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December 31, 2010

We Need A Raise

The news business is a cut throat profession with wire-thin profit margins and mile-wide egos. Here at the Goomba News Network, corporate accountants recently announced a series of profit enhancing measures designed to make 2011 our best year ever.

Rhod will digitize and sell on-line access to his prodigious collection of pornographic thesauri.

DC must remove his .45-70 reloading gear from the old linotype room so the GNN cafeteria can finally install a sushi bar.

Sig94 will no longer use the costly Employee Mental Health Assistance Program in order to stop referring to himself in the third person. Really, he promised.

And Nickie will even provide the clippers so he can lease his back for GNN advertising.
Malibu Beach, here we come!


December 30, 2010

We'll see you again in the New Year


This evening, in an annual ritual celebrated since 1961, DC, Rhod, Sig94, and I climbed the stairs to the roof of the Goomba News Network Building to illuminate the traditional "Good Riddance, Old Year" ball of lights.

This impressive fixture will brighten the intersection of State Street and 4th Avenue in downtown Sandusky until the stroke of midnight on New Years Eve. At that moment, Rhod will spit off the roof, yell "Acta est fabula, plaudite!" to the crowd, and turn off the lights.

Ah, tradition! We can't get enough of the stuff.

WE NEED A REST.
WE'LL BE BACK IN THE NEW YEAR.

Happy New Year

December 29, 2010

UK Science Guys Test Brains



GNN - In a ground-breaking new study by scientists at world-renowned University College, London, the conservative brain was found to be imperfect compared to the liberal/Labor brain, upholding similar conclusions from UCLA. The complicated analytical device below, shown in a photograph smuggled out from its manufacturer in Scotland - the amiable host country for British manufacturing and advanced technology - is thought to be the source for University College's data. The study figure attached to the device is an unidentified brilliant American.



Dr. Alistair Bollocks-Sweetbreads,OBE, professor, phrenologist and tosser (shown below in his faculty portrait) asserts that his conclusions are indisputable; his sample included several students and two members of Parliament. Bollocks-Sweetbreads deduced from his study that conservative brains are ruled by anxiety and emotion, while liberal brains generate courage and optimism. Bollocks-Sweetbreads' name has been submitted for a Nobel Prize by the UC's Jeremy Bentham Viewing Club.




Alistair Bollocks-Sweetbreads, PhD, OBE, CPA, DOPE, MO RON IDI OT

Bloomberg On The Case

GNN - Today, New York City's Progressive Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, put aside his proposed food flavor restrictions and turned his attention to complaints about snow removal efforts in the city's boroughs. Bloomberg hinted that the complaints were made by sissies, and he cited a metric never before used for this city service, claiming that "96 percent" of New York's streets had been cleared of snow.


The Mayor went on to note that new state-of-the-art hiring kiosks were deployed city-wide to boost the number of workers in NYC's Department of Public Works. Bloomberg, facing tough re-election prospects because the public-to-private employee ratio has dipped severely from 112:1 to 111:1, said that he would focus his attention on this shortfall "like a laser beam".

Close-up on Janeane Garafalo

GNN brings you the closest look at Janeane you've ever seen!

Global warming is killing old folks. Quick - Build more windmills!


(UK) About half a million pensioners spent Christmas in bed, in order to keep warm. It is more complex than just fuel poverty, but it is certainly the case that every new windmill and every new middle-class solar panel user, milking the system for the feed-in-tariff, is putting heating out of the reach of still more pensioners.

What people forget, though, is that the greenie objective, quite deliberately, is to increase the cost of energy, firstly to discourage its use and secondly to make inefficient alternatives more attractive. By this means, greenie policies put pensioners in bed ... and hasten them to their coffins.

Hat Tip to EUReferendum

December 28, 2010

Overheard at GNN Christmas Party


Well, not really, but something like it happens every year. The talk about Mad Magazine free-associated me to Stan Freberg, the first adult comic I understood, aside from Shelley Berman. Freberg contibuted to Mad a long time ago.

Most of his routines are dated, now, or too long for a quick tramp through the blogs. But this is good, short, and those of a certain age will remember it, although with different imaginings.



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Green Eggs & Patriotism


"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
- Dr. Seuss (1904 - 1991)

December 27, 2010

Some Christmas Gift...

Miss Grundy Is Gonna Die

(Maybe)



Brace yourself. The owners and publishers of the Archie Andrews franchise might kill off the stern former pickle factory worker, and spinsterish teacher, Geraldine Grundy. I don't know where the comic strip stands now, because the last time I saw an Archie comic strip, Smokey Stover and Snuffy Smif were still alive. The first time I saw Archie was probably when the Teenie-Weenies were making their beds in walnut shells. Both were a long time ago. In the intervening years, I read the Sunday comics mainly to see what Walt Kelly was up to with Pogo.

When I was in college, Archie was still wearing a sleeveless Argyl sweater and saddle Oxfords. His car was still the topless Model-T-like wreck; Veronica still looked like Veronica Lake, Reggie had patent-leather hair, Jughead was a dunce - it wasn't politically incorrect to notice it - and Moose was an adorable, dimwit bully balanced on the knife-edge dividing rage from harmless stupor. Its plots and characterizations were obsolete even, if not especially, then.

I'd been told that Archie was an update to the Harold Teen comic character from the 1930's. I don't know. The best comic satire of Archie was in an early 1950's Mad Magazine spoof where Archie (Starchie) is sent to prison for some offense , until "the cross-hatches on the sides of his head turn gray". It was drawn by one or more of Mad's wonderful illustrators, Wallace Wood, Jack Davis or John Severin.

