It’s a big game; let’s play it on the whole field
THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IS SITTING IN THE SENATE RIGHT NOW
Boo! That means (among other unfortunate things) he, she or it is going to have all kinds of history with the Senate. Alliances, grudges, favors to call in. The next president is going to know how to play that instrument.
So it’s especially important that we get good people in the House and Senate and maintain some influence over them. A solid conservative in a state a thousand miles away is going to have far more positive effect on your life than a squish (or a Democrat) in your home state (unless you’re looking for somebody to bring home the pork. You’re not looking for pork, are you? Are you?)
By all means, get off your duff and vote in November. Our side isn’t going to be enthused this time, so turnout will inevitably be down. That makes your vote weightier than usual. But many of us live in districts with no interesting contests. And in terms of direct influence over the election and subsequent behavior of legislators, nothing beats money and direct communication.
It’s unfortunate that demonstrators, donors, letter-writers and other loudmouths count disproportionately in the system. But you know what? Tough. They do. We’re like cockroaches to politicians: for every one of us they see, they assume there are a hundred more just like us in the walls.
So let’s make some noise. Small donations and no green ink! Well, no more than you can help, you ‘winger nutcase, you.
SeeDubya got out ahead of me on this one (get out of my head, man!). He suggests a sort of Adopt-a-Pol scheme, where you pick a good guy and send him $20 every month along with a nice letter or an article. It’s a plan.
DoublePlusUndead suggests a place to start — Lou Barletta, mayor of Hazleton. He’s one of the guys drafting local laws that crack down on businesses and landlords who aid illegals. He’s running for Congess in Pennsylvania’s 11th District, which is considered a very safe seat for the Democrat incumbent (all the more fun to make them at least sweat a little).
Me, I’m looking to stick my nose in a number of places it doesn’t belong. I need a distraction this year and this could be more fun than breeding show rats. If you know of vulnerable or up-and-coming conservatives, get out the word. Maybe we can use that internet thing the kids are all het up about.
And don’t forget governors. We make some of our best presidents out of those.
Despite everything, I have a really good feeling about the state of conservatism today. Why? Because I drink excessively and it affects my judgement.
Still, I’m wrong only maybe 50% of the time!
The ultimate determinant in the struggle now going
on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but
a test of wills and ideas. No, really. I said that.
February 13, 2008 — 12:10 pm
Comments: 6
Should I drink it, or skip the middleman and pour it directly down the toilet?
Say, I haven’t posted anything pointless and excruciatingly personal in almost a week. That ain’t right. So, behold! The only passion Bill Clinton and I share: Diet Dr Pepper.
Better, when I can get it: Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper. I don’t usually like excessively sweet things, but DCVDP has a fake fruit metallic zing that is perfect for barking the scunge out of a weasel’s gob. [That was an unpleasant phrase. Please forget I wrote it. Thank you]
My last trip to the supermarket, they had this swill instead of my usual tipple: Diet Cherry Chocolate Dr Pepper. So I bought it. Shall I tell you why it’s labeled ‘limited edition”? Because I guess they made a whole shitload of it before they realized what a gustatory horror show it is.
Does it taste of chocolate? Oh, yes. Yes, it does. That’s the problem.
Ummmm…okay. Politics. Right. Read Iowahawk. This one got the Uncle Badger Seal of Approval, and Uncle B knows him some Chaucer. And some Englande folk.
— 10:17 am
Comments: 17
Forgive me, Zombie Reagan
I was just hitting my teens when the Vietnam war ended in shame (my big brother was one of the last draftees — the most persuasive argument I know for an all-volunteer army). Then Watergate. The energy crisis(es). The Iranian hostage crisis. Stagflation. A president named “Jimmy.” Oh, it was a terrible time.
We had our 200th birthday and the press was full of stories by learned men about the death of empires. Two centuries was a pretty good run, everyone agreed.
We made shit products and charged too much money for them and nobody wanted to buy. Instead of making things better or cheaper, we tried to guilt each other into buying our own junk with strongarm appeals to a patriotism we didn’t really feel (“look for the union label” the Textile Workers sang to us on the TV. Buy our shoddy, overpriced crap or you hate America).
Everything cost too much and nobody had enough and we were COLD all the time. We — my family — ate a lot of game. Greasy stews and small furry animals bleeding out in the sink; that’s what the Seventies mean to me. That, and disco.
Malaise was busting out all over. It was pervasive. Drenching. It got right down into your bones, like damp cold. It worked its way into the drapes like a ripe stink. It was all over for America, we were all done.
Jimmy Carter didn’t totally own the malaise, but he was the perfect front man. Turn down the thermostat and put on a sweater, he said. You aren’t so special, he said. Pride goeth before a fall, he said. You’re going to poke an eye out with that thing, he said. America elected Jimmy Carter to atone for her sins, because surely God was mad at us.
The media assured us that sour, spiteful, shriveled up whey-faced bitter schoolmarm Jimmy Carter was going to be president forever.
