Signs of the Times

Those who derive solace from FOX, Laura, Sean, et al., nonetheless must regularly tune to the EIB Network for what cannot be found at any other time, at any other frequency. The reasons for Rush Limbaugh’s success also measure the staying power of others on the Right. As of now, the measure is not encouraging. Let’s consider this:

“Talk radio” is not the creation of Rush Limbaugh; it has been in place for more than a half-century, long serving the needs of a nation of insomniacs. But Limbaugh is to “talk radio” what talk itself was to motion pictures. He installed it as the veritable agenda of social and political discourse in a nation long dominated by three networks and their cadre of overpaid news readers. When he calls himself “the nation’s anchor man” a listener is not sure whether to chuckle or nod approvingly. Take any story covered by “the drive-by media”, listen to Limbaugh’s analysis of the same, and then try to recall any part of the network account. Don’t worry; it’s not your memory. By comparison, the networks score 96 on the AL GORE-BORE meter.

We now take for granted Rush Limbaugh’s actually astonishing ability to hold the attention of an informed and educated audience three hours, every day, without staging the conversational equivalent of Wrestlemania. There is no shouting, no parallel discursive universe, no rhetorical managerie. Airtime is not given over to morons and psychiatric cases. There is the occasional snippet — the Cindy Sheehan moment — effectively inserted to keep listeners aware of the grounds on which to distinguish the WHACKO from bona fide earthlings. Otherwise, the mind of the listener is able to enage another mind and, whether in agreement or antagonism, recognize the encounter as an engagement rather than a manipulation. For all the bravado and hijinks, Limbaugh radiates an integrity — yes, an intelligence — rare in the pompous world of talking but empty heads. He needs no “guest” to create the illusion of debate or to underscore the credibility of his own judgments. He picks and tarries over the foibles and evils of the day, paying them attention remarkably proportioned to their actual importance. He then moves on. The pace is steady, nearly rhythmic. And, when the hours have past, one has the distinct feeling that a quite interesting acquaintance has left one’s residence, then relieved by the assurance of a return visit.

Can’t the same be said of Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Laura Ingraham and lesser sentinels on the Right? Here MINDSATWORK strives for caution. Lord knows, they are ALL needed, ALL worthy of the thanks of the starved and thirsting. But it is just because of this that MINDSATWORK begins to worry about their shelf-life. Hannity and What’s-His-Name now preside over what is too often a shouting spree and freak show. Nights of examining the latest from something called “The View” — a program MINDSATWORK avoids as a threat to brain function — transforms much of the hour to a tiresome rant. Even the serious specialist, awkwardly fit in among such flotsam, is filtered out by the self-protective mechanisms of the adult nervous system.

So, too, with Bill O’Reilly’s descent into “Spring Break” and other really tawdry segments which have much less to do with “looking out for us” than with looking out for ratings. Sorry, Bill; you’re a good man, but porn is porn even when flashed to improve the character of the viewer.

Laura Ingraham, too, has proven to be so comfortable inside the Beltway, so eager to have listeners know how influential an ‘insider’ she is, that she actually comes across as a merely less offensive member of that influence-peddling industry populated by those whose main achievement is persistent networking. Where Limbaugh’s self-congratulatory claims are clearly ironic and amusing, Laura’s are serious, even strident, and, therefore, uselessly distracting. There is an undertone in all this; one that creates the suspicion that, had the cards been dealt just a little differently, Ms Ingraham might have popped up as a bullying feminist. Impressions are not facts, and MINDSATWORK cannot read minds at work. Still, Limbaugh IS a personality; the rest are still working at it.

So it’s time for MINDSATWORK to give its first ever award; this one to a man who has an unmatched record of candor, focus and contribution to civic discourse during the most recent two decades. It is a pity that his friends on the Right are far more eager to praise him than to follow his example.

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We are now in that phase of the self-inflicted stalemate when the most accurate measure of the failure of leadership is the number of committees formed to — to meet! (We can be sure that their comings and goings will be filmed and featured in that 24-hour recycling of half-truths and half-sentences.)

There is another measure, less linear than the first but, in its way, more revealing; viz., the patent and pathetic aimlessness of that groping after “insights” and “new strategies”. Was MINDSATWORK hearing correctly these past few weeks? Is the victorious Democrat Congress actually getting advice from — GEORGE MCGOVERN? Is our President now sipping the victory-potions of — HENRY KISSINGER? Did MINDSATWORK pass the best-seller shelf at Border’s recently and see a “how-to” book by — JIMMY CARTER? Were the two figures wearing those clown outfits in Vietnam Presidents Bush and Putin? And was this an unintended signal to today’s butchers? To wit: Once you defeat the U.S. you can count on their business — They’ll even dress to please!

Be assured, sober fellows, MINDSATWORK knows as well as you do that the now forming committees and hearings and advisory bodies are mere distractions, mere disguised hand-wringing. U.S. and British forces in Iraq have handled the nasties with competence and efficiency. Left to their own powers and bravery, these worthy soldiers have routed whole armies of thugs and murderers. The terrorist leadership can’t even use cell phones for fear of hearing a descending missile even before getting a dial tone. In a word, the problem faced by our military is not a military problem. It is a form of macabre theater where victory goes finally to the best set directors, film editors and caption-writers. On this field of non-battle, it should not be surprising that the awards go to the liars. Call it the “Michael Moore effect”. Some presidents in the past probably would have neutralized the effect. Who knows? The speech, if sincere and grounded in grim determination, would be brief:

“Yes, our military is instructed to gain control of hostile territories and are to use whatever force is necessary to achieve this at minimal cost to us. As the enemy has wantonly disregarded all of the conventions of warfare by launching their attacks from schools, hospitals and mosques, we are reluctantly but vigorously attacking them where they are operating. If the Press would help us minimize the loss of innocent lives, they might draw the world’s attention to the horrific strategy adopted by our enemy”.

Of course, today’s Press would do no such thing, so it is no surprise that the leadership was not eager to seek support from that quarter. What, then, IS the surprise? It is that this same leadership ever paid any attention to this whatever, let alone to the point of putting our troops ever more regularly in harm’s way. There is nothing the terrorist-serving media featured that had any credibility, even within their own markets. Arab populations are accustomed to the rhetorical rubbish and hate-speech of their “spiritual” leaders. Only the moron-wing of Islam regards it as making any contact with reality. Accordingly — fully aware of just how allied efforts would be portrayed and the use that the Schumer-Pelosi-Reid wing of the Bush-haters would make of it — there was no reason to give it a second thought.

Well, this was an election year and, as we know, politicians adhere to one supreme principle: KEEP MY SEAT WARM. So, with the help of CNN and NBC and BBC and — oh, the list is as long as it is homogeneous — the Bush-haters gained ground quickly and caused panic. And there we found the Administration, hung out to dry by members of the President’s own party, with, yes, THE WHOLE WORLD WATCHING.

We’ve all seen this film before, but this may well be the final showing. The citizens of this great nation will not again permit their finest, most vigorous, honorable youth to be killed and maimed by lunatics in operations that our craven and self-interested politicians treat as public relations ventures. No, there are bad times ahead, though less for us than for the lunatics and the innocent majorities in whose midst they find sanctuary. We now will defend ourselves chiefly from the air and through the air. We will have to be wounded at home again — and again — whereupon election to office will require the “leadership” to ring up the missile batteries. Nor must we resurrect Nostradamus to set down the conditions that will result in this sooner rather than later:

1. The Saudi Madras School curriculum will graduate yet another generation of Muslim lunatics ready to bring harm to U.S. interests;
2. Syria will not take no for an answer in Lebanon.
3. The little Iranian urchin will press on with his elaborate guarantee of Iranian self-desctruction.
4. Our removal to positions of safety of current U.S. forces in South Korea will not be seen by the Pervert of the North as the prelude to “demilitarization from above”.

MINDSATWORK always regrets bearing sad news, but someone must: Either the invincible forces of the United States, once unleashed, must have decisive victory as their sole and unrestrained mission, or the enemy will be targeted in that other way which, once launched, can never be recalled. The longer it takes for this solution to be applied, the more terrible it is likely to be.

Perhaps, in the end, there really is no other way. The crazies with towels on their heads and hatred in their hearts already have the Europeans quaking. Europeans may cave in (there’s some history there) but in the U.S. it’s only the politicians who run. We don’t care much about the Koran; we don’t even care to know about it or just why anyone takes it all that seriously. The Pope was right to cite that little colloquy a half-millennium ago. What the Prophet added to Scripture includes much that is hateful and criminal. So be it. It’s an old book and, if taken literally, a dangerous one. But, again, the ultimate danger is to those who read it and are led by it, not to us.

As for us, what we DO care about is preserving the soundest mode of governance in human history. We will do everything — ANYTHING — toward this end.

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It is probably too late for MINDSATWORK to affect the outcome of next Tuesday’s exercise of the franchise. Perhaps today’s essay should be viewed as a “pre-mortem” diagnosis of the Left’s terminal illness. Oh, though terminal, this same illness will have its share of illusory recoveries and renewals, these reflected in polling data and elections. The actual condition, however, submits even to the superficial examinations conducted by our distracted and ill-served countrymen. Well, let’s get to the point: Just what ARE the signs of the demise of an ideology?

1. Concealment: The only hope Hillary, Chucky and Nancy have of their recipe for national life being adopted is by preventing voters from knowing what that recipe is. Some think that the empty and tortured prose of this trio is merely a “failure of communication”, as if the problem were in the microphones and TV transmission. Not a bit of it. Within their war councils, the strategy is basic: WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T LET JOE-CITIZEN KNOW WHAT YOU REALLY PLAN TO DO!

2. Contempt: This word is carefully chosen. When a person engages another on matters acknowledged to be vitally important, and then proceeds to say what BOTH know to be false and misleading and evasive — the speaker nonetheless certain that the listener will not rise to the challenge — there is patent evidence of CONTEMPT. Hillary and Chucky and Nancy really DO regard the electorate as an instrument to be played for no purpose other than proof that they can do it.

3. Mantras: A political ideology dies when, unable to find a principle, it settles for a slogan:

“Cut and run?” Oh, no, no. We want to win!

“Taxes?” Only on “the rich”.

“Tax relief?” Yes, for the poor (who pay NOTHING now) and “the middle class” (defined by the Liberals as those earning less than $250,000 annually)

“Partial Birth Abortion?” We will protect a woman’s right to choose.

“Cloning?” We want Michael J. Fox to stop shaking, and we would have had Christopher Reeve up and running.

“Terrorism?” We’ll get Bin Laden — you’ll see.

Now, except for children (who have better things to do), anyone sampling Lib-Speak over the recent decade understands that the rhetoric is empty. The tank of platitudes is filled with air. No guiding principle is at work here, for the aspirations are reducible to power politics and victory at any price.

4. Indifference: There is a moral distinction between killing and letting die. No one seems prepared to act decisively to frustrate the suicidal undertakings of a once worthy and productive force in our national life. In the U.S. of times gone by, not much more would have been needed for Nancy P. to be finished in politics than for her to state on national television that the President of the United States was the head of a “criminal” organization. The party leadership would have sadly reported that, for reasons of health or family consideratons or economic hardship, Nancy had to step down as Minority Leader. In the U.S. that the whole world would seek to emulate the zero-credentials of a Hillary Clinton would make clear even to Hillary that she had no place within the higher spheres of national political life. Again, the seasoned and admired members of her party would have pulled her aside, told her that she was not a New Yorker and really had no business there except at the cosmetics counter at Bloomies. In the U.S. that still had the capacity for shame, all would be spared so degrading a spectacle as the likes of Charles Schumer conducting an inquisition at the expense of a John Roberts. “Chucky”, an Adlai Stevenson might have said, “This chap is pure QUALITY, so be respectful, lest you reveal too much of yourself”.

This trio of mediocrity is leading its faction toward the embalmer’s table, but there is no cause for joy or relief, for they are pulling much of the nation’s political life along with them.

Oh, and the other side, the “Right”? Well, MINDSATWORK is fairly perceptive in assessing the stamina of those still contending. It begins to look as if the few long distance runners still in the race are running with hands on hips.

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MINDSATWORK, always admiring of good manners and a generosity of spirit, reluctantly must sound the alarm, an audible signal to decent Christian people that their accommodating attitudes toward Islam was a suicide potion all along. For several years following 9/11, a steady supply of reassurances was served up by the political and media leadership: 9/11 was brought about by extremists, not in any way representative of Islamic teaching, not in any way a measure of the sentiments and judgments of the Muslim world as it regards the Christian West. That was then; this is now. And what is beyond dispute is the utter incompatibility between the core values of the Christian world and the orthodox precepts of Islam.