Prison was probably a better fate for Archie than to be made "relevant" by the probable changes in his cartoon universe. Those changes will almost certainly be toward the busybody lefty youth-agitprop kind. If they're willing to kill Geraldine with cancer, and are aiming at the suggestible and generally confused minds of adolescents and young teens, you can imagine what's around the corner.

December 24, 2010

The Star Of Bethlehem

Although Scripture forbids man from worshipping heavenly bodies (astrology is part of this idolatry), the Bible is replete with references to observations of the stars for evidence of portentous events. In that smoke does not cause a fire, yet it supplies information to an observer that a fire exists, so God has deemed that the night skies may offer such insight into Heavenly events.

I speak of the Star of Bethlehem.

What transpired to drive the Magi to visit Herod? What observations were so acute and unusual that they would seek permission to leave their rulers and travel to a distant, occupied land where they were sure they would find … a King? Before we explore this parody, we must acknowledge the works of several men who give credence to this ancient riddle.

First, Flavius Josephus. He was a Pharisee born in 37 AD. He fought against the Roman occupation of Israel and was captured by Roman forces. An intelligent man, he was retained as a translator by Vespasian (a future Roman Emperor) and worked with Vespasian’s son, Titus, who eventually besieged and overthrew Jerusalem in 70 AD. In his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus writes of Jesus and John the Baptist; he also chronicles that King Herod died in 1 BC. There was a miscopy of his writings in 1544 AD that improperly attributed the year of Herod’s death to 4 BC. Recent research has uncovered this mistake. King Herod died in 1 BC. Thus the Magi had to visit Herod prior to his death, most likely 2 or 3 BC.

Next we turn our attention to the works of Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) and Tycho Brahe (1546-1601). Brahe invited the younger Kepler to Prague to join him in his studies of the solar system after Kepler was expelled from Austria. Kepler was one of the greatest mathematical geniuses of all time who used Brahe’s precise measurements of the stars and planets to develop his First, Second and Third Laws of Planetary Motion. These calculations are still used today by NASA.

We now have the basis for determining the events surrounding the appearance of a mysterious heavenly body that the Magi followed to find a King. We have an approximate date set and a series of mathematical formulas that can accurately place any heavenly body with respect to the earth’s orbit for any given period of time. And we have computers that can calculate these positions in seconds. For under $40 you can purchase software used for determining planetary motion and perform these calculations for yourself; there are even free downloads.

There are criteria for this story that must be addressed:

What was the Bethlehem Star? It had to be a planet. No supernovas were recorded in any culture at this time. It could not have been a meteorite or a comet as it would not have been observed for months on end or appear to change direction. Stars simply do not move about in such manner as to excite earth bound observers. Planets were once called wandering stars as they exhibit behavior which, due to the changing positions of the earth and the observed planet, have them appear to be moving backwards, or in retrograde.

Which planet? It had to be Jupiter. This is the largest planet in the solar system and is visible to the naked eye (as are Venus and Mars which are far smaller). Indeed, starting in September of 3 BC, at the beginning of the Jewish New Year, Rosh ha-Shanah, Jupiter began its dance. It appeared in conjunction with a star that was commonly associated with kingship – Regulus. The Romans called this star Rex and the Babylonians called it “Sharu” or King. In and of itself, this conjunction (the two bodies appear to touch) was not extraordinary; Jupiter does this every 12 years. But something extraordinary did happen. Jupiter went into retrograde; it circled back towards Regulus and touched it again, and again. Over a period of months between 3 and 2 BC, three times did the King of the Planets appear in conjunction with the King of the Stars. That got someone’s attention.

Where did the heavenly conjunction occur? Perhaps the Magi were familiar with the Jewish culture, perhaps not, but they did seek out the King of Israel in their search for a King so we can assume that they were completely aware of the circumstances of the conjunction of Jupiter and Regulus occurring in the constellation of Leo, the Lion.This is also the same animal that symbolizes the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:9-10), Jesus’ tribe.

Jewish cosmology was also well developed and they were undoubtably aware of this body of knowledge. Astrological signs and constellations used in the East were developed centuries prior to these events by the Babylonians.

But there was another conjunction. By June of 2 BC, Jupiter has finished its dance with Regulus. Now it headed towards another meeting – with Venus, the Virgin. This time the conjunction was so close that Jupiter appeared to join with Venus. It was spectacular. The combined brightness of these two planets was never recorded before. To that time, no one had ever seen anything like these combined events. The Magi must have been enthralled.

It had to appear in the West. As the Magi were approaching Israel from the east, this marvelous heavenly apparition was before them - to the West. When these conditions were explained by the Magi to Herod, he was not enthralled; he was frightened. He asked the Magi to locate the child for he had already made plans. Matthew, 2:1-7

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

Perhaps Herod was aware of the slaughter of “eligible” children in the city of Rome in 63 BC when it was foretold to the Roman Senate by so-called magi that heavenly omens signified the birth of a new leader (Suetonius, De Vita Caesarum: Divus Augustus (94). Whatever the circumstance, Herod slew perhaps thousands of Jewish children in an effort to retain his kingdom from the promised Messiah as foretold by Scripture and heavenly interpretations of the Magi.

But there is one more element that needs to be explained. The Star of Bethlehem (Jupiter) appeared to stop over Bethlehem. Once again Kepler’s Laws come into play. Jupiter’s orbit again went into retrograde and appeared to be stopped directly over the town of Bethlehem as the Magi traveled south from Jerusalem, a distance of only six miles.

The date was December 25, 2 BC.

Was this so hard for the Master of the Universe to arrange? No, it was less than child's play. What was hard was to empty Heaven and place His only Son at the mercy of Man as payment for our sin. Perhaps we will never know how hard that was.

To all my dear friends at GNN, Merry Christmas.

For more information see here, here and here.

December 23, 2010

Merry Christmas: The Holiday of the Divine Surprise


Greetings, Goomba denizens. Here's hoping you and yours make time to enjoy this holiday season. Congress has gone home now. Can a brother get an "Amen?!!?"

One of the reasons I have always loved Christmas is that is requires the world -- believers and unbelievers alike -- to stop for a moment and acknowledge the Babe of Bethlehem. It's a day when most of us seem to know the courteous and respectful thing to do. And -- unless we're the NBA that goes about business as usual -- we all pause, yes, some of us even seem to rise out of respect as Jesus enters the room to get some of His due.

Whether Christian or not, we sense there's a magic to this time of year. The winter snow, the lights, the old songs that endure, the people we love, the longing for tradition and the glue that makes life worth living ... all draw us to Christmas. We instinctively know that something real is here, something that transcends the traffic, the hurrying, and the presents.

The Christmas Story is far better than fiction. I mean, if you break it down, the birth of the Savior under the circumstances documented in the Bible was one of the most scandalous and improbable events of history. Indeed, Jesus's whole life and ministry was like that, the most riveting page-turner of all time. The account of all of this in and of itself bespeaks of divine authorship.

It seems God loves to surprise. With the capability of thunder, He speaks in a whisper. Though he can win in a rout, He loves to come from behind at the last moment. As the inventor of hope, He delights in restoring it when all seems lost. As a King and Ruler, He appears as a lowly babe ... a carpenter, and a servant. No wonder so many missed Him.

Yes, I believe God has a sense of humor and surprise ... and irony ... and plot ... and real purpose. You know, I even think He makes appearances at shopping malls. I mean, if He can land in a manger, all things are possible.

If you have seen the following video, well, take another look and listen. If you have yet to see it, enjoy it and remember that the God of the Universe came on Christmas to our lonely and desolated beachhead here ... at the most improbable time and under the most impossible of circumstances ... on the greatest mission of all time. And, well, the end of the book is even better.

A now, a final word this Christmas ...

Wherever you are tonight, no matter the circumstance or the darkness of the night ... Christmas means there is hope. Your mind may try to rationalize this beautiful truth away, but let it roll over you instead. Christ parachuted into this mess when a solution seemed a galaxy away.

It -- rather He -- was right there before our eyes in swaddling cloths.

What a pleasant surprise indeed.

Merry Christmas and God bless you all.

Rhod! Sig94! DC! Our daily staff meetings, from now on, will be held in the Conference Room. We will all miss the bottomless bowl of potato salad.


My weekly copy of Hotel Chatter arrived in
the mailbox this morning, and it contained
a lead story sure to catch the attention of every
Goomba News Network journalist.

We're not the biggest fans of hotel buffets as we prefer the privacy and pampering of in-room dining (when we can afford it!) but this latest scare tactic news has given us yet another reason to be wary of the all-you-can-eat spreads at hotels and resorts.

Apparently, terrorists were targeting the buffets and salad bars of U.S. hotels for food poisoning and a very deadly kind of poisoning too.
A plan to put poisons such as ricin and cyanide into buffets and salad bars was exposed earlier this year, CBS News reported, adding that Homeland Security officials have held meetings with the Agriculture Department and representatives for the hotel and restaurant industries.
(More...)

Today's Goomba PSA


Nick and Sig squabbled about this today over morning coffee. Goomba insisted upon it. Sig thought it would tarnish GNN. Goomba said it was impossible for our audience to think lesss of us.

DC and I went out for breakfast.



December 22, 2010

You know, if battling all these Christmas shoppers weren't enough to really get you in a ticked off state of mind ...


Try to get a load of this lame duck Congress. What a sham. The Obama Admin makes a mockery of all things American. Good grief. What a disgrace to ratify a treaty ... a treaty ... in a lame-duck and sneak around under the cover of a Christmas night and repeal DADT.

That's right, by golly. Get your sexual proclivities blessed by the feds and grab Obama some political capital all at once. But this capital is like everything else coming out of this government -- it's borrowed.

Words fail me to describe the loathesome behavior of this government.

But at least Michelle has hit the road ... Did you get a gander at the size of the snack bag?

And the Bamster ... not far behind.

Yes ...

Ex-Specterations

Retiring Moderate Senator Arlen Specter


GNN - Only occasionally (like Arlen Specter) do we take an ideological stance here at GNN. But I'll do it now, in the case of Senator Arlen Specter, and his self-justifying retirment speech on the Senate floor last night. Specter said that his speech would be his "closing argument" for his grandiosity, and went on to prove the axiom that self-interest causes the private sector to succeed, and guarantees that the public sector will fail.

Thinly disguising himself as an honest man, Specter threw together a defense of his permanent treachery to all sides of the political arguments of the past 30 years. Having properly earned the loathing of almost everyone in both parties, Specter went on to cite their contempt as proof of his own virtue. He closes his career the way he lived it: As a truly impressive and shameless revisionist and liar.

Specter is also hallucinating when he describes himself as a moderate. In his fictional taxonomy of the House and Senate, "Moderates" are always at the summit of the classifications, with liberals below them, followed by Democrats. pages, janitors, crack whores, Republicans, conservatives and Tea Partiers.

