Hat tip to Big Hollywood

I think Reagan wins.

Hat tip to Theo Spark

I was surfing a gun enthusiast web site looking for some specific handgun info when I came across an intriguing review of Monster Hunter International, a modern fantasy/horror-action novel. The story is about an accountant, Owen Z. Pitt, who survives an attack by a werewolf that used to be his insufferable boss. Because Own not only survived the attack but handled himself well he is recruited into a private company, Monster Hunter International (MHI), that hunts monsters for bounties (think of a sort of monster hunting Blackwater Security). Almost immediately, Owen finds himself and his fellow hunters battling an ancient evil that threatens to unleash a hellish invasion intended to wipeout humanity.

While I am not generally a fan of fantasy or science fiction, I am a fan of good stories, guns and smart humor. The author of the book, Larry Correia, is a competitive shooter and gun dealer. Consequently, he demonstrates a solid knowledge of firearms throughout the novel. However, he never bogs down the story with a Tom Clanyesque exploration of minute technical details.

The story is funny, action packed, with characters that are colorful and entertaining. There is even a conservative/libertarian limited government vibe that runs through the story. MHI has a shaky relationship with federal regulatory agencies and law enforcement. In short, whether you like fantasy/scifi or not, Monster Hunter International is a book I can’t recommend highly enough. I literally could not put the book down and I am absolutely pregnant with anticipation over the sequel.

Speaking of monsters, check out this great song from Skillet, a Christian rock band.

I would pretty much define the ultimate in bad publicity as a headline on Drudge reading, “Devil at Work in the Vatican.”  That’s certainly going to feed the untiring Vatican conspiracy mongers, of whom there is never a shortage.

The story, based on the comments of the Vatican’s chief exorcist, is itself unremarkable.  Fr. Amorth points to the abuse scandals and heterodoxy, which are certainly a sign of spiritual disorder, but one would have to expect the devil to be at work in the best of times.  He was with Christ in the wilderness, so he will certainly be with the Pope in the Vatican (plus, the food’s better in Rome).

Btw, I’m off to the wilds of Pennsylvania for a few days.  See you next week.

I’m not a big fan of George Will. He possesses too much of the condescending “inside the beltway elitism” attitude that I find disgusting. However he does, on occasion, knock one out of the park with his commentary. Such is the case with a recent piece in Newsweek. Here’s a few choice quotes:

Mike Stivic, a.k.a. Meathead, the liberal graduate student in All in the Family, reflected society’s belief in the cultural superiority of youth, but he was a leading indicator of something else: He lived in his father-in-law Archie Bunker’s home. What are today’s “basement boys” doing down there? Perhaps watching Friends and Seinfeld reruns about a culture of extended youth utterly unlike the world of young adults in previous generations.

And . . .

Although Cross, an aging academic boomer, was a student leftist, he believes that 1960s radicalism became “a retreat into childish tantrums” symptomatic “of how permissive parents infantilized the boomer generation.” And the boomers’ children? Consider the television commercials for the restaurant chain called Dave & Buster’s, which seems to be, ironically, a Chuck E. Cheese’s for adults—a place for young adults, especially men, to drink beer and play electronic games and exemplify youth not as a stage of life but as a perpetual refuge from adulthood.

As I sometimes try to drive home this point to other young men with whom I’m attempting to mentor, I’ll ask them to try this:

“Picture, in your mind, your ideal representation of the manly hero – a George Washington, a Robert E. Lee, a George Patton, a Douglas MacArthur – and then try to picture them sitting in front of the TV in baggy shorts, an earring, a wine cooler watching Friends and reacting to something by saying Dude! What’s wrong with that picture? Now, ask yourself: How do you want to be thought of?”

Not all readers will understand my point. I hope most of you over 40 will.

You can read the rest of Will’s piece here.

The bottom-feeders at Planned Parenthood are apparently rooting around for “hard cases” to illustrate the supposed need for [federally-funded] abortions.

“Help us tell the real story. Your story. Right now. Congress needs to hear from women who have experienced wanted pregnancies where there was a sever health risk to the fetus, causing the women to choose abortion…. This is just the type of real and compelling story to illustrate how an abortion ban would affect women all over America.”

I have 305,310 compelling abortion stories; each is the story of a child killed by a Planned Parenthood abortion in 2007.

