S P E C I A L - N O T I C E S . . .
MARIZELA PEREZ IS STILL MISSING: For the latest news on the search for this young lady, please visit the special website that has been set-up: FindMarizela.com.
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For The Latest News on the KIMBERLIN / RAUHAUSER SAGA: Follow John Hoge's blog HOGEWASH. He's doing one huckuva job covering the story.
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Bob Belvedere is now on Twitter! Can you dig it? @BobBelvedere
Amusing Bunni Needs Our Help
NOTE: This post will remain at the top of the this column until further notice.
Please see below for my latest posts.
I have been very fortunate since I got into this whole blogging thing to have made many Friends In The Ether, but I only have one Bunni Buddy — the Chicago gal who goes by the name Amusing Bunni.
Out of all of the great ladies I’ve encountered in The Ether, she’s the sweetest person and most gentle soul I’ve met.
When you need a smile, when things are getting you down, you can always head over to Bunni’s blog for some easing of your worried mind.
Now, it’s Bunni whose mind needs easing…
I’m not going to sugarcoat this: Bunni has inoperable, terminal liver cancer that has metastasized and has been given but a few more months to live.
As she put it in an e-mail to Zilla:
So, I’m terminal. There are so many tumors in my abdomen, and the liver is enlarged very much, they can’t operate, the tumors and blood vessels are too much and too close, they can’t do chemo, or NOTHING, so I just will be seeing palliative care Dr.’s for medicine adjustments to help with the pain, and then just get my affairs in order and wait to die.
Zilla, God Bless Her, has been speaking with Bunni and convinced her to go public about her situation.
You see, Bunni is not in the best financial condition, as Zilla explains:
Bunni is now (obviously) unable to work and she has mortgage and other bill payments still to worry about and she will need help covering medical and other expenses as well….
While Bunni will be applying for such things as Meals On Wheels and other helpful services, she has no job and will need end-of-life care.
If you could spare five bucks or ten or whatever you can afford, it would be big help in our effort to make our beloved friend’s last days as comfortable as possible and ones where she doesn’t have to worry about any financial worries.
Zilla again:
She needs other things as well, including our love, prayers, and support. Bunni is in the Chicago area so if there is a blogger reading this in or near that region, she would like to talk with you. She’s going to need help finding resources for assistance quickly, so if you are familiar with charitable organizations in her area, please let her know about them or let me know and I’ll pass the information along. Bunni lives with her adorable cat (the one in all those delightful videos) and we are going to need to help her make arrangements for Kittenkins’ care when that becomes necessary.
Please pray for Amusing Bunni and help her in any way that you can.
Zilla has more details here [and you can leave a message for Bunni there as well].
Please help my Bunni Buddy.
Here is her PayPal button:
HELP BUNNI!
NOTE: This post will remain at the top of the this column until further notice.
Please see below for my latest posts.
Rule 5 Christmas Countdown: 23-Dec-12
The TCOTS Rule 5 Compliance Committee has voted unanimously to do another TCOTS Christmas Countdown. With so much funk enveloping us this year, The Committee feels a duty to provide a moment of relief, so from now until Christmas, the gals are on us…
Blogger Christmas Traffic Blues
Well I woke up this mornin’
And all my hits were down
Oh, I woke up this mornin’
And all my hits were down
All my friends are missing
I’m the only one who’s posting now
Santy Claus, Santy Claus
What you bringin’ down
Santy Claus, Santy Claus
What you bringin’ down
I need some linky lovin’
Before I shut this old blog thang down
—Ramblin’ Bob Belvedere, Blogger Mood Disorder Blues
I got me some Blogger Christmas Traffic Blues and the only thing that will get me out of this funk — have mercy! — is some bona-fi-dee blues…
-Lightnin’ Hopkins…
-Mister BB King…
-I’m feelin’ better, so let’s up the mood with one of my favorites…
-Of course, no Christmas would be complete without Mister Chuck Berry…
-Now, link this post so I can really bet over by Blogger Christmas Traffic Blues.
Rule 5 Christmas Countdown: 22-Dec-12
The TCOTS Rule 5 Compliance Committee has voted unanimously to do another TCOTS Christmas Countdown. With so much funk enveloping us this year, The Committee feels a duty to provide a moment of relief, so from now until Christmas, the gals are on us…
And Now A Word From One Of Our Sponsors…
[Reposted from 22 December 2010]
‘An Ayn Rand Christmas’?!?
