Fred Thompson - a consistent political philosopher

He may not be a pro-life purist like Judie Brown of the American Life League, always going for the touchdown, aka that Constitional Amendment, but he's not a life-choicer like Mitt Romney either. He's a federalist or a believer in states' rights. Laura Ingraham brought up the fact that he was against government intervention in the Terri Schiavo case, well he can say he was consistent in his own head anyway. I myself was more into the whole angle of Terri could swallow on her own and so the laws in all 50 states say you have to feed a person by mouth. Her feeding tube was always a side issue anyway, they could have given her saline hydration by IV and as for his misguided comments about a federal law banning abortion meaning women and possibly their Moms and Dads going to jail, this had a silver lining. It allowed pro-lifers and in particular us bloggers to clarify the issue, hey, maybe Fred knew this all along. Anyway he has my vote if he's the nominee.

Whatever happend to our beloved frontrunner?

Rudy, down there in single digits in all the primaries so far, widely considered by far the odds-on favorite hands down even months before Iowa and New Hampshire. At this point in time his only option would appear to be to pull a Joe Lieberman and run as an Independent and then return to his old party after he's won (if this is even possible).

Rudy, wha'happened?

When the Law collides with Reality

There are laws on the books in many states, or proposed legislation, to treat drivers who have gone without sleep the same as drunken drivers. Makes a certain degree of sense but then again most people commute to work in cars, are you supposed to call out sick whenever you've had a sleepless night? Insomniacs hold down jobs just like the rest of us, maybe you can get away with calling out once or twice but what do the chronics do? will your typical boss understand that you may have a medical condition and you are trying to obey the Law? will the problems of Life never cease?

stranded in civilization.

What Mike Huckabee really is ~~~

~~~is a pro-life Democrat in the Bob Casey mold.

If SEX rules your life...

...Rush said something about this once, if you're the kind of person who lets sex rule your life then you'll destroy yourself in the end (something like this anyway, I don't remember his exact words but he put it rather dramatically). So this guy at work, he gets called to a union meeting because a young woman accused him of sex-chal harassment. Now this guy's a real playa or fancies himself to be but I also know this guy's style, he chats up any eye candy in sight but I think he stops short of the complete grossout, this woman has a history of making these type claims (good luck finding a boyfriend honey) but there's a lesson here -

when you're a playa you'll get by with most women but you're heading into some rough waters in this post-Anita Hill, post Anucha Brown Sanders age, the perils of a man whose mind is always on SEX, you think about it, you dream about it, you pursue it constantly, you want more notches on your belt. It's like Phil Donahue ALWAYS talked about IT on his show and you know something, his face started to resemble the male organ itself towards the end and have you seen Clinton's nose lately? Am I making sense here?

I was thinking...

...you'd think by now abortion would peter out and become more or less a thing of the Past, we have about a 100 methods of birth control now and even if you're for abortion there's always the annoyance and inconvenience of having to make an appointment and going through with it (myself? I hate having to get haircuts and oil changes, can you take my car in for me please?) and geez, you could've really used that $300 for something else not to mention the off-chance that your God just might be against it in the End.

Some people thrive on chaos.

The wisdom of celebrities

From today's Page Six Magazine, actress Eva Amurri (whom I never heard of btw) gives us this pearl of wisdom:

On her parents Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins:

"Both of my parents have been arrested. Not many people can say that."

Why libertarianism has never really taken off

You'd think such a political philosophy would be the order of the day, people like Ron Paul should be elected President in a heartbeat, I mean what is more important and American and critical to a democracy and people's pursuit of happiness than unfettered liberty? then again we have

the drug situation,

and not just the ordinary drugs that used to make for movies like French Connection grown from poppy fields in Afghanistan but things made up by weird and evil scientists, mad eggheads who can't just go off in the woods and beat off around a log fire while drinking Coronas after a bad day of fishing like most normal American men...sci-fi writer Aldous Huxley sang their praises, the father of LSD and then there's also

unfettered abortion

late-term fetuses (proper usage now) in garbage bins & a kid's right (in libertarian views) to access porn in public libraries. Libertarianism will always be a minority and eccentric political movement, people want some protection from the Ravages of Life even if it means government has to step in every once in a while.

Bhutto.....

it's a shame, some people just don't want peace.

In z's view the largest obstable to a proper ecumenical understanding and accord between the world's religions is not things like

Mel Gibson

but radical Islam (wondering how a robust discussion of this is going over at Hannityland where they have special rules regarding conversations about Islam).

Make yourself at home

So I was at least 45 minutes delayed masturblogging today 'cos some computer user at the library leaves his station to go outside for a smoke, goes back to the computer, strike that, his computer, continues vegetating in front of YouTube all the while chatting on his cell, he has something in his ear with a wire, he thinks he's Jack Bauer...would you like a Corona and a bowl of party mix w/that?...another guy, the 30-something unemployed male live-at-home slug sitting next to him, also vegetating in front of YouTube...seems the days of staying at home circle-jerking to badly produced porn are a quaint relic from the Past, we seem to have evolved beyond this amoeba stage, now we take our act into the library -- SOLUTION: install software that cuts people off after a one-hour session let's say -- I'll buy you a computer, I'll take you to Circuit City myself in my 2005 Honda Civic, just get the hell off the computer already!!!

The Republi-Cult and how it works

"overtime, overtime! yeah, oh God no!"

The Cult wants to bring You over to its worldview ("you have a problem with Sarko? you socialist slacker you!") and so you start feeling guilty ("you know I really should like work more"). Work is like a Zen experience for them instead of a means to an end to pay off a few bills, like Denny Crane and Alan Shore they sit on the balcony afterhours smoking their Don Tomases and go over the day. Only people on welfare, the poor folk, like, or rather, are obsessed with Sex, preferably with Judge Judy droning on in the background. Yeah yeah, we're hip, there's always time for a little tapping...

in between jobs,

but we know what's more important, the opening bell on Wall Street and we will bash any Pope who gets in our way by sermonizing over our excesses,

and NO, you got it all wrong, the French don't know how to enjoy Life better than we do, the pussies wouldn't even go to War, there are no alternative views and we will invalidate them anyway by our clever use of name-calling (Michelle Malkin is our Asian pit bull if you please, don't get on our bad side),

and we're so stupid (aka The Stupid Party) that we don't even know our language doesn't resonate with the People anymore, we've lost the common touch and we'll most assuredly lose the next Election to HillObama. Our own Republican pollster Frank Luntz likes to remind us from time to time about how stupid we really sound but he can always be replaced, the only issue is how do we beat the Bitch?

What exactly is Mall Security???

The latest chapter in the Psycho Rules (because we let it), some 19-year old loser who lost his job at McDonald's and his girlfriend too went to a major mall in Omaha, Nebraska yesterday with a gun and shot 8 holiday shoppers to death. Now z always found these tragic episodes problematic, here you have one psychotic a-hole who wanted to "go out in style" (he also shot himself of course, they always do) against hordes of innocent people, I know your first impulse is to flee and find cover, fear is a great paralyzer (I'm thinking out loud here as I always do) but the larger issue is how do you define Mall Security? They don't even carry guns or tasers, some of them are ex-cons and you don't even see them patrolling the mall all day, chances are they're in the Mall Security office glancing at about 4 or 5 TV monitors on the wall if they're not dozing off already. Ditto VA Tech. Z is just tired of reading about these predictable tragedies every few months (they seem to follow a cycle), do we just passively accept our victimhood?

