Those of you who read Chris Muir's Day By Day (linked over there in the "CARTOONS" section) are probably aware of the antagonistic relationship between Damon and Jan.

With that in mind, see today's cartoon.

Now, everyone in the reading audience say, "Awwwwww" all together now, on three. Or not. Anyways, I read that and was amused. Congratulations, Jan. You've managed to perhaps drive off the object of your interest, but go figure.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:48 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 81 words, total size 1 kb.

I ran across this today posted here:

Resized by me.

This is probably the best use of that insipid commercial's format, for what it's worth. Tee hee hee.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 10:54 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 38 words, total size 1 kb.

Hrrm. Now might be a good time to remind people of the motto of the Commonwealth of Virginia:

Sic semper tyrannus.

Anyways, I've been mulling over the Saddam situation and I've got several points:

1. It's good that we've got him, dead or alive. This takes the wind out of Howard Dean's sails when he says "...blah blah haven't caught Saddam or Osama." Make that "haven't caught Osama...yet", Dr. Strange.

2. Unfortunately, the clock is now ticking and the European Union is now keeping score. The longer we hold this individual, the more pressure that will probably be exerted upon us by Old Europe to treat him as an international criminal, that we should send him to the Hague or the International Criminal Court. This is, of course, not the way he should be handled in my opinion, but that doesn't mean that the power-hungry bureaucrats of the aforementioned organizations won't be clasping about in order to get their hands upon the prosecution (or not) of Saddam Hussein. That this should be resisted goes without saying, but these efforts could complicate an already complex situation.

3. What do we do with him now? My first instinct is to get information from him, then take him out to a ditch and shoot him. The next thing is that we might not want to do that, because he may be of use to us. I don't know exactly how, but I'm not employed at high levels of DOD, CIA, DIA, or State. I'll leave potential uses of a captive Saddam Hussein to the people who are paid to think of those things.

I'm not fond of an automatic reconvening of the Nuremberg Tribunal (Nuremberg II: Fun in Fallujah), because as Terry Moran points out, there are some problems with the Nuremberg model. (The old saw of "pot calling the kettle black" vis-a-vis the Soviet Union and National Socialist Germany is one of them, although I haven't read any legal criticism on the things.) I am in favor, however, of him being tried by Iraqis. The problem there is that it doesn't seem to be possible, due to the (apparent) fact that the Iraqis don't have a post-Saddam judicial system set up yet. I suppose the way around that is some sort of special tribunal.

Whatever the means of trial, Saddam Hussein will probably wind up dead. Therefore, the important thing is to deny him a martyr's death. Whatever happens to him must be carefully calculated, probably by Iraqis or other experts in the Arab Islamic culture, so that there is maximum psychological damage to our opponents. A little bit of 'shock and awe', if you will. The problem for me is that I don't have a clue as to what would deliver that while simultaneously extracting some punitive result.

Suffice it to say that I'm very glad he's been captured, and I hope that this quells some of the noisier Democratic carping. My personal hope is that this in some way moves the Iraqis closer to freedom and sovereignty, and our boys (and girls!) closer to returning home.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 10:34 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 522 words, total size 3 kb.

We got him!

Saddam Hussein has been captured.

Details are sketchy to me at this point since I just basically fell out of bed to answer the phone, but that's the CNN link and that's all that I've got at the moment. Hooray and all that. Bloody rot, mother calling me to get me out of bed.

He looks like Jerry Garcia or something with that Santa Claus beard. Too bad, so sad, you murdering bum. Hopefully we've got him and we've got the right one, so now the Iraqis can rest a little easier and look forward to the future of their country without this monster.

Huzzah and praise the Lord.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 08:07 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 114 words, total size 1 kb.

Found on a MUSH, somewhere across the Internet: Some chap in Iowa has painted a patriotically appropriate tableau on a rock. It's got various quotes from history on it, and seems like one of those spontaneous expressions of patriotism that pop up where people love their land. If I were to wax poetic, I'd say it was the manifestation of that which is the deep regard of a free man for his land and those who help protect his freedom.

I don't have a whole lot more to say about it, so go on over and check out On a Rock in Rural Iowa.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:40 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 110 words, total size 1 kb.

As tipped off by Mr. Lowry himself, there's an article detailing a little bit about his background and the process surrounding his latest book, an indictment of President Clinton for misadministration of the country. (No, this isn't going to be one of those Corner book bleg things.) Although Mr. Lowry had the good sense to go to a school in Virginia, he chose one of the public universities and thus had to swelter in Charlottesville.

Nevertheless, I've always been a little suspicious of Rich, and he finally gives me solid reasons to support that suspicion:

Growing up in Arlington, Va., Mr. Lowry was "rambunctious" and "always dirty and sweaty," more contrarian than troublemaker: When everyone was going on about Star Wars, he didn’t join the herd.

Not only did he got to the University of Virginia, but he grew up in Northern Virginia (more like occupied territory; sooner or later we've got to force the Washington D.C. occupation army out of there...) and didn't like Star Wars.

Lowry, surrender your card in the conservative pantheon right there, bub. Going to U.Va. and growing up in NOVA can be forgiven under the right circumstances (working for the Virginia Advocate goes a long way) but not being a Lucas fan in the 1970s is unforgivable.

Hee hee. For another article on or about Mr. Lowry's latest exploits, (but from a suspect source) see here.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 01:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 240 words, total size 2 kb.

This came in the e-mail on Wednesday. The folks over at the ACU¹ have been critical of the currently-dominant right (that is to say the conservatism practiced by the President and his Congressional allies) for the last little bit---I read that memo Devine mentions; I didn't necessarily reject its conclusions---and it appears that they've decided to take their disagreement to a new phase of activity. A lot of these disagreements may just be turf wars and illusory tempests in a teapot, but I'll let more wiser individuals make that decision in this case. At any rate, here's the substance of what Donald Devine had to say:

TO: American Conservative Union Activists

FROM: Donald Devine, American Conservative Union Foundation vice chairman
and editor of http://www.conservativebattleline.com/

SUBJECT: Publication of a new conservative on line journal of opinion to
be called ConservativeBattleline, located at
http://www.conservativebattleline.com/.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 12:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 152 words, total size 1 kb.

Hide Comments | Add Comment

So I'm going to participate in the Friday Five thing. Here goes:

1. Do you enjoy the cold weather and snow for the holidays?

2. What is your ideal holiday celebration? How, where, with whom would you celebrate to make things perfect?

At that point, everyone has the de rigeur Christmas food, with lots of things like Flav-o-Rich boiled custard, and so forth, because it's a Christmas party, eh. The more amorous folks have access to a mistletoe-rigged doorway---at least one of my old friends loved trying to corner women under the thing, if I remember right. The sight of him trying desperately (but usually succeeding, blast it) to steal a kiss from various girls in his life was always funny.

I'm not very sure of the details, but all this involves a good time telling stories, and just being together, eh. Of course, I'll cap off the whole thing by either going to bed, writing a rambling post to the blog about the whole thing, or trundling off to a late-night service at my local church.

3. Do you do have any holiday traditions?

We also usually see the extended family and whatnot, although that isn't always a pleasure.

4. Do you do anything to help the needy?

5. What one gift would you like for yourself?

OK, so there you have it. TCP's first Friday Five, and perhaps the start of a long-running trend.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 09:56 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 576 words, total size 4 kb.

I've been reading more about these Austrians and their contempt for reality a unified national defense system under the auspices of the United States Department of Defense, and the following has occurred to me, out of the goodness of my heart. (And what was that about your relationship with that woman, Miss Lewinsky? --Ed.) This is an analogy and one formed at 0200, so make of it what you will:

Austrians, at least from what I've seen, are kind of like the pushy passengers on board RMS Titanic who demand to know why it is that we're not on course for New York City. When you try to explain to them that well, we're on course for the bottom of the North Atlantic, they get all huffy and start calling you names. When you ask them to help lower the lifeboats and evacuate passengers, they fuzz up and refuse, continuing to go on about how they're supposed to be going to New York City.

Unfortunately, the analogy runs awry here because the people who didn't get in the lifeboats from Titanic drowned, whereas we're stuck with people like Karen De Coster and Llewellyn Rockwell, and there's no ocean to conveniently drown them in. (That's a joke. I don't advocate drowning my political opponents. Instead, I wish them long life and health, so that they may see their ideas fail and mine succeed. Yay.)

Call me a statist or whatever (I'd prefer that to be capitalized since I'm quite fond of Virginia) but I'm not crazy about asking a private security firm to handle the front-line defense of the 48 continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii, plus everywhere else our people are. There are some things that just don't turn a profit at the end of each quarter, and I think the DOD's one of those things.

