The Anvil of Life

To be smart as Hell and to not have a lick of sense are not mutually exclusive.

In my previous post Ready for a firestorm? :-)  (about an Ann Coulter article on the insanity of letting young people vote) a commenter noted...

"After reading Ann's full article, if it's true that 18-24 yr. olds broke for Obama by 19 points (I still question who's polling them and where because I don't recall any pollsters anywhere in my neighborhood) but if that's true, with a military service exemption, I would be for. Sigh. There really are millions of stupid Americans.

I replied in a comment of my own, and after further reflection, decided to tweak and expand the comment into the post you are now reading.

There really are millions of stupid Americans.

Yup!

But, in the 18-24 range, I suspect it is ignorance more than stupidity.

I've always viewed ignorance as simply lack of information, whereas stupidity consists of going ahead and doing something when you damned well (or should) know better.

In 1962, I was in the USAF, newly stationed at Goodfellow AFB outside of San Angelo, Texas. One weekend, I went with three other Airmen down to Del Rio and across the border into Villa Acuña (now Ciudad Acuña) to check out "boystown" (the local red light district) and to buy and bring back cheap duty-free booze.

A little background necessary for what follows:

We were in the United States Air Force Security Service (now the Electronic Security Arm, I think).  (See update below)

When you enlist in the service, you are given a battery of tests on almost anything imaginable (of course, to see just what, if anything, you're good for).

The spook shops have the privilege of being the first to troll through the results and they pick from the top 2%.  If they're interested in you, background checks will be performed while you are still in basic training ("Some people from the government were asking about you, but we lied and said you were Ok." :-) but they'll likely wait until they're sure you aren't going to flunk out of basic training before informing you.

In my case, about 2/3 of the way through basic, after being marched to a class one morning, and standing at parade rest waiting to go in, my drill instructor comes up to me and quietly tells me, "at 1300, you will report to Bldg. ####, Room ###, in the Uniform of the Day. That is all."

The strangest thing is that, for the first time in 7 or 8 weeks, he's not looking at me as if I scuttled out from under a rock, but has a quiet smile, as if he's proud or something.  Also, I'm the only one in my flight (40+ Airmen, the USAF equivalent to a platoon) to receive that attention.

Upon reporting to that room, I find several dozen other Airmen, NCOs and Officers also there to see what the Hell this is about. We're told that they are seeking linguists to attend a one-year intensive language course at the Institute of Far Eastern Languages at Yale University (this was 1961 - The USAF departed Yale in 1965 and now uses the Defense Language Institute or whatever at Monterey, California).

The afternoon is spent on testing our aptitude on learning Mandarin Chinese, although some will be selected for other languages (Korean in my case).

I manage to do Ok, and am selected. I had to drop out of school after the 9th grade, and here I am chosen to go to Yale!  (Well, I did know how to read (see On Reading... for how lucky I've been in this area)). I suspect that I really needed a cap a couple of sizes larger at that point.

I spent a solid year at Yale, with some of the brightest people I have ever met, and that was the greatest thing in the world for me.

After graduation, we were then sent down to Goodfellow for the next phase of our training. Whereupon, the four of us embarked upon the great Villa Acuña sex and booze adventure noted way up yonder.

What I'm trying to convey is that our little bunch was absolutely as sharp as they come (including, modestly, yours truly :-).

And, just how was all that brilliance used?  Stay tuned...

To bring that booze back over the border, you had to be 21 or over, and not one of us had reached that exalted age. So, we cleverly shoved the bottles under the seats as we approached the border crossing.

We had noticed that the Customs guards and Border Patrolmen were just waving through car after car of families that had come over to watch the bullfights and indulge in some very cheap shopping.

So, this bunch of super-smart Airmen (including myself) would later actually conjure up conspiracy theories, about informants in the liquor stores, to explain the mystery of why a Patrolman takes one look at this old Mercury pulling up with a Goodfellow AFB sticker on the windshield, occupied by four young punks sporting military haircuts, and waves us right over.

   "Do you gentlemen have anything to declare?"
   "No Sir."
   "Right!  Step out of the car please."

And they go straight to our hiding place and pull it out.

Not having enough to pay the fine, so help me, I actually asked, "Can I just leave it?"

To which one of the Patrolmen (probably really straining to keep a straight face) replied, "I've got news for you son; you are going to leave it."

Thankfully, one of the others was able to loan me enough to handle the fine.

