My beloved Philadelphia Phillies vaulted themselves into first place last night, beating the Washington Nationals 6-0, and with the hated New York Mets dropping their fifth game in a row, this one a 7-4 defeat to the Florida Marlins. With two games left, the Phillies hold a one-game edge over the hated Mets, having gained an unbelievable eight games over the last fifteen games. (The Phillies are 12-3 during that span, while the hated Mets are 4-11.) Thus, the Phillies’ magic number is two. I am hopeful and optimistic, but, having been a Phillies fan for 27 years of heartache and frustration, my optimism is always tempered by caution. It ain’t over yet.Archive for September 2007
And they wonder why Democrats cannot win the evangelical vote
From Focus on the Family:
To advertise the fair, organizers put together a depiction of da Vinci’s Last Supper with leather-clad men and women posing as Jesus and his disciples. Judas apparently is portrayed by a drag queen, and Peter is wearing a leather dog mask. Jesus is portrayed by a shirtless man.
As if that weren’t offensive enough, the bread and wine representing Christ’s body and blood are replaced with sadomasochistic sex toys. Click here to see the poster, but beware, you will be offended.
And taxpayers are helping to fund this debauchery.
The fair being advertised is the Folsom Street Fair in Sodom and Gomorrah San Francisco, where the homosexual community gets to come out in public and show its perversity. It’s amazing that with the far left, any public references to Christ that show reverence are verboten, but references that demean the Lord are welcome. (Really, try getting a taxpayer-funded copy of the real Last Supper posted somewhere, and Americans United for Supression of Church to the State, er, that’s Americans United for Separation of Church and State would drop a lawsuit in a nanosecond. The same goes for the Anti-Christian Liberal Utopia, otherwise known as the ACLU.)
Related links:
Senate Passes Dangerous Hate-Crimes Amendment
Kennedy bashes military, says crimes against homosexuals are tantamount to terrorism
Cautiously optimistic, Cubs win, and John Smoltz is a crybaby
My beloved Philadelphia Phillies vaulted themselves into first place last night, beating the Washington Nationals 6-0, and with the hated New York Mets dropping their fifth game in a row, this one a 7-4 defeat to the Florida Marlins. With two games left, the Phillies hold a one-game edge over the hated Mets, having gained an unbelievable eight games over the last fifteen games. (The Phillies are 12-3 during that span, while the hated Mets are 4-11.) Thus, the Phillies’ magic number is two. I am hopeful and optimistic, but, having been a Phillies fan for 27 years of heartache and frustration, my optimism is always tempered by caution. It ain’t over yet.Meanwhile, the Cubs, baseball’s lovable losers, clinched the N.L. Central last night. The Cubs are in the midst of a World Series drought that makes the Curse of the Bambino appear like child’s play. They have not played in the World Series since 1945, and haven’t actually won the thing since 1908. I know Sharon Cobb is on cloud nine this morning. If the Phillies can’t win the whole thing, I’ll be pulling for the Cubs.
Finally, someone can’t stand being on the outside looking in, and that someone is John Smoltz and the Atlanta Braves. The Braves, of course, reeled off 14 consecutive division championships between 1991 and 2005, but only have one World Series trophy to show for all those playoff appearances. Now, the Atlanta Braves are nothing more than a third-place team, and they have been whining all season. First, it was Larry “Chipper” Jones whining during interleague play that the Braves had it rougher than other National League teams. This occurred while the Phillies were getting slapped around by the Cleveland Indians and the Detroit Tigers — two A.L. Central powerhouse teams — so I couldn’t exactly lend Larry a shoulder to cry on.
Then it was Bobby Cox, during a previous series in Philadelphia, whining about a Ryan Howard home run that, to him, was just a routine fly ball that happened to carry over because the fences are so short in Citizen’s Bank Park.
Finally, following the just-concluded series in Philadelphia, in which the Braves got it handed to them by the Phillies, and were eliminated from the playoffs, that John Smoltz, after getting hammered for six runs in his start, whined that a Pat Burrell home run he served up “isn’t a home run, but that’s just what this park can do for you. You get the ball in the air and you can get lucky. Obviously they feast off it.”
