Charlie Who?

At one point we jumped out of the van to film in front of the pipeline when a truck full of hunters swung in on their way to a moose camp up the highway. They asked for a picture, and I was delighted. Charlie straightened his collar, but the guys in their hunting gear and camo vests just handed their camera to Charlie and asked him to take snapshots of me standing with them by their truck.

Sarah Palin, Going Rogue: An American Life, page 270.

Must I Blog?

Very well. If I must.

1. Greg reminded me that if anyone in the blogosphere is qualified to sort out the fraudulent code in the purloined CRU documents it is Eric Raymond, and sure enough he's all over it.

There was a brief note about it in a comment on someone else's blog, enough to clue me that I should grep -r for ARTIFICAL. I dusted off my Fortran and read the file.

I've been a paid (it would be an exaggeration to say professional) software engineer for twenty years now and I still don't just sit down and read code. Eric Raymond is like a god to me — he can do it, if anyone can.

2. John Derbyshire has also written code (although, personally, I think I could out-code him) for money and has also written two histories of mathematics (he's got me beat there). His extemporaneous thoughts on the climate change scandal are worth pondering.

And always in science, as the decades roll by, the fraudsters, cranks, and political entrepreneurs fall by the wayside and the scientific spirit triumphs at last. We then know more true facts about the world than our fathers did. And that's a very wonderful thing....

3. On a completely different subject, by way of TJICistan, who got it by way of an Economist blog, who found it on a blog called Modeled Behavior, Do Assassinations Matter? — a question I've long pondered (while lovingly fondling my high-powered rifle). Turns out they do (PDF).

We find that, on average, successful assassinations of autocrats produce sustained moves toward democracy.

That's good to know. That's very good to know.

Thanksgiving 2009

Three generations of Durands and the Bentleys attempting to save room for pie. It's a lost cause.

Hide the Decline

The Bard did not write "truth shall out." There's a subtle difference between will and shall, mostly lost on modern speakers of the tongue, and it involves volition, as if Truth had a mind of its own, that it would come to light.

Truth will out.

What The Hell

Kind Of A Mickey Mouse Outfit Is This?

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy's elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral's mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named "Objective Amber," told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

Retained lawyers?

Enlisted men doing their job have to retain lawyers?

OVER A BLOODY LIP?

A TERRORIST'S BLOODY LIP?

HIT HIM AGAIN FOR ME!

For A Generation

I subscribe to the historian-as-prophet theory, especially when the prophecy is this.

I think not merely the thrill is gone, but a righteous anger about an Obama trifecta — of serial apologies and bows abroad, massive borrowing and deficit spending, and government-take overs of private spheres of life — is swelling up in the electorate. I haven't seen in my lifetime anything quite like it. And this furor of being had has the potential not just to take Obama down, but also his ideology and supporters along with him for a generation.

Brilliant Stroke

Casting Nancy Pelosi as Igor.

Ladies and gentlemen, the sharpest crayon in the box, Michael Ramirez.

Plenty Of Room

I love meat. I eat pork chops, thick bacon burgers, and the seared fatty edges of a medium-well-done steak. But I especially love moose and caribou. I always remind people from outside our state that there's plenty of room for all Alaska's animals—right next to the mashed potatoes.

Sarah Palin, Going Rogue: An American Life, page 18.

American Buffoon

Bruce makes the point with a photoshop.

And Andrew Cline does the same in 1000 words.

Unfortunately, as Prof. Reynolds says, at this point a Carter-era rerun is a best-case scenario.

Barbecue The Taliban

Future Secretary of State Ted Nugent outlines his foreign policy goals.

Palin Gonna-Be

Photo shamelessly stolen from Charlie Nye of The Indianapolis Star

Sophie Senn, 5, Indianapolis, drew special attention from Sarah Palin, 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, when Sophie accompanied her mother Tammy Senn and younger sister Madeline, 3, to Noblesville Town Center's Borders bookstore...

Palin At Woodland Mall

Minutes ago.

“I thank you so much for showing up so you can read my own words -- unfiltered.”

Ripped

Lileks needs a new agent. An honest one. And maybe a lawyer.

You know all that money you paid for his last book? He never saw a dime.

My Amazon.com Order Has Shipped!

This morning. From Fernley, Nevada.

That's just down the road a piece.

(A fur piece, true, but I'll be sitting by the mailbox all day tomorrow.)

But That Would Be Justice

Bret Stephens in The Wall Street Journal.

I have long thought it would be a good idea to bring 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his accomplices to lower Manhattan. In my concept, the men would be taken by helicopter to a height of about 1,000 feet over Ground Zero and pushed out the door, so that they, too, could experience what so many of their victims did in the awful final flickering seconds of their lives.

Rogue Blog

For the next several weeks I'm going to substitute Rogue: The Sarah Palin Book Blog for my usual stop in The Corner. The sidebar link has been adjusted accordingly.

(Thanks to Greg for calling my attention to this.)

I couldn't bear to watch Oprah today. Sarah Palin I can stand. Oprah I can't.

Leslie watched it for me though, and said she did well. This is just the opening skirmish, of course. Tomorrow it's Baba Wawa morning, evening, and late night, and Rush in the afternoon. Wednesday the book signing begins. Some time next week Amazon will get around to shipping mine. With luck I can start reading it by the end of the month.

Grandma Hammersley's Old-Time Mincemeat

First you need to understand that my great-grandparents lived on a homestead at the end of the road in the Coast range of Oregon on a farm with no electricity. Grandpa took his venison when he needed it with no regard for game wardens. Without refrigeration everything had to be canned — on a wood stove. Mincemeat was one delicious way to save the fall harvest.

This is the recipe exactly as my mother got it from her grandmother. The notes are Mom's.

8 cups ground cooked venison
16 cups chopped apples
6 whole oranges (seeded!) ground
2 cups suet
1 gallon cider
2 lbs. raisins
2 - 4 cups ground sweet pickles with juice
1 Tble salt
2 teas. cinnamon
2 cups brown sugar and 1 cup white sugar
1 teas. each: cloves, allspice, ginger, nutmeg

Simmer and stir frequently for an
hour and pack into jars. Seal and process 30 min.

Suet is skimmed from the cooled broth of the cooked venison and is an approx. amount -- Does really add flavor!
When making large pies from a jar of mincemeat you can add MORE apples !!

We had this a lot growing up. All of us kids, with the exception, maybe, of my sister Julie, loved mincemeat pie. I might have liked pumpkin more but I always had both.

P.S. Here's another link to that gorgeous picture of me and My First Buck.

Not Entitled To That Opinion

Hartford, Connecticut.

Firefighter Mike Di'Giacomo said his SUV is banned from in the firehouse because the bumper stickers he has on it display his political views.

Heh. This is funny because except for substituting "Kenya" for "Texas" this is identical to the Approved Opinion® of the last eight years.

Get yours today at www.patriotdepot.com for 99¢ and FREE shipping! Oops... they just sold out.

Mr. Ramirez and Dr. Sowell

Random Notes On The Passing Scene:

• One of the few advantages to the country in having Congress overwhelmingly in the hands of one party is that the lack of need to compromise lets the leaders of that party reveal themselves for what they are — in this case, people with unbounded arrogance and utter contempt for the right of ordinary people to live their lives as they see fit, much less the right to know as citizens what laws are going to be passed by their government. The question is whether voters will remember on Election Day in 2010.
• Even if this country can survive intact and unharmed after the Obama administration — or, heaven help us, two terms of Obama — the gullibility that led to his being elected in the first place will still be there for some other slick demagogue to come along and get the power to put the American way of life, and even our physical safety, at risk again.

—Thomas Sowell

Palin On Oprah: This Monday

Sarah Palin on Facebook.

Willow, Piper, and I are in Chicago and just wanted to let you know that I had a great conversation with Oprah today. We taped the show for Monday, November 16th, and enjoyed it so much that we went way over on time. The rest will air on Oprah.com. Oprah was very hospitable and gracious, and her audience was full of warm, energized and (no doubt) curious viewers.

— Sarah Palin

I don't watch Oprah but my lovely wife agreed to watch it for me.

The Southwest Pacific, 1943

Safely back in Rockhampton, Australia, after six months in New Guinea, including two months of continuous combat and repeated bouts of malaria, Stanley Langeberg was still a little unsteady on his feet. But his friends just had to show him off.

Well, what do you know. I cut in on a staff seargants rating. It'll be just a bigger blow-out when I get home. I have saved all my dough for seven months now.

Thanks for the crossed fingers.