(it can only help him)

From the 12/5 edition of the New York Post:

Dems trade 'choice' words

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's team had a pro-choice supporter bash rival Sen. Barack Obama's record on abortion rights - but his camp responded with past praise from his basher.

Ellen Malcolm, president of pro-choice EMILY's List, held a press conference denouncing Obama for voting "present" instead of "yes" on a "critical" abortion rights bill when he was in the Illinois Legislature.

She also faulted a US Senate floor speech he gave opposing Chief Justice John Roberts because Obama "barely" mentioned Roe vs. Wade.

But Obama's camp released a May 2006 letter from Malcolm praising his "fighting to make change happen."

Geoff Earle

.....ooops, just a little more,

Saw a commercial for Efflexor last night, if your other antidepressants aren't really helping you there's this but potential side effects MAY include an increased risk for suicide especially in children and young adults (kids are depressed again because why?) and so help me out here, you're depressed and this pill MAY make you kill yourself, I'm not getting this one but look on the bright side, you won't be depessed any longer (but other people will because of what you did and then they'll take Efflexor)...reminds me a little of bequeathing,

Truthfully, only Rudy Hillary and Barack are the only real interesting candidates here. Watching the Sunday morning shows, now I know politics is a dry subject but these shows are so BORING, z-man just wants to go back to mast...masturblogging. I mean even before he was a serious candidate John McCain must have on these shows at least a thousand times, Tim Russert always looks like he has the trots and the men's room is ocupado.....prison boredom.

I'm not a big fan of talking and eating at the same time, for me it's an effort, you go visit people, it's a birthday party and everyone's chowing down talking a mile a minute about whatever, they're not bad people but can we have some rules here? Z-man, being the contemplative type, wants to stay home next time, watch the car chase in Bullitt one more time, really study it.

Thoughts on money

Had a debate once about you can't take it with you with an older person, said why not spend it while you can and have a good time and she made the point that bequeathing it is more important on down the line so I got to thinking let's put this into practice,

the children have been left their fortune by Mom and Dad, sharing the same guiding philosophy as they did they hardly spend it either so they grow old and make out their will and the succeeding generation does the same thing and so on for 5 generations but it just sits there, meanwhile Iran now has the nukes and Putin's successors have teamed up with China and they're threatening the West so yes, it IS important to have a nice nest egg,

"the money's there, don't worry but you can't touch it"
"why is it there?"
"I really don't know but it's important that it's there and it stays there"
"Can I take some out?"
"Of course but just a little bit at a time"
"Is that a mushroom cloud I see?"

A common male attitude

You'll often hear a married man or just one who has a steady girlfriend say this among the boys:

"Going to a strip club and getting a lap dance or two is not really cheating."

In a strictly legal sense, ok, if you define cheating as having intercourse (my my, how Billy Boy has corrupted the country, you asked for a legacy pal, you got it, thanx brotherman!), but in z's book it's cheating in a spiritual sense and anyway

if you really dug her you wouldn't be going there.

Like I'm not sure what's supposed to happen here

Worked in a deli once and the guy just went on his lunch, a nice young man with an eye for the ladies, and it's kinda slow, early evening and this attractive young lady approaches the counter, looked like Teri Hatcher, and so I very casually saunter over ready to take her order when a blur of color whuuushes past me, the guy's back from lunch and he does her order instead of me and I'm like

wa'happened?

and so, in his head the pretty young woman married to a corporate lawyer, they're both just back from Rio and she's getting the cold cuts, is ready to risk it all and have an affair with a 20-something deli clerk because he was exceedingly nice to her and got her a 1/2 pound of Boar's Head Ovengold Roasted Turkey Breast sliced razor-thin of course, he had to get his micrometer out and a 1/4 lb. of yellow American,

I had more to offer though, much more. I know how to make quiche but he scared her off.

I don't know how to break this to my folks

Sociologist or cultural professor or whatever she is, Christine B. Whelan, writing in yesterday's New York Post, says studies show that the college-educated fare much better in the romance and marriage stakes department, they are less likely to divorce than those without college degrees and far less likely to have kids out of wedlock than us uneducated yokels (presumably those with degrees never use drugs or watch porn either). The degreed also attract more members of the opposite sex, the Educated Man is more likely to be seen as a good provider (Dr. Laura's apologia for Social Darwinism).

I'm concerned. You see my Mom and Dad have been married for over 50 years now. Dad was a Navy WW2 vet and then drove a truck for almost 50 years, Mom never had a degree, both are now happily retired (or are they?) with full pensions and Social Security. How do I tell them they're on the road to ruin?

The bee-itch

You may have heard, a woman on one of John McCain's campaign stops asked him "so how do we beat this bitch?" to which he replied "that's an excellent question." Usual denunciations, now if you make the case the sitatution was highly inappropriate, well ok, I won't argue with you there, just seems to me in a more humorous, less pc age it would all have been so hilariously funny. McCain's from the olde school, for cryin' out loud the guy was a POW for 5 years, can't have a little fun?

Ever walk out of the store at the mall and forget where the hell you parked? So you're walking with your bag and you don't want to look like an idiot, all the silver Honda Civics begin to look alike - "Mommy, who's that man who can't find his car? Is he on drugs?" - and you begin to think your car was stolen until you finally find it and vow it will never happen again but it does.....

A poem.....

Be patient suffering soul, I hear thy cry
The trial fires may glow but I am nigh.
I see the silver and I will refine
Until My image shall upon it shine.
Fear not, for I am near, thy help to be
Greater than all thy pain My love for thee.