Yes, Citizen’s Bank Park is a hitter’s ball park. The Phillies are an offensive team, and the ball park is designed for them. It’s called “home-field advantage,” Smoltzie. What, do you think the ground crew scoots the fences back everytime the visiting team comes to bat? Those fences are the same distance for your hitters, too, Smoltzie, so your guys have the same opportunity to “get lucky” as our guys do. You’re a highly-paid professional athlete. Deal with it. Sheesh.
This isn’t the first time Smoltzie has mouthed off about the Phillies this year. Earlier in the season, when manager Charlie Manual decided to move Brett Myers from the starting rotation to the closer, Smoltize criticized the Phillies for it, asserting that you just don’t do that in the middle of the season, like it’s any of his business in the first place. Despite spending about two months on the disabled list, Myers, has converted 20 of 23 save opportunities, so it appears the Phillies knew what they were doing.
Catching the Mets
With 17 games left to play, my beloved Philadelphia Phillies trailed the hated New York Mets by 7 games. It appeared then that our only hope for reaching the playoffs was via the wild card, and that didn’t appear too promising. Now, 14 games later, the Phillies stand tied with the hated Mets, having gained 7 games by virtue of an 11-3 records, while the hated Mets have stumbled through a 4-10 record during the same period. No team has ever led by 7 games with 17 to go and blown it. I’ve never seen anything quite like this.
Thus, with three games left in the regular season, the hated Mets play a home series against the Florida Marlins, while the Phillies host the Washington Nationals. In the wild card, the Phillies are tied with the red-hot Colorado Rockies, sitting one game back of the San Diego Padres.
Last night, I took great pleasure as the Phillies eliminated the Atlanta Braves from playoff contention, beating them and John Smoltz 6-4, thereby taking two games of their three-game series.
Historical marker blogging
Tracy City, Tennessee
Historical marker blogging
Tracy City, Tennessee
Sewanee: it’s not just a river
The following photographs were made at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. It’s an odd place to find architecture of this sort. Say what you want about the moral decay of the Episcopal Church. They have built some fine churches over the years. University of the South was established by Leonidas Polk — the same Leonidas Polk we met on our historical tour of Maury County, Tennessee back on September 6.
Don’t buy this lemon
Publius over at Radio Free Mt. Juliet dissects the possible expansion of the Mt. Juliet ballpark. He points out two very good reasons why the City of Mt. Juliet should take a pass on buying the additional land that has been proposed.
First, “The land was bought in October of 2006, eleven months ago, for $450,000. The developer now wants the City to buy it for $2.1 million?”
Second, “Its steep, not flat. The flattest part is the southwest corner closest to the creek, but even here, it rises 40 feet vertically in 627 feet horizontally. My calculator makes that a 6.4% slope. Just as a reference, the “runaway truck” slope on I-24 over Monteagle is a 5% grade. Across the eastern third of the parcel, it rises from 500′ to 615′ over a distance of 1205′ — a 9.5% slope. This might make a dandy nature preserve, but it’s not very well suited for ball fields.”
An oasis on the Tennessean op/ed page
What a surprise to find that Phil Valentine has an editorial in the Tennessean today on the sad case of State Representative Rob Briley. Phil has gone where few conservatives have gone before, providing an oasis of reason and sanity among the ocean of liberal goo that is the Tennessean editorial page.
Follow the money
Investor’s Business Daily has revealed that James Hanson, the NASA scientist who accused the Bush administration of censorship on global warming, took $720,000 from George Soros.
How many people, for instance, know that James Hansen, a man billed as a lonely “NASA whistleblower” standing up to the mighty U.S. government, was really funded by Soros’ Open Society Institute, which gave him “legal and media advice”?
That’s right, Hansen was packaged for the media by Soros’ flagship “philanthropy,” by as much as $720,000, most likely under the OSI’s “politicization of science” program.
That may have meant that Hansen had media flacks help him get on the evening news to push his agenda and lawyers pressuring officials to let him spout his supposedly “censored” spiel for weeks in the name of advancing the global warming agenda.
