Thin Skinned Lefties

'Tease me about my tingling leg and I feel all sad inside.'

Chris Matthews took his show on the road for the RNC Convention and made the mistake of doing a show at an outdoor stage near the Tampa Bay Times Forum. "Hey Chris, how's that tingle up your leg?" came the call from two gentlemen, amongst giggles and laughter from the audience during a break in the show.

"Then this short dude who works for MSNBC pushed them," said Toby David, who came to the defense of the two hecklers. Another witness, Kim Churchman, added, "One of them was smiling and didn't know it was coming, and the guy just shoved him."

If anyone deserves to be razed for making such a stupid-ass, fawning statement, it's the tingler Chris Matthews. That being the case, the runt producer is going to have to learn to take it. There are a lot of people who would like to ask Chris if his leg is still tingling, just for the fun of watching that little puke of a producer try to lay hands on 'em.

Said David: "He kept pushing them around, so I rolled over there. And the MSNBC guy says, 'You wanna get in trouble too?’ I said: ‘Who are you? A cop? If not, maybe I should make a call and we'll see who's in trouble.' The MSNBC guy was just talking tough."

What a joke, this guy.

The MSNBC employee identified himself to The Hollywood Reporter as a producer but would not supply his name.

There's courage for you.

An MSNBC spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

An officer said that MSNBC told convention security that the two men "charged" at the producer.

Sounds about right. Start the lying right off the bat, and lay it on thick. That's the MSNBC way. Chris Matthews himself couldn't have said better.

Stupid

The Bush family doesn't have the best of records as far as embracing conservatism goes. Both George H.W. and George W. ate the pixie dust and thought they could reach across the isle to work with Democrats, a practice which placed both presidencies in jeopardy. Thus with the nation in the hazard and this last chance before us to turn back from the abyss, might this not be a smart time for Jeb Bush to keep a low profile?

“The future of our party is to reach out consistently to have a tone that is open and hospitable to people who share values. The conservative cause would be the governing philosophy as far as the eye could see … and that’s doable if we just stop acting stupid.”

I've got to wonder, was Jeb 'The Beav' to George's 'Wally'?

Obama Speak

Just a few days ago we were speaking of the seemingly limitless duplicity of those who argue from the left. I suppose if your unofficial slogan is "by any means necessary" then it would all make some sort of sense. Though not moral, at least one could see it as purposeful. But if you really believe you have the better ideas, that what you stand for is something that people would choose if they understood it properly, then why go through all the double speak? Well, over at the Daily Gator I came across a perfect illustraion of what we, the American people, are up against. An Edward Daley put together these three videos. Mark Steyn and Newt Gingrich are superb at contrasting what Obama says with the reality that we have to live in. Let's watch:

Barkin up the Wrong Tree

Faster, Pussycat!  Kill! Kill!

The social sophisticates among us continue on in their laudable, open minded and compassionate ways, seeking a better tomorrow through acceptance and understanding... as exemplified by Ellen Barkin. In her commitment to broadmindedness, she called for Tropical Storm Isaac to crush the Republican National Convention and drown all the delegates. Twitting to her followers(?!), she tweeted:

"Come on, Isaac! Wash every pro-life, anti-education, anti-woman, xenophobic, gay-bashing, racist SOB right into the ocean!"

Then, to make certain sure her followers could understand her meaning, that she was speaking of the Republicans, and not the Democrats who one might very well confuse with such a description, she added

"#RNC."

Okay Ellen, step away from the ledge. Everything will seem much better once we get the medication adjusted.

Good Lord! It's like Sebelius and her anti-bullying campaign. How rich, how completely absurd. These people don't understand just how ridiculously entertaining they are, and I don't mean when she's off playing in some B film.

And all this is done in the face of the recent Family Research Council shooting, where  Floyd Corkins, the 24 year-old Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender volunteer, showed up at the Family Research Council offices armed with a 9mm, fifty rounds of ammunition and a fifteen pack of Chick-fil-A sandwiches. "I don't like your politics."  he said, and then proceeded to start shooting. Fortunately Leo Johnson was there, and wrestled the sandwich munching shooter to the floor, although not before getting shot himself.

This then follows their general discourse: speech should be free (unless it is something they disagree with). Violence is bad (unless it is perpetuated against people they disagree with).

