Moving sucks, but even more so in that we are stirring up all the caustic dusts that have been deposited in rarely-visited parts of our home for over 7 years. Cat-caustic, that is. So your humble narrator is back on the medications that made life so very interesting a couple months ago. This also implies increased consumption of cabernet: I don't know why, but I think it has to do with taking the edge off. In any case, this means light blogging for awhile longer.

Until we can resume full time contributing to the site - and when this happens we will be doing so from the new, 180+ sq ft office, yee hah - we will persist in the truly lame tradition of just posting links to the hard work of others.

As always, that scary-yet-funny imao guy is at the top of the list: Have a Fair Election or We Will Bomb You and the Country Next to You.

Balloon Juice is in a dither about today's modern idiots. Call me jaded, but almost nothing they do gets a rise out of me anymore.

The good guys at Dhimmi Watch have some good questions for those Islamic groups in the U.S. that some people do not quite trust. People like us.

Serenity has had about enough of Dear Abby's insipid advice, so she's taking over the show.

Ok, that's enough for now; I am medicated, after all, and need to think of my health. Also I need to take a quick jaunt to the wine aisle of ye olde neighborhood mega-mart.

Posted by John Climacus at 04:27 | Permalink

Boy this is going great. I've always loved a low key venture and if this one got any lower we'd be playin' the tuba. Oompah loompah and away we go.

First, appropriately, the evil heritage of the rat-bastard American Thanksgiving should be at the top of EVERYONE'S mind tomorrow, lest a bolt from the heavens strike us all dead.

Speaking of bastards, they're hosting terrorist Internet sites in the heartland. What is this, Holland?

Speaking of white trash, a wedding cake made of cupcakes and twinkies is one of the many ideas I wish I'd thought of.

Speaking of cupcakes...er, better not go there as you never know who might be reading this.

And finally, in the More Good News Department: Some have been calling for more boots on the ground in Iraq, but maybe we can do better than boots. I think technology is where it's at in a big way.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Posted by joe at 05:31 | Permalink

We're going to try to carve out a niche as a source of links to other blogs, sort of like the guy at the Dark Side of the Web, except with far fewer links - because we don't work at a university where you can sit around reading all day - and with absolutely no revenue-generating mechanisms. Just to prove it can be done.

If it hasn't caught on in three days we'll try writing about the Scott Peterson trial to see if that brings us world renown. And if that doesn't work we'll probably just go to Starbucks and try to look cool and write haiku.

Today's featured link is to the amazing coverage of Fallujah over at Argghhh!. Spend 20 minutes there, you'll be glad you did.

Next, as usual, we direct you to the continuing project at MonkeyWatch, to give props to those who do the work that must be done but so few are willing to do, and who never, ever write about Dan Rather.

Straight White Guy is back, finally, because things were on the verge of getting a bit racy with his guest bloggers.

The real story from Iraq seems different than the mainstream media picture. Also, cars run on gasoline.

Finally, to show I'm not above posting a link to a site that gets a quadrillion times more hits than this one, which is sort of like emptying a glass of water into the ocean just to help out the fish, I'm going to link to the always interesting evangelical guy...but I'm doing it on the day when his site appears to be doing a stint in purgatory. Which is sort of funny when you think about it. (If he's fixed it try going here to get the gist of my amusement. If he's fixed THAT, then nevermind.)

Whew, linking sure builds up a powerful thirst! Have a wonderful evening and don't give up on cold fusion - it could make all the difference.

Posted by joe at 07:56 | Permalink

Not many hopeful messages on this front seems to make it to my screen, so these sensible voices stand out as worth sharing.

From MEMRI:

Arab Progressive Columnist: Arab Artists Deal with the Past and Not with the Present, Due to Fear of the Regimes

"[The Ramadan TV] series' live the past, the artist is devoid of any influence on life in general, and blandness has become the most prominent characteristic of the lives of the Arabs, and all this stems from the lack of freedom of speech.

