I think we can all agree here:

Drawing nominations from English enthusiasts and those just plain tired of overused expressions, Lake Superior State University’s Word Banishment Committee has issued its list of words and phrases it deems time to be “unfriended.”

Among them: “teachable moment,” “czar,” “shovel-ready” and combinations of words such as “sexting,” “chillaxin’ ” and “bromine.”

I’m keen on eliminating the use of the word “czar,” but I sure do wish Obama would ban them from his administration. Also, the only thing that turned out to be “shovel ready” in this stimulus was any semblance of fiscal responsibility on the part of Congress. That’s been well and truly buried.

I figured this is the kind of holiday story that would warm the hearts of readers of this blog.

By now everyone realizes that the President is off dipping his toes in the sand of Hawaiian beaches and hitting up some of the Aloha State’s finest golf courses. In addition to renting out the three homes for Obama to vacation, paying for the cross-country flight for the First Family & their entourage, and all associated expenses, we’re also paying residents of Hawaii to kick it up in top hotels in Waikiki.

It’s a small world, and my Christmas Eve conversation with my grandmother turned up some interesting tidbits. It turns out that her yard man also does the maintenance in the area where Obama is staying. Part of his compensation includes housing in a modest apartment there on site. However, the Secret Service doesn’t want these staffers anywhere near the President. So they take over their homes & pay for them to stay in upscale hotels in Waikiki.

Boo-freakin’-hoo, right? Eh, not so much if you’ve ever spent much time in Hawaii.

While I’m sure the accommodations inside the hotel are nice, imagine being uprooted at the holidays from your home and put squarely in the middle of the hottest tourist destination of your state during the prime tourist season. Yeah, that doesn’t sound like quite as much fun, does it? (Also, for those of you not terribly familiar with the geography of Oahu, Waikiki is no where near Kailua.)

My grandmother swears that she’s sure everyone was okay with the visit and happy to leave their homes in support of the president, but she also says that as an Obama supporter who lives just west of Diamond Head – far away from the motorcades & insanity.

I don’t think I will be flying again unless I absolutely have to. There’s more here. It’s a very difficult thing for government bureaucrats to accept, but you can’t defend against this level of threat. If someone wants to bring down a plane, over a long enough period of time, they are going to succeed, and there’s little in the way of security measures that will work that don’t involve profiling, interviews, and various other highly intrusive security measures that the Israelis use.

But despite the fact that the bureaucrats are claiming the system worked, and then turning around saying it didn’t, one thing still worked, and that’s the citizen militia. That’s not the first time that’s worked for us either. But the bureaucrat cannot acknowledge that, because it means we don’t need them. No, they will ratchet up the security theater until we all feel well protected.

Merry Christmas to you and yours. For your sick and twisted Christmas entertainment, I bring you “Treevenge.”  You certainly will want to send the kids away:

Iowahawk shows us how you too can be a climate scientist. Very good explanation for how you can replicate your own hockey stick at home.

Bitter and I are on our way down to Virginia, but I will leave you with this bit of humor courtesy of Dave Markowitz:

Apologies to Tommy James, but that’s pretty funny holiday humor, no matter who’s hockey stick you worship. Maybe I’ll get to some blog posts as we’re enhancing our carbon footprint all the way down I-81 down to Roanoke.

A Veterans Day message from NRA, narrated by Jim Land, Secretary of the National Rifle Association.

As SayUncle points out, they tend to come in groups.

Tam:

The cherry on the icing of the cake of the night was the mealy-mouthed General Cone simpering from the lectern about “We don’t go armed around here, this is our home,” which caused me to look at the loaded pistol on the nightstand in bafflement. I thought Texas had that “Castle Doctrine” thing? I know Texans on the internets are always bragging about how it’s legal for them to shoot someone stealing their hubcaps after dark, so I’m pretty sure a guy Allahu Akhbar-ing his way through a hospital waiting room gets the green light in the target selection sweepstakes. If they had been allowed to carry their damn guns, maybe somebody could have smoked Hasan before he rolled up a body count like an NCAA basketball score. Even the most ardent gun banners are always shooting off at the mouth about how “only the police and the military are qualified to carry guns” so how come they were unarmed and defenseless by edict here?

SayUncle is doing a bang up job covering it. As news goes, I’ve gotten tired of covering these things. One thing I will say, however, is people might be surprised that a guy could get away from this on an army base, not realizing that army bases are gun free zones. Soldiers are not permitted to have guns outside of training exercises. We trust our soldiers to protect our freedom, but do not trust them to protect their own lives. I can’t think of anything else that’s more disrespectful to their sacrifice and service than a military that is afraid of its own soldiers with guns. This should change, but I doubt you’ll see our Commander-in-Chief issuing the orders.

Very excellent editorial from the Lebanon Daily News on Meleanie Hain’s death.

Don’t cry, but Patrick Swayze has died.  It’s a bit of a stereotype that every gun nut worships at the altar of Red Dawn, but it is one of those movies anyone who was a pre-teen in the mid-80s remembers, and probably memorized a few lines from.  Really, Dirty Dancing was probably a movie he should be best known for, and Dirty Dancing is more timeless than Red Dawn, which is dated if you watch it today.  That must be why Hollywood thinks it needs to be remade.  Either way, I will leave you this to remember:

Scott Bach, an NRA Board member from New Jersey, originally native to New York City, reflects in 9/11/2001.

Ted Kennedy is dead, and thus ends a long chapter of the progressive left, as well as a chapter in our nation’s history.  No doubt in many circles of the partisan right, there will be quiet celebration.  It would be rather difficult for me to join.  Having watched my mother struggle against cancer for the better part of a decade, finally succumbing to it in 1994, when I was 20 years old, it’s not a scourge I would wish on anyone.  Even Ted Kennedy.  I’d wish Kennedy well in the hereafter, but I suspect he’s going to have some sins to answer for.

I expect Kennedy’s death will give the progressive-left a new purpose to pass a universal health care plan as Kennedy’s legacy.  But I’m wondering if this isn’t really the passing of an era, and the final chapter in the long novel of 20th century progressivism.  Now it seems we’re emerging into a landscape marked by endless political struggle, with neither side being able to make much headway against the other.   We shall see.

Outdoor Writer J.B. Kasper, who also happens to be one of the guys I shoot with on Thursday nights, has an article in the Trenton Times talking about the bear problem in New Jersey:

This is typical of how bear incidents are handled by the DEP. Of course this one was a little too big to be covered up. According to a statement by Harry Herrighty, deputy director of the DF&W: “At this point, it just doesn’t seem we will be able to label this as an attack on a person. He had no bruises, claw marks or scratches or even a ripped shirt that indicates it was a purposeful attack by the bear.” So I guess what Mr. Herrighty is saying is that the black eye, the cut across the temple and the separated shoulder were the bear’s way of saying get out of my way I want your sandwich? I wonder if Mr. Herrighty found himself in Mr. Rowendal place, how would he describe the event?

Read the whole thing.  Bears are powerful critters, and we can see in this example what “out of my way” can mean to a bear.  I’ve heard stories of bears just ripping the doors clean off a car to get to food inside.  Once inside, you car can look like this.  Back to Joe:

It’s about time someone in the Corzine Administration, in specific the DEP, wakes up. Bears are not the cuddly little creatures we see in cartoons and Hollywood movies. From the period of January 1 through May 20, the DEP has received 693 calls about bears, which is over 100 more than the same period last year. Seventy-one of those calls pertained to livestock deaths, home break-ins and aggressive behavior. A total of 42 of the calls were classified as Category 1 incidents, which is up from 33 for the same period last year. Seven aggressive bears have had to be killed so far this year.

Joe’s conclusion is that the only way to reduce bear numbers to a manageable level in New Jersey is through hunting.  I just hope it doesn’t have to come to a child being killed or mauled by a bear before the policymakers and voters in the Garden State come to realize that.

I think Anarchangel pretty much sums up how I feel about it.  “Perhaps god will forgive you. History won’t.”  RTWT.

Bitter and I were planning on going to the 4th of July Tea Party at Independence Mall, but I’m not thrilled about the list of invited speakers, among them are 2004 Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate Michael Badnarik, who is billed as a “constitutional expert” (I can assure you he is no such thing), and anti-smoking activist Dr. Robert Skalroff, who held up Pennsylvania’s settlement with the tobacco companies because he believes we ought to be able to keep suing the tobacco companies.  Then you have the fact that they have invited “Pro-life Spokeswoman, Katie Fleming” and then you have Herb Dennenberg, who is mostly known for his writings on the Iraq War and the Global War on Terror.

Now, my objection to Badnarik is rooted on my personal disdain for the Libertarian Party, mostly for taking the legitimate idea of a smaller government and turning into a political joke — a three ring circus that’s never done a damned thing to advance the cause of smaller government.   I won’t argue that Badnarik doesn’t belong there.  But the other speakers are mixing up issues that I don’t think have any place in a movement that I thought was supposed to be about reducing the government’s footprint in people’s lives, and channel people’s discontent with the current pace at which Government is expanding.  How exactly is a physician who wants to ban tobacco even about smaller government at all?

If the Tea Party movement is just going to be some politically amorphous movement that is a conglomeration of right-wing hangers on, I don’t see any reason to waste my time with it.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

I read something about Knob Creek having a shortage of bourbon over at SayUncle’s earlier this week.  Now Food & Wine is confirming the rumor.  Because of the aging process, distillers have to predict demand out 9 years, and it seems they guessed wrong.

Clearly this all Bush’s fault!

This kind of thing is very serious.  What will the British do?  It’s pretty clear Obama is not willing to stand up to these cretins who run Iran, and will readily abandon close allies in order to make a deal with the regime.  What Europe is witnessing is a taste of what is to come if the United States withdraws from the world stage.

Europe is on its own.  I hate that it’s that way, but hey, hope and change has come.

From Tam:

We here at Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, LLP would like to apologize for the error that occurred in our mailroom. It seems that a package intended for one “M. Jackson” was delivered to a “D. Carradine” by mistake. We sincerely hope that this hasn’t caused a loss of confidence in the normally excellent service provided by Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, LLP, and we look forward to your continued patronage in the future.

Thank you,
Mgmt.

I’m not one to mock the dead, but that made me practically spit up my iced tea.

Here are some suggestions.  Might want to consider some of those knife options while they are still legal.

Megan McArdle I think has some interesting thoughts on the matter.  Abortion is one of those topics where you just can’t win, so I don’t dare wade into it often.  Who I am I to say where life begins?  My skins cells are alive, and with the proper application of the right chemical compounds, at the right times, could turn into another one of me.  Do I commit murder the shower each morning because each cell I scrub off is a potential me?  But if human life isn’t defined at the cellular level, where do you draw the line?

I think Megan brings up some good points.  If the line is drawn at conception, and a woman takes a morning after pill, should she have to face the possibility of having a needle stuck in her arm for premeditated murder?  If the answer is no, then why?  If the act of killing an abortion doctor isn’t defense of another, then why? I don’t condone the murder of Dr. Tiller, but I also don’t think abortion is infanticide.

Where does life begin?  I don’t really have any special insight into that.   But I’m pretty sure judges don’t either.  If abortion is to be regulated, then it should be done by the legislatures of the several states.  But I’d be surprised if even the most conservative state legislature were willing to treat it as premeditated murder.  That is why I suspect that the vast majority of people, even those who are pro-life, think murdering abortion doctors is wrong.  But if that’s the case, can you still really say abortion is murder?

This is no time for a war.  All I can say is, it’s lucky for Korea they have a competent military, because I wouldn’t want to depend on 1600 Pennsylvania to change the cat litter, let alone deal with the North Koreans.  Also, if Japan isn’t starting a crash program to develop nuclear weapons, they really should be.

He’s the last suriviving World War I veteran.  Video here.  We do hope that Congress agrees to pass a World War I memorial project.