Robert Burns, author of Auld Lang Syne

(From Robert Chambers, A Book of Days, 1869)

NEW YEAR’S EVE, OR HOGMANAY

As a general statement, it may be asserted that neither the last evening of the old year nor the first day of the new one is much, observed in England as an occasion of festivity. In some parts of the country, indeed, and more especially in the northern counties, various social merry-makings take place; but for the most part, the great annual holiday-time is already past. Christmas Eve, Christmas-day, and St. Stephen’s or Boxing Day have absorbed almost entirely the tendencies and opportunities of the community at large in the direction of joviality and relaxation. Business and the ordinary routine of daily life have again been resumed; or, to apply to English habits the words of an old Scottish rhyme still current, but evidently belonging to the old times, anterior to the Reformation, when Christmas was the great popular festival:

Yule’s come and Yule ’s gane,
And we hae feasted weel;
Sae Jock maun to his flail again,
And Jenny to her wheel.’

Whilst thus the inhabitants of South Britain are settling down again quietly to work after the festivities of the Christmas season, their fellow-subjects in the northern division of the island are only commencing their annual saturnalia, which, till recently, bore, in the license and boisterous merriment which used to prevail, a most unmistakable resemblance to its ancient pagan namesake. The epithet of the Daft [mad] Days, applied to the season of the New Year in Scotland, indicates very expressively the uproarious joviality which characterized the period in question. This exuberance of joyousness—which, it must be admitted, sometimes led to great excesses—has now much declined, but New-year’s Eve and New-year’s Day constitute still the great national holiday in Scotland. Under the 1st of January, we have already detailed the various revelries by which the New Year used to be ushered in, in Scotland. It now becomes our province to notice those ceremonies and customs which are appropriate to the last day of the year, or, as it is styled in Scotland, Hogmanay.

This last term has puzzled antiquaries even more than the word Yule, already adverted to; and what is of still greater consequence, has never yet received a perfectly satisfactory explanation. Some suppose it to be derived from two Greek words, άιαμηνη (the holy moon or month), and in reference to this theory it may be observed, that, in the north of England, the term used is Hagmenu, which does not seem, however, to be confined to the 31st of December, but denotes generally the period immediately preceding the New Year. Another hypothesis combines the word with another sung along with it in chorus, and asserts ‘Hogmanay, trollolay!’ to be a corruption of ‘Homma est né—Trois Rois lá’ (‘A Man is born—Three Kings are there’), an allusion to the birth of our Saviour, and the visit to Bethlehem of the Wise Men, who were known in medieval times as the ‘Three Kings.’

But two additional conjectures seem much more plausible, and the reader may select for himself what he considers the most probable. One of these is, that the term under notice is derived from Hoggu-nott, Hogenat, or Hogg-night, the ancient Scandinavian name for the night preceding the feast of Yule, and so called in reference to the animals slaughtered on the occasion for sacrificial and festal purpose word hogg signifying to kill. The other derivation of Hogmanay is from ‘Au gui menez’ (‘To the mistletoe go’), or ‘Au gui ľan neuf’ (‘To the mistletoe this New Year ‘), an allusion to the ancient Druidical ceremony of gathering that plant. In the patois of Touraine, in France, the word used is Aguilanneu; in Lower Normandy, and in Guernsey, poor persons and children used to solicit a contribution under the title of Hoguinanno or 0guinano; whilst in Spain the term, Aguinaldo, is employed to denote the presents made at the season of Christmas.

In country places in Scotland, and also in the more retired and primitive towns, it is still customary on the morning of the last day of the year, or Hogmanay, for the children of the poorer class of people to get themselves swaddled in a great sheet, doubled up in front, so as to form a vast pocket, and then to go along the streets in little bands, calling at the doors of the wealthier classes for an expected dole of oaten-bread. Each child gets one quadrant section of oat-cake (some-times, in the case of particular favourites, improved by an addition of cheese), and this is called their hogmanay. In expectation of the large demands thus made upon them, the housewives busy themselves for several days beforehand in preparing a suitable quantity of cakes. The children on coming to the door cry, ‘Hogmanay!’ which is in itself a sufficient announcement of their demands; but there are other exclamations which either are or might be used for the same purpose. One of these is:

‘Hogmanay, Trollolay,

Give us of your white bread, and none of your gray.’

And another favourite rhyme is:

Get up, goodwife, and shake your feathers,
And dinna think that we are beggars;
For we are bairns come out to play,
Get up and gie’s our hogmanay!’

The following is of a moralising character, though a good deal of a truism:

Get up, goodwife, and binna sweir,
And deal your bread to them that ’s here;
For the time will come when ye’ll be dead,
And then ye’ll neither need ale nor bread.’

The most favourite of all, however, is more to the point than any of the foregoing :

My feet’s cauld, my shoon’s thin;
Gie’s my cakes, and let me rin!’

It is no unpleasing scene, during the forenoon, to see the children going laden home, each with his large apron bellying out before him, stuffed full of cakes, and perhaps scarcely able to waddle under the load. Such a mass of oaten alms is no inconsiderable addition to the comfort of the poor man’s household, and enables him to enjoy the New-year season as much as his richer neighbours.

In the primitive parish of Deerness, in Orkney, it was customary, in the beginning of the present century, for old and young of the common class of people to assemble in a great band upon the evening of the last day of the year, and commence a round of visits throughout the district. At every house they knocked at the door, and on being admitted, commenced singing, to a tune of its own, a song appropriate to the occasion. The following is what may be termed a restored version of this chant, the imagination having been called on to make up in several of the lines what was deficient in memory. The ‘Queen Mary’ alluded to is evidently the Virgin:

‘This night it is grid New’r E’en’s night,
We’re a’ here Queen Mary’s men;
And we ‘re come here to crave our right,

The very first thing which we do crave,
We ‘re a’ here Queen Mary’s men;
A bonny white candle we must have,
And that’s before our Lady.

Goodwife, gae to your butter-ark,
And weigh us here ten mark.

Ten mark, ten pund,
Look that ye grip weel to the grund.
Goodwife, gae to your geelin vat,
And fetch us here a skeet o’ that.

Gang to your awmrie, gin ye please,
And bring frae there a yow-milk cheese.

And syne bring here a sharping-stane,
We’ll sharp our whittles ilka ane.

Ye’ll cut the cheese, and eke the round,
But aye take care ye cutna your thoom.

Gae fill the three-pint cog o’ ale,
The maut maun be aboon the meal.

We houp your ale is stark and stout,
For men to drink the auld year out.

Ye ken the weather’s snow and sleet,
Stir up the fire to warm our feet.

Our shoon’s made o’ mare’s skin,
Come open the door, and let’s in.’

The inner-door being opened, a tremendous rush was made ben the house. The inmates furnished a long table with all sorts of homely fare, and a hearty feast took place, followed by copious libations of ale, charged with all sorts of good-wishes. The party would then proceed to the next house, where a similar scene would be enacted. How they contrived to take so many suppers in one evening, heaven knows ! No slight could be more keenly felt by a Deerness farmer than to have his house passed over unvisited by the New-year singers.

The doings of the guisers or guizards (that is, masquers or mummers) form a conspicuous feature in the New-year proceedings throughout Scotland. The favourite night for this exhibition is Hogmanay, though the evenings of Christmas, New-year’s Day, and Handsel Monday, enjoy like-wise a privilege in this respect. Such of the boys as can lay any claim to the possession of a voice have, for weeks before, been poring over the collection of ‘excellent new songs,’ which lies like a bunch of rags in the window-sill; and being now able to screech up ‘Barbara Allan,’ or the ‘Wee cot-house and the wee kail-yardie,’ they determine upon enacting the part of guisers. For this purpose they don old shirts belonging to their fathers, and mount mitre-shaped casques of brown paper, possibly borrowed from the Abbot of Unreason; attached to this is a sheet of the same paper, which, falling down in front, covers and conceals the whole face, except where holes are made to let through the point of the nose, and afford sight to the eyes and breath to the mouth. Each vocal guiser is, like a knight of old, attended by a sort of humble squire, who assumes the habiliments of a girl, ‘with an old-woman’s cap and a broomstick, and is styled ‘Bessie: Bessie is equal in no respect, except that she shares fairly in the proceeds of the enterprise. She goes before her principal, opens all the doors at which he pleases to exert his singing powers; and busies herself, during the time of the song, in sweeping the floor with her broomstick, or in playing any other antics that she thinks may amuse the indwellers. The common reward of this entertainment is a halfpenny, but many churlish persons fall upon the unfortunate guisers, and beat them out of the house. Let such persons, however, keep a good watch upon their cabbage-gardens next Halloween!

The more important doings of the guisers are of a theatrical character. There is one rude and grotesque drama which they are accustomed to perform on each of the four above-mentioned nights; and which, in various fragments or versions, exists in every part of Lowland Scotland. The performers, who are never less than three, but sometimes as many as six, having dressed themselves, proceed in a band from house to house, generally contenting themselves with the kitchen for an arena; whither, in mansions presided over by the spirit of good-humour, the whole family will resort to witness the spectacle. Sir Walter Scott, who delighted to keep up old customs, and could condescend to simple things without losing genuine dignity, invariably had a set of guisers to perform this play before his family both at Ashestiel and Abbotsford. The drama in question bears a close resemblance, with sundry modifications, to that performed by the mummers in various parts of England, and of which we have already given a specimen.

Such are the leading features of the Hogmanay festivities in Scotland. A similar custom to that above detailed of children going about from house to house, singing the Hagmena chorus, and obtaining a dole of bread or cakes, prevails in Yorkshire and the north of England; but, as we have already mentioned, the last day of the year is not in the latter country, for the most part, invested with much peculiar distinction. One or two closing ceremonies, common to both countries—the requiem, as they may be termed, of the dying year—will be more appropriately noticed in the concluding article of this work.

BURNING OF THE CLAVIE

A singular custom, almost unparalleled in any other part of Scotland, takes place on New-year’s Eve (old style) at the village of Burghead, on the southern shore of the Moray Firth, about nine miles from the town of Elgin. It has been observed there from time immemorial, and both its origin, and that of the peculiar appellation by which it is distinguished, form still matter of conjecture and dispute for antiquaries. The following extract from the Banffshire Journal presents a very interesting and comprehensive view of all that can be stated regarding this remarkable ceremonial:

‘Any Hogmanay afternoon, a small group of sea-men and coopers, dressed in blue overfrocks, and followed by numbers of noisy youngsters, may be seen rapidly wending their way to the south-western extremity of the village, where it is customary to build the Clavie. One of the men bears on his shoulders a stout Archangel tar-barrel, kindly presented for the occasion by one of the merchants, who has very considerately left a quantity of the resinous fluid in the bottom. Another carries a common herring-cask, while the remainder are laden with other raw materials, and the tools necessary for the construction of the Clavie. Arrived at the spot, three cheers being given for the success of the undertaking, operations are commenced forthwith. In the first place, the tar-barrel is sawn into two unequal parts; the smaller forms the groundwork of the Clavie, the other is broken up for fuel.

A common fir prop, some four feet in length, called the “spoke,” being then procured, a hole is bored through the tub-like machine, that, as we have already said, is to form the basis of the unique structure, and a long nail, made for the purpose, and furnished gratuitously by the village black-smith, unites the two. Curiously enough, no hammer is allowed to drive this nail, which is “sent home” by a smooth stone. The herring-cask is next demolished, and the staves are soon under-going a diminution at both extremities, in order to fit them for their proper position. They are nailed, at intervals of about two inches all round, to the lower edge of the Clavie-barrel, while the other ends are firmly fastened to the spoke, an aperture being left sufficiently large to admit the head of a man. Amid tremendous cheering, the finished Clavie is now set up against the wall, which is mounted by two stout young men, who proceed to the business of filling and lighting.

A few pieces of the split-up tar-barrel are placed in a pyramidal form in the inside of the Clavie, enclosing a small space for the reception of a burning peat, when everything is ready. The tar, which had been previously removed to another vessel, is now poured over the wood; and the same inflammable substance is freely used, while the barrel is being closely packed with timber and other combustible materials, that rise twelve or thirteen inches above the rim.

‘By this time the shades of evening have begun to descend, and soon the subdued murmur of the crowd breaks forth into one loud, prolonged cheer, as the youth who was despatched for the fiery peat (for custom says no sulphurous lucifer, no patent congreve dare approach ‘within the sacred precincts of the Clavie) arrives with his glowing charge. The master-builder relieving him of his precious trust, places it within the opening already noticed, where, revived by a hot blast from his powerful lungs, it ignites the surrounding wood and tar, which quickly bursts into a flame. During the short time the fire is allowed to gather strength, cheers are given in rapid succession for “The Queen,” “The Laird,” “The Provost,” “The Town,” “The Harbour,” and “The Railway,” and then Clavie-bearer number one, popping his head between the staves, is away with his flaming burden. Formerly, the Clavie was carried in triumph round every vessel in the harbour, and a handful of grain thrown into each, in order to insure success for the coming year; but as this part of the ceremony came to be tedious, it was dropped, and the procession confined to the boundaries of the town.

