December 30, 2005
What do you say when someone’s obviously not playing with a full deck, a few bricks shy of a load, a beer or two short of a six pack, one member less than a quorum? Let me get the ball rolling, and maybe a few (or both 
of my regular readers can add a couple. Or more.
He’s playing poker with monopoly money…
…rolling dice with marbles…
…?
Come on. Y’all can do better than those. Easily. Without resorting to Google.
December 30, 2005
Boudicca picked up a non-meme-ish suggestion and passed it on in Top 10 Good People of 2005. Not necessarily “big names” but folks who’ve been a strong positive influence, personally or in wider society.
At least, that’s how I’m choosing to interpret this. Bou’s post was a lil vague (she was still heavily medicated from her surgery), and GuyK’s post at Charming, Just Charming (whence Bou picked this up) is pretty open-ended.
So, maybe not ten. Maybe not the TOP ten. But quite a few.
Let me begin with my fav top ten bloggers who have had a positive influence on me this year. Keep in mind: I am NOT listing them in any order other than maybe alphabetically, ‘K? Having pared it down to only ten, I feel badly because another list just as long belongs with this one. So, as wrong as this list is, here are ten OF the top good folks who have positively influenced my life this last year:
Kris at Anywhere But Here
Christine of BTW and Morning Coffee & Afternoon Tea
Bou (heal quickly!) at Boudicca’s Voice
My Blogmom, Carol Platt Liebau
Kathryn at Cathouse Chat
Diane of, well, Diane’s Stuff
Rich at The English Guy
Kat from Keep The Coffee Coming
TMH (secretive booger that he is) of TMH’s Bacon Bits
Woody of the eponymous Woody’s News & Views
Please keep in mind that I’ve left off many who have been just as good to me, had influence just as positive as the folks on this list, but I’m trying to keep this portion at ten. The rest of you who belong on this list also know you do, but you’re the kinda folks who will take it in the right spirit. Good on you one and all.
In “real life” I’d have to list my Wonder Woman, Lovely Daughter and Bubba at the top. No matter what (even when I’m not at my best or irked with one of them or whatever), they are the most positive influences in my life. Period. They KNOW the real curmudgeonly me, and still lend me their light.
I miss my neighbor. Yeh. The one neighbor, really. Always ready to help with anything. Nobody’s perfect, but he was a thoughtful, generous guy.
A couple of my siblings definitely qualify as strong influences for good-older sister and younger brother. Pretty constant contact with these two, and they are always uplifting. Heck, I’d have to say my youngest nephew has been a strong positive influence! (Just keeping up with his academic progress has thrown me back at some classics in my reading.) Great kid.
Guy at the local grocery who has fun playing my silly people/word games. Heck, the checkers there are neat, too. Aww… even the owner’s a really nice guy (though he’d not necessarily want ya to know it–likes to play curmudgeon. heh).
And two clients who have done medical transcription for years (you know who you are-and since you read this blog, I’ll let this be your “Have a great new year!” OK? . Thanks, ladies, for your continual positive outlook and influence on me. Oh, and thank the bread baker, too.
NOTE: this list is not exhaustive, either. Just a quick runback through a few contacts in the last lil bit who have been constant positive influences over the past year.
And that’s my of ten of the top Good People of 2005 for the “real world”-how about yours?
December 30, 2005
Here it is: the post you’ve all been waiting for. Right.
A few third world county posts from 2005. Not necessarily “The best of TWC” but certainly representative of the “most unrecognized posts of TWC 2005″ . Warts and all: typos, tortured syntax, whatever.
January 2005: The LLMB and MMPA’s psychotic break with reality
Witness this fair paraphrase of the progression of positions taken by the LLMB and MMPA leading up to and continuing through and beyond the [Iraq] election:
1.) The U.S. is embarking on empire and will not allow self-government by the Iraqis.
