Nuance (UPDATED)

Remember folks, when describing the words and actions of some people its called “passion” and with other less desirable types its called “anger”.


Other Obama supporters have threatened critics with criminal prosecution. In September, St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce warned citizens that they would bring criminal libel prosecutions against anyone who made statements against Obama that were “false.” I had been under the impression that the Alien and Sedition Acts had gone out of existence in 1801-02. Not so, apparently, in metropolitan St. Louis. Similarly, the Obama campaign called for a criminal investigation of the American Issues Project when it ran ads highlighting Obama's ties to Ayers.

More, here, on what to expect from followers of The One from Michael Barone.

UPDATE #1: More fun in the New World...

Jessica Hughes of Lufkin, Texas, former Marine, mother of three, answered her cell phone in the car, coming home from the emergency room. Her 9-year-old had suffered a mild concussion, but was OK.

The caller was a female Obama volunteer who asked if Jessica would support Obama for president.

Jessica replied, "No, I don't support him. Your guy is a socialist who voted four times in the state Senate to let little babies die in hospital closets; I think you should find something better to do with your time." Then Jessica hung up.

The next day, a man and a woman in suits showed up at the door of her home, identifying themselves as members of the Secret Service.

The Secret Service agents stated that the Obama campaign had complained of a death threat. They had quoted Jessica as saying, "I will never support Obama, and he will wind up dead on a hospital floor."

The rest of the story here.

Attempts to plumb the depths of American Zeitgeist fail on the pages of Slate.com

You remember that movie “Red Dawn” from back in the ‘80s that starred Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen as the “Wolverines” defending small-town Colorado as “insurgents” against a Soviet-backed invasion? A tad hokey, completely over-the-top and…. a lot of fun. We bet it ranks in the top-10 movies of all-time if Weasel Zippers were doing the rankings and that’s cool with us.

Well, that movie is kinda like our occupation of Iraq except for the fact that our leader wasn’t carrying out a genocide of an ethnic minority and wasn’t sponsoring terrorism in the Middle East and our “occupiers” aren’t purposely killing civilians and the Wolverines aren’t religious fanatics deluded by the promise of 72 virgins upon their death and our forces there are actively working with the Iraqis to transform their country into a fully functioning democracy…. But other than that…

Article here.

Rumors of its demise have been greatly exaggerated

Men rarely ask me about lighting. Women frequently do, wanting reassurance that it isn’t too bright.

Women more often ask if a menu has leaner, healthier options. Men more often ask if they can get a decent steak.

Finer New York eateries don’t stoop to “1/2-off ladies night” so they have to be a little more creative when dealing with those just-won’t-seem-to-ever-go-away differences between the sexes.

Your Sunday morning spot with the Times (sans crossword puzzle) here.

"How sweet it is to be loved by you"

So what was it that got our esteemed leaders in the err.. House to vote for it after they voted against it?

Taxpayer.net has the top 10 "sweeteners" here.

The Penn St. Nittany Lions and the JoePa Experience

To paraphrase a rotund cable sports personality, no one circles the wagons like Joe Paterno. Every time people try to start shoveling dirt on his career, he comes out of the gates undefeated and has his team in the Top 10 and angling for BCS glory.

And everytime this occurs as is happening this season as 6-0 Penn St. goes on the road to Camp Randall Stadium to take on the Wisconsin Badgers, the fact that Joe is too old and too out of touch to get out on the road and make personal recruiting visits is alternately perceived as wisely “delegating” those responsibilities to his younger assistants. And, of course, Penn St. goes from having a “stagnating program” without any “succession plan” in a post-JoePa world to that of “Joe’s feeling great and the passion is still there so don’t expect him to step down any time soon”.

While back at Penn St. a couple of weeks back, never more did we witness a football program and an entire Unversity that was dominated more by the past legacy and current force of personality of a single person than there in State College, PA. And we saw this fully-justified reverence/kool-aid drinking dichotomy, firsthand, along with some rather interesting rationalizations for a big-time college football program: “Actually, the program is designed to make a run at the BCS championship (only) every 4 or 5 years.”