It looks like the Bush administration may have to step up its censorship efforts. Heh.
Courthouse blogging
This is the Marion County courthouse located in Jasper, Tennessee. It's the 52nd Tennessee courthouse I have personally photographed and posted at Right Minded.
Today’s Lebanon Democrat column: “Why do liberals envy Canadian health care?”
John Edwards, who is running for president, has a universal health care plan — and what Democrat doesn’t have one? — that would force Americans to go to the doctor for preventative care.
Explains Edwards, “It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care. If you are going to be in the system, you can’t choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK.”
Folks, liberals are the most meddlesome bunch on the planet. These people cannot resist telling the rest of us how we are supposed to live. They want to tell us what to drive, what to eat, where to smoke, where we can and cannot exercise religion, how much toilet paper to use, how much of our paychecks we can keep, how to raise our children, what we can and cannot listen to on the radio, that we cannot buy “Choose Life” license plates with our own money, and now that we have to go to the doctor, even when we are well.
Similarly, Hillary Clinton, who is also running for president, recently trotted out her 2007 version of HillaryCare, her dream of a universal, government-controlled health care system. Shockingly, the Bloomberg news agency reports that “65 percent of Americans in a July Gallup poll [expressed] ‘a great deal’ or ‘a fair amount’ of confidence in her on the issue. That’s more than any other White House contender.”
What makes Hillary Clinton an expert on health care? The fact that she’s a U.S. senator? How come getting elected to public office suddenly makes an individual an expert on something? What makes Hillary Clinton a doctor? What makes Al Gore a meteorologist? What makes John Edwards an expert on poverty? What makes Harry Reid an Army general? Folks, politicians probably don’t know any more about issues than you or I do, yet we place great weight on their “knowledge” simply because they are elected to office. One thing we do know better than politicians is the fact that the private sector is much more efficient at running health care than the government.
For example, Canada has a socialized, government-run health care system that is the envy of American liberals. The problem is that the Canadian system is a lemon. A recent op/ed in the Investor’s Business Daily notes that Canadians actually have the choice go to the U.S. for their care. IBD relates the case of Belinda Stronach, a Liberal Party member of Canada’s Parliament, who is also a close friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Stronach came to the U.S. last June for a cancer operation because it was the “best place” for her type of surgery. I can’t say I blame her.
Another Canadian family, Karen and J. P. Jepp, had to leave their home in Calgary, Alberta, for Great Falls, Montana, to give birth to their quadruplets due to a shortage of neonatal beds and the inability to perform a C-section for multiple babies. In other words, this Canadian city of more than a million people has fewer beds for newborns and fewer services than a remote American city of 57,000. Capitalism works every time.
In 1998, 212,990 Canadians were on hospital waiting lists for surgery, with an average wait of 13.3 weeks. Today, more than 800,000 Canadians are on such waiting lists, often waiting 20 weeks or more.
It’s no surprise, therefore, that survival rates for major types of cancer in the U.S. are higher than in Canada. Seven of the ten Canadian provinces send their prostate-cancer patients to the U.S. for treatment.
The reason, notes Canada’s Fraser Institute, is that “Canadian patients do not get the same quality or quantity of care as American patients.” We Americans have more access to advanced medical procedures like dialysis and coronary bypass surgery, and use more medical technology like CT scanners and MRI imaging machines. That’s what the free market does.
If Democrats in the United States fulfill their dream of governmentalizing our health care system, our top-shelf system will go the way of Canada’s. Liberals want us to believe that whatever the private sector can do, government can do better, but experience tells us that is almost never true. The American health care system is so efficient, and so advanced, that those who have governmentalized their systems often send their patients to us for proper treatment. That should tell you everything.
Democrats fail
The first two words in this AP headline say it all: “Democrats fail to pass anti-war bill.”
The Senate rejected legislation Friday that would have ordered most U.S. troops home from Iraq in nine months, culminating a losing week for Democrats who failed to push through any anti-war proposal. The vote, 47-47, fell 13 votes short of the 60 needed to pass.
“We’re going to continue to lose lives and squander resources while they (the Iraqis) dawdle,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who sponsored the bill.
Folks, this is not an anti-war bill. It’s a pro-defeat bill. Our side is winning, and winning huge, and Democrats want to pull the team off the field. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says Republicans, along with Bush, now own the war. That’s fine, because we also own victory, whereas Democrats own defeat.
Champs!
Today was my Little League team’s last game on our fall schedule. We won 6-3, concluding the season with an 11-1 record. Three of my pitchers combined for a masterpiece. After surrendering three runs in the first inning, we set down the final thirteen batters in a row, not allowing a single baserunner past the first inning. We scored one run in the top half of the second, but were still down 3-1 going into the fifth (and final) inning. We scored five runs, then struck out the side in the last half of the inning to preserve the victory. After having two losing seasons as a head coach, with a combined record of 7-22, my goal at the start of the season was to simply finish with a winning record. We did much more. We finished in first place!
Church of Global Warming
The Barna Group has found that opinions on global warming vary with religious affiliation.
Only 33 percent of evangelicals see global warming as a “major problem,” compared to 62 percent of other faiths, ranking evangelicals as the “least concerned segment among more than 50 population groups studied.”
[Link]
Viewpoint discrimination
For all the talk about Christians and their intolerance, the left sure is intolerant of Christians. Despite the commonly-held stereotype that evangelicals want to force our beliefs onto others, in reality, it’s the other way around.
Two lesbian couples who were denied permission to use a church group’s seaside pavilion for civil-union ceremonies have persuaded New Jersey officials to punish the group through revocation of its tax-exempt status. Proposed federal legislation could accelerate that trend.
The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association owns the boardwalk pavilion that is a popular spot for weddings.
A spokesman for the gay-activist group Garden State Equality said the state didn’t go far enough, and may ask a court to revoke the tax exemption for all of the boardwalk and land, which the Methodist group has owned since 1870, according to The Associated Press.
As it stands, the change may cost the Methodists an estimated $175 a year for just the pavilion. But both sides say it’s about the principle.
“We’re happy, but there’s a lot more happiness to be had,” said Steve Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality.
The Methodists say they are following deeply held religious beliefs laid out in their Church Book of Discipline.
[Link]
Today’s Lebanon Democrat column: “Democrats root for defeat in Iraq”
Let’s take a quiz. Who recently made the following statements in a televised speech? Was it a) Hillary Clinton, b) Al Gore, c) Nancy Pelosi, or d) Barack Obama?
“The life of all mankind is in danger because of the global warming resulting to a large degree from the emissions of the factories [and] the major corporations.”
“Thus what is called civil war has taken place and the situation has become worse because of [President Bush] and slipped out of his control.”
“This war was entirely unnecessary, as testified to by your own reports.”
The American people want the Iraq war ended and “elected the Democratic Party for this purpose” in the 2006 elections.
Actually, this is a trick. It wasn’t any of them. These statements were made by Osama bin Laden in the first of two videos he disseminated earlier this month. But you thought it was a Democrat, because Osama bin Laden sounds a lot like Democrats these days.
Osama bin Laden timed his videos to coincide with the sixth anniversary of 9/11, which also coincided with Congressional testimony given by General David Petraeus, commander of our forces in Iraq.
Democrats in the House and Senate treated the four-star general with contempt and disrespect during his testimony last week. It’s amazing, but Democrats will believe every word uttered by Osama bin Laden, but frequently refer to their own President as a liar, and will dress-down a patriot like General Petraeus simply because his reporting on the successful troop surge in Iraq doesn’t fit their template of defeat.
For example, here’s how Senator Barbara Boxer addressed the general: “Please, General, I ask you, please, don’t do what you did in ‘04 when you painted a rosy scenario in an op-ed piece, turned out to be wrong, like you did in ‘05 when you told us, and we believed you, that the Iraqis were just about there, they were going to take over their own defense. And please consider that others could be right.”
Robert Wexler: “The surge has failed based on most parameters. In truth, war-related deaths have doubled in Iraq in 2007, compared to last year. … Cherry-picking statistics or selectively massaging information will not change the basic truth. It is my patriotic duty to represent my constituents and ask you — question you — about your argument that the surge in troops be extended until next year, next summer. I am skeptical, general — more importantly, the American people are skeptical — because four years ago very credible people, both in uniform and not in uniform, came before this Congress and sold us a bill of goods that turned out to be false!”
Even before the Petraeus report was released, Democrats swung into damage control by twisting the facts. The week prior to General Petraeus’ testimony, Senator Chuck Schumer asserted “Let me be clear. The violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge. The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from Al-Qaeda said to these tribes, ‘We have to fight Al-Qaeda ourselves.’ It wasn’t that the surge brought peace here. It was that the warlords took peace here, created a temporary peace here.”
Senator Dick Durbin: “By carefully manipulating the statistics, the Bush-Petraeus report will try to persuade us that violence in Iraq is decreasing and the surge is working. Even if the figures are right, the conclusion’s wrong.”
As we discussed in this column back on July 31, the troop surge is working. It’s working so well that President Bush announced a few days ago that he plans on reducing the number of servicemen stationed in Iraq. By next summer, our troops would number 130,000 to 135,000, down from the current 168,000. General Petraeus recommends that a 2,000-member Marine unit return home this month without replacement. That would be followed in mid-December with the departure of an Army brigade of 3,500-4,000. Another four combat brigades would be withdrawn by July.
Democrats (and some weak-kneed Republicans), who work in comfort inside the Beltway, believe that General David Petraeus, who commands our troops in Iraq, doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to events in Iraq. These people have never commanded an army, yet they lecture us and dress-down a four-star general as though they, and not the military, are the experts on military matters. Folks, the war against the terrorists in Iraq is the equivalent of a 30-3 thrashing in football, with our side winning, yet the Democrats continue to proclaim defeat.
Democrats are so invested in the defeat of the U.S. that they cannot afford politically for us to win. But we are winning, and rather than share in victory, they must do whatever is possible to project the perception of defeat, and that includes, in this case, shooting the messenger. While the United States of America is at war with terrorists, Democrats are at war with their own nation, and at war with reality. With Democrats, it’s their political well-being first, national security second.
The United States will win the war against terrorists, because we’re the United States, and we win wars. Unfortunately, we’ll have to do it with one of the two major political parties rooting for defeat.
Holocaust scenes in watercolor
One of my faithful readers has put me onto another news story about the Holocaust, this one regarding an artist who has preserved scenes of the Dachau concentration camp in watercolor drawings.
Historical marker blogging
Highway 31 north of Elkton, Tennessee
Poland in 1939
It’s not a place I would have wanted to live. Wikipedia is featuring its article on the Soviet invasion of Poland, on September 17, 1939, which occurred just 16 days after the Nazi invasion of Poland that kicked off World War II.
Rob Briley links
I’ve been reading several excellent blog posts regarding State Representative Rob Briley, and want to list several links here to the worthier posts.
First, we have A.C. Kleinheider and his big scoop yesterday, where he discovered that Briley’s attorney is also a registered lobbyist with the state.
Terry Frank writes of redemption, noting that “Notably absent from the Tennessean article on Briley is any statement of apology for the treatment of officers, the high speed chase, those he might have harmed, the folks he hit earlier in the day.” (More from Terry Frank here.)
Bill Hobbs addresses Jimmy Naifeh, Tennessee’s esteemed Speaker of the House, who used the term “lowlife” not to describe Rob Briley, but those who have called on him to resign.
And there’s State Representative Stacey Campfield, who has posted several times on Rob Briley’s DUI, perhaps the most informative of which reveals some of the DUI bills that were scuttled earlier this year in the Tennessee General Assembly. Writes Campfield, “Some issues that came to mind are how it takes FIVE offences to get any real time behind bars. FIVE. Can we really say we are hard on DUI offenders with that standard? Others have pointed out how the kicking of a door is a more serious offence then a DUI.”