Christmas: Even Ayn Rand liked it! [with some qualifications, of course]:
[In answer to the question of whether it is appropriate for an atheist to celebrate Christmas:]
Yes, of course. A national holiday, in this country, cannot have an exclusively religious meaning. The secular meaning of the Christmas holiday is wider than the tenets of any particular religion: it is good will toward men—a frame of mind which is not the exclusive property (though it is supposed to be part, but is a largely unobserved part) of the Christian religion.
The charming aspect of Christmas is the fact that it expresses good will in a cheerful, happy, benevolent, non-sacrificial way. One says: “Merry Christmas”—not “Weep and Repent.” And the good will is expressed in a material, earthly form—by giving presents to one’s friends, or by sending them cards in token of remembrance . . . .
The best aspect of Christmas is the aspect usually decried by the mystics: the fact that Christmas has been commercialized. The gift-buying . . . stimulates an enormous outpouring of ingenuity in the creation of products devoted to a single purpose: to give men pleasure. And the street decorations put up by department stores and other institutions—the Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors—provide the city with a spectacular display, which only “commercial greed” could afford to give us. One would have to be terribly depressed to resist the wonderful gaiety of that spectacle.
—The Objectivist Calendar, Dec. 1976
Oh, well……I do agree with the ‘giv[ing] men pleasure’ part.
Rule 5 Christmas Countdown: 21-Dec-12
The TCOTS Rule 5 Compliance Committee has voted unanimously to do another TCOTS Christmas Countdown. With so much funk enveloping us this year, The Committee feels a duty to provide a moment of relief, so from now until Christmas, the gals are on us…
V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N – In The Christmas Time
As you read this post, Mrs. B. and I will be wending our way to Northeast shores of Lake Winnipesaukee in the Live Free Or Die State for a well-needed vacation — and, of course, to await the end of the world as we know it [and we feel fine] later today.
We’ll be there until New Year’s Weekend, so blogging will be light around here.
However, per usual, I’ve set-off at least one post to publish each day, so do check in between bouts of making merry [or 'making Mary', if you're a single guy or married to a woman named Mary]. Some of the scheduled posts are serious, some fun — but they’re all entertaining.
The traditional TCOTS Countdown To Christmas starts later today and continues through Christmas Eve [whoever Eve is] and there will be a Rule 5 Saturday.
I’ll be checking in from time to time, but we’re leaving you the keys to the Tiki Bar & Lounge — go easy on the hard stuff and don’t expect us to bail any of you out.
Also, if you can, send a greeting to Amusing Bunni, throw some Christmas Cheer her way [and maybe a few denarii].
If you, too, are going off the grid as of today, then
MERRY CHRISTMAS To You And Your’s!
Denial As A Feature, Not A Bug
Metaphorical sodomite Professor Erik Loomis, PhD/VD, a University of Rhode Island Assistant Professor of History, has been caught having a tantrum of the kind typical of those who possess adolescent minds and are Leftists [but, I repeat myself].
Campus Reform broke the story, which you can read here.
Tip of the fedora to Stacy McCain, who has published several posts on this, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
In one of those, Stacy gets right to the heart of this heartless matter, going beyond the specific case of the metaphorically syphilitic Loomis:
When you think of yourself (as [former metaphorical catamite Professor Erik] Loomis [PhD/HSV2] most surely does) as an apostolic soldier in the Righteous Army of Peace and Humanity, doing battle against the forces of Hate, there is no such thing as “fairness,” nor any rule of conduct that can limit your action. This mentality is expressed in the radical slogan, “By Any Means Necessary.”
This necessarily involves the de-humanization of one’s antagonists, a degradation of moral standards — excusing dishonesty and malicious action, so long as it is done on behalf of the Sacred Progressive Cause — and inevitably results in thuggery on behalf of “social justice,” a movement whose actions exemplify the very opposite qualities of “peace and humanity” that progressives claims to be pursuing.
