A double whopper w/cheese has like over a thousand calories

What, you didn't know? Yeah in New York State a law was just passed that restaurants have to post the calories for each food item and I mentioned this to someone and she went "how stupid, that's Communism." Well not technically but I get her point. We've entered the realm of passing nonessential laws some time ago and each thing by itself is a small-scale evil as soapie would say but cumulatively they add up to something that ain't good for democracy. IF we keep passing law after law with no end in sight this noble experiment called America will expire a natural death, it may not be Communism but there's some kind of ism at work here. Trouble is who's gonna fight a small-scale evil as having to post calories if you're a restaurant owner? You can't afford not to comply, well most of us can't and so the next nanny-state law gets passed and you comply and on and on it goes...dunno but don't you think you have less personal freedom since Roe vs. Wade? kind of a paradox which really highlights that your personal privacy and freedom ain't the real focus and priority of liberals after all but when you figure it if you have to tell the consumer how many calories are in their thick shakes why shouldn't a pregnant woman be shown a sonogram? Libertarianism with which I disagree in parts is at least consistent. Liberals are often charged with anti-Americanism, not sure if this is fair but why do I get the distinct sense they're against McDonald's?

I can't help it if I was born a Great White Male

Sonia Sotomayor, first nominated to a federal judgeship by none other than Bush the Sr. then on to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals covering NY, CT and VT. Said once that policy is made at the appeals level, said something else about me but whatever. She'll be confirmed, can't lose the Hispanic bloc but got to thinking last night about this thing called Borking. Now Robert Bork in his Slouching Towards Gomorrah comes out foursquare for censorship, feels free speech as envisioned by the Founding Fathers had to do with only speech that was political in nature and ya wanna know something? It was ugly and over-the-top but I'm glad the man wasn't confirmed. With me when you talk about Free Speech you touch a nerve, I might be all over the map on some other issues but here he got my dander up. It's not the Ron Pauls and the Michael Savages the Right needs to distance themselves from, you might not agree with what they have to say but God knows they'll defend your right to say it. Bork might look like a Christmas ornament but don't let that fool you, his philosophy is dangerous. That said allow me to digress on something the Gray-Haired Brother said over at Beth's Place the other day that got me to thinking. We talk about abortion too much for his taste but in my view liberalism with its reflexive support for legal abortion actually fosters and reinforces social irresponsibility. OK take the housewife who has an affair with the mailman while her husband is at the office, she gets pregnant and has an abortion, chances are he'll never find out about it. The Pro-Choicer, put it this way, a hitman is not the least bit interested in why somebody wants to get rid of somebody else, could be the color of his tie that's not his concern, just show me the money and then we go dark. The choicer does not care about the WHY you want to get an abortion, aborting the mailman's kid falls under the all-inclusive heading of reproductive rights, women's sexuality YADA YADA YADA while the Pro-Lifer and I'll plead guilty here sees a moral lesson for the woman in carrying the child to term. YES, the child if allowed to be born is a constant reminder of the original error in moral decision-making on the part of all the parties involved. Here's where in my gut I'm against Pro-Choice, take away not so much the scarlet letter, that's not where I'm coming from but take away the flesh and blood consequence of the act and all morality loses its moorings and becomes adrift at sea, do this do that do what your little heart desires. So how does this relate to Obama for that matter? Well as a liberal by taking that Pro-Choice position whether it's his intent or not (probably isn't) support for legalized abortion reinforces social irresponsibility, how could it be otherwise? just to know where my side is coming from OR to put it another way

you ain't livin' right.

I've always found Colin Powell mildy irritating

You don't hate him, he's more like that smug neighbor of yours with the slightest wisp of an arrogant self-confident air, he has a 'tude going and it ain't in your favor. He's morally superior, he knows it, you know it and the mailman knows it. In fact before forming an opinion he feels you need to consult him if only to tell you where you're wrong. You're on your porch happily puffing away on your fine $6.50 cigar that you bought at Mom's, it's not a celebratory cigar by any stretch since your life sucks but anyway he passes on the sidewalk, doesn't say anything, continues on his way to get something out of the trunk of his Hummer but was that just the hint of a pissy expression as he waved his hand away at that fine Honduran aroma, some kind of body gesture lingo about your habit? He's the more powerful version of the poor man's Kennedy and he's lecturing you on what's wrong with your party. It ain't moderate see? You need to grow yourself beyond your base and stop listening to the dictates of the right-wing element. Usually this pretty much ONLY means you object to fetal parts backing up the plumbing system of some abortion clinic although it could mean immigration and gun-control too but it MOSTLY refers to the A-word. He says Rush is an entertainer and the GOP needs another spokesman. I agree but not for the same reasons. It's not his conservatism just that the GOP needs someone besides some rich well-fed guy in a golf shirt with the little alligator logo puffing on an expensive cigar who lives in a mansion. Don't get me wrong, he can stay, he's more than welcome but him and Cheney? get real!! Anyway he still says he's a happy GOPer whatever that means. Col looks like some guy you'd work with, you tell him a joke and he doesn't smile and just walks away, you may as well have sneezed and he goes to Corey "is Aisle 8 all packed out yet?" You see him rapping with Chris Rock and he kinda smiles as Chris calls him a house nigger but YOU? you ain't cool, you're part of the problem, you're a social-con. Fact Condi kinda feels the same way about you......sorry the guy kinda just gets under my skin.