Oh well. I'll have links to this stuff sooner or later.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 02:07 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 327 words, total size 2 kb.

OK, so I'm checking my e-mail, and I find that a Harvard student's got a request for conservative bloggers with a hankering for poll taking: He's in a class full of liberals (At Harvard? Who'da thunk it? --Ed.) and he needs some help showing that people approve of Adam marrying Eve, not Adam marrying Steve. Mr. Barrett wants to see "the Establishment"¹ pass the proverbial brick, and your humble correspondent (Hey now! We can't tell obvious lies in print! Cut that out. --Ed.) concurs, in his own Hunter S. Thompson fight-the-power way.

So here's the action y'all can take: Click here to see his post on the subject, and here to vote in the poll. The Country Pundit is recommending a vote for the third option, so have at it.

This is merely a prank to be used against Ivy League schools, and to shock the kinds of people who want universities to divest themselves of Israeli holdings since the Israelis have this nasty habit of standing up for themselves against Islamist terror. Hee hee.

¹ Once upon a time, that was supposed to be us, wasn't it?

Posted by: Country Pundit at 01:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 196 words, total size 1 kb.

OK, so I'm engaged against a pair of opponents to the Bush Doctrine (broadly) over at Blogs for Bush. The topic of interest is the denial of contracts for Iraqi reconstruction to French, German, and Russian firms. Broadly, I support it. These guys oppose it.

If you're interested, drop over to Comments: The Axis of Weasels upset over Iraq contracts and see your humble correspondent in action!

Confidential to Tom Tomorrow: CHICKENHAWK PRIDE, BABY!

Posted by: Country Pundit at 05:58 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 84 words, total size 1 kb.

This is strange:

The Oconee County [Georgia] Wal-Mart was under siege Friday night by a guerrilla performance art project staged by University students for their Studio Art 2810 final.

While I enjoy hearing about problems that befall Wal-Mart, I'm also slightly wishing that someone had fallen while running away from the store or something. This appears to have been some sort of group effort in order to get a grade. The teacher ought to flunk the lot of them for being inane, but that would probably require a showing of academic courage and resolve.¹

Another choice tidbit:

"Our one guideline was to not break any laws, because the intended purpose was that we didn't want to break any laws but we wanted new (policies) to have to be made," Kubie said. "I think we were pretty responsible in the way we executed our overall plan. There was no permanent damage and very little cleaning to be done."

Son, let me explain something to you: Performance art disruptions don't force new policies, other than to cause more trouble for people within your demographic. All you've done is irritate a Wal-Mart manager. You say that there's no permanent damage? How noble! Some poor employee's going to have to clean up after you, and all he's going to think about is how much he hates you. These little punks ought to be assessed the costs of cleaning whatever "temporary" damage was done. Good grief.

I wish my undergraduate days had been this easy. I suppose I was too busy trying to figure out just what the difference was between the various formulations of the categorical imperative, Mill v. Bentham, and lots of other high-brow crap that's been absolutely useless once I got clear of the presidential handshake on graduation day. Oh well.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to DiVERSiONZ.

¹ Perhaps if they'd gone to the local mosque and protested Islamist terror, then we'd see some outrage in academia. Of course, it probably wouldn't matter because the mosque's staffers probably would have wasted the students, being the religion of peace and all.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 05:35 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 354 words, total size 2 kb.

OK, furthering this Google war:

Let me tell you about a great President, one who worked the Democrats into a lather and had huge marches against him demanding an end to hostilities. This all happened as a backdrop to this President's great foreign policy achievements and geopolitical strategizing.

From secret flights to secret files, this President's administration is assured a place in the history books.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 07:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 77 words, total size 1 kb.

Preliminary Disclaimer: The Country Pundit's degree is in Political Science, and he only had one economics class in college. Although I received a high mark, it was not that I was so good but rather that everyone else in the class had to be reminded to breath at times, when they came to class. Therefore, these great "theories" of economics are largely alien to me.

That being said, I recently took a test to indicate whether or not I was an Austrian in terms of personal economic belief. After half an hour or more of working on the thing, I still made at least one mistake in marking it. Some of the questions are so abstract that I didn't understand them very well, and my personal answers occasionally ran to the "For pete's sake, who cares about the details? The point is is that it happened..." school of thought best espoused by Smith in The Matrix: Reloaded right before he (and his clones) attack Mr. Anderson.