Does MINDSATWORK ruffle feathers with the expression “Christian West”? The intention here is to inform, not offend. Universal equality, the dignity of the individual person, the moral autonomy of the individual and the range of liberties justified and demanded by it — all this and more cannot be traced to the great and foundational classical age of Athens or the civilizing influences of the Roman empire. No, these fixtures in Western civilization were installed by Christianity and have been so integral to civic life as to seem timeless. Thus, it is correct to contrast Islam with the CHRISTIAN West, for it is precisely these precepts to which Islam cannot accommodate itself. The authority of individual conscience, the rights inhering in persons, the insulation of religious conviction and practice against the powers of the State, are facts as basic to Western civilization as they are heretical within the framework of Islamic teaching.

Attention now is trained on Iraq. Half of the U.S. wants some new policy or strategy for winning or leaving. The Anglo-European self-proclaimed thinking classes remind all that they knew this was a foolish venture from the beginning. What is conveniently evaded, thanks to the fog of war, is that the really decisive battles have yet to begin, for the enemy of all that marks out the traditional values and impulses of life in the West is now not at the gates but within them. Ask the police of Britain, Italy and France. Ask the Christian communities in the Islamic parts of Africa.

Well, what, then? MINDSATWORK has not invented the remedy, for it is the same remedy that was applied with purpose in A.D. 1095. Yes, I refer to the First Crusade — the one so present on the minds of those who still look back with nostalgia to life in the 8th Century. They depict efforts in Iraq as the devilish work of the “Crusaders”. They are wrong, but we must make them right — a Crusader commitment is now essential. Islam has declared its intentions; worldwide domination and the elimination of nothing less than a way of life made possible by saints and heros over a course of two millennia. Our intention must be to prevent this at every turn and with the full economic and military might possessed by a modern world made powerful by a greater and truer religion, a greater and truer form of civic and political life.

Some will charge MINDSATWORK with a policy of “BOMBS AWAY!” You’ve got it! Let’s remember what the U.S. defense budget was intended to defend, and let’s make sure that our politicians understand that their success at the polls depends on just this recognition. The Islamic menace must be eliminated. And it must be called the ISLAMIC menace until the large, visible and audible majority of the Islamic faithful stands as one and repudiates the provocative and hateful rhetoric, not to mention the criminal and inhuman conduct of those who now speak in their name.

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Although MINDSATWORK never sets out with the express purpose of giving offense or causing troubled sleep, it is important that at least the following facts be kept in the foreground as the thinking parts of the world contrive strategies for surviving the death-cult of (radical?) Islam.

First, the alleged “word of God”, and the Yemeni Koran. Well, if Muslim’s wish to believe that the Koran of their choice is either the oldest available or is beyond the reach of an editor, MINDSATWORK can offer both sympathy and the hard evidence. The thousands of sheets found in Yemen, older than any extant Koranic text, and now cleaned, microfilmed and available to scholars offer incontrovertible proof that “God” issued more than one edition! But, more than this, serious and competent scholars — with as much respect for the truth as for sincere religious convictions — have noted that the Koranic suras are often simply unintelligible. The official versions arise from an oral tradition, no firmer than human memory, cultural quirks, and the “objectivity” of self-proclaimed prophets. In all, then, there are Korans on offer, each of them owing Judaisim and Christianity for some of the content, and yet other more provincial sources for the rest. To the extent that God has spoken directly to the Jews, the Christians and Persian and Arabic worthies, the resulting texts indicate either radically different messages or radically different messengers. MINDSATWORK opts for the latter explanation. How to choose, then? Well, perhaps by assessing the holiness of the messenger himself. Begin with THE LIFE OF CHRIST; you needn’t go further.

Now what of the Suras, the commentaries on them, and the overall Koranic teaching? Gentle readers, THIS IS NASTY BUSINESS. To assess just how nasty, consider the Ottoman Empire and its fidelity to the text. Or, for that matter, consider what the current crop of Islamic hate-mongers urge at this very moment. This is NOT space physics: If the religious leaders are faithful to the teaching, then what they are demanding and what they refuse to condemn can be seen as grounded in dogma at once destructive and contemptible.

The Pope has nothing to apologize for. All of Islam today should be shamed by what is being done in its name. The visible fraction of the “faithful” have offered only two options: Yield to their threats or kill them. MINDSATWORK is not happy to pass along the choice that will be made in the U.S.A. Americans will stop at NOTHING to retain their freedoms, especially those pertaining to faith and family.

Oh, and the Crusades: Get over it, Islam. Why on earth the Papacy waited till 1095 to take action against your pillagers, rapists and lunatics is a question that even MINDSATWORK finds too daunting. It was important to get your burden off the back of the West; it is still and ever more important. All you have to do to suffer a far more devastating Crusade is — ask for it.

One more word, this one on the matter of ‘collateral damage’. The U.S. is so concerned about this that it is prepared to lose its heroic sons and daughters in order to save those of the enemy. And the proof? That Iraq, Syria, Iran and North Korea still have standing buildings.

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Oh, my goodness! Is Israel really prepared to do nasty things merely to survive? Why do they seem to be as indifferent to world opinion as their enemies in Iran and Syria? Could it be that that the Middle East is a world unto itself wherein the only “opinion” that matters is how best to defeat the assassin?

Readers know that MINDSATWORK never strives to shock, even though a recitation of facts may have shock as a form of collateral damage. Here are the facts:

1. There may well be a difference between Islamic fundamentalism and the teaching of the Koran. If so, perhaps some authority on the latter will make this clear to the fundamantalists. Not claiming exegetical expertise on this cluttered text, MINDSATWORK is content to note that the Prophet DOES INDEED divide the world into those who follow the Koran and — ready? — a WAR ZONE! Well, ok, we are well warned. Those of us not yet accessible to the Koran’s higher wisdom are advised to support governments having sufficient military might and moral stamina to keep mad dogs away from home and hearth.

2. The thugs now being bombed by Israel actually have a code of sorts in which their objectives are publicized. Central to the agenda is pressing on till the last Jew is found hiding behind a tree and begging for mercy. Any questions?

