The Happy Carpenter

The price of crude is down 20%

Damn! Senator John (did you know he served in Viet Nam?) Kerry just can't catch a break!

Like homosexuality, being Pro-“Choice” is a problem that will self-correct over time

“Abortion is costing the Democrats voters—literally.”

When I first heard this headline read aloud on the radio, I didn’t get it. After a five count, the meaning sunk in. Cold, man. Really cold. But obviously true. The author of the article, first published in American Spectator and put in The Wall Street Journal, explains his methodology thus:

Here's what we know from several generations of social science research about children:
• They tend to absorb the values of their parents.
• They tend to have the same political views as their family (parents, siblings, immediate relatives) and share common views on political causes.
• They tend to develop the same lifestyle as their family.

Table 2: Missing Republicans vs. Missing Democrats
Party % of total abortions % of party w/abortions Party as % of electorate Party loss/gain
Republican 35% 28% 39% +4
Independent 16% 30% 17%
Democrat 49% 36% 44% -5

(Sorry, Gentle Reader, but TypePad still can't handle tables worth a damn. You'll have to extract the meaning from the above.)

I really don’t know how to react to this. I guess I may be permitted more than one reaction.

On the one hand, the table shows that a hell of a lot of conservatives are hypocrites; if 27% of self-identified Conservative/Republicans are having abortions, what is that if not hypocrisy?

Also on the other hand, if 38% of Liberal/Democrats are removing themselves from the (shallow end of the) gene pool, am I not hypocritical to say “good riddance?” Well, yes, I wish all those people were alive today. They deserved to live. But they did not.

The ends do not justify the means, but given the means, can one be glad for the ends?

Like homosexuality, being Pro-“Choice” is a problem that will self-correct over time, although mutation will not permit the deviance to be totally extinguished. Wow, that sounds really mean. But true. If you don’t like it, refute it.

I swear I am not making this up -- Barbara's Election Year Version of PEOPLE

From barbrastreisand.com
PEOPLE
I MEAN G - O - P - EOPLE -
WHO'D BELIEVE THERE'S SUCH PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD?
BUSH SEEZA
LOTTA CONDOLEEZA,
THEY'RE DIVIDING THE PLANET'S OIL
ACCORDING TO RICHARD "POIL"
AND THEY'RE ALL JUST TRAINEES
OF CHENEY'S.

RUMSFELD,
WE MUST GET RID OF RUMSFELD -
HE'S THE SPOOKIEST PERSON IN THE WORLD.
AS FOR POWELL -
HE'S NEITHER FISH NOR FOWL.
HE'S IN THE BACK OF THE ROOM,
WHILE THEY'RE ALL FIDDLING WITH DOOM.
NO ONE'S MINDING THE STORE.
WHAT'S MORE,
LET'S DISCUSS THIS WAR WE'RE LOST IN,
DON'T ASK WHAT IT'S COSTIN' -
WHAT'S A TRILLION OR TWO TO RULE THE WORLD?

(Second chorus)
THE SENATE
HOW I WANT THE SENATE!
ALL WE NEED IS TWO PEOPLE IN THE WORLD!
I SEEA
ANTONIN SCALIA.
HOW I DREAD EV'RY TIME HE SITS -
SCARED OUT OF MY WOLFOWITZ.
TIME THOSE NEO-CON GUYS
WERE GONE GUYS.

THEY'RE LYING -
WHILE THE GLOBE IS FRYING -
AND THE FISHES ARE DYING IN THE WORLD.
THEIR SOLUTION
FOR ALL OF THE POLLUTION:
IS JUST TO BEAR IT AND GRIN,
AND PRACTICE NOT BREATHING IN.
BUT THINGS ARE GONNA BE GREAT.
JUST WAIT -
WHEN THE WHITE HOUSE STATIONERY,
READS PRESIDENT JOHN KERRY -
WE'LL BE THE LUCKIEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD!

Can you say "LAME"?

How we doin'?

Let's review:

As we neared three years of fighting in World War II, Patton was stalled near Germany for want of gas, V-2 rockets began raining down on England, and we were fighting to take the Marianas in preparation for future B-29 bases. In comparison, what exactly is our current status in this, our confusing third year of war against Islamic fascists and their autocratic sponsors?

THE STRATEGIC PICTURE
Despite all the near paralysis over the 9/11 Commission, Abu Ghraib, denials about the obvious prior "ties" between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda, various "letters of conscience" posted by hypercritical legal grandees, former diplomats, generals, and D.C. apparatchiks, things in the strategic sense are ever so slowly looking up for the United States.

Unlike the Cold War, when our tactical options were circumscribed by nuclear enemies, today the world's true powers are decidedly unfriendly to radical Islam — and growing more so daily.

My Lovely Wife

This is one of the coolest pictures I've ever taken. I posted it last October, and she still gets "hit" several times a day.
Cool.