Everyone is aware that people suffer. Planned Parenthood and other pro-aborts are hardly tilling new soil there.  But the idea that alleviating suffering justifies the killing of another is untenable. The case of R v. Dudley and Stephens has some great language for this discussion. The case involved murder charges against survivors of a shipwreck who, after supposedly casting lots, ate the cabin boy who was a fellow castaway in the lifeboat. When reading the case for criminal law, I was struck by the following language, which is an great response to the “hard cases” in bioethics (emphasis mine):

It must not be supposed that in refusing to admit temptation to be an excuse for crime it is forgotten how terrible the temptation was; how awful the suffering; how hard in such trials to keep the judgment straight and the conduct pure. We are often compelled to set up standards we cannot reach ourselves, and to lay down rules which we could not ourselves satisfy. But a man has no right to declare temptation to be an excuse, though he might himself have yielded to it, nor allow compassion for the criminal to change or weaken in any manner the legal definition of the crime.

Hans von Spakovsky has a great piece at NRO today about how Obama has radicalized the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. Well worth a read.

And that’s not the only problem at Justice. More, including internal links, here.

Our own Quin Hillyer makes a great, but overlooked point on reconciliation. The first move in reconciliation is that the House must pass the Senate version of the bill. Civics 101. Once the House has passed the Senate version of the health care bill, both Houses of Congress have passed the same bill. What do we have then? A signable bill!!!! So if the efforts to “fix” the bill via reconciliation in the Senate fail, it doesn’t matter. Obama can sign health care reform. That’s a Chicago two-step if we’ve ever seen one. So the key to this whole thing is simple: don’t let the House pass the Senate bill. Period. End of Story.

The Washington Examiner has chosen a rather odd analogy for the Democrat’s decision to ram health care legislation through in spite of overwhelming public opposition:  Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg.

It was Pickett’s Charge of the Confederates at Gettysburg in 1863, a horrendous, bloody carnage that could have been avoided, had not their commander, Gen. Robert E. Lee, been so determined to do it his way — a massed frontal assault against a nearly impregnable position.

It is to just such a political Pickett’s Charge that President Obama now summons congressional Democrats on behalf of his health care reform proposal, a last desperate gamble to overcome a sturdy, strengthening line of Republican opposition reinforced beyond measure in recent months by the knowledge they stand with a solid majority of their countrymen. Obama and Democratic brigade commanders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi know there will be terrible casualties among their troops come November, but still they urge them on, to sacrifice their jobs, careers and political futures for … 2,700 pages of new bureaucratic rules, mandates, directives and edicts that will surely destroy the finest health care system in the world.

So this would make Obama General Lee?  He’s gotta love that.  Teddy Kennedy, I suppose, would be the fallen Stonewall Jackson, who might have turned the tide had he not died before the decisive battle.  Harry Reid has the ponderous ego and glacial reactions of Longstreet.  Nancy Pelosi will have to serve as the fashionable, jetsetting Jeb Stuart (unfortunately, she’s not absent from the scene in the early stages).

Let’s get a regiment over to hold Little Round Top, the key to the whole battlefield.  I nominate Paul Ryan for the role of Chamberlain.

This whole Union thing is going to take some getting used to, but there’s something to be said for it.  Overwhelming numbers, a heady dose of moral superiority, imputed innocence.

How about Billy Yank as the new Ole Miss mascot?

In Liu of common sense, we get a nominee who believes there is a constitutional right to welfare.

It appears that U of M’s search for a new politically correct sideline mascot is not going as planned. Apparently, Admiral Ackbar leads the polls as the Colonel’s successor of choice.

Poor Ole Miss, They just can’t handle a decision of this magnitude.

Hat tip to Ace of Spades.

Well, this is interesting.  Maker’s Mark has decided to do a limited edition bottle in UK blue featuring the mug of John Calipari. Proceeds will go to benefit a UK music outreach program, which makes sense given that bourbon helps one to endure the average symphony program these days.

I do hope Maker’s realizes that they will have to forfeit credit for the sales after Calipari leaves UK on probation.  (I kid, I kid.)

Fr. Robert Barron’s team is close to completing the massive Catholicism Project film.  The project is driven by one fundamental insight, as the trailer states:  the story of Catholicism is being told in the wrong way by the wrong people.  The vague idea of the faith most folks carry around has been shaped more by The Sopranos and Dan Brown than by St. Thomas and the Catechism.

John Paul II and Mother Teresa provided the greatest witness for the faith in the 20th century. All of us have met people whose impression of Catholicism was radically altered by those two alone. A gap remains, however, between such world-historic figures and the daily life and practice of the faith, the tradition that sustains it, and the massive complexity of the global Church. This film attempts to close that gap.

It’s time Catholic apologetics and catechesis learned the lessons of the best documentary filmmakers.  Pious exhortations in maudlin, misshapen vessels don’t do justice to the majesty and beautiful strangeness of the Church.