3. There can be no negotiations here. Sorry, Kofi. Palestine is a pseudo-issue. The aim is the total destruction of Israel as a political entity, even at the cost of every Jewish life resident therein. What part of this program is thought to be ‘negotiable’?

4. So much for the Jews. Now, a word to Christians, Hindus and the fashionable agnostics of the New York Times. MINDSATWORK calls your attention to the map of the world as envisaged by this gang of toughs: Spain is already on the map — Islam never should have “lost” it in the first place. The whole corridor from Central Asia to Main Street, Moscow, is on that map, lest anyone think that what was accomplished by Ivan IV was permanent. Remember the ironic, “The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!” Very funny. And how about, “The Islamic Fundamentalists are coming”? Not funny. If you actually DO have a life, now’s the time to work out the arrangements for keeping it.

Gosh, MINDSATWORK, do we ‘nuke’ Teheran??? No, dear and caring reader, we do not ‘nuke’ anyone. What we do is announce to the world — yes, that world whose affection for us is about as sincere as EXXON’s interest in alternative fuels — that we aim to survive as what and as who we are, and that we take THAT aim to take pride of place over such ephemera as the price of oil and what might encourage George Soros to invest further in his petty villainies.

In securing our survival, we make clear that we cannot promise to be scrupulous. The United States has been a home to the world’s immigrants, many from Germany and Italy. But in World War II, we set out to level Germany, to reduce its cities to rubble, to convince its supporters that their choice was to change loyalties or to die. War really IS hell, so it’s wise to conduct it with efficiency and in timely fashion.

What, then? We begin by informing Iran, Syria and North Korea that each has created a “them or us” atmosphere and must be regarded as grave threats. As the threat is the gift of corrupt regimes, our approach is — (Shh…I don’t want Michael Moore to hear this…) — REGIME CHANGE, which can be achieved from 30,000 feet. In the event that ANY EXPLOSIVE WHATEVER is detonated on U.S. soil, we will take the event to be a declaration of war on the part of the sponsoring nation. WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO DETERMINE WHO IS AND WHO IS NOT A SPONSOR, PERIOD.

Oh, the UN will fret and one or another furrow-browed Hollywood starlet will threaten to move to Finland. Here’s the good news: She won’t. Here’s better news: She will. And the media will have a banner year establishing moral equivalence between the U.S. Constitution and the Hezboolah manifesto. The price of oil will hit about $100/barrel and our currency will temporarily weaken on international markets. After a half-dozen bombing runs — and MINDSATWORK means really serious bombing runs and missile attacks — resulting in the total neutralization of a once credible military force — even Hugo Chavez will begin to mimic the arts of civilized persons. Is he next? Hmm…That’s up to him.

But what about Palestine? Look here, MINDSATWORK is not indifferent to injustice or suffering anywhere on earth. But we do not serve the interests of the people of Palestine by rendering ourselves as much at risk as they are. The history of the United States and its significant place in human affairs are not to be trimmed and trivialized to match the proportions of the Gaza strip.

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MINDSATWORK, always laboring in behalf of the distracted and the deluded, has performed various calculations to determine if the children of today’s ‘baby boomer’ generation will have any social security income at all. The tested equations applied — and the econometric mantras uttered in the required key — a clear result was obtained. To wit: Anyone now in what is called the ‘workforce’ and whose age is in the range 35-50 can expect monthly retirement income from Social Security to be $11.21, provided the benefit is deferred until age-94. This, to be sure, is not encouraging.

But, wait! That rumbling sound that grows ever louder is actually a rescue-party, now perhaps 20 million strong. Yes, it’s the ILLEGALS. THE ILLEGALS ARE COMING. And, unless Congress and the Administration bungle this entirely, they bring with them nothing less than generous and guaranteed retirement income for the millions of Americans who will not do certain kinds of work — which is to say, HARD WORK. Here’s all it will take:

1. All current Illegals have one month to “out” themselves. There are various ways of doing this, some provided in recent decades by the so-called “Gay’ community. A less ostentatious way is simply to go to a local police station and admit that you have no legal right to be resident in the United States.

2. A form results from this admission and includes the name and address of such persons or organizations that have been providing income. The law makes clear that such parties face no penalties whatever.

3. Said employers, in due course, are informed that they are free to continue to employ Illegals but must deduct from their earnings the FICA amounts established by law.

4. Illegal status will not be prosecuted in any year in which contributions to FICA are made.

5. Illegals may apply for driving licences, paying a surcharge of $100 annually, this amount going directly to the Highway Administration of each state. The driver’s licence will bear a picture of the Illegal and will assign a driver’s licence number beginning with the letters ILLEGAL…

There was once a time in American when children learned that CRIME DOESN’T PAY. Well, at the time, this did not stimulate giggling in kindergarten classrooms, there were also Bungalow Bar trucks with their jingle-jangle invitation to sweets, and baseball players whose steroids were produced by their own glands. Crime, we know, now DOES pay, and what MINDSATWORK hopes to achieve with the foregoing scheme is a method by which payment goes to the right parties.

A word more…There are those who begin to worry about, of all things, the REPLACEMENT INDEX. This is the number that reveals the annual birth-to-death ratio. The busy world of middle class caucasians in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe — availing themselves of contraceptives and abortion “services” — now die in numbers greater than they breed. Note, however, that in these same regions the annual population growth is considerable. (Well, we know what THOSE PEOPLE do when they go to bed! ) What, then, will be the demographic consequences of the MINDSATWORK solution to the Social Security dilemma? The main consequence will be these:

1. There will be a surge in the national sense of, yes, FAMILY values which, historically, form part of the great contribution immigrants have made to the U.S. for more than a century.

2. Additional seating in Catholic Churches will require China to export cheap church pews.

3. Within the national “workforce” a fair amount of WORK will be done.

4. South of the border, letters, cash and visits will make clear to the folks left behind that their future cannot be anything but bleak if they support the tyrannical socialism of Castro-clones and clowns.

5. The real ‘down side”: The progress of wholesome conservative thought will be arrested until the movement clears its throat and finds a more sonorous way to convey the blessings of life in the United States. Find the right key and the Illegals will sing in a wonderfully melodic fashion.

Adios!

