Monday Morning Rant 78

It was a foregone conclusion that the congress would pass that pork larded bill which they herald as a “stimulus” package. When you have the votes; you get your way. But, there is no “there” there. That is to say it is largely vote buying with little thought to stimulate the moribund economy. Lest we forget, this whole thing started with the purchase of the electoral loyalties of folks who did not qualify for sound mortgages. Pay no attention to the blame tossed around by sundry commenters with a variety of axes to grind. Like a doting grandma, their little angel can do no wrong.

A serious wrong has been done and it’s the responsibility of a Democrat controlled Congress. The integrity of the American people combined with an insatiable work ethic on the part of the contributing classes of every stripe will see to it. We always have and we always will. It is characteristic of the American people that they manage to overcome every act of stupidity which comes from their elected representatives. The recovery will not be rapid but it will be.

I recently heard a news item about the most lopsided score in a women’s basketball game on record. I forget the exact number but it was in the neighborhood of 107-0. Complaints were made that the winning team should have backed off and not run up the score. Fans, coaches, and the players for the losing team disagreed. They knew that they had played as well as they could and sought no quarter from the winners. It was agreed that had the victors not kept their “A” game in place, the disgrace would have been worse. There was no talk of abandoning the program because everyone involved knew there was no avenue available for them but up. They saw the value in the process and not in the outcome. This is what real winners are made of.

Like the team with the goose egg score, members of the Republican Party will have to continue to present themselves ready to fight each battle as it comes along. Any other course will leave them totally unprepared when the electorate finally figures out this debacle and returns them to power. Let us pray they deserve the honor when it returns.

Before we leave the topic, I have to bring your attention to this short video which expresses an appraisal of the “package” which about any one can understand. Don’t miss it because it is the source of a much needed laugh.

Coincidence?

Tell me please; am I the only one who is interested in the coincidence of the birthdays of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln? For good or ill, these are two commanding figures of the nineteenth century who continue to have a powerful influence yet today, exactly two hundred years after their birth. Upon serious consideration of the fact I’ll admit I am stunned by it. Both men have had a profound affect on the world we live in. Both took stands which have provoked huge, but different, conflicts which continue into our life times. Apparently they were not linked within the frameworks of their lives, which may well be attributable to one being British with his international travel restricted to rarely visited places.

Wikipedia provides a quote which I found interesting: “Darwin did not share the racism common at that time. He was strongly against slavery, against 'ranking the so-called races of man as distinct species', and against ill-treatment of native people. [145][VI]”

Lincoln’s views on slavery are sufficiently well established as to confirm his agreement with Darwin on those issues. In addition, they both evidenced a suspicion of rigid doctrinaire religions. Neither held church membership with Darwin claiming agnosticism.

I should not be surprised that these two giants share a birth date. I have long conducted a parlor trick in groups of twenty five or more. There are huge odds in favor of a group, that size or larger, having two persons or more sharing a birth date (month and day.) The proposition is mathematical and not genetic. Try it out some time and see for yourself. When posed and then nearly always proven, one is often accused of having some fore-knowledge of the facts. What makes this situation rare is the coincidence of the birth year as well. This is just something more to think about. Fortunately, we are not further confounded by a similar circumstance of death time.

The Salt Marsh harvest mouse speaks on the stimulus.

A commenter, “zzyxx” on a post to IMAO defends the recent pork package passed by the congress:

“The stimulus bill includes $30 million for preserving the habitat of the endangered Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse (SMHM) in wetlands around San Francisco bay. Well let me say this about that--you whining, sniveling, environment raping, anti mouse b……s--as an endangered SMHM I want to say we appreciate Speaker Pelosi’s efforts on our part and from now on she’ll have the full support of the SMHM Community!! For far too long our needs have been overlooked, our complaints have gone unheard and unrecognized, and our habitat has been taken from us in order to provide land for humans! Sure, they used that land to build homes and businesses that contribute to the tax base, but so what! What about us? We’ve been treated worse then the Native Americans, hell, we don’t even have a reservation we can call our own or a single casino! All we have is this lousy, stinkin’ salt marsh….you ever tried to spend your life living in a salt marsh?? Also it’s about time us members of the rodent family got some recognition. We’re sick and tired of Pup Fish and California Condors getting all the favorable press, TV coverage, and protection dollars. Listen, it’s only a crummy $30 million dollars and when you figure this bill spends well over seven hundred billion dollars what’s a paltry $30 million? Besides (and here’s the best part) your grandchildren will be the ones paying for it all….so quiet your b……g and get with the program…….Signed: Sniffles The Salt Marsh Mouse…….PS: We’re glad, however, that she didn’t provide any funds for the Salt Marsh Harvest Snake.”

The Quote of the Week

The following came from Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit and is the “quote of the week:”

“Michelle Obama said: “You’re getting $600. What can you do with that? Not to be ungrateful or anything. But maybe it pays down a bill, but it doesn’t pay down every bill every month.”

Oh wait. She was talking about President Bush’s $600 stimulus last year and not her husband’s $600 stimulus this year.”

Bipartisanship

In the mad dash to demonstrate bipartisanship, we find the urgent desire for each to seek a directional change toward the center. You know the drill: a little bit from you and a little bit from me and, viola!—we’re both happy. This is not leadership; this is committee garbage. In a recent commentary on NRO, Johan Goldberg gave what I consider a keen analysis:

“For certain Beltway centrists, the highest principle is to prove that you are attached to no principle. Rather, your duty is to split the difference between the “ideologues.” If one side says we need a 1,000-foot bridge to span a canyon, and the other side says we don’t need a bridge at all, the centrists will fight for a bridge that goes 500 feet and no farther, and then pat themselves on the back.”

And finally

We had an interesting Sunday morning. My trip to Miami, OK for church was interrupted by a flat tire on our “new” (different?) car. Since I had never done that one before, it turned into an adventure and I never made it to church. I believe that the engineers at Ford are required to totally redesign the emergency wheel replacement gear with the change of every model year. We have three Explorers ranging in age from 4 to 16 years and they are all different. After I returned home and announced I was going to church with Jan we experienced a series of barriers in our ever tightening time frame. Lost keys, misplaced gifts, a Brussels-Griffin running loose, and finally the “check engine” light on the other available car worked successfully to defeat our intentions. The new fallen snow didn’t help either.

Then, taking a page from the “Big Book” of AA I decided to review my capacity for acceptance. It sometimes takes a lot to get our attention; but, there comes a point where one has to realize that some things are destined not to happen. Sometimes, in spite of barriers, we make things occur. Being thrown off stride by either circumstance is often not the best result. Since worship is not necessarily confined to dedicated buildings, we decided to use that valuable alternative of innovation. Trust me it works. I hope your day turned out as well as ours did in the longer view.

In His abiding love,

Cecil Moon