Quote Me: Pointless and Random

If there's ever a way to hurt yourself while doing the most mundane tasks in life, I'm determined to find it.

Tara Lynn Thompson,
discovering previously uncatalogued shoulder muscles while changing into pajamas

Eastwood v Islamic Extremism

I may hate Michael Judge. For many reasons. All of them having to do with jealousy. He's the freelance writer, a good one, who wrote an excellent piece on Clint Eastwood for the Wall Street Journal. An interview piece he conducted on Eastwood's ranch.

There are so many things to hate about Mr. Judge, including his excessive talent. It's a great read. And to back up my grumbling with a juicy Eastwood quote, here's an excerpt from the article.

He also appreciates the dilemmas faced by democracies when dealing with Islamist terrorism. "How many rights do you want to give to people who are trying to kill you just because you're you? . . . [Y]ou may be of a different religious sect, or you may be an agnostic, or you may be anything. But you're not one of them, so you're an inferior being. . . . Do you fight on 21st-century ideas or 17th-century, like the people who are against you?"

Leave it to Dirty Harry to break down a political argument between conservatives and liberals with a little cut and dry realism. How much liberty do you give someone trying to kill you simply because you exist?

I have an answer for that one. But I'll leave it along for now.

Read the full article here. But don't tell Mr. Judge I sent you.

Happy 100th, Mr. President

He turned 100 yesterday. And we're still enthralled in who the man was because of what he represented.

Ronald Reagan was a modern day Founding Father. Somewhere inside him, in a place some of us know, some of us seek to find, some of us hope exists, he understood the simplistic truth of life. He understood human nature, which meant loving it's right to choose while unapologetically fighting it's wrong choices.

He never had shame for his beliefs, never allowed anyone to force that shame. He simply stood on them, stood despite the force of opposition, despite the anger of opposition. He never wavered, confident he was right, confident in the American people, confident in the American way of life, confident it was right and good and desired by all mankind because it gave every man freedom.

His fame endures because he was right. Had he been wrong, had government ever been the answer, he would have gone down in history as a pitiful leader. Instead, even Obama wants people to think of him like good ole Dutch.

Yeah. Good luck with that.

So here's to the man who loved his country, who understood the priceless value of individual freedom, who truly loved the people he served. And who kept us either in awe of him or laughing with him throughout his time.

I still miss the Gipper. I suppose I always will.

Here are a few videos I chose of his birthday ceremony. First, an amusing, well-told and told often in Reagan's words, speech from Gary Sinese, a true patriot.



The beautiful salute and a Marine with tears streaming down her face.



And because he was the best at telling his story than anyone, a few great Reagan videos.

Scalped

He's been cutting hair for fifty years. But because his license expired, the state of Oregon is forcing him back to school. Where he'll learn how to cut hair in a classroom. From professors who haven't been alive for as long as he's been cutting hair. Because the government said so.

We demand everyone else in the world operate on logic. Why do we give our government a pass?

Banned Super Bowl Ad

Not appropriate for children. This ad may motivate someone to read John 3:16. Watch at your own risk.



Fox has banned the Christian ad for reasons that it is "advancing particular beliefs or practices." I'm sure that means this year you won't see any beer commercials, since that promotes the practice of drinking; or car commercials, since that promotes the practice of driving; or advertisements for movies, since that always promotes a specific liberal belief.

Bummer. Fox may no be able to afford the Super Bowl this year.

If you handled the ad the first go around, here's the director's cut.

To compromise? Or not to compromise? That is the most tired, boring, pedantic question

Worth the eight minutes.




It isn't my thing. Compromise. Willingly choosing to be wrong? No thanks. I can be accidentally wrong all on my own without giving myself a leg up.

It's a tricky word. Or, more accurately, it's a word with a misconstrued meaning. When people think of compromise, they often link that to being agreeable, or being considerate, or simply learning to get along. If we're discussing where to eat for dinner or what color to paint the bathroom, that's one thing. If we're discussing truth, it's something quite different.

"There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues. There can be no compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction."

Ayn Rand

Politicians seem in love with the word "compromise," especially when they are out of power. It's spoken of as a higher state of existence, a mark of good breeding, and a show of sophistication.

Personally, I think it exists so people without conviction, without passion, and, most certainly, without courage, can sit in cushioned chairs of mock authority and snap their fingers in disdain for anyone who possess the guts they lack.

How do you agree to be wrong just a little bit? How do you embrace a little slice of evil?

There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube...

Ayn Rand

It was odd I ran across this speech of Rand Paul's about compromise, or more accurately, about the perils of compromise. It closed a loop in a train of thought for me today. This is what started it. While editing an article of one of my clients, I read this one paragraph about King David that gave me an 'ah ha' moment. Here's the author, John Westervelt, to say it best:

I wondered how a man with David’s record for breaking the commandments could still be God’s man. Then I read in the revelation that Jesus gave to the apostle John, “I know you well – you are neither hot nor cold; I wish you were one or the other! But since you are merely lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth.” David was not lukewarm.

That scripture has often given me chills. Maybe it's the mental image it creates. Maybe it's God's adamant abhorrence of middle ground lovers. Maybe it's confirmed my indignation when milquetoast ideals are touted as evolved.

There is nothing noble about holding a murky belief.

An atheist I use to work around once asked me, "Why can't you just admit there are other ways to Heaven? That's what I can't stand about Christians. They think they are right and everyone else is wrong. What's so wrong with admitting other people might be right, too?"

He didn't seem to realize why that was impossible.

"Because," I told him, "if I believed the Bible might be wrong, that what I believe might be wrong, even if I only considered it a possibility, then I don't believe in Jesus Christ at all. I don't really believe Him, do I. You can't believe something while simultaneously entertaining the possibility you're wrong."

To me, compromise is like taking your homemade tomato sauce, made from tomatoes you grew yourself, from plants your nurtured from seeds, peeling them and cooking them, adding the perfect blend of salt and garlic cloves and parsley, simmering it on low for a whole day, keeping an eye on the consistency, tasting it vigorously through the process and precisely cradling it to perfection. Then, right before you serve it, you dump in several cans of Campbell's spaghettiO's.

Truth is just as precise. And purity just as important.

Contrary to the fanatical belief of its advocates, compromise [on basic principles] does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody; it does not lead to general fulfillment, but to general frustration; those who try to be all things to all men, end up by not being anything to anyone. And more: the partial victory of an unjust claim, encourages the claimant to try further; the partial defeat of a just claim, discourages and paralyzes the victim.

Ayn Rand

Boiling water instantly freezes

Today in Oklahoma, we're under a blizzard. Literally. Under. It's been snowing since last night and not scheduled to stop until midnight. Then we get to dig ourselves out.

If this global warming doesn't end soon, we'll be buried alive.

Until then, enjoy a little trick of nature. How cold does it have to be for boiling water to instantly freeze?

This cold.


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