Satellites and Loons.

I am "Up North" and this is the first time Claudia and I have been here since the closing of the ski hills. How nice it is despite weather that seems more early than late springlike.

We arrived late (an impromptu sidetrip to Eagle River happened). Everyone at the cabin was up yet and we sat down and talked. I had the customary welcome rumplemeister with my Dad (Barnabas lost patience and had his earlier) and then unloaded the car. Later on, Barnabas and I went out for a late night cigar. The skies were crystal clear and the skies here contain *MANY* more stars than the skies at home.

As we talked on the deck we would occasionally hear two loons cry. A haunting sound to be sure, but it is one that tells you are someplace special. Looking up at the sky I saw a satellite. It is nothing special anymore to see a satellite but just another one of those signs that tell us where we are.

Yesterday on the way up the roads were not too bad. The traffic leading out of Appleton was heavy. We did not get on HWY 47 the normal way and hence it was difficult. Traffic was backed up for about 2-1/4 miles outside of Black Creek going through the 47-54 intersection. Also just north of Suring where HWY R ties into HWY 32 (Red Arrow) the traffic was backed up trying to get onto 32 but it was not too bad. From there it was fine.

HWY 32 (Red Arrow) is worth a photo blog soon!

A Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

To all of my readers! Have a safe and enjoyable weekend.

Please, remember what the holiday is about. The freedoms we enjoy did come from talking about it over tea and biscuits they came from the shedding of blood. Those who do not believe the current situation is about our own liberty had better listen to the enemy.

Don't count on me blogging until after the holiday.

Enjoy and God Bless!

A Blogger Beer Welcome!

To Sandi from "Vista on Current Events."! Find Sandi's blog on the Blogger Beer blogroll!

Congratulations Sandi!

Check it out!

A buddy of mine launched a new website today: WI Ski, Wisconsin Skis! check it out!

Half Loaf vs. No Loaf.

Ronald Reagan once said if he can come away from the political table with half a loaf instead of none he was happy. With the filibuster deal I do believe we came with three-fourths of a loaf. Sandy, commented on my blog at the BBA that we get three justices instead of eight "do the math".

I think this analysis is rather short sighted and neglects the larger game at play here. I think Republicans are in a much better position then the Democrats are. Without getting too deep in the minutiae of the senate the filibuster is a rule and the constitution grants the senate the power to make its own rules for carrying on its affairs. The Constitution also gives the senate the power of advice and consent on judicial nominees. Nowhere, does the constitution spell out how the senate is to provide this advice and consent. Advice and consent has come to mean approval by floor vote and the rules dictate how matters come to a floor vote. The Democrats managed to prevent floor votes using the rules. The Republicans likewise have a manner in which to get around those rules.

In short the senate decides what advice and consent mean. I do not think it outlandish that the filibuster can be taken to be unconstitutional nor is it outlandish the filibuster is constitutional. How is that for fence sitting, in fact it makes sense since the Constitution sits
alongside myself on that fence. Certainly, the constitution emphasizes the need for majority votes when the senate or the congress make a decision and explicitly spell out the instances here something other than a simple majority is required. But this does not mean by the text a simple majority approval is what is meant by "advice and consent". Perhaps, if they wanted they could signal consent by having the majority leader put a lampshade on his head and do a dance.

Now, why do I think the GOP won this one? An important line shifted with this agreement. The line separating the radical from the mainstream just moved to the right, not that I believe the nominated judges are radical, a strident portion of the left does and they just got the heave-ho! So the Democrat Senators finally admitted the three justices in question are not radical as they were claiming for so long. This also throws the judgment of the Dems into question (or at least their honesty and shows who their lord is). They were radical before but not now? Not only do political geeks like us see that pronouncement plain as day so too do those who do not normally pay attention. This is like have a billboard with floodlights and flashing neon lights, if we would have gotten rid of the filibuster the Dems and their minions in the MSM would have been screaming "coup" on that same billboard. What do you like?

Now, what is going to happen when the President nominates a supreme court justice? We have three good justices from which to choose. Three justices that just set off PFAW, MoveOn, ACT and so on. However, after months of opposition and calling them extreme the Dem-7 just declared them not extreme.

Admittedly the justices left off the list are still a nagging problem and yes can be considered a victory for the Democrats. How did the two justices get selected for rejection? Someone somewhere thinks maybe it was a variation on spin the bottle. Clearly the most important three for the Conservative movement made it through.

Now, my colleagues on the right say we were in a position to get all of what we want and we failed therefore we lost. I say it again, this is pessimistic and short-sighted. My guess is we will see Janice, Priscilla, or Bill on the Supreme Court soon (though Miguel Estrada or Mitch McConnell may be also selected for that job).

Nitzschean Values on the March Again.

Michelle Malkin picks up on this story coming from one of our fine universities. The exact university is Brooklyn College and the prof's name is Timothy Shortwell.

Michelle quotes the NY Daily News:

He also called himself and others who share his beliefs "Übermenschen," a reference to German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's idea of the perfect person, or "superman."

Source: The NY Daily News via Michelle Malkin - BROOKLYN COLLEGE'S ÜBERMENSCHEN

Remember another philosophy that borrowed heavily from Nitzsche? It too had the idea of a superman or more specifically a superrace? Yes, you are right it was Adolf Hitler's Nazism. Hitler too disdained religion.

LGF and Ayan HIrsi Ali.

One of the stories I have been following is that of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and other Dutch leaders who are being threatened by RoP members.

LGF publishes a translated excerpt from an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali the Somali born woman who is under virtual house arrest because of the threats made against her life by Islamic extremists.

She sees the siren singing the beautiful song of multiculturalism:

Because the left is exactly like the Muslims! I wanted to give priority to the defense of immigrant women who are victims of domestic violence. They said to me: "No, that's not a priority! The problem will take care of itself when the immigrants have jobs and are integrated." It is exactly what the Imams say who demand that we accept oppression and slavery today because tomorrow, in Heaven, God will give us dates and raisins ... . I think we need first to defend the individual. The left is afraid of everything. But fear of giving offense leads to injustice and suffering.

Source: Little Green Footballs - Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the 'Left' and 'Multiculturalism'
I particularly like the analogy between "jobs and are integrated" and "dates and raisins". The thing that stuns me, isn't multiculturalism opposed to the integration of immigrant cultures into the mainstream? How can they be acting like it is a sure thing when it is almost politically impossible to create measures to bring it about? The problem in the Netherlands is not that a major immigrant group is not assimilating, they are working to absorb their host.

Blogger is Messing Over Itself Again.

The result being I have a blog that appears 2x at the BBA. I have tried to delete it but it no longer shows on the blog selection list and whenever I try to republish Blogger errors out!

Save your blogs on your system prior to publication!

A Different Take on Wretchard's Analysis.

Wretchard in his Gorgeous George Galloway blog does make the following comment: "Unless the Oil for Food hearings have come to a complete dead end, Coleman and Levin's examination of Galloway aren't the pointless thrashings of Senators at a loss to respond to the devastating wit of the British MP..." Later on however, he publishes commentary from a reader that indicates he thinks shining the light up the Galloway tree is not worth the effort. That chasing Galloway, no matter how galling the man is, is a diversion from the big time crooks:

The Galloway/Pasqua report is here and the minority report is here. Until I see full exploration of the Strong/Desmarais/Paribas links by this committee I'm afraid that I'm going to regard it as a smokescreen. Don Kofi is a sottocapo figurehead being set up to take a fall for Mr. Big. The PowerCorp/Total/Final/Elf connections are where the real trail leads - that and the material supplier kick backs - not the oil surcharges.

Source: The Belmont Club - Gorgeous George Galloway 2

Bluff, Bluster, and Blunder.

Wretchard finally takes a look at Galloway's testimony in front of the Senate investigation committee.

IMO, his take is a good one to read. The initial take of far too many pundits (this one included) was pessimistic, that Gorgeous George thrashed the committee and the committee is now chastened and humiliated. Wretchard's observations are very much different and as usual go beyond the first inch of surface.

When I read summaries and caught the one or two clips from TV I was disheartened (especially after receiving that note from Herod) about it all. I had correctly noted the reason for this was Mr. Galloway's debate school was much more abrasive than the one our legislative leaders go through. After all, if judging by the nature of the rhetoric, the insults and the show boating well the UK Parliamnet has no equal and Galloway is reputed to be one of their betters. So we will give Galloway the game when it comes to the TV of it, the style, the flashiness etc.

Though, Wretchard thinks the game was actually won by the committee.

In the exchange above it is abundantly clear that both Coleman and Levin simply wanted to enter Galloway's denial of having discussed Oil for Food business with Tariq Aziz in the record. Levin immediately ends his questioning after eliciting Galloway's "Never". Coleman is content to merely establish that Aziz and Galloway were "friends" who had met "many times" before saying "I have no further questions of the witness".

Source: The Belmont Club - Gorgeous George Galloway

Many people think because Senators Coleman and Levin didn't have cutesy answers or clever insults to return to George that George had the better of them. In the end we have to remember this is about bigger things than George Galloway, Wretchard, in the blog I am referring to, notes that George Galloway was never a man of significant influence. The thing though, is Galloway was on the edge of a cesspool that is the Oil for Food scandal and it seems Galloway most likely provided corrabative testimony.

