Pixy Misa switched the Collective over to a new server. In the process, some technical glitch caused the Llama homepage to default to a post I wrote about four years ago, a long ramble about classical music.
I didn't know about the server switch until later and didn't notice the date on the post when I opened it. My first reaction, then, when I saw the content with my name attached to it, was that somebody with a set of keys to this place had set me up the bomb and done a pretty durn good parody of me.
Then I noticed the date and realized that, no, I had written the thing after all.
Ruh, roh. Do I really sound like that?
May 23, 2009
Gratuitous Headline-Reading Observation
Boy, I sure can smell coffee. When is everyone else going to?
May 22, 2009
May 21, 2009
Fly the Flag at the Top of the Mast on Monday
I give your Douglas MacArthur's farewell address to the cadets of West Point for your thoughtful consideration:
General Westmoreland, General Groves, distinguished guests, and gentlemen of the Corps. As I was leaving the hotel this morning, a doorman asked me, "Where are you bound for, General?" and when I replied, "West Point," he remarked, "Beautiful place, have you ever been there before?"
No human being could fail to be deeply moved by such a tribute as this, coming from a profession I have served so long and a people I have loved so well. It fills me with an emotion I cannot express. But this award is not intended primarily for a personality, but to symbolize a great moral code - the code of conduct and chivalry of those who guard this beloved land of culture and ancient descent. That is the meaning of this medallion. For all eyes and for all time, it is an expression of the ethics of the American soldier. That I should be integrated in this way with so noble an ideal arouses a sense of pride and yet of humility which will be with me always.
"Duty," "Honor," "Country" - those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you want to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn. Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean.
The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and, I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.
But these are some of the things they do. They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation's defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid.
They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for action; not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm, but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future, yet never neglect the past; to be serious, yet never take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness; the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.
They give you a temperate will, a quality of imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, an appetite for adventure over love of ease. They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life. They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.
And what sort of soldiers are those you are to lead? Are they reliable? Are they brave? Are they capable of victory?
Their story is known to all of you. It is the story of the American man at arms. My estimate of him was formed on the battlefields many, many years ago, and has never changed. I regarded him then, as I regard him now, as one of the world's noblest figures; not only as one of the finest military characters, but also as one of the most stainless.
His name and fame are the birthright of every American citizen. In his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give. He needs no eulogy from me, or from any other man. He has written his own history and written it in red on his enemy's breast.
But when I think of his patience under adversity, of his courage under fire, and of his modesty in victory, I am filled with an emotion of admiration I cannot put into words. He belongs to history as furnishing one of the greatest examples of successful patriotism. He belongs to posterity as the instructor of future generations in the principles of liberty and freedom. He belongs to the present, to us, by his virtues and by his achievements.
In twenty campaigns, on a hundred battlefields, around a thousand campfires, I have witnessed that enduring fortitude, that patriotic self-abnegation, and that invincible determination which have carved his statue in the hearts of his people.
From one end of the world to the other, he has drained deep the chalice of courage. As I listened to those songs of the glee club, in memory's eye I could see those staggering columns of the First World War, bending under soggy packs on many a weary march, from dripping dusk to drizzling dawn, slogging ankle deep through mire of shell-pocked roads; to form grimly for the attack, blue-lipped, covered with sludge and mud, chilled by the wind and rain, driving home to their objective, and for many, to the judgment seat of God.
I do not know the dignity of their birth, but I do know the glory of their death. They died unquestioning, uncomplaining, with faith in their hearts, and on their lips the hope that we would go on to victory. Always for them: Duty, Honor, Country. Always their blood, and sweat, and tears, as they saw the way and the light.
And twenty years after, on the other side of the globe, against the filth of dirty foxholes, the stench of ghostly trenches, the slime of dripping dugouts, those boiling suns of the relentless heat, those torrential rains of devastating storms, the loneliness and utter desolation of jungle trails, the bitterness of long separation of those they loved and cherished, the deadly pestilence of tropic disease, the horror of stricken areas of war.
Their resolute and determined defense, their swift and sure attack, their indomitable purpose, their complete and decisive victory - always victory, always through the bloody haze of their last reverberating shot, the vision of gaunt, ghastly men, reverently following your password of Duty, Honor, Country.
The code which those words perpetuate embraces the highest moral laws and will stand the test of any ethics or philosophies ever promulgated for the uplift of mankind. Its requirements are for the things that are right, and its restraints are from the things that are wrong. The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training - sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when he created man in his own image. No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of the Divine help which alone can sustain him. However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country, is the noblest development of mankind.
You now face a new world, a world of change. The thrust into outer space of the satellite, spheres and missiles marked the beginning of another epoch in the long story of mankind - the chapter of the space age. In the five or more billions of years the scientists tell us it has taken to form the earth, in the three or more billion years of development of the human race, there has never been a greater, a more abrupt or staggering evolution. We deal now not with things of this world alone, but with the illimitable distances and as yet unfathomed mysteries of the universe. We are reaching out for a new and boundless frontier. We speak in strange terms: of harnessing the cosmic energy; of making winds and tides work for us; of creating unheard synthetic materials to supplement or even replace our old standard basics; of purifying sea water for our drink; of mining ocean floors for new fields of wealth and food; of disease preventatives to expand life into the hundred of years; of controlling the weather for a more equitable distribution of heat and cold, of rain and shine; of space ships to the moon; of the primary target in war, no longer limited to the armed forces of an enemy, but instead to include his civil populations; of ultimate conflict between a united human race and the sinister forces of some other planetary galaxy; of such dreams and fantasies as to make life the most exciting of all time.
And through all this welter of change and development your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable. It is to win our wars. Everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication. All other public purpose, all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishments; but you are the ones who are trained to fight.
Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory, that if you lose, the Nation will be destroyed, that the very obsession of your public service must be Duty, Honor, Country.
Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men's minds. But serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the Nation's war guardians, as its lifeguards from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiators in the arena of battle. For a century and a half you have defended, guarded and protected its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.
Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government. Whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as firm and complete as they should be.
These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a tenfold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country.
You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the Nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds.
The long gray line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.
This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: "Only the dead have seen the end of war."
The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished - tone and tints. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen then, but with thirsty ear, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll.
In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield. But in the evening of my memory I come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country.
Today marks my final roll call with you. But I want you to know that when I cross the river, my last conscious thoughts will be of the Corps, and the Corps, and the Corps.
I bid you farewell.
Get In Line And Roll Up Your Sleeve
Speaking of bloodsuckers--the American Red Cross has issued an appeal for blood donations in advance of the Memorial Day weekend, especially for anyone with a rare or uncommon blood type (you know who you are).
I Do Not Get the Twilight Buzz
Mrs. LMC and I watched Twilight last night and I just do not get it: Edward the Metrosexual Vampire (as Robbo once put it) is in love with Bella. Bella is constantly whining but is hopelessly in love with someone who ice-cold and whose kiss (presumably) is just as cool. Edward's band of blood-suckers feeds on animals, not humans, and must resist the temptation of human blood yet the head of this group works as a physician who must deal with bodily fluids all the time.
I admit to being the shallowest kind of moviegoer so all things being equal, if I must watch a flick about the Undead, I want to see Kate Beckinsale:
or Sarah Michelle Geller:
May 20, 2009
Thank Mob and The Gripping Hand
for pointing out that the Serenity edition of the offspring sweepstakes left out
Saffron:
and Kaylee:
Oh, My
The trailer for the new "V" -
I loved this series back in the day.
Of course, the fact that Inara is one of the new Visitors means that I'm not real sure which side I'm on now......
Yips! to Ace.
Gratuitous Nats Haiku
A short piece of poetic frustration:
Nats' bats give us hope.
Bullpen snatches it away.
So what else is new?
Thankyew.
UPDATE: For Mink Monica:
The Phillies' hubris?
Signal sent to Nemesis:
Throw 'em the heater.
May 19, 2009
Britian Forces Out the Speaker of Parliament
the first since 1895, according to NR. NR makes reference to Oliver Cromwell's dismissal of Parliament:
“you have been sat to long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, i say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
April 1653.
LMC Offspring Name Sweepstakes
Serenity edition
First up, Zoe:
next, River:
and, saving the best for last, Inara:
No Time to Lose
The Sarah Connor Chronicles got axed according to the local rag which frees up Summer Glau for better engagements such as getting to work on a sequel to that cinematic epic Serenity:
Robbo, give your fellow alum from The People's Glorious Soviet of Middletown a call.
May 18, 2009
Notre Dame
NR has a good piece on Obama and Notre Dame which I commend to your thoughtful consideration. The older I get the more I am convinced that of all the things the Left hates, it hates the Church's position on abortion most of all: that human life is sacred and must be protected from conception to natural death. So much has been watered down but the Church has not wavered in its defense of life and its opposition to abortion. I am convinced that is why Sarah Palin was attacked so savagely by the media sisterhood during the campaign--because the governor and her family chose life not once but twice when confronted by teenage pregnancy and Down Syndrome. So I bring back an oldie but goodie, this ad by Catholic Vote last September:
Watching the Kiddies While the Mrs. Shoots Dice!
In other words, it is your humble LMC's night to put the hellions to bed while my bride is out playing bunco at some henfest. Sounds like a great time to get some things done while I have some peace and quiet with the Future ROTC Scholarship Recipient and Our Little Debutante in bed.
UPDATE: 24 season finale plot spoiler below the fold--
Tony--not as bad a guy as we thought--just a little grief- and revenge-twisted. Renee--about to go totally Bauer on some suspect in custody. Jack--down, but may be not out. Madame President--the type that would prosecute her own daughter, and will.
May 17, 2009
May 16, 2009
LMC Offspring Name Sweepstakes
Monica Mink, you are right--"Bridget" [LMC] really does not flow well enough. "Colleen" is out--the only Colleen Mrs. LMC knew was a head case. "Eleanor" is still hanging in there, "Barbara" was axed because of Barbra Streisand, "Maura" is moving up fast, and, thanks to Groovy Vic, "Victoria" is back in consideration. "Abigail" is now under consideration as well but "Condileeza" is not, despite my best efforts.
Apropo of nothing. . .
and continuing with the Enduring Brunette Theme, your humble LMC gives you the actress whose abs saved The Attack of the Clones:
Bonus point: she is Israeli.
Random Linguistic Observation
The very term "Truth Commission" conjures up in my mind granite-faced thugs in large sunglasses and shiny suits, proscription lists and the firing squad limbering up round back, and I shudder at the idea that it is actually being used in our country.
Megan Fox--Hitting Two Out of Three
Agent Bedhead has this link to an interview in which Fox states she "could" see herself in a relationship with another woman. Long-term readers will recall the LMC indicators of a starlet whose career is on the skids: photo shoots in skin magazines, suggestions of lesbian experimentation, and movies on the estrogen channels. Megan has had her Maxim excursion and now this. It is only a question of time before she winds up on Lifetime or Oxygen in some movie entitled along the lines of: "Not Without My Daughter(/Niece/Granddaughter, Babysitter, Dog Sitter, etc.)"
The Larger Problem
The debate over "gay marriage" is important but Mona Charen in NR points out that the focus should not be to the neglect of a larger problem: the rising number of illegitimate children. Early in my practice I had occasion to serve as court-appointed counsel in juvenile cases. IMHO, the most important factor in determining if a child will grow up with their head screwed on straight is whether the child is raised by married parents living together. This is not a knock on single parents (my mother was widowed at 45 with the oldest in college and the next seven spread between the 2d grade and 12th). Thomas Sowell once observed that only three things were necessary to reduce one's odds of living in poverty to ten percent: get a high school education, don't get married until you are at least 21, and don't children until you are married.
Pelosi Haiku
Via the good folks at Hot Air:
I knew I knew not
And I didn’t know I knew
Now my face implodes
***
What’s this trigger do?
Ouch, my right foot really hurts
Let’s try the left one
***
As I tell my tales
Watch me blink out in Morse Code:
“I’m a lying [bleep]”
***
I am not lying
Except for what I just said
And what I’ll say next
***
I’ve been a liar
A lot longer than Barack
But without his gift
***
My nose doesn’t grow
(Way too much rhinoplasty)
But my stitches twitch
***
Lefty blogs confused
They’ll opine on me, after
Rahm’s conference call
***
Who’s nervous? Not me
I’ve looked like this ever since
They cut up my face
***
I own some vineyards
Which will give me a good place
To store my sour grapes
***
Waterboarding stinks
I thought it would moisturize
But my face pruned up
***
Check out this exchange on Fox (again, via the fine folks at Hot Air):
The CIA's counterattack on Pelosi, what she knew, and when she knew it is, IMHO, part-agency defense of itself and part (as Rush put it) the Administration putting the screws to Madame Speaker whose likely successor is Steny Hoyer, a Rahm Emmanuel ally.
