Ayn Clouter's Blog

LONE STAR TELEVISION CRITICISM:

The fuzzy brained liberals at The American Street have moved their so-called "humor" postings to Fridays, and added some new "funny" writers that day. This seemed like an excellent chance to abuse their hospitality by explaining the whole Memorabilia Ménage in terms they could grasp, in the form of a review of a brand new TV series.

Is this latest addition to the CBS stable of "Crime Scene Investigation" series purely coincidental timing, or is it a carefully planned bit of propaganda to prop up the free-falling Dan Rather? We report; you decide.

Go enjoy the rest at CSI HOUSTON.

TWO FROM THE VAULTS:

Another wise blogger has jumped on the bandwagon by citing this as a "brilliant blogsite". Curiously, Graham_72 prefaces and concludes this posting by paraphrasing lyrics from 1960's songs. I certainly don't mind being coupled with The Animals' 1965 ode to selfish ambition, but I can't imagine what I ever wrote which caused him to think of that other 1967 tune from The Cowsills. "I love the flower girl, she seemed so sweet and kind." Moi? In the famous words of Melanie Haber Audrey Farber Susan Underhill Betty Jo Bialowsky Nancy: "Look at this negative! It's an interesting approach, but it isn't us!"

NAMES TO CONJURE WITH:

"On Chiron, wealth is competence!" he said. "Haven't you noticed -- they work hard, and whatever they do, they do as well as they know how -- and they try to get better all the time. It doesn't matter so much what they do as long as it's good. And everybody appreciates it. That's their currency --recognition, as you said ... recognition of competence. ...You just told us that's what everyone wants anyway. Well, the Chironians pay it direct instead in indirectly through symbols. Why make life complicated?" --Voyage From Yesteryear

Foretold in that novel two decades ago, the web's radical use of information as a medium of exchange continues to confound the simplistic theories of traditional economics. As examples of this spreading paradigm shift, consider the two latest sites to add my own to their blogrolls.

A blog which seems to be brand new today is the pleasingly titled Efficacy. With no content yet, and a list which contains the ilks of both Instapundit and Eschaton, it is too soon to know if this person is a righty, lefty, rigidly undecided, hopelessly confused, or envisions some big picture transcending us all. Time will tell.

There is no doubt about where What She Said! is coming from, intending to be a signpost to leftist women on the web. (Slogan: "The next time some guy asks you where all the female bloggers are, tell them What She Said!") This is run by The Goddess, who says she is a "High Priestess of Dianic & Aphrodesian Wicca", and writes "Right now, the only rule to get into the blogroll is to be female and have a blog that deals with liberal politics at least part time." Well, I could be said to do that, but as The Clenis would say, "It all depends on what deals with means."

Her filter has let some non-leftists slip through. She includes Electric Venom, whose author brags of being a member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (along with the Wiccan's conservative competitor, Da Goddess, and the ever vigilant A Small Victory). But I don't think we're likely to see there such alternative voices as Claire Wolfe, or Jane Galt, or Sasha Castel, or Wendy McElroy.

The Goddess does seem to note some difference of approach between me and the others she lists, whose titles include Pinko Feminist Hellcat and Pissed off Wiccan for Peace. She singles me out for this otherwise unused parenthesis: "(satire)". This editorial comment was not attached to her listing of, for instance, Mad Kane, perhaps because Mad directs her parodies only against Our Noble Leader. Will illumination come after a spell, in a burst of pataphysical gnosis?

Das Missverhältniss aber zwischen der Grösse meiner Aufgabe und der Kleinheit meiner Zeitgenossen ist darin zum Ausdruck gekommen, dass man mich weder gehört, noch auch nur gesehn hat. ... Verwechselt mich vor Allem nicht! --Vorwort, Ecce Homo

ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST:

I have written nothing about the tempest in a Texas teapot over TANG records and letters, and am not likely to waste time over that brouhaha. I do want to pass on something I found today. Someone linked to an old Calpundit interview from February, with a man whose name has been raised in this. What delighted me was THIS COMMENT:

Like it or not, George W Bush is our Commander in Chief. These stories from the early 1970s are extremely distracting and in fact harmful to our national security. Just today we learn that the South Koreans have cloned human embryos in a clear afront to the President and his Council on Bioethics. Passing legislation in the US Congress will not stop the threat of cloning to our national belief system. The President could well have to take unilateral military action to stop this research in South Korea. Dentals records, arrests in 1968, physicals, HBS applications, old girlfriends. Just bees in the bonnet of our national apiarist.
Posted by: Wren at February 12, 2004 06:05 AM

Even more fascinating are the later comments, which either condemn "Wren", or ask if they were joking. No, it wasn't me that wrote or posted that (I sign the infrequent comments I make and list this web site), but I would have been proud to have thought of it. Provoking such disparate reactions is my joy. They remind me of Cerebus the Aardvark's great reply when accused of being ambiguous: "You can tell His Holiness that Cerebus has found ambiguity to be the very cornerstone of a successful foreign policy."