Anyways, the score I got was (more or less) 55. That places you as a Chicago-school devotee, and this was refreshing. Why's that? Well, it shows I've learned something at law school, and I'm happy to identify with the "law and economics" concept that Judge Richard Posner (and a lot of other really intelligent people) fall within. Admittedly, I defaulted to liking any answer where there was a positive suggestion of the merging of law and the economy (must've been that inherent Randian [yuck!] self-interest at work) and so maybe I didn't take the thing in an "honest" frame.

Why am I writing all this? Because it's important to know from what angle some of the next few posts may be about. Broadly, they're about people who would probably fit within the little-l libertarian political sphere. They consider themselves "Austrian" economists, under the lineal descent of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich A. Hayek.

I won't go farther, primarily because I'd have to expend more neurons now than I'm willing to. Future posts on this will be forthcoming, because it seems that the "Rothbardians" (devotees of one Murray N. Rothbard, an economist of this "Austrian" school) don't like fighting Islamists. Of course they'll howl about this not representing their positions and so forth, but when I try and slice through their turgid and abstract prose, I don't always see clear-and-cut support for American victory over the Islamists.

TCP's favorite Rothbardian stance: National defense should be handled by private companies. No word on whether or not these chaps have read the Constitution.

Anyways, this whole trend may be over, but I'm not sure. We shall see; perhaps long-term investigation of things is something I might be good at.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 06:06 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 461 words, total size 3 kb.

I've actually got substantive content for today, but I'm clearing a backlog of quiz results that piled up over the weekend. Here's today's:

Numenorean

To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
brought to you by Quizilla

Bother. I'd prefer to be one of the folks hanging out in Lothlorien amid Liz Fraser vocals, softly filtered camera lenses lit by eerie amounts of white light, lots of snotty people with bows and arrows, and a barefoot Cate Blanchett.¹ Of course, having a fanboy's attraction to Lothlorien means that I've got like zero scenes of interest in the last two Lord of the Rings movies. They're just not as cool as the first one, for whatever reason. Of course, if the rumors of the return of the ringwraiths are true, then that'll be cool.

Anyways, this test comes, one or two steps removed, courtesy of Julie Neidlinger, and she gets the tip of the Wisconsin hat.

¹ Be still, my beating heart. True story: I was in the theater watching FOTR with an early-in-the-release-date crowd, and of course there were the obligatory fanboys, who made noise throughout the flick like "That's not the Balrog!!!!" and who probably had a heart attack when Liv Tyler (Look, in twenty years she'll look like daddy. Talk about coyote ugly!) came onscreen. Luckily for me, they shut up (for whatever reason) when Miss Blanchett drifted onto the screen, and let me sit there, watching in rapt attention watching Galadriel do the whole "witch of the woods" thing. Call it the Reeves-Skywalker Response: "Whoah. She's beautiful." Celeborn, you lucky devil.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 278 words, total size 2 kb.

It's a slow day, and thus quiz results will be posted en masse.

First up:

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
Rum and Monkey.

See the Extended Entry for further details, some of which are quite shocking, and aren't me at all. This one came courtesy of DiVERSiONZ.

Next up, a retro-identity question:

I forgot where that one came from.

There are some other ones to be posted shortly, hopefully with attribution. If anyone knows where the Rat Pack one came from, I'd appreciate a holler. more...

Posted by: Country Pundit at 04:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 485 words, total size 3 kb.

I no longer know where these came from, unfortunately.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 12:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 17 words, total size 1 kb.

I stopped in at the local Borders bookstore today, and while wading through the gobs of latte-sipping bobos, I managed to find a most wonderful thing, a 25th anniversary edition of the original soundtrack to Battlestar Galactica.

This means about zilch to most of the audience, but nevertheless, I thought I'd start trying to get the word out. I own the 1999 Royal Scottish National Orchestra version; bought that several years ago, but it's not the same. For obvious reasons, the score I'm used to hearing is decidely not what's on the RSNO disc. I do, however, concur in the judgment of the Filmtracks review and suggest that you ought to pick up the RSNO release, because it is objectively a good recording.

This disc is the original Stu Phillips/Los Angeles Philharmonic recording from 1978 remastered at 96k/24-bit (whatever that means), presented with an extra track that happens to be a disco version of the Galactica main theme. Yeah, er...whatever. I can't imagine anyone in a disco doing those weird dances to such a thing, but then I had a hard time believing Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" was redone into a reasonably successful club tune in the 1990s, too.

Liner notes are from Mark Altman, co-publisher of Cinefantastique, a veteran sci-fi movie magazine; Glen A. Larson, the creator; Stu Phillips the composer; and Richard Hatch, who played Apollo on the series. Most of 'em are worth reading, so for once the liner notes aren't annoying.

Glen Larson apparently still believes the premise of the show, that "life here began out there" and that "there may yet be brothers of Man who even now fight to survive far, far away amongst the stars..." Moving back to reality, Larson also says he's negotiated the feature film rights and suggests that a movie will be around soon. Here's hoping he's a) right and b) uses as much of the 1970s look as possible, because there's something special about it; for whatever reason, the look of the show is distinct and appreciable.

I did, of course, snap this disc up without a second thought, and if you're a fan of the series or like the late 1970s sci-fi soundtrack genre in general, I'd recommend purchasing it. It's been a decent year for Galactica fans, what with the original series on DVD and the Sci-Fi remake starting tomorrow. I don't get either of them, 'cause I'm broke for the latter and don't get Sci-Fi. This is unfortunate, because I'd be watching if my lousy local provider gave me such things. I'd gladly trade Lifetime and Bravo for it, if you bums are listening.

NB: Galactica gave us two of the Holy Trinity of 1970s TV Sci-Fi Babes in the persons of Maren Jensen's Athena and Jane Seymour's Serina. The third is, of course, Erin Gray's Colonel Wilma Deering in the first season of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. [It goes without saying that Carrie Fisher's Leia Organa reigns supreme in the grand scheme of things, though.]

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:20 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 493 words, total size 3 kb.

I took a trip through the Blogs for Bush blogroll, and I've found that I'm not alone on the Reagan dime issue. Various statements:

Matthew J. Stinson writes:

[P]utting Reagan's face on the dime strikes me as excessive Reagan-worship on the part of some conservatives.

I'm with the Democrats on this one. The coin is fine the way it is. If you want to play politics, do it with on your own dime. Don't so it with mine.

I agree...that the idea of replacing FDR with Ronald Reagan on the dime is true, unadulterated idiocy, which—given some Republicans’ worship of all that is Reagan—borders on idolatry.

These may or may not be representative of Republican sentiment as a whole, but at least I'm not like John Anderson in 1980, off in my own little world and wondering what's going on. I do, however, apparently remain alone on the question of booting John Kennedy off the half-dollar and replacing him with Ronald Reagan. If President Reagan's already out of communication, then the appropriate time would be the first issue year after his death, I would reckon.

Suburban Blight has a poll on the subject; check it out if you're inclined.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:42 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 214 words, total size 2 kb.

Today's news that makes you want to lay the mantle of civilization down and go inflict some horrific levels of pain: Sources: Slain prosecutor was tortured.

Assistant United States Attorney Jonathan Luna, age 38, was murdered probably early Thursday morning, and his body was found somewhere in Pennsylvania. His car was found idling in a creek, with Mr. Luna's remains stashed beneath it. Two snippets:

Sources said the killing was brutal. Torture wounds were found on his torso, and he had been stabbed as many as 36 times.

An autopsy conducted by a forensic pathologist found that Luna "died of fresh water drowning and multiple stab wounds of the neck and chest," Walp said.

Luna was alive but incapacitated when he was thrown in the water, Walp said.

Mr. Luna leaves behind a wife and two children.

I don't know all the facts of this case, nor do I have any personal connection to it. Nevertheless, I do not like it when law enforcement personnel are killed. If I had Richard Bay's speech to Helen Gamble on an old episode of The Practice, I'd probably be reading it now---the bottom line is that men and women who serve the law enforcement system are, in their own way, part of the thin veneer of civilization that divides us from the Iraq of Saddam Hussein. Any attack upon them probably in some way constitutes a move towards what Hussein's Iraq stands for.

I am, of course, angry and ranting about this, probably absent a lot of logical rationality, but at this point I don't care. It would be nice to be able to catch the responsible parties and inflict upon them the John "Without Remorse" Kelly hyperbaric treatment, following that up with a quick trip to the local mulching machine in the back yard, a la the last few minutes of Fargo. This is where we can learn from the Baathists: Insert the responsible party into the machine feet-first.

The Country Pundit is not pleased.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:36 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 341 words, total size 2 kb.