Swamp Musings

The title is from Lilek's Bleat this morning. Some daze are just that way!

Five + more inches of rain last Sunday afternoon through Monday morning, doubt if my shoes are ever going to dry. At least I get to have fun throwing my socks at the wall and watch them stick, then leave snail tracks as they ooze down to the floor. Small things amuse me these days..

On the bats Jimmy saw flying out of the house; he has shooter's vision, I walk into walls, however I'm now of the opinion he was wrong. Leaving the un-screened front door open during this last wonderful warm spell was not a particularly good idea. This is a Florida jungle and has all sorts of bugs, especially giant flying cockroaches. Mor'n likely the "bats" he saw were just a couple of junior roaches being evicted by the big boys. Yep, been busy with the Steve H. roach gun. Coulda used quad AA there for a while!


Q: What happens when you have deja vu and amnesia at the same time?
A: You have the feeling that you're forgetting the same thing over and over.


I wonder what Letterman uses for his DU screen name? Yes, I stayed awake long enough to watch it. Pit-i-ful. Next time I've got the toob on at that time it'll be South Park.
DAVID LETTERMAN: MOONBAT? from Michelle Malkin.

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There's a cure that doesn't require a fence or gunfire. Just do turnabout (try moving to Mexico).

Mi Casa Es Su Casa
America's porous border enables Mexico's misrule.

BY VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
Sunday, January 1, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

SELMA, Calif.--"Shameful," screams Mexico's President Vicente Fox, about the proposed extension of a security fence along the southern border of the U.S. "Stupid! Underhanded! Xenophobic!" bellowed his foreign secretary, Luis Ernesto Derbez, warning: "Mexico is not going to bear, it is not going to permit, and it will not allow a stupid thing like this wall."

The allusions to the Berlin Wall made by aggrieved Mexican politicians miss the irony: The communists tried to keep their own people in, not illegal aliens out. More embarrassing still, the comparison boomerangs on Mexico, since it, and not the U.S., more resembles East Germany in alienating its own citizens to the point that they flee at any cost. If anything might be termed stupid, underhanded or xenophobic in the illegal immigration debacle, it is the conduct of the Mexican government.

"Stupid" characterizes a government that sits atop vast mineral and petroleum reserves, enjoys a long coastline, temperate climate, rich agricultural plains--and either cannot or will not make the necessary political and economic reforms to feed and house its own people. The election of Vicente Fox, Nafta and cosmetic changes in banking and jurisprudence have not stopped the corruption or stemmed the exodus of millions of Mexicans.

"Underhanded" also sums up the stance of Mexico, masquerading in humanitarian terms the abjectly immoral export of its own dispossessed. Indeed, such cynicism directly protects the status quo in three critical ways. The flight of the poor is Mexico's aberrant version of Fredrick Jackson Turner's safety-valve theory of the frontier. But instead of homesteaders heading west, the impoverished go northward, preferring simply to leave rather than change their government. [snip]

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I think Pat Santy has had just about enough. This is a must-read.

WHY WE HAVE BEEN SAFE

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Add money and stir. Now that the feds are supposed to be paying for oldsters' pills (as if they don't take enough already), wait to enjoy the drug companies really ramp up the teevee ads.

Psychotropic Drug Prescriptions For Teens Surge 250% Over 7 Year Period

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Mark is feelin' a little down. Too bad he's probably right.

It's the Demography, Stupid
The real reason the West is in danger of extinction.

BY MARK STEYN
Wednesday, January 4, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries. There'll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands--probably--just as in Istanbul there's still a building called St. Sophia's Cathedral. But it's not a cathedral; it's merely a designation for a piece of real estate. Likewise, Italy and the Netherlands will merely be designations for real estate. The challenge for those who reckon Western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the West.

One obstacle to doing that is that, in the typical election campaign in your advanced industrial democracy, the political platforms of at least one party in the United States and pretty much all parties in the rest of the West are largely about what one would call the secondary impulses of society--government health care, government day care (which Canada's thinking of introducing), government paternity leave (which Britain's just introduced). We've prioritized the secondary impulse over the primary ones: national defense, family, faith and, most basic of all, reproductive activity--"Go forth and multiply," because if you don't you won't be able to afford all those secondary-impulse issues, like cradle-to-grave welfare. [snip]

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My sweetie with the sharp knees has it right again!

Why We Don't Trust Democrats With National Security

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I'm whipped. Got a lot of decent lumber reduced in size so that it'll fit the wood stove. That wasn't the actual intention as it was to be some trim work. Finally got the end-of-year bookkeeping finished (mostly. I think). Just got out of a 45 minute 104 degree shower, still ache from moving another yottaton of debris from one point to the other. Uphill of course. These daze everything is uphill!

My feet hurt.