We forget what is going on is more than just the exchange of school yard insult. Serious charges are being investigated and major amounts of money are in play here. George Galloway is not a major player just a lion. If our government turned around tomorrow and started to support the terrorists jihadists and Baathists, George Galloway would suddenly reverse course and support Iraq's duly elected government. George Galloway's approach can be stated on a bumper sticker "oppose the predominant paradigm".

Remember, keep you cool engaging in bluff and bluster way more often than not results in blunder. Senators Coleman and Levin did just that in they kept their cool in front of somebody relying on bluff and bluster.

A Filibuster Compromise?

Hmmmm,

I don't think so. I trust Lieberman but not Sheets and do not know the Dems other enough to judge.

The Democrats "discriminate" against a man of Arabic heritage. How much you wanna bet that CAIR will issue a statement condemning the continued filibuster of Henry Saad (or another Arab advocacy group)?

I wonder what extreme means in the context of the deal. I fear that when a supreme court confirmation battle comes up then all of a sudden quite moderate justices will suddenly become extreme.

Heart Medicine Teeth.

Tonight's Last Bits.

I am in pizza making mode. I have tons of pizza sauce we made sometime ago thawed out. I made up a batch of whole-wheat pizza crust and have all the ingredients. Green & red pepper, Romano & mozzarella cheese, onion, It. sausage, pepperoni, onion, black-olives, and mushrooms. Well, with such feasts a plenty having red wine available is not just important but mandatory for one's heart health!

I had some glasses tonight while making tomorrow's lunch (a smallish pizza) and while watching South Park. I was talking with Claudia and she noted I have purple teeth! I looked in the mirror and sure enough! Thank God for toothpaste!

Good Night!

Lancet's Bogus Numbers.

Recently I had someone drop the bogus Lancet number of 100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq attributable to the invasion. I have never been convinced the numbers were true but really could not say why.

Today I spent some time looking at the critiques of the paper published by the Lancet. They strongest criticism center on the study itself. The researchers used faulty models to extrapolate their empirical findings. The criticisms also say self-reporting is not going to work here either. I would not be surprised if there is a fair amount of double counting of deaths in the study. Ali Abdulla knows two people killed in by an airstrike and so too does his brother.

Anyway the number on criticism I see is they surveyed 33 provinces (or localities) and throughout Iraq most are peaceful, but they oversampled the unpeaceful areas and then extrapolated that information to the peaceful areas. The report makes no distinction between directed lethality vs. random lethality. That is Fallujah is going to have a high number of deaths due to the war just because that is where the war was at, while Basra will have few fatalities. The study treats Basra and Fallujah alike. So if Fallujah found 10 ward dead per 1000 then the study assumes this to be true in Basra as well.

Also, there was pressure from the study's author to print his study prior to the election. Clearly this is politicization of science, and there is reason to doubt the study. Other studies do not have numbers as high, but they are not insignificant either.

See: The Command Post and The Chicago Boyz for more on this (these are the sites I spent most of the time reading in preparing to write this).

Phooey!

I just signed up with a web hosting service tonight. I am going to do some web hosting for a friend's business and a relative's business. I was hoping to register bloggerbeer.com as a domain and get set up with a blog package but phooey! Someone has bloggerbeer blogbeer and is squatting on the domains. I am not going to pay more than a registration for them.

Phooey!

Materialism & The Sacred.

I can not recall where I saw this but it is worth thinking on.

Someone noted the rage over the alleged desecration of the Qurran is misguided. They said it is the spirit of the Qurran, the concepts on the paper is important, not the actual paper, ink and binding. To become enraged over the desecration of paper, ink, and binding is an endorsement many Muslims claim they oppose: Materialism.

Note, by materialism I am not talking about consumerism the acquisition of material things. I am talking about a deeper outlook on life. Are we spirit beings or are we just nothing more than piles of organized cellular activity?

Asking myself (I knew you would ask!) I would say we are a combination. The spirit and the material work together in this life and one proceeds on to the next. Those who say we have no control over who are work much closer to a pure materialism than to spiritualism.

Many in the Islamic world condemn the Western way of life as purely materialistic. I am going to work on the assumption here they are not confusing materialism and consumerism; that their statement is saying we in the West do not believe that we have a spiritual component; that we do not believe in the immortal human soul.

Their overemphasis on the material of a Qurran betrays their claims of being more spiritual than those they condemn as materialists. If burning or desecrating a Qurran is going to destroy Islam and the spirit of that message then the message itself is weak (or at least those espousing the message are weak and have no confidence in the message's strength). In fact, I have found at least more truth in the West when it comes to religion.

Many people are skeptical of religion, and here in the West those people sleep in on Sunday morning. In the Islamic world they still go to the Mosque, conspicuously play with their worry beads, and carry on with the superficial trappings of Islam. Many times I have heard the story that since a child attends Mosque with their father they can not possibly be throwing rocks at their neighbor's car.

However, I do not want to get into the business of disrespecting things people consider holy. We treat our religious symbols with care. It comes down to what one values. We have a nice car. I take care of it, why? Because I value it. We have a corner in our bedroom which is a shrine to Jesus and Mother Mary, we value it and take care of that area. If someone comes in and trashes it I am not going to scream bloody jihad! and get my sword out and start lopping off heads. God and His saving message is much more powerful than a vandal and the vandal will have to treat with God over that vandalism someday. In fact, one may accuse the Muslims who are upset over the Qurran desecration of something they accuse us Christians of: idolatry.

Whiney Blogging.

I must apologize for my blog the other day where I relate the story about the e-mail exchange between myself and my former colleague in Dubai. In my mind it comes off as naive and whiney.

With my interest and dedication to my political beliefs I know this is sort of thing is in big bold letters (i.e. you may PO friends, relatives, and others) in the contract I signed. Still, one hopes that the people that one holds dear are in harmony with one's views. We are not.

I don't know if the friendship is in danger or not but since I have not personally seen this fellow in some years (I was at the airport when he returned from the UAE after finishing his job at the UAEU) and him and his mother came to our wedding.

As far as I am concerned I care more for the relationship than the politics but it is up to him. Claudia and I have good and close friends who are as active in Democratic party & machinery politics as we are in Republican.

As someone once said let the dead tend to the dead and move on. I hope it doesn't come to that but it might.

And so it goes.

Blogroll Policies.

1. I will only blogroll sites I deem suitable for my audience. I aim for a PG-13 at the highest. If your blogs frequently involve lewdness, cussing and the like, I will not blogroll your site.


2. If your site is suitable, blogrolling Blogger Beer on your blog (you have to let me know, but sooner or later I usually pick up on it) earns your blog a reciprocal link on Blogger Beer.


3. If I like your site and blogroll without a reciprocal link, you are dumped into the priority 99 bin, that is at the bottom. As soon as you blogroll Blogger Beer on your site (and let me know) I will raise your priority.


4. Blogs I have no chance (or little) of being blogrolled on (e.g. Michelle Malkin, LGF, Powerline etc) have their own category. All others have to earn their way up.


5. Blogger Beer does not exchange links for carrying one of the blogroll broadcasters I belong to (e.g. GOP Bloggers), you must have a permanent link to Blogger Beer for exchange considerations.


6. If you notify me you intend to blogroll Blogger Beer I will place your blog into bin 99 until you have carried through on your promise to blogroll Blogger Beer.


7. All blogroll decisions while never final are all and completely mine.


8. I will blogroll leftist blogs that comply with item 1 above in exchange for Blogrolling Blogger Beer. Pleae notify me when adding Blogger Beer to your blogroll.


9. In all cases please notify me if you want to exchange a blogroll link. I see links coming in sooner or later but since I am a GOP Blogger I get quite a few links based on broadcast blogrolls (which are temporary in nature) and so I do believe I am starting to miss permanent blogroll links.

Blogroll Announcement.

I am pleased to announce a new addition to the blog roll: The Minnesota Area Women Bloggers Squad aka the M.A.W.B. squad. They too provide commentary on all sorts of things from Arby's reuben sandwich to fish-heads to politics. M.A.W.B. Squad is their site.

Sugar & Caffeine Buzz Blogging.

What does that mean? It means a cheap and easy traffic thrill! I was getting swarmed with Google search hits based on searches for Pope Benedict XVI and beer or was it Cardinal Ratzinger and beer. Something like that. That swarm of hits has tapered off and I wonder if it is because I need to reprime the pump?

Good night!

Channeling Jonah Again!

Andy McCarthy is absolutely correct. Newsweek screwed-up a story which would have been the 73,087,733th tale of America showing very little respect for the religious sensibilities of murderous terrorists who call themselves Muslims. In response to the story, fanatical young men rioted and people died. The story turned out not to be true. Shame on Newsweek. But what if it were true?* Would that mean the rioters were right to indulge their epilepsy of hatred?

Source Jonah Goldberg NRO - Newsweak Reax (Breaking: Jihadists hate us.)

Right on. WSJ just ran a piece talking about Saudia Arabia thinks nothing of desecrating the symbols of other religions and in fact roughed up (including stomping on) some Qur'rans themselves.

Newsweak is a leftist rag and is out to destroy the WOT, so what? We know that. We also know Newsweak did not kill anyone! Crazies set of a chain of events.

In December of 1992 there was a disputed Mosque/Hindu Temple in India which was ransacked by a Hindu mob. Segments of the population went nuts! There were riots and one whole section of my city was cut off, woe be to those who found themselves there at the time (some friends had their cars there for maintenance). Our church was ransacked (many of our parishioners were Indian but in any event it was a Islam against the infidels thing) and rumors had it about 100 people were killed and over 10,000 deported (they rounded everyone up and checked papers, Claudia was assigned nurse duty at that camp).

Chris makes a good point here. I think it best we remember who is having the problem and I think Newsweak's biggest problem is being unable to back up a story and not the story itself.

Source: Blogger Beer - The Newsweak Article Again.

Again it sounds like I am channeling Jonah, but then again this idea was well around the block as the original blog o mine combined input from Day by Day and LGF.

WOT From the Former Ex-Pats Perspective.

Even though I think the idea that my life as an ex-pat means I oppose the WOT is silly I still understand this has probably made life for those Americans and Westerners in the Middle East more difficult.

Even when there were minor incidents about in the world we would receive "warden notices" from the Embassy in Abu Dhabi. They essentially told us they though the potential for violence directed at Americans was increased and to take the "usual precautions" such as varying routes & timings to/from work. Check out your car before getting into it, reporting suspicious behavior to the police, do not congregate with large numbers of other Americans, be aware of your surroundings etc etc etc. I would imagine now the embassy only notifies our ex-patriates only when those precautions can be relaxed.

This would be distressing. I remember incidents during the summer and thinking I would have to travel back in that kind of threat environment. Oh well, it all passed without incident and in any event we must carry on otherwise....

I am very glad Claudia and I are no longer in the Middle East. Part of this is certainly due to the situation that is going on right now, another part of it is it is a very comfortable lifestyle one not conducive to growth.

A Leftist Stereotype.

"You lived in Arabia & overseas, how can you vote for Bush?" (Or support the WOT)

One of the reasons I support the WOT in the way I do is because of my life overseas. If you are a local, an American or a Westerner life is good in the Middle East. If you are not then life is not so good. I suppose it was easy for many Westerners to overlook how poorly those with low wasta (influence power, wasta was made up by nationality, who you knew, job etc) are treated. I hung with one of the crowds frequently dumped upon by the locals and it was offensive to me.

I have seen closeup too, how zealous Muslims can be and while I lived as a guest in Arabia, I do not relish the idea of being governed by Muslims in my homeland. Even the most liberal Islamic regime would make Jerry Fallwell & Pat Robertson look like flaming leftists.

Galloway.

Anyone who has seen the British Parliament in action knows it is not the quiet solemn affair our congress & senate are. In fact John Derbyshire at National Review Online says:

Galloway came up through the UK parliamentary system, though, where you have to be fierce and clever in debate, and need to be able to think fast on your feet. The US Senate is full of pompous bores, stuffed up to the nose holes with a conviction of their own terrific importance, whose idea of debate is to drone their way through a speech some minimum-wage staffer has written up for them. This was like watching an alley mongrel let loose in a room full of pampered, overfed lap dogs.

From watching both houses in action on CSPAN I have to agree. Even when lively US Senate & Congressional debate is in heated action it looks like a calm sermon on Sunday morning. When parliament is in session it constantly looks like a brawl is about to break out.

Those of you cheering Galloway on understand, his election is under investigation (the same sort of shennagins that went on in Milwaukee & in Washington state) he is under investigation by the parliament for the fraud regarding the Mariam charity.

Similar?

Read these two articles:
Oh Canada by myself and then Invasion of the America Snatchers by Jonah Goldberg.

Jonah finishes off what I started! Jonah, are you reading Blogger Beer?

Disturbed Day.

Early in the morning I found an e-mail note from a former colleague of mine. He was the only one from my UAE days at the wedding of Claudia and Myself. He is working in Dubai and living in Sharjah.

In this note, he was singing the praises of UK MP dhimmi George Galloway's testimony in front of our senate. I noted in return Galloway was nothing more than a crook who sang the praises of a murdering tyrant and was nearly beaten to death by ROP members for his sin of participating in democracy. All day long the note bugged the heck out of me. When I got home, as expected there was a response.

The response was standard leftist bullet points about the WOT and Iraq in general. He brought up the debunked Lancet number of 100,000 casualties, he said I as a W supporter would be lonely over there (as if my Republicanism was popular when I was there, the ex-patriate American crowd (and in general) definitely leans to the left), Galloway won a libel suit (in easy to win libel suit UK) on the same claims etc etc etc. I resolved to write a response but have determined the best is to just can them.

I have been in these situations before. People send me their political thoughts and I usually have a hard time at least not giving a response, sometimes that is the end between us. I recall getting a note from a guy (who was also a UAE colleague and on this address list of the note of discussion) in 2000 about Nader-Trader. I responded back to him how this was the most ingenious voter fraud scheme ever, I never received a response back from him on it.

Kinda of a dark day. I have to remember how many in the UK thought Hitler to be a man they could deal with. Many believed this even after the invasion of Poland.

The Saga Continues.

The Newsweak Saga continues on.

The lines seem to be facing this question: Is the government out of line by asking Newsweek to clean up its mess? Wretchard recounts some of the press conference where Scott McClellan was facing a very hostile crowd. The crowd not only was hostile but wasting everyone's time. This
statement: [DIG UP STATEMENT]

Q Are you asking them to write a story about how great the American military is; is that what you're saying here?


MR. McCLELLAN: Elisabeth, let me finish my sentence. Our military --


Q You've already said what you're -- I know what -- how it ends.

Source: The Belmont Club - The Agent 2

makes one wonder why this reporter bothered to attend at all.

Let us remember what exactly Newsweak actually did. They reported on a story based on rumors and on anonymous sources. They have no one willing to stand up and testify to the story (of course talibaners who were imprisoned there claim it and many other things so however I do not trust them), they have no objective evidence that can prove their story. All they have is hearsay and the old line that no matter how weak or non-existent the evidence is we still should believe them.

Let us recall a basic truism of claim-making. If you make a claim then YOU are responsible for proving the claim. If you can not prove a claim then you better not make it, be ready to receive criticism, not be believed, or be dismissed by people. Newsweak made a claim and is unable
to back it up and are now caught in a real bind.

Many people are very upset with the President's administration for criticizing Newsweak and calling for at least an honest retraction and an honest attempt to repair the damage done. Why? What is wrong with asking for something? We have to understand something here.

The administration is being very careful to show the Islamic world the WOT is not really a WOI (War on Islam). This is NOT an easy proposition here since the WOT is first and foremost against Islamic terror. It is very easy for the Muslims who are behind radical Islamic terrorism to
paint any action against any Muslim (regardless if it is truly justified, even by Islamic standards) anywhere in the world as an action rooted in the desire to attack Islam. I can tell stories all day how touchy Muslims are about attacks on Islam.

Part of this is human nature in general and part of this is Islam in particular. We all tend to get defensive when something precious to us is seemingly attacked. This is natural, when in high school we received an anonymous note attacking the religious faith of a family that ran
upon hard times. Even though at the time I was fallen away from my faith I still reacted defensively with respect to that note.

The Mainstream Mastodons (MSM) are working to undermine the WOT and to promote the understanding of the terrormongerers.

Go read Wretchard's post and the most excellent comments!

Anonymous Sources.

Are fine to start on a story or an investigation, but if your case relies solely on anonymous sources you have no case.

For example I have an anonymous source that says a rival organization is guilty of fraudulently collecting charity. My source doesn't want to go on record or testify so I have no case. I could publish the details and I try to not talk abou it with others because this is the sort of thing that is libelous & slanderous (at least I don't talk about it with identifying characteristics) and could get one into trouble.

If I had hard proof of this corruption then it all changes. With just an anonymous source it is just a story and suspicious one at that.

Good night.

The Newsweak Article Again.

Source: Day by Day

Chris makes a good point here. I think it best we remember who is having the problem and I think Newsweak's biggest problem is being unable to back up a story and not the story itself. Yes, I am backing off my earlier blogs a bit.

Do you remember some years ago when Muslims invaded the Church of the Nativity? They ransacked and desecrated the Church of the Nativity. I don't recall there being protests against that. HT to LGF on that reminder.

IMO, the biggest problem with the story is the lack of being able to back up their reporting. I suspect Newsweak published the story as the MSM's continuing effort to discredit Gitmo and the WOT in general.

Not that big of a deal, but I am not throwing a lifeline to that struggling mastodon in the tarpit.

Newsweak.

Why is it the MSM seems to place blind faith in the testimony of Al-Qaeda and Talibaners coming out of Gitmo? I recall one story about how one guy talked about the terrible torture applied to him in Gitmo. He described how his captors rolled out a concrete treadmill, wired him up and made him run under threat of electrocution.

Sounds like a stress test, that is they were making sure his health was good; that is to say they were taking proper care of him. I do not recall any of the mainstream mastadons (MSM) questioning this guys testimony. Why was there no follow up on that report? Seems like the mastadons are quite eager to hear and report on any story that makes the USA look bad. In fact Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs takes a page out of the Talibaner & Al-Qaeda handbook (literally) and shows us how the mainstream mastadons are playing a key and cooperative role in the Al-Qaeda & Talibaner game plan.