Another Baby Boomer celebrity took to Twitter, tweeting he wanted to see U.S. Congressman Todd Akin suffer a same-sex rape. And here I thought they were against rape, and were insulted to even hear the term "legitimate", as though women never lie and there was no such thing as the Duke Lacrosse case. Oh, wait a minute, they are against rape, unless, that is, it is perpetuated against people they disagree with. 

If they don't like your politics, it's a whole 'nother thing, baby.

Romneys make a cute couple

  The lucky dog.

Canadians Choose Freedom

This occurred a while back, but it was a great moment and I had to celebrate it with all of you.

The federal government has just voted to repeal Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. While the bill still has to pass a Senate vote, Canadians likely now have permission to speak more freely.

Section 13 was an effort by Canadian liberals to stop hateful speech, and no sooner had it been passed than liberals started looking to claim they had been offended. The predominant claimant in Section 13 cases was one Richard Warman, a lawyer and prior employee of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, who after leaving the CHRC made use of the law in filing claim after claim on behalf of various "injured parties", receiving the various awards the government issued. It was a seedy business to be sure. The entire nation had a damper placed on it, and a very talented blogger I used to follow named Sean Berry withdrew from public blogging, fearing he could easily be sued for expressing his opinion. Anyone of a number of people he might comment on could claim they were offended, and it would be up to him to prove that he had not breached the rule. Ultimately both Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant found themselves as defendents in Section 13 complaints. Steyn used to joke that he could not return to his native Canada without potentially being cited for a Section 13 thought crime. All this is behind us now:

Yesterday, critics of human rights commissions scored a huge victory. The repeal of Section 13 means that no one can be taken to a human rights commission for expressing what they feel, regardless of who they offend.

Give us joy! This was a great moment, a triumph of freedom over statism and oppression. Thank God!

Our Lips Are Sealed

For the past few months Code Pink has been encouraging their members to send the RNC photos of their privates. Carrying on in that vein and insisting they are victims of a nation that does not share their particular points of view, a group of pink clad prisses dressed up as Vaginas and attempted to embarrass those people attending the GOP convention.

As several thousand conventioneers arrived in buses at Tropicana Field, an indoor stadium where baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays play, they were met by about 400 protesters -- some of whom were in their vagina costumes. By that time, though, convention-goers hardly took notice of the crowd, and well-armed police and military personnel kept the demonstrators away from the party inside the stadium.

It took well-armed police and the military to keep the vaginas away from the republican conventioneers. Man, that's some determined Vaginas.

Meanwhile Bill "Free Willy" Clinton is hailed by these same dimwits as the epitome of the right thinking political persona. Yes, that's right, the impeached, disbarred former president, who made the whole nation discuss the merits of his disclaimer "I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky." He aroused nothing on the part of Code Pink. Does any of that bother the Vaginas? How about Juanita Broadrick? Kathleen Willey? Paula Jones? And on and on. Nope, the Vaginas were all smiles. Those "indiscretions" apparently did not rise to the level necessary to arouse much interest on the part of the Vaginas.

Pity.

Imperial President says Romney really, really 'Extreme'

Our royal pain-in-the-ass president, Barack Hussein Obama, said Mitt Romney has locked himself into "extreme positions" on economic and social issues and would surely impose them if elected.

Man, let's hope so.

My chief worry is that Romney doesn't have it in his bones. That he's just another selection of the GOP party elites and sees no crisis to address. But we know better. This bat shit crazy president of ours has been spending money in ways that are literally beyond comprehension, undermining the economy and starving out the private sector. He's got to go, and all his high spending worry-about-it-later ideas with him. This is our future we are talking about. No doubt about it, you and I and the entire rest of the world cannot keep up with this man's spending, so don't even start with this 'millionaires and billionaires' baloney. People with money in this country use it to build business and hire workers. Barama uses it to pay off union buddies and toss benefits to government employees and bureaucrats, and he does so to such excess it would make Charles Foster Kane envious. Rosebud, nothing.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Obama said Romney lacks serious ideas, refuses to "own up" to the responsibilities of what it takes to be president, and deals in factually dishonest arguments that could soon haunt him in face-to-face debates.

Can you believe this? Talk about projection, mister zero growth, 15% unemployment. What a God send you've been. How's that 'spread the wealth around' thing working out?

'If they buy this one, they'll believe anything...the rubes.'