Specter absorbed these loony prejudices so deeply - and for so long - that he conjures a lost Senate where everyone was like Himself. Now he whines that "...the days of lively debate [and civility] are gone" but can't notice that moderates, if such creatures even exist, don't, by definition, engage in lively debate, or that he was one of the most partisan and ugly hacks for his own advancement in a Senate famous for that brand of buffoon. He's an artist at the synthesis of lies, fallcy and self-delusion, and we're happy to see him gone.

Apparently he's writing a book, probably about himself, which is a guaranteed remainder. Why not? He was remaindered from the new post-Reid and post-Obama world of revulsion with the political class. Beat it, you bum. You make me sick.

December 21, 2010

My Big Fat Liberal Problem




SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D-WV): "There's a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to FOX and to MSNBC: 'Out. Off. End. Goodbye.' It would be a big favor to political discourse; our ability to do our work here in Congress, and to the American people, to be able to talk with each other and have some faith in their government and more importantly, in their future."

My liberal recidivism is a real problem. Every day I re-offend. Fortunately I don’t hurt anyone, but I’ll never be clean. Once you’ve gilded yourself with the cheap foil of liberalism, it’s nearly impossible to scrape it off completely. It’s probably something in the way that “progressive” simplifications makes life easier, and less complicated.


The lure of liberalism is that it promises to shrink the plank in your own eye to a mote, and make you so good there's no need to test any of your values . I never believed that liberalism is propelled by guilt. It’s an evasion of guilt, and the humility that causes guilt. It's not a belief-system, it's layers and layers of sentimentality made worse by arrogance .

Just today I slipped into radicalism, when I saw the video above. Jay Rockefeller always incites disgust in me that a truly sane society doesn't, at the very least, tax detestable newts like him out of existence, deny them public office, or more sensibly, banish them to a tree-less rock pile or desert. Additional torture in these wastelands would be provided by their interactions with each other. Imagine the sticky self-importance of Prince Charles chatting with that jackass, Robert Kennedy Jr. But I can't do any of those things, nor would I if I had the power to do so.

But I know, and LL Beanbrains like Jay Rockefeller know too, that the combination of unearned wealth and political power is a kind of acid; it eats away at the legitimacy of wealthy officeholders unless they support a redistributionist dogma for the potentially envious. The main danger to the great personal fortunes is not agitated recovering liberals like me, but restive under-classes.


Joe Kennedy figured this out, as did the Robber Barons and their heirs. Collectivism is for thee, not me, and a happy drone is a harmless drone. To preserve the fortune, define "the rich" down to include the visible upper-middle class; buy off the poor with taxes from the middle-class, and deflect the realization that success or failure is a personal, not a social, process, and has nothing to do with " injustice".

But even worse than the original cynicism is the thing that, for example, Jay Rockefeller has become. He actually believes the crap his class has shovelled on us for two generations. From there, it’s just a quick sidestep to authoritarianism and/or totalitarianism. If he had his way, you would just shut up!

SPAIN: Muslim child tortured by his geography teacher


Muslim pupil offended by the word 'jamón' in class in Cádiz

The parents of a Muslim boy who attends a secondary school in La Línea, Cádiz province, have reported their son’s teacher for an incident in the boy’s geography class which the child said caused him offence as a Muslim.

The teacher, José Reyes Fernández, with more than 20 years in the profession, was explaining to the class how the cold climate in Trevélez, Granada province, aided in the curing of the village’s most famous local product, jamón serrano. The boy told his teacher that hearing the word ‘ham’ in class was offensive to him because of his religion and asked his geography teacher to stop referring to the product which caused him offence.

El Mundo newspaper reports that the boy’s parents then reported the teacher to both the National Police and to the courts. They placed a denuncia against the teacher for psychological ill-treatment in the context of xenophobia and racism.

(More...)

December 20, 2010

Roman woman? Four feet tall? Four hundred and forty pounds? Aunt Etta?


The Sea Gave Her Back
A long-lost Roman statue buried for thousands of years has been unearthed by massive winter storms that have lashed the coast of Israel this week.

The mysterious white-marble figure of a woman in toga and 'beautifully detailed' sandals was found in the remains of a cliff that crumbled under the force of 60mph winds and enormous 40ft waves.

The statue, which lacks a head and arms, is about 4ft tall and weighs 440lbs. It was found at the ancient port of Ashkelon, around 20 miles south of Tel Aviv.

It dates back to the Roman occupation of what was western Judea, between 1,800 and 2,000 years ago.

December 18, 2010

American Thermidor

First there was November 2nd. Then the Donks agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts, with an age-old conservative rationale to justify their lefty intemperance. Next the lard-bucket Obam-nibus spending bill ($58 B in earmarks for Donks, $1 B in earmarks for Repubs) was flagged by the effort of the bug-eyed and generally unreliable Mitch McConnell.

Meanwhile, ObamaCare is under Constitutional scrutiny, and Republicans seem serious about either de-funding or repealing that evil, statist Prog atrocity. We’ll see, but all this is enough to persuade me that this is our American Thermidor, and while the outcome is unpredictable, the signposts are pointing in our direction.

The hell you say? What’s Thermidor? Thermidor entered our political language by way of the ridiculously complex affairs of the French Revolution. It designates a stage in a revolution when the radicals over-reach and face abrupt rejection by the people for their tyrannies. Thermidor begins convalescence and renewal for a society abused and fractured by amoral revolutionary cranks. Managed well, it can undo a lot of damage. Managed poorly, like in France and Russia, you wind up with a Stalin or a Napolean, both of whom were the worst kinds of reactionaries.

In 1794 France, Robespierre, and a few other Jacobins, were unwittingly responsible for the Thermadorian notation, by provoking their own executions on a date derived from the weird Revolutionary Calendar imposed by revolutionaries in 1792.

The date of the executions was 9 Thermidor II - the 9th day of the 11th month (Thermidor) of the second year (II) of the new French Republic (July 27, 1794, Gregorian time). Thus ending the Reign of Terror, it was later called by French historians, the Thermidorian Reaction. Here the tale gets more complicated than I need to explain, but this sums it up:

Events in France from 1793 into 1794 spun out of control, as they always do when radical egalitarians, statist freaks, mad reformers, populist maniacs and raving materialists migrate or bolt from their madhouses, faculty lounges or courtrooms to the plush seats of government. Predictably, they produced a landscape of hysterical accusation, summary execution, murder, property confiscation, civil and local war, bankruptcy, regicide, plunder and paranoia - something akin to the actual careers and private dream lists of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

The French people were sick of it. Close to open revolt against the revolutionaries, they scared the hell out of the corrupt French legislatures (Convention) and the Committee on Public Safety. So Robespierre and his cohorts had to go as a gesture or reform and repentance.


They were all condemned, not because their enablers and co-conspirators had pellucid revelations about their iniquity (think RINO’s and herding Democrats) but because they were scared witless at that mighty beast, an angry citizenry. Our rulers are frightened, as they should be. For now it's loss of power they fear. If it gets worse they need to be admonished with this rule: If the ballot no longer protects our liberty, there’s always rope.

And I am dead serious. The ethos may change, but the potentials and the people don't. They need our confidence in their obedience, not the other way round.

December 17, 2010

Let's all get smart and use government mass transit and government heath care.


Environmentalists, Marxist-Progressives, government agencies, and an army of nosey nanny do-gooders continue to be puzzled by Americans' reluctance to depend on subsidized public transit.

Take a look at this video and imagine your medical waiting room in ten years.


December 14, 2010

Cilla


The year was 1968. I was 20 years old and living in a bedsitter in Belsize Park, London. My life was a heady combination of beer, politics, fish & chips and what I considered to be the cutest girls on the planet. There were the Carnaby Street Lulu-wannabees and the leggy Jean Shrimpton-style birds, but Goomba had different tastes. And in a culture dominated by music, clothes, Mods and Rockers, nobody captured my attention and haunted my fantasies more than Cilla Black.

I finally met her at a 1980 Christmas party in Cornwall. I barely kept my composure, and I'm convinced that my intense staring and my braying laugh at her every comment was the cause of her inching, crablike, back into the mass of revelers. My love for her has not waned. Thirty years on, I again wish her a grinning and awkward Happy Christmas.
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Here's Cilla and that ridiculous crapnozzle (thanks again, Rhod),
Burt Bacharach, recording at Abby Road.

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Please, do God's work today.




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December 11, 2010

We're The Party And We'll Lie If We Want To

Let's be honest here. The young ladies who sang the heart-break songs of the fifties and sixties had it all over the likes of Lady GaGa and Madonna. Just look at the adorable Lesley Gore. She sang songs appropriate for the age group that worshipped her. Back then as now, teens agonized over many things, but pregnancy, crack addiction, gun fights, bong sharing etiquette and being employed in the booty trade were not high on the list. Things were different then and this is my personal favorite from Lesley's Hits. It zoomed to the top of the charts in 1963.



Social issues were the hot topic back then but moral issues were not. Most Americans accepted common Christian values as the norm and woe unto those who strayed beyond those boundaries. In our neck of the woods, young unwed mothers-to-be were suddenly gone on an extended visit to their aunt in Jersey. If you were promiscuous, your reputation followed that behavior like a tsunami follows an earthquake. I never heard of marijuana until I went to college.

Things were also different for the Nation's political parties. To mark the end of the Democrat Party as a promoter of anything other than perversion and entitlement, I offer the following:

God only knows where our Values have gone
And Morals left the same time
Why is Bubba back center stage
And all we see is Obama's behind?

We're the Party and we'll lie if we want to
Lie if we want to, lie if we want to!
You would lie too if you can't tell the truth!



Flying to restaurants and dancing all night
While half the workforce is idle
'Til you pry your head from your ass
We've got no reason to smile.


We're the Party and we'll lie if we want to
Lie if we want to, lie if we want to!
You would lie too if you can't tell the truth!




Sixty-three seats have just walked out the door
Looks like they may never come back.
Just wait 'til 2012
We'll be catching even more flack!

We're the Party and we'll lie if we want to
Lie if we want to, lie if we want to!
You would lie too if you can't tell the truth!

December 10, 2010

Bubba's Back??


I know that this news is all over the internets, but I'm posting it because this is the single most disturbing political moment I've ever seen.
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Jim DeMint sez:

The Enemy
This morning I received this mass-Emailing from Jim DeMint explaining his opposition to the bipartisan tax deal. I like his take.

Dear Fellow Conservatives:

Many of you have contacted me about the bipartisan tax deal reached between President Obama and Republican leaders. I've carefully reviewed the legislation and I wanted to explain to you why I cannot support it.

First, I do not want to see anyone's taxes go up and I have been fighting for years to permanently extend all the tax rates. I disagree with the President that we cannot afford to extend these rates for everyone. It's the people's money and we should not raise taxes on hardworking American families.