This was how the idealists of the 1960s ended up, in the 1970s, being apologists for the bloody reign of Pol Pot in Cambodia, and supporting domestic terrorists like Bill Ayers and Kathy Boudin.Without any real moral principles, judging everything only by its political expediency, they exempt themselves from judgment, even while harshly judging the demonized Other whom they target with transparently invalid smears….
A lovely summation of Leftist Thinking and the way they avoid considering the possibility that their ideas and the premises behind them could be wrong.
If these Leftists weren’t so dangerous, one could spare the time to pity their sad mental states.
The End Of The World: Be Positive
John Boehner Is A Cheap Whore
For me, the revelation that John Boehner is a cheap whore came because of an answer given to a question posed by Jeff Goldstein, who is most certainly not a cheap whore like John Boehner.
Jeff’s [who is not, like John Boehner, a cheap whore] question [links mine]:
Speaker Boehner has now signaled that he’s willing to consider gun control, raise taxes on “the rich”, and allow the President’s spending spree to continue with no cuts in sight.
Doesn’t that make the leadership of the Republican Party in the House, you know, Democrats?
The answer came in the Comments section of Jeff’s post and was provided by Ernst Schreiber, who, like Jeff, is not a cheap whore like John Boehner [links mine]:
Why yes, I believe that does.
I do have to confess, however, that I get a wee bit of schadenfreude out of Boehner pimping the Pelosi Plan. Of course, he’s all about compromise and conscensus, so he doesn’t actually want to call it the Pelosi Plan, even though that’s exactly what it is.
Now, if only he could bring himself to force her caucus into rejecting a plan that was perfectly acceptable to them last spring, and then pass a permanent tax cut and adjourn the House. But he won’t.
Because, as Levin implied this evening, he’s a whore.
That would be Mark Levin Ernst is referring to. FYI: Unlike John Boehner, Mark Levin is not a cheap whore – quite the opposite. Mr. Levin is a modern John Adams [who, back when he was alive, was not a cheap whore like John Boehner], who understands that Tyranny must be relentlessly resisted, that we can no longer afford to cede any ground to the Left because they already occupy [pun intended] too much of it. Also – and this cannot be stated enough – unlike John Boehner, Mark Levin is not a cheap whore.
I should also state for the record that I, your humble Dispatcher, am not now, nor have I ever been, a cheap whore like John Boehner is [that incident in New York at CBGB's with Debbie Harry in 1983 notwithstanding]
The Spot-On Quote Of The Day…
…is awarded to Smitty, retired Admiral Of The Afghan Seas and Groom Of The Stool to Prince Niklas, for coining a term that accurately names the destination the Left in America wants to reach as it drives us down the Road To Perdition:
…Progressivism wants to build some Orwellian/Huxlian paradise, where Statism supersedes the Judeo-Christian emphasis upon the individual/family as the unit of societal analysis.
Spot-on and dead solid perfect.
-The Orwellian utopia divides the people into three groups: the Inner Party Circle, the Outer Party Circle, and the Proles. As Wikipedia describes this class structure:
1. The Inner Party make policy, affect decisions, and govern; they are known as “The Party,” and constitute the upper class of Oceanian society. Among their upper-class privileges is the ability to (temporarily) shut off their telescreens. They live in spacious, comfortable homes, have good food and drink, personal servants, and speedy transportation such as personal helicopters and automobiles. No Outer Party member or Prole may enter an Inner Party neighbourhood without a good pretext. Inner Party members make up less than 2% of the Oceania’s population.
2. The Outer Party work the state’s administrative jobs; they are the middle class, whose “members are allowed no vices other than cigarettes and Victory Gin”, and who are the citizens most spied upon, via telescreens and surveillance. This is because, according to history, the middle class is the most dangerous; they are the ones to incite revolution, the one thing The Party does not want. They live in rundown neighbourhoods, use crowded subways as transportation, have poorer food and drink, and are denied sex for any other purpose than having children within marriage, and are expected to look at it as a duty, rather than pleasure.
3. The Proles are the lower class of workers. They live in the poorest conditions, but they can be considered as more fortunate than the Outer Party members since they are not constantly watched by Big Brother, and the Party keeps them happy and sedates them with alcohol, gambling, sport, sexual promiscuity, and prolefeed (Fabricated books, pornography). A few undercover agents of the Thought Police do mark down and eliminate any Prole individuals deemed capable of becoming dangerous by spreading false rumours. Proletariat are [sic] 85 percent of Oceania’s populace.