As I said, being smart as Hell, and not having a lick of sense, are not mutually exclusive.

The missing ingredient, of course, was experience; the hammer with which we're forged on the anvil of life.

Updated 12 Dec 2010, and AGAIN 16 AUG 2019  - "(now the Electronic Security Arm, I think)" - Slightly off, and way out of date.  Its name often changed along with what was covered in its mission.

The various incarnations were...
  United States Air Force Security Service (USAFSS) 1948-1979.
  Electronic Security Command (ESC) 1979-1991.
  Air Force Intelligence Command (AFIC) 1991-1993.
  Air Intelligence Agency (AIA) 1993-2007.
  Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance Agency (AFISRA) 2007-2014.
  25th Air Force  2014-Present.

-

Ready for a firestorm? :-)

Then check out Ann Coulter's latest: REPEAL THE 26TH AMENDMENT!... (Updated below)
   ...
Adopted in 1971 at the tail end of the Worst Generation's anti-war protests, the argument for allowing children to vote was that 18-year-olds could drink and be conscripted into the military, so they ought to be allowed to vote.

But 18-year-olds aren't allowed to drink anymore. We no longer have a draft.
   ...

Dr. Sanity nails it!

One reason I'm a Republican is that, while we may be cursed with a few of those she describes, the Democrats seem absolutely infested with them.

This lady is well worth bookmarking and reading.

Her latest post (at Dr. Sanity ) ...
--------------------------------------------------------
WHAT 'PROGRESSIVES' STAND FOR
Let's get down to the nitty gritty of what "progressivism" is all about, shall we? And, it's all about controlling other people's lives, down to determining the food you and your kids will be able to eat ( because, you know, you are far too stupid to decide that yourself).

For all their happy talk and utopian fantasies, that is the essence of progressivism. Oh, they say it is for your own good...they insist that they are protecting you from the "greed" of those evil capitalists who desire not only your money, but your death--but make no mistake, what they really want is to control your life.
--------------------------------------------------------

That last emphasis is mine. She has a lot more to say, but she really nails it right there.

Update - 05 Dec 2010 - Dr. Sanity does not permalink her individual articles, and this one no longer appears on her main page. To find the full article, look in the sidebar at the left of her page, go down to Archives, and click on November 2010,  Once that page finishes loading, look for Thursday, November 04, 2010 (near the bottom). The full article WHAT 'PROGRESSIVES' STAND FOR begins there.

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Election 2010 - So, where are we now?

...Not nearly as far as I'd hoped we'd be.

As I write this (Wednesday afternoon, 03 Nov 2010) the House appears to be 239 Republicans (for a gain of 60, so far), 185 Democrats, and 11 undecided.

That ain't chopped liver; legislation originates in the House, before being passed along to the Senate and eventually to the President's desk for signing. At the very least, after the new congress is seated in January, there will be enough Republicans to stop any new atrocities from being passed in the House.

Further, Republicans will now chair House committees. As this includes the House Ways and Means Committee, Republicans will now have a very big say on how much (or even if) certain legislation will be funded.

The Joker in this deck is, Will the Republicans actually exercise this power they have won?

"...Don’t worry, you’re boring.”

Found this on John Lott's website... 

   http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2010/10/indian-givers-fbi-demand-gps-bug-back.html

“We have all the information we needed,” were their parting words, “you don’t need to call your lawyer. Don’t worry, you’re boring.”

Now, that's cold. :(
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Early Voting

As I don't know what my unpredictable working schedule will be for Election Day Nov. 2, I took advantage of early voting today, about 15 minutes ago.

A LOT of people there. I'm told it's this way all over. This very likely means lots of people that just can't wait to get their point across, even though it's still a week until the results will be known.

This year, what to do was real damned simple; select "Straight Republican Ticket", then page through the ballot to be sure that every Republican candidate (and NOT ONE Democrat) was selected, and then cast the ballot.

From how quickly many voters were done, I suspect a lot of them were doing the same thing.

From the turnout,  I expect a very bad day for the Democrats when the results come in the evening of Nov 2.

We'll see.
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Airshow

%)#-#!&^##  &(%^#$-$&#**^%  @(^-($-!-%*%#^!!!

Just got back from the Wings Over Houston Airshow at Ellington Field, just south of Houston.

On May 30, I had posted Ready to hear God laugh?, in which I mentioned health problems and announced a regimen of walking to help with them. I set as a goal, catching this airshow, getting a lot of good shots and having something really good to write about in a post.