Mikey's Summer Reading List

My high school friend Mikey (voted Most Likely to Take a Rifle Up Into a Tower) has submitted his summer reading list to me. Comments are welcome:

The Nautical Chart
by Arturo Perez-Reverte, Margaret Sayers Peden

You have to like sailing or the sea to like this one.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
A treasure hunt for a Jesuit ship sunk by pirates off the coast of Spain is
the plot on which Perez-Reverte's new novel turns, but a love story is the
real heart of this nicely crafted, carefully told adventure. A suspended
sailor happens on a maritime auction in Barcelona, where he meets the
beautiful Tanger Soto, a museum curator whose winning bid buys her a
17th-century atlas that may reveal the final resting place of the Dei
Gloria. Coy, the sailor, is totally smitten, so it's no surprise that he
signs on to help Tanger track the sunken ship to its grave in waters he's
sailed since childhood. Enlisting the aid of a diver friend, Coy and Tanger
stay a few steps ahead of the crooked salvagers who've been trying to get
the atlas, outmaneuvering the attempts on their lives and the efforts to
keep them from the treasure. Perez-Reverte (The Fencing Master, The Club
Dumas) is better at plumbing the mysteries of the human heart than those of
the sea, but The Nautical Chart manages to combine history, suspense, and
obsessive love in a slow-paced but ultimately engrossing read. --Jane
Adams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this
title.

Little Green Men
by Christopher Buckley

This was hilarious


Amazon.com
In Christopher Buckley's hilarious fourth novel, Washington, D.C., is naturally enough a place of sex, lies, and videotape. Unfortunately for Little Green Men's pundit protagonist, John Oliver Banion, it is also the HQ of Majestic Twelve, a very, very covert government project. Since "that golden Cold War summer of 1947," MJ-12 has had a single mission--to convince taxpayers that space invaders are constantly lurking below what's left of the ozone layer. "A country convinced that little green men were hovering over the rooftops was inclined to vote yea for big weapons and space programs," the author thoughtfully explains.
But one disgruntled operative wants out. Nathan Scrubbs is fed up to the back teeth with the art of alien abduction--not to mention his cover as a Social Security flunky--so when his request for a transfer is quashed, he drunkenly decides to take it out on ubiquitous ultra-prig Banion, who happens to be on TV at the time. The ensuing high-tech kidnap, at Maryland's Burning Bush Country Club, is only one of the thousands of convulsively funny scenes in Little Green Men. Not that the novel isn't a skewed morality play of some sort: as Banion comes to believe in Tall Nordics and Short Ugly Grays, he is quickly removed from every A-list in town. But oddly enough, social and political disaster turns out to be as liberating as the finest alien probe. Let's just say that long before Banion and Scrubbs have a close encounter at the Millennium Man March on Washington, this Beltway barrel of monkeys attains a truly extraplanetary level of amusement. --Kerry Fried --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Hit Man -- by Lawrence Block;

I'm a big Lawrence Block fan. I read/listen to anything of his I can find.

Amazon.com
A man known only as Keller is thinking about Samuel Johnson's famous quote that "'patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel'... If you looked at it objectively, he had to admit, then he was probably a scoundrel himself. He didn't feel much like a scoundrel. He felt like your basic New York single guy, living alone, eating out or bringing home takeout, schlepping his wash to the Laundromat, doing the Times crossword with his morning coffee... There were eight million stories in the naked city, most of them not very interesting, and his was one of them. Except that every once in a while he got a phone call from a man in White Plains. And packed a bag and caught a plane and killed somebody. Hard to argue the point. Man behaves like that, he's a scoundrel. Case closed." But Lawrence Block is such a delightfully subtle writer, one of the true masters of the mystery genre, that the case is far from closed. In this beautifully linked collection of short stories, we gradually put together such a complete picture of Keller that we don't so much forgive him his occupation as consider it just one more part of his humanity. After watching Keller take on cases that baffle and anger him into actions that fellow members of his hit-man union might well call unprofessional, we're eager to join him as he goes through a spectacularly unsuccessful analysis and gets fooled by a devious intelligence agent. We miss the dog he acquires and loses, along with its attractive walker. Like Richard Stark's Parker, Keller makes us think the unthinkable about criminals: that they might be the guys next door--or even us, under different pressures. For a small selection of the many Blocks in paperback, try Coward's Kiss, A Long Line of Dead Men, The Sins of the Fathers, Such Men Are Dangerous, and especially When the Sacred Ginmill Closes. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Master and Commander (Aubrey-Maturin (Paperback))
by Patrick O'Brian

I have listened to a few of this series, and so I feel that I can recommend a book that I have not yet read.

This review is for those who watched the "master and Commander" movie and are now contemplating reading the series.

The caveats are that it is a long series of books (20) and that the pace is much slower than Hollywood's. That said, if you have any interest in the times (The Napoleonic Wars) and the topic (sailing, naval warfare), you will certainly want to set sail with Patrick O'Brien. In "master and Commander," you will find almost no overlap with the eponymous film, except that the principal characters are Captain Aubrey and Dr. Maturin, and much revolves around their relationship.

Indeed, personalities and relationships are one of the strong suits of these books, which have rich and evolving character development. Start here, read through a few, and by the time you are several books in, half the Royal Navy will be old friends, or adversaries. Likewise, don't be put off by the details of sailing; the topgallants, the weather gauge, and the bo'sun will all be well-understood in time.