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It is never easy for MINDSATWORK to suggest that contemporary discernment is, shall we say, more like a butter knife than a razor. One is not likely to enlist cadres of faithful readers by declaring them in advance to be dunderheads. However, the hard, persistent and necessary labor of cultural improvement cannot be accomplished with reassuring platitudes. Where to begin…?

1. Leonardo, it is painful to report, did NOT paint the last supper, he painted the Last Supper (ULTIMA CENA). The former was a meal, the latter a painting. We know he did not attend the former, for he was born in 1452, by which time the meal in question had long ended. Perhaps MINDSATWORK will disappoint a still larger contingent of prospective readers by noting that the charges brought against him in 1476 for homosexuality resulted in full acquittal. It seems that his model, Jacopo Saltarelli, was just that: his model. So the two main points here again: He didn’t paint the last supper, and inquiries into his alleged homosexuality resulted in — nothing. The best history can do here is report no evidence at all of intimate associations with males or females. Freud regarded just this evidence as indicating a ‘homosexual libido’. Freud is quite a sketch himself.

2. The last supper surely looked different from the Last Supper. Unless Jesus and his disciples had access to a chic French bistro, it is highly unlikely that they would have been seated at a banquette, all of them thus *facing* either the waiter or Leonardo. Again, Leonardo did not paint the last supper, just the Last Supper.

3. So just who is that model to the right of Jesus? Aha! No beard! But Vetruvian Man also is beardless. But might it be Mary Magdalene? Sure. As Leonardo was entirely free to populate the banquette as he pleased, he could have put his patron, Duke Ludovico, at the table.

4. And what of that anatomical numerology that so preoccupied both Vetruvius and Leonardo? Ah, the Renaissance: One foot tapping about in search of what would later become the scientific world view, the other firmly planted in the mystical curiosities of an age that burned witches having found that they floated easily in tubs of water.

5. And what of the current attention given to “The Da Vinci Code”? MINDSATWORK here must give the last word to H.L.Mencken: “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people”.

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Dear Islamic world,

MINDSATWORK, too, laments the disrespect shown toward religions and religious figures. Time was when Christendom vigorously prosecuted heretics and produced a fair amount of global warming by burning them. That was then…

Well, where are we? Ah, yes, we find ourselves in 2006 (though our Islamic brethren haven’t quite caught up). You see, we had this First Crusade in 1095 but, as they say about generals, Islam is still fighting the last war. We, however, are fighting the current one and, again with regrets, it’s against what now appears to be the majority of our Islamic brethren. The demographics here cannot be worked out easily, but there are cues that provide reasonable grounds for inference:

First, the veritable OUTRAGES perpetrated in the name of Islam do not seem capable of generating much by way of denunciation from ANY Islamic quarter. Remember the maxim: QUI TACIT CONSENTIRE: He who is silent, consents.

Second, the cars burned all over France late in 2005 and the recent uproar over cartoons featuring THE PROPHET, have the marks of a popular, rather than a fringe outburst. To put the case briefly, Islamic devotees seem to dislike the West even more than they misunderstand it, and this is dangerous. To wit:

1. Islamic hysterics seem to think their wrath is a source of fear in the West. This is especially dangerous, for it is likely to result in even greater outrages which will, of course, be at a disproportionately great cost to the Islamic world. (MINDSATWORK worries that Iran may have “a” bomb and perhaps a few missiles able to transport it. The U.S. has T H O U S A N D S of these things and can put them into a cave some 1500 miles from the launch site. MESSAGE TO IRAN: These WILL be launched if you persist. So DON’T PERSIST. Do what you do best; make some carpets.)

2. Islamic enthusiasts think theirs is the last word on matters religious. As it happens, and unlike Islam, the world of Western Christensom has passed through some 2,000 years of internal, relentless, searching and INFORMED scholarly analysis. That it has survived all this at all is — well — a miracle! Islam hangs on by threatening critics with dismemberment. Conclusion: Your days are numbered. Faith is based on a warrent for belief beyond what direct experience and logical argument can provide. Christianity holds up reasonably well under these conditions. Islam has refused to face them. But it will; it must. And when it does? GADS!

3. Islamic crowd-pleasers, especially in Iran, think that the lust for oil in the West will immunize them from devastating retailiation. Hey, jerks: the U.S. gave up ENGLAND for self-determination! Do you think we’ll scruple over a few barrels of oil? Nah; we’ll just elect someone who is prepared to take what we need to keep the engines of liberty running on at least a half-tank. Put another way, you can either lose gracefully or all at once. MINDSATWORK predicts that you will choose the latter, which matches your other modes of insanity, weirdness and delusion. (Oh, and a word to the Iranian infantry: That little ‘hop’ you do when marching must be intended to disarm enemies by inducing in them a nearly immobilizing laughter. It will succeed. However, U.S. forces are known to prevail even when chortling. But enough about us: Stop hopping and start thinking. Do you REALLY want to leave orphans and widows as your mark of respect for a leadership that should be on psychiatrically stabilizing medication????)

So, where does this leave us…Well, Islamic newspapers routinely depict Jews and their religion as beneath humanity. Christian services are not permitted in Islamic nations under the protection of a largley Christian West. That same west — corrupting its own teaching by forging an ethics of forgiveness and “inclusion” — encourages by INACTION modes of action that will finally result in, yes, a LETHAL response.

To the ISLAMO-NERDS of the world: This is the West calling: Stop us before we give you what you deserve!

http://mindsatwork.blogsome.com

Samuel Alito will be a worthy Supreme Court Justice. His prose will not amuse and sting in the manner of Scalia. But it will add in just the right proportion to the thoughtful, constitutionally correct judgments reached by Roberts, Thomas and Scalia. Less important than grounding predictions in this fact is grounding *predictability*: If the Roberts Court generates weird holdings, it will never do so by more than a 5-4 majority.