(Demonstrably false)
2.) The promised elections are not/will not be possible. (Demonstrably false)
3.) The promised election will not take place on time.(Demonstrably false)
4.) The elections will be a failure, a bloodbath. (Demonstrably false)
5.) The election will be illegitimate (because of non-participation). (Demonstrably false)
February 2005: ::YAWN:: More dog bites man non-news
Belaboring the obvious: Bob Dylan flogs a dead horse…
(Wherein your humble-ha!-author emulates J.E.P. “It’s a daybook.” It’s not well organized or well-edited. It’s just stuff that occurs to me to jot down. Notes, to myself as much as anything else.)
Curmudgeon Mode: Tried to take an online musical survey-discovered I’m an antediluvian…
Yeh. Noah still owes me two sheep and a dove…
Recommended Reading between now and the 2006 elections
OK, I can’t resist two from March: Men Without Chests
And: St David’s Day 
April 2005: Musical Teleology and Musical Survey–not so very. The first offers a perspective on a couple of recent songs and the second…
May 2005: A Conspiracy of Dunces.
A (short) litany of woes
Here’s a very short list of things that seem to be aimed at destroying the American experiment in liberty.
And Javascript Cookies™! and Unconscious Parenthood (my bid for a “Blogmothers Day” observance).
June 2005: News from the Islamic jihad and Preparing for ‘06
(Not that I hold out much hope for the denizens of Demoncrappic Underpants, Moooove-on.orgy, the Mass Media Podpeople’[s Army, the Loony Left Moonbat Brigade, Republican't Congresscritters and their ilk, etc.)
And In your dreams: Headlines from 2006
July 2005: Dysfunctional America
I let my mixmaster loose on the current scene and here's what resulted...
Yes, there is a culltural divide in these United States. And here are a few of the dividing points...
August 2005: Open Borders Kill
"Open Borders"-the words have a ring of liberty, equality, fraternity… but please remember where the last great movement with that catchphrase ended up...
[Throw some sand in various moonbat gears, eh?]
So, Alito’s next. The big question: will Republican’t Senators do a pants check and find-to everyone’s amazement-the stones to carry the nomination through?
Follow the Rabbit Trail (in which my rambling rant becomes more than just rthe usual self-referential metacommentary-see the punchline in comments to that post: there are none .
September 2005: Listen with your heart, A lil experiment–first Castpoint trial. And, The real threat.
October 2005: Quick! Spread the ‘Karl Rove IS Machiavelli’ meme…
November 2005: Drive-by post
Yeh, walking through when the TV’s babbling one of those touchy-feely “PSAs” that are totally cracked, I hear:
“Friends always make you laugh.”
Riiiigggghhht.
“Hey, dude, your grandma died? That’s like, so totally hilarious, man!”
If this doesn’t move you… then you need a heart and soul transplant…
December 2005: You’re here, browse on your own. I have a cute lil troll commenting on one post. You might find him amusing. I don’t think he’s trainable, but so far he’s not made any serious potty messes. Look around a bit, if you want. Or not.
Up in lights at Basil’s Blog, Bloggin’ Outloud.
December 30, 2005
(With apologies to T.S. Eliot)
[These] are the hollow men
[These] are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.
Alexandra asked for a “10 Worst Americans” list. In her post, she further elaborates using the term “evil” to describe characteristics of “worst” Americans. Most of my “worst Americans” (though not all) fit the mangling of T.S. Eliot’s words above.
With nearly 230 years’ worth of people who have had a negative impact on society in America, I could name ten and not even scratch the surface. But here, mostly in no great order, are ten of the worst. Note: Since there are so many “worst Americans” I’ve included a few classes of “worst Americans” that embrace some who simply cannot be drawn out from the crowd around them. “So great a host… “
An obvious pick would be Jean Fraud sKerry. Along with his more intelligent and able fellow scum, Billary Clinton (yeh, no one could doubt that unholy wedlock has made them one after the way they lied, cheated and slandered their way in and out of office over and over), Jean Fraud has defined filthy, low down dirty lying, cheating. scumbag politics for the late 20th and early 21st Centuries.
There: two in one.
(Still no ranking. One could lump Harry Pelosi Kennedy in the mix with Jean Fraud and Billary and not really notice any personality change.)
Next, who can doubt Dan Blather, his ilk and apologists (Mass Media Podpeople and Loony Left Moonbats one and all) occupy slot number three? I say all these “people” together comprise one of the worst Americans because they “think” with a group mind. Dittoheads are anarchistic individualists next to the “commie fag junkie” (to steal a great meme from George Carlin) hive.
Michael Moore. Planet-sized ego encased in lard. Liar, and proud of it. Embodies all the worst memes of the Loony Left Moonbat brigade and Mass Media Podpeople’s Army in one big fat slob.
Hollyweird. A sub-class of the Mass Media Podpeople/Loony Left Moonbat hive mind, differentiated only by its even greater ego and divorce from reality. Orbiting Pluto, it thinks itself the Center of the Universe. Discrete elements of the Hollyweird Hive Mind are not discernable. It is all one “person”. Any cells that begin to differentiate themselves from the Hollyweird Hive Mind are attacked as a cancer on the Body Beautiful. Those such as Mel Gibson who have enough stength to survive outside the Hollyweird Hive Mind (strength=character+financial resources+an ability to, uhm, think) may find success i n their ostracization.
There, that’s five, all fitting very nicely the definition of “evil” proposed by M. Scott Peck in “People of the Lie”.
Five more? OK, some classes and individuals.
Two classes of “worst Americans”-Public school administrators and educrats. Together, these two classes may be doing more to destroy America all other persons combined. Educrats-those self- and governmentally-appointed arbiters of What Shall Be Taught, and How-rule public education from afar with massive stupidity. While some may be truly evil, most are simply stupidly arrogant and arrogantly stupid. Consider all the dictates issuing from Washington D.C. (influenced by idiots running college “teacher education” programs) that govern what can and cannot be taught (and how) in your local school district. What activities are allowed and what are prohibited. Classroom disclipline, class makeup, curriculum, and more. Coming from a Congress and bureaucratic swamp that’s responsible for supervising the WORST public schools in the nation. That makes sense.
And public school administrators? Arguably the stupidest people in education. Seriously. I’d put my GRE scores, for example, up against ANY pubschool principal or superintendant. With extremely rare exceptions, they are all skating on the left end of the bell curve. And it shows in the effect pubschool administrators generally have on classroom teaching. Instead of doing things that enhance teaching and learning, most pubschool administrators-with noted RARE exceptions, as I have said-are massive stumbling blocks to education.
America would be far better off to put all the educrats and pubschool administrators in work camps breaking rocks.
Some more specific Americans to round out my list:
Lyndon Johnson. What a lying snake. A venal poltroon. Lied America into Vietnam, screwed America with “The Great Society”. Skated off the public stage when he should have been run off the planet on a rail.
Jimmie Carter. It is to my eternal shame that I actually voted for this picayune creep. Once. He is a lying, slanderous, traitorous piece of filth. An ego-driven fantasist who apparently believes the world revolves around him. He does charitable works? Yeh. And the reason is obvious in his dung beetle grin*.
Pat Robertson. He simply cannot keep his mouth shut, and what comes out is slander to the God he says he worships. Another ego-driven publicity slut.
And what shall I say of Roger Baldwin, Eugene V. Debs, and John Dewey? All influential in the formation of the American Communist Lawyers Union-and Dewey has to his “worst American” credit the distinction of having been the single greatest destructive force in creating (or perhaps Dewey would prefer “manufacturing”) stupid Americans, compliant sheeple.
Now, let me get historical on this list: Abraham Lincoln. Yeh, yeh: I know the Lincoln hagiography, and what I’m about to say will earn me the disapprobation (to say the very least) of 90% of the folks who read this. One can argue day and night that Lincoln’s so-called “freeing of the slaves” was a great thing and that he “preserved the Union”, but the plain fact of the matter is that for all intents and purposes, the republic handed us by the Framers died at Appomattox, and what we have today in runaway federal anarcho-tyranny is a direct result of Lincoln’s War. Each and every abuse of federal power, each and every twisting and outright violation of the Constitution we now know as just normal federal government behavior was either prefigured or practiced in even more flagrant and brutal fashion by Lincoln. More than 620,000 killed in Lincoln’s War. Not to free slaves, but to increase the power of Northern industrialists, destroy the economic power of the South and, not incidentally, bring about Lincoln’s view of a federal government that not only could but did (and still does) overrule Constitutionally-guaranteed State authority and individual rights.
Whatever good the man did is far, far overshadowed by the legacy of federally-practiced anarcho-tyranny we have from his hand today.
And I close with this:
A General Summary
Rudyard KiplingWe are very slightly changed
From the semi-apes who ranged
India’s prehistoric clay;
He that drew the longest bow
Ran his brother down, you know,
As we run men down to-day.“Dowb,” the first of all his race,
Met the Mammoth face to face
On the lake or in the cave:
Stole the steadiest canoe,
Ate the quarry others slew,
Died-and took the finest grave.When they scratched the reindeer-bone,
Some one made the sketch his own,
Filched it from the artist-then,
Even in those early days,
Won a simple Viceroy’s praise
Through the toil of other men.
Ere they hewed the Sphinx’s visage
Favouritism governed kissage,
Even as it does in this age.Who shall doubt “the secret hid
Under Cheops’ pyramid”
Was that the contractor did
Cheops out of several millions?
Or that Joseph’s sudden rise
To Comptroller of Supplies
Was a fraud of monstrous size
On King Pharaoh’s swart Civilians?Thus, the artless songs I sing
Do not deal with anything
New or never said before.
As it was in the beginning
Is to-day official sinning,
And shall be for evermore!
Shamelessly flogged at TMH’s Bacon Bits (He’s baaaaaack!)
December 30, 2005
Most of my metaphorical fires and alligators taken care of now. Now all I have to do the rest of the week is drain the metaphorical swamp… (it’s overflowing primarily with references to metaphors, I think.
Yeh, yeh. Open post. You know awhat to do… or not. If not, drop me a note and I’ll put you on the right track. Just link to this post and trackback. Now that I may have a normal schedule today and tomorrow, I’ll try to at least round up some of the more interesting links from this week. Also have to finish up an assignment from Alezandra *s*. And maybe a year’s roundup of TWC tomorrow, if I can fit it in.
This post will be open all weekend, so tb-away!
Now, the tightwaddery confession of the week.
I just love NOT spending money for something I really do HAVE to have. Like my new router/firewall. (Recap: my last router/firewall died; no replacements on hand. Essentially killed the rest of my lil network, and while one or two of my computers can survive with my backup dialup, having just my own net cruiser connected to broadband while family home for a while was… not fun.) Yeh, ate up more of the time I didn’t have this week just researching which setup I wanted to build and then configuring it the way I wanted.
Upside? After rummaging around in my junk parts, printing out and studying a buncha manuals on different router/firewall builds, yadayada, for the cost of my own spare time (what I could spare, that is , I’ve got a much more robust router/firewall setup than I would let myself buy off the shelf.
And I have a much better understanding of what my firewall is doing and MUCH more detailed control over my traffic.
Oh, and the last router/firewall that died? Still under warranty. A replacement is on the way, so I’ll have that for my wireless access.
Total cost to emulate a ~$300 router/firewall?
About $15 for
Maybe I’ll post some pictures after I finish changing my network closet a bit.
Confessed at TMH’s Bacon Bits (where it looks like TMH had better be using the industrial-strength sunscreen or he’ll be emulating some bacon…), Liberal Common Sense (where Lisa trots out the “last of…” saw a coupla days early) and maybe some other places if I decide my reputation can take the hit of confessing my tightwaddery too widely.
December 29, 2005
Via Woody’s News and Views this gem from The People’s Cube:
America Takes Off Gloves, Puts on Brass Knuckles
I was ROTFL… until I thought, “Why not?”
heh
This oughta brighten The Mary Hunter’s vacation…
December 29, 2005
Gee. The hits just keep on coming in…
*sigh*
Posted yesterday by Micro$oft:
Microsoft Security Advisory (912840)
Vulnerability in Graphics Rendering Engine Could Allow Remote Code Execution.
Published: December 28, 2005
Yep. eWeek says,
Microsoft Corp. has issued a security advisory for what Secunia is deeming an “extremely critical flaw” in Windows Metafile Format (.wmf) that is now being exploited on fully patched systems by malicious attackers.
Websense Security Labs is tracking thousands of sites distributing the exploit code from a site called iFrameCASH BUSINESS. That site and numerous others are distributing spyware and other unwanted software, replacing users’ desktop backgrounds with a message that warns of spyware infection and which prompts the user to enter credit card information to pay for a “spyware cleaning” application to remove the detected spyware…
Fortunately, malware detection companies (AV/Spyware) seem to be reacting to this pretty quickly. Update your AV software NOW. You heard me. If you don’t, then come crying to me only if you bring some of the big green with you.
Gotta love Micro$oft. Full employment for techies.
Oh, there’s a workaround for folks here, in case you’re ionto the “belt and suspenders” approach to securing your computer.
Pegged to Ferdy’s Bulletin Board (by linking his “NSA Cookies” post—a “TWC must-read” at Conservative Cat.
December 29, 2005
Still short shrift mode. Jay, at Stop the ACLU, is having a busy week, too, and sent the info below out a day early to clear the decks for his schedule.
One of our contributors, Craig McCarthy, set up a petition to stop taxpayer funding of the ACLU, quite a while ago. We are trying to help Craig reach at least 25,000 signatures. We are not that far away. Just two days ago, I put up as one of Stop The ACLU’s best posts of 2005, my interview with former ACLU lawyer, mr. Reese Lloyd. I had no idea it would be such great timing. Mr. Reese strkes again in a podcast with Congressman Hostettler.
Rees Lloyd made the comments in an online podcast hosted by Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind., in which the two discuss the congressman’s legislation, the Public Expression of Religion Act, or PERA (H.R.2679). The bill would prohibit judges in civil suits involving the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause from awarding attorney’s fees to those offended by religious symbols or actions in the public square – such as a Ten Commandments display in a courthouse or a cross on a county seal. Lloyd, a California civil-rights attorney, is an officer with the American Legion who wrote a resolution passed by the national organization supporting Hostettler’s bill. As WorldNetDaily reported, Hostettler’s proposal would amend the Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. Section 1988, to prohibit prevailing parties from being awarded attorney’s fee in religious establishment cases, but not in other civil rights filings. This would prevent local governments from having to use taxpayer funds to pay the ACLU or similar organization when a case is lost, and also would protect elected officials from having to pay fees from their own pockets. Hostettler says some organizations have created a new civil liberty – a right to be protected “from religion, which is found nowhere in the Constitution, nowhere in the Bill of Rights.” The Indiana congressman blames “a very select group” for “perverting” the original statute, including the ACLU, People for the American Way and Americans United for the Separate of Church and State. “They use this statute to extort behavior out of individuals,” the congressman said, citing the Indiana Civil Liberties Union threatening local educators. The group sent a letter to officials saying they would be sued and be forced to pay attorney’s fees should any graduation prayers be offered at commencement ceremonies. The threat sent the message, Hostettler said, that individuals tied to school districts could be impoverished personally. Said the lawmaker: “When officials see the potential threat of a lawsuit, they stop allowing children to write papers for English class – when they’re asked to write about the most important person in their life and they decide to write about Jesus Christ.” Hostettler’s bill would allow cases to move through the courts without public officials worrying about being held personally liable for thousands in attorneys fees. “Let’s let these cases go forward; let’s let the courts decide what’s constitutional and what’s not, and let’s not leave it up to the ACLU,” he said. Hostettler explained that while government entities can pay attorney’s fees charged to individual elected officials, they don’t legally have to, which puts the politicians on the hook. Saying most taxpayers are in favor of allowing public religious expression, the congressman noted the irony of those same taxpayers being forced to pay the ACLU to sue their local governments. “The current threat to public officials is very real; it’s ongoing,” Hostettler stated. “It’s been the case for several years that public officials are scared to death to suggest any type of public recognition of our Christian roots. It’s a problem that needs to be addressed in Washington, D.C.” PERA would prohibit damages, court fees and attorney’s fees from going to plaintiffs in establishment-clause suits while keeping the original purpose of the civil-rights law, Hstettler says, to provide a means for those whose religious liberties have been blocked to find justice. The congressman wonders why the ACLU would oppose his legislation since it still provides for “injunctive relief” – e.g., a court can rule in the ACLU’s favor and force the removal of a Ten Commandments display – but takes out the monetary incentive for lawsuits. “If they’re not out for the money but are really out to preserve our civil liberties … then the ACLU should not be opposing my bill,” Hostettler commented.
In the podcast, Lloyd decried the “terrorizing litigation tactics of the ACLU.” Said Lloyd: “Not only can the ACLU brings these suits and compel taxpayers to pay them to destroy the public display of our American history and heritage, but so can Islamist terrorists or Islamist sympathizers in our midst. “All they have to do is walk into court, make their claim that they’re offended by the sight of a cross or other religious symbol, and they’re going to win the case because judges follow one another under stare decisis,” or deference to precedent. The judges would then order that fees be paid to the Islamists, Lloyd contends. Lloyd said this issue came into focus for him when he witnessed the fight in San Diego, Calif., over a cross on a veterans’ memorial on public land in the Mohave Desert. “For me, that was the one step taken too far,” Lloyd said. “Now, for the first time, the ACLU was attacking the very veterans who secured their freedom.” A civil-rights activist since the ’60s, Lloyd worked with the ACLU in the ’70s and was “very supportive” of the 1976 Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Act because it was a “noble attempt to assure that people who had legitimate civil-rights violations and injuries could secure legal representation.” Stated Lloyd: “The ACLU has perverted, distorted and exploited the Civil Rights Act … to turn it into a lawyer-enrichment act.” Lloyd says the American people are “oblivious” to how many millions of dollars in taxpayer funds are going to the ACLU each year. The attorney pointed out many attorneys in cases brought by the ACLU are volunteers, so the fees the group is awarded normally do not go to reimburse an attorney but rather directly into the organization’s coffers.
Hostettler’s bill, which was introduced first in 2003 without success, currently has 35 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives and sits in the House Committee on the Judiciary.
The Center For Reclaiming America claims that they have over 100,000 signatures backing this bill. Honestly, I don’t know what they are waiting on. If we can up our petiton from 19,000 to 25,000, I will personally take the signatures to Congressman Hostettler myself….I promise you. I only live two hours from D.C. SIGN OUR PETITON TO STOP TAXPAYER FUNDING OF THE ACLU ….and spread the word as far and wide on this petition as you can!
Folks, even if you did get your CHRISTMAS card mailed to the ACLU, this petition is yet another way we can show them we care, we really do care. There. That oughta make the All Communist Lawyers Union feel all warm and fuzzy.
December 28, 2005
OK, Skippy, if you use MSN Messenger be warned. Don’t be sucked in.
Virus Poses as Leaked MSN Messenger Beta
Internet users are being warned about a new virus that poses as a leaked pre-release version of the MSN Messenger instant messenger program.
Unsuspecting Windows users who install the phony MSN Messenger Version 8 “beta” actually install an IM worm that spreads to their IM contacts, and connects their computer to a remote control “bot” network run by malicious hackers, according to F-Secure Corp., an antivirus firm based in Helsinki.
A Web site, msgr8beta.com, purports to have the leaked version of MSN Messenger. The site touts the advantages of the MSN Messenger 8…
Don’t say I didn’t warn ya. By the time you read this, the malicious little worm who came up with this sucker play for naifs will likely have set up a different website offering this sucker bait.
Update your AV software; NEVER open unasked for, unscanned email attachments and watch those phishing links, etc., yadayadayada…
December 28, 2005
Still in short shrift mode. It’s not that I don’t care about all the great stuff in the blogoshere (see here, for one of many examples-note to Alexandra: I really am working on my list; it’ll take me some time to get it finished and up) or current events, it’s just that in spite of the fact that my objective is to “drain the swamp” I’ve got a few metaphorical alligators to kick and fires to stomp out in the so-called “real world”.
Link to this post and trackback with something interesting in whatever time I have to catch up with my reading.
OK, one thing: have you gotten and read your own copy of The Fair 
Tax Book yet? Well, here’s another one.
Any questions? Comment. Any good reads? Link me and then track back.
Pushed at Diane’s Stuff
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