…Suddenly another voice spoke, low and melodious, its very sound an enchantment. Those who listened unwarily to that voice could seldom report the words that they heard; and if they did, they wondered, for little power remained in them. Mostly they remembered only that it was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire awoke in them by swift agreement to seem wise themselves. When others spoke they seemed harsh and uncouth by contrast; and if they gainsaid the voice, anger was kindled in the hearts of those under the spell. For some the spell lasted only while the voice spoke to them, and when it spoke to another they smiled, as mend do who see through a juggler’s trick while others gape at it. For many the sound of the voice alone was enough to hold them enthralled; but for those whom it conquered the spell endured when they were far away, and ever they heard that soft voice whispering and urging them. But none were unmoved; none rejected its pleas and its commands without an effort of mind and will, so long as its master had control of it.
The Two Towers
Book III Chapter 10
The Voice of Saruman
Tolkien Quote of the Day
Darn Floor - Big Bite — Rereleased, remastered Nov. 25th.
Daniel Amos (D. A., Dä), the most totally awesome Christian New Wave band of the 1980s (so awesome that their albums are banned from most Christian bookstores) is re-releasing this Tuesday what some consider to be their greatest album Darn Floor-Big Bite. It will be available from Amazon, iTunes, and all the regular places.
History holds for us the hope of a bright future.
We are in a sorry state, friends
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As of January, the amount of power Republicans hold in Washington will have to be measured using the Kelvin scale.
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The Republican “brand name” is about as popular right now as the intestinal flu and we are reeling from the presidency of one of the least popular American leaders in history.
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We lack a strong, well-spoken national Republican leader. While the other side has a front-man with a brilliant smile, twinkle in his eye and the charisma of George Clooney.
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The conservative and moderate wings of the Republican Party are in a struggle for ideological control of the party.
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As such, when a strong, well-spoken Republican Sarah Palin entered the spotlight, the press and “moderate” Republicans did everything they could to make her appear to be stupid, out of touch with the American people and out of touch with reality.
This whole sordid affair brought to my mind a description of the Republican National Convention of 1976 that I had once heard given my Mike Reagan.
He spoke of Party infighting and that he believed that the Party had pretty much stolen the nomination away from his father (the Party had more control of such things back then.)
While I couldn’t find any reference to Mike’s description on the Interweb, I did discover this interview with Ed Meese that covered some of the same territory.
Give it a read. Here’s a taste:
As far as the two sides, the Ford supporters, of course, were primarily establishment Republican Party figures and several of the state delegations. The Reagan delegates and supporters were primarily strong conservatives on both foreign policy and domestic policy.
While the parallels to our current situation aren’t perfect, there are enough similarities between now and then to remind us that we have been in this situation before and we not only overcame it, we overcame it triumphantly.
On Mahjong and the American Electorate
My mother-in-law spends much of her day playing online games with her friends and playing computer Mahjong by herself.
Last week she mentioned offhandedly that the game had stopped working. I told her that I’d take a look and see if I could fix it.
Upon logging on to her computer I quickly realized that there was more wrong than just a broken game. She had performance issues, evidence of adware and a generally unstable system. She said that she had noticed some problems but didn’t worry about them until she couldn’t play her game anymore.
I spent the next two evenings cleaning out malware, fixing Internet Explorer, installing updates and patches, defragging her hard drive and basically tuning up Windows (logmein free is flippin’ awesome (and free) but remotely fixing a slow, unstable computer with it can take a while).
I just voted McCain/Palin
I live in Washington State, one of the Bluest states in America*. And I just marked my mail-in ballot (the entire state votes by mail-in ballot, isn’t that smart?) for John McCain.
I realize that there is No.Possible.Way that McCain is going to win this state. But I voted, because if I didn’t that would just be wrong.
If I didn’t vote I would be giving in and doing what the Left and the Dems want me to do. And that would be…surrendering.
In the last week there have been several liberals who signed up here at RedState solely for the purpose of posting diaries or comments designed to get us to give up and stay home. As if we didn’t get enough of that from the MSM.
But I can’t give up. I can’t surrender my vote. Too much blood has been spilled to purchase the right for me and, even on the state level, there is just too much at stake for me to stay home (figuratively speaking) and wallow in self-pity.
Because while I was voting for President, I also:
- Voted for Dino Rossi (R) for Governor.
- I voted to keep assisted suicide illegal in WA.
- I voted to keep Sound Transit from raising taxes and perusing more of their light rail stupidity.
- Voted, yet again, against Norm Dicks.
Somebody wants an audit.
Orson Scott Card, Democrat author and journalist, “speaks truth to power” in this open letter to newspapers across the country. And boy, can that man speak.
This housing crisis didn’t come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.
It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.
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Isn’t there a story here? Doesn’t journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren’t you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?
New Word of the Day: Plumb.
v.tr. The act, performed by the Left and their friends in the MSM, of publicly scrutinizing the private life of any individual, public or private, who makes Barack Obama look bad or assists Barack Obama in making himself look bad or challenges him in any way; with the purpose of discrediting that individual and hopefully destroying his/her life/career, or at least intimidating them (and anyone else who would do the same) enough so that they shut the heck up.
suff: -ed -ing -s -ers
eg.:
1. You’d better not say that Joe, you’re likely to get plumbed.
2. I sure hope the plumbers didn’t hear that.
3. Those conservative blogs sure do gum up the plumbing.
4. She plumbs Palin on Facebook for the NYT.
Educate the Idiots.
Face the State, which refers to itself as “the ‘go-to’ news resource for Coloradans interested in state and local politics,” has obtained a confidential memo from the Colorado Democracy Alliance (a Colorado 527 group) which contains both a list of their operatives and the tasks assigned to them.
The list of operatives includes the Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff and Gov. Bill Ritter’s press aide, both of whom are labeled “covert.”
That’s not the most interesting part though. The most interesting part is some of the tasks assigned to the Democrat operatives…
From the Face the State article:
The document outlines specific tasks for various members of the state’s liberal infrastructure, including a campaign to “educate the idiots,” assigned to the state’s AFL-CIO union. Among the operation’s intended targets: “minorities, GED’s, drop-outs.”
hax0r FAIL. Update: He got served.
I realize that the news that the Feds are breathing down the neck of David Kernell (son of Democratic Tennessee state representative Mike Kernell) is a couple of days old, but I hadn’t heard how they managed to catch him, then I found this article at TGDaily (via Slashdot), that gives the whole story. Here’s the lowdown:
…White hat hackers didn’t even need proxy information to find the culprit because they discovered that the Rubico forum handle was linked to rubico10@yahoo.com.This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it A few searches on Google and YouTube further links this email address to 20-year-old David Kernell, a student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. His father is Democratic Tennessee state representative Mike Kernell.
“But I was behind a proxy server!!!” He he he…
McCain up by 1 at RCP; Update +3.2
…or both?
The USA Today/Gallup poll that has him (them) up by ten helps a bit. Of course such an anomaly could be completely meaningless, but RCP states that the USAT/Gallup sample was of L(ikely)V(oters) so it should be more reliable than some of the other polls out there, however Gallup reportsthat the sample was “…1,022 adults, including 959 registered voters” and I’m not sure how those 63 adults who weren’t yet registered to vote quailfied as “likely voters.”
Polls should be illegal. They cause me too much anxiety. I’m popping on my peril-sensitive sunglasses until the election.