"Everyone is afraid, and therefore the Arabs lie about everything, glamorize every failure, and never try to deal with the facts�"

From Ralph Peters:

My Muslim friend had recently found yet another reason to believe in America - in a place the rest of us would overlook. Coming from a land where the rich can even murder with impunity, he was thrilled that Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps had to face drunken-driving charges.

"Seven gold medals!" my friend said. "He is a hero, sir! And still he must face the court!

"It is not hidden away because he is powerful. This is very good, this is Islam."

I don't know how representative this guy is, but Peters' column is worth reading in its entirety. Accentuate the positive and all that.

Posted by joe at 06:25 | Permalink

We continue to have little time for online activities but it's all for a good cause - and it appears will result in a much more positive orientation for the Alpaca Burger Forum.

We're moving and the cats are going outside for good!

This is where, in the movies, you would hear raucus shouts of "Yee-hah!!" and ""Whoo-hoo!!" and "You go get'em, Jeb!!"

Plus, we will no longer be confined to a tiny upstairs hovel in which turning around without bumping one's arm requires agility and books have to be transported up two flights of steps regularly because we can't read them where they are stored. We are going to have space out the wazoo, podner.

Meantime, if you haven't already done so, take a look at recent work by:

Bill Kristol;

Tony Blankley;

Stephen Hayes; and

Protein Wisdom. (Thanks, Ace.)

And, as Paul Harvey would say - "Good day."

Posted by John Climacus at 03:40 | Permalink

Yes, yes, I'm sure I will soon get to creating my own posts, as soon as I figure out which end is up, but in the meantime I'll gladly link to BETTER posts.

Herewith, then, another gem of an editorial from Frank J.: The Best Option for the Democrats Now Is to Crawl into a Ditch and Die.

It's thoughtful and well-reasoned.

If you locked Frank J. and liberal "funnyman" Al Franken in a room for 15 minutes, Franken would emerge wearing a pink Easter dress and the only things he'd ever wrestle again would be dust bunnies.

Posted by joe at 06:59 | Permalink

Holy moly, lookee here what we just run across while we're not particularly serious: It's the reality-based community! In our midst!

So I'm strolling through the resort and I come upon the following:

On closer inspection, this is:

Tryouts for the famous ABC show The Bachelor!

But upon even closer inspection, this is actually deadsville:

We went in and the nice woman in charge asked us if we wanted to apply (nice woman is on left):

We said 'no' on account of being married and not pining for national humiliation. But we appreciated the gesture.

The conclusion one might draw from this is the public is getting wised up. Being a bachelorette sucks and no one wants to watch the train wreck anymore.

Posted by joe at 02:32 | Permalink

We remain here in Phoenix on our work-imposed sabbatical from all things stress-inducing, including politics, journals of opinion and cable news. We are enjoying the change of scenery before our return to the national capital area tomorrow afternoon.

Although responsible stewardship of this Web log might seem to require quick and incisive responses to comments like this (from Hub) to our more inflammatory posts....

The liberal line is not that you all pulled a “slick one” on us – no, you did that last time. You were caustically negative and personal, though. Juxtapose, for example, the tone of the Democratic Convention against that of the Republican Convention -- indeed, just consider the keynotes (Obama Barrack v. Zell Miller) – and tell me different. Yes, liberal activists, including the evil Soros and Moore, did come out swinging this time and helped to chip away at w’s margin. The same applies equally, at least, to your side. (Remember the Smearboat?) w’d have gone done in flames without his inflamed base.

His supporters like to point out that he got more votes than any candidate in presidential history. I’d point out that Kerry came in second by that standard. And you can be sure that the Kerry votes were cast with white-hot intensity. You may like this map. I refer you to this one. Remember, people, not dirt, vote -- I wouldn’t crow too loudly over 51%.

