The Anchoress

William Powell and his ex-wife Carole Lombard give us the haves and the have-nots. One of my favorite “depression era” screwball comedies. Nowadays, of course, you couldn’t make such a film. It would be too offensive and insensitive, and not enough lecturing. And so forth. I especially like it from about 7 minutes into part II, when a hung-over Mrs. Bullock tells Godfrey to have a care around the pixies she sees. “I don’t like them,” she says, firmly, “but I don’t like to see them stepped on.” It builds from there.

Part 4 of 9
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I had an email a few weeks ago - one of those forwarded things - that purported to be a letter from a coastal left-winger to the mid-west and south of America, suggesting that if they really wanted to secede, they’d be missing out on all the best parts of the country; culture, universities, lawyers. As though people in the mid-west or south don’t have those things, and more.

I was amused by it, because the writer did not seem to realize that his superior blue states couldn’t do much about feeding him or manufacturing his goods. He might be able to buy a fair trade latte but the steamed milk would likely not be fresh. Or cheap or plentiful.

The other day I gave you an excerpt from Terry Pratchett’s excellent novel, Night Watch, because it reflected - with great humor - the meeting of Obama and Joe the Plumber.

This little excerpt below reminds me a bit of that whole secession fantasy:

One reason for the desertion rate was that those people of a practical turn of mind were working out the subtle economics. The People’s Republic of Treacle Mine Road lacked all the big, important buildings in the city, the ones that traditional rebels were supposed to take. It had no government offices, no banks, and very few temples. It was almost completely bereft of important civic architecture.

All it had was the unimportant stuff. It had the entire slaughterhouse district, and the butter market, and the cheese market. It had the tobacco factors, and the candlemakers, and the grain and flour stores. This meant that while the Republicans were being starved of important things like government, banking services, and salvation, they were self-sufficient in terms of humdrum, everyday things like food and drink.

People were content to wait a long time for salvation, but prefer dinner to turn up inside an hour.

“A present from the lads down at The Shambles, Sarge,” said Dickins, arriving with a wagon. “they said it’d only spoil otherwise. Is it okay to dish ‘em out to the field kitchens?”

“What’ve you got?” said Vimes.

“Steaks, mostly,” said the old sergeant, grinning.
[...]
“What did I tell you? Every meal will be a feast in the People’s Republic!” said Reg Shoe, striding up. He still hung on to his clipboard; people like Reg tend to. “If you could just take it along to the official warehouse, Sergeant?”

“What warehouse?”

Reg sighed. “All food must go into the common warehouse and be distributed by my officials according to - ”

“Mr. Shoe,” said Dickins. “There’s a cart with five hundred chickens coming up behind me, and there’s another full of eggs. There’s nowhere to send ‘em, see? The butchers have filled up the icehouses and smoke rooms, and the only place we can store this grub is in our guts. I ain’t particularly bothered about officials.”

“On behalf of the Republic, I order you - ” Reg began, and Vimes put his hand on his shoulder.

“Off you go, Sergeant,” he said, nodding to Dickins. “A word in your ear, Reg?”

“Is this a military coop?” said Reg uncertainly, holding his clipboard.

“No, it’s just that we’re under siege here, Reg. This is not the time. Let Sergeant Dickins sort it out. he’s a fair man, he just doesn’t like clipboards.”

“But supposing people get left out?” said Reg.

“There’s enough for everyone to eat themselves sick, Reg.”

Reg Shoe looked uncertain and disappointed, as though this prospect was less pleasing than carefully rationed scarcity.

“But I’ll tell you what,” said Vimes, “if this goes on, the city will make sure the deliveries come in by other gates. We’ll be hungry, then. That’s when we’ll need your organizational skills.”

“You mean we’ll be in a famine situation?” said Reg, the light of hope in his eyes.

“If we aren’t Reg, I sure you could organize one,” said Vimes and realized he ‘d gone just a bit too far. Reg was only stupid in certain areas, and now he looked as though he was going to cry.

