Hither and thither 11/12/10

Nice enough week for me. Quiet here at the blog. I've left up the Advent season post, in hopes that more will chime in. Some requested an Advent reading schedule I created, and I've found it, so that may come up in the coming weeks.

But for now, you can head into your weekend with this. Let me hear from you!

As usual, updates possible until noon PT.

• Hokey smokes — Lego frog dissection!

• A favorite Democrat myth (like the parallel favorite anti-Christian myth) is that the GOP (like Christians) is driven only by ideology and irrationality, while the Dems are all about Science and facts and reason. Right. Except when it comes to drilling, greening, and laying tracks. (I would also add abortion.)
• In case you didn't get that, Fred Butler pointed me to an article detailing that the Obama administration re-wrote the report on deepwater drilling, so as to misrepresent the facts.
• Well, at least it wasn't Sarah Palin who did it. Because, you know, she's stupid. Not like the Dems, the MSM, and raised-pinkie conservative elitists.
• On which subject: love seeing Palin twit an elitist twit.
• Now, a Wintertime BibChr Safety Tip: never, never do this:

• Once again, I just watch it over, and over, and over, and over....
• So, which is the bigger surprise: that Dick van Dyke is still surfing at age 84, or that porpoises saved his life?
• The good news: under Obama, salaries have soared! The bad news? It's government salaries that have soared. (Surprised? Didn't think so.)
• Remember how we were told (and told) that the whole world hated Bush, but everything would change under Obama? The world would love us again, we would have peace and harmony, The One would just stride out and make it all wonderful? Bad week for that myth.  The Iraqi president (a former close ally of America) rejected Obama's personal request that he step down to allow a new government to form. Second, South Korea (South Korea!) rebuffed Obama's attempts at a trade agreement. Third, German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected Obama's proposal concerning global trade imbalances, and (same article) China rejected Obama's call to speed up economic reform.
• Gee... if only someone had pointed out to the pre-November-2008 0-cultists that Obama was an unaccomplished, unqualified, ideologically-driven, arrogant empty suit. If only.
• Irony Can Be Pretty Ironic Alert: a bigger man would be humbled. Pray for the president. Seriously.
• No sign of that yet, though. Obama insists on playing dumb about extending Bush tax cuts, only pledging to extend them for (what he defines as) middle-class tax-payers. He says he "can't afford" to give tax-cuts to the wealthy. To the unreflecting, this makes him sound moderate. But wait — I thought we wanted more jobs? Don't we? Doesn't he? And who generates jobs and new start-ups and large venturesome investments? "Middle class"? So, if we want more jobs, does it make sense to raise taxes on the most prosperous?
• Obama may think so. We'll see how many Dems join him in this death-wish.
• The problem is that Obama and his fellow hard-lefties view private citizens' money as theirs. To them, it's a question of how much they (i.e. the State) can afford to give to the citizens. Which is exactly wrong, of course: the money is not theirs, and the issue is how much they should take out of the economy if they want to grow the economy. Tax-cuts are an investment, not a loss. Obama is exactly wrong: it isn't that we "can't afford" not to raise taxes on the wealthy; it's that we can't afford to penalize the job-producers so that the State can continue to expand.
• All this to say: "humbled" and "humiliated" are not synonyms. Need further proof? Here y'go
• Okay, back to my home state.Think we exaggerate about California? How about this. While some thirteen-year-olds are getting into drugs and hostile dress and behavior, Cody Alicea just wanted to have an American flag on his bicycle... on Veteran's Day, to show support for the veterans in his family. How did government re-education officials welcome this show of patriotism? By telling Cody to take the flag off his bike, because it might "cause racial tensions." That's right. In an American school, in America, paid for by American tax dollars, this American student was told not to display the American flag.

• Okay, maybe you just want to walk that one off for a second before we get back to fun and frivolity. Cleansing breaths: in... out... in... out... ahhhh.
• Know who once wanted to film The Lord of the Rings? Try The Beatles. Know who killed the idea? Try J. R. R. Tolkien.
• Pat Sajack apologizes — and for good reason. Keith Olbermann immediately proves Sajack right, though unintentionally. Isn't it funny how often liberals and anti-Christians do that?
• Reader Sonja found us a pretty cool Hummer — but doesn't it look a little tippy?
• Christmas is coming; you might want to see these gifts for Star Wars fans.
• Now. Two words: yes, please.

• (Should that have been three: si, por favor?)
• Too early? Run, Alvin, run!

• Another thing that tells you all you need to know about Democrats is that Alvin Greene received 358,276 votes.
• If there were a contest to see how many messed-up things could be crammed into one headline, the winner just might have to be Woman Gives Birth to Homosexual Son's Baby. 
• Oh crud, spoke too soon? Gay Dad Fights Two Lesbians Over Kids.
• Somewhat relatedly, we can thank a Marine for telling some unwelcome truth about cramming a particular sexual perversion into the military. Semper fi.
• Still somewhat relatedly, a Yeah... Well... That's Nice Alert: Amazon.com pulled a title advocating and instructing in "safe pedophilia."  Not a joke. But why not? While even professing Christians continue to romanticize one particular repulsive sexual perversion, and its addicts force outward acceptance across the culture, what's next, and why shouldn't it be? Apart from God, I mean? (Thanks to reader Robert Sakovich for the lead.)
• Tower of Babel, unintentionally visualized? Harrowing watching.
• On that subject... you want to get that fluttery about-to-fall feeling, sitting in your chair? Check this out (and don't look at anything else on that site). (ONE MORE NOTE: I'm being told that, if you speak Russian, you should mute the video, since those Russian teens are potty-mouths.)
• This lizard... it's delicious.. and it's new! (Okay, not "delicious" — but new; thanks to Laura Kelleher.)
• I guess I'm at (and have been at, for years) the stage of my life where I sometimes think about how I'd like to die, if the Lord tarries. Witnessing for Christ, check. Protecting any of my family, check. Protecting another person, check. Foiling a terrorist plot, check. Any of those. But not like this.
• Relatedly and antepenultimately, here's a pretty cool complete schematic of the Millennium Falcon (click to enlarge):

• Penultimately, I hope you'll pardon a bit of nepotism. You see, it's a long story, but my dear wife is helping out her parents with something, and wonders if anyone in our eclectic readership is interested in a Dickens Victorian Village. (If we had room to display it, we'd just find a way to grab it ourselves.) Or maybe you know somebody who knows somebody?
• And now, ultimately: