joyfulchristian

So why do people do that?

Just connected with an old friend on Facebook. I see that his new wife is almost the spitting image of his first wife.

Of course, since I was good friends with them both, I'm not exactly unbiased in this situation, but I've never understood why some men go marry a woman who looks a lot like their first wife. Seems somewhat creepy to me.

Things that make me go hmm.

I don't think she thought this through

I've seen several places linking to this story about a Spanish woman claiming she owns the sun and intends to charge a user fee.

Putting aside the whole issue of how absurd it is to claim that you own something on the basis of a notary public's signature, let's follow this through.

What about people who hate the sun? Can they sue her for allowing her property to intrude on their life?

Personally, I plan on suing her for causing global warming.

Selective fanaticism

One of the first bloggers I ever discovered was Bjoern Stark. (Close as I can get with my keyboard.)

Here was this ordinary guy spouting off from another continent with interesting stuff that made me think. That was part of what hooked me on blogging; the idea that ordinary people could write on what was going on in the world and be interesting and informative without any of the advantages of big media was enthralling to me.

These days Bjoern mostly blogs about 40's movies (to each his own, right). Every once in a while, though, he'll kick out a gem like this.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thank you Father for all that you've given us.

Thank you for this great nation where we are free to worship you.

Thank you for sending your Son to redeem us.

Thank you for my family who I get to see today.

Sarah Palin's Alaska

I watched it and it was pretty good. I suspect that this will go a long way towards helping her reach out to people who have a negative view of her based on the bizarre attacks lobbed at her from the right. It will make a lot of the stereotypes hard to give much credit.

Also, lots of pretty scenery.

Wow

Gateway pundit has an awesome story about a kid who's school made him take his US flag off his bike.

Has he not been paying attention?

Clifford May responds to charges that Tea Partiers are angry peasants with pitchforks by arguing that Tea Parties aren't an.gry. What universe is he in?

Now, to be sure, the "tea partiers are just bitter and angry" meme is intended as a smear. It's designed to cast doubt on their motivations and imply that, since these people are angry, that they aren't thinking straight.

The appropriate response to this is not to deny tea partiers are angry. Many of them are clearly very angry. (Just of the top of my head, does anyone really want to argue that the excesses the Tea Parties fight against don't anger Bill Quick? For that matter, just look at how many times Glenn Reynolds has used the words "tar" and "feathers" together in the last year) That anger is what motivated so many people to enter politics for the first time.

No, rather than denying the obvious, the appropriate response is to point out that the anger many Tea Parties feel is a) perfectly rational and b) not something to be afraid of unless you're an establishment politician or lobbyist afraid that the gravy train is coming to an end.

Yes, many in the tea parties are angry. But that is a perfectly rational reaction to out of touch politicians who continue to insist on spending money we don't have while pretending that their policies are helping us when they plainly aren't and then blaming us for not seeing the brilliance of their actions.

Don't try to hide the anger. Harness it and channel it in a positive direction. After all, even Christ felt righteous anger.

Hmm.

TypePad ate a post I had up about how concerned I am that my Senator, Jim Inhofe, is not only opposing Jim Demint's earmark ban, but actually arguing that earmarks are somehow vital to the Republic.

Inhofe, by my math, comes up for election in 2 years. Does he not know that this kind of business as usual garbage won't wash any more?

Hopefully they'll tell us to get lost

Reverting back to our State Department's long history of playing "blame the Jews", my country's government is again trying to get Israel to stop new construction. In a slight change of pace, instead of outright threats and coercion, this time we're trying bribery. Althgough, I presume the Israeli government already knows how worthless "UN support" is.

Airplanes, on the other hand actually have some value.

It constantly amazes me that so many people in the world genuinely seem to believe that the "real" cause of violence in the middle east is that Israelis want to build houses. It couldn't, by any chance, have to do with the fact that so many Arabs want to kill all the Jews, could it?

Unfortunately

Suu Kyi lives in a tyranny that no other country feels a vested interest in overthrowing. She's been freed, but I have my doubts that will last.

Of course there aren't many countries in the world with the ability to go around overthrowing tyrants wherever they are found. I suspect that there are none with the will.

Besides, everyone has their limitations and where does it stop?

I take it as axiomatic, however, that if Suu Kyi was a courageous opponent of a tyranny that tended to threaten it's neighbors in some way that she'd have a much better chance of long-term survival for both herself and her movement.

Note to bloggers

When you keep moving your blog around the web, it annoys me. That is all.

Not terribly surprising, really

It was obvious pretty early on that Zapetero would be useless in standing up for the right international causes, wasn't it?

Granted, I'm viewing this from a great distance and not a great deal of understanding of the politics on the ground, but my recollection is that he won election on what was basically a promise to capitulate to terrorists.

Can't say I disagree

I've always struggled with this myself.