Love,
Stan

Dr. Phil and the Fort Hood Killer

Dorothy Rabinowitz, TV critic for The Wall Street Journal, has the sharpest pen in New York, and probably in the entire Northeast. Today she fillets the media response to the Fort Hood killer.

What is hard to ignore, now, is the growing derangement on all matters involving terrorism and Muslim sensitivities. Its chief symptoms: a palpitating fear of discomfiting facts and a willingness to discard those facts and embrace the richest possible variety of ludicrous theories as to the motives behind an act of Islamic terrorism. All this we have seen before but never in such naked form. The days following the Fort Hood rampage have told us more than we want to know, perhaps, about the depth and reach of this epidemic.

Don't miss it.

Twenty Years Ago Tonight

The Wall came tumblin' down.

The news traveled with the speed of light. West Berliners also poured out into the streets. By midnight the whole area between the Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie was one huge, joyous party. Car horns tooted, there was dancing in the streets, and champagne, or a reasonable substitute, was raised in toasts, drunk, and sprayed around the assembly.

William F. Buckley Jr. in The Fall of the Berlin Wall, a concise, readable history, now in paperback. Highly recommended. I've read it twice.

In the Dead of Night

That monstrous bill passed the House late last night while most of us were asleep. Oregon's four Democrats, Blumenauer, DeFazio, Schrader, and Wu, voted for it. Greg Walden, our lone Republican, voted against.

Sarah Palin has penned a rallying speech on her Facebook page.

It's on to the Senate now. Our legislators can listen now, or they can hear us in 2010. It's their choice.

Read it for encouragement.

My First Buck

Yeah, I know. Fifty-five years old, what have I been waiting for?

I'd been out about a dozen times this season and seen plenty of does and fawns, but nothing with antlers. Today was the last day. Forget work, I told Leslie, I'm going out one more time.

There are eighty acres of BLM land less than a mile from our house. It's on a steep and brushy hillside, but while bushwhacking on opening day I discovered a nice level trail through it, an old jeep track I suppose. It's very convenient, close to home, and I didn't care whether I saw any deer or not, it was good hunting.

This morning I'd walked to the end of the trail without seeing anything. I started back, and as I came around a bend, this guy stepped out from behind a tree about sixty feet away. He never saw me, never even looked my way. I raised my rifle just as he stepped behind another tree. His back half was showing but I waited for the front to reappear. He never knew what hit him.

Two From The Beeb

Feeling grumpy 'is good for you'

An Australian psychology expert who has been studying emotions has found being grumpy makes us think more clearly.

In contrast to those annoying happy types, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, his experiments showed.

While cheerfulness fosters creativity, gloominess breeds attentiveness and careful thinking...

That's what I've been trying to tell you, if you'd just pay attention. Oh, well. The second item should put a smile on the face of all Grumpy-Americans.

Bear kills militants in Kashmir

A bear killed two militants after discovering them in its den in Indian-administered Kashmir, police say.

Two other militants escaped, one of them badly wounded, after the attack in Kulgam district, south of Srinagar.

The militants had assault rifles but were taken by surprise — police found the remains of pudding they had made to eat when the bear attacked.

OK, that last paragraph makes no sense. They were "taken by surprise" and yet they had made a pudding "to eat when the bear attacked"? It sounds like they were expecting company.

Big Fat Mistake

Steve Chapman says Jon Corzine shouldn't have made fun of Chris Christie.

For a while, Christie dealt with the insults in the classic manner of the overweight, gamely swallowing his embarrassment. "It's just part of who I am, unfortunately," he told The Times, while declining to state his current weight.

But the other day, he decided to confront his opponent. No, not by calling him bald, furry-faced, and four-eyed, all of which would be understandable retorts. No, he took the high road by daring Corzine to stop the sly digs and say what he's thinking outright. "If you're going to do it," said Christie, "at least man up and say I'm fat."

Because just being skinny is not necessarily a sign of virtue.

In the old days, low-fat individuals could flatter themselves that they deserved credit for being that way. But it's now clear that obesity owes a lot to biology and environment. Some people are genetically prone to excess weight, and some are not.

Lots of heavy folks work very hard to lose weight, without success, or else lose it only to gain it back. Their bodies, hard-wired for famine survival, don't want to be skinny. Some people are thin because they eat sparsely and exercise fanatically, but most are just lucky.

Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.

Hat tip to Prof. Reynolds.