Obama also offered a glimpse of how he would govern in a second term of divided government, insisting rosily that the forces of the election would help break Washington's stalemate.

He said he would be willing to make a range of compromises with Republicans, confident there are some who would rather make deals than remain part of "one of the least productive Congresses in American history."

In doing so, the president depicted his opponent as having accumulated ideas far outside the mainstream with no room to turn back.

Oh, I'm gunna worry about that one. Right.

Government Overreach, Cycling Edition

Armstrong training ride, Rocky Mountains, Colorado.

The USADA, an unaccountable government bureaucracy, has declared cyclist Lance Armstrong a doper. They do so without ever having held a hearing, without a positive drug screen to point to, with nothing, really, then what they claim would be the testimony of other cyclists, if such cyclists had to testify.

Here in the United States we have this quaint tradition of innocence presumed until proven guilty. Now not everyone the state fails to prove guilty is innocent, but our tradition is that the onus is on the state, acting on behalf of the people, to prove their allegations before taking action.

The question of whether or not cancer survivor and elite distance athlete Lance Armstrong has used performance enhancing substances is not new to the world. People, usually French press, French fans and the occasional French magistrate, have been alleging there must be some reason this rider has been so strong, and in their wistful, whimsical way dismiss the tremendous natural ability he possessed, which was magnified by his burning desire to succeed and willingness to put himself through a tremendous amount of physical pain, and to do it over and over again. If you are French, it is easier to simply allege he took unfair advantage. Thus, they have pressed and pushed to protect their national sport from interlopers from across the sea. To that end, Mr. Armstrong has been scrutinized more intensely then any other rider. Over 500 tests were taken. Urine tests. Blood tests. Tests after stage wins. Random tests throughout the race season. Random tests through the off season. Random tests through the preseason training period. Throughout it all he has obliged the governing bodies of cycling, making himself available and producing sample after sample, all of which were tested, and through the twenty years he was competing they consistently showed no evidence of illegal drug use.

No matter.

''Any time we have overwhelming proof of doping, our mandate is to initiate the case through the process and see it to conclusion as was done in this case,'' said USADA chief executive Travis Tygart.

What a bonehead.

Flucked

Sandra Fluke, the thirty-year-old student who selected Georgetown for her law education because she believed it would present her with an opportunity to undermine the principles the school holds most dear, has been chosen by the DNC to be a speaker at their national convention. The DNC announced on Tuesday that Fluke will be one of the “women leaders” to speak at its convention Sept. 4-6 in Charlotte, N.C. Personally, I don't think they could have made a more representative choice.

Fluke (rhymes with duck) is the quintessential Democrat. She has no regard for the rights of others, goes out of her way to impose her viewpoint, has no problem using the force of government to impose her will, and after entering the public discourse on the largest of national stages, plays the helpless victim when her ideas are challenged. A tiresome twit of a woman, from a tiresome twit of a national party. Yes, it is a party of individuals so divorced from the ideals of liberty and freedom that they cannot recognize them when spoken of. Democrats of years gone by would be embarrassed by today's Democrats.

“I was verbally attacked,” Fluke said before introducing the president in Denver.

Yes, and wasn't that a surprise. What, did she think everyone was just going to roll over and accept those very valuable insights she shared? What was it, Ms. Fluke could see the pain on the faces of her fellow students who could not afford their birth control? Right. Can you believe the dishonesty of this person? I could not imagine joining a religious university and then thinking it was within my right to demand they provide for me that which they find morally and spiritually repugnant. Yeah, boo hoo Sandra.

“President Obama came to my defense."

'I needed someone to make me feel better about myself.' Well, that's nice. $3,000 a year for her contraceptives - go take a hike, you nitwit! I believe it came out to something like three condoms a day - that she needs paid for - by you and me! It's not just the impetuous ruminations of a 30 year old law twerp - it is the self-absorbed, self-righteous preening of a professional poser. Women leaders, indeed.

Young Men and Fire

The story of the Mann Gulch fire is a story of adventurous young men and their collision with startling tragedy. It is a mystery story, an investigative story, a story of an older man trying to discovery and understand something from long ago, something deeply painful, something most people wanted to forget. It is a story of youth and courage, of the woods and woodsmen, of tragic loss and the suffering of loved ones.