When Ronald Reagan kicked his ass, it was like Spring after Winter. Like rain in the desert. Like all the bad things in all the stories coming untrue at once. Like lollipops, quilted toilet paper and a pony for Christmas. Every Christmas.
I was not all that political. Maybe, in a way, that made the contrast more vivid to me.
For years, I was so distracted by the difference Reagan made that I largely missed what a remarkable man he was his own self. The press helped me here: Bush Derangement Syndrome didn’t flare up out of nowhere. Ronnie led the way on this one, too. Damn, but the media hated that man.
Well, forgive me. For I have just boughten the Reagan Diaries and I shall readen them cover to cover.
So help me Zombie Reagan.
Wait! You didn’t pick the guy with the great hair?
Did you learn NOTHING from me?
February 12, 2008 — 3:14 pm
Comments: 16
Help us, Zombie Reagan — you’re our only hope!
UPDATE: Since this has turned out to be the Identity Election, I believe the time is right for an undead candidate. Got any slogan ideas for Zombie Reagan? Please join us in the thread and share. Let’s win one for the Kipper!
February 11, 2008 — 6:56 am
Comments: 71
A week full of rats and tits
Meh. No proper post today. Enjoy some awesome rats and tits!
February 8, 2008 — 6:55 pm
Comments: 55
Kung Hei Fat Choi, ratties!
Happy Chinese new year! It is the Year of the Rat, about which I shall offer no snark. For I am a rat, zodialogically speaking. It is my year. You hear that, Fate? MY YEAR. So back the hell off already.
Also, I like rats. One of our first outings together, I made Uncle B take me to a rat show.
Thinkest thou I be a-shitting of thee? Nay, ’tis not so!
Mice and rats are clean, cheerful little animals and have probably been kept as pets since forever. But this man, Jack Black, is the father of modern rodent fancy. He was Queen Victoria’s rat-catcher and he made a habit of setting aside and breeding any interesting specimens he ran across.
Beatrix Potter and Victoria herself may have been owners of Mr Black’s fine rodents.
Careful breeding of mutations in the ordinary brown rat (a coat known as agouti to fanciers) eventually resulted in dozens of well-defined variations. These are broadly classified as self (solid colors), marked (banded, hooded, siamese and the like) and other (to include varieties such as rex, which have a frizzy coat, and dumbo, which have stupid ears). Fancy mice come in all these varieties, plus tans (solid colors with tan bellies) and satins, whose coats have a beautiful, almost metallic sheen.
Mouse and rat breeding for show became a popular hobby among people with an interest in livestock but not enough room for cows. There are regular shows, with judges and ribbons and cups and grudges and all that. It’s pretty exciting, because rodent generations are so accelerated compared to other sorts of animals. A mutation can become a breed really fast.
I considered breeding fancy mice in my twenties, but nixed it on account of I am not ruthless enough. A proper mouse breeder culls any disappointing specimens as soon as their characteristics appear. Generally by crushing they little skulls.
It is a thorny one. The American Rat and Mouse Club frowns on culling, while the American Fancy Rat and Mouse Association refuses to take a position.
Yes, American. What, did you think this was going to be a “those silly Brits” post? We took to the hobby like mice to peanutbutter.
I wouldn’t consider keeping a rat. They make lovely, intelligent pets, but they only live a few years — just long enough to get really attached — and they get dreadful diseases. Mice don’t live any longer and get the same diseases, but you don’t get so attached. They’re like house plants: feed and water them and they’re fun to look at. I’ve kept mice from time to time since I was a sprog.
So now you know something! Gung ho bok choi!
February 7, 2008 — 11:58 am
Comments: 54
Things which disappoint
I struggled to pull a post out of my ass today, but I am in vile humor. Then Uncle B came to the rescue and dug up the perfect metaphor.
Literally. He was planting the hedges, and he excavated this small, heavy, useless chunk of metal. Yes, minions, I’m afraid this thing is what’s left of our machine gun. Can’t think what else it can be.
Perfetto!
Oh, and you know what? You’re not getting a pony for Christmas, either. Or a go-kart.
If you want my thoughts on McCain, go read Ace. Added: by which I mean, he wrote an essay that perfectly encapsulates what I’m thinking, not that I had any brilliant comments in that thread. Sometimes, you forget he’s not just another moron.
February 6, 2008 — 6:19 pm
Comments: 21
Don’t forget to vote!
Vote for me or I’ll kick you in the nuts! The nuts! Nuts! Nuts, I say! Hey, who said nuts? You calling me nuts? I’m not nuts! You’re nuts! Nutty nutnutnuts.
UPDATE: See-dubya, you magnificent bastard! Thanks for the Hot Air link. Thanks to Mike at Cold Fury, too! And welcome, link-hitters. I’m kinda worried this graphic might’ve…worked.
February 5, 2008 — 1:04 pm
Comments: 72
Psycho killer, Qu’est-ce que c’est?