O'Brien lets plot, character development, and technical explanation unfold over time. Be patient. After all, you wil be reading a ripping sailing yarn with exciting battles and exotic places in the interim.

O'Brien opens a lost world to us, with wonderful research into history, natural phenomena, speech patterns, and more. Set sail with him now and you will never regret having joined the crew.

The Regulators
by Stephen King, Richard Bachman

This is a good read if you like Steven King

Amazon.com
An evil creature called Tak uses the imagination of an autistic boy to shift a residential street in small-town Ohio into a world so bizarre and brutal that only a child could think it up. It's as two-dimensional and gaudy as a kid's comic book, but for this reviewer, The Regulators is a gripping adventure tale about what happens when a mind fixated on TV (especially old Westerns and a cartoon called MotoKops 2200) runs amok. As Michael Collins writes in Necrofile, "[Stephen] King offers his readers a glimpse of the true evil of popular culture ... which has no design or intent, only an empty need to sustain itself. King is, I think, about the canniest observer of what America is, and that he generally writes horror ought to give us pause from time to time."

The Art of Exceptional Living
by E. James Rohn, Jim Rohn

Change your life

Every Man a Tiger (Commander's)
by Tom Clancy, Chuck Horner

Not the ususal Clancy drivel

also

Into the Storm
by Tom Clancy, Fred Franks

Excellent view from ringside of the military industrial complex.

I'd add the Steven Stirling books, and Gates of Fire, but you already read them....

*******************************************

Pedro sez... Gates of Fire and Island in the Sea of Time are great!

Learn something new every day

According to a guest of Walter Williams, who was guest hosting the Rush Limbaugh Show on Friday, June 25,

40% of the membership of the AFL-CIO is Republican.

Hmmmmm. I wonder if 40% of the AFL-CIO's political contributions go to the GOP? I leave the research to you, Gentle Reader.

The source: Ms. Linda Chavez, author of Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics, a book about labor in the United States.

Turn about is fair play - OR - The best decision I ever made

So we're all loaded up to go camping for the weekend. We've got the trailer loaded up with the golf cart, the kayak, the bikes, the candelabra, the whole 9 yards. My kinder plus two loaners are squawking in the back seat. Only problem -- it's almost 6:00 PM, sunset is at 8:30, and it's a 3-1/2 hour drive to the camp site.

About 2 miles out, we decided to turn around and go home. We'll be leaving (again) at 4:30 AM. The kinder say they're going to sleep in the van -- fine with me.

Man! I am so relieved. Who the hell wants to set up camp in the dark? Not me!

Good bye, Andy.

Download andy_galos_swiss_lullaby.wma

Mike will never forget you, nor lose you in his heart.

I only had the chance to hear Andy play his violin one time. It was at his beautiful Seattle condo, in site of the lake, and he only played for a minute or two. Now, I'm no big fan of the violin. I don't go out of my way to hear them played. But that minute or two was unforgettable. Beautiful. Almost haunting. And Andy was only fooling around. I'll never forget it.

Andy had been on dialysis forever, which is no picnic. Still, his passing was sudden and unexpected. It will take us some time to adjust to his absence. You should have heard him tell stories about his WWII basic training. He was a little guy, not exactly an Audey Murphy type (but then, Audey Murphy wasn't an Audey Murphy type either). Anyway, Andy gave the impression his drill instructors despaired of making a fighting soldier out of him, and that that was just fine with Andy. You had to be there, you had to see the twinkle in his eye when he told his stories, but he was a riot in his own unique way.

Another time, we were leaving Brandy & Mike's house, and we were running late. I think it might have been for their rehearsal dinner. Anyway, I remember it was kinda important for us to be on time, and just as we're running out the door, coats on and keys in hand, all of a sudden Andy and his wife, Ruth, sit down! I thought me and my parents' eyes would bug out from frustration! Later, Brandy explained to me that this was an Old World tradition, to help you remember things before you left. Hilarious. Since then, I've learned the wisdom of Andy & Ruth's custom, and I always think of them when I pull a U-y two blocks from my house to go back and get the thing I forgot.

I wish I had more shared memories with Andy and Ruth, but Florida-Washington is a hard hurdle to overcome. Still, that's always the thing you regret when a truly nice person passes away -- you wish you'd tried harder, made the time, gone the extra mile.

Sigh..........

Turning the Tables -- The Story of a Conservative High School Student Who Drove the Lefties Crazy by Keeping Calm and Using Reason and Protest Tactics Against Them

In Princeton, West Virginia, lives a high school student named Bryan Henderson, who decided to post some political opinion posters around the school. Since his posters have logical slogans such as "Stop the Vicious Spread of Wealth Creation. Vote Green!" and "Except for ending slavery, fascism, naziism, and communism, War Never Stopped Anything." Well this seems to have driven his local lefites around the bend. Before you know it, they were tearing down his posters and calling him names and making threats of violence against him.
Big surprise.
He has put together a wonderful website. The story of his little subversion is good reading. My favorite part is his request to the ACLU for help in the battle against censorship. Heh!

Courtesy of Capitalist Lion