-Regarding the Brave New World component, I quote Wikipedia again [sometimes it is quite reliable...sometimes]:
The two billion citizens of the World State constitute a eusocial consumer society whose individuals are produced in hatcheries by application of “Bokanovsky’s” and other techniques to the hatchery line to produce the five classes or castes named after letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and epsilon, respectively. Society is controlled by Alphas and their subordinates, Betas. Below them, in descending order of intelligence and physique, are Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. Each caste is further subdivided into Plus and Minus (with Epsilons having the additional classifications of regular or semi-moron), and are distinguished by colour-coded work clothes. Epsilons are dressed in black, Deltas in khaki, Gammas in leaf green, Betas in mulberry, and Alphas in grey. At the very pinnacle of society sit Alpha Double-Plus, who serve as the future scientists and top administrators of the world. Citizens in the World State of all castes are not born to a mother, but instead created in laboratories through a process of artificial insemination. They are then grown to ‘birth’ in bottles, the bottles being treated in a manner similar to a production line. Fetuses are pre-determined to be born into specific caste and ‘lower’ castes such as Deltas or Epsilons are interfered with during development in order to restrict their mental and physical development (for example by adding alcohol to their bottle). People in different castes are conditioned to be happy in their own way; they do not feel resentment towards other castes, but rather feel a slight contempt for people not members of their own caste. At the same time, however, all members of society are repeatedly taught that everyone is equally important to society.
-Starting back in the 1970′s, some members of the Left in America* began to believe that the overt, in-your-face way of pushing for Revolution would not work in America. They had the example before them of countries like the United Kingdom and the other nations of Western Europe that showed that a more benign, stealthy approach to implementing Socialism was quite effective. However, people like Michael Harrington understood that the American citizen was a different creature. He saw that there was a uniqueness about those who had been brought-up and nurtured here, so he and his fellow Leftists came to believe the benign campaign they waged would have to be even more stealthy than had been implemented in Europe. Americans, they came to understand, were more freedom-loving than Europeans and Brits had ever been. These Soft Socialists, if you will, realized that undermining the American Idea would require the infiltration of every institution of American Society and a subtler approach to doing so. The infection would have to spread quietly. ‘The American People should not know what hit them’, was they’re battle cry. Until 20 January 2009, they acted accordingly. With the swearing-in of a Committed Leftist as President and both Houses of the Congress in the hands of Committed Leftists and their Fellow Travellers and their manipulations of the Useful Idiots of the Republican Party, they began to get a cocky and exposed their intentions for all of us to see. Many of us finally saw the light, but, sadly, there are still a lot who have their heads firmly planted up their backsides and refuse to understand that we are in the midst of a Revolution, and that the momentum on the Revolutionaries side
-By these two descriptions of the Orwellian and Huxlian utopias we can see in them what Smitty is, I think, getting at by his statement. It seems the Left in America is intent on implementing it’s own, unique form of Heaven On Earth here, a combination of the gray and dank world of Oceania with the numb and pointless world of the World State.
They are the purveyors of Soma and pornography, circuses and shackles, celebrations of ignorance and rallies of directed hate.
Sadly, we are not in the middle of a nightmare that can be dispatched by merely awakening. This is Reality.
The Left has declared us savage outlaws and we should wear that label proudly and act accordingly.
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*I try not to use the term ‘American Left’ because there is
nothing American about these Moral Traitors. They have
rejected the idea of America; they despise everything it
stands for and want to destroy it. Hence I call them the
‘Left in America’ the same way I would describe any
alien group that is present within our borders.
Dr. Bob Diagnoses Hillary
How to describe the malady that has befallen, beset, assailed, and deviled Hillary Rodham and is preventing her from testifying on the Benghazi Massacre…
In keeping with the highest medical standards [yes, I have been in the meds cart again], let me list the ways: Mzzz. Rodham’s illness is tactful, politic, sensitive, subtle, delicate, polite, discreet, prudent, adept, considerate, judicious…in other words ‘diplomatic’, as my colleague Dr. John Bolton explains [tip of the fedora to Memeorandum]:
Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton suggested Monday that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is trying to avoid testifying about the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, by coming down with what he called "a diplomatic illness."