But this bill does much more than simply extend tax rates.

For starters, it includes approximately $200 billion in new deficit spending and stimulus gimmicks. That's a lot of money that will have to be borrowed from China and repaid by our children and grandchildren. If we're going to increase spending on new programs, we must reduce other spending to pay for it.

The bill also only extends rates for two years. We don't have a temporary economy so we shouldn't have temporary tax rates. Individuals and businesses make decisions looking at the long-term and we're not going to create jobs without giving people certainty as to what their taxes will be in future.

The bill also fails to extend all of the tax rates. It actually increases the death tax from its current rate of zero percent all the way up to 35 percent. One economic study shows that this tax increase alone will kill over 800,000 jobs over the next ten years.

Finally, the bill now includes dozens of earmarks for special interests, including ethanol subsidies, tax breaks for film and television producers, give aways for Puerto Rican rum manufacturers, favors for auto racing track owners, and a hand out for businesses in American Samoa.

The President called Republicans "hostage takers" this week but he should be pointing his figure squarely at himself. We've known for years that these tax rates were going to expire but he did nothing about it until the last minute. Now Americans are being told they have to accept hundreds of billions in new spending and stimulus gimmicks, an increase the death tax, and a bunch of unnecessary earmarks or their taxes will go up.

I'm not going to be bullied into voting for things that will hurt our country because politicians in Washington ignored the problem until it was a crisis.

Many of you fought hard to elect new leaders to the Senate this year with the expectation that they would fight deficit spending, tax hikes, and backroom deals. I take that commitment very seriously and I'm prepared to vote against this bill even if I'm the only one in the Senate to do so.

I appreciate the efforts made by my party's leaders to negotiate this deal but I believe Americans deserve much better. This deal should be rejected and then fixed. We can easily extend these tax rates without increasing spending once the new crop of Republican senators, including Pat Toomey, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Ron Johnson, are sworn in. The President has already conceded that taxes cannot go up and we'll have more Republicans in Congress in a few weeks to fight for a better deal.

Thank you for supporting the principles of freedom and for your continued encouragement. I will continue to do my very best to be your voice in the United States Senate.

Respectfully,

Jim DeMint
United States Senator

Tis the Season


December 9, 2010

Welcome to the Wikileaks Bunker


Click here to visit Stockholm and the Wikileaks HQ. This certainly wasn't what I was expecting.


Giving Of Alms


MATTHEW 6:2-4

"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

Sometime around 1913, a possibly illegal immigrant, a Romanian Jew, sought a new beginning in America. He changed his name and started a completely new life using a bogus birth certificate. By time of the Great Depression, he had managed to improve his lot in life and wanted to express his gratitude for what he had. He decided to do what he could for those in desperate need in late 1933. Using a nom de guerre, B. VirDot, he posted a letter in a Canton, OH, newspaper asking people who needed money for Christmas to send him a letter explaining their plight. The response was enormous. Virdot sent $5 to 150 families in the Canton area. Not only did B.Virdot remained anonymous, he promised that those who requested assistance would also remain unknown to the world.

Virdot's charitable leanings contributed a total of $750. What was this money in today's market place? In 1933 the average annual income was only $1,500. You could buy eggs one at a time for a nickel. You could purchase a house while earning only $25 a week. The way I look at it, B. Virdot gave away probably 40-50% of his total annual income at the time.

In 2009 the median income in America was $49,777. Click on the following graphic to get a better picture of the differences in income between then and now.


Almost eighty years later the veil of anonymity was removed. For more of that story go to I Own The World or to the article written by the anonymous donor's grandson.

What I find fascinating is that this story will touch the hearts of more Americans than all the billions of dollars donated by major corporations to major charitable organizations. I could give a farthing for what the United Way or the International Red Cross receives in donations to support their bloated bureaucracies and greedy administrators. So many not-for-profits are nothing more than scams to push political agendas at the expense of others. And they are no more active than at this time of year.

December 8, 2010

My Son The Shark

Allah and His Shrink Wrapped Prophet should be proud of their devotees. According to Newsweek, a series of shark attacks in the Egyptian resort town of
Sharm al-Sheikh has been hit by a spate of gruesome shark attacks, with one person killed. Authorities have been scrambling to reassure tourists that the issue is under control. But the shark is still on the loose, prompting some Egyptian officials to accuse outside forces of sabotaging the country’s booming tourism industry.
Okay, the over-the-top Muslim rhetoric alarms are going off and the lights are flashing. But then again, sharks have been known to frequent the centuries old ocean routes of slave ships, no? It seems like a good meal goes right down the throat and straight into GPS-enabled shark DNA. But somehow the evil Jooos have found a way to weaponize the sharks' capacity to eat fish, humans, hubcaps, license plates and just about anything else they can stuff into their many-toothed maw.
In an interview with a TV talk show Monday, the governor of South Sinai, Mohammad Abdul Fadhil Shousha, came up with this gem: “What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark in the sea to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question. But it needs time to confirm.”
Brilliant, simply brilliant.

December 7, 2010

Remember ...


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'Stop the name-calling' sez UK Lefty


‘Don’t offend offenders...’

CRIMINALS should no longer be termed “offenders” because the term is insulting and demeaning, a leading justice campaigner said yesterday.

Frances Crook, head of the Howard League for Penal Reform, has suggested that someone who commits an offence is not an offender, but “someone who has done something”.

(more...)

