Life's a bitch, War is Hell, and commitments are hard to keep.  We all know this, yet so many people believe that if we simply ignore these  truths, they might just go away.

As if

Cassandra of Villainous Company also nails it:

"If only we could go back to the good old days, when there was no news coming out of Iraq and we didn't have to confront the horror. When we could tell ourselves, even if it wasn't true, that our hands were clean.

I hope one of these smart people, who are so disturbed over our "failures" in Iraq and Afghanistan can tell me what they propose to do when we pull out? What do they think will happen? Why do they think a small minority of Iraqis are planting bombs and practicing terrorism against their fellow Muslims - innocent civilians - in order to prevent a democratic government from being formed?

The insurgents, too, long for the good old days. And right now, we are the only thing standing between them and their heart's desire. And that's an Inconvenient Truth we all too often forget when the media is parading an endless stream of sensationalized stories about Abu Ghuraib and Haditha before our eyes."

Posted by: caltechgirl at 07:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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You Are Bert

Extremely serious and a little eccentric, people find you loveable - even if you don't love them! You are usually feeling: Logical - you rarely let your emotions rule you You are famous for: Being smart, a total neat freak, and maybe just a little evil How you life your life: With passion, even if your odd passions (like bottle caps and pigeons) are baffling to others

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"The left, to a man, considers itself to be educated and enlightened. It matters not how little actual schooling a particlular leftist may have had, nor how unintelligent the person might be. They all consider themselves intellectuals of sorts. If they dropped out of college after one semester, they just think of themselves as autodidacts whose genius could not be stimulated by the ossified and bourgeois teaching of the academy....

This conceit, usually wholly undeserved, of practically every leftist in the world is what makes leftism so intoxicating for the intellectually insecure, and what makes leftists so easily led and manipulated. It's an attractive doctrine for those who wish to conceive of themselves as intellectual and brilliant, for it provides an instant short-cut to the equivalent of an MIT education. If you simply believe these things we tell you to believe, you are one of Us, one of the Intellectually Elite, one of the Cultural Vanguard. Just as giving oneself to Christ, and believing in His power, and accepting the need for and gift of His redemption, instantly makes one "saved" and enters one's name in the Book of the Heaven, so too does accepting leftist tropes and core beliefs make one one of the Secular Elect.

Now, the things the left wants you to believe are not easy to believe. It's hard to believe that, for example, taxing work and investment will not reduce work and investment (especially when one simultaneously believes that taxing the use of gasoline or other energy will reduce the use of gasoline or other energy). Nevertheless, while it may be difficult to believe these things, it's certainly easier to simply give in and believe these things than to, say, earn a Ph. D. in literary theory or semiotics or even something stupid like science or engineering.

So, if one wants to conceive of oneself as an intellectual, one can either actually become an intellectual -- which frankly takes a lot of work and reading, much of it terribly boring -- or one can simply believe what Noam Chomsky tells one....

Leftism, and liberalism, and progressivism, and etc-ism. are not merely simple politics for most of these people. Their politics to them are a core part of their identity, and, more importantly, a central support propping up their egos. They are enlightened because they believe these things; someone who does not believe these things, and yet who, superficially at least, appears to be about as smart as they might be, represents a threat to their egos. The foundation upon which a crucial structure of their sense of self-worth is undermined if they discover that there may be people who can pass as normal and intelligent and yet do not believe as they do.

If one is smart, then one believes in progressivism.

If one believes in progressivism, then one is smart.

Those are the two assumptions that prop up their sense of self worth, and they are refuted by examples of smart people who don't believe in progressivism.

And because there is a great deal of personal psychological investment in progressivism, they react intemperately to rejections of it. It's not merely a tax cut that's being debated; it's their very sense of importance that's being attacked. It's not merely gay marriage which is being argued against; it's their value as human beings that is being uncouthly denigrated."

Posted by: caltechgirl at 10:07 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I love my blog child, but sometimes he just makes me scratch my head.

For what it's worth, Paul, I'd say it's a Phillip's™ Screwdriver.

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Possible chemical weapons raid by British police

Ricin and Pipe Bombs found in suburban Tennessee home

Posted by: caltechgirl at 08:57 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Hurry up, dammit!

Update: Thanks, Deb!

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Christina finishes up the blog novella with a bang.  Literally.  And more twists than a pretzel.

If you haven't been keeping up with this project, and you're a fan of thriller/spy/suspense fiction, take a few minutes and read through the whole thing.  Each chapter is just 1,000 words, so it takes just a few minutes to get through the whole story.  Perfect for a coffee break!

Chapter 1:  The Reluctant Assassin
Chapter 2:  The Cleaner
Chapter 3:  House of Cards
Chapter 4:  Beautiful Death
Chapter 5:  Deal Killer

Posted by: caltechgirl at 07:39 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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They've gone and spawned again!

Courtesy of Adopted Blog-Mom Bou, we have a new blog-sis, Mrs. Who of House of Zathras.

And true to the formula that the Bad Example family tree is often more of a stick than a tree, adopted blog-sis VW contributes a new blog sis/niece, her real life sister Tink of Tink's Tribulations.

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So says this piece of what George Moneo has so rightly termed "Bovine Excrement".  It's worth the 2 minutes out of your life to laugh and shake your head at the self-important idiocy that passes for education around here.  Keep in mind that this POS had to get a charter from the county, so somebody actually bought into this.....

Quick!  The Smug cloud is descending over Los Angeles!  Oh no!

On a related note, Cobb has some interesting thoughts on immigration and the Latino community....

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