Clinton was scheduled to testify this week before a House panel and to present an independent report on the incident. The report, which she received on Monday, will still be presented to congressional leaders in a closed door session Wednesday. But the secretary won’t be there because of a concussion she suffered during a fainting spell this past weekend brought on by the flu.
"I think she will have to testify at some point," Bolton told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Monday evening, suggesting that her illness excuse was somewhat suspect.
"You know, every foreign service officer in every foreign ministry in the world knows the phrase I am about to use. When you don’t want to go to a meeting or conference, or an event, you have a ‘diplomatic illness,’ Bolton told Van Susteren. "And this is a diplomatic illness to beat the band.
"I certainly hope it was nothing serious, but this was revealed in a way that I think was not transparent," Bolton continued. "And I think there is an obligation here, especially if Secretary Clinton decides to run for president, to indicate what happened. She may not be testifying this week, but she will not escape it forever."
On that last point, my distingushed colleague and I disagree because I beleive she, indeed, may be able to avoid testifying if she finds the right physician to declare her having been, in reality, insane since she stopped being a Goldwater Girl and became a Leftist.
Where’s Bob? Off Making Merry Early, I Bet
Because…Raaaaacism!
From Mediaite, Noah Rothman reporting, we learn [tip of the fedora to Memeorandum]:
David Sirota, a columnist for Salon.com, appeared on [MSNBC's] Up with Chris Hayes on Sunday for a discussion about the possible policy recommendations that could be adopted in the wake of the mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school which may prevent future shootings. When the question of profiling came up, Sirota insisted that the perpetrators of these kinds of crimes are most often white men – the only group in America that is “not allowed to be profiled.” Sirota said, if the shooter was any race other than white, the debate over policy measures to prevent these types of events in the future would have been “uglier.”
Hayes said the thought that policy makers in Washington will be moved to do something about this tragedy. He said he could envision lawmakers calling for a more invasive surveillance regime.
Sirota agreed, but said that the political impediment to that was the fact that most mass shooting suspects are white.
“The issue with it will be, politically, I think; the profile is white men,” Sirota said. “That’s a profile that’s not, essentially, in America allowed to be profiled. That’s the one profile in America that’s not allowed to be profiled.”
Sirota said that he thought that, if the shooter belonged to a different demographic, the debate about how to address this mass shooting would be “much uglier.” Hayes agreed.
Sirota closed by wondering if the Republican party would have the same reaction to this event and policy recommendations to address it as they did to a report by the Department of Homeland Security raising question about the threats posed by right-wing militias. “Republicans said, ‘this is a way to demonize white America’ or ‘good, god-fearing America,” Sirota said.
Do click here and see the video clip Mr. Rothman has posted.
“The issue with it will be, politically, I think; the profile is white men,” Sirota said. “That’s a profile that’s not, essentially, in America allowed to be profiled. That’s the one profile in America that’s not allowed to be profiled.”
Huh?!? Tell that to the Behavioral Unit at the FBI that does criminal profiling.
Sirota is either profoundly ignorant about law enforcement practices in this country or he is a Leftist apparatchik employing a tactic straight out of the Leftist Playbook [the CHAOS —> Helter Skelter section].
For his soul’s sake, I hope it’s the former.
William Jacobson brings up another issue:
Sirota’s racial politics ploy fit in nicely with Chris Hayes’ scoffing at the notion of better monitoring of the mentally ill. The problem is not dangerously mentally ill people who are protected by privacy and other laws, but the evil white man trying to protect his own!
I told you that mental illness would not be addressed seriously, even though mental illness with warning signs of danger is a pattern in these mass murders. I had not anticipated that the race card would be the factor that got in the way.
The Professor is right that the Left does not want to see any serious discussion of how we deal with the mentally ill in America.
For the Leftist Masterminds, Reality is relative. Therefore, your Reality is different from mine or anyone else’s. Therefore, to treat people who deviate from the Reality excepted by the vast majority of people any differently than the said majority is - oh no! -
DISCRIMINATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Claiming this as you make a facial expression similar to the person in Munch’s painting The Scream also has the benefit of sowing even more Chaos into the fabric of American Society, which will aid, the Leftists believe, in speeding-up our collapse.
Could This Be One Explanation?