But then we went to our usual Sunday morning breakfast at Perkin’s, at which I read The Billings Outpost and find out that our Mr Crisp has been working away at The Outpost, and visiting up in Great Falls at Electric City Weblog, at which foolish comments are not suffered gladly, and at which they are much interested in the truth of the matter under discussion. Of course, David was not well received.

So, then he comes back to the Outpost to give his closing argument concerning the effect of radio hosts’ conservative rhetoric on the weak minds of their listeners—apparently, in Mr Crisp’s dictionary the word ‘rhetoric’ is usually a bad word in itself, approaching the use of the ‘N’ word, and almost as bad as using the noun ‘Democrat’ instead of the adjective ‘Democratic’ when describing the Party. But there may actually be some good ‘rhetoric’ to which conservatives can only forever aspire to. It’s hard to tell in the heat of the quickly written editorial:

‘My theory is that conservative talk radio does, in fact, make the world a more dangerous place. The ideology isn’t to blame; the rhetoric is. Here you find methods of argument that would have to rise several grade levels to be considered juvenile. Limbaugh, for example, constantly refers to the “Democrat Party” instead of the party’s actual name of “Democratic Party.” Belittling someone’s name is a rhetorical technique most of us have outgrown by age 6.’

The ideology is OK I guess but the rhetoric is at fault. Hmmm. I am guessing that Mr Crisp’s main purpose in writing his editorial was to offer up his contribution in order to muzzle his conservative opponents, a tactic and strategy that has come to the fore as the Left runs out of ideas and effective arguments against those on the Right.

The last sentence of the editorial shows the fist: ‘But they had better,’ referring to lessons that conservative talk radio people must learn.

?Abbott and Costello

The old Abbott and Costello routine, Who’s on First, was brought to mind when seeing pictures like these and listening to the monologues of both. Why does Pres. Obama listen to the Paramount Leader of the People’s Republic of China as if he understood him? Do we have to wait for Saturday Night Live to do this the right way?

Deep in the Heart of Texas

But I’m pretty sure the Democrats these days believe that politics is always and only about getting elected and the re-distribution of wealth and power, so they only have themselves to blame if we respond in kind.

I'm guessing this road will lead to DisneyLand.

There is no reason to be surprised at a highway being named after our Community-Organizer-in-Chief. I mean, have you forgotten about the Nobel Prize that he won while running for his present job? That was for Peace. This one may be for Justice. Or is there a Prize for Bamboozling? If there is, then I think we should nominate by acclamation BHO.

I found this on this website.

2 December 2009

This was a fun book to read. Especially if, like me, you were alive and paying attention to the peculiar presidential political melee during the summer and fall of 2008. There were a lot of dogs that didn’t bark and thus the whole thing was more than a little puzzling. This book appears to be an effort at explaining some of those puzzles. It does not speak to the main puzzle however, which was the almost total absence of any journalistic efforts to tell us commoners who Barack Obama was, other than he was somewhat black and spoke like a white man most of the time.

The main-stream media masters that I have heard, and their lesser kin out in the boondocks, obviously did not read this book. They say she didn’t write the book; that one of her editors did. And yet, the book sounds very much like Governor Palin talks, whether you like that or not, and as far as I know, almost every writer except for a few politicians always give credit to their editors.

Governor Palin is a journalist in the sense of writing journals for much of her life. She draws on these for a summary of her earlier life: Normal kid growing up in normal places, and yet they were exciting places—at least in her memories and in her journals, and would probably be that way for the rest of us if we had been smart enough to write in them and keep them for later use—weren’t all of our childhoods exciting places and times? Then she got interested in local politics after a normal education and a normal early family life. Eventually she became the mayor of Wasilla Alaska. Then, a little later she ran for governor against the good old boys of Alaska, and she won.

Probably the high points of the book are her descriptions of her feelings when she discovers she will be the mother of an extra-chromosome baby boy (Down Syndrome) and then soon after, another bolt of lightning strikes when John McCain picks her for a short and tumultuous life as a vice-presidential candidate.

I thought at the time it was a brilliant choice because Joe Biden had already been chosen to be the Democratic choice for vice-president. What a splendid contrast: old Senator Jack S Phogbound from one of the corrupt one party states of the East versus the bright young reformer Sarah Palin from small town western America. While writing the last sentence it suddenly occurred to me that just as we have heard some institutions are “too big to fail,” maybe there are some states that are too small to avoid corruption, in that their cities and the lordly people that congregate in them tend to over balance the more ordinary rural folk, where much of the common sense of the country resides.

But even better, of course, was the fact that the vice-presidential candidate for the Republicans had more real experience at governing than the presidential candidate for the Democrats. This was delicious irony or so it seemed to me. Of course, with our main-stream media (MSM) in bed with Obama it was difficult to make that clear, though Palin did make an effort at the convention when she likened being mayor of Wasilla as something similar to a “community organizer, though with actual responsibility.” That might have been the best line of the campaign. No wonder our MSM types really had to scramble to put down this upstart nitwit from fly-over country. Well, you know what I mean.

The peculiarities and deficiencies of the campaign, which made some of us wonder who was actually playing the part of The Manchurian Candidate, are explored, at least from Palin’s point of view. We are all waiting for some explanation from the McCain point of view. Well, maybe not.

8 December 2009

I meant to get up early today but I forgot to set the alarm last night. So it wasn’t until about 8:30 am that I got over to Borders’ book store to check out the crowds coming to see Sarah Palin, perhaps give her some encouragement, and get their copy of her book signed.

The crowd seemed fairly normal and moved along steadily and cheerfully I thought, with a few signs, but mostly just bundled up against the bitter cold temperatures. If nothing else these temperatures may well have kept at least some of the riff-raff huddled in the nearby coffee-shops. At 8:30 am the crowd, about 3-4 abreast stretched back from the front of the Borders store to the entrance to the IHOP restaurant. It may have gone back even further than that before they started moving around 8 am when the store opened.

It looks like a lot of Billings people are going to make room on their mantles this Christmas for a copy of Governor Palin’s book, alongside the Bible and their guns of course. Or maybe they will put a small bookshelf alongside the gun rack in the back of the pickup.

I can’t resist clever signs, on bumper stickers or in demonstrations like this one in Washington DC yesterday September 12th. It’s hard to believe ordinary people could pull this off. They must have had some help from their Leftist friends or the media, sorry for the redundancy there. There is an excellent series of pictures and text on this event here, in case you didn’t see it covered in the mainstream media.

By the way, one of the many ways you can measure your own decline is to re-read a few of your past attempts at sensible blogging, which I did while searching for blogs about the good Dr Muskett. Well OK, I enjoyed a few of them, mostly those I had borrowed from others. I think I actually improved the blogosphere a little by deleting some. I should have been an editor.

Now then, in today’s Gazette Dr Muskett tells us lots of dark medical secrets,  admitting that surgeons, including himself, actually do the terrible things that our president says we do. Such as taking out perfectly fine tonsils: well, that is actually only done by the evil ENTs of course. He says it in a humorous way, hoping that his readers will think he is being ironic as usual.

After capturing our attention with the light-hearted truth-telling he then goes on to the meat of the matter, which is that the reason we pay more than the rest of world for our medical care is that we are sicker and it is our own fault. He proves his point by citing his own recent need for a coronary stent. What a rhetorical stunt!

Dr Muskett says that our politicians do not tell us the truth because it is politically unacceptable: that we consume way too much health care, that we are too fat and too lazy, that we expect something for nothing, and that we expect to live forever.

What is the cure for these prosperity-related problems? Dr Obama and his friends have their egalitarian answer. Read the article for yourself. As always, Dr Muskett makes a lot of sense.

I guess you could buy a lot of bath tubs cheap here. And maybe a lot of new and used junk and antiques too.

Just to make sure the proprietor of this place has posted some nice notes on his fence, short and to the point. Good for him or her as the case may be.

What will be the average age of those who understand or not the above cartoon? Who remembers Dinah Shore? See the USA in your Chevrolet. Black humor? Dark humor? I think gallows humor might be better but then there are probably many who would not know what a gallows was for.

Some new development going on here? Or what? Does this sign apply to the football and other nearby fields? Enquiring minds want to know.