Flying over the surface of Mars

My Dreamboat sent me these cool flyover animations of the surface of Mars--true stuff.

Most amazing. It is a fantastic time to be alive in America right now. If I were still young and heading off to college--and if I had a head for science and math, I suppose--I might want to study planetology. Yet another thing they didn't have when I was a kid!

Question of the day: Osama Bin Laden

Given the past record of the current Obama administration, if our military captures Osama bin Laden (assuming he is still alive), will the Obama administration read him his Miranda rights and bring him to the US for a trial in civil courts?

Is this matter entirely in the hands of Eric Holder and the Justice Department?

Who is deciding these matters now, and how? Why don't the American people know? Why aren't our representatives in Washington doing better by us? Why aren't the Republicans and the sane Democrats screaming bloody murder about this?

Some of us saw this coming in 2008

Roger L. Simon points out that having Obama as our President is scary. No duh!

The alternative to capitalism is socialism and it has never worked. Not once, in all its myriad permutations. In fact, it most often hurts those it was intended to help, bankrupting the society and leaving the lower classes destitute. The Soviet Union collapsed. China was deeply impoverished until it turned essentially capitalistic . Everybody knows that now, and has for years, except maybe our president. He’s after the banks and is so clueless he thinks that will impress us. Of course, it won’t. Nobody believes anything he says anymore.

Three long years to go. Saying "I told you so" is cold comfort.

Thank you, Massachusetts!

In the words of Scott Brown, newly elected Republican senator from Massachusetts:

One thing is clear, voters do not want the trillion-dollar health care bill that is being forced on the American people.

This bill is not being debated openly and fairly. It will raise taxes, hurt Medicare, destroy jobs, and run our nation deeper into debt. It is not in the interest of our state or country - we can do better.

When in Washington, I will work in the Senate with Democrats and Republicans to reform health care in an open and honest way. No more closed-door meetings or back room deals by an out of touch party leadership. No more hiding costs, concealing taxes, collaborating with special interests, and leaving more trillions in debt for our children to pay.

In health care, we need to start fresh, work together, and do the job right. Once again, we can do better.

And this is important, too:

And let me say this, with respect to those who wish to harm us, I believe that our Constitution and laws exist to protect this nation - they do not grant rights and privileges to enemies in wartime. In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them.

Raising taxes, taking over our health care, and giving new rights to terrorists is the wrong agenda for our country. What I've heard again and again on the campaign trail, is that our political leaders have grown aloof from the people, impatient with dissent, and comfortable in the back room making deals. And we can do better.

They thought you were on board with all of their ambitions. They thought they owned your vote. They thought they couldn’t lose. But tonight, you and you and you have set them straight.

Across this country, we are united by basic convictions that need only to be clearly stated to win a majority. If anyone still doubts that, in the election season just beginning, let them look to Massachusetts.

Glee!

They have heard us. They can no longer ignore us. Our numbers are growing and we're coming for them. We've had enough--America is rising!

This is how we get our country back--from the grassroots up. Now if the Republican party can figure out how to put forth Presidential candidates that Americans can feel good voting for, politics may start to feel like a decent pursuit again.

UPDATE: Ann Coulter thanks Obama for his magic touch. Heh! Proof positive in the maps.

UPDATE: Hitler clip. More heh!!

I write poetry: "Health Care Reform, January 2010"

Health care reform, January 2010

When I dared to open my eyes
They had poured a sleek new sea
into the basin where the busy road had been.
Its surface shimmered like silver leaves, animating
a new horizon, and it filled
and ended all our ways. Open mouthed,
I just happened to be one person
crossing through that day.
I hadn’t known this was in the works.
I hadn’t known anybody wanted this.
It was poured into our hands
as if all of us had upraised them, begging for it,
a massive surprise.
I looked to see if anybody else here
had wanted it. Some people cheered
and splashed in deeper.
I looked down and saw the little fishes and
the new wavelets tugging at my legs.
Is this water clean? I wondered.
My bundles and my purse were gone.
The bank was receding.
In my pocket was still my camera.
Fumbling among the folds of my clothes,
struggling, quick, before it got wet,
I freed and raised my device to snap
such pretty pictures
amazing pictures
before I would have to think.

MYOB?

Another ponder in our modern society . . .

From my kitchen window I can't help but see that one of the families in my neighborhood still has a Christmas tree up inside their home. They put it up immediately following Thanksgiving. Do you think I'm justified in assuming this reveals a habit of indulgence or a lack of discipline in that home? Or would a more charitable nature first assume illness or other debility there? (The kids and dogs playing outside and the adults coming and going, none of whom I know, do not seem distressed.) Or is this just an example of me being a nosy busybody insensitive to multiculturalism? My order-seeking German heritage (in the voice of my mother) recites that there is a proper time for everything,* and everything in its place** . . . .

This is one of those happenstances I would not poke my actual (as opposed to virtual) nose into (out of a sense of manners--or is it civil negligence?--on my part), but I do mull it over. And blog about it to the entire world, apparently. Such are the small things that poetry and literature are made of.


*"To everything there is a season, and
a time to every purpose under heaven"

**"A place for everything and everything
in its place"

YESS! Tea partiers and conservatives taking over the Republican party

Ace writes about the National Precinct Alliance, taking over often-vacant precincts and filling them with conservatives. This sounded like an excellent idea to me. In fact, after reading this a few weeks ago I was fired up to run for such a vacancy myself (and if you knew me in real life, a painfully shy and retiring person, you would know that would be a ludicrous idea, but I was determined to do my duty and act upon my New Year's resolution to become a conservative activist). Fortunately when I attended a local Tea Party planning meeting this past week, I realized many much better-suited people than I are currently firmly on top of this project.

This makes my week!

UPDATE: "It is not about Republicans or Democrats or starting third parties." The media will be the last to get it.

My Friday morning horselaugh

This one brought tears to my eyes: Iowahawk's "You've Got to Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Negative - Write a 30-Second Radio Spot to Stop Scott Brown." He and his blog's commenters are some of the funniest people this side of Ace of Spades HQ. Via American Digest (where Van der Leun is no slouch himself--this one makes me laugh out loud, too).

"Are the nonparasites of Massachusetts still the majority? We’ll know soon enough."

Are there any real patriots left in Massachusetts?

UPDATE: "Let me ask a question. Are Democrats trying to throw this election? This woman and everyone around her is a moron."

"The top priority has to be beating the Republican establishment."

A review of Erick Erickson and his work at RedState.com (via Instapundit). He is "one of the most important and prescient new voices and opinion-shapers in the Republican Party," actively working to move it much closer to conservative principles.

The Republican Party deserves a big shakeup. I think Erickson is right on. The Republican Party of the Bush era that was in power and led to President Obama's victory and a Democrat-controlled Congress needs to be reformed, yesterday. Nobody like me will vote for the same old tired, do-nothing, establishment, "moderate" Republican line. They had the power and they did very little to limit government, balance the budget, or reduce spending. Instead RINOs collude with Democrats to increase big government, all in the same vein of doing it for "the good of the people." It's time for change within the Republican Party.

2010: Get to work

A revolution is brewing. I predict it will be the Year of the Conservative Activist. And there's plenty to do. Here are some of my own ruminations on resolutions for action in 2010:

"Ten New Reasons Why Obamacare Can Still Be Killed" Plenty of work to do for all hands

"Take Back the Republican Party Precinct By Precinct From the Ground Up"

Call out, publicize, and protest propagandizing leftist educators in your schools, universities and colleges, and in the Schools of Education. Confront your local school board, PTA members, and teachers' union members when you discover their "mission creep" from advocating for excellence in education to promoting leftist political policies. (This is a fulltime job in itself.) Encourage and support better education.

Support (with money, communication, hands-on work) The Caucus of House Conservatives and conservative Senators like Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn. (Or, consider GOOOH?) Consider, support, and participate in the Contract From America. Support conservative institutions like PJMedia, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, Hillsdale College--the list is endless.

Put a FairTax bumpersticker on my car. I see a lot of them.

Read history and politics, philosophy and economics and learn--so you can then articulate.

Meet up in Washington, D.C. on April 15th.

Learn to Twitter and carry a cellphone or camera to document what's going on as a citizen journalist

I think 2010 will be the year I grow from a blogger, monetary supporter, tea party attender, and letter-writer to an actual conservative activist. I once thought I'd wait until my kids were grown and my husband retired to devote my spare time then to the hobby of supporting and donating my time to volunteering for conservative causes for the good of my country. After living through 2009, I now see that our country and my family can't afford to wait.

I love the sound of those words, still novel to me: conservative activist.

There is a lot of hope in that phrase. And a lot of company, too.

And if I--in my 50's, a non-assuming, non-militant, ordinary busy suburban stay-at-home wife and mother of two teens, congenitally repelled by and unambitious about anything to do with politics--if I am fed-up enough and ready to become, in my own small sphere and ways, a reluctant but dedicated conservative activist, imagine how many more better qualified people out there are taking the same steps. Or already have.

Two afterwords on the end of 2009--

A revolution is brewing:

"On one hand, we’re headed toward a totalitarian nanny state whereby your freedoms are constrained for the good of others. But at the exact same time we’ve entered the Era of Hurt Feelings where it’s taboo to tell anyone they’re doing something wrong. The solution proferred by the universal health-care advocates is to expand the circle of responsibility to include all of us. So, rather than insult an individual by telling him or her to get healthy, we all have to pretend we’re all equally in need of self-improvement, and we all endure the restrictions and hardships and costs which by all rights should be reserved exclusively for those who earned them."

Just like we all have to undergo ridiculous government-run TSA scrutiny because our government overlords refuse to disciminate whatsoever and profile the real terrorists at the airports.

It is time to point out the Emperor's Clothes, take back our God-given birthrights and be blunt with childlike people who live and wish to reign in fantasyland:

And then tragically Obama got elected and discovered that the real world had no relationship whatsoever to his fantasy impressions of it. In a cosmos of radical Islam, Chinese bankers, Japanese exporters, and Arab oil producers, there were no more law school profs, Rev. Wrights, or Chris Matthews and Newsweek editors to wink and nod and reassure Obama that his mellifluous but empty rhetoric allusions were at all reality-based.

Leftists and other domestic and foreign fascists: meet reality in 2010 at the hands of awake and active Americans.

Postscript: Adweek names Rush Limbaugh "Radio Personality of the Decade"

UPDATE: The best rallying cry so far of the New Year: "They Stole Our Future But They Cannot Break Our Will." Thanks, Bill Whittle. Also here's another good video: "America Rising" ("We will come after you!")

Books I read in 2009

1. The 10 Big Lies About America: Combating Destructive Distortions About Our Nation by Michael Medved

2. The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity by Russell Roberts

3. Liberal Fascism: A Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning by Jonah Goldberg

4. Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther

5. Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student by Miriam Grossman, M.D.

6. The Road by Cormac McCarthy

7. A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles by Thomas Sowell

8. The Real Mrs. Miniver by Ysenda Maxtone Graham

9. The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America by Shelby Steele

10. What Really Happened to the Class of ’65? by Michael Medved and David Wallechinsky

11. The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes

12. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

13. Adventures with Jill, Gayle and Donny on Drummond Island by Jill Lowe Brumwell

14. The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty by Wilfrid Sheed

15. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

16. Southern California: An Island On the Land by Carey McWilliams

17. Rocket Boys by Homer H. Hickam, Jr.

18. Enter Jeeves: 15 Early Stories by P.G. Wodehouse

19. Above Below by Curt G. Knoblock

20. Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto by Mark R. Levin

21. Sparrowhawk, Book One: Jack Frake by Edward Cline

22. The 5000 Year Leap: Principles of Freedom 101 by W. Cleon Skousen

23. Our Town: A Play in Three Acts by Thornton Wilder (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)

24. Sparrowhawk, Book Two: Hugh Kenrick by Edward Cline

25. Sparrowhawk, Book Three: Caxton by Edward Cline

26. Sparrowhawk, Book Four: Empire by Edward Cline

27. Clara’s War: One Girl’s Story of Survival by Clara Kramer and Stephen Glantz

28. My Year Inside Radical Islam: A Memoir by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross