Season's Greetings!

What do "The Holidays" Mean to You?

"Tenderness for the past, vapid generalities for the present, evasive abstractions for the future," (Mark Steyn - Merry Christmas from Satan Claus)

Zuzu's Story

I love the movie, It's a Wonderful Life. We watch it every year at Rancho Silverfiddle. Grandpappy Silverfiddle is sick of the movie, because once the copyright expired it looped endlessly on public TV because stations didn't have to pay for it

 The Washington Post published an article back in November entitled, For Zuzu of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ it wasn’t such a wonderful life afterward.

They tell the story of Karolyn Grimes, the child actress who played Zuzu. She had more than her share of tragedy in her life, and she never saw the famous movie she acted in until well into adulthood:

“I never saw movies I was in because my mom told me that would be prideful, being stuck on yourself,” said Grimes. [...]

Working full time and raising seven children, the 39-year-old Grimes had no time to spare, much less to sit around watching television. But something tugged at her as she saw snatches of snow-clogged streets of small-town America and people she thought she knew.

"Then it hit me,” said Grimes. “I was in that movie. I was Zuzu.” (WaPo)

George Bailey is a Capitalist

Liberals claim a monopoly on George Bailey, and cast all of the sins of capitalism upon Mr. Potter, but it's not quite so simple. George Bailey is a capitalist, bravely fighting the well-connected crony crapitalist who uses his DC connections in his campaign to shut down market competition and lock up the town as his own personal fiefdom.

Jon Corzine is a modern-day Mr. Potter

In the movie, George Bailey is driven to the brink of suicide by the prospect of his savings and load going bust because a few thousand dollars cannot be accounted for. Meanwhile, here in real life, we have actual Mr. Potters who are democrats. Uber lib democrat contribution bundler Jon Corzine lost billions, and you can bet he's never entertained the thought of jumping off a bridge into an icy river. And he shouldn't. It's all good! He's rich and well-connected, just the opposite of Jimmy Stewart's humble character.

Politics aside, it really is a wonderful movie. The courtship and honeymoon scenes are beautiful, and the underlying messages are timeless and non-political.  The actress who played Zuzu observed...

“Oh, it was fresh and dark, about as relevant today as it was when it was made,” said Grimes, quieting a moment. “Think of all the people out of work, losing their homes, hungry kids worried about their parents. What’s so different about today and 60 years ago?” (WaPo)

No Magic Bullets, Only Trade-offs

Recently, when conversation here turned to the bounty of fossil fuels North America enjoys, Ducky asked some excellent questions...

How much of these presumed reserves are tar sands and what are the costs of extraction?

Are we certain that fracking isn't going to have negative effects on the water supply?

Is there any reason we shouldn't hedge our bets and invest in renewable energy rather than assuming we can just go on burning coal?

Nothing in Life is Certain

Solar panel and battery manufacturing requires mining for rare earth and common minerals, damaging the environment. Also the manufacturing process for these products produces trace chemical runoff and other toxic byproducts. Nothing against them; nothing is perfect.

Even forsaking all modern technology and returning to the land like Grizzly Adams or the Engels family would end up destroying our environment. Burning wood and building log cabins would cause extreme deforestation, and 200 million outhouses could not be good for our groundwater. As we all returned to growing our own food, sewing our own clothes, with global transportation grinding to a crawl, we would lose the synergistic efficiencies brought to us by free market specialization.

"...the following logic does not work: something bad happens when frakking is done therefore we must halt frakking. The reason this logic does not work is that whenever anything is done something bad happens: and there’s not much point in our all being around if we’re therefore to ban absolutely everything." (Worstall)

Poisoned groundwater is not a cheery prospect. We need to ask more questions like Ducky. What are the chances of contamination? To what extent? Are some formations more vulnerable than others?  Can we use technology to mitigate the effects or decrease the chances of contamination?

Tim Worstall walks us through these complex issues in Fracking Contaminates Groundwater. He says drill anyway, but he gives a fair treatment to the argument. We pollute our air everyday using automobiles and generating electricity for our homes and workplaces, and we are living with it. Could a similar happy medium be found for fossil fuel extraction?

Merry Redneck Christmas

Redneck Santa and Mrs. Silverfiddle.  

Now that the North Korea Pot Bellied Pig has been banished to the land of wind and pointy-tailed demons, we can all relax and enjoy our Christmas.

I am a redneck.  I hunt and fish and drive a pickup.  I have guns and pocket knives passed down from grandpas through my dad to me.

More importantly, I love redneck jokes, greatly enjoyed Blue Collar TV, and I have the complete DVD collection of Blue Collar Comedy Tour.  