Will this new center of juridical gravity pull Justice Kennedy back toward where the better angels of his jurisprudence have summoned him? MINDSATWORK has long believed that the tutorials conducted by Justice Scalia for his wayward and — let’s admit it — more cerebrally challenged colleagues have been therapeutic. When able and educated persons camouflage a memoir with the color and structure of constitutionalism, the senior Professor is obliged to mark them down, explaining their failing grade with authoritative marginal comments. Scalia has done logic and rhetoric great service. But he has made it all the more difficult for a Kennedy to join him, where joining suggests a comparable attitude of disdain for those on the other side. MINDSATWORK is inclined to think that the Roberts Court will have a different textual character, a different and less scolding approach to what will continue to be further penumbral emanations from the Left Wing. The additional weight of wisdom, combined with a confident but reserved affirmation of the Constitution’s purposes and meaning, can supply Justice Kennedy with a ticket back home. He wants to be a good Justice, not a bad legislator, and this noble aim is more readily realized through principled kinship with Roberts and Alito.

What, in all this, has the senior Senator from Massachusetts foaming at the mouth and breathing fire? The fire might be sustained by ethanol, but what of the foam? Why has he been screaming that the Alito confirmation is the end of “progress”? Why did he ever come to regard the mission of the Supreme Court to be the promotion of “progress”? There is, in the end, but one answer that rises above the level of arrant speculation and psychoanalytic beard-stroking: The chap just doesn’t get it. He really doesn’t get it. It’s not simply that he has long been in over his head whenever critical powers are required. That may well be true of whole cadres of our representatives. It’s that he regards the exercise of such powers as some sort of ploy — some clever way of avoiding a leap of faith into the noisier parts of the electorate.

Ted, listen to MINDSATWORK: Just shut up now and think of those good old days when you could count on your reputation being protected by three networks and two newspapers. Oh, and take John Kerry out for something bracing wherever it is you go to calm your nerves and gain your nerve. He’s a bit of a stiff; half in the tank and he might be able to focus on something other than a mirror.

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In the now trendy spirit of self-disclosure, MINDSATWORK will go no further than to say that ‘old New York’ — the reference here being to New York, New York — was the nurturing medium. The wider world will be surprised to learn that the denizens of that special place regarded Bronx-speak, Queens-speak and Brooklyn-speak as forms of speech impediments, culturally created but ultimately incurable. The same wider world will, perhaps, be less surprised to learn that these same denizens were unlikely to be sold the Brooklyn Bridge, and surely not by anyone wearing overly tailored suits, yellow ties and with cornfield geniality.

What, then, of David Letterman? And what of his large and faithful audience of persons who happen to be in Manhattan? MINDSATWORK will explain. To begin, note that exactly 1.37% of those now living and working in Manhattan lived there as teenagers. The precise demographic findings indicate that at least 82.4% had their origins in foreign lands: Iowa, Nebraska, Connecticut, Sri Lanka…

The principal consequence of this is that, with New Yorkers now having relocated to, e.g., Iowa, Nebraska, Connecticut, Sir Lanka, there are too few guides and teachers. Thus do we find few current residents drinking coffee, most of them instead ordering beverages with names such as ‘chilled cappucino with pickled grapes and aloe’, to go with their small portion of raw fish served by half-naked NYU sociology majors. Thus, too, do we find the likes of David Letterman having a “savvy New York following”. GADS! The Farkle Family now controls the ethos of that very city that first put them on the map — the map of the giggling dullard sipping from the finger bowl while studying the cheese board.

So, O’Reilly accepted the invitation, claimed to have had a delightful Winter Solstice and otherwise submitted to the rude rube’s insults and bravely attempted to convey a few basic and worrisome facts. The entire episode was pathetic, in just the way that any encounter must be when one party is serious about an issue of importance and the other successfully engages the diminished faculties of the fawning tribe.

MINDSATWORK has a solution to this cultural incongruity — the incongruity of what should be the very center of URBANITY now dominated by PROVINCIALS. The solution is the weekend pass. To wit: Real New Yorkers, prepared to spend a weekend in the home town, are given 80% reductions at hotels and restaurants. The current residents will be taken, free of charge, and by taxi, to Larchmont, New Haven and Shelter Island for the same weekend where they can dance, shimmy in their denim and speak endlessly about themselves and comparable irrelevancies. Then, returning Monday mornings, they can truthfully tell their friends back home that they live in New York, at least until the next Letterman show.

Hey, Dave: You think 60% of what O’Reilly says is “crap”? Well, listen then to the other 40% and double your civic IQ. Oh, and the suits? Try something less form-fitting. You’ll look less like the manager of an overpriced hotel in Manhasset.

http://mindsatwork.blogsome.com

Well acquainted with the standards recently prevailing in our centers of “higher” education, MINDSATWORK fully understands the skittishness of academic bureaucrats planning for appearances by Laura Ingraham. The problem is that she is unlikely to conform to today’s rules. For example, her positions are informed by facts and are expressed with clarity and — most offensive of all — well formed English sentences.

The double-whammy of truth-told-well can only set up a basis for comparison such that even the marginally prepared minds of the undergraduate might begin to think that they’re not getting their money’s worth. The Ivy-level places now cost about $200,000 per B.A. and, unless earned the hard way via Physics or Mathematics, the diploma will have pablum stains all over it by the time of Commencement.

Apart from competence and intellectual integrity, Laura threatens the local chieftans with what is more worrisome. She will expose them to their students or clients or patients as no more than witch doctors who distribute viles of colored liquid having no nutritional value whatever. Imagine the young woman in the audience listening to an educated, articulate and, yes, attractive survivor of cancer and the ratings, speaking about human dignity, about the inextricable tie between that dignity and political regimes respectful of it, about the importance of thinking for oneself and otherwise conducting oneself in ways conformable to the highest standards of a culture shaped by the Good Book. How much of this can one take before wondering about the co-ed bathrooms, the all-night dives into smut and insobriety, and the all-day engagement of second-rate minds filled with third-rate thoughts?

An hour of Professor Ingraham might well undo an entire term of Ward Churchill and his less audacious clones now clogging the American campus with the tiresome “insights” of the Class of ‘68. An hour with one moved by nothing less than VOCATION exposes the self-absorption of those who have never aspired to more than a CAREER. An hour in the company of the brave puts fresh light on those whose primary source of motivation is contempt.

This woman should be introduced with the academic version of a Surgeon General’s Warning: Do not listen for the full hour if you are majoring in Social Science or English, regard Conservatives as evil or think Bill Clinton was the smartest President since JFK.

http://mindsatwork.blogsome.com

This auspicious Monday (28 November) finds Saddam in the Dock, described by the ‘neutral’ press as aggressive and feisty. These are the characteristics he displayed weeks ago when appearing before the judge. They are likely to become a constant feature of the courtroom unless this judge acts early and with vigor.