THE WORD ON THE STREET:

Never mind that the polls are being as consistent as Kerry's stand on the war. French columnist Pascal Riché has found that even cab drivers are convinced JFK is a flip-flopper:

Je suis présentement à l'aéroport de Boston (quelle merveille le wifi). Aujourd'hui, un chauffeur de taxi barbu, avec un fort accent polonais, m'a bien fait rire. J'étais avec le photographe Jean-Christian Bourcart, entre deux interviews. On lui donne l'adresse, à Cambridge. "Ah oui, dit-il sans hésiter, c'est un ancien musée germanique transformé en centre d'études européennes". Il nous dit: "Vous êtes journalistes?" (Dieu sait comment il a deviné). On acquiesce. "Quel media?" Libération, un journal français. "Ah, Libération! C'est plutôt à gauche, non?" Oui, enfin, un peu moins qu'avant quand même. "Sartre l'a fondé, non? Le problème de Sartre, c'est qu'il a mal lu Heidegger" (c'est là que j'ai explosé de rire). De fil en aiguille, on parle de Descartes: "il a une vision un peu trop mécaniste de l'homme", assure le taxi. Puisque nous sommes tombés sur un chauffeur omniscient, nous lui demandons qui va gagner l'élection: "Bush, sans l'ombre d'un doute. Kerry, il n'a pas su montrer ce qu'il voulait".

A LESSON IN EPISTEMOLOGY:

Vice presidential candidate John Edwards promised a West Virginia mother on Wednesday that if the Democratic ticket is elected in November the military draft would not be revived.

"It was strange, she thought, to obtain news by means of nothing but denials...."

ANOTHER FLY FALLS INTO THE WEB:

Jess of Life or Something Like It has now joined the growing legions wise enough to add this site to their blogroll. Welcome, newest minion.

A MODEL FOR US ALL:

Facing a wave of deadly terrorism, President Vladimir Putin moved yesterday to reshape Russia's political system and give the central government dramatically increased powers, but his critics said the changes would threaten the country's young democracy and put it on a path toward dictatorship. ... Putin called for measures limiting the role of smaller opposition political parties, barring independent politicians from running for the national legislature, and effectively giving the president the power to appoint regional governors who are now elected.

Adopting this here at home would put an end to the need for those expensive recall elections, or resignations due to indictments or sexual scandals -- just have Our Noble Leader fire the turkeys. Now would be a good time to enact this, while he still has a majority in both houses.

Is it unconstitutional? Not if you run it by Diana Tony and the Supremes. Look at that aging blueprint. Not only did the Founders NOT require Governors to be elected, but they added (in Article IV, Section 4) "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government". Notice how they capitalized Republican, even before the party was organized. That shows almost divine foresight. It's way past time to enact that part of their original intent.

SENATOR SANTORUM WARNED US:

Foolish me, I thought everything was already illegal in California. Uncle Horn Head points to a story of one they had missed:

Having sex with corpses is now officially illegal in California after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill barring necrophilia.... "Prosecutors didn't have anything to charge these people with other than breaking and entering. But if they worked in a mortuary in the first place, prosecutors couldn't even charge them with that".... The new law makes sex with a corpse a felony punishable by up to eight years in prison.

Now isn't this a classic victimless crime? Certainly, the corpse won't be complaining to anyone. In fact, it won't even have any objection. I know, some will say the body belongs to some living relative. But in that case, this is just a case of unauthorized misuse of personal property. Do we make vandalism a felony that gets eight years in the pen? Actually, the sentence might be ever harsher in practice. Would a self-respecting burglar want a cellmate who was convicted of this?

WELCOME....:

to Rook's Rant, which has shown its good taste by adding me to its blogroll, however temporarily, under "Morning Read". He admits (in comments under a post about what he calls shameless link whoring that produced a mention of his site by the ever-generous skippy) that "Most new blogs (to me) go there to see if I like them in the long haul." Too bad he's chosen a slow time on this site, since for the last two weeks and likely the next two to come, I am swamped at both home and office. And then, well, there's some election allegedly taking place that some of us might be very interested in involvement with. But climb on board anyway, Rook. The lava is still warm.

PAVED WITH MISUNDERESTIMATIONS:

I have mentioned before that The American Street, just to show how "tolerant" they are, allows me to post there as a token voice from the right. (For instance, I recently revealed there my discovery of the vile liberal revision of an old folk opera as an anti-Bush tirade, in "The Beggaring Opera".) Their suicidal pursuit of "diversity" reminds me of an old line that the capitalists will sell the Marxists the ropes they use to lynch the businessmen.

This week Kevin Hayden, the evil instigator of that site, requested suggestions for a new quote to replace the one from Twain he had been using on the sidebar. I was provoked into sending him back this emulation of Mad Kane. (Someone has to, since she has abandoned song parodies for mere haiku.) Try this, to the tune of one of the lover-liest songs from "My Fair Lady":

I have often surfed to The Street before
And the pixels always gave me meat to eat before.
Though I know I ought
To love food for thought,
Why, oh why, must it always curve left?

Are Bush crimes decried on ol' Insty's site?
Is Sully all alone wanting his own rite?
Civil liberty
Does appeal to me,
But oh, why must The Street just turn left?

Righties say that I have let down my side.
Posting my stuff there keeps me occupied.
I should concentrate
On more billingsgate
On my site which will never go left.

REFUTING A SMALL LIBEL:
I've just posted an explanation of something that got buried in the fine print about the Republican convention. Read the illustrated truth at "It's Still The Clenis's Fault".