Shows that are not basic to the survival of the Republic

The View - basically coffee-table liberal political chicktalk with a token conservative thrown in for kicks but without the gravitas of say Washington Week in Review, in fact Gwen Ifill would ruin it by raising the median IQ there. You got your washing machine going, you're hanging clothes out on the line, ya gotta give the cat some dry food and get your shopping list going, you're not exactly magnetized to the set, it's more an ambience thing. Rosie O'Donnell was the closest thing they ever got to pure free speech but then they got scared.

The Simpsons - this spinoff from the Tracy Ullman Show has been on wayyyyy too long. Take it off already and go with some Hawaii Five-O reruns or bring back Oscar and Felix. Never my cup of tea, not a bad show but does it have to be around as long as Woolworth's was? will it outlast Nathan's? D'OH

The Tonight Show - Leno's last week, Conan starts June 1. Could care less who interviews Jennifer Garner for the fifteenth time. Once Conan's term ends maybe Ashton Kutcher can host since apparently taking this once legendary show off the air might cause the Earth to go slightly out of its orbit in which case Obama would HAVE TO intervene and maybe host the show himself.

SNL - pretty self-explanatory. Got some buzz with the Tine Fey/Sarah Palin thing but overall pretty drab. Sure it was groundbreaking in the '70s but that was how long ago? It'd be like keeping the Brady Bunch going long after the original cast members have left simply because of nostalgia. Ninety minutes too long, can throw a movie into that slot.

I call these institutional shows but I rarely watch them. Shows may come and go but there is never any serious thought to getting rid of any of THEM. I say they've more than run their course so put 'em in the vault already or in the case of The View simply burn them.

Obama's Notre Dame speech

Actually said something I agreed with which is unusual, said about abortion "in some sense the two sides are fundamentally irreconciliable." This was clever on his part, it had the subtle effect of making Obama look like a kind of disinterested observer of the issue, above it all looking at the debate from the outside, a professorial air being intellectually open to both sides despite his 100% rating from NARAL. Of course they all say they want to reduce the ole abortion rate and it's such a heart-wrenching decision for the woman. Of the second point I personally know of stories where the parties involved were unusually casual about it all and as to the first your average pro-choicer opposes such modest measures as informed-consent legislation so really it's just more pro-forma statements from a liberal president. Despite Clinton's safe, legal and rare it's not really about Choice at all but Abortion and the right to get one freely and without judgement from parents or other parties and to be fully subsidized by the American taxpayer if need be. Pro-forma statements are important though, it shows you have a heart and have properly wrestled with the issue even though your own views just accidentally, ever so coincidentally coincide with those of Kate Michaelman.

Saw bits and pieces of the Farrah Fawcett special

very mixed reviews. Controversial, macabre, morbid were just some of the adjectives used. Will say this though, here is the rare celeb who never really bothered me, never saw her on some political soapbox and no matter who it is, unless it's Osama bin Laden or Fidel Castro I always throw a prayer or two their way. Started a thread once over at Big Blue Wave, a Canadian forum for conservatives and I may have outHoused House on that one:

http://bluewave.yuku.com/topic/1752/t/The-cancer-cell-is-not-powerful-but-weak-amp-confused.html

bit and pieces I gleaned from a Dummy's Guide to Cancer once, hope it's interesting. So there was Farrah clutching her rosary beads, probably made our old friend Hitch wince but I missed the vomiting, I'm a real channel-surfer you know. So let's say we "reform" health-care however you define that term, of what good is that if there's no Cure yet? The limitations of modern medicine imo far outweigh its advances, are any cures for any of the major big ones even on the horizon? Anyway what are your thoughts on the Farrah Fawcett special?