“I just think it’s important to be fair -” the man began.

“Yeah, Reg. I understand. But there’s at time and a place, you know? Maybe the best way to build a bright new world is to peel some spuds in this one?”

Night Watch is a glorious part of Disc World. You’ll like.

Well, we’re all sick over here except for Elder Son who (praise God) has an iron constitution - the coughing, hacking and sniffing is just absurd. You would not want to meet us.

Due to another busy weekend - we’re going to get to hear Buster sing and it’s exciting to anticipate how his voice has matured - blogging will be light, although I do have a few posts (including another fun excerpt from Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch - first excerpt here) scheduled to run without me, so do check back. Comments won’t get moderated for a day or so, though, sorry.

Please keep Beloved in your prayers. I still have not heard from his family, and I am taking that as “good” rather than “bad” news; we all know how fast bad news travels.

Also, another reader has asked for prayers for her 20 year-old daughter, Sara, who suffers from lupus and who is also going through a very challenging emotional time that is impacting her negatively in just about every conceivable way. Additional emotional stresses on lupus sufferers can be devastating. Please keep her in your prayers this weekend.

Linking around, I love this stuff: oldest Hebrew writing yet discovered. Coolio, indeed!

Medal of Honor Winner Michael Mansoor will be additionally honored as the Navy names a destroyer after him. Because of the press’ bias, we are not given very much information about the outstanding heroes of the last few years, but Mansoor’s story is enormously moving and inspiring, as are all these stories of other Medal of Honor winners, Navy Seal Lt. Michael Murphy, Army Sgt. First Class Paul R. Smith, Marine Corp. Jason L. Dunham. We can’t honor them too much.

Michael Barone says the Dems won’t get a filibuster-proof senate. Let us pray.

Is early voting a “travesty”? Why is it so difficult? Seems to me people managed to vote on election day without all the high drama and need for early this and that for the first two centuries.

Here’s a travesty, though - that members of our military routinely see their votes disallowed. Shouldn’t our military men and women, in this era of modern communication - and in an era where folks in Ohio can register themselves as living on parkbenches and vote the same day - be able to “register” wherever they are stationed (their “precints), vote there and have their votes counted and reported on by their superiors? Why is this so damned difficult? Our military deserve to be able to vote, real-time, and to have those votes counted.

The other travesty, of course, is that here in America, in the year 2008, the press can publicly withhold useful information from voters, and other members of the press don’t care about it, and no Democrats think honor demands some transparency. We’re not supposed to know about or care about yet another dubious association of Barack Obama’s, we’re just supposed to get in line and vote for him. I don’t like that version of America

Or, as Andrew McCarthy writes: The Los Angeles Times’s Strange Notion of Journalistic Ethics is very odd, indeed.

Here’s the extent of the Obama campaign’s credit card deception, which is also a travesty.

Is this what Joe Biden was talking about? How will Obama deal with suicide bombers?

Baseball Crank note that finds a stunning similarity between Obama and Dubya

Planned Parenthood and Infanticide. Yes, they deliver ‘em live and let them die On your tax money.

It’s their party.

A reader who asks for anonymity but refers to himself as “a product of Pittsburgh Steelworkers” writes about his discomfort over Obama:

Dear Anchoress:

An observation about Barack Obama that bothers me enough to write somebody an email.

Barack Obama said during the first debate that he would sit down and talk to Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism, without preconditions because he did not believe in the notion that by not talking to people we are somehow punishing
them.

Then when a Florida TV reporter asks his VP candidate, Sen. Biden, some questions he didn’t like, their campaign cuts them off and refuses to talk to them or grant any further interviews.

So, Barack Obama is willing to sit down and talk with the regime that gave the order for the bombing of our Marine Barracks in Beirut but not willing to talk to an American TV station because of a few tough questions.