Saddam needs no model of impertinence. Had there never been a Milosovich, Saddam Hussein would have perfected the arts of the murderous thug, the amoralist, the indifferent mediocrity made powerful by craft and a dead conscience. What Milosovich presents, however, is yet another STRONGMAN, dismissive of mere courts and judges, rising above those petty realms in which mere mortals are held accountable. Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, the little creep in North Korea — if they could all be tried in the same court they would all have the same defense; the ‘Milosovich’ defense: You people just don’t know what it takes to run a country! In your own limited imaginations, you seem to think that justice and fairness, concern for others, a recognition of the obligations to one’s own moral improvement — you seem to think this stuff amounts to anything. Not a bit of it! The world is here for me to serve as a vehicle for my will, and the rest of you be damned. (You begin to see why this hopelessly defective form of life calls for early euthanasia, don’t you? In this age of bumper-sticker morality, how about, ” DEHYDRATE SADDAM, NOT TERRI”

Well, today, this Iraq edition of moral mediocrity stood defiantly before the judge, informed him that he was an Iraqi who should not permit “occupiers” to treat a fellow-Iraqi with anything less than respect! Cicero, where are you? Here’s a monster far worse than Cataline. “Quo usque tandem abutere patientia nostra”, indeed: HOW LONG WILL YOU ABUSE OUR PATIENCE?

MINDSATWORK, not at all uninformed in the matter of judicious disinterest and the demeanor appropriate to judges, would urge the Court to put an end to this hubris forthwith. It would take no more than a statement from the bench along these lines, , addressed to Saddam’s counsel:

“You are to inform your client that he has been charged with the gravest crimes a political figure is capable of committing. The fair trial now available to him has long been a rarity in Iraq. He stands, then, as the beneficiary of principles and practices to which he has shown no record of respect or allegiance. If he proves to be incapable of comporting himself as a defendant, fully prepared to acknowledge the authority of law and of this court, he will be consigned to a room where, in isolation, he will witness the proceedings and contribute to them electronically. This Court will not add itself to the list of his alleged victims. Nor should he think that our patience is without limit. It is, instead, made thin already by his conduct and is to be tested no further. He has been warned, and there will be no second warning”.

Now what of this Ramsey Clark chap? Well, MINDSATWORK will let other bloggers present his credentials. What he reveals to the sober witness is a measure of the pathetic depths to which an angry and troubled mind sinks when, through family associations and the poor judgment of others, it is able to exercise itself in the higher councils of government. That this man was once a U.S. Attorney General is nearly as outrageous as the fact that his client was once a Head of State. In ways that only irony could envisage, these two simply had to come together.

Hogarth, where are you, too, now that we need you?

http://mindsatwork.blogsome.com

It has long been thought by conservative Republicans that, just in case a good President should find himself in office at a time when the Republicans held majorities in both Houses, there would be major initiatives of the right sort and the LibLeft would simply have to grin and bear it all. This was the hopeful belief of MINDSATWORK with the reelection of George Bush and the solid Republican majorities in Congress. Ah, fools that we were! We neglected to keep in focus that basic psychological fact: LOSERS THINK LIKE LOSERS EVEN WHEN THEY WIN.

As of this writing, the President’s plans for oil drilling in Alaska and the elimination of the inheritance tax have been dropped by his congressional comrades. The Democrats — who held power so long that they still think of themselves as WINNERS — have used a few dubious tools (e.g., threatened filibusters) to drive the other side of the aisle to the brink of irrelevancy. They may well achieve somethng even more important, for this vanquishing of a timid majority might well develop into the defeat of the Alito appointment. Can troop withdrawals be far away?

All this makes it clear (as it always SHOULD be clear) that we must not vote for parties, but for persons. As of now, Congress is populated by very few worthy of the office they hold. Most of the denizens are ‘politicians’ in the dreariest sense of the word. The Democrats at least have a bit of passion — passionate hatred, passionate contempt, a passion for power — which seems to be nothing less than conviction when contrasted with Republicans who, as a collective, are more easily put on the defensive than shoplifters caught in the act.

Two illustrations will leave no doubt about the anatomy of backbones on each side of the aisle.

1. Remember the Valerie Plame fiasco? Recall that Mr Libby might be facing thirty years in prison? Have you heard that Bob Woodward has exploded the claim that Mr Libby was “at the beginning of the chain”, to use Mr Fitzgerald’s phrase? Should not the very CHOIR OF HEAVEN insist — with volume, letter-writing, billboards, demonstrations and p-e-r-s-i-s-t-e-n-c-e that this “prosecutor’s prosecutor” simply DROP THE INDICTMENT. He made a very serious mistake here and now knows that the entire prosecutorial effort against Libby was based on erroneous information. And what are the Republicans doing? They are looking at their shoelaces.

2. Remember Sandy Berger? You know, the chap who was so “sloppy” that he stuffed classified documents in his pants and scurried away from the National Archives in the darkness of night. Should not the very CHOIR OF HEAVEN insist on an indictment here? And what did the Republicans do? They looked at each other’s shoelaces.

Baseball is the right model here. When you fail to make the playoffs, you go home. The weak-knee faction of the party should be turned out in ‘06 or at the earliest date thereafter. The interests of this great nation can only be served by persons of principle, intelligence, relevant experience and unswerving political courage.

Psst…Condee? Newt? Are you ready?

http://mindsatwork.blogsome.com

Hélène Carrère d’Encausse is a leading French historian and Permanent Secretary of the celebrated Académie Française. Asked about the recent turmoil in her country, she offered one plausible explanation at least of the housing problems faced by France’s Islamic community:

” Why are African children in the streets and not at school? Why can’t their parents buy an
apartment? It’s clear why. Many of these Africans, I tell you, are polygamous. In an
apartment, there are three or four wives and 25 children.”

Now, MINDSATWORK is generally wary about inflating prison populations with persons not directly threatening to the lives, well-being and property of others. Nor is MINDSATWORK won over to utilitarian approaches to law and ethics. As it happens, however, polygamy is not lawful in those regions of the planet having some debt to Roman law and the refinement of that law over the centuries. In fact, it is a punishable offense in the U.S. and — except for the Mormonism of old — it has never inflicted its foul precepts and practices on our soil.