You can be quite certain pretty soon we will be seeing some more Internet beheadings. Those beheadings will come complete with a statement telling us how we deserve such treatment for what happened to the Qur'ran at Gitmo (whether it happened or not is now utterly irrelevant). Some poor soul will be trotted out bound up, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and some thug will cut his head off in a slow and tortuous manner. Of course the usual suspects (ie Dowd, Krugman, Moore et al.) will blame the Presiedent.

IMO, Newsweek has no excuse in this matter. Even if the story is true, what import does it carry that it must be reported on? It seems the Mainstream Mastadons have come to believe any treatment beyond prodding with soft cushions, and being sat in the comfy chair (with 11:00 am coffee service) is torture and must be zealously exposed.

I do not believe Newsweek can hide behind surprise as to the response. Certainly they know enough of the world to have known what the reaction would be. Perhaps their disdain for religion and belief only Republican voting Red Stater fundie Christian hicks only take offense at religious
insult led them to believe there would be no serious reaction by the Muslim community.

The CW On Newsweek! (The Last Bit too!)

down, originally uploaded by maurelius.

Newsweek is now catching wrath from the Blogosphere for its shoddy reporting on the Gitmo Qur'ran affair.

Wretchard at the Belmont Club says:

In predicate calculus, Newsweek asserted P. Their attempts at confirmation yielded ~P and Null. Hence they concluded P, which is wrong, wrong and wrong. It is wrong from the pont of view of elementary logic. It would be wrong anywhere, even in the Andromeda Galaxy. But apparently it is right at Newsweek.

Source: The Belmont Club - Not Good Enough

Of course whatever makes the USA bad is a good thing, right Newsweek? In this case I guess the ends do justify the means.

Father John Leaving.

Today at St. Bernard's Parish we had a farewell party for Fr. John. We will miss him as Fr. John is an extremely well loved Priest. He was ordered to another parish by Bishop Zubick.

I hope readers of this blog from the Parish (are there any?) realize we go to mass not for the Priest but for the honor and glory of God. We got to rejuvenate our souls and the Priest is just a standin for Jesus. We go for Jesus and God.

In my parish in Al-Ain we had something similar happen. Fr. Francis had an accident and was seriously injured. He recovered but was not up to running a parish on his own anymore. We then had Fr. Matthew. It was sad to see but attendance from the Western crowd dropped dramatically. Fr. Matthew was no doubt more reserved than Fr. Francis and the masses too were more riveting but it appears people had lost sight of what we attend mass.

I hope this does not happen at St. Bernards.

The Last Bit.

PopeBeer, originally uploaded by maurelius.

I have detected that many people are finding Blogger Beer by searching for Pope Benedict XVI and beer. Or Cardinal Ratzinger and beer.

Well here you go! Pretty soon instead of wine we will be drinking consecrated beer! Anyway if you came looking for the Pope and beer, please stay a while and read: Blogger Beer! You will not regret it!

Also, FYI this photo is not mine but was obtained by e-mail and came with quite a few forward headers!

Good Night!

Bumped into Justin A!

Claudia and I were at the Mall tonight and we bumped into Justin Appletonian tonight. Didn't have a whole lot to say but it is good to see him back in town!

Nick Berg's Sister Calls out the MSM.

Nick Berg's sister calls out the media. Recall Nick Berg was the young man in Iraq trying to make a fortune for himself and help rebuild Iraq. Abu Musab Zarqawi and his band captured him and beheaded him. I can still hear the screams from that tape.

Nick's father blamed President Bush, Nick's sister response is much more clear eyed than her father's.

Homophobic Amsterdam.

Charles over at LGF notes that attacks against homosexuals are on the rise in Amsterdam! Of all places!

I was laid over in the Airport in 1998 and took a tour of the city. The guide was quite proud of their tolerance. It seems a certain group of immigrants has not yet learned to be tolerant.

What was all that I was saying about immigration?

The Spirit of Baghdad Bob Lives On!

According to all reports Operation Matador is in a lull at the moment. The reports indicate though it is tough but productive fighting and the foe is of generally a better class than it was in Fallujah but still outclassed by the Marines.

Anyway Al-Zarqawi's group released a statement that sounds very much like the Spirit of Baghdad Bob is living and thriving. The Word Unheard gives a summary of what has been translated and released.

Immigration Again.

Many people complain how our immigration system is broken. Our leaders propose to do something about that and rarely do our leaders truly propose to fix the system.

Most of those proposals include a track to regularize the status of an illegal immigrant. This is all well and good, but if those proposal do not include more stringent border controls then they fix nothing! There is a hole in the dam and our elected leaders suggest we buy houseboats. I don't mind buying a rowboat to keep us above the water while the dam is fixed but refuse to buy a houseboat because they will not fix the dam.

There is remarkable bipartisanship with respect to immigration. I have blogged about immigration in the past. I have no problem with immigration and believe there are good debates on both sides arguing for either increased or decreased immigration. However, we need to control our borders! We spend more time and effort controlling Iraqi borders than we do our own! Why is this? We have bad guys trying to get into Iraq via Syria and Iran and so too the case here.

Some protest controlling our borders is unfair to the poor people trying to come to America for a better life. This is true, but remember illegal immigration puts those immigrants into a situation where unscrupulous employers can abuse them. Unchecked illegal immigration also undercuts the earnings of those on the bottom end of the wage scale. Perhaps those in industry who need more labor need to pay more or lobby their legislators for more legal immigration.

Our society also requires time to assimilate all of the immigrants. As you may be aware I used to live in the UAE where they too had a problem with large scale immigration. Their children often times spoke more fluent Urdu, Hindi or Tagalog than Arabic, why? Because of the massive
amount of cheap labor. The locals have drivers, gardeners, and nannies. Few of those servants are Arabic and often times have greater influence on the children than the parents do. That is cultural suicide!

Our culture IS worth protecting! Our culture does change with time due to the influence of our immigrants but our society should pick the best parts of a culture and discard those contrary to the true and good. For example we have a goodly number of immigrants from India, do we welcome sati? No we do not. If we do not control immigration we face the danger of losing the best of our culture and gaining the worst of others.

Our leaders constantly tell us their plans are not amnesties. Okay-okay whatever! None the less amnesty without border control shows our government is not serious about enforcing our borders. I do not care if legal immigration levels are increased 100x, make sure those coming in
are good and will contribute even if it is sweeping up floors in an office.

A maverick?

A RINO is more like it.

Michelle Malkin notes the MSM has a new person they can call a maverick. Ohio Sentator Voinavich (R(INO)-Ohio).

A Major Iraqi Operation.

Is going on near the border with Syria. The Belmont Club reports the Marine force that went in over there is using all sorts of weapons. Fixed wing, helicopter gunships, and artillery. This is being met with return fire. The enemy is present and is fighting back.

While it is not on the scale of Fallujah it sounds to be another of the same sort of operation. This is going to pinch off the jihadi hose supply (ala water hose). The nozzle was in Fallujah and the faucet is Al Qaim. The marines are working to kink the hose off near Al Qaim and then the towns in between Al Qaim and Fallujah will fall in turn.

Go get 'em!

32cnd Brigade.

Today I was talking with a friend of mine and he was telling me he is hearing the 32cnd Brigade is NOT going to Iraq. He tells me he heard Southeast Asia. This means one place, the Filipines.

Those of you who have been reading Blogger Beer know I pay attention to the Filipines, as that is where Claudia is from. I believe a reserve force would not be going anywhere else. Is this a better deal? Yes. The Abu Sayyaf movement is a small one and militarily speaking is very limited. There have been many reports that Abu Sayyaf is about to expand beyond its local and regional scope.

The Filipine National Police have been making arrests of people trying to sneak in from neighboring nations such as Indonesia and Malaysia.

Our forces are there for training the Filipino army in anti-terror tactics and have rules of engagement to correspond with that training mission. They are not to fire unless fired upon, that is bad guys get one free shot and then a world of hurt.

We have had forces in the Filipines for sometime now in this training role and I have yet to hear of a serious fight. I have suspected our forces would be positioned into a blocking location and the Filipino Army would then drive the Abu Sayyaf onto our forces. When Abu Sayyaf sees their way blocked by the US Military they would almost not have a choice but to fire inviting devastating return fire. However, I have not heard of any such clashes.

Another Counter.

Yes, I have two counters.

The TTLB Ecosystem can access counter information from Sitemeter and it uses that to gauge traffic here.

Also, Sitemeter provides the kind of detailed metrics a person needs. I can tell where people are coming from, I can tell what they plugged into a search engine to find Blogger Beer.

I use the amazing counter yet because it is what I am used to. So when I get used to Sitemeter the amazing counter will probably go.

A Bleg.

Hey All,

I have noticed quite a few visitors come by searching for references to Pope Benedict XVI and beer. Does anyone have a clue what that is about?

A story.

The monks from Germany brewed up some beer, they kegged it up and sent it to the bosses in Italy. Now, in Italy they make good wine. The priests, bishops, cardinals, monks and the Pope tasted this beer. They wrote back: keep up the good pennance!

PJ Blogging

Jib left a comment with my Sunshine in the Valley blog yesterday.

First off Jib, there was no offense.

Yes, I do lose a touch of control but it is just a touch.

Sunshine in the Valley!

