The Evils of Facebook

That seems to be a pretty prevalent theme these days. I've heard it on more than one venue - church, blogs, TV, radio, newspapers.

And yet... I just took 5 minutes out of my day to chat with my teenage nephew.

Who used proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar, I might add. Yeah, I'm proud of him - he's a good kid.

There's some downsides to new technology. There's some really amazing upsides, as well.

In Which Our Heroine Comes Out...

... as a Republican, actually. (Warning: not so subtle language. That's Ginny for you.)

The comments are generally encouraging - both for Ginny, and to me. It's wonderful to see that the level of "Oh, you're a Republican, you're dead to me now" and "Well, you're obviously not a real Republican" type comments make up an overwhelming minority of the responses.

"Elites"

Via Bore Patch - "What, Precisely, is the Issue with “Elites”?"

A Rose, By Any Other Name...

We're apparently not at war in Libya... instead, it's a "kinetic military action".

Just wanted to clear that up.

Unfortunately for the White House, despite what they may think or want us to think, what "kinetic military action" means is... well, "war".

"Kinetic" is a word that's been used around the Pentagon for many years to distinguish between actions like dropping bombs, launching cruise missiles or shooting people and newer forms of non-violent fighting like cyber-warfare.

Oops.

Mercy

Ah-yep.

What?

From Investor's Business Daily - "Drill, Brazil, Drill":

We will help Brazil develop its offshore oil so we can one day import it.

Obama wants to develop Brazilian offshore oil to help the Brazilian economy create jobs for Brazilian workers while Americans are left unemployed in the face of skyrocketing energy prices by an administration that despises fossil fuels as a threat to the environment and wants to increase our dependency on foreign oil.

Unbelievable.

Addendum: Oh, and we can't cut spending, because that would lead to higher gas prices somehow. Because the repeated official and unofficial moratoriums on drilling in the the US couldn't possibly have anything to do with the current price of oil - we're obviously just not spending enough on government to make gas less expensive.

Conservative Women

Came across a reference to the Network of Enlightened Women today...

Started as a book club at the University of Virginia in 2004, NeW cultivates a community of conservative women and expands intellectual diversity on college campuses through its focus on education. NeW members meet regularly to discuss issues relating to politics, gender and conservative principles. NeW has expanded to over 20 colleges campuses nationwide.

Just... makes me smile. I'm delighted to find that there are young men and women out there today who are interested in learning to respect and honor one another.

R.I.P., The New Civility

Incoherent rants and demands directed at private citizens along with no-so subtle threats?

That's just... high-spirited debate.

Apparently.

It's Organic!

The horror!

"State lawmakers Wednesday approved billions of dollars in cuts to welfare, medical programs for the poor and in-home care for the elderly and frail."

Oh, those vicious, cruel, sociopathic politicians! Throwing the poor, the elderly, the young under the bus to serve their own political ends!

What state was this? Wisconsin? Ohio? PENNSYLVANIA?!?

Tell me, where did those unholy Tea Party Rethuglicans perpetuate this travesty of...

... wait. What?

California?

Noooooo. Couldn't be.

I mean, that's a nice blue state. Democrats don't do things like that. They most certainly don't favor their own financial backers over everybody else for purely political reasons!

[Republicans] are demanding that he and Democrats agree to some combination of concessions on government worker pensions...

... except when, you know, they do.

Which, of course, is all the time.

Out of deference to our environmentally conscious brethren in California, might I suggest you consider a small purchase from Amazon?

It's organic!

Doing the right thing vs. Doing things right

Not always the same thing...

"See, doing the right thing is wisdom, effectiveness. Doing things right is efficiency. The curious thing is that the righter you do the wrong thing, the wronger you become. If you’re doing the wrong thing and you make a mistake and correct it you become wronger. So it’s better to do the right thing wrong, than the wrong thing right."

-- Dr. Russell Ackoff

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