And Dodd (D., Countrywide) must go.
May 15, 2009
Babes of Yester-year
For Robbo, Katherine Hepburn whose birthday anniversary was a few days ago:
Madame Speaker, Twisting in the Wind
Read Darth Rove's piece on Pelosi in the WSJ. Pelosi knew about waterboarding in 2002 when the leadership of the House intelligence committee was briefed on it and the mounting pile of evidence to that effect is damning.
May 14, 2009
Well Played
Even though the Penguins booted them out of the playoffs last night, congrats to the Washington Capitals on a fine season. Personally, I've never much been in to hockey. (Hey - I grew up in South Texas. What do you expect?) But it was nice to see so many people round here getting into the spirit.
My office is no great way from the Caps' home ice at the Verizon Center. I have amused myself of late noticing the very large number of suspicously new Caps' jerseys and t-shirts in the area on game nights. Just on principle, I hope these folks don't turn out to be just what Tom Paine called summer soldiers and sunshine patriots.
And now, on to much more important matters. Congrats to Ryan Zimmerman on his 30-game hitting streak!
Our Latest Member of the Forty-Something LLama Hall of Fame
Cate Blanchett turns the big 4-0 today:
And, Dodd (D., Countrywide) must go.
Rudy Must Be Proud
Soldier in Afghanistan fights the Taliban in his "I Love NY" boxers. Via Hot Air.
May 12, 2009
You Can Thank Me At The Christening
Since the LMC is stil looking for names pending the arrival of the next edition of his clan and since he's on the road today, I thought I would take five or ten minutes from my busy lunch hour to come up with a little something that I hope will put an end to his search. Therefore, I give you:
ROBBO'S TOP TEN NAMES FOR BABY LMC
10. Twitter - I still don't really even know what this is, but the kids all seem to think it's coo-el.
9. Lupine - Flower names are always classy. Plus, perhaps she'll elope some day with Dennis Moore.
8. Savik - You've got to get the Trek reference in there somewhere. (I was alarmed to discover recently that Mrs. Robbo thought our constant harping on "Tiberius" had something to do with Julio-Claudian emperors.)
7. Griselda - Apparently it is derived from a Germanic expression meaning "dark battle". It is, IMHO, the single ugliest name in the history of the world. I don't really expect the LMC to choose it, I just wanted to toss it in to make that point.
6. Terpsichore - How can you go wrong with one of the Muses. Don't like it? There are eight more to choose from!
5. Sharpee - Yes, lifted from High School Musical, it makes me snigger every time I think of it.
4. Grinch - One of the funniest Dave Letterman lists ever was his "Top Ten Ways to Mispronounce Newt Gingrich." "Grinch Neutron" was one of them. So were "Nut Grinderswitch" and "Nuke Greenwich". Oh, ha, ha, ha.
3. Isandlwana - Exotic and historickal.
2. Boadiccea - Another exotic and historickal name. But steer clear of "Boudicca" to show your classickal sensibilities in the face of the modern taste for barbaric revisionism chic.
And the number one new name......
1. Roseanne-Hannah-Montana-Rosannadanna. Sometimes you have to cross the streams.
Please note that this list is definitive. So remember, LMC, you must choose....wisely.
Gratuitous Historickal Posting (TM)
Yikes! I've become so used to the LMC as the mainstay poster here at Llama HQ that his sudden radio silence catches me on the hop. What to do? Political commentary? There's certainly plenty of fodder, but tace is the Latin for a candle. The Nats? Hey, they had a bit of a rally over teh weekend, although they've dropped their last two. Babes? Well, it happens to be Kate Hepburn's birthday, but even in her young days I don't think she fits in with the general flavah of our ongoing thread.
No, instead I will serve up to you Camelidophiles an item that these days I would usually post at what Steve-O calls the Robbo back room, the one with the leather curtain over the door where you go to get "the good stuff".