This gospel of moderation

Do moderates have any convictions to call their own besides moderation that is?

File this one under a false issue

According to last Thursday's PageSix Christopher Hitchens has written in his intro to the new book Certitude by Adam Begley and Edward Sorel:

"In my own lifetime I have seen a series of popes make public apologies to Jews (for the false charge of deicide and its consequences), to Protestants (for the Counter-Reformation), to Galileo to forcibly converted and exterminated South American Indians, to Eastern Orthodox Christians (for the massacres in the Balkans) and to Muslims (for the Crusades). One day if - just suppose - it is discovered that AIDS was a worse affliction than the condom, rather than the other way around, the necessary admission will have to be delayed for years by the fact there was once a sacred dogma involved."

Now I realize Hitch is a hard-drinking man and some of the hardcore stuff he is regulary accustomed to really make the grievances come out, about a week ago I had a couple of Rum and Pepsis and sank into some kind of weird depression and pretty much went over my shitlist and then some, hardly the mood to be in to waft off to a peaceful slumber but last I checked the Roman Catholic Church cannot by force of law forbid you from buying a Trojan or a Ramses. The thought occured if people don't listen to the Pope on the matter of abortion why would they over a piece of latex or lambskin? If one is going to cruise down the ole Hershey Highway with different males every week it's pretty much a given you haven't been following much of Church teaching lately anyway. As Oscar Wilde once said to be witty without being charming is an unpardonable mannerism of style. Hitch is from the Ann Coulter school of thought though from the other side, everyone you disagree with even the mailman who once casually threw your mail on the porch, nuke everything in sight, it's a psychic massacre and he's wallowing, going down the hallway and opening up the next door to the next poor shmuck who has pissed the guy off ("hey you [insert insulting witticism of choice]"). H-Block and his scorched earth policy, you accidentally bump into him one day and you know how someone's eyes are always darting up and down when they're first talking to you? they have an opinion, it ain't very relaxful to be around such people which finally brings me to the conclusion you can totally disagree with the Church on condoms and everything else under the sun and still think Hitchens is a dick:)

The real motive behind censorship and suppression

OR confronting people with an uncomfortable truth becomes a threat

To kind of cap things off then - some of my themes of late, the control issue and what's really behind it. The human urge to censor is a powerful one and really applies across the board, Right and Left have been equally guilty thoughout history but lately the Left have been the bad guys and the Right comes across now as more and more the champions of what liberals used to be about, freedom of thought and expression. No matter, people who practice censorship and suppression and it could be an individual, a group of individuals, a political group or movement or at its most pervasive and dangerous a government or the State, be it Right or Left they are threatened by something. People who tell you how to think or how you should think, over time if enough people think alike it becomes a form of political correctness and its sanctions for dealing with those who think outside the box are a kind of form of mind control else why the need to punish those who think differently and view things in their own sometimes unique ways? The whole Political Correctness Movement is threatened by something, the free use of your mind and its awesome power and in this respect it's more than an annoyance or a nuisance, it's a form of evil and I'm applying this in a general sense not to particular individuals. The mind represents freedom of thought and inquiry so those attackers of the Miss USA runnerup Carrie Prejean let's say, they are not only offended by what she's saying relating to traditional marriage but they are threatened by the mere thought she may be right. Many many years ago I offered to buy some pro-life videos for libraries here in Westchester County NY, should've been a done deal since freedom of thought and expression is the very foundation of their existence according to them but the sheer resistance I encountered in my own county from liberal librarians and pro-abortion groups prove to me they were threatened by something, threatened by IDEAS since the films in question were merely informational in nature, popping a movie into your VCR is not the same as banning abortion but because Z doesn't give up my persistence paid off over time and the county library system agreed to carry one of the films and the Westchester Coalition for Legal Abortion was allowed to get theirs in too. Geez was that so hard? The nature of the enemy is US, we're the threat but then again if THEY'RE so threatened by us then it means we have some power, the power of our minds and the ability to express that which they hate so really when you stop to think about it us conservatives shouldn't be so down in the dumps of late. If you get put on a list you're important, consider it a compliment and the sheer force of our ideas will prevail over time. The Death of Conservatism? not by a long shot!!

