Author: Fuzzy Curmudgeon

Just when you thought the Homeland Security bill had a chance to pass:

Only one sticking point remains and that is whether Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., will stymie the legislation by filibustering it. A filibuster could be overcome by a 60-vote move to cut off debate. Byrd has long opposed the homeland security bill, saying it gives too much power to the president.

It’s long past time for WV to diselect this disgusting old man.

When I went to visit Dad today, I took a chair and Edmund Morris’s Theodore Rex (New York: Random House, Inc., 2001, 1st printing), which I’m in the middle of reading a second time. (All good conservatives should read both Morris’s The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Rex, in my opinion.) It was a little nippy out there in the open, but the sun was warm and I read quite a lot before deciding it was time to come home.
The chapter I read (and the one or two leading up to it) chronicle Roosevelt’s campaign for the Presidency in 1903-04. In those days, of course, Presidential candidates did not actually hit the stump; they sat at home and received the public — well; sometimes — while the best orators of the day in each party stumped the country on their behalf. This major difference aside, I was intrigued by how little the Democratic Party has learned in the last 98 years.
There was an Algore character:

Alton Brooks Parker, Chief Justice of the New York Court of Appeals, was gray enough to defeat the new science of autochrome photography. Drably decent, colorlessly correct at fifty-two, Parker dressed by habit in a gray cutaway coat and gray cutaway trousers. He lived in a gray house overlooking the gray waters of the Hudson, and was the author of many gray legal opinions, so carefully worded that neither plaintiffs nor defendants knew what he really felt on any given issue. Even the heart of Alton B. Parker was a gray area. (p. 339-340)

Parker endorsed a key Republican issue: the gold standard. In response to rumors at the Democratic National convention that his telegram to that effect was really a telegram refusing the nomination, Senator Tillman is said to have shouted, “The Democratic party can always be relied on to make a damn fool of itself at the critical time.” (p. 342) I think I need comment not at all on this.
In Parker’s acceptance speech,

[h]e attacked the President’s refusal to name a date for Philippine independence, without suggesting a date himself. He seemed unable to utter the words Morocco and Turkey when he harrumphed, “I protest against the feeling, now far too prevalent, that by reason of the commanding position we have assumed in the world we must take part in the disputes and broils of foreign countries.” (p. 350)

Nay more,

The Democratic [campaign] textbook . . . noted that Republican “prosperity” benefited Wall Street more than Main Street, while protectionism made American goods cheaper abroad than at home. It accused Roosevelt of disrespect for the Constitution — and promised that President Parker would “set his face sternly against Executive usurpation of legislative and judicial functions.” His Administration would not be “spamodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular, and arbitrary.” Abroad, Democrats were for Philippine independence, and against jingoism, imperialism, and “the display of great military armaments.” At home, they deplored what they saw as Roosevelt’s attempts “to kindle anew the embers of racial and sectional strife.” (p. 350-351)

Moreover, after the settlement of the Turkish issue (read the book),

Thanks to Hay’s restraint, Roosevelt was able to bask in praise of his statesmanship. He wished that the election could be held “next Tuesday.” Even crictical commentators were reduced to grudging admiration. The Brooklyn Eagle suggested that he had aimed his naval guns “at the Democratic enemy, not the Sultan,” pointing out that [Admiral] Jewell could have been sent east immediately after the Perdicaris affair. But Roosevelt had obviously delayed his grand gesture to coincide with Judge Parker’s notification ceremony. (p. 351)

At least they called this “genius” on TR’s part.
And of course the Democrats mounted a concerted effort to tar the Republicans with the special interest campaign contributions brush.
None of it worked.

“Victory. Triumph. My Father is elected,” Alice wrote in her diary for 8 November 1904. “Received Parker’s congratulatory telegram at 9. Carried New York State by over 200,000. Higgins elected Governor. An unprecedented landslide. It is all colossal.” (p. 363)

There were lessons here for the Democrats. Perhaps they didn’t bother to read the book since it was about the Republican Roosevelt. Their loss.

Good thing I went out to the cemetery this morning. I saw only three flags other than the one I put at Dad’s grave.
Sally said, maybe they just haven’t gotten up there yet today? I don’t think so, because normally groups who decorate graves (at least in my recollection) tend to do so on the Sunday preceding Memorial Day and Veterans’ Day, rather than on the holiday itself. I could see how some groups might be old-fashioned and wait until the real Veterans’ Day (Nov. 11), but this year there’s really no excuse since Veterans’ Day fell on the correct calendar date.
I think someone just forgot. And that’s sad.