Brrrrr,

A good morning to you all! The fine city around is redoing both roads that make up our corner. They shut the gas off yesterday and I am not quite clear if they turned it back on for us. I was down trying to relight pilot lights in the furnace and (more importantly) the water heater. No dice. So I am going to have a cold shower if things don't change right fast!

Expect light blogging in the immediate future. I have been working with others to come up with a budget for the OCRP and other such activities are taking hold of me. I will blog when I can but right now its priority has dropped.

And when I do blog it will be whimsy such as this or it will be deeper reflections of a general nature rather then on specific political commentary.

Take Care!

Sunshine in the Valley.

Good Morning,

One of the regular things I do is to search for references to Blogger Beer with Technorati. I do this to see who is linking to and talking about Blogger Beer. Mike over at Het2Blog talks about a series of posts on the Wisconsin Blogosphere centered on what our individual motivations are for blogging. Mike picks up on a blog by Jib where Jib discusses his motivations for blogging.

Mike sees a series of blogs by myself and strings them together in an interesting way. I think he nails my motivations pretty good. I want to earn wide recognition and $ with this blog.

One of the motivations I have in blogging is to counteract the Eight-Balls who write into the Appleton Post Crescent. Now, the APC has a circulation much higher than my readership here at Blogger Beer and unless I am able to draw a large number of readers I feel that what I am doing is in vain; I am just filling up storage at Blogger; making hard drive manufacturers more wealthy. In order to accomplish my mission of persuasion I need a large number of readers.

I genuinely enjoy the writing this blogging entails. I get a great deal of satisfaction when I coin a term (even if no one picks up on it) or come up with a clever and funny way to say something and one thing I am always looking for in my life is to turn my passions into $. We all remember our guidance counselors and career advisors telling us to find a job we genuinely like to do. I am trying to follow that advice. This then requires signing up with syndicates such as Pajamas, this requires advertising and so on. Heck, a tip jar is probably going to be found here shortly as well.

I would blog even without the chance for monetary gain but as long as its possible why not? Even if Pajamas did not exist I would still blog. Sure Wretchard (a part of the motivation for me joining Pajamas was his participation in the affair), Charles, et al are going to be making more bucks off of myself than the other way around. So? I would be doing this with or without Pajamas why not put Blogger Beer into a position to garner more traffic and advertising revenue?

I do not see advertising or making it big leads to selling out. I think Rush is an example of this, I have listened to Rush Limbaugh for sometime. I have detected no letup in the passion with which he pursues his agenda with. I do not see he has become "more moderate" (is that an oxymoron?) or a sell out with larger audiences. In fact Rush is the first to tell people selling out is a way to lose the magic.

Wow, that was a heavy blog so early in the morning!

Shocking News!

Apparently the terrorists are fighting back! Who, would have thunk it?

Anyway the biggest thing in the story is about the Japanese hostage situation.

What is most amazing about the article is the story of a kidnapping victim. Terrorists kidnapped a man from Japan after the man survived their ambush. The brother of the man is on record as saying "I do not expect the Japanese government to waver for the sake of my brother" note:

The Sunni militant Ansar al-Sunnah Army claimed on its Web site it had
kidnapped Akihiko Saito, 44, after ambushing a group of five foreign contractors protected by Iraqi forces. It said Saito was "seriously injured" in the fighting and that the others had died.

A spokesman for Saito's employer, Cyprus-based security firm Hart GMSSCO, confirmed he was missing after an ambush Sunday night involving Hart personnel.

Saito's brother, Hironobu, urged Tokyo to stay the course.

"If the Japanese government decides it's best to stay in Iraq, I will support (that). ... I do not expect the Japanese government to waver for the sake of my brother," he said.

Source: Yahoo News.
I am sure all of us have thought of how we would act in the same situation. Would you beg or would you face the inevitable with stoic acceptance? Would you demand the US pull out of Iraq or would you shout about how you regret you only have one life to give?

I recall during the Vietnamese War the Vietnamese marched some POWs in front of a TV camera and filmed them talking about how nice the Vietnamese were, while they were doing this they were flipping the camera off (i.e. telling the Vietnamese to go f themselves). The POWs explained this was a goodwill gesture. The POWs after they were freed stated they got it good when their captors found out otherwise.

Filibuster.

According to Rush Limbaugh Trent Lott is close to a "deal" on filibusters. The deal is essentially the same one Bill Frist turned down. The Dems in the deal are to pledge they will only use the filibuster in "extreme circumstances". That is an invitation to filibuster later on. The deal would the filibuster broken on seven of the nominees and remain for three of them.

The Dems put themselves into a bad situation here. They had a nice little tool for use against a Supreme Court nominee and they squandered it on lesser justices.

I had formerly been opposed to the rule change and now I am for it. I have discussed what the filibuster is and how it is not a constitutionally mandated procedure, it has nowhere near the sanctity the left currently assigns to it. Ann Coulter states to start discussing the filibuster in all of its lawyerly detail is just making a simple idea murky.

Dump the filibuster as a tool against judicial nominees!

Sunshine in the Valley.

Good Morning All!

I am rested and ready for another day! How about you? Anyway, as I stated yesterday, new blogs will appear early in the morning or from late afternoon until late evening.

Right now there is not a whole lot happening on the political front. It is all been pretty stable with few large things breaking. Obviously, we still have some situations that are ongoing, filibusters for instance. What else? I guess the John Bolton nomination is still ongoing. We have an investigation against senior (former) members of Hillary's campaign staff. We have candidates positioning themselves for the WI 8th district open seat. What else?

Anyway, have a good one!

Tired.

Greetings,

I am really tired today. I have attempted to write quite a few blogs but nothing really seems to make it out beginning stages. Perhaps I should just turn in for the night.

Anyway thanks for stopping by.

Serving Two Masters.

Is generally a bad idea and today's attempt at a mid day blog proved yet again the old adage to true.

I was trying to blog by mail but blog by mail is limited and I spent more time working on it to patch up the blog's deficiencies. I got it looking like I wanted to and it generated a comment very quickly, but right now (at least in that time frame) I must concentrate on the other master's desire. Perhaps if things slow down in the future I will be looking for things to do but right now there is plenty of work.

Hustler In the Pews.

A couple of summers ago Claudia, a friend, and myself went to Wisconsin Dells. We drove down 41 to 26 to 23. This path takes through Ripon and the Little White Schoolhouse. The Little White Schoolhouse is the birthplace of the Republican Party. On the way down we were in a hurry so we passed the Little White Schoolhouse right by.

We spent the rest of the day driving and in Wisconsin Dells. Sunday we were more at leisure than we were the day before and we stopped at the Little White Schoolhouse. As one would expect it is a sleep attraction in a sleepy town. None the less the Little White Schoolhouse had the air of that event back in 1850, they had a signed picture of George Stephanopoulos so it does not escape notice entirely. Also, Ripon is notable for one of the students who attended Ripon College: Harrison Ford.

Well we were browsing around looking at the pictures reading the placards and I eventually found myself in the back by the school teacher's desk. There was a magazine rack. I then proceeded to see what was in the magazine rack and what should my eyes behold? The Nation Magazine! For those of you who do not know what The Nation Magazine is about it is a periodical of leftist opinion. I thought this is like going to church and finding Hustler Magazine in the pews! I searched the rack hoping to find The National Review or The Weekly Standard or a similar magazine but only The Nation.

Well, since the person at the desk appeared to be just some summer help I said nothing. After reaching home I went online and went to the website of the Ripon Chamber of Commerce (RCoC) and lodged a complain about this insult. The next day I received a reply that consisted of the standard freedom of expression lecture. I related this to the fellow who setup the RCoC website and told me he was not at all surprised by any of it given the person at the chamber who replied to my message.

I was also lectured how 501(c)3 organizations can not take sides in politics. Funny, it seems like stocking that magazine rack full of The Nation Magazine is taking political sides. I initially offered a gift subscription to The National Review to the Little White Schoolhouse but reasoned since the Little White Schoolhouse is 501(c)3, political magazines could endanger its status.

I have not been in the Little White Schoolhouse since then so I do not know if the RCoC has rectified this situation.

Joining Pajamas!

I just sent in the necessary paperwork to join Pajamas. Pajamas is a blogging syndicate organized by Wretchard, Tim Blair, Charles Johnson, and some editor from <em>The Nation</em>. Apologies to that editor, I forgot your name and I have a story about your magazine, you may find interesting (I consider it blasphemous). I will tell that story later.

 

Anyway, they are going to sell advertising to place on Pajama blogs and they will syndicate the work of the bloggers in Pajamas. I do view this as an opportunity to earn wider recognition of my work as well as more income via the advertising. I hope it will earn me better advertising, the only advertising that has been really satisfactory with AdSense are the advertisements it was posting around the time PPJPII passed away and PBXVI was selected as PPJPII's successor.

Test

Testing blogging by mail, attempt n.

Computer Professionals Going Political.

I have noticed that more and more of the people on the political scene are computer professionals.

It is an interesting thing. Part of this is no doubt due to the need for political groups to have a presence on the Internet and this also no doubt due to the rise of blogging. Computer pros have a lot more ability to setup a blog (and my guess is Blogger is too much for the computer-phobic) than a non-computer professional, so the early waves of bloggers are naturally going to be computer pros with political concerns.