The way I see it

Conservatives, despite believing in smaller government or saying they do actually trust the government more than liberals!!! I'd hazard a guess that the vast majority of mainstream conservatives believe Oswald acted alone, since they don't believe in our government ever having nefarious overtones the various JFK conspiracy theories are loony and paranoid simply because they are metaphysical impossibilities. Take the Vietnam War, to this day your rank-and-file conservative's only problem is that we didn't stick it out long enough to defeat the Communist North Vietnamese. Conservatives positively hated the social and political upheaval of the '60s because the main aim or goal of conservatism is social and political stability. Oh they'll say it's freedom and liberty and to a certain degree that's true but they still trust the government more and so you had people like William F. Buckley Jr. almost single-handedly purging the John Birchers from the mainstream conservative movement, McCarthy is only defended by the likes of Ann Coulter these days and the conservative talk radio host most suspicious and least trusting of the government overall, Michael Savage, is constantly being marginalized by most other conservatives. You might say conservatives like the '50s and liberals love the '60s more, conservatives go with the oatmeal every day whereas liberals prefer the jalapenos. Spike Lee can voice some pretty radical Katrina theories but libs won't dare try to marginalize him and oust him from their movement, Tuskegee opened the door and so while most libs may not agree with Lee they understand and why do they understand? because historically they have trusted the government less. Put another way, who over time has Questioned Things more, liberals or conservatives? WHO are the conformists of the status-quo, of homogenous thought and who see a basic inherent problem with our very institutions (hint: which side of the torture issue are you on? how do you view the CIA?)? Not taking sides here at all but what I like about soapie is he questions things more than your average conservative talking head not in a conspiratorial way but by getting back to First Principles which both sides fail miserably on, a pox on both your houses. If I may put it another way how come Bush never got teabagged?

So why doesn't this work in reverse?

Liberal Supreme Court justice David Souter is retiring and returning home to New Hampshire because unlike Arlen Specter he has a life. Now consider some of the Supremes nominated by conservative presidents over the years who for some strange reason later evolved into liberals: Nixon got Harry Blackmun on the court and we all know what he did, Reagan gave us Sandra Day O'Connor and Bush the Sr. gave us Souter who usually voted with the liberal wing. So what Z is asking today is how come a liberal president never nominates someone to the court who later turns out to be a staunch conservative and a real pain in the ass to people with a liberal agenda? I'd bet dollars to doughnuts Obama is not gonna put up someone who later is going to "accidentally" overturn Roe vs. Wade so is it because the liberal vetting process is better? do conservative judges leave more of a paper trail? are they more vocal in their views? or does just saying Judge Q or W is good because he only interprets the Constitution and nothing more really mean anything these days? geez EVERY potential Supreme Court nominee is gonna say that. I'm in a wondering kind of mood today.

Cultural trends I don't get

Celebrity stalking

First off this isn't or shouldn't be a problem for us conservatives, rank-and-file conservatives view the average Hollywood celebrity as an airhead with left-wing leanings so where's the attraction? Then there's what I once called over at Hannityland our social caste system, no way Tyra Banks is gonna go out with some lonely drifter so why even go after someone totally outside of your own socio-economic orbit when you can bother the girl next door? So Brady Green, Tyra's stalker has been convicted at a non-jury trial and the judge would rather sentence him to psychiatric counseling rather than the 90 days in jail. I've talked about this before but you can't police somebody's head, you can only punish their actions. If I like Celebrity X or Z that's entirely between me myself and I, so long as my actions don't get out of bounds my mental domain is totally autonomous and no business of the Law. I am the sole judge and arbiter of my imaginative life, you cannot punish a person's thoughts and Hannity once said that's the real problem he has with hate-crime legislation, you're really in effect punishing a person's thoughts. So basically this judge sentencing Mr. Green to spend time with a shrink, first off it won't work nor should it, so some egghead is going to be able to dislodge IT? Only Mr. Green's actions should be the purview of the Law and as such he'd be better off getting the 90 days, as with Hannity's point there's the faintest whiff of fascism in the air say if Green is in some Barnes & Noble some day and wants to purchase a Tyra Banks calendar and the clerk calls security. It's Orwellian thought control and reading about these cases which for some quirk are becoming more common among the celebrity set a common thing is sending the woman flowers and gifts. Now you can debate the wisdom of this, Z doesn't think it's such a great idea in this day and age but by the same token it never struck me as a crime-crime, you know like bank robbery or embezzlement. If I were a cop I'd be like I didn't become a cop for this, it's basically Society making up laws as they go along. Celebrity stalking, it's weird for so many reasons and it's weirdly political but basically the mind cannot be put into a prison, punish people for what they do not what they think. If there's one rule at Stranded it's be not afraid, everything is bloggable and the day the cops come for your Cindy Crawford calendar it's over.