And don’t delude yourself for a moment to think that Joe’s (pending?) retirement plans are not inextricably tied to those of Florida St.’s Bobby Bowden, who is in a very similar situation and who is locked in a Wild West stare-down with JoePa as the two vie for the honor of most collegiate coaching victories. (Currently, Paterno has 378 and Bowden sits at 376. Who’s gonna blink first?

Anyway, good read here regarding Greg Schiano, former Paterno assistant, current Rutgers HC and alleged heir apparent to Paterno and who has, himself, what would appear to be some “stagnation” problems with his football program that is of this posting, 1-4.

Programming Alert

We’ll be up in L.A. this weekend taking in the USC/Arizona St. game with friends so unless we are able to check in remotely, the posts over the weekend will be a collection of scheduled posts and guest contributions.

The Launch of the USNS CARL BRASHEAR

Folks, you know you’ve hit the big time when you get on YouTube. The launch, which is part of a larger tribute to Carl Brashear the first amputee Navy diver and the first African-American Navy Master diver, is at the front of the video clip. Previous posts on the launch here.

You will be able to see the smoke from the grease caused by the friction between the sliding ways and the ground ways and the tsunami effect from the water that was displaced by ship pushing it out, rushing back in (and soaking quite a few people on the launch of the 1st ship of the class, the LEWIS AND CLARK) as well as the ship’s stern kicking out to port as a result of Bernoulli’s principle.

Enjoy!

Again.... It's all about one's perspective.

A double standard? Perhaps. Sexist? Quite Possibly. Welcome? You bet!

Big Media can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to peddling GOP flesh. All we have to say is that it beats the hell out of the alternative.

H/T: Foxfier

Warning: potentially seditious speech ahead

KT thinks he has the answer to some our economic woes. Careful though, his brand of “prudiciouness” is considered to be, in some circles, subversive. Decide for yourself, here.

Ladies and Gentlemen, introducing your Pahrump Cowboys

For starters, Obama paid ACORN, which has endorsed him for president, $800,000 to register new voters, payments his campaign failed to accurately report. (They were disguised in his FEC disclosure as payments to a front group called Citizen Services Inc. for “advance work.”)
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Obama downplays his ties to ACORN, and his campaign denies coordinating with ACORN to register voters.

And in other news today…

In Nevada, state officials say the fraudulent registrations included forms for the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys football team, including quarterback Tony Romo.
"Romo is not registered to vote in the state of Nevada," Secretary of State Ross Miller said, "and anybody trying to pose as Terrell Owens won't be able to cast a ballot on Nov. 4."


ACORN… You all remember those guys. Not content to just play fast and loose with mortgage lending practices, they are also heavily into voter registration drives and as a result are the subject of investigations and criminal indictments nationwide. And because all this fraudulent behavior seems to be a result of business-as-usual group-think at the state/local level rather than any nation-wide coordination, it may spare ACORN a RICO investigation but... one can always hope.

What slays us about all this is that the people perpetrating this fraud don’t even make an honest(?) effort at deception. Just fill-out a bunch of voter registration cards with funny names and dump them at the registrar’s office to deal with.

And isn’t it comforting to know that all these “get out the vote” efforts and community organizing is done on your nickel?

But we’re going to give M.T. Suit the benefit of the doubt here. It is indeed rather difficult to accomplish anything of note or consequence… hell, anything at all when his every waking hour is spent distancing himself from unsavory associations.

P.S. Fire up that Short Bus!

And, as The Post reported Monday, another pro-Obama group, Vote Today Ohio, took advantage of a quirk in that state's law, which allows people to register and vote on the same day without having to prove residency, to drive hundreds of people from homeless shelters and drug-rehab centers to the polls.

H/T: Hot Air

Perspective

We were going to take some time to complain about our busy week in this post. We wanted to get involved in the community a little so for the past couple of years we’ve volunteered to help pass out, door-to-door, our Rolando Beach community newsletter. Also, in preparation for election day, we volunteered to deliver 90 April Boling for City Council yard signs to the homes of supporters in the east San Diego area.

Well, that’s all come to a head this week as on top of everything else we’ve got going on, we are trying to accomplish the aforementioned with a nasty head cold that is descending into our chest in the midst of a 95 degree heat wave. Good times.

Yeah, we were going to whine a little until we were reminded of some other community organizers and the trials they face on a daily basis.