Politicians all make contradictory statements; it’s almost impossible not to considering all the speeches they make. But this is different. This is a case of actions speaking louder than words. His cutting off of that Florida station is a preview of how he will act as President. Will he be this vindictive towards all Americans who don’t agree with him or his administration? Cutting off that station but still being willing to talk to a terror sponsoring regime also reveals a certain naiveté, or worse, an unacceptable level of moral relativism.

This, combined with his going back on his word about public campaign financing, I think, are a true measure of his character.
[All links and italics mine - admin]

The writer states that he basically just needed to say that to someone. In his profession, he is not free to speak out. Apparently the “tolerant” folks around him do not tolerate diverse opinions.

Well, I’m glad he said it to me, and allowed me to pass it on to you. He’s quite right. Obama reveals inconsistency, naivete, relativism (and remember what good Pope Benedict XVI has said to us about The Dictatorship of Relativism) and a tendency toward suppressive and vengeful behavior to those who do not fall in line.

Yes, it’s troubling.

People are hoping to get the LA Times to release the tape it is holding - is refusing to release in order to protect Obama (can you even believe I’m writing that sentence in America?) - but you know, we don’t really need it to learn who Obama is. His actions speak volumes. For all his dodginess, all his unreleased medical reports, all of his his unreleased transcripts, all his votes of “present” and smooth evasions, Obama has effectively shown us who he is; all that is needed is for the twinkle-dust to be rubbed out from the eyes, to see it.

He’s the guy who lets his auntie live in a slum and tells her to keep silent until after the election, while he’s lecturing Joe the Plumber about “sharing the wealth” and talking at his rallies about the “selfishness” of those who disagree with his policies.

He’s the guy who does not talk to the press anymore, takes no questions, and expects only softballs and agreement.

He’s the guy who spends over half a billion dollars to win an election because he could not keep his word about public funding. He wants to ’share the wealth’ and he wants to talk about ‘fairness’ - but he doesn’t have any moral qualms about outspending his opponent by $518 million, thanks to a dishonorable flip-flop which - it must be said - his GOP opponent did not copy.

He’s a guy who spends half a billion dollars on electioneering while talking about how to help the poor and the downtrodden. Note - he does not share his wealth. Someday he’ll drive past those downtrodden and give them a thumbs up for keeping it real, as they stand in their lines full of “shared” discomfort.

Obama is precisely the type who goes about bouncing on fluffy pillows of honest-to-goodness wealth, shaking a rhetorical finger at us for daring to try to get comfortable on our foam rubber mats of hard-earned wages.

He’s quite the little despot, ain’t he? I thought he - like Bill Clinton - would be too tall to be a despot, but he’s belying that old canard. And here is more information about his dubious associations

Meanwhile Orson Scott Card on what matters as we go to vote, an excellent read - a highly recommended tonic- via Julie

Related:
Oy - they’re never happy and so paranoid: Le Miserable (related, Paranoia Ascending)
Confederate Yankee: Have you saved an Obama, today?
Presumption, Illusions, Reality
Pope Benedict: there is one truth

From Night Watch by Terry Pratchett :

There was Rosie Palm, and Sandra, and Reg Shoe, and half a dozen others sitting around another table, in the middle of the street. As Vimes stepped out into the evening, a plaintive voice said: “You cannot fight for ‘reasonably priced love.’”

“You can if you want me and the rest of the girls on board,” said Rosie. “‘Free’ is not a word we wish to see used in these circumstances.”

“Oh, very well,” said Reg, making a note on a clipboard. “We’re all happy with Truth, Justice and Freedom, are we?”

“And better sewers.” This was the voice of Mrs. Rutherford. “And something done about the rats.”

“I think we should be thinking about higher things, Comrade Mrs. Rutherford,” said Reg.

“I’m not a comrade, Mr. Shoe, and nor is Mr. Rutherford,” said Mrs. Rutherford. “We’ve always kept ourselves to ourselves, haven’t we, Sidney?”

“I’ve got a question,” said someone in the crowd of onlookers. “Harry Supple’s my name. Got a shoe shop in New Cobblers…”

Reg seized on this as an opportunity to avoid talking to Mrs. Rutherford. Revolutionaries should not have to meet someone like Mrs. Rutherford on their first day.

“Yes, Comrade Supple?” he said.

“Nor are we boyjoys,” said Mrs. Rutherford, not willing to let things go.

“Er, bourgeoisie,” said Reg. “Our manifesto refers to bourgeoisie. That’s like bore, er, shwah, er, zee.”

“Bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie,” said Mrs. Rutherford, turning the world over on her tongue. “That doesn’t sound too bad. What, er, sort of thing do they do?”

“Anyway, it says here in article seven of this here list - ” Mr. Supple ploughed on.

” - People’s Declaration of the Glorious 24th of May,” said Reg.

“Yeah, yeah, right…well, it says we’ll seize hold of the means of production, sort of thing, so what I want to know is, how does that work out regarding my shoe shop? I mean, I’m in it anyway, right? It’s not like there’s room for me and my lad Garbut and maybe one customer.”

In the dark, Vimes smiled. But Reg could never see stuff coming.

“Ah, but after the revolution, all property will be held in common by The People…er…that is, it’ll belong to you but also to everyone else, you see?”

Comrade Supple looked puzzled.

“But I’ll be the one making the shoes?”

“Of course. But everything will belong to The People.”

“So…who’s going to pay for the shoes?” said Mr. Supple.

“Everyone will pay a reasonable price for their shoes, and you won’t be guilty of living off the sweat of the common worker,” said Reg shortly. “Now, if we - ”

“You mean the cows?” said Supple.

“What?”

“Well, there’s only the cows, and the lads at the tannery, and frankly, all they do is stand in a field all day, well, not the tannery boys, obviously, but - ”

“Look,” said Reg. “Everything will belong to The People and everyone will be better off. Do you understand?”

The shoemaker’s frown grew deeper. He wasn’t certain if he was part of The People. “I thought we just don’t want soldiers down our street, and mobs, and all that lot,” he said.

Reg had a hunted look. He made a dive for safety. “Well, at least we can agree on Truth, Freedom and Justice, yes?”
There was a chorus of nods. Everyone wanted those. They didn’t cost anything.

Heh. I read that and could not help but think of how beautifully this fiction reflected the Obama/Joe the Plumber moment.

Truth, Freedom and Justice.: We’ve got a press refusing to tell us the truth about Obama, while simultaneously refusing to look at the fact that perhaps as much as two-thirds of Obama’s half-a-billion dollar campaign finance chest was ill-gotten and deeply illegal. Meanwhile, the world yawns as Obama’s ACORN associations become plain, while states show more registered voters than eligible adults, and even while some Obama supporters in government positions abuse the power of their offices in order to defame and destroy a citizen who simply asked a question of The Anointed One, and got an honest answer from him. And then there are the “Harvard Research Model” head games.

Some Truth. Some Justice. Some Freedom.

Those things cost quite a lot, but if you read Night Watch to its conclusion, you know that the author, Terry Pratchett knows that. And eventually, so does Reg Shoe.

It’s a good book; funny, thought-provoking and imaginative. Night Watch was a birthday gift from my Elder Son, and I highly recommend it. A particularly timely read, too.

Ann Althouse asks an interesting question: Why isn’t Obama that far ahead?

I have no idea what any of it means, or how next week will turn out - how can anyone project anything in the face of voter “registration” fraud, whackadoo polling and an in-the-tank media?

But all of this uncertainty - all of these “narrowing” polls are proving one beautiful thing, definitively: that America actually is more post-racial than most realize.

Think about it. Obama can’t break 50%. Neither could Kerry, Gore or Clinton.

So, Obama is being treated precisely like every other Democrat politician of the last 16 years. His race is not holding him down. His race is not propping him up.

This should be cause for celebration, I think. We’ve clearly moved past race.

Why is Obama not “so far ahead?” Perhaps because he’s really not. I’m sure tomorrow we’ll see blaring headlines that more people “watched Obama’s half-hour ad than have watched all Super Bowls, all Oscar telecasts, all Jerry Lewis telethons and all moon-landings combined” - the press is committed to the hyper-narrative. But beyond all that, beyond the spin, Obama is just a Democrat having trouble breaking 50%.

Really, that’s nothing new. And we should feel good about that.

Mark Steyn notes that the White House incumbent is wildly unpopular. True. But the Dem-controlled congress is hated even more.

Instalanche! Thanks Glenn! while visitors are here, please look around; I have an interesting email from “the product of Pittsburgh Steelworkers” and a fun and fascinating fictitious parallel to the meeting of Barack Obama and Joe the Plumber. Plus, Halloween thoughts and pics. Enjoy!

Slightly O/T - George Weigel explains why commending all of the candidates to the prayers of St. Thomas More makes sense

Two-and-a half of Hearts

I’m still down with this bug, and ending for the day, but I’m reposting this - with some new pics - because I got an annoying email asking whether Christians should celebrate Halloween. Every year I get an email from someone bothering me about Halloween. Here is my response:

Sometimes I too want to say to religious folks, “come on, lighten up!” I recall getting into it with a middle-aged Catholic woman a few years ago who was upset with me because I embraced Halloween with enthusiasm and dressed my kids up as scary invisible monks.

Buster and Elder Brother in costumes designed by me, but sewn by patient Hubby.

That particular year, as I recall, I had a purple witch hanging from the front porch, looking as though she would swoop down upon my trick or treaters (they were after my candy, after all!) and a series of headstones with sayings like “I told you I was sick!” leading up to the path. The headstones were outfitted with purple and black tulle bows, and sandbag luminaria lighted the path, at the end of which was an “freshly dug grave” with one bloody hand reaching out (my husband wasn’t happy that I’d dug up part of the garden). The porch was also festooned with the black and purple tulle, as bunting, with white Christmas lights inside. The kids who came to our door were giddy and thrilled with it, and they were also happy with the live witch in the rocking chair, the one with the hat, the green skin and cackle who handed out their treats, and told them to “be veeeerrrrrry careful out there, my little chickens and dumplings…”

But she only appeared on the porch that year and never again, because she liked candy too much, and ohhh…it was ugly, the next day.

Earlier on that particular Halloween, I had appeared at my son’s school and - still as the witch - read aloud from the wonderful book, The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything, (see the Bookshelf in the sidebar) which is a fun interactive story - the kids have to make sound effects, stomp their feet, etc.

Kilted and sworded Braveheart

So, you see…Halloween is a big happy day in this house, and that is precisely what this lady at church did not like. I was excitedly discussing our Halloween plans at a meeting one night, when this woman told me I was being used as a tool for the devil “to make evil ordinary.”

I told her that evil is made ordinary every single day on television and in movies and in how we treat each other, and that my gleeful Halloween antics had less to do with making “evil ordinary” than in proving that externals are mostly powerless over us, except as our own minds and souls perceive them. I said, “mock the devil he will flee from thee…”

This lady remained unconvinced and was one of the first folks I ever encountered who took Halloween seriously as an evil day, and she was not persuaded by my asking her if she, as a child, was tempted into evil, or more amenable to evil, because of the ghosts and mummies of Halloween.

The King

I can only speak for myself and my family. We get an enormous kick out of Halloween. We loved coming up with inventive costumes for the kids and ourselves (and the dog - who every year wears a home-made red spangled devil costume…she’s a “Devil Dog!”) and making them to last - my son Buster has many of his early costumes, still, in his closet - he won’t part with them, not with Big Bird, not with the Medieval King, not with the Tin Man, not with the Executioner. We love seeing the little ones all dressed up as pirates and rag dolls and so on. We love watching the bigger kids, who are almost embarrassed to be trick-or-treating, but still want their candy, as they say, “awesome!” when we throw handfuls of the stuff at them (we always buy too much and of course we don’t want it in the house afterwards, because…some of us like candy a lot…)

When I was a little girl, we had a “block party” one Halloween, complete with a House of Horrors. Blindfolded, one would be lead through a neighbor’s backyard, to feel a “dismembered body” with our hands…”here’s his eyes…” (two peeled grapes), “here’s his intestines,” (cold spaghetti), “here’s his liver,” (liver - ugh!). In between handfuls of guts, we’d hear someone scream and come at us…it was scary and delicious and it made us shiver and laugh and scream. And somehow we all grew up to be sane, rational and believing people, albeit with too many cavities in our mouths.

That said…my kids never got to eat a piece of candy until we’d inspected every piece, and I walked behind them (with them in sight) as they trick-or-treated, until they were old enough to be really ticked off with me about it.

I may be nutty about Halloween, but I’m not stupid.

The Artiste

Please try not to carry on to me about this - don’t tell me I am going to hell, don’t throw scripture at me - I will remain unconviced, because I have experienced real evil in my life and it came in the form of an ordinary human being who looked and lived and worked just like everybody else, not via some pale-faced creature with fake blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth.

Elder Brother and Buster, taking a break from trick-or-treating. Before eating candy and getting rambunctious. Buster gave Elder Brother that shiner - I think over a video game

Many-handed spider & Big Bird

To be honest, costumes were sort of an everyday thing

Seriously, everyday

After the veep debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, Peggy Noonan looked like the sad lady at the end of the bar when she peered up at Brian Williams and said “she killed.”

One might have thought that Noonan, a avowed conservative and loyal keeper of the Reagan flame, would have been pleased with Palin having “killed” in the debate, but no - that was not the impression Noonan gave.

A pal of mine who writes for a “prestigious” magazine - if any of them that, anymore - confessed to me that he was puzzled by Noonan’s seeming dislike of Sarah Palin. He wrote: what is the bee in her bonnet?

I sent back my best guess:

I suspect that part of Noonan’s problem with Palin is that she sees Palin being compared to Ronald Reagan and that cannot be allowed to stand. Noonan’s near-worship of Reagan would be horrified that a g-droppin’ Annie Oakley could in any way share paragraphical or historical space with RWR; to her, one is gold and the other only brass and Noonan is so protective of Reagan she’s trying very hard to make sure that Palin cannot in any way tarnish Ronnie.

And too there may be some snobbery; it’s possible. DC-NY corridor has a difficult time wrapping their heads around bare-handed, pull-yer-bootstraps adventurists, and Noonan - for all that she still claims her middle-class Long Island roots - has breathed the rarefied air for a very long time.
Perhaps by comparison the common air seems unfresh.

Some of us have rather suspected that Peggy Noonan - over the past few months - has been playing pretty for a seat at the Obama table. Hey, a girl wants to be relevant, right?

I recall a rumor that Noonan had hoped to be named Dubya’s press secretary in his second term, and that when she was not, she soured on him. I never believed that. Lots of people were souring on Dubya at the same time she was.

But I can believe that Noonan, attending the wedding of the press to the Obama Machine, has decided she wants to dance the hokey-pokey and turn herself around. That’s what it’s all about. She’s still a dynamite writer capable of penetrating insights and soaring prose. She has watched the construction of the Gulag Conservico since at least 2005, and she does not want to go there with the rest of the right-wing punditry.

Our elites, our educated and successful professionals, are the ones who are supposed to dig us out and lead us. I refer specifically to the elites of journalism and politics, the elites of the Hill and at Foggy Bottom and the agencies, the elites of our state capitals, the rich and accomplished and successful of Washington, and elsewhere. I have a nagging sense…that many of these people have made a separate peace. That they’re living their lives and taking their pleasures and pursuing their agendas; that they’re going forward each day with the knowledge, which they hold more securely and with greater reason than nonelites, that the wheels are off the trolley and the trolley’s off the tracks, and with a conviction, a certainty, that there is nothing they can do about it.