I find it rather weird (among other things) that someone who links to Kirkegaard would rant against the professors. Nevertheless, when 75% of Bush supporters believe that Saddam was behind or involved in the 9/11 attacks, you all down there in the exurbian South (or wherever) are in dire need of some education. (Was Greg’s reference to Kerry supporters as “Know Nothings” made in irony?)

9/11 was God’s gift to w and it kept on giving up until the end. Though just barely – he went from 92% support in the wake of the attacks to a bare majority last week. w had all the support in the world, not to mention the country, and could have pulled people together to do great things. Where are we now? Deep in debt, stretched thin on the ground, and divided and angry. Here’s an interesting comment from one of your brethren which we effete city-dwellers should take under advisement: http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=5652 I could go there! Enough red-state welfare! Part of the deal, however, would have to be that we keep our brand (the Union), and you keep yours (Dixie). That w – he’s a uniter, not a divider

The Alpaca Burger Forum comments will be addressed, to be sure, but the view from the balcony is our current concern.

Here's what we see on a typical late afternoon:

Here's what we saw yesterday late afternoon:

Pretty cool, huh? Lesson: The desert can get really cold and really wet, really fast. I've been in the Arizona desert a bunch but have never seen a storm cloud here before.

Since I've got no Fox News and no New York Post - and clearly no Washington Times - I've resigned myself to a fairly limited 'reality based' reality this week. Limited, in fact, to nature. This lesson from nature is as follows: The past is no prologue; and anything can happen.

It's rained like a typhoon in the desert, and George W. Bush has won a second term. This latter was not only a break with tradition, but it defied all expectations. I love it when the conventional wisdom gets washed away. Watching this storm was just fantastic.

Posted by joe at 01:56 | Permalink

I'm at a work-related function this week and the schedule is not very amenable to writing anything, except when the time-change, dry air and physiological artifacts of merlot conspire to get me out of bed at 3:10 am local time. I went out to the lobby to read about half of Frum and Perle's An End To Evil, then retired back to the room for coffee and to try and quietly access the Internet while the Better Half sleeps.

No comment on the book yet. It's a reasonable argument, though. I'll probably comment when I finish it.

Oops. Guess the quietness thing did not work out because she's up now. Well, my conscience is clear: If you can't run with the big boys you shouldn't travel with them.

I have not decided which direction this little corner of the Internet will take in the future. There is great potential, to be sure, in the sense that I have tons of server space and bandwidth that I have never even really tested thus far. As explained in an earlier post (sorry, no link, I just don't have the will to open another browser - but it was a couple months ago), a whole bunch of real-life changes took place immediately after I procured the server and various domain names and set up the original template, and the whole plan was hugely delayed and changed. This Forum became the central part of the site, which was NOT the original idea, and it hinged mostly on a politics-driven narrative, which definitely was not the concept from the beginning.

Now, the election is over, the good guys won, the troubles that beset us and screwed up our original plan for newcounterculture.com have largely faded, and the cats are gone. How best to seize this budding and incredibly promising moment?

No answers will be quickly forthcoming, because I have to go to work, but the change of scenery may be fortuitous. What inspirations lieth in yonder desert, far beyond the golfers with their gaudy attire? I shall never know, because I have no inclination to leave this resort, and if I did it would be to go to a Walgreens and purchase comestibles, not to go walking into no man's land.

So let us change the question slightly: What inspirations can be harvested here, among the tiled floors, smiling attendants and horribly limited cable news selections? Perhaps for this answer we must look within ourselves.

Posted by joe at 08:03 | Permalink

Great comment from Greg:

Republican's delivered a message in 1972--Democrats rejected it. Again in 1980. Again rejected. Another really BIG message in 1984. It must have been delivered to the wrong address. 1992 and 1996 the Democrat GOT the message, but then blew it (sorry for the pun). Then in 2000 and now in 2004, we shouted the message at them through a loud speaker. The Democratic party is over. It has been over for 32 years. They are the Whigs. The Know-Nothings. Its over and until they realize it, Republicans will keep winning and winning and winning.

Boy howdy is that the truth. The post-election self-analysis by the progressives is like the cherry on this victory sundae: These guys are gearing up for a long journey into irrelevance. This is competely borne out by the spin now emitted across the lefthand side of the board.

I almost never post links to Instapundit or Powerlineblog anymore, because I realized everyone already read those sites everyday, but both have links to revealing items on this topic.

Powerline has this E.J. Dionne oracle making the point that nothing you thought about this election is even remotely true:

And we are disgusted that an effort consciously designed to divide the country did exactly that � and won. With all his failures, Bush could not count on a whole lot more than 51 percent. Karl Rove and company calculated perfectly, organized painstakingly, greatly increased conservative turnout and produced a country divided just their way....

What's required is a sustained and intellectually serious effort by religious moderates and progressives to insist that social justice and inclusion are "moral values" and that war and peace are "life issues."

All we can hope is the Democrats take this advice and launch a sustained, long-term effort to re-educate the American people about "moral values" (which, as David Brooks notes in the New York Times, represents a perfect misreading of the voter analysis).

Yeah, we're a bunch of moral idiots out here, so please send some professors to tell us how to think about life. First, you'll need to pull us away from the fundamentalist television preacher, and you'll have to realize we won't listen to you until the whole neighborhood is on board because, basically, we just want to conform. That's why everyone who voted for George W. Bush acts the same and thinks the same throughout all our cities and towns. We're like a big mass of putty waiting for the next Karl Rove or Rush Limbaugh to come along; so once you Democrats hire a guy like this, have at it and knock our socks off. Just don't send any metro-attired pretty boys because we hate homosexuals.

Instapundit has pulled this strategic gem from The Daily Howler Kos:

And thus, the biggest silver lining of this election is how the GOP's victory is thus far being claimed, framed and explained. To that I say, "Let us join that chorus." And we should do so now, because there is immediacy in the post-election window of opportunity.

Marching order #1, therefore, is this: No matter whom you talk to outside our circles, begin to perpetuate the (false, exaggerated) notion that George Bush's victory was built not merely on values issues, but gay marriage specifically. If you feel a need to broaden it slightly, try depicting the GOP as a majority party synonymous with gay-haters, warmongers and country-clubbers.

Evoking comments such as:

-The Christians conservatives put Bush over the top using gays/abortion. The dmes should force the repubs to bring a bill to the floor to execute women who have abortions.

-When I tell Americans how many of these right wingers families supported Hitler and tried to have FDR assassinated, they look at me like I'm crazy, then I tell them to read War Is Racket, etc. It's scarey how many Americans don't know anything about fascism. If corporate values are more important than individual values, if they try to get God in government, If democracy is being replaced by an economic system (Capitalism) then it's freakin' fascist!....The right wing SCLM has succeeded in tainting the word fascism to mean conspiracy nut, so we need a new word(s) to describe them. How about the "Corporate Values" community? I mean, they are the ones pushing the, "you're either with us or against us meme." They divided the country on social left wing, right wing values issues, so lets take it a step further and divide into pro-individual vs pro-corporate government. You're either with the people or against them.

-i like "debased christians," because it points to the lack of love and tolerance among this segment of those who claim to believe in jesus.

-My father-in-law was gloating about the Bush victory and so I politely told him that if redneck bigots were banned from voting Kerry would have won easily. That shut him up. They're not so proud of their victory when they look closely at their constituency.

If you wants to win, you gots to lie and stir up de' hate, because that what George W. Bush just did.

(Funny, though: Did you happen to catch any of those anti-gay, fundamentalist Bush television commercials or speeches? I didn't and I followed the campaign pretty closely. He must have done the gay-baiting and hatred-stirring while everyone else was asleep.)

Admittedly, some of those on the Left seem to sort-kinda be on the verge of getting it, but that may not even be true.

The fact of the matter seems to be that the Democrats and their various intellectual founts are going to explain the election in every possible way except this one: More Americans agree with the Republicans on more of the issues most important to them. Because if THAT is the reason for the GOP's successes in 2002 and 2004, then the Democrats as currently constituted are toast. No one I've read is yet even hinting that the Democrats will consider changing any of their policy positions: It's not the message, it's the delivery that needs to be fine-tuned. They simply got outmaneuvered by Karl Rove this time.

My belief is this: The mega attack machine that emerged to defeat George W. Bush is the only thing that kept this election from being a landslide of epic proportions. I agree completely with Evan Thomas' observation that the pro-Kerry mainstream media was good for 15 percentage points for the Democratic ticket.

Without the machine that's been in motion for the past two years - George Soros, $100 million in '527' support, the tables full of anti-Bush books at Borders, the yeoman duty pulled by Rather-Jennings-Brokaw-Koppel, all those celebrity artists and comedians and stars on tour, The New York Times, Fahrenheit 9-11 and its perky creator, and so much more - Bush's margin of victory would have been 65%-32%.

Liberals will disagree vehemently, presenting all sorts of contrary ideas and statistics. Fine, I expect no less. What reassures me is that next time around, the machine will be hobbled. How much time and money will the anti-Bush big shots be willing to expend? Not so much, is my guess. Instapundit also has a link to this nugget: Daily Kos raised $500,000 to aid 15 candidates, every one of whom lost. How much more money is going to be available for 2006 and 2008 when, presumably, most of these former contributors do in fact have lives?

This whole liberal line that "you dirty rats pulled a slick one on us" has to bring a smile. Yep, we pulled a slick one all right. We outworked you and did a better job in our polling to identify the buzz words that would get our target voters to pull the right lever. We bamboozled the public by playing them with emotional hot buttons, clever lies and half truths. That's our game, and we are fully - nay, exuberantly - prepared to accept the fact that in 2008 you are going to beat us at it.

Posted by joe at 12:39 | Permalink

Good golly the stress of it all. I have to paint and sell the house so have almost zero time to blog till Saturday. This rumination may lead to something more substantial later though so I want to get it posted for purposes of my own recollection: The whole situation is different now, and by that I mean bigger stuff than politics. I am talking about the media, popular culture, and psychology (of conservatives).

We don't need to carp about the mainstream media anymore - it has been discredited and it's big guns turned out to be firing blanks.

On the same note, we can drop the whole 'media bias' topic (sorry, Brent Bozell, but your work here is done). Sure they're biased, and everyone knows it, and their days of mass influence have gone by. Just look away.

We don't need to fear the machinations of the Left anymore - they also turned out to be impotent and their lies did not take with the general public. It's a conservative country, conservative principles have proven ascendant with the American people, and America has taken a big Right turn. Ignore the liberals; there is no more need for breathless reporting of every instance of Leftist activity (sorry, WND, but there are still plenty of other topics to report on).

And of course, we don't need to shrink like a bunch of nervous nellies at the prospect of insidious Democratic initiatives that seem to undermine our national security or the moral fabric of the nation. This is going to be a tough one to grow into, but a GOOD THING just occurred which swept a huge pile of problems and worries right off the table. We can move on to other types of thoughts.

It's not a bulletproof majority in the Senate, but so what? The Republicans are a juggernaut. The Democratic Party has to reinvent itself. As we pondered a long, long time ago and under different circumstances, they may even need to break that baby in order to fix it. There may need to be another third party in order to accommodate the differing views of the different constituencies.

The wonderfulness of it all is almost hard to bear. But now I must go paint my house.

Posted by joe at 12:08 | Permalink

Just like reading the Washington Post on Mondays after a Redskins loss, I've particularly been enjoying my usual stroll through the alternate universe today. Here's an erudite comment that I think reflects well the thoughts of the Left on today's events:

Of course, forget about the cable news channels, all of them. The Kerry campaign should have played hardball with them all and starved them of any information. The Bushies understand this and that is one way they keep the press so intimidated.