OK, caught you going “Huh?” at the title.
Weekend bloggage is getting more and more difficult what with practically every moment of my time consigned to some damn thing or another that has to do with my family or my lodge. Thankfully I refuse to work on the weekends at my job. Tomorrow promises the possibility of a bit more thoughtful bloggage as it’s Veterans Day and I’ll be off work. On the other hand I need to go make sure Dad has a flag since I’m not 100% convinced that the Jewish War Veterans have his name on their list of graves to decorate. So we’ll see.
I’m sad to see that Rachel Lucas is finding it harder and harder to devote time to her blog. Hit her tip jar for a buck or six and maybe she won’t have to keep that second job.

Apparently someone wants to build housing and retail on the site of the Battle of Chancellorsville.
This is indeed appalling, and shows little or no respect for our Civil War dead, and further indicates that the decimation of the troops of General M. Mouse at Third Manassas back in 1999 is a fading memory.
HOWEVER. As far as I can tell, unlike the case of the battlefield at Gettysburg which is actually owned by a preservation group (which continues to buy up land around the battlefield, I might add), no battlefield preservation group has ever gotten around to actually purchasing the land on which the battle was fought. So I’m not sure what all these battlefield preservation groups are on about. Ownership of the battlefield is 90% of the preservation effort. Just placing a battlefield on your preservation list isn’t sufficient. Everyone — including the land owners — have to agree that preserving the battlefield is more important than anything else.
So I’m not really surprised that the group lost their bid to reject the rezoning. I’m just appalled that anyone would want to essentially erase a Civil War battlefield.
(For what it’s worth, I’m not a big fan of neighborhood preservation. I find it a serious violation of property rights to tell a person that he can’t do what he wants, within obvious reason, to the outside of his property, if it would change the essential character of his historic home. Most historic homes aren’t worth the money poured into them to fix them up, and having been a contractor who did a certain amount of historic renovation work, I know whereof I speak. Most historic homes are also cramped and built on tiny lots in crappy neighborhoods. People left these neighborhoods for a reason, people. Think about it. Then tear that damn undistinguished 1880 row house down and build something else.)

WashTimes today has an article on Ari Fleischer’s impending nuptials.
But I was caught more by this comment than anything else:

“Anytime a bald Jewish guy — and I’m one myself — manages to get a nice girl, it’s cause for celebration,” [NPR] host Peter Sagal told The Washington Post.

What’s your point? I could have told you that two years ago.

Nicest girl I ever knew. Proud to call her my wife (although usually I just call her “Pookie”). And it WAS cause for great rejoicing, with both of us over 40 and never married 🙂

God is getting California for re-electing Grayout Davis.
Tellingly, 353,000 SF area residents lost electricity during the storm. A reminder of the summer of 2001, perhaps? Kinda makes ya go, “Hmmm…”

I guess for the next two years we’ll be making Alabama jokes instead of Florida jokes. The sitting Dem Guv of Alabama is challenging the election he lost to his GOP opponent.

Counterfeiting is on the rise again. Big surprise. All that high-tech reworking of the currency is meaningless when people don’t pay attention to their money.
The penalty for being found with counterfeiting materials should be death; it’s too easy to get out of a 20-year term in the slammer (first offense, time off for good behaviour, etc). If you can’t give them death, then loss of citizenship and lifetime banishment to Antarctica might suffice.
No country should tolerate people screwing around with its money.
(In particular, I can’t believe this chick in NYC who passed the counterfeit $5 bill she got from someone else because she “[did]n’t want to lose it [the money]”. How patriotic of you, Miss. Think about that five bucks the next time a defense appropriations bill comes up and gets trimmed because there’s not enough money to go around. And then think about that again in the millisecond or so you’ll have when a nuke goes off in NYC because it wasn’t detected or interdicted.)

Well, enough blogging fun for today. Got to go tux it up and go raise a Master Mason tonight. No matter what the Democrats think, life does go on. And yes, all you free-thinking Democrats out there, there is a God. And according to P.J. O’Rourke, he’s a Republican:

I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat.
God is an elderly or, at any rate, middle-aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men strictly accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well-being of the disadvantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful, and holds the mortgage on literally everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God’s heavenly country club.
Santa Claus is a different matter. He’s cute. He’s nonthreatening. He’s always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without thought of a quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he’s famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus.
Parliament of Whores, p.xx.

See ya on the flip side.