Norman writes:

Those who knew something about the woods or about nature should soon have perceived an alarming gap between the almost sole purpose, clear but narrow, of the early Smokejumpers and the reality they were sure to confront, reality almost anywhere having inherent in it the principle that little things suddenly and literally can become big as hell, the ordinary can suddenly become monstrous, and the upgulch breeze suddenly can turn to murder. Since this principle comes about as close to being universal as a principle can, you might have thought someone in the early history and training of the Smokejumpers would have realized that something like the Mann Gulch fire would happen before long. But no one seems to have sensed this first principle because of a second principle inherent in the nature of man—namely, that generally a first principle can't be seen until after it has been written up as a tragedy and becomes a second principle.

Mann Gulch north slope a week after the fire.

Staying at his family's lake cabin in Montana during the summer break, Norman was within twenty miles at the time of the fire. A woodsmen himself who almost was caught in the Fish Creek fire when working for the Forest Service as a young man, he always felt a connection to the events that happened on Mann Gulch that hot August day. Upon his retirement, he took upon himself the job of discovering the secrets known only to those that perished in the fire. He did so to honor those that died there, to discover and share with them in their lives, their suffering and their tragedy, and in so doing shed light upon tragedy itself, a thing which in one way or another will ultimately become a part of all of our lives.

Norman Maclean is a fine man to head into the woods with. He has a dry sense of humor that is never lost, even when he is suffering through the heat of Mann Gulch in August. Of the many men we meet in our journey, I loved the character of Robert Sallee. Tough young kid and a very straightforward man. He led a very productive life, and resides in retirement today in Spokane Washington. Another favorite is Wag Dodge, the foreman, who kept his cool in the hottest of pressures, and discovered a way out, if only they would follow him to it. The responsibility of keeping those men safe weighed heavy upon him. After the fire, he stayed two more days, helping to identify the lost firefighters and remove their bodies. Dodge could never bring himself to jump again. He went up three more times, but could not go out through the door and into the unknown. His was a particularly tragic story.

Mann Gulch as it appears today, from Stanley Reba's cross.

Norman Maclean never finished Young Men and Fire. Perhaps the journey of self discovery had not reached its end by the time of his death. Perhaps the threads he attempted to weave together could not quite fit. Perhaps he tired before the fire and its tragedy, and was himself overtaken by it all. In the end it was left for his son, John Maclean, to finish the project, which he did along with the help of a number of the editors from the University of Chicago Press.

As far as the fire and escape goes, I part with Norman and stand with Bob Sallee and Walt Rumsey. There are a number of reasons I do not go along with some of the markings and artifacts created by the Forest Service: the whole area had been burned out, the points and distances between them were difficult to estimate by the men on that steep slope, and often things were closer than what they seemed to be, and the Forest Service was not a neutral third party. But the chief reason I choose the crevice and the placement of the escape fire where I do is the fact that Bob Sallee and Walter Rumsey said so. I have no doubt they were able to locate the cleft through which they escaped. Thus, I believe Dodge's escape fire was up gulch from where the Forest Service had it placed. These things can never be known in certainty, but that is where I place my trust.

Rod Benson is a Montana high school teacher who made a class project over the tragedy of the Mann Gulch fire. His "virtual field trip" to Mann Gulch is excellent, and can be found here.

"It is clear to me now that the universe in its truculence doesn't permit itself to be that well known."

- Norman Maclean

Norman's Young Men and Fire is much more than a story of a deadly forest fire. It is a story of life and tragedy. I am there with Norman heart and soul. He is a fine writer, and it was a pleasure to be able to travel along with him, though the answers we sought were elusive, and sometimes not for us to find.

This is too rich

Though I again find myself on some sort of writing hiatus, I could not help but comment on this Steyn piece in The Corner on the gulf between the idea of helping others and the reality of helping others:

In a TV infomercial a few days before his election, Obama declared that his “fundamental belief” was that “I am my brother’s keeper”.

Hmm. Back in Kenya, his brother lives in a shack on 12 bucks a year. If Barack is his brother’s keeper, why can’t he shove a sawbuck and a couple singles in an envelope and double the guy’s income? Ah, well: When Barack Obama claims that “I am my brother’s keeper”, what he means is that the government should be his brother’s keeper.

Oh man, it kills! You have to read the whole thing.

Oh, and check out Dinesh D'Souza's 2016.