But, when all is said and done, Bush's very convincing popular vote has one unmistakable cause: Kerry lost because more Americans indisputably like, trust, and feel more comfortable and safer with Bush than with Kerry.

Why? The unavoidably obvious explanation is that Americans are by-and-large morons. Simpleminded, uninformed and undereducated, intellectually lazy and proud in their ignorance to boot, self-important and self-righteous, arrogant and benighted idiots. They are a reflection of George W. Bush, and in him they saw themselves. That's why they love him and trust him so. Their reality is the faith-based myth that America is blessed and always right and great and perfect and freedom is handed down by God and not manmade constitutional governments and cultures of tolerance and inquiry. The are certain that the "real" America is in the unpleasant, xenophobic, homophobic, red states in the middle, where everybody has a white picket fence in the brain and they don't seem aware of their own squalor and the fact that they make ends meet only because the far more prosperous blue states continue to subsidize their light beer guzzling.

Americans chose Bush. They deserve him.

Though I disagree with the writer's route to that closing thought, I agree with it 100%.

Posted by joe at 01:23 | Permalink

Hold these images in your mind:

Michael Moore.

George Soros.

Have a great day!

Posted by joe at 09:26 | Permalink

I'm off to deliver a few more flyers and then tomorrow spending a good portion of the day at the polls. Thanks to these videos from the Protest Warrior folks for inspiring me to do more than just send checks to the GOP this year. Watching real live 'liberals' in action made me want to either start shooting or do what I can to crush their political hopes, and I opted for the latter course.

Tomorrow I'll be a 'poll watcher' which means I stand behind an election official for 5 hours and tick off the names of Republicans as they vote. At 2:00 pm our lists will be taken by the phone call people who will go to work on all Republicans who have not yet voted.

Also, I'm to watch for 'any incidents or irregularities that occur if any. An Incident Report Sheet will be provided in a spiral notebook along with the list of identified Republicans.'

I'm hoping this also means I get to man the fire hose.

Little or no blogging until late tomorrow night.

Vote for Bush and the Republican candidates on your ballot, and tell everyone you know to do the same!

Posted by joe at 06:08 | Permalink

Who Would Bin Laden Vote For, Part 2.

This pretty much eliminates any doubt. Visit today's MEMRI. There was a much different slant to the bin Laden message last week than has yet been presented in the U.S. - far more threatening. A summary:

The tape of Osama bin Laden that was aired on Al-Jazeera(1) on Friday, October 29th included a specific threat to "each U.S. state," designed to influence the outcome of the upcoming election against George W. Bush. The U.S. media in general mistranslated the words "ay wilaya" (which means "each U.S. state")(2) to mean a "country" or "nation" other than the U.S., while in fact the threat was directed specifically at each individual U.S. state. This suggests some knowledge by bin Laden of the U.S. electoral college system. In a section of his speech in which he harshly criticized George W. Bush, bin Laden stated: "Any U.S. state that does not toy with our security automatically guarantees its own security."

The Islamist website Al-Qal'a explained what this sentence meant: "This message was a warning to every U.S. state separately. When he [Osama Bin Laden] said, 'Every state will be determining its own security, and will be responsible for its choice,' it means that any U.S. state that will choose to vote for the white thug Bush as president has chosen to fight us, and we will consider it our enemy, and any state that will vote against Bush has chosen to make peace with us, and we will not characterize it as an enemy...This letter will have great implications inside the American society, part of which are connected to the American elections, and part of which are connected to what will come after the elections."

MEMRI also discerns, as we did, a link between bin Laden's offer last week to the U.S. and his proposed truce earlier in the year with Europe.

My question to my fellow U.S. voters: Are we all going to be speaking Spanish Wednesday morning?

Posted by joe at 11:56 | Permalink