Today is the anniversary of the birth, in 1622, of Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau, Governor General of Canada from 1672 to 1682 and from 1689 to his death in 1698. A truly remarkable man among a whole host of remarkable men who pioneered both the French and the English advent into North America. Among other achievements, perhaps his greatest was preventing the Iroquois, during his second term, from wiping French Canada off the face of the earth through a combination of iron will, diplomacy and force.
I am on my regular colonial history kick again. I started off with the very beginning of Francis Parkman's magnum History of France and England in North America earlier this year, took a break for Lent, and then picked it up again with enthusiasm. I am currently up to Montcalm and Wolfe, and am wading through the wretched doings in Acadia shortly before the outbreak of the Seven Years' War.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: It is literally impossible to understand the American Revolution without understanding the 150 or so years of colonial history that preceded it. And despite the fact, or else perhaps because of the fact that it seems fashionable at the moment to believe that history ended in 1968, it strikes me as all the more important to study it in order to not be caught completely unawares when its cycles and dynamics reassert themselves, which they undoubtedly will.
May 11, 2009
Martha Quinn Turns Fifty
Here is a post I did four years ago on the first, and greatest, of the Eighties MTV VJs.
May 10, 2009
Happy Mother's Day, Dammit!
The mood of the lady of the house after a day when life's blessings, also known as offspring, are acting like hellions.
Seen on the Road Yesterday
"God Bless Our Military
Especially Our Snipers"
What more needs to be said?
May 09, 2009
Since Monica Mink Mentioned Neve Campbell
she will be tonight's addition to the Enduring Brunette Theme:
And, Dodd (D., Countrywide) must go.
Name Sweepstakes For The Next Addition To The LMC Clan
The ground rules: no names which coincide with those of old girlfriends, living relatives, close friends, offpsring of close friends, last names for first names, "a name that every little girl seems to have (e.g., Jennifer, Emily, Emma, Meghan or Hannah)", or which might be associated with anyone infamous (I suggested Monica but the notoriety associated with a certain Ms. Lewinsky put the ice on that).
So far, Eleanor has faded from first place; Chloe was in the lead for awhile but now Mrs. LMC is no longer enamored of it. I am holding out for either Colleen or Bridget.
Why NR Should Be On Everyone's Daily Reading List
The Administration wants to settle Gitmo detainees in the United States. Andrew McCarthy reminds us that 8 U.S.C. section 1182 bars the admission of aliens who are suspected terrorists. It is, as McCarthy points out, a test of the Administration's commitment to the rule of law.
Continuing with the enduring brunette theme
Extend your birthday greetings to Rosario Dawson who turns 30 today:
And, Dodd must go.
Rally Time?
Can I just point out here that the Nats have now won 4 out of their last 5 games and that Ryan Zimmerman extended his hitting streak to 26 games last night?
We're getting there. We're getting there.
PHILADELPHIA DELENDA EST!
There Goes The Neighborhood
But perhaps not just yet:
(Washington, DC) -- Local Republican leaders are trying to keep suspected terrorists out of Virginia. Congressman Frank Wolf says detainees from Guantanamo Bay could end up in Alexandria, and if they're not formally charged with a crime, they could be released. Congressman Wolf and other GOP leaders introduced the Keep Terrorists Out of America Act yesterday. Wolf has also written a letter to President Obama, asking him to declassify all intelligence regarding terror suspects coming to America.
In fact, there are quite a few Donks in Congress pretty riled up over this business as well. Normally, I'm not a great fan of the Not In My Back Yard principle, but here NIMBY might actually be the force that saves us from a move of truly monumental idiocy.
May 08, 2009
Meet Spock's Mom
(Before the current movie, of course)
Glad to see Winona is back on the radar screen for reasons other than ones involving lawyers.
What Say You, Madame Speaker?
Michelle Malkin on what Pelosi knew and when she knew it, about "enhanced interrogation."
And, Dodd must go.
May 07, 2009
Apropo of nothing. . .
Your humble LMC brings you Liv Tyler:
Because I have squatting rights on a buddy's blog!
And, Dodd must go.
Bad News From Wes
Lawd knows that I give no end of grief to the People's Glorious Soviet of Middletown, but this is horrid, horrid stuff:
Police urged students at Wesleyan University to stay locked in their dorms, and city's only synagogue was shut down, as authorities said a man wanted in the bookstore shooting death of a Wesleyan student had threatened the woman years before, and may now be targeting the school and Jews.Police urged university students and local Jewish leaders to be "extra vigilant" while they sought 29-year-old Stephen Morgan. Investigators believe that Morgan disguised himself with a wig and shot 21-year-old Johanna Justin-Jinich, a junior from Timnath, Colo., at her job at a cafe inside Broad Street Books, a popular bookstore.
Justin-Jinich was Jewish. Evidence "suggests that Mr. Morgan may be focused on the Wesleyan University campus as well as the Jewish community," Middletown Police Chief Lynn Baldoni Baldoni said at a news conference Thursday. "Investigators have been in contact with Wesleyan University and leaders of the Jewish community, urging both to be extra vigilant."
Local police would only say that the shooting was not a random act, but a New York City police report shows that Morgan allegedly threatened Justin-Jinich in 2007, when they were attending New York University.
I learned of Justin-Jinich's death this morning from an email sent round to alumni. Requiescat in pace. And may they quickly get the shooter.
May 06, 2009
Over Bibi's Cold, Dead Body
News that The One may demand that Israel declare, and then give up, its nuclear weapons. Via Hot Air and the Washington Times.
Better Not Let the 'Twilight' Crowd See This
The human race could not long support any population of the Undead. Via Special Agent Bedhead.
May 05, 2009
May 04, 2009
What The Fookity Fooking Fook?
Pardon my Irish, but do I understand correctly that it is now the United States' position to hold Israel up to nuclear blackmail?
Thwarting Iran's nuclear program is conditional on progress in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, according to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.Last month, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Israel that it risks losing Arab support for combating threats from Iran if it rejects peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
Clinton said Arab nations had conditioned helping Israel counter Iran on Jerusalem's commitment to the peace process.
Well, now. The Palestinians want to drive Israel into the sea. The Iranians want to barbeque her. Talk about making an offer you can't take or refuse!
The Heavy Hand of the White House
From Michelle: First lienholders will not give more than fifty percent and that is not good enough. Apparently, the Administration is not familiar with the absolute priority rule.
Andrew McCarthy declines to be window dressing
Andrew McCarthy of NR publiclly declined an invite from DOJ. Here is the post from Hot Air, in its entirety (italics are added to indicate th text of McCarthy's letter to AG Eric Holder; the bold text is Hot Air's take ):
National Review’s Andrew McCarthy helped prosecute the terrorists who plotted and conducted the first bombing attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, putting several radical extremists behind bars. Since then, he has become a must-read on counterterrorist policy and a critic of the impulse to fight jihadis through the American court system. The Obama administration knows this and extended an invitation to McCarthy to a roundtable on counterterrorist policy, which McCarthy has politely — and publicly — declined:
This letter is respectfully submitted to inform you that I must decline the invitation to participate in the May 4 roundtable meeting the President’s Task Force on Detention Policy is convening with current and former prosecutors involved in international terrorism cases. An invitation was extended to me by trial lawyers from the Counterterrorism Section, who are members of the Task Force, which you are leading.
The invitation email (of April 14) indicates that the meeting is part of an ongoing effort to identify lawful policies on the detention and disposition of alien enemy combatants—or what the Department now calls “individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.” I admire the lawyers of the Counterterrorism Division, and I do not question their good faith. Nevertheless, it is quite clear—most recently, from your provocative remarks on Wednesday in Germany—that the Obama administration has already settled on a policy of releasing trained jihadists (including releasing some of them into the United States). Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people. Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop.
One has to think that McCarthy saw himself in the same position as Mary Ann Glendon at Notre Dame — given a position to be exploited, not to be heard. The positions of the Obama administration have been well-known and well-established for more than two years now anyway. A “roundtable” gives the appearance of openness but almost no chance at all of affecting policy in this DoJ or administration. The only thing McCarthy’s presence would provide is a beard of bipartisanship while Obama and Holder pursue the policies on which Obama explicitly campaigned.
Besides, these days attorneys have to take care what advice they offer, lest they be publicly pilloried, or worse, as McCarthy makes clear in this zinger:
Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government. …Given your policy of conducting ruinous criminal and ethics investigations of lawyers over the advice they offer the government, and your specific position that the wartime detention I would endorse is tantamount to a violation of law, it makes little sense for me to attend the Task Force meeting. After all, my choice would be to remain silent or risk jeopardizing myself.
What would happen if McCarthy defended Jay Bybee on this panel? Would Congress demand action from the Bar against McCarthy as well? No one seems to be calling for the disbarment of Obama and Holder, despite their acting against the rule of law in these cases:
I am similarly powerless to stop the administration from admitting into the United States such alien jihadists as the 17 remaining Uighur detainees. According to National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, the Uighurs will apparently live freely, on American taxpayer assistance, despite the facts that they are affiliated with a terrorist organization and have received terrorist paramilitary training. Under federal immigration law (the 2005 REAL ID Act), those facts render them excludable from the United States. The Uighurs’ impending release is thus a remarkable development given the Obama administration’s propensity to deride its predecessor’s purported insensitivity to the rule of law.I am, in addition, powerless to stop the President, as he takes these reckless steps, from touting his Detention Policy Task Force as a demonstration of his national security seriousness. But I can decline to participate in the charade.
If the Obama administration wants Andy’s input, they can read his book, Willful Blindness. If they’re interested in diversity of opinion, they can prove it by making appointments that demonstrate a different policy direction. “Roundtables” are nothing more than window dressing, and McCarthy rightly rejects this effort to exploit him for a bit of political cover. He’s obviously more effective staying where he’s at.
And, Dodd must go.
Has She Lost That Lovin' Feeling?
Kelly McGillis: "I'm done with the man thing. I did that. I need to move on in life." (Via ExtraTV, Hat Tip to KMR). Not quite sure what to make of it--is she announcing she is done dating period (Mrs. LMC's take), that she is coming out for "the other team," or is this just another example of a fading starlet chumming the water to generate buzz?
If she has truly gone to the other side, are there any among you who will volunteer to bring her back (a quest I would take up myself if I were a single man)? To steel your soldier's heart, here is Kelly, back in the day:
And, Dodd must go.
May 03, 2009
Jack Kemp, RIP
From NR. Jack Kemp, like Sarah Palin, had the misfortune of a national run where the problem was the top of the ticket, not the bottom.
May 02, 2009
Your Weekend Assignment
Steyn on the first hundred days of guv'mint-mandated hopiness:
The theater of thoughtfulness is critical to the president’s success. He has the knack of appearing moderate while acting radical, which is a lethal skill. The thoughtful look suckered many of my more impressionable conservative comrades last fall, when David Brooks and Christopher Buckley were cranking out gushing paeans to Obama’s “first-class temperament” — temperament being to the Obamacons what Nick Jonas’s hair is to a Tiger Beat reporter. But the drab reality is that the man they hail — Brooks & Buckley, I mean; not the Tiger Beat crowd — is a fantasy projection. There is no Obama The Sober Centrist, although it might make a good holiday song:“Obama The Sober Centrist
Had a very thoughtful mien
And if you ever saw it
You would say it’s peachy keen . . . ”And it is. But underneath the thoughtful look is a transformative domestic agenda that represents a huge annexation of American life by an ever-more intrusive federal government. One cannot but admire the singleminded ruthlessness with which Obama is getting on with it, even as he hones his contemplative, unhurried, moderate routine on primetime press conferences. On foreign affairs, the shtick is less effective, but mainly because he’s not so engaged by the issues: He’s got big plans for health care, and federalized education, and an eco-friendly government-run automobile industry — and Iran’s nuclear program just gets in the way. He’d rather not think about it, and his multicontinental apology tours are his way of kicking the can down the road until that blessed day when America is just another sclerotic Euro-style social democracy and even your more excitable jihadi won’t be able to jump up and down chanting, “Death to the Great Satan!” with a straight face.
Go read it all.
I believe a lot of people don't really appreciate what it is they've wished on themselves yet, as witnessed by all those polls that show high approval ratings for teh Prez himself but not so much for his policies. Certainly those who have so much invested in the Unicorn Express will do everything they can to keep this from happening, but sooner or later the penny is going to drop.
Then it will get interesting. Steyn notes the Brit post-WWII slide into socialism and the reaction that led to the rise of Maggie Thatcher. He further notes that the Thatcher Revolution, in the long run, was really nothing more than a temporary respite, a bump in the road down into the abyss. I still believe that in this country there is nothing inevitable about such a slide, but I confess that I am growing increasingly nervous about it.
Image courtesy of the lovely and talented 