I remember when I first started hanging out with the Outagamie County Republican Executive Committee I was asked by a member what my job was. I said "computer programmer" and the interrogator wondered what I knew about politics. I guess it is a natural reaction when everyone you know in political affairs is a lawyer, an accountant, an elected official and so on.

I know one of the two bloggers at Boots and Sabers is a computer pro, I am, I notice NZ Bear is one as well.

If you have a blog, what do you do for a living? Please leave your answer in the comments section.

Thanks

Happy Mother's Day!

Mom,

I know you read this blog regularly. I want to wish you especially (and all mothers in general)

A VERY HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Pinoy Power.

Spotted this story over at the Blackfive Mil-Blog site.

You hear these stories and wonder how you would react in the situation. My wife's Godson (who is also pure Filipino) was asked what they do when attacked. He stated in a very businesslike fashion, you get out of your vehicle and you fight. This seems to be the best way.

Blackfive sometime ago posted a story about a group of MPs many of whom were women were ambushed. They stopped, they stayed and as a result the terrorists were slaughtered. A cool head will do much for you.

Sunshine in the Valley!

Good Morning One, Good Morning All!

I hope you all had restful and peaceful sleeps last night.

Saturday was a fairly productive day. I got a fair amount of blogging done and it felt good! Claudia and I went to Mishicot yesterday for a birthday party and made some good contacts for the NEW Bayanihan effort. I finished up a little programming project on the NEW Bayanihan website and it went off mostly well but not perfectly well. The problems with that effort have been fixed and it was a matter of hardcoding variables rather than taking them from user input. MY BAD!

If you want you can see the results of these efforts at one of the two links:

1. Pictures from the University of Santo Tomas Concert.


2. Pictures from Ruby's benefit.

Today is a completely as it comes day. I suspect there will be less blogging than yesterday!

Anyway have a good day!

Another Great Reflection.

Sitting around waiting for my ham-cheese-lettuce and tomato wraps cook I have the Science Channel on. They are talking about scientists that have revolutionized the world. Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and Hawking.

I have caught three of the bios. Greatness is not necessarily linked to school achievement. Obsession seems to be the common factor, an obsession that most people would consider unhealthy. They talk about Newton working on one problem for days on end with little sleep and food; same with Einstein though Hawking is different. Stephen has seemed to manage ALS, a wife, children, and grandchildren with incredible genius output.

So, what came first the genius or the obsession?

A Follow Up on Greatness.

Some people may detect a note of condescension in my blog on Greatness.

Well,perhaps. I realize people make their own free-will choices and sometimes those choices are in favor of other things in their life. Perhaps it is being a great husband, wife, father, or mother. Perhaps they strive to be a great home craftsman, things that are not so apparent.

Though this is not what I am talking about. I know ambitious and successful people who get their children involved. I am talking about the slow death of ones ambition. Ambition is not bad provided it drives a sinless approach to the achievement of ambitions. If ones ambition drives one to means outside of the law (both God's law and the law of our legal system) then the ambition is faulty.

Is there a cause or is it just the human condition?

Mike commented on the fact this is often group-think. I was about to state in my previous flog the logic of the school. Small fish often school because if they are one of thousands the chances they themselves will get picked off by a predator are small. If one becomes great they separate themselves from the herd and become a target.

How many of you know the name Tom Petri? How many know Tom DeLay? Who is the target? I can not blame people for not wanting to become a target.

Saturday's Eight-Ball.

DESERVING? How many of the Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature would be willing to work for $5.15 an hour? Of course, they are more deserving than the working poor, aren’t they? Heaven forbid that some municipalities don’t agree with them. Where are their moral, ethical, greedy family values?

Fran Bubolz,

Buchanan

Source: Its Your Call The Appleton Post Crescent, Saturday May 7, 2005
"they are more deserving than the working poor, aren’t they?"

YES

they are more deserving. They did not attend school for years and year, did not risk what they put on the line for minimum wage.

Would you run for the legislature for $5.15/hour? Of course, there is more to the job than the pay but we must adequately compensate our legislators otherwise what will we get?

You see Fran, this is the same situation as the smoking non-smoking laws are in. Appleton passes a no-smoking ordinance in public places. Well business then shifts to Grand Chute, so what does Appleton do? They whine to the state to make a state no-smoking law. Same thing going on here, businesses in neighboring municipalities are losing employees.

Some may say "well, then they should just compete and increase their wages, don't you conservatives talk about competition all the time?" The instigating factor is not competition but government fiat.

Fran, you are the wiener of today's Eight-Ball, congratulations!

Fran Bubolz's Eight-Ball!

Greatness.

I was in the reading room a moment ago and I picked up a National Review from about a year ago (It has a real cool drawing of John Kerry in command of a sinking swift boat). I was reading through an article about by Jay Nordlinger on the Bobbie Jones movie. Recall Bobbie Jones was an amateur golfer that many figure was the greatest ever bar none (the impression I get is even Tiger is not as good as Bobbie).

Jay notes: in the movie Bobby said that all he wanted to be was normal; he viewed his greatness as a curse. Jay does not believe the real Bobbie Jones held this view.

When did the desire for greatness get beaten out of you? When we are young we all have bold dreams, we want to be the President, we want to be a famous movie star or singer etc. Then eventually most of us just want to pay the bills and watch American Idol.

This is one area of thought I am in harmony with Ayn Rand. She pointed out our education system is the scalpel that removes the desire for greatness (a greatnessectomy!) out of us. I think there is some truth to this. Think about it, what people were the most despised in your classes? The ones who excelled, not the ones who failed. God protect the students who did well at all classes and succeeded in other endeavors. Eventually most of us (even the strongest among us crave approval of our peers) buckle in and we be quiet even though we know the answer or suppress our desire to stand out from the rest.

This group-pressure is pervasive in our society as well. Think unions. Unions are notorious for crushing those who strive for excellence. Joe Sixpack hires onto a union shop, the piecerate at the shop is (for instance) 100 pieces/hour. Joe then cranks out 130/hour and earns a bonus, what happens, if he keeps up the good work and strives to improve he will get a visit from the union enforcers telling him to work less hard, to be mediocre, not great! Unions may help to improve the skills of a worker but when that worker starts to strive for greatness the enforcers come and put an end to that.

Other factors affect one's drive for excellence as well. Substance use/abuse. Don't kid yourself abusing drink or the use and abuse of other drugs does cut into your drive for excellence. I knew some people that despite their use of such things did pretty well. Eventually I came to wonder about what they could do if they did not use those substances. In myself, I noted an increase in my ambition and drive when I cut back on my drinking. Become the full self God intends for you and do not abuse drink or use "other substances".

State Republican Convention.

Is happening this weekend in Sheboygan.

I would report on it but you see I am not there and very capable members (some of which are much closer to boot) are there blogging on it. Next year the Republican State Convention comes to Marcus, so I will have no excuse not to attend (unless we have a hilatious blizzard going on and the ski hills are still open and Claudia is off that weekend).

Fellow BBA members Kevin and Owen are blogging the event from the event. Check it out!

My mother's business is essentially located across the street from the venue.

Update:

• 7:46 am 5/7/05
Link to Lakeshore Laments corrected. Mea culpa!

Sunshine in the Valley!

Ah Good Morning Everyone!

Have you voted for Blogger Beer yet? Why not? Go do it now before it is too late!

What else? Well it is a Saturday so I have a little more time but it is going to be consumed by some PHP development I am working on (for my websites), by rewriting the offer to purchase some land, by going to the Lakeshore etc.

ttyl

The Last Bit.

img0036B, originally uploaded by maurelius.

Wow you say! From a beautiful church to a frog! It is an exercise in contrast!

No, I still think this is a nice photograph. I took it one summer when I was home from the UAE. During the summer my folks would lounge in their living room and the curtains open and lights on. This attracted bugs of all sorts. The frogs would then come, go up the window and feast on bugs.

I got my minolta 7000 out, mounted up my 50mm macro lense and hooked up my flash by off camera setup. I had my cousins soon to be husband hold and aim the flash and I snapped a couple of shots. This is one of them. Normally when you do macro work, the focusing is very finicky and you have to use a tripod but the flash helped to freeze the normal shakiness.

Good Night & God Bless You!

Wigderson Library and Pub

Is another blog I am competeing against this week.

I blogrolled Jim's blog a couple of weeks ago. Another example of the tough competition I am up against.

May the best beer, errr blog win!

Comment on a Comment.

Yesterday's Eight-Ball award elicited a comment I will share with everyone.

The "Free Thinkers" are amusing for the same reason - they think that they're the only free thinkers. Funny, though - he answered all of his problems in that last paragraph: "Humans are not sheep." That's right. Although I'm not one, I'm sure Catholics are just as smart as I am, and that they've thought about the path they're following. Just because the libs don't like it, doesn't mean it's any less rational. The Pope is not pulling the wool over all of these people's eyes, after all...

Source: A Bark from SteveS

Thanks SteveS for reading Blogger Beer and commenting!

His opening comment hits it dead on. I recall sometime ago seeing some group of Atheists sort of acknowledging the fact their arrogance turns people off. So they decided to rename their group to The Brights, thats it! I am sorry I can not recall specifics so you have my blessings if you pull out the salt on that one. None the less this is the sort of attitude I see many Atheists take. They are smart and those who believe in God are not.

Don't take the previous blog to mean that Republicans always conform to faith, they do not. But of the Democrats are much more closely associated with the type of person who sees faith as a bad thing, as a thing to be stamped out of the public square.

The one quibble I do have here, is the reference to rational thought. Faith is irrational period! Faith escapes rational thought this is not a slam on faith it is a matter of definition.

We often say someone is acting in an irrational manner but we are not using the term properly. Most often we should just say "so-n-so is acting stupidly" or "crazily" but not irrationally.

Complex numbers however abstract are rational (not in the set of numbers they belong to, I loved my class on complex numbers, the use of complex numbers leads to many interesting results) in that our minds can work with them and can comprehend them. God is not rational and faith in God is not rational when one understands what it truly means to be rational and irrational.

The Last Bit.

Holy Hill, originally uploaded by maurelius.

A picture of the main sanctuary at the Holy Hill Monastery in Southeast Wisconsin.

One certainly feels close to God in this beautiful place.

Good Night!

Eight Ball Award!

I found a letter in the Post Crescent where the author is so disconnected from reality he deserves and Eight-Ball.

Death has deified backward pope

Catholicism seems emotionally revived with the recent death of the pope, but the proportions of its new energy are tied into bigotry and falsehoods.

The pope is but one man who, like all men, is remarkably fallible, though touted otherwise by the Catholic flock.

By supporting the pope and the Catholic regressive doctrine that he put forth in his teaching, such as abandonment of gay rights, birth control and stem cell research, are where image outruns reality.

The pope portrayed as a charismatic individual is a stretch. He refused change at all costs. There is some question as to his sincerity in adoring children as can be seen in the slowness in the investigation of child sexual abuse allegations in which untold numbers of his clergy were involved.

Instead of opting for change, the Catholic Church remains stuck in narrow mindedness. Its parishioners allow its leaders to think for them rather than think for themselves.

To the end, the pope remained rigid, non-relenting in his proclamations of business as usual. Take off the mask of the pope or the pope to be and you will likely find humanness, not super humanness or godliness. I question those who deify themselves and demonize others whose thinking may be contrary to religious doctrine.

Humans are not sheep. They can choose to follow their own nose rather than embrace the doctrine they are spoon-fed. We all have the choice to reinvent faulty propositions, but first the pope and others in the Catholic hierarchy have to go.

Bill Borcherdt,

Menasha

Source: May Fourth 2005 Appleton Post Crescent Bill Borcherdt - Death has deified backward pope
Ahhh, so many people mistake leftism for Catholicism and when the two do not match up Catholicism is all wrong. As National Review notes in a book review (the book was on Catholicism authored by Gary Wills) "pure Catholicism" closely resembles leftist thinking on everything.

Clearly this is what we have here. Jesus told Peter he was a rock, not a sponge or a pile of clay but a rock, a rock of truth.

Mr. Borcherdt, if you don't like Catholicism and what it teaches that is fine, go on to found the United Church of Bill but don't think your eight-ball caliber ranting will win you converts. Another example of how the KKK is not totally out of fashion.

Mr. Borcherdt, you are the winner of today's Eight-Ball award! Congratulations!


Bill Borcherdt's Eight-Ball!

Oh Canada.

We all know the stories about the PESTy people wanting to leave the USA for Canada after their guy lost the election to George W. Bush. This made many people think, many of whom are much smarter and insightful than myself.

Though, one thing I have never seen written is comparisons of this phenomena with respect to the founding of our nation. Back then there were also people who left the States for Canada. These people for whatever reason wanted to be part of a tradition more like what was in Britain rather than setting of on their own. This exactly what the PESTs and the left complain about. Our nation is not like the UK and Europe and therefore is not fit to live in, off to Canada they go.

Our nation was founded by those who were either cast off by Britain or by those who cast off Britain. The Old World wanted nothing of them and those leaving may have not been happy leaving but they figured it could not be worse in the New World. When Britain began to assert itself over the colonies, the New World inhabitants rebelled, why wouldn't they? They moved across an ocean to escape Britain and then Britain comes after them. Those who came along with the idea of New Britain went to Canada to escape the war.

So too it is today. The people who clamor for socialized medicine, the abolition of the death penalty, Kyoto, the ICC and so on, realize their vision is an Old World vision and the United States is not of the Old World but of the New World, while at least the politically powerful areas of Canada is Old World and that is all that matters.

On Immigration.

Immigration is a concern that is getting quite a bit of attention of late. The Minutemen are only one of the reasons for this. The other is a concern our borders are so lax people bent on carrying out an act along the lines of 9/11 can get in quite easily. Some people are concerned because of the effect immigration has on wages and salaries and some are concerned about what immigration does to our culture.

All too often the debate comes down to simple (not even creative or original) namecalling. Xenophobe is one name I see way too often. The usual related names also come into play.

The first thing the left needs to recognize is the problem of illegal immigration. If a person comes into this nation improperly, without the proper paperwork (forged, ill-gotten, or fraudulent) , via jumping the border etc they are illegal! Do not try to come up with soothing euphemisms such as undocumented workers or whatever, let us be honest let us call them illegal aliens (okay, illegal immigrants is fine as well, the emphasis though is on the first word).

Too often the debate is framed by the left as between kind hearted folks and racist xenophobes (a tiring game plan). Ohh, those awful racist rednecks only want white Christians in this nation!

Most people realize this nation is a nation of immigrants. They realize what makes America what it is today is our liberal immigration policies. What they do not want however are completely open doors.

Our nation has cycled between little immigration and periods of open immigration. Most likely this is because the nation decides from time to time to let the new flock assimilate before having to deal with another group of immigrants.

A story I read has it that in Manitowoc in the early part of last Century it was not uncommon to hear German being spoke. The time has long passed since most people hear German on a regular basis. However, we now frequently hear Spanish and Hmong. The key to success in any land is being able to communicate in the vernacular. Communicating in Hmong or Spanish may be fine around the house or in the neighborhood but get outside that community and you need to learn the language and mannerisms of the people you are dealing with. So, assimilation is important not only for the host society but for the immigrants as well.

I don't debate illegal immigration. It is...illegal. However, as you may have seen it is quite another thing to debate proper levels of immigration. When it comes to levels of LEGAL immigration we should be more liberal. Face it people, there are jobs Americans will not do. I hate to say it but true.

A buddy of mine told me in his hometown there was a slaughterhouse. He said most of the workers were immigrants (Mexican, Ukrainian, Asian of various sorts etc). He told me the pay there was good, in fact better than most other jobs but Americans did not want to work there. They would settle for less pay in a cushier job. Others I have talked to express similar experiences.

A guy I was visiting was working at a nursing home around Springfield Illinois. He was Filipino and said his American workers (he was a manager type) were not nearly as hard working as the Filipinos under him. The Americans "called in" more often and were otherwise not as hard working. Claudia notes the same thing at her job.

This is only going to get worse as our population gets older and older, also remember the older the population gets the more it is going to demand services. Who is going to provide those services at a reasonable cost?

Remember opposing illegal immigration is not the same as opposing immigration. I support The Minutemen 100%, I support stopping immigration 0%.

Your {INSERT PERSON} Number.

In my previous blog I refer to my "Instapundit number".

What is that you ask? Well, I guess my Instapundit number would not be two and probably greater than that. Anyway, let us instead talk about my Reagan number. I have met and am acquainted with someone who personally met Ronald Reagan. That person's RR number is 1, since they met him (with Ronald Reagan's Reagan number being 0). Since I know a person with an RR number of 1, my RR number is 2. People who meet or know me have a RR number of 3 (provided they do not know someone with an RR number of 1), etc.

So what I am saying is since I am up against The American Mind (Sean Hackbarth's blog, and Sean is a co-blogger at the Badger Blog Alliance) and Sean's blog was commented directly on by Glenn Reynolds I say my Instapundit number is 2. A stretch and I guess this really would not work like this unless Sean has met Glenn physically and then I meet Sean.

Where did this silliness come from? It all arises from the strange world of higher mathematics. There was a mathematician named Paul Erdős who was very brilliant. If a mathematician collaborated with Mr. Erdős they get an Erdős number of 1. Those who collaborate on a paper with those of Erdős number 1 get an Erdős number of 2 and so on.

So if in the future you see me refer to a number of X, you now know what that means!

Viscous Competition!

Hey-hey!

I just found out today I am in MKE Online's blog of the week contest! I went and checked out who I am up against and I have some tough competition. I am familiar with two of the blogs in the battle and one of them has been plugged by Glenn Reynolds!

Wow! I suppose Blogger Beer has an Instapundit number of 2!

Anyway more about that number later on. Please visit MKE Online's blog contest site at: Blog of the Week contest and vote for Blogger Beer. I open up a GOTV call center tomorrow night!

Updates:

1. 5/5/5 7:37pm
Whoops! The competition is not fluid (though beer is!) what I meant to say was Vicious Competition, thanks Jo! I suppose this is going to cost me votes!

Return of the Communication Lines.

Wretchard blogs another one out of the park today (I should probably use hits a century as he is an Aussie).

Qaim, Husabayah, Haqlinayah and Ramadi. This series of foreign-sounding battlefield names when laid out on a map becomes the visible path of the insurgency and their supporting foreign fighters, with one end beginning at the Syrian border and the other terminating in Baghdad.