I got this in an e-mail from a fellow redneck named Redneck Ron...

We have enjoyed the redneck jokes for years. It's time to take a reflective look at the core beliefs of a culture that values home, family, country and God.

You might be a redneck if: It never occurred to you to be offended by the phrase, 'One nation, under God..' 

You might be a redneck if: You've never protested about seeing the 10 Commandments posted in public places.

You might be a redneck if: You still say ' Christmas' instead of 'Winter Festival.'

You might be a redneck if: You bow your head when someone prays.

You might be a redneck if: You stand and place your hand over your heart when they play the National Anthem

You might be a redneck if: You've never burned an American flag, nor intend to.

You might be a redneck if: You know what you believe and you aren't afraid to say so, no matter who is listening.

You might be a redneck if: You respect your elders and raised your kids to do the same.

You might be a redneck if: You'd give your last dollar to a friend.
 
You might be a redneck if: You believe in God & Jesus and believe that others have the right to believe in whatever God they want, or no God at all, so long as they don't make themselves a pain in the ass about it!

Be of Good Cheer!

Truth Never Dies...

We spend our time blogging about how horrible things are, and they are. We get all wound up and going on an anti-Obama thread, and then some realist goes and blows it by asking, "what can we do about it? How can we fix it?" And that's when the dark pessimism sets in. How do you get the powerful to relinquish their power and return it the people, the rightful owners?

Fausty, a UK libertarian blogger, wrote a nice blog post awhile back entitled simply, Truth. In it, he puts the impending great global collapse in an optimistic light, rejoicing that the rotten edifice of lies will groan under it's own weight and eventually come tumbling down.

"The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is."  -- Winston Churchill

Fausty celebrates truth, the increasing lack of which is discrediting the official commentariate and the lying liars in the political and business class that they report upon. We proles have educated ourselves, he notes, and we've learned much over these past few years, so much so that we smell their stinking lies as soon as they are unpacked, we no longer uncritically accept the propaganda.

Even as we get smarter, the mouthpieces have gotten more brazen with their tenuous twaddle, straining credulity to the point of breaking...

In 2008, for instance, the authors of most of the top-rated comments in national newspapers like the Telegraph would have been dismissed as "swivel-eyed loonies", had they expressed then what they express now, with such passion.

He's right.  We're caught in a slow-rolling avalanche of debt and despair, but they continue spinning fairy tales with a determined seriousness that sometimes has me thinking that maybe they really believe what they're saying.  Man's capacity for self-delusion is stunning.


Real Hope and Change:  Progressivism's End

The global progressive money-manipulating, freedom-stealing scheme is at its end, yet the practitioners continue spinning tarradiddle-stuffed fantasies to buy themselves more time. But like a losing gambler with a cocaine jones, they can only stave off the inevitable for so long. The jig will be up.

This is the part of Fausty's post that completely flipped my thinking around, wiped away my pessimism and gave me hope:

The funny thing about truth is that once it's out, there's no way of stuffing it back into its box. Once born, it lives and nourishes.

Lies and spin, on the other hand, must be constantly tended and patched up. To achieve that aim requires an enormous expenditure of effort and resources. The greater the lie, the greater the stakes and the harder the fall for its proponents. The web of lies eventually destroys itself via its own mass of contradictions; it ceases to make sense. Once born, the big lie ensures its own destruction.

That's where we are now - truth gaining on the lie. People are waking up in ever greater numbers.

Yes. The truth will out. Humankind has survived for millennia, and Americans in particular have a gift for reinventing ourselves. To quote a song from the wonderful musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, "Up from the ashes grow the roses of success."

No One Gets Out Alive

Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011

Christopher Hitchens has died, and it saddens me.  I loved his work, with the exception of his atheistic screeds, but even those served a purpose in making us Christians reexamine the fundamentals of our faith.

The 21st century is sorely lacking bold thinkers, loud polemicists and skilled communicators like Mr. Hitchens.  His prose was beautiful artistry in written word.  I will miss his mordant wit and always interesting take on anything and everything.  He was an Orwell for our time, giving hell to "Bastards HQ" daily.  Liberty lovers everywhere should follow his example.  The bell has tolled, and his death indeed diminishes us all...

Suffering and Dying in Luxury

One of the many paradoxes of modern life: Medical care has advanced to the point where everyone, regardless of station, can now outlive their money.

In one of his last essays, Christopher Hitchens, himself enduring a long and very public death watch, reflected wryly upon the demise of atheist philosopher Sidney Hook:

Toward the end of his long life he became seriously ill and began to reflect on the paradox that—based as he was in the medical mecca of Stanford, California—he was able to avail himself of a historically unprecedented level of care, while at the same time being exposed to a degree of suffering that previous generations might not have been able to afford.

Hitchens concludes:

So we are left with something quite unusual in the annals of unsentimental approaches to extinction: not the wish to die with dignity but the desire to have died.

He describes not his fear of dying, but his fear of losing that which makes his life worthwhile:

I am typing this having just had an injection to try to reduce the pain in my arms, hands, and fingers. The chief side effect of this pain is numbness in the extremities, filling me with the not irrational fear that I shall lose the ability to write. Without that ability, I feel sure in advance, my “will to live” would be hugely attenuated. I often grandly say that writing is not just my living and my livelihood but my very life, and it’s true.

Tyranny Lives Forever

Today, we receive word that Eastern Europe's champion of freedom Vaclav Havel has died.  With each light of liberty snuffed, the world grows a little darker.

Young or old, we all must become dissidents and contrarians if we want to save our nation.  Final words from Christopher Hitchens...

Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.  (Christopher Hitchens -- Letters to a Young Contrarian, p. 140)

Further Reading:
Christopher Hitchens:  Most Memorable Bon Mots
Vanity Fair – Christopher Hitchens Tribute
Slate – Christopher Hitchens
Matt Labash – A Hitchless World
American Spectator – Hitch-62
Christopher Hitchens: A Thank-You, of Sorts
Johah Goldberg Remembers Christopher Hitchens

Dude, Where's My Drone?

Our babe in the woods president is really playing hardball with the Iranians, who managed to get their grimy mitts on one of our high tech drones.  His statement:

"Let me be clear.  Bla bla bla..."

The Iranian response demonstrates that The Wages of Appeasement is humiliation...

On Tuesday, with Putin-like contempt, Iran demanded that Obama apologize instead. “Obama begs Iran to give him back his toy plane,” reveled the semiofficial Fars News Agency.

How did Iran get our drone?

I don't believe an America-hating mole in the CIA did this, as some of the more conspiratorial-minded have suggested.  It is possible that Iran Hijacked Our Drone, as a chest-thumping Iranian is now claiming.  They are not backwards people and they have help from China and Russia.

Add in our complacency (remember learning that Al Qaeda in Iraq had tapped into our unencrypted Predator drone feeds?), and it is a real possibility.  We are just about stupid enough to fly such advanced technology naked, believing no one is smart enough to take our toys away from us.  I don't know anything about our drone programs, but what the Iranian in the CS Monitor said sounds feasible if the aircraft's networks were not encrypted or if we failed to equip it with safeguards against GPS meaconing.

When will we start punishing complacency and incompetence?

Will anyone in our government or congress investigate this?  Does anyone get fired anymore?  General McChrystal is the only person I can recall getting fired for anything, and that was because he was stupid enough to invite a Rolling Stone reporter in on his staff's bull sessions where they trash talked the president (who the general voted for).

Another Plausible Scenario...

There could be a simpler, low tech answer.  A perfidious Pastun in the Afghan Army or some other group who is ostensibly "on our side" more than likely recovered the craft inside Afghanistan and trucked it over to Iran.

The CIA’s RQ-170 “Sentinel” drone captured by the Iranians last week may have gone down in Afghanistan and then transported to Iran by friendly forces on the ground, a former officer in the elite Quds Force branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards told The Daily Caller. [...]

However, photographs and video footage released by the Iranians on Dec. 8, several days after they announced the drone’s capture, clearly show that both wings had been neatly severed and then reattached.

“This suggests that the drone landed safely and that its wings were cut off so it could be transported by truck,” the former Quds Force officer said. “I believe it was captured by the Taliban inside Afghanistan and transferred to the Iranians, who then reattached the wings,” he added. (Daily Caller)

I don't know what happened, but that seems the most likely scenario. We have no friends over there. The Afghan soldiers we train end up shooting at our soldiers, and the billions in cash we lavish on that hopeless land is split between Karzai's gang of bandits and the Taliban...

Truth be known, neither the Karzai regime, nor the Taliban warlords, want the Americans out of Afghanistan. The treasure we pour into that country sustains the ruling cabal and the Taliban alike. We are the straight man at the bazaar, the stranger fleeced by the locals. (Fouad Ajami)

We are suckers.  We're being played for fools.  We are throwing our technological pearls before swine, and we are shedding American blood for people who hate us. Obama needs to wrap up Afghanistan in the same manner he did Iraq.  We'll take our drones away and let them get back to shooting down kites.

 
What do you think?

UPDATE:  Here's a story from Aviation Week with lots of technical details:  Iran UAV Will Not Expose Latest Technology