Well, here's the post. But it sure ain't what I intended.

Experiment

I'm going to see if I can play with the order of my posts by editing the publishing time.
(Originally published 10/10/10 11:00 AM)

Result, YES, I can!!!.

There's a post from a while back that I intend to move to the top when the time is right.
Now, I know how.
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A Boy and his Vampire

(This post is mostly about remakes)

  Owen: "How old are you, -- really?"  
   Abby: "Twelve, -- but I've been twelve for a really long time."

Let Me In is the story of 12-year old Owen, lonely and tormented by bullies at school, and of Abby; a very unusual girl of the same apparent age, with whom he becomes acquainted when she and her guardian move into the apartment next to his.

Based on the Swedish thriller Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In), from the novel of the same name, it is the latest in the long-standing Hollywood tradition of taking an absolutely superb foreign film and remaking it for those who "don't want to read their movies".

What is not in that tradition is the fact that this remake stands in the same league as the original, to a degree I haven't seen since Gore Verbinski's The Ring.

The Swedes have been cranking out some interesting work lately, including The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, already scheduled for an American remake with Daniel Craig.  For the role of Lisbeth Salander (the girl of the title), for a short while Emma Watson (Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films) was briefly considered for the remake, before being ultimately passed over for someone else. Lisbeth would have been one Hell of a change for Watson; very edgy and as big a step as Kurt Russell going from the nerdy kids he played in Disney movies to putting on the eye patch and becoming "Snake" Plissken  in John Carpenter's Escape From New York. (Believe it or not, even that one has a remake in the works.)

Before that, I'd have to rate Insomnia (with Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hillary Swank) as maybe one of the most successful re-dos of a first-rate Swedish movie. That particular remake was directed by Christopher Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Inception) and that may have had much to do with it turning out so well.

Of course, Hollywood doesn't have to go overseas to mine something already done (and done very well) before. (They never seem interested in taking something that should have been good but was botched, and giving it another shot.)

Even the Coen Brothers are going down this path. After couple of decades of some of the most original work seen on the screen, they confessed to being inspired by The Odyssey for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, they adapted Cormac McCarthy's novel for No Country for Old Men, and now they are going as mainstream Hollywood as one can possibly get; they are remaking True Grit.

Scheduled for this Christmas, this is one remake that does not fill me with dread. I've not seen any of the trailers now available online (watching videos on a dial-up connection is an exercise in masochism), but some of the stills I've seen give me a very good feeling about this.

Jeff Bridges steps into John Wayne's role as Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn, and looks absolutely perfect for it.

Matt Damon is the Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, and while Damon can make me want to throw things at him when he opens his mouth politically, as an actor he has a lot more going for him than did singer Glen Campbell in the original.

Likewise, I have no problem with Josh Brolin taking over from Jeff Corey as Tom Chaney, the object of the manhunt the story is about.

Who I'll be most curious about is Barry Pepper (the sniper, in Saving Private Ryan, who would cross himself before blowing out the brains of some poor German soldier). He will be essaying the role of the outlaw "Lucky" Ned Pepper, a role that was filled by Robert Duvall in the original.

Now, that will be a challenge on a par with Steven Weber following in Jack Nicholson's footsteps in the TV remake of The Shining. I think Weber did a fine job of meeting that challenge. We'll just have to see how well Barry does.

As of now, the "True Grit" remake is scheduled for Christmas Day, 2010.

December 25th this year occurs on a Saturday. New movies are usually released on a Friday, with an occasional Wednesday or Thursday thrown in. I don't ever recall a Saturday being used before, BUT, this is the Coen Brothers we are talking about. So, anything can be on the plate where they are concerned.

But, WHY does Hollywood depend so much on remakes and sequels? Are they really that devoid of imagination?

I seriously doubt it. I believe some of the most imaginative people on the planet are in that industry, but, you must never forget that there are two words in "show business". Millions (lately hundreds of millions) are at stake in modern movies, and that is a powerful incentive to play it safe by remaking, or making sequels to movies that made money. It doesn't get any simpler than that.

As for sequels; there have been some good ones. But as far as most of them go, consider Robert Rodriguez's violent, over-the-top live action cartoon spoof of late 60's exploitation movies Machete.

As the end credits start, they announce...

Machete will return in

"MACHETE KILLS"

             and

"MACHETE KILLS AGAIN"

Right there, Mr. Rodriguez says it all about most sequels.
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Spambots - Or, why comment moderation is back on.

-
For a long time now, neo-neocon has posted Spambot of The Day when a new or somewhat original example came through her spam filters. Often whimsical, with wonderfully loose language, and sometimes no other apparent purpose than to show that it could be done.

I've gotten these examples on Anatomy of an eBay Transaction... 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...
Clearly, many thanks for the information.
   July 13, 2010 6:28 AM

Paul_In_Houston said...
Although that comment appears appropriate to this post, my site meter (StatCounter) shows no trace of anyone even visiting my blog around the time the comment was put up, let alone actually reading this post.

In fact, that comment would have been far more appropriate to the follow-up posting "An Ode to PayPal...".

So, I have to conclude that it is almost certainly a spam-bot.

I'd love to learn how it accomplishes this; finding a particular post to comment upon and actually doing it without leaving a trace other than the comment itself.

And as for WHY it was done ("What's in it for them?") I suspect the answer may be because they could.
-
    July 13, 2010 2:26 PM

Anonymous said...
The excellent and duly answer.
   September 13, 2010 3:47 AM

Anonymous said...
You have quickly thought up such matchless phrase?
   September 13, 2010 11:42 PM

Anonymous said...
In my opinion you are mistaken. I can defend the position. Write to me in PM, we will discuss.
   September 16, 2010 10:41 PM

Beginning today, these are what I'm getting (on Yet again, the Brits know us much better than our own media does.. )...

3 comments:

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    September 23, 2010 11:51 PM

Paul_In_Houston said...
Like other spambots that have visited here, this one left no trace at all on my site meter (StatCounter).

As this one at least provided a URL, I've emailed them, asking how they managed that.

If they simply came here the same way as anyone else, doing nothing special to avoid detection, then I may want to take it up with StatCounter.

In the meantime, I'll leave it up for a while before purging it.

Just a little while; if I'm gonna provide advertising space for someone, I want my cut. :-)
    September 24, 2010 1:09 PM

Anonymous said...
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    September 24, 2010 4:21 PM

I'm afraid that final one was the last straw. If you want to advertise on my site, we need to negotiate a fee first.

Because of this, I have purged those last three comments and I'm turning comment moderation back on. :(

(And, as I mentioned in my comments before, I would still love to know how they manage an end run around StatCounter.)
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Yet again, the Brits know us much better than our own media does..

Thanks to neo-neocon for Finally: a fair depiction of the Tea Party movement

She simply points to Tea Party insurgents prepare to seize power in 2012
and figures (rightly) that it says it all.

Not feeling bound by such a restriction, I'm gonna quote from it a bit:

Flu can really suck, you know.

Back to square one...

If Stephen King hadn't already described the circumstances (in "Danse Macabre") of how he wrote "The Stand", wherein flu (albeit a souped-up version) was the instrument of the downfall of civilization, I would have guessed his inspiration to be a recent bout of it and thinking "What a miserable way to go!!!".

Tsunami

- Yeah, others have used that word for what's coming in November.  So, tsu me. :-)

AJStrata, of The Strata-Sphere has used the analogy frequently of late, in There Is An Anti-Dem, Anti-Big Gov Wave Out There, following many other posts on his site.

He points out (in some of those other posts) that, like an iceberg only revealing 1/10th of itself above water, a tsunami wave doesn't doesn't look all that different from other waves out in mid-ocean (unless you can note its length).

It's when it begins arriving in the shallows that the true monster rears its head.

Now, HERE'S an eye opener!

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From Strategy Page ...

Chinese General Declares Democracy The Ultimate Weapon
August 19, 2010: Chinese Lieutenant General Yazhou Liu has been giving speeches to his fellow officers in which he insists that China must embrace democracy, or perish. Liu recently got promoted, and his speeches and published articles continue. What is going on here?
...
Liu's backing of democracy is purely practical, and really has nothing to do with political beliefs. He describes American democracy as a system designed by a genius for effective use by stupid people. As Liu puts it, "a bad system makes a good person behave badly while a good system makes a bad person behave well. Democracy is the most important reform for China, for without it there can be no sustainable growth."
...
Change is in the air, whether communist officials want it or not. Liu offers a way out, but there's no guarantee that enough of these officials will take it.

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G. Wolf is Howling -- You might want to pay attention.

Sometimes he appears to go on sabbatical for a while (probably this thing called LIFE). But, he's back full-bore now (and, NO! That does not mean "boring"). I'm trying to persuade people to give his site a look. As doing this on my own blog means that only two or three dozen will ever see it, I'm also gonna email the hell out of this.

Now at Wolf Howling ...

"The Lady of Spain"
O'Reilly comments on First Lady Michelle Obama's ostentatious vacation in Spain while a very significant portion of America suffers through our worst economy since WWII. And O'Reilly even let's Charles Krauthammer get in a word or two. Let us eat spinach indeed.

"The Ground Zero Mosque & Our Government's Mishandling Of "Islamic Radicals"
As it stands today, Obama is pretending that nothing about Islam is implicated in the terrorist attacks against us. It is a risible canard that invites disaster. It is not fooling any American with a pulse.

"Can I Have The BS On Rye, Hold The Mayo?"
Afrocity's post this week, Bullshit, It's Not Just For Republicans Anymore.
Here is a snippet:
. . . But understand that bullshit is an acquired taste. That is to say, if someone feeds you crap election year in and election year out, you only know… well…crap. You become accustomed to the broken promises and pointing fingers game. You accept your permanent place in the war of America’s needy versus America’s greedy. Despite your inner brilliance- your wiser conscious plea to ask questions and get real answers, you continue to eat the plate of bullshit set before you. Some like myself ate with small spoonfuls -drinking huge glasses of water between each swallow. Others like my mother and most Obama supporters put the feedbag on with gusto.

"Let Them Eat Argula"
Indeed. Were I the left, I would not fear a second American Revolution in our country. I'd fear a second French Revolution in our country.

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The Texas vs EPA War

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From The Strata-Sphere ...

 Texas declares War on the EPA
I have *never* read an official government document that is this bitter and contemptuous of the Federal level – I never thought I would! This is damn close to a new Declaration of Independance.

And, for good measure, this from Liberty Pundits ...

 Texas Tells The EPA To Pound Sand – UPDATED A War Is Breaking Out

I have nothing to add to these, they speak for themselves. I have sent emails to a bunch of other bloggers alerting them to this, because at my site, maybe about two dozen people will see it. The others can do a bit better than that.

The Strata-Sphere post has this link to the actual letter, in pdf format...
http://www.globalwarming.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/epa-texas-letter.pdf

Enjoy

(And, not for the first time, I notice that you have to roam, not merely the internet, but bloggers, to even become aware of this. No wonder they seem so desperate to exercise control over the internet.)
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Hiatus

- A twenty-dollar word for "I haven't put up anything for a couple of weeks now".

Why not?

John Hawkes - Man of Steel

Not so much a movie review, but an Actor review.   (Updated at end of post)
(23 JUL 2010 - New update about sound problems at end of post)

Part I - Setting the stage...

Winter's Bone (2010), from the novel by Daniel Woodrell ...
Sixteen-year-old Ree Dolly (seventeen, in the movie) is trying to support two younger siblings, and a mother who is no longer quite all there, in the Missouri Ozarks.

The local deputy-sheriff drives up and informs her that her father, Jessup (out on bail for running a crystal meth lab), hasn't shown up for his court date and, Oh by the way, had signed over everything for his bond.

She has maybe a week to find him and haul his ass back, or find proof that he's dead, before losing the property and becoming homeless.

Part II - Meet Uncle Teardrop...

Into the situation enters Jessup's brother, Haslam (Teardrop - so called because of three blue teardrops, made with prison ink, below his left eye; each one denoting some grisly prison deed that needed doing, was done, and probably best not inquired about).

He's the first person she goes to in her quest, only to be advised that such poking around is, "a good way to get et by hogs", and that she should know better than that. (Her best friend, Gail, already fearing the worst, supposes "Either he stole, or he told; that's what they'll kill you for here.")

Teardrop has a reputation that precedes him when some local toughs (and they truly are tough) look out of a garage, see his truck approaching, and react "Oh, Sh*t!" and "Let me get something from the car; I don't want to be standing here naked if that motherf**ker's comin' in."

After he has pulled her out of a very tight situation, Ree confesses to him, "You've always scared me, Uncle Teardrop." To which he softly replies, "That's because you're smart".

Part III - And to play him...

John Hawkes as Teardrop - Photo from Winter's Bone website.

John Hawkes has appeared in an amazing number of movies I've seen, some of which I have, including From Dusk till Dawn  and The Perfect Storm.