Source: Belmont Club - The Western Road
This observation needs some follow up. When I first started reading the Belmont Club one of the first blogs I recall reading was Wretchard's analysis of a press release (PR) from an insurgent leader. That PR talked about how the insurgents controlled a series of towns. Wretchard mapped those towns and noted they all were one of three highways. Two of lines went to Syria, and one to Iran, that is the lines were supply and communication routes. Wretchard's blog I refer to above is talking about one of those lines.

Anyway it is time to make the doughnuts!

Negotiating a Peace With Islamic Rebels.

HT: The Philippine Times points out this story from Reuters.

This story is a curious one.

The United States may increase development aid to the Philippines once it sees progress in the peace process with Muslim rebels in the south, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said on Thursday.

My guess is quite a few are going to spin this story as trying to appease the enemy, the enemy being Islam. I strongly disagree with that sentiment. It is called a carrot and a stick. Abu Sayyaf is getting the stick and those groups willing to negotiate in good faith are getting carrots. If the MILF and MNLF are willing to negotiate in good faith then we have to encourage that. These two groups have shown in the past they are willing to talk things out.

The bigger part of the story is this note:

Zoellick said Washington continued to raise concerns about governance and transparency issues in the Philippines. He also asked Manila to revise its programmes to gain access to poverty alleviation funds under the U.S. Millennium Challenge Account.

Our government is quite right to be concerned about issues of governance and transparency in the Filipines. I have blogged quite a bit on this in the past and have nothing at the moment to add.

This is More Like it!

Drudge links to this story. It is about orders to bring back OBL one way or another and dead is just as fine as alive.

Actually, I think the way asked for would be quite satisfactory. Capture him and take him off somewhere nice and quiet out of the way and give him acute lead poisoning. No need for us to know about it, just do it. In fact if you can cobble together audio tapes of the guy and play them afterwards this is fine as well. Wouldn't it be great to hear a tape of OBL talking about the wonderful blessings of a martini after a day of jihad? This is what Clinton should have done with him when The Sudan offered OBL up.

Of course the ACLU may not like this.

Mr. Brown...

You have a lovely blog!

Please welcome John Brown's CitzCom blog to the Blogger Beer blogroll!

The PDF Release.

Is a result of someone not understanding what a PDF is. It is one thing to create a PDF in preparation of creating a hardcopy but quite another to release the raw file.

If you are publishing sensitive material you had better not put it on the PDF you plan to distribute it in the first place.

In case you don't know what brought this on, let me fill you in. A summary the investigation on the Sgrena affair was released in PDF format. The author redacted material on the report that was classified and released the raw PDF file to the public. The redactions do not erase the material being redacted! They only black it out when read via PDF reader! People were able to look at the raw file and were able to view the classified information still in the report!

Nothing real huge like "Ali Abdullah is our man in Zarqawi's group" but information that can make a difference to the men on the ground.

Remember to be careful what you put onto computer files. Deleting does not truly make the information go away, backups happen, e-mail is not 100% anonymous etc etc etc.

Close!

LGF refers to the AP as Al-Associated Press! Close but no cigar, Al-Pazeera captures the AP's spirit much better!

Reporters and Danger.

One thing I do not understand is why reporters think they should get a pass from the danger when covering dangerous events.

For example if they are covering the situation in Iraq and if they go where the stories are then they need to understand there is inherent danger. The terrorists do not respect their status as journalists unless they actively cooperating with them and even then it is a risk (Sgrena the Italian commie journalist thought her sympathy with the terrorists would protect her from kidnap).

If journalism is as important as journalists claim it to be (and I am in general agreement not whole agreement with that statement) then it IS going to be dangerous work. Criminals and bad guys do not want the light shone onto their activities and as a flashlight a good journalist is working against those interests.

WOT Files: A Shipment of TNT Caught!

Yet another story from the Filipines.

Apparently Filipino authorities interdicted a shipment of TNT bound for Davao City.

The story linked to does not include too many details, but it doesn't sound like it was a huge bust but all are important. The key here is the follow up work. Who was the shipment bound for? It is not so easy to say especially in the Filipines. Chalk up another win for the good guys.

Filipino Coup Unlikely.

Lately in the Filipines there has been talk of a coup against Gloria Arroyo Macpagal in the works.

Filipinos are losing confidence in their government and there are constant rumors of plots against GMA's government in the works.

Interior Secretary Angelo Reyes said anti-Arroyo forces led by retired general Fortunato Abat had failed to muster enough support during the May Day celebrations.


Abat over the weekend openly called for Arroyo's ouster and the installation of what he called a transition revolutionary government.

Source: The Peninsula - Philippines downgrades threat of coup attempt.

This is a big problem. Many outside the Filipines think the ouster of Marcos was a good thing (and include me among them) but many inside the Filipines do not (count Claudia in this group). The Filipines has been cursed with poor leaders with one exception from the ouster of Marcos. The poor leaders have been Aquino, Estrada, and now GMA. It is a combination of rank corruption and incompetence with all of those.

There has been one good president since the ouster and that was Fidel Villamor Ramos. He had good ideas and I recall he had placed quite an emphasis on rooting out corruption in government. Too bad he could not have stayed on longer.

All this talk of coup accomplishes only to scare international investment away from the Filipines.

July 21, 2009 -- The V in Fidel V Ramos is for Valdez, not Villamor as I write above.

The Most Dangerous Place for Journalists.

Is not Iraq but the Filipines.

This is very sad.

The Philippines is the most dangerous country for journalists, followed by Iraq, Colombia, Bangladesh and Russia, a non-profit group's new report says.

The study by the Committee to Protect Journalists found that 190 journalists had been killed since 2000, 48 percent of them in the five countries named above and 18 in the Philippines alone.

Source: UPI - Philippines most dangerous for journalists

Marcus In Arabia: The Ubiquitous Chinese Restaurant.

Ah, Arusha!

The safari center of Tanzania. There are other areas of safari action in Tanzania but Arusha is the biggest one. Their most famous parks are around Arusha. Mt. Kilimanjaro is nearby as well. Yes, there is a Chinese Restaurant in Arusha. Where is there not?

Anyway as I noted before we were not in a hurry to hire guides. We shopped around for a couple of days and focused on the Mt. Kilimanjaro climb first. As is usually the case we did some souvenir shopping as well. There were all sorts of people on the streets ranging from locals to far out foreigners (I may have been a foreigner but was not far out). The locals were usually about their business and some of them were in the business of peddling stuff to tourists, touting for safari firms, restaurants, and the so on. We stopped by some trinket from a street vendor and were immediately swamped. You hate to have to say no to everyone else and so we did not buy from street vendors (those w/o shops) after that.

The city was not a spotless city as we'ld expect here in the USA or in Europe but it was not all that bad. There was not a lot of real serious poverty evident, but we did run across some beggars including one boy who we recognized working the same area day after day. I can not say it was apparent the boy should have been begging, there was plenty of paid work available.

The first trip we took out of Arusha was the Mt. Kilimanjaro trek. We eventually settled for a company the name of which I can not remember. I do remember it being staffed by Sikhs. We were teamed up with one older gent from the UK, and two young fellows just out of the Israeli army and they were touring Africa. They drove us out to a place we picked up some gear (it is cold on top, so we had to have winter clothing) and then they took us to another place we paid some fees signed some waivers and a hiking we went.

The first day I took my camera gear with me and by the end of the first half of the day it wore me out and I surrendered the gear to one of the porters. I did snap some daylight pictures. We eventually reached the first camp and it was good. I took some pix ate some food and had plenty of time to chat with our trek-mates.

The next day it was more of the same, every now and then I would find something good to take a picture of and my camera was never too far off so I took some pix. This was the first time we saw the snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro. We eventually reached the second stop. This time it was noticeable we were fairly high up and the skis were brilliantly lit by the stars. I told the Israelis the day before about being able to see satellite and they thought I was full of it. The second night proved me out, we say a few of them. I snapped the brilliant star trails shot this night (the one from The Last Bit about one week ago) and another shot (I will not publish it soon, perhaps later).

Third day we went above the frost line. The vegetation petered out to a scrubby grass. I recall walking across one gravelly plain and noticing a good camera shot, the battery in my camera was out but I was prepared and swapped out the old for the new battery. The battery wasn't dead but cold, and I had read to keep two batteries one in the camera and one warm in the pocket. Good idea! We finally reached the third camp.

The Guidebook told us to eat! If we were not hungry to eat anyway! I was hungry so I ate! Probably too much as I woke up in the night and hurled. Chunks all over my long beard! Yuch! An hour or two later everyone woke and went for the final push to the summit. I rolled over and went back to sleep. My buddy told me the last hour or so was three steps at a time, stop pant like heck to try and catch ones breath, and three more steps.... My idea of a good time, even if I would have made it, a cigar was not in the works like I had planned. Well the crew returned some hours later and we headed back down. IIRC we went all the way down to the day two camp and spent the night there.

The most memorable incident on the day five was asking where the end of the trail was (it was close to the end) and some guy (a local guide or porter on his way up) pointed at a tree (we were in a forest) and said there. I guess, ask a stupid question get a stupid answer.

Anyway shortly thereafter we made it to Moshi and got a room for the night. Needless to say we were tired and quite stiff. But did we sleep good! We got on a bus and headed back to Arusha for part two of the trip.

Next installment: Challenging the Baboons!