If you would like to learn more about the project and perhaps contribute to its completion, visit wordonfire.org.

Part one here:

Part two here:

Harvard’s political theory guru Harvey Mansfield wrote the book (literally) on manliness. Here’s a bit of what he had to say in an interview with the Harvard Magazine a few years back:

“There are two aspects of manliness,” Mansfield says. “The first is confidence in what one does, self-assurance. Second, since he is confident in his ability to run his own life, the manly man is independent. This can either make him contemptuous of dependent people, or protective of those who depend on him, like his family. The protectiveness can become political: he gets involved with others and then decides to command or rule them.”

Manliness, says Mansfield, is “an ineradicable quality in males. Its social expression changes–Achilles, the Christian knight, the cowboy, the U.S. Marine–but there has to be a place for it in society. If there isn’t, then manly men will be frustrated and will find some illegal or dangerous outlet: extreme sports, gang wars, violence in movies. Manliness involves taking responsibility for others, as in protectiveness. If no responsible manliness is permitted, it can easily pass into irresponsible manliness–deadbeat fathers, for example.”

Mansfield is also, by the way, the author of a great brief introduction to political philosophy from ISI, The Student’s Guide to Political Theory.

Edit to fix the tense.  Thanks for the heads-up.

Black riders have again been seen in the Shire.  Creatures that once were representatives of the people, now mere extensions of the will of the state, seeking blood and treasure to shovel into the insatiable entitlement maw of Mordor.  This time, they are coming for the blessed Longbottom leaf…

Imagine my shock upon reading this at JRCigar:

A new bill has been introduced and is pending in Congress, H.R. 4439, that would amend federal law established by last year’s S-CHIP expansion. The bill proposes raising the federal excise tax rate on Pipe Tobacco to be equal to the tax rate on roll-your-own Cigarette Tobacco.

The federal pipe tobacco tax is currently $2.8311 per pound, which represents a 158% increase from the pre-S-CHIP tax of $1.0969 per pound. The proposed bill would increase the tax on pipe tobacco to a whopping $24.78 per pound!

$24.78 per pound. Evidently, Congressman Steve Cohen (D-Mordor/TN) has decided to end the plague of pipe smoking in this otherwise great republic.

The sad thing is this isn’t really about pipe tobacco at all.  Phillip Morris and the rest of Big Tobacco are upset at the rebranding of roll-your-own and hookah tobacco as ‘pipe tobacco’ to avoid taxes aimed at cigarettes.  They are none too concerned with destroying the gentle pastime of pipe smoking in the process.  Plus, those pipe smokers tend to be a conservative lot.

History is filled with men who seem larger than life-men surrounded by an inflated myth of accomplishment, an aura that collapses as soon as one takes a closer look.

But a few men are truly just as remarkable as their billing.

Byron “Whizzer” White is such a man.

Worth the time to read the rest here at Art of Manliness.

Could you please provide evidence that shows Colonel Reb to be offensive  and a hindrance to Ole Miss? Do you have any written statements or videos of anybody who has been negatively effected by Colonel Reb’s existence? Or anyone who decided not to attend or financially donate to the university precisely because of Colonel Reb?

If you could present any of the above, would you please explain why those are sufficient reasons to ramrod a new mascot down the throats of students and alumni?

Thanks!

Speaking of mascots . . . not all Irish-Americans are short and green. I should know. (Recognize the fellow in the hat?) You can watch part 2 by clicking on the link at the end of the video. It’s worth it.

This video does a great job of illustrating the idiocy of political correctness, which is primarily being propagated today by liberals searching for meaning in their lives. Fight the power.

Courtesy of Yahoo news, the billboards in Georgia are getting people to talk among African American women. My personal favorite is the woman who claims that taking away the right to choose when to have children hearkens back to slavery.  She makes me laugh.  Way to play the race card, lady. You know white people can’t fight the slavery card.

Well this manages to pretty neatly encapsulate everything that is wrong with our culture.

“I’m doing this to de-mystify abortion,” she says. “I’m doing this so other women know, ‘Hey, it’s not nearly as terrifying as I had myself worked up thinking it was.’ It’s just not that bad.”

These are the words of Angie Jackson, a blogger and mother of a 4-year-old son. Her IUD birth control failed; she is four weeks pregnant and writing about her abortion on YouTube, her personal blog, and on Twitter under the hashtag #livetweetingabortion.

Last Thursday, Jackson visited a Planned Parenthood where her doctor gave her the first dose of RU-486, the abortion pill. (Note: The abortion pill is not the same as the morning-after pill.) She had to take four more pills — swallowing two and letting two others dissolve in her mouth—on Friday and Saturday.

She hasn’t taken to her various media platforms to show the graphic parts of her abortion. Instead, Jackson is chronicling how her abortion feels physically and emotionally — as she puts it on YouTube, “It’s just not that bad.” It’s almost like guerilla sex ed.

An optimistic part of me thinks that the woman’s callous disregard for human life and the way that she is acting in the public square will actually hurt her cause.  Instead of de-mystifying abortion, she offers an extreme example of self-absorption and selfishness.

Well, that’s what I tell myself to keep from weeping.

By the way, I find the comments of the person blogging about this to be hysterical.

I think it’s brave of her to share something that will make her a bulls-eye for anti-choice activists.

Oh yes, what a brave woman.  She will have to endure the slings and arrows of hundreds of furious blog comments (like this one) that she most likely will never read.  It certainly takes a brave individual to swallow a few pills in order to “do away with a problem” rather than take responsibility for one’s actions.  She’s a real warrior that one.

Powerline has a beautiful, funny  ad for their new mobile device app.   Perfect.

As a member of a proud Mississippi family I feel it is my duty to offer a suggestion to the University of Mississippi in its search for a new sideline mascot. The selection of a mascot is an important decision for a school, one that should be in keeping with the character and history of the institution.

In light of the university’s historically abysmal football program and its politically correct proclivities I suggest the gerbil. Gerbils are soft, cuddly, non-threatening, and (more importantly) have nothing to do with the state’s Confederate history.

As Joel L. posted earlier, the Ole Miss student body voted on the contentious mascot issue today. I, along with some 75% of those who voted, chose “YES” for student involvement in a new mascot selection process.

The mass confusion surrounding this vote stems from the way the vote was posed. The vote was not about whether to replace Colonel Reb, but whether the students or administration would lead an inevitable effort. The vote was a false dilemma as there was not a “do nothing” option.

The problem then was that deciding whether to vote “YES” or “NO” reuqired parsing the two options.Initially, it seems that voting “NO” would be a vote for Colonel Reb. However, voting “NO” merely supported deferral of the matter to the administration.

Because of this confusion, there was a huge effort to point out this “trap” to students, aided by none other than Admiral Ackbar.

Essentially, a new mascot effort is a foregone conclusion. The choice facing the students was whether the initiative would be led by students or an unfettered administration. Thus, the student body voted overwhelmingly to take the lead rather than leave it to the administration.

Contrary to the assertions of Joel L. and his friends in the news media, this fight is far from over. Students who want to reinstate Colonel Reb and students who want a new mascot were strange bedfellows today, voting “YES” together. Although the ultimate outcome is uncertain, the decision today ensured that the student body would retain the ability to fight when the day comes.

As the product of a Mississippi State family I have never needed much of a reason to hate Ole Miss. However, this story provides me yet another reason to hold that institution in low regard.

Since the University of MS wants to shed any and all connections to the state’s Civil War history why exactly should they be called “Ole Miss?” I say we respect their wishes and refer to that school as “um.”

From today’s NRO editorial:

A bill expected to pass the House today with overwhelming Democratic support would accomplish something peculiar for a liberal republic in the 21st century: It would partly disenfranchise a portion of one state’s residents, create a parallel government for those meeting a legislated criterion of ethnic purity, and would portend the transfer of public assets, land, and political power from those who fail to satisfy the standard of ethnic purity to those who do. For these reasons and many more, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act richly deserves opposition.

Sorry to post so seldom here, but this is a case right up SA’s alley. Imagine a law school that refuses to recognize a Christian student group because it requires its officers to be… yes, Christian. We at the Washington Times editorialized on it today. More on the case available here.  A key paragraph from the masterful lead brief for the Christian Legal Society by the peerless Michael McConnell is here:

A “variety of viewpoints” is far more likely to be
achieved when students are allowed to sort themselves
out by interest and viewpoint—Republicans in
one club, Democrats in another; Muslims in one organization,
Lutherans in another. Without such sorting,
all viewpoints are blurred. The Democratic Caucus
becomes the Bipartisan Caucus; the Christian,
Jewish, and Muslim clubs become the Ecumenical
Society; and every other group organized around a
belief becomes a Debate Club. Each group becomes
no more than its own diverse forum—writ small. The
all-comers rule thus defeats the very purpose of recognizing
any group as a group in the first place. Preventing
students from organizing around shared beliefs
does not foster a robust or diverse exchange of
views.

This is a crucially important case. Free speech, free religion, and free association all hang in the balance.

And it’s a mismatch…

HT John J. Miller in The Corner