I suspect that history, including great historical novelists of the future, will look back and see that many of our elites simply decided to enjoy their lives while they waited for the next chapter of trouble. And that they consciously, or unconsciously, took grim comfort in this thought: I got mine. Which is what the separate peace comes down to, “I got mine, you get yours.”

Over at Pajamas Media, Pam Meister takes a look at Noonan’s motivation:

…one of my sources, who is very well connected, tells me that Noonan was at first rumored to be looking to write a regular column for the New York Times. Why she’d want to work for a paper that is spiraling further down the economic sinkhole, with stocks that are near junk status, is beyond me. But the rumor has escalated beyond the Times and gone straight to the White House: my same source says now the word is that Noonan may be being courted for the job of press secretary for an Obama administration.

Bread meeting butter?

Our interesting times are getting more interesting.

Hey, if Noonan manages - like a few others from the right - to successfully anchor herself within the coming regime, more power to her, I guess. People have got to do what they feel called to do. I don’t know how she will square her small-government Reaganism with Obama’s large-government redistributism, and I still worry - as I do every day - about issues of free speech, but as one of my Aunties used to say, “first we’ll see, then we’ll know.” Perhaps Noonan, Christopher Buckley, David Brooks and Gen. Colin Powell will plead for the rest of us who’ll be snooped on and then cast into the Gulag Conservico along with Joe the Plumber and Barbara West.

Make no mistake - with Howard Dean woo-hooing about one-party rule, with Nancy Pelosi already talking about regulating the internet for both commoners and congress and with a Pres. Obama appointing far-left judges throughout the court system, to the Gulag Conservico some of us will go, one way or another.

Of course, the traditional polls of registered, likely voters have McCain within 2 - within the margin of error. This deal - not taking massive voter fraud into account - is not yet done.

Quite the gambler, our Ms. Noonan. Then again, she’s awfully talented. Perhaps it is not gamble at all.

Related:
Obama wants a “Second Bill of Rights”
Second Bill of Rights not a new idea
Obama’s Redistributionist Obsession
CBS Spikes Newly Found Obama Redistributive Audio
Obama’s ‘Redistribution’ Constitution
Sarah Palin is a brainiac
Obama supporters attack GOP workers
Chesterton & Lewis warn against tyranny
The Painless Coup

Here:

…if the Democrats win and have substantial majorities, Congress of the United States will be more bipartisan,” said Pelosi.

Oy.

I am very sorry to learn this sad news.

I did not know Barnett but I admired his smart, witty writing immensely.

Prayers for his family at this time…

this is one of my favorites of his pieces:

I am 37 years old and have cystic fibrosis. I’m at a stage in my life where finding a cure or control for CF is a matter of some urgency. Nonetheless, I do not support embryo cloning for stem-cell research. Creating life for the purpose of destroying it, as Governor Romney put it on Sunday, is on the other side of “a very bright ethical line” that we should not cross.

The central issue in the debate on human cloning for stem-cell research should be when life begins or what exactly constitutes life. If you hold the views of the typical NARAL activist, the issue would be rather easily resolved: A cloned embryo is nothing more than a clump of cells and certainly wouldn’t warrant enough concern to curb the pursuit of a promising area of medical research.

If you believe, however, as George W. Bush does, as Mitt Romney does, as John Kerry does, as I do, and as much of America does that life begins at conception, then the morality of the matter is rather stickier. The Romney middle road that proposes using “leftover” frozen embryos for research purposes is probably appealing to some such individuals, certainly repugnant to others. Perhaps Romney’s position should prompt a potentially difficult conversation regarding a process that leaves “leftover” embryos in the first place.

A first-rate thinker and writer. He’ll be missed.

Vanderleun has Barnett, in his own words

See also:
Hugh Hewitt’s moving tribute
Ace
Fausta