The Church Of Poppycock

The criminal justice system in the Land of the Lost, formerly known as Great Britain, just got a whole bunch of strange injected into its correctional facilities.

Hundreds of criminals are to be given four days a year off prison work - to celebrate pagan festivals.

Prison governors have been issued with a list of eight annual pagan holidays and told pagan inmates can choose four to celebrate.

The festivals include Imbolc - The Festival of the Lactating Sheep - which falls on February 1 and is dedicated to the goddess Brighid.

Another is the festival of Beltane, which falls in early May, devotees are urged to celebrate the Sun God with 'unabashed sexuality and promiscuity'.

And those eight approved Festivals are:

I see that to prepare for Imbolc, I'll have to shovel the snow from my back yard.

The Summer Solstice? Better get back on the treadmill. Right. Now.

Beltane? I'll need to hire a stand in or move to another state if my wife catches me.

More

December 6, 2010

The FCC wants to make sure that Media "serves the people". This is frightening.



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Prayin' For The End of Time !

If you piss off this guy!



"They call me Mister Loaf!"

Poor old Julian Assange. Opinions are mixed on the latest WikiLeaks revelations, but one thing is certain. If the Swiss don't nab the execrable Assange on something laughably known as "Swiss Sex Charges", and The Phillipines refuses entry for him, someone out to settle scores for past or current damage suffered by the leaks will sniff him out. No sovereign state will protect him, as the Brits did for Salman Rushdie. So beware, Julian, of Meat Loaf.

I, along with Phil Rizutto, forgave Meat Loaf long ago for wallowing in paradise by dashboard lights, doing anything for love except "that", and wailing that a 66.6% committment isn't that bad. But he'll really rise in my estimation if he cuts off Assanges toes!

Monstrous Monstress

It seems that everywhere you look, Stage IV Liberalism is dropping the mask. Its tolerance for, and tendencies to corruption, practical incompetence and moral turpitude is there for everyone of good will to see.


Helen Thomas, for instance. She used to be a running joke here at GNN, with DC as the final target, where we revealed his somewhat phony attraction to Helen. I think we knew that Helen was even worse than our jokes, and we were right. And not just about her supercilious gasbaggery and wicked crone presentation. There was more, lots more, especially her gruesome opinions on the evil Jews and Israel and their benighted victims - everyone east of Gibraltar and west of Indonesia.


This was a trivial flaw for the MSM. Andrea Mitchell, for one, whinged that anti-semitism and political derangement wasn't The Whole Helen. Helen was okay, because she was a feminist pioneer (in high-profile journalism, in Helen's case), therefore confirming that liberalism's dominance in modern feminism is sufficient to cancel any depravity in the feminist. Leni Riefenstahl fits in here too, and maybe Ma Barker and the Bitch of Buchenwald.

The main reason why Mitchell's excuses for Thomas is so dubious is that Thomas has been around the likes of Mitchell and Howdy David Gregory Doody since before fire was understood and the first wheel turned. Liberalism is idiocy, but that Thomas's colleagues didn't know of her opinions is simply incredible. They dismissed her wickedness or simply lied for her, because she was a good foil for conservatism.

Now Thomas has upped the ante for Mitchell, Gregory, and all the other barnacles that are sinking honest media. According to Helen, Zionists have suborned American Middle East policy (Obama and Hillary?) with the complicity of the rich Jews who control America...

"We are owned by propagandists against the Arabs. There's no question about that. Congress, the White House, and Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists. No question in my opinion. They put their money where there mouth is…We're being pushed into a wrong direction in every way."

Read more about Helen HERE.

December 5, 2010

Buchanan High School

From IOtW:

It’s a school I’m sure you’ve probably never heard of in a city you may have never heard of. The city’s claim to fame is that it’s “The Gateway to the Sierras”, centrally located in California, population about 95,000. It’s a sleepy little western themed town that’s located right next door to Fresno. Hunting, fishing, sports and antique malls are just some of the ways the folks here past the time away. But it is also known for something else, something more somber.

Buchanan High has the unfortunate ranking of having the most military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2001-present, of students from a single high school in California. I was going to write this post in July of 2010, when the number hit 7, but just this past week, the number went up to 8. Eight young men killed in battle, who all happened to attend the same high school at different times, including 2 brothers? I know this school, it’s a good school in a good community.

The news broke on Friday, another valley marine had been killed — this time in Afghanistan. Sergeant Matthew Abbate was killed in action Thursday. Two marines and a chaplain notified the family Thursday night of the tragedy. Abbate’s step father issued a statement Friday saying quote: “He always wanted to be a marine. He died doing what he believed he was born to do.”

There is no secret (and no guarantees either) in bringing up children who are well adjusted, God fearing, patriotic adults. You have to live your life the way you want your children to become. It isn't easy, but love, a true moral sense, consistency and honesty go a long way. The town of Clovis seems to have these qualities in abundance.

They say Clovis is an extraordinarily patriotic community and its children are raised on God and country, duty and honor. They’re willing to serve and willing to die, the same as Clovis’ generations who went before them. Buchanan’s school colors are red, white and blue. The stadium is named Veteran’s Memorial. Former classmates and older siblings come back in uniform for campus visits. Friday night football games include a moment of silence for Buchanan’s fallen soldiers.

Thank you former Buchanan High School students,

Abbate, Matthew, Clovis December 2, 2010
Piercy, Brian F. Clovis July 19, 2010
Eischen, Nicholas D. Clovis December 24, 2007
Hubbard, Nathan C. Clovis August 22, 2007
Hubbard, Jared P. Clovis November 04, 2004
Walter, Rowan D. Clovis February 22, 2007
Butterfield, Anthony E. Clovis July 29, 2006
Baro, Jeremiah A. Fresno November 04, 2004

Also here and here.

Aloha and Farewell Mrs. V

BabyBlueOnline is a favorite blog of mine. Today, BabyBlue posted a touching personal tribute to two special people who shared and helped shape her early life. I'm a fan of gratitude and recognition, so I decided to share this post with the rabble here at GNN.
Today the news came of the passing of a great lady - a great lady - a lady simply known to thousands of students at Radford High School in Honolulu, Hawaii as Mrs. V.

It wasn't long after my arrival in Hawaii as a high school freshman that I met Mr. and Mrs. V, John and Barbara Velasco. Mr. V was the head coach at one of the leading athletic champion public schools in the State of Hawaii, Radford in Honolulu. Mrs. V was in charge of student activities. Together they mentored thousands of young students navigating their way through adolescence.

In my senior year I got very involved in Student Council and student activities. Along with two other classmates, Larry Wolfe and Rusty Vierra, we chaired the Assembly & Awards Committee and our advisor was Mrs. V. Our committee won the Committee of the Year Award and while we worked very hard, we could not have done it without the steady and wise counsel of Mrs. V. Through her efforts I was introduced to the world of politics and government as well as event planning - and she made it fun! She was always solid, always grounded, always positive and kind and approachable. But at the same time, there was this unspoken expectation that you never wanted to let her down. You wanted to make her proud. She was an inspiration and I admired and respected her. She was the truthteller and she knew how to maintain discipline and focus, but she also laughed at our jokes and pranks - well, most of the time.

Today the news came that she had passed away and the first person I thought of was Mr. V. Mr. V shepherded a remarkably diverse community of students from all walks of life, race, culture, and nationality. He was fearless and was one of the few people who could silence a room with a mere look. He was extraordinarily disciplined and led the Varsity football team to numerous championships, including my sophomore year. He led the team again the year after I graduated - and won the state championship, but the story of that victory was one for the papers.

The week of the state championship, Mr. V suddenly was stricken with a heart attack and died. It was so sudden and shocking and of course, it stunned the Radford community. Though filled with grief, the football team decided to go ahead and play in the championship and dedicated the game to Mr. V. The public school team stood in a circle on the field and offered a prayer and then played their hearts out and won the game.

Mrs. V inspired generations of students and her inspiration continues to this day. Thank you for your confidence in so many, for your firm direction with a gentle hand. for your warmth and faith - you made a difference in so many lives, Mrs. V - you made a difference in my life.
Mahalo nui loa, Aloha ke Akua.

December 4, 2010

Ooops, We Missed A Few


For some reason scientists are always amazed when they underestimate God's Creation. Whether you examine if from the mega- to the micro- or yacto-scale, it's bigger, it's faster, it's smaller, it's expanding; and we are continually confounded by the complexities of its simplest, most elemental components. From the Christian Science Monitor:

It's a cosmic embarrassment of riches – the universe appears to hold three times the number of stars many astronomers might have estimated only a year ago.

That's the implication a pair of scientists has drawn after measuring eight huge elliptical galaxies that they selected from two vast galaxy clusters located between 53 million to 321 million light-years from Earth.

With as many as 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe, each with hundreds of billions of stars, the result – if it holds up – implies an enormous number of additional burning gas balls out there, with intriguing implications for explanations of how stars and galaxies form and evolve, researchers say.

The cause of this huge revision of the stellar census are stars known as red dwarfs, literally the dimmest stellar bulbs on the shelf. These stars weigh in at no more than about 30 percent of the sun's mass.

Surveys of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, have found that these dwarfs outnumber sun-like stars by about 100 to 1, explains Pieter van Dokkum, an astronomer at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. But the dwarfs are so dim and other galaxies so distant that red dwarfs fail to appear when astronomers try to account for the stars other galaxies contain.


Overachievers
Scientists have tried to estimate the number of stars in the universe - as if they know how big the universe really is. What they can do is measure what is detectable to the human senses through instruments constructed by Man. And apparently that's not good enough. With this latest discovery, estimates for this number now range as high as 300 sextillion.

That's 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Even Goomba's waist falls a bit below that.

But my question always comes back to this: where did it all start? Our world views are strongly influenced by this foundational belief; is it all mere chance or is there a Creator - a Supreme Omnipotent Engineer who designed all we sense around us and beyond even what our pitiful imaginations can suppose?

If you believe in a Creator, then you have an immutable, immovable foundation that upholds the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution as the Founding Fathers conceived them. If not, then you do not hold to the notion of inalienable rights because they can exist only as long as the governing authority deigns to let you have them. Mankind has existed under the latter for millennia and only for a relatively short while under the former.

But I digress, back to the stars ... and hydrogen.

Our own familar blazing orb, the Sun, is a medium sized yellow star that is approximately 870,000 miles in diameter. It's volume is 338,000,000,000,000,000 - 338 quadrillion cubic miles. It is 332,946 times as massive as the earth. NASA estimates that the Sun burns 600 million tons of hydrogen every second.

If our own medium sized star runs through that much hydrogen in one second, how much hydrogen is needed to fuel 300 sextillion stars to burn for a second? For ten thousand years? A billion years? The numbers are beyond comprehension. And it is beyond comprehension how this mass, and a seemingly infinite amount more, came into existence in a twinkling ... by chance.

Hamlet:
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
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