He may be best known, at least to Deadwood fans, as Seth Bullock's partner Sol Star ("the hardware jew", as he was sometimes referred to there) whose best line may have been ONE word when Trixie (the whore he's been shacking up with) ends an argument with, "Well, do you want to get f**ked or not?".  To which he replies, "PLEASE!"

At first glance, he may seem a strange choice as he is not in the least imposing physically (sorry, Mr. Hawkes, but that's the way I see it), but there is steel there.

In his character, all he has to do is stand there, quietly looking at you with sad eyes, and the vibe you get (just rolling from him) is, "Son, you do not want to mess with me."

This may be one of the most under-rated actors in the business, because he doesn't work to steal scenes from other actors, but to get the job done. In other words, a professional.

As for the movie itself, it just may be the best of the year, so far. I personally think Hawkes deserves an Academy Award nomination but, since his work is so understated, I wont hold my breath.

As it is an independent film, with very little real support, some of you may not get a chance to see it until a DVD is eventually released, unless there is a local art house theater near you (I am so blessed with one within walking distance of where I live :-).

If you can find a showing within your reach, I promise you it is worth the effort. My only complaint is that the sound quality is not very good, so you really have to pay attention. With my less-than-perfect hearing, I recently devoured the book to better understand some of it (the movie is quite faithful to the book). Here's hoping the eventual DVD has subtitles or close-captioning; I confess to sometimes needing them.

UPDATE - 18 JUL 2010 - The movie has wider distribution than I thought. Check out the official website (linked under the photo). They list theaters where it is currently playing, or about to.

UPDATE - 23 JUL 2010 - This post was (and still is) primarily about John Hawkes, but at the end of the original post I had noted sound problems making much of the dialog inaudible.

After a few rounds here, and in comments on http://maridethsisco.com (blog of Marideth Sisco, music consultant and singer in the film) and on http://moonmooring.wordpress.com/ (blog of Sarah, who oversees Marideth's blog), I got this reply on Marideth's blog...

About the sound problem, I’m advised by the director that similar problems have occurred when the theater playing the film fails to notice the attached tag that says the movie is to be played at Dolby sound level 7.5 — Most films being shown these days are so full of explosions and very loud special effects that if played at 7.5 it would blow their speakers, so they play the audio set at Dolby 5. At that level the WB sound is very muddy.

I emailed this info to the customer service departments of the Landmark theater chain (which runs the theater I went to) and Roadshow Roadside Attractions (distributor of Winter's Bone).

The latter replied, thanking me for the heads up, and promised to get with the theater to see what was going on.

Apparently, they did. Tonight's showing was much better as far as audio goes; while I still had to strain in a few places to catch some of the dialog, it was infinitely better than before. The remaining part of my problems can probably be attributed to hearing I have already described as a bit "less than perfect". Because of that last caveat, I still hope for captioning on the DVD.

But, in the meantime, there is at least one theater in this area that is now playing it the way it was meant to. So, I feel I have managed to accomplish something worthwhile. :-)
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"That which does not kill me..."

"...makes me stronger". (Well, at least according to some guy named Nietzsche.)

I started this post, two days ago, in full "whine" mode. I was going to reply to Mr. Nietzsche's quote that I was still awaiting that second part.

This is a follow-up to Ready to hear God laugh? and Day Nine..., in which I publicly announced my intentions to begin and continue a regimen of walking to improve my very shaky health and then told about early results.

Two days ago (Day 44), I was suffering bitter disappointment and depression over the lack of any apparent progress, even though I had told myself that it would most likely take months (plural) to see such.

Today (Day 46) the situation changed, as must the general direction of this post.

"the bottom line"

(I repeat myself here. Well, so what? Wont be the first time.)

(24 Oct 2010 -This post was originally published 07 Jul 2010. By temporarily altering the date, I am sticking this one at or near the top of the page, until after the election when I will restore it to its rightful slot. The only other alteration is using Red to further emphasize some points.)

(03 Nov 2010 - Restored original publishing date, putting this post back where it belongs.)

The election this November will be nothing less than a fight for our very lives; this is absolutely no time for any conservative to throw a hissy fit (because his candidate may be less than perfect), and just decide to sit it out.

That’s already happened, and just look where that got us.

Blogger Robin of Berkeley, on the American Thinker blog site, nailed it in A Shrink Asks: What's Wrong with Obama?...

(The words are hers, the emphasis is mine; the first emphasized paragraph is really "the bottom line" about what needs to be done.)