As fast as his heavy load will permit him, the bearer hurries along the well-known route, followed by the shouting Burgheadians, the boiling tar meanwhile trickling down in dark sluggish streams all over his back. Nor is the danger of scalding the only one he who essays to carry the Clavie has to confront, since the least stumble is sufficient to destroy his equilibrium. Indeed, this untoward event, at one time looked on as a dire calamity, foretelling disaster to the place, and certain death to the bearer in the course of next year, not unfrequently occurs. Having reached the junction of two streets, the carrier of the Clavie is relieved; and while the change is being effected, firebrands plucked from the barrel are thrown among the crowd, who eagerly scramble for the tarry treasure, the possession of which was of old deemed a sure safeguard against all unlucky contingencies.

Again the multitude bound along; again they halt for a moment as another individual takes his place as bearer—a post for the honour of which there is sometimes no little striving. The circuit of the town being at length completed, the Clavie is borne along the principal street to a small hill near the northern extremity of the promontory called the “Doorie,” on the summit of which a freestone pillar, very much resembling an ancient altar, has been built for its reception, the spoke fitting into a socket in the centre. Being now firmly seated on its throne, fresh fuel is heaped on the Clavie, while, to make the fire burn the brighter, a barrel with the ends knocked out is placed on the top. Cheer after cheer rises from the crowd below, as the efforts made to increase the blaze are crowned with success.

‘Though formerly allowed to remain on the Doorie the whole night, the Clavie is now removed when it has burned about half an hour. Then comes the most exciting scene of all. The barrel is lifted from the socket, and thrown down on the western slope of the hill, which appears to be all in one mass of flame—a state of matters that does not, however, prevent a rush to the spot in search of embers. Two stout men, instantly seizing the fallen Clavie, attempt to demolish it by dashing it to the ground: which is no sooner accomplished than a final charge is made among the blazing fragments, that are snatched up in total, in spite of all the powers of combustion, in an incredibly short space of time. Up to the present moment, the origin of this peculiar custom is involved in the deepest obscurity. Some would have us to believe that we owe its introduction to the Romans; and that the name Clavie is derived from the Latin word clavus, a nail—witches being frequently put to death in a barrel stuck full of iron spikes; or from clavis, a key—the rite being instituted when Agricola discovered that Ptoroton, i.e., Burghead, afforded the grand military key to the north of Scotland.

As well might these wild speculators have remarked that Doorie, which may be spelled Durie, sprang from durus, cruel, on account of the bloody ceremony celebrated on its summit. Another opinion has been boldly advanced by one party, to the effect that the Clavie is Scandinavian in origin, being introduced by the Norwegian Vikings, during the short time they held the promontory in the beginning of the eleventh century, though the theorist advances nothing to prove his assumption, save a quotation from Scott’s Marmion; while, to crown all, we have to listen to a story that bears on its face its own condemnation, invented to confirm the belief that a certain witch, yclept, a Kitty Clavers,” bequeathed her name to the singular rite.

Unfortunately, all external evidence being lost, we are compelled to rely entirely on the internal, which we have little hesitation, however, in saying points in an unmistakable manner down through the long vistas of our national history to where the mists of obscurity hang around the Druid worship of our forefathers. It is well known that the elements of fire were often present in Druidical orgies and customs (as witness their cran-tara); while it is universally admitted that the bonfires of May-day and Mid-summer eve, still kept up in different parts of the country, are vestiges of these rites. And why should not the Clavie be so too, seeing that it bears throughout the stamp of a like parentage? The carrying home of the embers, as a protection from the ills of life, as well as other parts of the ceremony, finds a counterpart in the customs of the Druids; and though the time of observance be somewhat different, yet may not the same causes (now unknown ones) that have so greatly modified the Clavie have likewise operated in altering the date, which, after all, occurs at the most solemn part of the Druidical year?’

On October 26th, editorial cartoonist Mike Lukovich published the above cartoon in the Atlanta Constitution. Danielle Ansley, a 17 year old 11th grade high school student, produced the following reply, which Lukovich and the Constitution had class enough to publish yesterday.

Brent Bozell’s Media Research Center’s 18th Annual Awards for the Year’s Worst Reporting. The awards really start on page 2.

Quote of the Year

Reporter Brian Ross: “Mary Mapes was the woman behind the scenes, the producer who researched, wrote and put together Dan Rather’s 60 Minutes report on President Bush’s National Guard service, a report which Rather and CBS would later apologize for airing . . .”

Ross to Mapes: “Do you still think that story was true?”

Ex-CBS producer Mary Mapes: “The story? Absolutely.”

Ross: “This seems remarkable to me that you would sit there now and say you still find that story to be up to your standards.”

Mapes: “I’m perfectly willing to believe those documents are forgeries if there’s proof that I haven’t seen.”

Ross: “But isn’t it the other way around? Don’t you have to prove they’re authentic?”

Mapes: “Well, I think that’s what critics of the story would say. I know more now than I did then and I think, I think they have not been proved to be false, yet.”

Ross: “Have they proved to be authentic though? Isn’t that really what journalists do?”

Mapes: “No, I don’t think that’s the standard.”

– on ABC’s Good Morning America, Nov. 9

Hat tip to AJStrata and Real Clear Politics.

Scott Johnson of Power Line links an Investors Business Daily editorial which notes:

Representatives of autocratic theocracies that finance terror, oppress women and consider homosexuality a capital crime are welcomed at Harvard and other campuses. But not the U.S. Marines.

Rob Foot, in Australia’s Quadrant Magazine, contemplates the behavior of the Left and draws the inescapable conclusion.

Something tragic and horrifying has happened to the Left—something that was visible long before September 11, 2001, though the events of that dreadful day served only to confirm it. It strengthened with the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam. Now, with conservative parties confirmed as the people’s government of choice in both Australia and the USA, it’s broken out all over. For years the Left has merely been irrational; now it has finally gone insane.

The Left’s future looks even blacker, Foot observes, for:

Sometime in the course of the twenty-first century, and probably sooner rather than later, the Left will have to confront the fact that it made the wrong call on almost every geo-political event of global significance during the previous hundred years. Coming to terms with this reality is going to be extremely painful for such rational members of the Left as still remain on deck. Knowing in its heart that the revolution would never come to its own neighbourhood, and never really wanting it to, the Left derived a heady, vicarious satisfaction from watching it blossom in suitably distant rice paddies, jungles, steppes, urban hellholes and deserts. Every time, regular as clockwork, the revolution turned up the newest thing in killing fields…

from the perspective of the generation that radicalised in the 1960s and 1970s, the most mortifying realisation, still looming, is that it was also wrong about Vietnam. Vietnam was our defining experience; it made us what we became, and usually what we remained. Vietnam was our seven years in the college of the Jesuits, even if it was not the first seven but the third that encompassed our incarceration—we were aged fourteen to twenty-one, give or take a few years either way. Vietnam shaped our attitudes to politics, authority, tradition, religion, the values of our parents, even our taste in music and art. It’s inconceivable that we could have got it wrong.

Sadly for us, and infinitely more tragically for the Vietnamese, it seems we did. Looking back on it, it’s difficult to see why it should have been so hugely, awesomely wrong for the United States to send troops to South Vietnam to protect its ally—indeed, its client—from invasion by the nightmarish Stalinist regime to the north, and from destabilisation, or worse, by its insurgent surrogates in the south. True to its founding principles (then, as now), the USA put up tens of thousands of its best and bravest, and lost them.

At the same time, it had to endure a media barrage unknown by any nation previously at war, where every fault on its part was endlessly magnified, and every atrocity by the enemy largely ignored. No wonder it eventually withdrew. Such was the fragility of “US imperialism”—the all-powerful behemoth imagined into existence by the Left all those years ago, and which has remained the central plank of its radical platform ever since.

Not long after North Vietnam’s victory in 1976, when reports of the re-education camps, torture of American POWs and forced trans-migration from the cities began to surface, some at least on the Left found reserves of decency enough to protest, including some veteran anti-war activists. This isn’t what we were fighting for, they said, helpless, angry and ashamed. Maybe not: but that was what the North had been fighting for…

..the reality of catastrophic error, repeated through three full generations, is simply unbearable. Endlessly self-righteous, unwaveringly convinced of their own rectitude, their folly is best summed up in the famous words of one who, from the very first, knew them better than they were ever to know themselves: “Useful idiots”, said Lenin, flicking them off with curt contempt. The Left must have thought he was talking about somebody else.

A must read.

Sweetness and Light can get boring after a while, so in Lollipops, Sunshine And rrrRRRrrr, anime turns to the dark side. (R-rated and very funny)

Hat tip to Ace. I can’t believe I’m the first blogger to link this piece of deathless art.
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Ace has had some comments indicating that some of his readers couldn’t see the point of all this, and I’ve gotten one comment along the same lines, so I will lecture a bit on Japanese anime.

Anime are animations, cartoons. The comic book equivalent is called manga. The natural audience for both is, of course, Japanese kids. There is a significant American kid audience as well these days. I have a personal interest in Japanese culture (related to the martial arts), and I am an enthusiast of the cinema, so I have watched some anime myself, and am familiar with their conventions. Some of my friends have kids who are really into this stuff, and I have been educated by them.

Anime and manga share the same concepts and terminology.

Shoujo are anime (or manga) aimed at an audience of young girls. Shoujo are drawn in a pretty and juvenile style and tend to deal with romantic or emotional, innocent and girly subjects.

They always feature bishounen, i.e., idealized, androgynous, non-sexually-threatening and beautiful young men, who commonly have impossibly colored eyes and hair. Small children and pets (chibi or CB, meaning “small”), including fantasy creatures, are typically featured in supporting roles, and serve to create a safe, family kind of atmosphere. A good chibi is kawaii “cute.”

The above linked cartoon is an aniparo “a parody animation,” in which it starts off as a typical (and very soppy) shoujo anime, loaded with chibi, but then suddenly changes to scenes jokingly featuring hints of incongruous gangsta, hentai “porno,” and macabre themes, characteristic of very different genres.

With a little investigating, I find that it is a parody of a real cartoon series, titled Card Captor Sakura, whose lead characters include: Sakua Kinomoto, Tomoyo Daidouji, the CB Kero, and such bishounen as Touya Kinomoto.

In the parody, Sakura gets an Dr. Evil Clow Card, which turns her to the dark side.

Patrick Godfrey thinks the administration’s months of passivity in the face of countless opposition leaks and attacks might really be Karl Rove’s most diabolical maneuver yet:

As a long time Boxing fan and as a student of the Sweet Science, it was thrilling to watch Muhammad Ali in his prime and in particular, his patented “Rope a Dope” strategy. In the later rounds, when his opponent was particularly aggressive, Ali would back against the ropes and cover up his head and mid-section as his opponent would unleash a barrage of punches. Many of those punches would be absorbed by his arms and gloves, but occasionally some would get through. He would take some punishment as his foe would be a blur of activity, the blows coming nearly non-stop as it appeared Ali might be in trouble, on the ropes and covering up, not fighting back. His opponent would be feeling good, seemingly scoring at will, his punches hitting a man on the ropes. Eventually however, even the best conditioned fighter would become arm weary, and take a step back to rest.

This would be the moment Ali was waiting for.

Ali would come off the ropes swinging, his rested arms pounding his worn out opponent. Sure, he was on the ropes and took a few shots, but it was all part of a strategy. Once his opponent had spent himself, Ali would go in for the knockout. Now Politics isn’t Boxing and care must be taken to avoid specious analogies. That being said let me point out some things.

Like you, I have been worrying and wondering what has been going on at the RNC.

For months, I have listened to a constant refrain of; Bush Lied, Quagmires, imagined scandals and that “He doesn’t have a plan”.

I would read, with a growing sense of anxiety, daily updates of doom and gloom. Rising Troop losses, one sided reporting. A defensive posture and Bunker-like mentality was the order of the day.

Seemingly prodded by Maverick House Members and its increasingly alarmed base, the White House is finally firing back. Along with this new offence have come rising poll numbers which, lets face it, were approaching Carter-Like numbers.

It has puzzled me for a long time, why hasn’t the White House fired back on this stuff? Some of it was so easy to refute it was almost a “gimme” for the other side. A quick trip back to the Front Pages of only 2 years ago would have been enough for some of the more egregious whining.

Then it struck me, could this all be on purpose?

Chosen by Ann Althouse.

Those of us my age will particularly appreciate:

“I haven’t even run out of weed yet.”—one of the New Orleans holdouts (on not evacuating after Katrina).

A reply to yesterday’s ACLU advertisement in the New York Times from Clark Baker.

Hat tip to Curt.

Clinical pychologist Gagdad Bob turns to the insect world to explain the astonishing ability of liberals to achieve unanimity of thought upon a multiplicity of counter-intuitive and illogical positions:

Some political behavior is just so primitive that human psychology falls short of explaining it. Instead, a keen-eyed psychologist has to rely on other sciences, like, oh, I don’t know, entomology.

Ever notice how ants, in their busy peregrinations, are constantly rushing up to each other and bumping heads? It turns out that it’s not just to exchange pleasantries with one another, but to feed one another. If one ant is well fed and the other one hungry, the former will produce a drop from its mouth that the other one gratefully gobbles down.

Apparently, ants have what is known as a “social stomach” in addition to a personal stomach. Until food passes into the personal stomach and becomes the private property of said ant, any ant can stake a claim to it. They have even done experiments on this, for example, feeding a few ants honey that has been colored with a blue-tinted dye. Soon enough, all of the ants in the community will show a blue tint in their abdomen.

This is pretty much how the left/liberal world works. It is filled with media ants, Hollywood ants, academic ants, singing ants, judicial ants, educational establishment ants, and lastly, political ants who all run around randomly bumping their heads together, so that they’re constantly regurgitating little half-digested bits of information and feeding them to one another. Pretty soon, just like the ants, they’re all the same color.

Hat tip to AJStrata.

Finally.

The U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation to determine who disclosed a secret NSA eavesdropping operation approved by President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks, officials said on Friday.

“We are opening an investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified materials related to the NSA,” one official said.

Earlier this month Bush acknowledged the program and called its disclosure to The New York Times “a shameful act.” He said he presumed a Justice Department leak investigation into who disclosed the National Security Agency eavesdropping operation would get under way.

Today’s latest Washington Post leak, brought to you again by Dana Priest, confidante of choice to Pouting Spooks everywhere, amusingly fails to provide a definition for GST, the super-secret program which is the topic of the leak du jour.

The effort President Bush authorized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to fight al Qaeda has grown into the largest CIA covert action program since the height of the Cold War, expanding in size and ambition despite a growing outcry at home and abroad over its clandestine tactics, according to former and current intelligence officials and congressional and administration sources.

The broad-based effort, known within the agency by the initials GST, is compartmentalized into dozens of highly classified individual programs, details of which are known mainly to those directly involved.

GST includes programs allowing the CIA to capture al Qaeda suspects with help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate international treaties, and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move detainees around the globe. Other compartments within GST give the CIA enhanced ability to mine international financial records and eavesdrop on suspects anywhere in the world.

The bed-wetting segment of the Blogosphere is, as usual, shocked and outraged at further revelations of US inhumane treatment of terrorist latrunculi, the contemporary equivalent of the pirates, brigands, and outlaws, traditionally viewed in Western law, and conventionally treated by any lawful authority as hostes humani generis, “the common enemies of mankind.”

And they are fascinated by the riddle of the meaning of the mysterious initials.

Typical examples:

American conventional leftie profmarcus posts: bonus question: what does gst stand for…?

Sopping-wet Brit blogger WIIIAI complains the WaPo refers to this program as GST, but its crack reporters failed to crack the riddle of just what that might stand for.

Since the WaPo let them all down, I will suggest: “General Staff—Terrorism” or “General Services—Terrorism,” as opposed to “Get Serious (about) Terrorism,” as the language behind the initials, and note the interesting facet of the story, that for the first time in a very long while, one of our anonymous sources is behaving as if he thinks he might possibly have something to worry about if his disclosures proceeded too far beyond some particular point.

The true resting place of the Lost Ark?

The Telegraph reports:

If Indiana Jones had done his homework, he would have found the Ark of the Covenant by raiding a church in the barren mountains of northern Ethiopia.

Many Ethiopians believe that the Ark, containing the stone tablets inscribed with God’s Ten Commandments, rests in the church of St Mary of Zion, at the town of Axum, and some western scholars have endorsed this national myth as true.

The story underpins the country’s sense of identity. Ethiopia believes itself to be a unique nation with an ancient Christian tradition. This fervent patriotism has led Ethiopia into a perilous military confrontation with neighbouring Eritrea.

Axum

Bush Administration critic Michael Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, appeared in an interview yesterday with Die Zeit , which revealed the origin under the Clinton Administration of several controversial US methods of fighting Terrorism. AFP English report here:

BERLIN (AFP) – The CIA’s controversial “rendition” program to have terror suspects captured and questioned on foreign soil was launched under US president Bill Clinton, a former US counterterrorism agent told a German newspaper.

Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA who resigned from the agency in 2004, told Thursday’s issue of the newsweekly Die Zeit that the US administration had been looking in the mid-1990s for a way to combat the terrorist threat and circumvent the cumbersome US legal system.

“President Clinton, his national security advisor Sandy Berger and his terrorism advisor Richard Clark ordered the CIA in the autumn of 1995 to destroy Al-Qaeda,” Scheuer said, in comments published in German.

“We asked the president what we should do with the people we capture. Clinton said ‘That’s up to you’.”

Scheuer, who headed the CIA unit that tracked Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from 1996 to 1999, said that he developed and led the “renditions” program, which he said included moving prisoners without due legal process to countries without strict human rights protections.

“In Cairo, people are not treated like they are in Milwaukee. The Clinton administration asked us if we believed that the prisoners were being treated in accordance with local law. And we answered, yes, we’re fairly sure.”

At the time, he said, the CIA did not arrest or imprison anyone itself.

Hat tip to Franco Aleman, who cited Davids Medienkritik. What do you suppose the Left is going to say now?

Send the subpoena to Dana Priest at the Washington Post.

The effort President Bush authorized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to fight al Qaeda has grown into the largest CIA covert action program since the height of the Cold War, expanding in size and ambition despite a growing outcry at home and abroad over its clandestine tactics, according to former and current intelligence officials and congressional and administration sources.

The broad-based effort, known within the agency by the initials GST, is compartmentalized into dozens of highly classified individual programs, details of which are known mainly to those directly involved.

GST includes programs allowing the CIA to capture al Qaeda suspects with help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate international treaties, and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move detainees around the globe. Other compartments within GST give the CIA enhanced ability to mine international financial records and eavesdrop on suspects anywhere in the world.

Add to the list of those indicted for conspiracy to jeopardize national security:

“In the past, presidents set up buffers to distance themselves from covert action,” said A. John Radsan, assistant general counsel at the CIA from 2002 to 2004. “But this president, who is breaking down the boundaries between covert action and conventional war, seems to relish the secret findings and the dirty details of operations.”

And be sure to nail to the barn door, as well, the hide of the:

former CIA officer [who] said the agency “lost its way” after Sept. 11, rarely refusing or questioning an administration request. The unorthodox measures “have got to be flushed out of the system,” the former officer said. “That’s how it works in this country.”

41 year old Sharon Tendler, a British subject of the Jewish faith, plighted her troth yesterday to Cindy, a 35 year old (evidently male) dolphin, in Eilat, Israel.

I’m not a pervert.

Speaking in Washington, last Novermber 6th, on Fear, Complexity, & Environmental Management in the 21st Century, Michael Crichton observed that

one important assumption most people make is the assumption of linearity, in a world that is largely non-linear….

Crichton proceeded to explain the peril of exaggerated linear views, taking predictions of deaths resulting from the reactor meltdown at Chernobyl as an example:

according to the UN report in 2005, is that “the largest public health problem created by the accident (at Chernobyl)” is the “damaging psychological impact [due] to a lack of accurate information…[manifesting] as negative self-assessments of health, belief in a shortened life expectancy, lack of initiative, and dependency on assistance from the state.”

In other words, the greatest damage to the people of Chernobyl was caused by bad information. These people weren’t blighted by radiation so much as by terrifying but false information…

You may know that Australian aborigines fear a curse called “pointing the bone.” A shaman shakes a bone at a person, and sings a song, and soon after, the person dies. This is a specific example of a phenomenon generally referred to as “hex death”—a person is cursed by an authority figure, and then dies. According to medical studies, the person generally dies of dehydration, implying they just give up. But the progression is very erratic, and shock symptoms may play a part, suggesting adrenal effects of fright and hopelessness.

Yet this deadly curse is nothing but information.

This is a must read.

Hat tip to terrye at YARG, who linked Roger L. Simon.

ABC Chicago’s John Garcia, writing in English-as-a-second-language, reports:

Chicago’s oldest restaurant is closing after more than 100 years in business. The Berghoff will serve its last meal February 28.

The federal government is in the process of acquiring a lot of the buildings in the block around Berghoff’s using meant (sic: should be “eminent”) domain, but they say they wouldn’t dare to touch this restaurant, because it’s too much an important institution in Chicago.

Mayor Daley issued a statement Wednesday saying the Berghoff family has been a very important part of Chicago history, and he says he speaks for many Chicagoans in saying he is sad to see the restaurant close.

The Berghoff is more than just a restaurant, it’s part of Chicago history. The news comes three months after the announcement that Marshall Field’s stores will be renamed Macy’s. Some Chicagoans are worried the city is losing some of the character that makes it so unique…

Chicago author and historian Studs Terkel calls it an important link to Chicago’s past.

“Berghoff seems to be one of the connecting links to the early Chicago that still (sic: ?) healthy good and meant what it said—good food and service,” said Terkel.

The history of Berghoff’s began in 1898 when founder Herman Joseph Berghoff opened the place looking for a way to showcase his authentic Dortmunder-style beer. It went for a nickel a glass back then.

Berghoff survived the prohibition by selling food, and when it was over Berghoff got the city’s first liquor license. It hangs in the restaurant to this day

Time to summon another special prosecutor and conduct a major Congressional Investigation. Under the Bush Administration, the dread National Security Agency has been caught violating federal law:

The National Security Agency’s Internet site has been placing files on visitors’ computers that can track their Web surfing activity despite strict federal rules banning most files of that type.

The files, known as cookies, disappeared after a privacy activist complained and The Associated Press made inquiries this week. Agency officials acknowledged yesterday that they had made a mistake…

Until Tuesday, the N.S.A. site created two cookie files that do not expire until 2035.

Don Weber, an agency spokesman, said in a statement yesterday that the use of the so-called persistent cookies resulted from a recent software upgrade.

Normally, Mr. Weber said, the site uses temporary cookies that are automatically deleted when users close their Web browsers, which is legally permissible. But he said the software in use was shipped with the persistent cookies turned on.

“After being tipped to the issue, we immediately disabled the cookies,” Mr. Weber said.

In a 2003 memorandum, the Office of Management and Budget at the White House prohibited federal agencies from using persistent cookies – those that are not automatically deleted right away – unless there is a “compelling need.”

For anyone who’s worried:

In MS Explorer, to eliminate all, including persistent, cookies, click on TOOLS, INTERNET OPTIONS, then DELETE COOKIES.

In Firefox, click on TOOLS, OPTIONS, PRIVACY, then the CLEAR button in COOKIES.

The ACLU ran this advertisement in the December 29, 2005 edition of The New York Times.
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The Left is trying to impeach the president of the United States in time of war on the basis of pettyfogging and absolutist legal claims against highly pertinent war-time measures to protect American lives from terrorist attacks on urban population centers employing weapons of mass destruction.
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We have an alternative proposal: the Never Yet Melted Herpetological Studies Fellowship Program, providing duration-of-the-war opportunities for the study of Mojave Desert flora & fauna in a safe, barbed-wire-surrounded, environment.

Don Hechesky Jr., Just Browsing, Muskie
acrylic on canvas, 11×14” (27.9×35.6 cm), collection of the artist

The muskellunge, Esox masquinongy, a torpedo-shaped predator and the largest member of the pike family, is one of the most desired trophy fish in the Great Lakes region. The musky was named the official Wisconsin state fish in 1955.

Muskies reach a maximum length of over 5 feet. Trophy size is more than 50 inches. A musky can reach a maximum weight of almost 70 pounds. A trophy sized example would weigh 40 pounds or more. The state of Wisconsin has produced more record-size muskies than any other region and holds the world record at 69 pounds and 11 ounces. It takes the average angler 20-80 hours to catch a legal musky, but that doesn’t stop hundreds from trying each year.

The musky hunts by stealth, waiting motionless for its prey to swim by. Muskies are ferocious predators and will eat even other muskies. When a potential victim appears, they will strike, pierce the prey with their large canines, rotate their victim, and swallow it head first. GULP! Muskies frequently devour mice and frogs, and will also sometimes eat ducks and muskrats.

Madison, Wisconsin’s WIBA reports:

PETA is asking Governor Doyle to ban fishing of the state fish. Karin Robertson with the animal rights group admits they’ve tried to get other governors to do the same, with no luck. “Well our expectations is at the very least…that the request will generate interest in the fact that fish are intelligent animals…that they feel pain just like all animals do and that they deserve to be treated with compassion and respect.” Robertson tells WIBA news that fish are just as smart as cats and dogs with complex social structures. She claims fish can eavesdrop on each other.

I’d bet that minnows, perch, sunfish, mice, frogs, ducks, and muskrats would all oppose the musky fishing ban. Look closely at the above picture (by Don Hechesky Jr.). Just how much “compassion and respect” do you suppose old br’er musky is handing out?

The tactic of taking an ultra-liberal, soft on defense, and inclined toward anti-US positions overseas, but equipped with some sort of military record, draping him in the flag, and trying to run him for office did not work out so well for the democrats in 2004. But nagging insecurities on the Patriotism front (for some reason) seem inevitably to lead our democrat friends to rush to use the alleged war hero as their front man for appeasement and surrender.

Look at John Murtha, whose Marine Corps background was exploited by the democrats to provide patriotic cover for last month’s trial balloon call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

The MSM obligingly portrayed the faithful hack Murtha as “conservative,” “a hawk,” and a previously strong supporter of the War in Iraq, suddenly converted. But in reality, Murtha’s record on intervention in Iraq was strongly negative until a week before Congress voted overwhelmingly in its favor. Some sources believe Murtha’s willingness to take a leading anti-war position may have been motivated by considerations other than conviction.

And they are going back to the military hero well for the coming 2006 Congressional election. They probably had to turn over a lot of rocks, but they did it. They have found thirty odd veterans, able to walk and talk, and not currently in jail or under indictment, who are actually willing to be described as democrats.

More than 30 Iraq and Persian Gulf War veterans have entered congressional races across the country as Democrats, hoping to capitalize on their military experience to topple the incumbent Republican majority.

In Colorado, two former military men, Jay Fawcett and Bill Winter, are vying for the House seats of two strong, entrenched Republicans: Rep. Joel Hefley of the 5th Congressional District and Rep. Tom Tancredo of the 6th Congressional District, respectively.

“Do we understand military and foreign affairs? You bet,” Fawcett said. “Most of us have been to the point where you get a direct dose of military and foreign affairs, mostly in the category of small-caliber weapons. But we understand that that is just one aspect of national policy.”

On Dec. 20, Fawcett and Winter joined 35 Democratic veterans running for Congress at a strategy session in Washington, D.C.

The veterans voted on a name for their emerging caucuslike campaign coalition: Veterans for a Secure America. They also agreed that their military backgrounds should be promoted as credentials for leadership across the full spectrum of public policy…

Fawcett said the group is not anti-war but is concerned about what appears to be a lack of a solid plan for the war in Iraq. He said the group’s military experience could be crucial in providing better leadership.

The first to succumb to visions of inevitable victory, based upon this brilliant strategy, is none other than Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, Kos himself, hailing it as the Fighting Dems phenomenon:

This country craves leadership, and these guys are providing it unbidden. They are self-organizing, taking the initiative, and taking the fight to the enemy. These guys are rock stars.

Unbidden, eh, Kos? I can just imagine how “unbidden” these guys are.

DaveNYC identifies “the Fighting Dems” web-site, titled Band of Brothers. Like John Cole’s leftie pal Tim F, DaveNYC believes there is strength in numbers, which is to say, you get a whole bunch of ultra-lefties with discharge papers out there, and it’s impossible for fellow veterans to debunk (what the left calls: swiftboat) their military and political records. Time will tell.

A Very Cisco Xmas
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25 Most Interesting Webcams of 2005

ShrinkWrapped associates the neurotic inclination of the intellectual left toward vehement opposition to any measures to protect America from International Terrorism as similar to patterns of self destructive behavior previously seen in patients of his. In both cases, the pathological behavior, he finds, is grounded in the narcissistic pursuit of perfection

Many years ago a young woman entered Psychoanalysis for chronic problems she was having in maintaining her relationships. She announced at the start that she was an ardent feminist and that her feelings about this were not subjects for analytic review. Early in her treatment, her primary interest seemed to be to initiate arguments with me over male perfidy and oppression of women. It was not easy to maintain my neutral position in the face of near constant attack… The breakthrough came when she casually mentioned toward the end of one session that her ankle was bothering her and she was annoyed (she was almost always annoyed about something, I might add) that she wouldn’t be able to jog that night. Since I knew that she was living in a marginal area of Manhattan and this was at a time when crime was at high levels and much in the news, I had concerns that her jogging might be putting her at risk. When I asked her where she jogged, she confirmed that she jogged in a relatively dangerous area. Her response to my comment to that effect was that women should be allowed to jog wherever and whenever they wished without fear of men and that nothing and nobody, including me, was going to stop her from doing what she wanted.

I was greatly relieved that it did not take long for her to recognize that her angry feminism (which had roots in long term feelings of disgust with her mother and envy of her brother’s exalted position in her family) was inadvertently providing her with a rationalization for dangerous and self destructive behavior. I should point out that both of us agreed that she and every other woman should be free to jog wherever and whenever they wished, but reality required that until such time as this Utopian ideal could be arranged, prudence dictated that she jog at a different time and place as was her wont. When, as often was reported in the news in those days, a woman was assaulted and badly injured near the area she had been jogging, she responded with an anxiety attack; she was stricken with the thought that it could have been her and that there was an unconscious part of her mind that had been inviting just such an outcome. This was the true beginning of a very successful analytic treatment.

This patient from many years ago comes to mind now in the context of the recent flood of “leaks” of intelligence which have been appearing in the New York Times and other MSM outlets. The idea of elevating one’s ideological and/or intellectual ideas above the needs of self-preservation were clearly traceable in my patient to her unconscious needs for self-punishment. She risked her life and well-being for reasons having nothing to do with her conscious motivations (which didn’t make sense on their face).

Annika has had enough of the MSM’s anti-Bush scandal campaign:

i Give Up
Now there’s a problem with warrantless radiation monitoring? How could anybody possibly object to that?

i give up. i really give up.

Why don’t we just propose a new law next year to quiet all the critics? The Unconditional Surrender Act of 2006.

Jack Kelly quotes the Anchoress, who describes a recent conversation with a neighbor at the supermarket on democrat partisanship and MSM coverage of the NSA Flap. The Democrats and the press seem to have lost all seriousness and all credibility regarding national security, ” says the Anchoress , to which her neighbor (a democrat) responds:

“Oh, you said a mouthful, kid! I’m so disgusted with my party I’m thinking of sittin’ out the next election, because these people have lost any sense of what their jobs are; they seem to think they were put into office to destroy Bush, and that is all that motivates them – it’s all they can think about, and they seem to think this is what they were charged with, when we put them in office. Hello? I didn’t freaking vote for Schumer to shove his face into every camera, promote himself and play obstruction games when we have a war to fight. I did not vote for Hillary so she could sit around waiting for opinion polls to tell her what to do before she runs for president, and you know what, if she doesn’t mean to be a senator then she shouldn’t be running for the seat in ‘06! Let her step aside, and be honest for once, and start her freakin’ presidential campaign, already, and let a serious legislator run for her seat – her office is rude and unresponsive, anyway – she’s useless! At least you call Schumer’s office, they are respectful – if you look for help, they actually respond, even if they don’t do anything, they send a freakin’ letter letting you know they know you’re alive and they need your vote again. Hillary’s office? They can’t be bothered with anyone! And don’t get me started on this Patriot Act nonsense! When I saw Reid saying they killed it I flipped out! I FREAKIN’ FLIPPED OUT! FOUR YEARS and we haven’t been attacked – what are Reid or Schumer or Hillary gonna say if they let the Patriot Act die and six months from now we’re attacked? They’re gonna blame Bush? Of course, they are, but they’re gonna have a hell of a time convincing the country that Bush is responsible for an attack when THEY were the ones who dropped the Patriot Act! And this FISA baloney is just that: BALONEY! I want to know whose (sic) leaking this crap! We had a big investigation on that stupid Valerie Plame deal, and who was she – she’s a nobody at a desk at Langley – we have two freakin’ years of investigations on that stupid issue, and it’s all probably Tim Russert’s doing, anyway – end it, already – let’s investigate who’s freaking LEAKING real national secrets! Whose leaking the CIA work? Whose leaking the surveillance? That’s what we need to know! THAT’S what we should be investigating, and if we find out who did it, we arrest the scum and throw him in jail, I don’t care who he is! I read that Jonathan Alter piece and I wanted to vomit, I wanted to puke my guts up! You know why? Because I remember something that maybe Alter has forgotten, that when 9/11 happened, Bush said he’d use ‘every tool’ at his disposal, and we all applauded that! Remember? We all said, THANK FREAKIN’ GOD this man is in charge, and he clearly means this! I haven’t forgotten it. I haven’t forgotten what downtown NYC smelled like for weeks after the attack. I haven’t forgotten the big freakin’ hole in the city. I haven’t forgotten what it felt like to look at a plane taking off from the airport, and me worrying that it was going to be blown up before my eyes from some freakin’ crazed assh*le with a bomb in his shoe, or someone on the ground with a surface-to-air missile – I HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN - and I’m getting damned fed up with my party leadership that seems to have forgotten, and I’ll tell you what, they had better start REMEMBERING, real soon, or they’re gonna find their asses tossed OUT, come November if they don’t get with the program! And don’t even get me started with the papers, I cancelled the freakin’ papers – I’m fed up with all of them! What do I need the papers for, so I can read how everything bad that happens in the whole world is Bush’s fault? I can predict what they’re gonna write! Now, I want news, I go look at the internet, I turn on C-span and watch things for myself! I’m an educated woman, and I can think for myself, I don’t need newspapers if they’re not gonna gimmee news!”

Faced with a tyrannical ban on Hunting, the British countryside responded this year with an increased turnout for Boxing Day hunt meetings.

The infamous February 2005 Hunt Ban, enacted by Britain’s Labour Party as a gesture of class animosity and urban spite, banned hunting par force du chien (i.e., the traditional pursuit and reduction to possession of the quarry by a pack of hounds), but included certain loopholes: drag hunts (i.e., hunts in which the pack hunts an artificially created line of scent), are lawful; and hounds can be used to follow a scent and to flush out a fox, which may then be pursued by no more than two dogs, and ultimately shot or taken by means of falconry. Consequently, the Telegraph reports:

In Buckinghamshire, for instance, a good time was had chasing a scent line across country, while the Cheshire rode out with two hounds and an eagle owl, as solemnly permitted by Act of Parliament.

These new, officially sanctioned forms of hunting might seem daft but, objectively considered, they are no more so than the traditional version.

The point of the [fox] hunt, after all, was always highly necessary pest control, and that in itself is a pretty joyless business. But an accumulation of seasonal rituals, special drinks and menus, private language and silly clothes turned an onerous obligation into a community festival, and the native absurdity of it was always part of the enjoyment.

So if the opponents of hunting thought that the spirit of traditional countrymen would be broken by making them ride with an owl, or chase a false scent before accidentally encountering a fox (as though that had never happened before), they were rather pitifully missing the point. Hunting was always absurd, because fun usually is.

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Earlier reports.

Impeachment talk started on the left not long before Xmas: example, example2.

Responding, the New York Post today proposed another discussion meme: Treason.

link

Hat tip to Dan Drezner.

Why fool around with small-scale ameliorism and incremental efforts at achieving liberal goals, when one organization defines as its objective the precise end-point of small-l American liberalism?

“Blessed are the sleepy ones; for they shall soon drop off.”—-Nietszche

Kevin Drum of Washington Monthly confesses grudgingly to reading the following list of (allegedly) conservative blogs:

The Volokh Conspiracy

Professor Bainbridge

Dan Drezner

Andrew Sullivan

Bull Moose

Joanne Jacobs

Instapundit

Asymmetrical Information

Obsidian Wings

Marginal Revolution

Outside the Beltway

Ann Althouse

The Corner

Belgravia Dispatch

Begging to Differ

Just One Minute

Unqualified Offerings

Winds of Change

———————————————————————
A list of conservative blogs overlooking

(among others) is an unsatisfactory list, since it omits all of the most important conservative blogs with a single exception (Instapundit).
———————————————————————
Some people do think that Andrew Sullivan, Belgravia Dispatch, and Dan Drezner are conservative blogs. We do not.
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Claiming that Bull Moose and Obsidian Wings are conservative is just delusional.
———————————————————————
We did not know Marginal Revolution, which seems to be an Economics blog with a Free Market perspective, and which looks very good, or Begging to Differ and Unqualified Offerings, which we will make a point of looking in on.
———————————————————————
Hat tip to Ann Althouse, who says I’m not conservative, but who seems mistaken about that to us.

Thomas Bray points out that America-style civil liberties are unheard of even in some prominent democracies:

Spying on e-mail and cell phone traffic without a warrant. Searching offices and residences without a court order. Locking citizens away for weeks or months without filing charges.

Sound like your worst nightmare about the supposedly lawless Bush administration? Perhaps. But I refer to restrictions on civil liberties that are taking place not in the United States but, in the order in which I cited them, Canada, France and Great Britain.

All three countries are cited as moral superiors to the rogue regime in Washington, where the fascist leaders George Bush and Dick Cheney are said to be intent on fastening a reign of terror on the United States. But a brief scan of newspaper websites in those countries — something that the American mainstream media could easily have done before unleashing its own reign of terror on unsuspecting readers—reveals that their governments have in many cases gone far beyond where the Bush-Cheney could ever dream of going.

Theresa Rodriguez Farrisi, working as a substitute teacher in a Pennsylvania elementary school, last week, indignant that the lesson plan required her to read Clement C. Moore’s 1822 poem The Night Before Christmas to six and seven year olds, responded to what she viewed as the intrusion of religious expression into public education by delivering a diatribe debunking Santa Claus, which sent children home in tears.

She later explained:

Last week I substituted at a local elementary school in Lebanon County. The lesson plan required me to read the 1882 (sic) poem “The Night Before Christmas” by Clement Clarke Moore to two classes of students. While I can appreciate the poem for its literary value, the subject matter is offensive to me, and the reading of this poem to the children imposed values upon me which are against my deeply held religious beliefs. I could not in good conscience present the notion of Santa Claus as a truth to the children, and stated so.

No public-school teacher should be required to teach a belief, custom or religion that he or she believes to be false, or be required to pass those purported falsehoods onto impressionable children, without the right to state a disclaimer. Furthermore, freedom of speech and religion, no matter how unpopular the speech or against cultural norms the religion, are protected rights.

A secular public school should not be propagating any kind of religion. The belief in Santa Claus as a divine, magical, omniscient, powerful, giving, loving father-figure, to whom children are taught to make supplications and requests, is a religion indeed — a distorted substitute for the Judeo-Christian God.

The misfortune is that the modest exposure to higher education this woman had in the course of her professional preparation failed to make her a more humane, a more broad-minded person. It simply left her, as contemporary education leaves so many, overly supplied with opinion, and poorly equipped with judgement.

Glenn Reynolds is a Sci Fi enthusiast, and commonly mentions titles he has recently read. Last week, he recommended John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War.

Scalzi is a clever author. Old Man’s War is an affectionate homage to Heinlein’s beloved Starship Troopers, updated to meet perfectly the need for wish fulfillment fantasy of aging boomers. Where ST featured teen-agers joining the Space Marines in order to serve a tour of duty as the price of citizenship, OMW features senior citizens signing up for interstellar combat tours as the price of physical rejuvenation.

Enlistment in the Colonial Defense Force provides seniors a one-way ticket to a Darwinist Gallactic frontier, in which Homo sapiens is fiercely engaged in battle for survival in a Universe with limited resources and lebensraum, and apparently unlimited hostile competing alien species, many of whom look upon mankind as a tasty entrée. Fortunately, humanity’s fate is in the hands of the same kind of clear-eyed WWII-style no-nonsense “kill ‘em all” kind of leadership we remember from the original Heinlein œuvre.

What if they gave a scandal and nobody came? asks one of Roger L. Simon’s commenters.

Posted by: chuck at December 24, 2005 05:07 PM
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The New York Times’ James Bamford cheerfully tells us all about “the most secret operation in the entire intelligence network, complete with its own code word – which itself is secret,” and in the omniscient manner of journalists everywhere proceeds to evaluate the ultra-secret NSA’s current operations as “struggling to adjust to the war on terror.”

Jokingly referred to as “No Such Agency,” the N.S.A. was created in absolute secrecy in 1952 by President Harry S. Truman. Today, it is the largest intelligence agency. It is also the most important, providing far more insight on foreign countries than the C.I.A. and other spy organizations.

But the agency is still struggling to adjust to the war on terror, in which its job is not to monitor states, but individuals or small cells hidden all over the world. To accomplish this, the N.S.A. has developed ever more sophisticated technology that mines vast amounts of data. But this technology may be of limited use abroad. And at home, it increases pressure on the agency to bypass civil liberties and skirt formal legal channels of criminal investigation. Originally created to spy on foreign adversaries, the N.S.A. was never supposed to be turned inward.

Bamford naturally understands NSA’s mission better than its own leadership, or that of the elected administration. And he understands better too the limitations of data mining:

Today, instead of eavesdropping on an enormous country that was always chattering and never moved, the N.S.A. is trying to find small numbers of individuals who operate in closed cells, seldom communicate electronically (and when they do, use untraceable calling cards or disposable cellphones) and are constantly traveling from country to country… “Know how many international calls are made out of Afghanistan on a given day? Thousands.”

Ignoring these insurmountable obstacles, Bamford scolds, the Bush Administration heedlessly proceeded to engage in automated data-mining, which he refers to as “eavesdropping.” Impersonal and automated monitoring of international communications searching for keywords, he thinks, should be out-of-bounds. US intelligence and defense agencies should be forced to investigate only on an individual basis, filling out the proper pile of paper work, and going to court, presenting a case, and obtaining an individual warrant. Such practices push the boundaries of the law, and might lead to tyranny.
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The Washington Post’s Susan Spaulding editorializes indignantly that the Bush Administration went right ahead, and covertly conducted an impersonal and automated search for potential terrorist communications in such secrecy “that Congress was [only] briefed ‘at least a dozen times’ in the four years since the wiretap program started.”

Presumably, the president should have funded an international advertising campaign to notify everyone what he was plannng to do, then conducted a full-scale national political debate before proceeding with a secret intelligence operation in time of war:

Even assuming that these classified briefings accurately conveyed all relevant facts, it appears that they were limited to only eight of the 535 senators and representatives, under a process that effectively eliminates the possibility of any careful oversight.

EXCLUSIVE: Nuclear Monitoring of Muslims Done Without Search Warrants

In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation, according to these accounts.

Federal officials familiar with the program maintain that warrants are unneeded for the kind of radiation sampling the operation entails, but some legal scholars disagree.

Another spy scandal and Bush will be at 60%.

From Robert Chambers, The Book of Days, 1869:

Born: Jesus Christ, Saviour of the world; Sir Isaac Newton, natural philosopher, 1642, Woolsthorpe, near Grantham; Johann Jacob Reiske, oriental scholar, 1716, Zorbig, Saxony; William Collins, poet, 1720, Chichester; Richard Person, Greek scholar, 1759, East Ruston, Norfolk.

and my wife, Karen.

Died: Persius, satiric poet, 62 A.D.; Pope Adrian I, 795; Emperor Leo V, the Armenian, slain at Constantinople, 820; Sir Matthew Hale, eminent judge, 1676; Rev. James Hervey, author of the Meditations, 1758, Weston Favell, Northamptonshire; Mrs. Chapone, moral writer, 1801, Hadley, Middlesex; Colonel John Gurwood, editor of Wellington’s Dispatches, 1854, Brighton.

Feast Day: St. Eugenia, virgin and martyr, about 257. St. Anastasia, martyr, 304. Another St. Anastasia.

Christmas Day

The festival of Christmas is regarded as the greatest celebration throughout the ecclesiastical year, and so important and joyous a solemnity is it deemed, that a special exception is made in its favour, whereby, in the event of the anniversary falling on a Friday, that day of the week, under all other circumstances a fast, is transformed to a festival.

That the birth of Jesus Christ, the deliverer of the human race, and the mysterious link connecting the transcendent and incomprehensible attributes of Deity with human sympathies and affections, should be considered as the most glorious event that ever happened, and the most worthy of being reverently and joyously commemorated, is a pro-position which must commend itself to the heart and reason of every one of His followers, who aspires to walk in His footsteps, and share in the ineffable benefits which His death has secured to mankind. And so though at one period denounced by the Puritans as superstitious, and to the present day disregarded by Calvinistic Protestants, as unwarranted by Scripture, there are few who will seriously dispute the propriety of observing the anniversary of Christ’s birth by a religious service.

A question, however, which has been long and eagerly agitated, is here brought forward. Is the 25th of December really the day on which our Saviour first shewed himself in human form in the manger at Bethlehem? The evidence which we possess regarding the date is not only traditional, but likewise conflicting and confused. In the earliest periods at which we have any record of the observance of Christmas, we find that some communities of Christians celebrated the festival on the 1st or 6th of January; others on the 29th of March, the time of the Jewish Passover; while others, it is said, observed it on the 29th of September, or Feast of Tabernacles. There can be no doubt, however, that long before the reign of Constantine, in the fourth century, the season of the New Year had been adopted as the period for celebrating the Nativity, though a difference in this respect existed in the practice of the Eastern and Western Churches, the former observing the 6th of January, and the latter the 25th of December. The custom of the Western Church at last prevailed, and both of the ecclesiastical bodies agreed to hold the anniversary on the same day. The fixing of the date appears to have been the act of Julius I, who presided as pope or bishop of Rome, from 337 to 352 A.D. The circumstance is doubted by Mosheim, but is confirmed by St. Chrysostom, who died in the beginning of the fifth century.

This celebrated father of the church informs us, in one of his epistles, that Julius, on the solicitation of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, caused strict inquiries to be made on the subject, and thereafter, following what seemed to be the best authenticated tradition, settled authoritatively the 25th of December as the anniversary of Christ’s birth, the ‘Festorum omnium metropolis,’ as it is styled by Chrysostom. It is true, indeed, that some have represented this fixing of the day to have been accomplished by St. Telesphorus, who was bishop of Rome 128—139 A. D., but the authority for the assertion is very doubtful. Towards the close of the second century, we find a notice of the observance of Christmas in the reign of the Emperor Commodus; and about a hundred years afterwards, in the time of Dioclesiaun an atrocious act of cruelty is recorded of the last named emperor, who caused a church in Nicomedia, where the Christians were celebrating the Nativity, to be set on fire, and by barring every means of egress from the building, made all the worshippers perish in the flames. Since the, end of the fourth century at least, the 25th of December has been uniformly observed as the anniversary of the Nativity by all the nations of Christendom.

Thus far for ancient usage, but it will be. readily comprehended that insurmountable difficulties yet exist with respect to the real date of the momentous event under notice. Sir Isaac Newton, indeed, remarks in his Commentary on the Prophecies of Daniel, that the feast of the Nativity, and most of the other ecclesiastical anniversaries, were originally fixed at cardinal points of the year, without any reference to the dates of the incidents which they commemorated, dates which, by the lapse of time, had become impossible to be ascertained. Thus the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary was placed on the 25th of March, or about the time of the vernal equinox; the feast of St. Michael on the 29th of September, or near the autumnal equinox; and the birth of Christ and other festivals at the time of the winter-solstice. Many of the apostles ‘days—such as St. Paul, St. Matthias, and others—were determined by the days when the sun entered the respective signs of the ecliptic, and the pagan festivals had also a considerable share in the adjustment of the Christian year.

To this last we shall shortly have occasion to advert more particularly, but at present we shall content ourselves by remarking that the views of the great astronomer just indicated, present at least a specious explanation of the original construction of the ecclesiastical calendar. As regards the observance of Easter indeed, and its accessory celebrations, there is good ground for maintaining that they mark tolerably accurately the anniversaries of the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord, seeing that we know that the events themselves took place at the period of the Jewish Passover. But no such precision of date can be adduced as regards Christmas, respecting which the generally received view now is, that it does not correspond with the actual date of the nativity of our Saviour. One objection, in particular, has been made, that the incident recorded in Scripture, of shepherds keeping watch by night on the plains of Bethlehem, could not have taken place in the month of December, a period generally of great inclemency in the region of Judea.

Though Christian nations have thus, from an early period in the history of the church, celebrated Christmas about the period of the winter-solstice or the shortest day, it is well known that many, and, indeed, the greater number of the popular festive observances by which it is characterized, are referable to a much more ancient origin. Amid all the pagan nations of antiquity, there seems to have been a universal tendency to worship the sun as the giver of life and light, and the visible manifestation of the Deity. Various as were the names bestowed by different peoples on this object of their worship, he was still the same divinity. Thus, at Rome, he appears to have been worshipped under one of the characters attributed to Saturn, the father of the gods; among the Scandinavian nations he was known under the epithet of Odin or Woden, the father of Thor, who seems after-wards to have shared with his parent the adoration bestowed on the latter, as the divinity of which the ‘sun was the visible manifestation; whilst with the ancient Persians, the appellation for the god of lights was Mithras, apparently the same as the Irish Mithr, and with the Phoenicians or Carthaginians it was Baal or Bel, an epithet familiar to all students of the Bible.

Concurring thus as regards the object of worship, there was a no less remarkable uniformity in the period of the year at which these different nations celebrated a grand festival in his honour. The time chosen appears to have been universally the season of the New Year, or, rather, the winter-solstice, from which the new year was frequently reckoned. This unanimity in the celebration of the festival in question, is to be ascribed to the general feeling of joy which all of us experience when the gradual shortening of the day reaches its utmost limit on the 21st of December, and the sun, recommencing his upward course, announces that mid-winter is past, and spring and summer are approaching. On similar grounds, and with similar demonstrations, the ancient pagan nations observed a festival at mid-summer, or the summer-solstice, when the sun arrives at the culminating point of his ascent on the 21st of June, or longest day.

By the Romans, this anniversary was celebrated under the title of Saturnalia, or the festival of Saturn, and was marked by the prevalence of a universal license and merry-making. The slaves were permitted to enjoy for a time a thorough freedom in speech and behavior, and it is even said that their masters waited on them as servants. Every one feasted and rejoiced, work and business were for a season entirely suspended, the houses were decked with laurels and evergreens, presents were made by parents and friends, and all sorts of games and amusements were indulged. in by the citizens. In the bleak north, the same rejoicings had place, but in a ruder and more barbarous form. Fires were extensively kindled, both in and out of doors, blocks of wood blazed in honour of Odin and Thor, the sacred mistletoe was gathered by the Druids, and sacrifices, both of men and cattle, were made to the savage divinities. Fires are said, also, to have been kindled at this period of the year by the ancient Persians, between whom and the Druids of Western Europe a relationship is supposed to have existed.

In the early ages of Christianity, its ministers frequently experienced the utmost difficulty in inducing the converts to refrain from indulging in the popular amusements which were so largely participated in by their pagan countrymen. Among others, the revelry and license which characterized the Saturnalia called for special animadversion. But at last, convinced partly of the inefficacy of such denunciations, and partly influenced by the idea that the spread of Christianity might thereby be advanced, the church endeavored to amalgamate, as it were, the old and new religious, and sought, by transferring the heathen ceremonies to the solemnities of the Christian festivals, to make them subservient to the cause of religion and piety. A compromise was thus effected between clergy and laity, though it must be admitted that it proved anything but a harmonious one, as we find a constant, though ineffectual, proscription by the ecclesiastical authorities of the favorite amusements of the people, including among others the sports and revelries at Christmas.

Ingrafted thus on the Romani Saturnalia, the Christmas festivities received in Britain further changes and modifications, by having superadded to them, first, the Druidical rites and superstitions, and then, after the arrival of the Saxons, the various ceremonies practiced by the ancient Germans and Scandinavians. The result has been the strange medley of Christian and pagan rites which contribute to make up the festivities of the modern Christmas. Of these, the burning of the Yule log, and the superstitions connected with the mistletoe have already been described under Christmas Eve, and further accounts are given under separate heads, both under the 24th and 25th of December.

The name given by the ancient Goths and. Saxons to the festival of the winter-solstice was Jul or Yule, the latter term forming, to the present day, the designation in the Scottish dialect of Christmas, and preserved also in the phrase of the ‘Yule log.’ Perhaps the etymology of no term has excited greater discussion among antiquaries. Some maintain it to be derived from the Greek, Ïu0192Ïu2026λÏu0192ι, or, ιÏu0192Ïu2026λÏu0192Ïu201a, the name of a hymn in honor of Ceres; others say it comes from the Latin jubilum, signifying a time of rejoicing, or from its being a festival in honour of Julius Caesar; whilst some also explain its meaning as synonymous with ol or oel, which in the ancient Gothic language denotes a feast, and also the favorite liquor used on such occasion, whence our word ale. But a much more probable derivation of the term in question is from the Gothic giul or hiul, the origin of the modem word wheel, and bearing the same signification. According to this very probable explanation, the Yule festival received its name from its being the turning-point of the year, or the period at which the fiery orb of day made a revolution in his annual circuit, and entered on his northern journey. A confirmation of this view is afforded by the circumstance that in the old clog almanacs, a wheel is the device employed for marking the season of Yule-tide.

Throughout the middle ages, and down to the period of the Reformation, the festival of Christmas, ingrafted on the pagan rites of Yule, continued throughout Christendom to be universally celebrated with every mark of rejoicing. On the adoption of a new system of faith by most of the northern nations of Europe in the sixteenth century, the Lutheran and Anglican churches retained the celebration of Christmas and other festivals, which Calvinists rejected absolutely, denouncing the observance of all such days, except Sunday, as superstitious and unscriptural. In reference to the superstition anciently prevalent in Scotland against spinning on Christmas or Yule day, and the determination of the Calvinistic clergy to put down all such notions, the following amusing passage is quoted by Dr. Jamieson from Jhone Hamilton’s Facile Traictise:

‘The ministers of Scotland—in contempt of the vther halie dayes obseruit be England—cause their wyfis and seruants spin in oppin sicht of the people upon Yeul day; and their affectionnate auditeurs constraines their tennants to yok thair pleuchs on Yeul day in contempt of Christ’s Natiuitie, whilk our Lord has not left vnpunisit: for thair oxin ran wod [mad], and brak their nekis, and leamit [lamed] sum pleugh men, as is notoriously knawin in sindrie partes of Scotland.’

In consequence of the Presbyterian form of church-government, as constituted by John Knox and his coadjutors on the model of the ecclesiastical polity of Calvin, having taken such firm root in Scotland, the festival of Christmas, with other commemorative celebrations retained from the Romish calendar by the Anglicans and Lutherans, is comparatively unknown in that country, at least in the Lowlands. The tendency to mirth and jollity at the close of the year, which seems almost inherent in human nature, has, in North Britain, been, for the most part, transferred from Christmas and Christmas Eve to New-year’s Day and the preceding evening, known by the appellation of Hogmenay. In many parts of the Highlands of Scotland, however, and also in the county of Forfar, and one or two other districts, the day for the great annual merry-making is Christmas.

From a curious old song preserved in the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, we learn that it was considered peculiarly lucky when Christmas-day fell on a Sunday, and the reverse when it occurred on a Saturday. The intermediate days are, for the most part, characterized by a happy uniformity of propitious augury. The versification is of the rudest and most rugged description, but as an interesting specimen of medieval folk-lore, we subjoin the stanzas relating to Sunday and Saturday:

Lordinges, I warne you al beforne,
Yef that day that Cryste was borne,
Falle uppon a Sunday;
That wynter shall be good par fay,
But grete wyndes alofte shalbe,
The somer shall be fayre and drye;
By kynde skylle, wythowtyn lesse,
Throw all londes shalbe peas,
And good tyme all thyngs to don,
But he that stelyth he shalbe fownde sone;
Whate chylde that day borne be,
A great lord he shalbe.

If Crystmas on the Saterday falle,
That wynter ys to be dredden alle,
Hyt shalbe so fulle of grete tempeste
That hyt shall sle bothe man and beste,
Frute and corn shal fayle grete won,
And olde folke dyen many on;

Whate woman that day of chylde travayle
They shalbe borne in grete perelle
And chyldren that be borne that day,
Within half a yere they shall dye par fay,
The summer then shall wete ryghte ylle:
If thou awght stele, hyt shel the spylle;
Thou dyest, yf sekenes take the.’

Somewhat akin to the notions above inculcated, is the belief in Devonshire that if the sun shines bright at noon on Christmas-day, a plentiful crop of apples may be expected in the following year.

From the Diary of that rare old gossip, Mr. Pepys, we extract the following entries relative to three Christmas-days of two hundred years ago:

‘Christmas-day (1662).—Had a pleasant walk to Whitehall, where I intended to have received the communion with the family, but I came a little too late. So I walked up into the house, and spent my time looking over pictures, particularly the ships in King Henry the Eighth’s Voyage to Bullaen; marking the great difference between those built then and now. By and by, down to the chapel again, where Bishop Morley preached on the song of the angels, “Glory to God on high, on earth peace and good-will towards men.” Bethought he made but a poor sermon, but long, and reprehending the common jollity of the court for the true joy that shall and ought to be on those days. Particularised concerning their excess in plays and gaming, saying that he whose device it is to keep the gamesters in order and within bounds, serves but for a second rather in a duel, meaning the groomer porter. Upon which it was worth observing how far they are come from taking the reprehensions of a bishop seriously, that they all laugh in the chapel when he reflected on their ill actions and courses. He did much press us to joy in these public days of joy, and to hospitality. But one that stood by whispered in my eare, that the bishop do not spend one groat to the poor himself. The sermon done, a good anthem followed with vials, and the king came down to receive the sacrament.

‘Christmas-day (1668).—To church in the morning, and there saw a wedding in the church, which I have not seen many a day; and the young people so merry one with another, and strange to see what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition, every man and woman gazing and smiling at them.

‘Christmas-day (1668).—To dinner alone with any wife, who, poor wretch ! sat undressed all day till ten at night, altering and lacing of a noble petticoat; while I by her making the boy read to me the Life of Julius Ceasar, and Des Cartes’s book of Music.’

The geniality and joyousness of the Christmas season in England, has long been a national characteristic. The following poem or carol, by George Wither, who belongs to the first-half of the seventeenth century, describes with hilarious animation the mode of keeping Christmas in the poet’s day:

‘So now is come our joyful feast;

Let every man be jolly;
Each room with ivy leaves is drest, And every post with holly.
Though some churls at our mirth repine,
Round your foreheads garlands twine;
Drown sorrow in a cup of wine, And let us all be merry.

Now all our neighbours’ chimneys smoke,

And Christmas blocks are burning;
Their ovens they with baked meat choke, And all their spits are turning.
Without the door let sorrow lye;
And if for cold it hap to die,
We’ll bury’t in a Christmas-pie, And evermore be merry.

Now every lad is wond’rous trim,

And no man minds his labour;
Our lasses have provided them A bagpipe and a tabor;
Young men and maids, and girls and boys,
Give life to one another’s joys;
And you anon shall by their noise Perceive that they are merry.

Rank misers now do sparing shun;

Their hall of music soundeth;
And dogs thence with whole shoulders run,
So all things then aboundeth. The country-folks, themselves advance,
With crowdy-muttons out of France;
And Jack shall pipe and Jyll shall dance, And all the town be merry.

Ned Squash hath fetcht his bands from pawn,

And all his best apparel
Brisk Nell hath bought a ruff of lawn With dropping of the barrel.
And those that hardly all the year
Had bread to eat, or rags to wear,
Will have both clothes and dainty fare, And all the day be merry.

Now poor men to the justices

With capons make their errants;
And if they hap to fail of these, They plague them with their warrants:
But now they feed them with good cheer,
And what they want, they take in beer,
For Christmas comes but once a year, And then they shall be merry.

Good farmers in the country nurse

The poor, that else were undone;
Some landlords spend their money worse,
On lust and pride at London. There the roysters they do play,
Drab and dice their lands away,
Which may be ours another day, And therefore let’s be merry.

The client now his suit forbears;

The prisoner’s heart is eased;
The debtor drinks away his cares, And for the time is pleased.
Though others’ purses be more fat,
Why should we pine or grieve at that?
Hang sorrow! care will kill a cat, And therefore let’s be merry.

Hark! now the wags abroad do call,

Each other forth to rambling;
non you’ll see them in the hall, For nuts and apples scrambling.
Hark! how the roofs with laughter sound,
Anon they’ll think the house goes round,
For they the cellar’s depth have found, And there they will be merry.

The wenches with their wassel-bowls

About the streets are singing;
The boys are come to catch the owls, The wild mare in it bringing,
our kitchen-boy hath broke his box,
And to the dealing of the ox,
Our honest neighbors come by flocks, And here they will be merry.

Now kings and queens poor sheepcotes have,

And mate with every body;
The honest now may play the knave, And wise men play the noddy.
Some youths will now a mumming go,
Some others play at Rowland-ho,
And twenty other game boys mo, Because they will be merry.

Then, wherefore in these merry daies,

Should we, I pray, be duller?
No, let us sing some roundelayes, To make our mirth the fuller.
And, while thus inspired we sing,
Let all the streets with echoes ring;
Woods and hills and every thing, Bear witness we are merry.’

At present, Christmas-day, if somewhat shorn of its ancient glories, and unmarked by that boisterous jollity and exuberance of animal spirits which distinguished it in the time of our ancestors, is, nevertheless, still the holiday in which of all others throughout the year, all classes of English society most generally participate. Partaking of a religious character, the forenoon of the day is usually passed in church, and in the evening the re-united members of the family assemble round the joyous Christmas-board. Separated as many of these are during the rest of the year, they all make an effort to meet together round the Christmas-hearth. The hallowed feelings of domestic love and attachment, the pleasing remembrance of the past, and the joyous anticipation of the future, all cluster round these family-gatherings, and in the sacred associations with which they are intertwined, and the active deeds of kindness and benevolence which they tend to call forth, a realization may almost be found of the angelic message to the shepherds of Bethlehem—’Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men.’

While the Wall Street Journal quotes St. Paul on standing fast in liberty, the New York Times is publishing ersatz further revelations from the Pouting Spook Community attempting to build a case that the Bush Administation has been guilty of illegally defending the United States from legitimate forms of dissent, such as detonating nuclear devices in major cities like New York.

The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system’s main arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.

I find it very simple to refute the left’s nonsensical theories of sinister Executive Branch plots to violate the Constitution and stifle dissent. If the government were actually doing what it could, and should, be doing lawfully in time of war, none of these kinds of stories would be being published at all, since all domestic subversives (including the leaking doves and their jounalistic collaborators) would have long since been interned for the duration of the war to some inclement locality, an hour or so south of Barstow, California, where from behind barbed wire, they could devote their attention to herpetological studies and counting Joshua trees, instead of providing aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States.

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent tradition, going back to 1949, of publishing the following editorial in the issue nearest preceding Christmas:

(excerpt)

In Hoc Anno Domini
December 24, 2005

When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.

Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.

But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression—for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?

There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?

Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s….

And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his brethren, the Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each of the years of his Lord:

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

This editorial was written in 1949 by the late Vermont Royster and has been published annually since.

(From Robert Chambers, The Book of Days, 1869:

The burning of the Yule log is an ancient Christmas ceremony, transmitted to us from our Scandinavian ancestors, who, at their feast of Juul, at the winter-solstice, used to kindle huge bonfires in honour of their god Thor. The custom, though sadly shorn of the ‘pomp and circumstance’ which formerly attended it, is still maintained in various parts of the country. The bringing in and placing of the ponderous block on the hearth of the wide chimney in the baronial hall was the most joyous of the ceremonies observed on Christmas Eve in feudal times. The venerable log, destined to crackle a welcome to all-comers, was drawn in triumph from its resting-place at the feet of its living brethren of the woods. Each wayfarer raised his hat as it passed, for he well knew that it was full of good promises, and that its flame would burn out old wrongs and heartburnings, and cause the liquor to bubble in the wassail-bowl, that was quaffed to the drowning of ancient feuds and animosities. So the Yule-log was worthily honoured, and the ancient bards welcomed its entrance with their minstrelsy.

The following ditty, appropriate to such an occasion, appears in the Sloane Manuscripts. It is supposed to be of the time of Henry VI:

WELCOME YULE

Welcome be thou, heavenly King,
Welcome born on this morning,
Welcome for whom we shall sing,

Welcome Yule,

Welcome be ye Stephen and John,
Welcome Innocents every one,
Welcome Thomas Martyr one,

Welcome Yule.

Welcome be ye, good New Year,
Welcome Twelfth Day, both in fere,
Welcome saints, loved and dear,

Welcome Yule.

Welcome be ye, Candlemas,
Welcome be ye, Queen of Bliss,
Welcome both to more and less,

Welcome Yule.

Welcome be ye that are here,
Welcome all, and make good cheer,
Welcome all, another year,

Welcome Yule.’

And here, in connection with the festivities on Christmas Eve, we may quote Herrick’s inspiriting stanzas:

‘Come bring with a noise,
My merry, merry boys,

The Christmas log to the firing,
While my good dame she
Bids ye all be free, And drink to your heart’s desiring.

With the last year’s brand
Light the new block, and,

For good success in his spending,
On your psalteries play
That sweet luck may Come while the log is a teending.

Drink now the strong beer,
Cut the white loaf here,

The while the meat is a shredding;
For the rare mince-pie,
And the plums stand by, To fill the paste that’s a kneading.’

The allusion at the commencement of the second stanza, is to the practice of laying aside the half-consumed block after having served its purpose on Christmas Eve, preserving it carefully in a cellar or other secure place till the next anniversary of Christmas, and then lighting the new log with the charred remains of its predecessor. The due observance of this custom was considered of the highest importance, and it was believed that the preservation of last year’s Christmas log was a most effectual security to the house against fire. We are further informed, that it was regarded as a sign of very bad-luck if a squinting person entered the hall when the log was burning, and a similarly evil omen was exhibited in the arrival of a bare-footed person, and, above all, of a flat-footed woman! As an accompaniment to the Yule log, a candle of monstrous size, called the Yule Candle, or Christmas Candle, shed its light on the festive-board during the evening. Brand, in his Popular Antiquities, states that, in the buttery of St. John’s College, Oxford, an ancient candle socket of stone still remains, ornamented with the figure of the Holy Lamb. It was formerly used for holding the Christmas Candle, which, during the twelve nights of the Christmas festival, was burned on the high-table at supper.

In Devonshire, the Yule log takes the form of the ashton fagot, and is brought in and burned with great glee and merriment. The fagot is composed of a bundle of ash-sticks bound or hooped round with bands of the same tree, and the number of these last ought, it is said, to be nine. The rods having been cut a few days previous, the farm-labourers, on Christmas Eve, sally forth joyously, bind them together, and then, by the aid of one or two horses, drag the fagot, with great rejoicings, to their master’s house, where it is deposited on the spacious hearth which serves as the fireplace in old-fashioned kitchens. Fun and jollity of all sorts now commence, the members of the household—master, family, and servants—seat themselves on the settles beside the fire, and all meet on terms of equality, the ordinary restraint characterizing the intercourse of master and servant being, for the occasion, wholly laid aside. Sports of various kinds take place, such as jumping in sacks, diving in a tub of water for apples, and jumping for cakes and treacle; that is to say, endeavoring, by springs (the hands being tied behind the back), to catch with the mouth a cake, thickly spread with treacle, and suspended from the ceiling. Liberal libations of cider, or egg-hot, that is, cider heated and mixed with eggs and spices, somewhat after the manner of the Scottish het-pint, are supplied to the assembled revellers, it being an acknowledged and time-honoured custom that for every crack which the bands of the ashton fagot make in bursting when charred through, the master of the house is bound to furnish a fresh bowl of liquor. To the credit of such gatherings it must be stated that they are characterized, for the most part, by thorough decorum, and scenes of inebriation and disorder are seldom witnessed.

One significant circumstance connected with the vigorous blaze which roars up the chimney on Christmas Eve ought not to be forgotten. We refer to the practice of most of the careful Devonshire housewives, at this season, to have the kitchen-chimney swept a few days previously, so as to guard against accidents from its taking fire. In Cornwall, as we are informed by a contributor to Notes and Queries, the Yule log is called ‘the mock,’ and great festivities attend the burning of it, including the old ceremony of lighting the block with a brand preserved from the fire of last year. We are informed also that, in the same locality, Christmas Eve is a special holiday with children, who, on this occasion, are allowed to sit up till midnight and ‘drink to the mock.’

Another custom in Devonshire, still practiced, we believe, in one or two localities on Christmas Eve, is for the farmer with his family and friends, after partaking together of hot cakes and cider (the cake being dipped in the liquor previous to being eaten), to proceed to the orchard, one of the party bearing hot cake and cider as an offering to the principal apple-tree. The cake is formally deposited on the fork of the tree, and the cider thrown over the latter, the men firing off guns and pistols, and the women and girls shouting:

‘Bear blue, apples and pears enow,
Barn fulls, bag fulls, sack fulls.

Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!’

A similar libation of spiced-ale used to be sprinkled on the orchards and meadows in Norfolk; and the author of a very ingenious little work, The Christmas Book: Christmas in the Olden Time: Its Customs and their Origin (London, 1859) published some years ago, states that he has witnessed a ceremony of the same sort, in the neighborhood of the New Forest in Hampshire, where the chorus sung was –
‘Apples and pears with right good corn,
Come in plenty to every one,
Eat and drink good cake and not ale,
Give Earth to drink and she’ll not fail.’

From a contributor to Notes and Queries, we learn that on Christmas Eve, in the town of Chester and surrounding villages, numerous parties of singers parade the streets, and are hospitably entertained with meat and drink at the different houses where they call. The farmers of Cheshire pass rather an uncomfortable season at Christmas, seeing that they are obliged, for the most part, during this period, to dispense with the assistance of servants. According to an old custom in the county, the servants engage themselves to their employers from New-Year’s Eve to Christmas Day, and then for six or seven days, they leave their masters to shift for themselves, while they (the servants) resort to the towns to spend their holidays. On the morning after Christmas Day hundreds of farm-servants (male and female) dressed in holiday attire, in which all the hues of the rainbow strive for the mastery, throng the streets of Chester, considerably to the benefit of the tavern-keepers and shop-keepers. Having just received their year’s wages, extensive investments are made by them in smock frocks, cotton dresses, plush-waistcoats, and woolen shawls. Dancing is merrily carried on at various public-houses in the evening. In the whole of this custom, a more vivid realization is probably presented than in any other popular celebration at Christmas, of the precursor of these modern jovialities—the ancient Roman Saturnalia, in which the relations of master and servant were for a time reversed, and universal license prevailed.

Among Roman Catholics, a mass is always celebrated at midnight on Christmas Eve, another at daybreak on Christmas Day, and a third at a subsequent hour in the morning. A beautiful phase in popular superstition, is that which represents a thorough prostration of the Powers of Darkness as taking place at this season, and that no evil influence can then be exerted by them on mankind. The cock is then supposed to crow all night long, and by his vigilance to scare away all malignant spirits. The idea is beautifully expressed by Shakespeare, who puts it in the mouth of Marcellus, in Hamlet:

‘It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever ‘gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm;
So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.’

A belief was long current in Devon and Cornwall, and perhaps still lingers both there and in other remote parts of the country, that at mid-night, on Christmas Eve, the cattle in their stalls fall down on their knees in adoration of the infant Saviour, in the same manner as the legend reports them to have done in the stable at Bethlehem. Bees were also said to sing in their hives at the same time, and bread baked on Christmas Eve, it was averred, never became mouldy. All nature was thus supposed to unite in celebrating the birth of Christ, and partake in the general joy which the anniversary of the Nativity inspired.

For a picture of Christmas Eve, in the olden time, we can desire none better than that furnished by Sir Walter Scott in Marmion:

On Christmas Eve the bells were rung;
On Christmas Eve the mass was sung;
That only night, in all the year,
Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear.
The damsel donned her kirtle sheen;
The hall was dressed with holly green;
Forth to the wood did merry-men go,
To gather in the mistletoe.
Then opened wide the baron’s hall
To vassal, tenant, serf, and all;
Power laid his rod of rule aside,
And Ceremony doffed his pride.
The heir, with roses in his shoes,
That night might village partner choose.
The lord, underogating, share
The vulgar game of ‘post and pair.’
All hailed, with uncontrolled delight,
And general voice, the happy night,
That to the cottage, as the crown,
Brought tidings of salvation down!

The fire, with well-dried logs supplied,
Went roaring up the chimney wide;
The huge hall-table’s oaken face,
Scrubbed till it shone, the day to grace,
Bore then upon its massive board
No mark to part the squire and lord.
Then was brought in the lusty brawn,
By old blue-coated serving-man;
Then the grim boar’s-head frowned on high,
Crested with bays and rosemary.
Well can the green-garbed ranger tell,
How, when, and where the monster fell
What dogs before his death he tore,
And all the baiting of the boar.
The wassail round in good brown bowls,
Garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls.
There the huge sirloin reeked: hard by
Plum-porridge stood, and Christmas-eye;
Nor failed old Scotland to produce,
At such high-tide, her savoury goose.
Then came the merry masquers in,
And carols roared with blithesome din
If unmelodious was the song,
It was a hearty note, and strong.
Who lists may in their mumming see
Traces of ancient mystery;
White shirts supplied the masquerade,
And smutted cheeks the visors made;
But, oh! what masquers, richly dight,
Can boast of bosoms half so light!
England was merry England, when
Old Christmas brought his sports again.
‘Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale;
‘Twas Christmas told the merriest tale
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man’s heart through half the year.’

Gail Heriot reflects on the bogus holiday tradition of Kwanzaa:

If you visit a card shop at your local shopping mall these days, chances are you will see Kwanzaa cards. It’s big business. (Well, maybe it’s just medium-sized business, but it is evidently lucrative enough for card companies to bother with.) And if you go to swanky private schools like the one attended by the children of my fellow Right Coaster Chris Wonnell, you may well receive instruction on this traditional African-American holiday. Taking Kwanzaa seriously is all part of the spirit of multiculturalism.

Except, of course, Kwanzaa isn’t traditional at all. It was invented in the late 1960s by convicted felon Ron Everett, leader of a so-called black nationalist group called United Slaves. I use the word “so-called” because United Slaves’ veneer of black nationalism was very thin; most of its members had been members of a South Central Los Angeles street gang called the Gladiators, just as the Southern California chapter of the Black Panthers had been members of the Slauson gang.

In the early 1960s, these gangs were mostly concerned with petty and not-so-petty crime in the Los Angeles area, including the ever-popular practice of hitting up local merchants for protection money. By the late 1960s, however, they discovered that if they cloaked their activities in rhetoric of black nationalism, they could hit up not just the local pizza parlor, but great institutions of higher learning as well.

For more than a decade, students from Loyola College have participated in the school’s Care-a-Van program, providing the homeless two nights a week with meals, such as turkey-and-cheese sandwiches and hot chocolate, as well as toiletries.

But on Nov. 14, a Health Department representative notified the students that they needed a city license to distribute food, and that distribution via a van could not be licensed, since licensing would require on-site hot and cold running water for volunteers serving the food to wash their hands. The college suspended the program, but students rebelled, and resumed distributing food to the local homeless anyway in a nearby park.

Facing a problem with the kind of publicity that might be associated with arresting people for feeding the poor during the Christmas season, city officials offered to compromise.

Under the agreement, the students will continue to be allowed to provide food for two more months, while city officials try to find a more permanent place for the charity work that complies with city regulations, according to Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, Baltimore’s health commissioner.

Jon T. Coleman’s influential 2004 book Vicious – Wolves and Men in America argues for the reintroduction of wolves (from Canada) into the United States to repopulate their former hunting grounds, to “heal ecosystems overrun with herbivores, ...bring a sense of wildness to national parks, ... (and) brighten the human soul.” After all, the author observes: “There is no record of a nonrabid (sic) wolf killing a human in North America since the arrival of Europeans.”

These kinds of expansive claims are often published by writers on the Environmental left (who are insufficiently well-read), but a recent event in Northern Saskatchewan seems likely to eliminate the repetition of that particular refrain, and will probably impact regional wolf reintroduction debates.

On Nov. 8, student Kenton Joel Carnegie was walking alone near a remote camp owned by a mining exploration company when it is believed that he was killed by wolves.

Though an investigation is continuing, some wolves in the area had been attracted to a garbage dump and appeared to be less fearful of humans. Thus far authorities said Carnegie’s death is thought to be the first documented case in the wild of healthy wolves killing a human in North America since 1900.

The Hotline published yesterday its year-end review of activity in the political blogosphere, titling it The Year of Blogging Dangerously.

There is always another political correctness story coming out of New England. This holiday season, the town of Medway, Massachusetts, located southwest of Boston, has a middle school making the news:

MEDWAY—Some parents are scratching their heads after school administrators insisted students call a Christmas tree a “magical tree,” the color red was removed from green and red elf hats, and songs from “Jesus Christ Superstar,” were pulled from a winter concert.

Parent Tracy Goldrick said she has spoken to at least 20 parents who are, at the least, mildly annoyed at “the watering down of Christmas.”

Goldrick’s daughter, Tess, 11, said some of her peers were upset they lost their solos in the “Jesus Christ Superstar,” songs.

In addition, Tess said she was confused when her teachers said the Christmas tree that was part of the scenery for the play would be called a “magical tree.” “About a week ago, we had to call it a magical tree,” Tess said. “And they changed our red and green elf hats to green and white. I think they didn’t want them to have anything to do with Christmas colors.”

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical investigates Judge James Robertson.

The conclusion is:

Looks like the Robertson’s only purpose in life was to keep Clintonistas out of jail.

Hat Tip to SondraK.

Profile of Markos Moulitsas Zuniga aka Kos:

Moulitsas was born in Chicago to a middle class, ethnically-Greek family from El Salvador (his uncle, an architect, had briefly been that country’s education minister). The family moved back to El Salvador when Moulitsas was four and was on the right-wing side of the Cold War proxy fight there. But as that war’s intrusions became unbearable—Moulitsas talks about stepping over dead bodies—the family returned to Chicago, where he grew up, in his own words, “a loudmouthed nerd.”

After high school, Moulitsas, then a Reagan Republican thanks largely to the White House’s support of the Salvadorean government, spent four years as an army artillery scout, mainly in Germany. He had begun to gravitate leftwards while in the military—its diversity had incubated in him a kind of nascent identity politics liberalism—and when he was discharged and enrolled at Northern Illinois University, he became active in campus politics, writing a column for the school paper and helping to lead the college’s Hispanic student group. After he graduated, he took another degree, from Boston University’s law school, and then, in 1998, moved out to San Francisco to try his luck in Silicon Valley. A couple of years later, now married, he moved again, to Berkeley, exasperated at the realization that he wasn’t going to make a fortune in the high-tech boom. “Maybe at some time, Silicon Valley really was this democratic ideal where the guy with the best idea made a billion dollars, but by the time I got there at least, it was just like anything else—a bunch of rich kids who knew each other running around and it all depended on who you knew,” Moulitsas told me. Unemployed, Moulitsas, started posting comments on a site called MyDD.com, the most insidery of the emerging liberal blogs. During late 2001 and early 2002, he developed a following, for the strength and clarity of his denunciations of the Bush administration. Moulitsas started his own blog, and, in the summer of 2002, Daily Kos opened for business.

Tas laments:

Allow me to illustrate the differences in attitude that the left and right sides of the blogosphere have towards small bloggers.

On the right, Instapundit shows how small bloggers are embraced.

CHRISTMAS/HOLIDAY ADVICE to blog readers: Don’t do this here, as I don’t need it, but go to one of your favorite blogs and make a donation or send an appreciative email. Especially one of the smaller blogs, where the attention is especially likely to be noticed and appreciated. There are a lot of blogs out there, and the bloggers with low traffic often work just as hard as the ones with big numbers. Let ‘em know if you like their work.

And on the left, Atrios lobs F-bombs at us if we dare to question the authority of our side’s larger blogs.

While fully acknowledging that nothing and no one is beyond criticism, that people have perfectly valid complaints about things, that with great power comes great responsibility, and that the world is not the perfect meritocracy we all imagine it to be, at some point I have to say – get the fuck over yourselves and ask yourselves why you’re doing this.

Longtime Mouth readers know that I’ve always had problems with the lack of recognition that members from our side give to each other. I think it leads to important stories and commentary to be buried, and the talents of those being buried could help our side score political victories. Yet if I or somebody else complains about this, we’re labeled as whiners and those who feel like their being eregiously attacked morph straight into martyr complex mode.

And on the right…? Hey, small bloggers are welcome! No insults thrown.

Does anybody else see a problem with this? With our sides seeming lack of openness?

All this has implications which Tas is probably going to continue to overlook.

Iowahawk spills the beans:

Tinseltown Looks to ‘06 Rebound

Los Angeles – As the box office closes on the US film industry’s worst year since 1990, showbiz insiders are looking to a strong slate of 2006 releases to help the industry snap back from the financial doldrums.

“If we’ve learned anything this year, it’s that the market is really hungry for more good, slow, imponderable stories and dim lighting,” and industry analyst Tim Jarrard of the trade journal Hollywood Reporter. “The industry has listened, and I think the public will be pleased with the direction it will be taking in 2006.”

Anticipated major theatrical releases from Hollywood include:

Incident at Amity: Steven Spielberg directs this cerebral remake of Jaws slated for summer release. Insiders say the 31-year update will feature “additional points of view” and “be less judgmental to sharks.” Starring Willam H. Macy as the anti-shark fundamentalist, and Tom Hanks as the Great White.

Silenced Wood: George Clooney stars and directs in this drama about the climate of fear among ventriloquists during radio’s notorious Charlie McCarthy era.

Hershey Highway: Based on the Tony Kushner play, a candy factory worker (Phillip Sousa Huffnagel) and Amish teen (Joaquin Seymour Gyllenhall) find forbidden pleasure in this poignant love tale set against the gritty backdrop of Pennsylvania’s chocolate belt.

Me Billy: Based on the inspirational true story of a learning disabled man (Sean Penn) who rescues New Orleans from racist flood with a magical red cup.

Baby Doc: Jamie Foxx stars in this biopic about Haitian civil rights activist wrongly accused of despotism by LA police.

Reservoir Puppies: Director Quentin Tarantino teams with Pixar in this animated children’s holiday tale about six lost whelps and a botched burglary. Starring the voices of Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, and Mike Meyers as Mister Pinky.

Zaftig Pi: The Eigenvectress. Plus-size video game superheroine comes to life, as Oscar winner Kathy Bates battles Christian fundamentalist aliens with kung fu cartwheels.

The Vespa Diaries: Romantic revolutionary scooterist Pol Pot (Lysol Phoenix) and US intellectual Noam Chomsky (Matt Affleck) find gay rainforest love in this Cambodian remake of ‘Roman Holiday’ that had Sundance audiences cheering.

Fearful Silence: Courageous What’s My Line? contestant (Leonardo DiCaprio) refuses to answer panelist questions in this gameshow drama set against the McCarthy-blacklist era. With William H. Macy as Bennett Cerf and Kevin Spacey as Kitty Carlisle.

Angel Soft This: In a shocking and sometimes humorous indictment of the toilet paper industry, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock documents the ravages he suffers after 30 straight days of non-stop buttwiping.

Mugabe: Will Smith stars in this biopic about Zimbawean civil rights activist wrongly accused of mass starvation program by LA police.

Lunch Lady: poignant story of school cook-turned-playground strangler has generated advanced Oscar buzz for star Jennifer Lopez, who reportedly gained 400 pounds, facial tatoos and gum disease for the role

Fearful Deadly Fear: Blacklisted 1950’s screenwriter Damon Runyan (Tim Robbins) writes a secret screenplay about the the McCarthy-era blacklists, in this 1950’s blacklist drama set against the background of the McCarthy era blacklists.

Cold Humpcrack Creekwater: Two retarded Gay cowgirl sisters (Rene Zellweger, Jenna Jameson) defy a fundamentalist sherriff (Hovercraft Phoenix) and discover love in this 1930’s period piece set in the Appalachian outback of Nebraskansaw.

Redemption: the Idi Amin Story: Gary Coleman stars in this biopic about Ugandan civil rights activist wrongly accused of cannibalism by LA police.

Snow Fuji Mountain: Mothra (Toby Damon) and Gamera (Orlando Law) discover forbidden love while destroying Tokyo, in this story of nuclear-triggered sexual awakening.

The Girl is Fabulous: Totally straight New Yorker Ted (Tom Cruise) falls head over heels in hetero love with Marcy (Katie Holmes) in this completely ungay romantic comedy set against the backdrop of New York’s glamorous West Village.

Silence 1984: Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris interviews the survivors of Hollywood’s notorious Reagan era ‘Year of Fear,’ when only three McCarthy-themed movies were released.

Susan Cooper, an industry writer for LA Weekly, said that 2006 plans reflected “a renewed focus on real human stories,” after several disappointing 2005 action fantasy releases. She cited the planned spring release of Hollywood’s first non-documentary look at 9/11—Oliver Stone’s Inside Job—as evidence of Hollywood’s return to realism and a reason for industry optimism.

“There’s a really good buzz about it in Hollywood,” said “With a top director and an all-star cast, this studios are hoping for a blockbuster return.”

Stone’s $140 million September 11 epic stars Nicholas Cage, along with Haley Joel Osment as Osama Bin Laden, Robin Williams as Donald Rumsfeld, Dakota Fanning as Zacarias Moussawi, Val Kilmer as the ghost Richard Nixon, Harvey Fierstein as the International Neocon Zionist Conspiracy, Bubbles the Chimp as George Bush, and Jim Carrey as ‘My Pet Goat.’

“I think ‘Inside Job’ shows the public that we artists can make serious films on subjects that they care about,” said Stone. “Maybe then we can move on to collective healing, and you inbred flyover fundie hillbillies will finally shut the fuck up.”

Hat tip to Libertas.

Clarice Feldman is reporting in The American Thinker on the developments in the Pouting & Leaking Spooks affair. She is of the opinion that the tables are soon to be turned:

Liberal fantasies of Karl Rove being frog-marched in handcuffs for leaking classified information may turn into a nightmare of prominent liberals being prosecuted for damaging the fight against al Qaeda via leaks of classified data. There are no names on the public record yet, but somebody leaked the classified information about NSA surveillance to James Risen of the New York Times, and a year later his paper published the story.

The pieces falling in place are far from conclusive, but they are mighty suggestive.

President Bush believes that the national interest has been harmed. In all probability, gears are turning right now for a criminal investigation leading to a possible felony prosecution. Others are noting, as AT did last Sunday, that at the demand of the left itself, precedents have been set that could ensnare not “evil Republicans,” but “virtuous liberals” who think of themselves as whistleblowers. As the old saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for.”

She links Jack Kelley who notes that L’Affaire Plame has already established the precedent of throwing reporters in the slam until they divulge their sources.

And she refers us to a very interesting theory proposed by AJ Strata, and continued here suggesting that activist liberal FISA Judge Robertson didn’t really resign after all, that he was suspended for a participatory role in the NYT leak leading to the current NSA Flap.