Beautiful Horizons

Some Unfinished Business . . .

 . . . regarding the object in this photo. If you're interested in an explanation, contact me offline and I'll explain why.

 

Happy 420; but what the hell is this guy smoking?

There's a rally planned at Mosque in southeast Michigan.  The knucklehead pastor Terry Jones says he comes in peace - with guns.  Apparently there's local idiots ready to receive the pastor with open arms.  

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy -- the prosecutor who led the effort to rid Detroit of the hipster criminal Kwame Kilpatrick -- has filed motions to stop Jones from going forward with this rally.  Perhaps good intentions on the part of Ms. Worthy, but Dawud Walid of the Council on American-Islamic Relations says the motion might only further Jones' cause.  I think Mr. Walid is right.  Still, Terry Jones is playing a dangerous game.  He's trying to manufacture a crisis about violent Islam in America that simply doesn't exist.  

UPDATE:  Sheesh.  Accidental discharge.  I just can't compete with this crazy pastor.  

Please God, Help Us!

Only this man's massive ego would lead him to do this:

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's bid for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination went down in flames, but that apparently hasn't stopped him from considering another White House run.

While Giuliani denies it, sources close to the former mayor tell CBS's Stephanie Condon that he's been reaching out to political advisers to feel out the possibility of a 2012 campaign.

Here's the takeaway from the article:

A source tells the New York Post's Page Six that Giuliani believes there's room in the field for a moderate with a background in national security issues. The paper reported that he plans to make a trip to New Hampshire soon.

Let me get this straight: Giuliani pushed for his former bodyguard/corrections commissioner/police commissioner to become Secretary of Homeland Security, notwithstanding his horribly tainted past. He did not, to my knowledge, prosecute any terrorism cases when he was US Attorney for the Southern District of New York; or at least none of any significance. When he was associate attorney general in the Reagan administration, he did not deal with national security issues.

Apparently he believes that being Mayor of New York on 9/11/01 - a subject that he never misses an opportunity no matter how irrelevant to bring up - gives you a "background on national security issues."

Please deliver us from this clown.

Riding That Crazy Train to Oblivion

The opponents of the community center two blocks from the World Trade Center site continue to proudly display their unbridled ignorance and pathological hate. Their latest victim? Justin Bieber:

Some opponents of the so-called "Ground Zero mosque" have launched a boycott of Justin Bieber over the Canadian teen pop sensation's support of the construction of a Muslim community center not far from the site of the 9/11 attacks.

The only problem is, Bieber has apparently never endorsed the center known as Park 51, or even discussed it publicly.

Bieber's face was featured on a Facebook page devoted to a boycott of companies that have supported Park 51. (The page has now replaced Bieber's face with that of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who actually did endorse the project.)

"Justin took an adult position and spoke out in support of the mosque in tigar beat [sic] magazine," a page administrator wrote. "He one of the most influential teen sensations ... If he is going to play like the big boys he better expect some back lash..."

This not from The Onion. Honest.

What was that old "Dragnet" theme ?

Oh yeah..."Dumb, duh dumb, dumb!"

Who knew ?

Glenn Beck is nothing more than a lying, mendacious piece of crap.  As are his home base, FOX News, and his employer, Rupert Murdoch.

David Frum's plan for trivializing the victims of Stalinism

Here.

Contemporary "conservatism"

"Alaska Republican Senate nominee Joe Miller was asked about illegal immigration at his town hall yesterday, and he said that the country's first priority should be to secure the border. 'If East Germany could, we could,' he said."

FUBAR Mortgage Mess

For those who have been astounded by the escalating foreclosure documentation scandals as emblematic of the insane bundling of crap mortgages into "securities" - or some such - Felix Salmon has the best explanation I've seen to date of just how deep and how rotten this crisis actually is - HERE.  Very much worth wading through to understand just how corrupt the "financial services" sector has become.

The Christian, conservative virtues of rejecting socialism

Obion County TN has taken the foward-looking position of opting for lower taxes over government spending and socialized public services.  The fire department in Obion operates on a privatized, opt-in fee basis. This is clearly the wave of the future, as represented by such leading conservative thinkers as Freedomworks' Tea Bag empresario Dick Armey, Newt Gingrich,  Congressman Paul Ryan, Senator Jim DeMint,  candidates Rand Paul, Sharon Angle and Jim Miller.  Cut taxes and privatize government services seems to be their Big Idea - perhaps their only one. 

Of course, ideas have consequences.  Obion TN hit the news this past week when the local fire department stood and watched an Obion resident's house burn to the ground because the owner had failed to pay his $75 fee.  Fair enough.  That's the deal.  The county has saved residents a whopping  .13% increase in property taxes that would accrue if the fire department were simply a public service provided by local government.  The beauty is that the residents of Obion have more freedom and aren't burdened by the fire department socialism that most of America suffers under. I may sound like I'm being ironic - because I am - but the deep thinkers at National Review are actually having a debate over this, with some of their "heavyweights" like John Derbyshire coming down on the side of letting the house burn because the owner failed to pay the fee. Yes, privatization when it comes to the fire department is a "conservative value" over at America's leading conservative weekly. 

Better yet - for those who are shocked and/or amused by the looniness of the right-wing, the Tea Baggers, conservative "intellectuals" and other venders of the paralogical farragos that constitute conservative "thought" in its present debased ambience - is this contribution from the "Christian" Right at American Family Association. (Remember that this is coming from the same corner who want the state to have ultimate authority in private matters such as abortion and sexual preference.)  The AFA commentary has to be read to be believed: