joyfulchristian

Lame story

So the two men who took part in what is now an infamous confrontation outside the Gates home near Harvard this month are actually related through common Irish lineage -- one of the more extraordinary aspects of the incident that has sparked worldwide headlines.

Sounds like an extraordinary item, right? Except if you actually read the story they're "related" by virtue of both being descended from a 4th century Irish Warlord.  If this is the definition of "related" we're going to start using, then we might as well stop using the word because it no longer has any  meaning.

I'll admit the story has a certain degree of "that's interesting" going for it. Calling it an extraordinary aspect of the story or pretending it has any significance at all is lame in the extreme.

A sad day

When I married my wife Nicki 4 years ago, one of the new additions to my family was her nephew James. James suffered From Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. For someone who suffered from such a debilitating disease, he was always remarkably upbeat. Further, he never doubted that a cure would be found.

James graduated from high school a few months ago. This was quite remarkable when you consider that he was confined to a wheel chair and could barely lift his text books. He was preparing to start college. He wanted to learn animation so he could work at Pixar.

Due to the seriousness of his condition, he could no longer exercise except by swimming. Yesterday, as his grandfather was pulling him out of the pool, the hoist broke. James fell several feet and broke his back. He was airlifted to Albuquerque. Our family tried to get there, but on the way we got a call that he hadn't made it through the night. In fact, he went to sleep after pain medication was administered and never woke up.

For the vast majority of the world who never met him and now never will, let me assure you: it was your loss. He will be missed.

Interesting

The death of Walter Cronkite doesn't really have any impact on me. I came along after the Cronkite era was over. All I really know is that when he occasionally wrote commentary over the last few years he appeared to be a sanctimonious uniformed windbag.  Was he always like that?  Dean seems to think so.

I'd heard many times that the Tet offensive was the turning point in the Vietnam war, but not for military reasons. As I've always understood it, the Army rather successfully won on the field, but it was spun as a loss back home and from then on it was just a matter of time before public opinion forced retreat. What I hadn't heard before was that this is largely Cronkite's doing.

Every once in a while I hear something like this about Vietnam. It's one of the many things that makes it obvious to me that I'll never really understand that war.  I once thought I really wanted to understand, but after a while I realized that there aren't that many objective tellings of what happened there.  This is a part of our history that has been so polarized and politicized that virtually every account tells you far more about the author than it does the war.  If, like me, you were born after the war was over, it becomes almost impossible to sort fact from the "facts" people think they know about that war.  I eventually just gave up.

So let's get this straight

Frederick cook volunteered to go to Afhanistan in May, well after Obama was sworn in. As a reservist who had volunteered, he had the right to "unvolunteer". 

Instead, he files suit in federal court claiming Obama isn't really the President? Now the government has withdrawn his orders, presumably taking his lawsuit as an perverse way of requesting his orders be revoked.  His attorney the publicly claims that the army revoking his orders means that the Army is admitting Obama wasn't really born in Hawaii and is therefore not the President.

This is much worse than I thought. This absolutely reeks of the worst kind of political theater. 

I'll say it again: There are plenty of reasons to oppose Obama on the issues and on his character. We don't have to go around making up insane conspiracies. Fight on the issues or don't fight at all.

You're making the rest of us look bad. Actually, you're making the rest of us look criminally stupid.

Kook patrol

I've said before that it's important for Republicans and conservatives (overlapping by very different groups) to stay grounded and not go overboard like much of the left did during W's presidency.

There is much that can, and should, be said against the current president. However, these absurd charges that Obama isn't really president because he wasn't born in the US have got to stop.  For one, it's total bunk. Not only that, but it makes everyone else on their political side look kooky by comparison.

Finally, we've now got people risking their futures on these absurd claims. An attorney who attempts to get a client out of military deployment on the baseless claim that Obama isn't really President is not doing her client any service. If he ends up in the stockade, she should be there with him.

Excellent advice from Delta Bravo

See this post and the first comment.

At a guess

TK Farrow on Obama's Honduran mess:

Obama may have thought this the perfect opportunity to reinforce the bizarre choices he made during the Iranian democracy protests and display consistency, but if so, he was wrong. He’s only shown himself to be more concerned with image than substance — and more apt to be on the wrong side of an international issue.

“America supports the restoration of the democratically-elected President of Honduras, even though he has strongly opposed American policies. We do so not because we agree with him. We do so because we respect the universal principle that people should choose their own leaders, whether they are leaders we agree with or not,” the president said. But the problem in Honduras was the fact that the people were constitutionally prohibited from choosing Zelaya again, and he was trying to change that inconvenient fact. How does Obama manage to gloss over that? Does he even understand that’s why Zelaya was ousted?

Based on the evidence so far, I'd say he has absolutely no idea.  He's certainly not shown any evidence of being aware of this simple fact.

Soccer

Today the US is facing Honduras in the Gold Cup competition.  Considering the shabby treatment Honduras has gotten from our government lately, it was almost tempting to root for Honduras. Almost.

Well yes ...

... but in Democrat land, asking involves government guns.

Which is, I suspect, part of the reason they want only the government to have guns.

Yup

I'm pretty sure this picture shows the President doing exaclty what you think he's doing. And yes, Sarkozy is laughing about it.

4th of July

Happy Birthday America!

Bummer

3 1/2 years ago when I started my new job, one of the side benefits happened to be the sports tickets our firm would occasionally get. The first time we got hockey tickets my daughter was absolutely hooked on the Oklahoma City Blazers.  She had an absolute blast. Since then my wife and I have taken her to several games each season (sometimes with a friend).

2 years ago we even sprung for a box seat for her birthday party. It was expensive and it made things pretty tight that month, but my daughter absolutely loved it; it was a joy to see the girls all get up and dance around the room after every goal.

As of yesterday, however, if you visit the Blazer's website, you get this:

Due to the current economic downturn, the OKC Blazers are regrettably closing their doors effective July 1. Despite attempts to re-organize and streamline the operation, the substantial losses from running the team have led to this business decision.

"We have the most loyal fans of any team, anywhere, and we appreciate the unwavering support they have given the team for many years," said Bob Funk Sr. "The Blazers organization has maintained its commitment to the fans for nine years. We've tried everything to make this model work and explored every available option. If there had been any other choice, we would not have made this decision."

The OKC Blazers thank everyone for their support during their 17 seasons of play in the Central Hockey League.

Ironically, the Blazer's success is probably one of the factors that convinced the NBA that we could support a major league franchise. The city's subsequent bowing to everything that is OKC Thunder related is probably what helped doom the Blazers. The economy certainly didn't help though.

We're hearing that the City is hoping to convince the Edmonton Oilers to locate their new AAA AHL team to our city; there's even talk of the new team being run by the same people.  If that happens, it should be a step up in terms of quality of play. However, with farm teams the odds are that about the time a player shows real promise he'll be off to the majors.  That makes it a lot harder to really connect with the players over the long-term.

I really hope we do get a new franchise. Even if we do, though, it will never be the same. Also, nothing can change the fact that for the first time in 17 years, and in the entire time my daughter has been aware of hockey, our area won't have a team. 

It seeems a small and trivial thing, perhaps. The memories of all the good times my family have had, however, makes it a sad day for us.

Life goes on.

Another thought on Palin

I've seen various people comment that Palin's resignation from the governorship has ended her political career because she's shown herself to be a quitter.

I can see some validity to this question, however it raises a question.  An awful lot of people who've run for President during my lifetime were sitting governors or senators who were running for office while they were currently serving in another office.  Everyone knew that if they won, they'd be required to resign from this other job. (Bentsen even ran for re-election to his Senate seat WHILE running for the VP slot in 88.)

I do remember hearing criticism of some of these politicians because they were failing to fulfill a commitment to their constituents (Clinton ran for the Presidency during his second term as governor of Arkansas even though one of his campaign promises when running for re-election was that he WOULDN'T run for President while in office.), I don't remember anyone ever hearing that this decision had doomed their shot at the presidency.

Objectively, what makes you less of a "quitter" and less "doomed" when you're quitting you're current job without telling us what you're doing next then if you already have a new job lined up?

I don't really see a difference.

There is another possibility

Melissa Clouthier has a big roundup of opinions about what Palin's resignation may or may not mean. I notice a lot of people speculating that she's either resigning to focus on running for president and others claiming that this means she's lost any shot of winning the presidency.

I've noticed a couple of things about all this hooplah.  One is that almost everyone seems to assume she intended to run for president; while I admit it seems likely, I never heard that she'd said anything like this and I think it's rather sad that we assume that any popular and energetic politician MUST want to be president.

The second thing I've noticed is that while a few people admit this might be for personal or health reasons, an awful lot of people are critiquiqing her decision from a purely political standpoint as if this decision HAD to be based solely on political considerations. That seems terribly myopic.

Some of us were concerned about these things before the election

I have no patience for this man:

Colin Powell, one of President Obama's most prominent Republican supporters, expressed concern Friday that the president's ambitious blitz of costly initiatives may be enlarging the size of government and the federal debt too much.

"I'm concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them," Mr. Powell said in an excerpt of an interview with CNN's John King, released by the network Friday morning.

All of this was perfectly obvious to anyone paying attention before the election. Powell supported Obama anyway. It's a little late to be complaining about the bill now.

On the other hand

... while Congress wasting time debating the BCS is, of course, absurd, perhaps we should be grateful.  While they're doing this, they're not busy working on something truly damaging. Like Cap and Trade, raising taxes, passing another (non) stimulus, etc.

Link via Instapundit.

Curious

Bill Quick on Michael Jackson:

But there is a line - somewhere around preying on barely pubescent sick kids who are the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society - that should not be crossed. And when it is, society should shun those who cross it. They should lose whatever else they have obtained, and forfeit their good name for their depravity.

Now,  I happen to agree with every word of this.  The curious thing, however, is who said it.  Bill Quick is an avowed atheist (sometimes bordering on militantly atheist).  On what basis, I wonder, did he come to the conclusion that this behavior is depraved?

Moral ineptitude

Our president is apparently unable to tell the good guys from the bad guys.  Suspending all military relations with Honduras? Seriously?

The military removed a president who was breaking the law with the sanction of the Supreme Court and Congress.  While I'm no expert, it appears that this was done in accordance with Honduran law.

You'd hope the mere fact that he's on the same side as Chavez would tip him off that he was on the wrong side. Apparently not.