This, O my minions, is no pussycat. It’s a Scottish wildcat (Felis sylvestris grampia) — pound for pound, one of the evillest badass mofo’s on the whole mo-effing planet. Srsly.
About ten thousand years ago, two things happened in Catworld. Somewhere in the Near East, maybe out Iraq way, the ubiquitous wildcat, Felis sylvestris, up and self-domesticated its own self. Just rolled over, waved its legs in the air and showed mankind its collective fuzzy belly, becoming adorable Cheezburger-wantsing, succotash-suffering Felis sylvestris catus on the spot.
At the same time, two thousand miles to the North and West, the land bridge connecting Britain and France was drowned by global warming, isolating the local population of Felis sylvestris, which promptly morphed into Felis baddassicus mofocus. The bite of a radioactive spider may have been involved.
The Scottish wildcat is truly one of the wildest animals alive. It cannot be tamed. Hand rearing them from itty-bitty psycho-kittens makes not one bit of difference. Fancy Feast? Fuggidaboudid! A zookeeper who will happily go into a tiger’s cage will not go into the enclosure of a wildcat he raised from babyhood. A wildcat will attack anything and everything in its territory, including another wildcat. They were believed to be maneaters until the Fifties.
The Wildwood Trust, where Uncle B and I go to par-tay with the musty-lids, has a pair of Scottish wildcats. Never has a hating of my guts been communicated to me more eloquently through mere eyeballs. They made the wolf pack look like pussies.
The prehistoric version was up to four feet long, but modern wildcats are cat sized. They look like…adorable housecats. Like a squarer, chunkier Damien. Their tails are thick, and their ears kind of stick out sideways, but they’re totally catty in their catlikeness.
And that’s the problem: they’re interbreeding themselves out of existence. Like wolves and coyotes with dogs, wildcats freely interbreed with domestic cats. That’s the deal with keeping some in captivity, though captivity is clearly hateful to them: there may be as few as 400 purebred Scottish wildcats left. I’m not down with the hand-flapping over every newt and guppy and little brown bird that loses a bit of territory, but 400. That’s Siberian tiger kind of endangered.
Anyhow, dude has made a documentary about Scottish wildcats, due out on DVD this Summer. There’s a trailer at the link, but no ordering information yet. Part of the profits go to the Scottish Wildcat Association, a new charity that will be launched this Spring (let us hope by that time they’ve purged the dozens of “it’s” that should be “its” on their Web site).
I’m not necessarily advocating giving them money. Somehow, when you give to an animal charity these days, some human-hating commie seems to wind up with the money. But, you know, a DVD or a t-shirt might not hurt anything.
Protect our beloved endangered psycho killers.
SPECIAL BONUS QUIZ
Can you tell which one is Felis sylvestris catus and which one is Felis sylvestris grampia?
That’s right! They’re both crazed psycho killers!
February 4, 2008 — 1:13 pm
Comments: 45
Crassest of the 48
This week’s Weekend Weasel is late on parade. Uncle B kept me up past my drunktime last night trying to extract my opinion on the layout of the garden, now that the season is upon us. And I’m, like, “the garden. That’s where the plants go, right?”
I was scheduled for an all-day Division meeting Friday. So I was delighted when my dentist’s office called the day before to remind me of an appointment. A cleaning, but I’d take a filling over a division meeting. First thing…after which I could indulge a slow mosey into my meeting.
How slow does a weasel mosey when a weasel moseys slow? I stopped for breakfast afterwards. In the booth next to me were two young, affluent wives. And by “affluent” I mean “blessed with an enormous amount of money hindered in no way by taste.” There’s lots of very crass money ’round these parts.
So one of them takes a cellphone call from (apparently) her electrician. The Rhode Island accent is sort of like Brooklyn, only loud and vulgar, so this is more barked than spoken.
“Yah…put the switch on that far wall. Yah. Next to the other switch. Yah. I want a dimmer on the chandeleeeer. So, you put the switch right next to that other switch. Uh huh. It turns on the jets on the jacoooozzi.”
What kind of room has a jacuzzi and a chandelier? I don’t know, but I would’ve guessed it was in Rhode Island.
So I get to the meeting just in time for the free lunch. I only have to sit through a couple of dozy afternoon speeches. They don’t call me ‘weasel’ in tones of hushed admiration for nothin’.
The highlight? The Human Resources lady (Human Resources! I hate it when Personnel changed their name…it makes us sound like lumber or something).
She says we’ve hooked up with the American Women Engineers’ Society. Or the Society of Women Engineers. Or Vaginas with Sliderules or whatever. I thought we only had one female engineer, but apparently we’ve picked up a few more. Anyhow, we’ve assembled a team of five female engineers to “travel around the country exposing themselves to the engineering community.”
Judging from the reaction at the meeting, the engineering community will appreciate that very much.
February 2, 2008 — 10:20 am
Comments: 10