France, with, shall we say, a spotty record in dealing with alien cultures, has a history of utilitarian calculations as a guide to right and wrong. (Wasn’t it Robespierre who promised a “Republic of Virtue” if his comrades would put up with a bit of Terror? And, say what you will about Vichy, making ‘nice’ with Nazis certainly saved some fine buildings and kept the better wines at the right termperature.) So France, willing to be a genial ‘nation of immigrants’ (those prepared to take on dreary forms of labor at farthing-levels of compensation), now discovers that even low wages and aching fatigue are no bar to fecundity. Fundamentalism is a bar to reading, but not to breeding.

It will require nothing of the higher math to figure out how long it will take to out-populate Europeans if the Muslim contingent gives each XY member of the set regular and rightful access to a half-dozen XXs. With two-dozen dependents per head of ‘household’, the new French ‘family’ will bankrupt both the coffers and the logic of Euro-socialism. Thus, out of darkness some light will come — though too late for what now passes for European ‘civilization’.

MINDSATWORK regards large and happy families as a blessing. Brothers and sisters, developing as sources of pride for their parents — MINDSATWORK here means ONE father and ONE mother for the brood of siblings — are the future. It is hoped that they will form a civic world needing renewal and enrichment, each generation building on the labors and the virtues of the past. However, MINDSATWORK does not regard the Eighth Century as the right model here and so does not think that Islamic Fundamentalism can rise even to the level of a test of good manners — a test of the extent to which laughter can be restrained. Rather, it is a blight, corrupting of those infected with it as well as those now called upon to tolerate it.

What’s a nation to do….? Well, one might begin by prosecuting the laws under which all are expected to live. An immigrant with more than one wife at a time? BYE BYE FRANCE. A ‘citizen’ with more than one wife at a time? HELLO PRISON.

MINDSATWORK is not happy with what our smutty world has done with and to Western Civilization. This, however, can NEVER serve as a basis of comparison with an Islamic culture that has required as a condition of orthodoxy the daily acceptance of theological rubbish and the daily exercising of carefully cultivated modes of hatred. The time is past when ‘tolerance’ plausibly justifies the willingess to have one’s world turned over to riff-raff.

http://mindsatwork.blogsome.com

Events in France and the foiling of events that would have occurred in Australia should remove all doubt as to just what the war in Iraq has ALWAYS been about. It has, indeed, been about weapons of mass destruction and the prospect of a powerful, oil-rich and sworn enemy of the U.S. finally turning to Islamic terrorists to do his bidding. Just how long would it have been before Saddam — frustrated by sanctions and the no-fly zone and the possibility of a resolution of the Palestine problem — decided to put together a ‘package’ that would make 9-11 a minor ‘blip’ on the screen of mass destruction?

This modest and Christian President seems to think that, as he conscientiously devotes himself to “the People’s business”, he need not mount a defense against his domestic enemies. He is wrong. The business he seeks to do in behalf of the nation will be thwarted at every turn by the Kennedy-Schumer-Reid-Feinstein-Boxer party; the party of deception, manipulation and cunning. The President cannot ACT while he is diverted into REACTING.

MINDSATWORK offers this short list of GET-A-LIFE replies to the full range of Democrat rubbish:

1. You weren’t lied to and you know it. Most of you were announcing precisely the same warnings about Saddam during the Clinton years — and you know that, too.
2. What you are saying daily amounts to an encouragement to the enemy and an added danger to our troops. And you know that, too.
3. The Joe Wilson Story is mere p-o-l-i-t-i-c-s. Libby will NOT be convicted, the Press will be exposed, Wilson will be seen for what he is, the CIA will suffer a further erosion in the public’s confidence. And you know that, too.
4. You lost the election. Stop crying ‘foul’. Most of the elections you won were earned by fraud and handouts. And you know that, too.
5. Large scale experiments are rare in political history. But compare Louisianna and Florida after the recent major storms. The big difference? The parties in power. And you know that, too.
6. If we were not in Iraq, the enemy would have more time and resources to get their hateful mission installed HERE. We are killing some of the worst of them and we plan to kill all of them. You plan NOTHING. And we all know that…

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Watching Larry King’s love-in with Joseph Wilson, MINDSATWORK became fearful that its own prodigious supply of cortical neurons might be diminished precipitously. After all, even with the daily infusion of “Ester-C” and “GARLEEK”, Larry’s own brain has been unable to survive regular commerce with Larry himself. If a service is ever performed by this weirdly conceived program, it is inadvertent. The Wilson interview illustrates the point. Asking Wilson, the former ambassador and pothead, such searching questions as, “How is your wife doin’?”, Larry gave this inside-the-Beltway version of the Music Man every opportunity to show that he really knows “the territory”. It is that talking-head territory in which the highly paid seals wait for various ‘personalities’ to throw them their daily supply of fish. They, in turn, regurgitate it and serve it up to an eager audience of addicts who just can’t hear enough about NATALEE, VALERIE, KITRINA and THE OSMONDS.

So just what inadvertent service did Larry’s third-grade conversation have? It gave the thinking few yet another opportunity to watch a seasoned deceiver at work and, in the process, to anticipate with relish the surgery that Libby’s attorney will perform on that body of fictions and fancies generated by the Wilson-Plame duo.

Here are a few questions Larry never got round to, but Libby’s lawyers surely will:

1. What should be made of Andrea Mitchell’s statement, on a TV broadcast, that most reporters covering the CIA knew very well that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA?
2. Was it not the case that Wilson, in social settings, often referred to Valerie as “My CIA wife”?
3. If keeping her name a secret was so important, why is she listed as VALERIE PLAME in Wilson’s WHO’S WHO entry, at least as far back as the 50th edition in the year 2000?
4. Is it a measure of Wilson’s approach to secret intelligence that he would conceal his wife’s identity by having a photo of both of them in a convertible appear on the cover of VANITY FAIR?
5. If the CIA commissioned him to engage in secret inquiries in Niger, why was he not required to submit for approval PRIOR TO PUBLICATION anything he wished to make public after his return?
6. How does he account for the clearest warnings — throughout Clinton’s second term — regarding the danger of leaving Saddam in power; warnings given by, among others, Clinton, Mrs Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Lawrence Rockefeller — a veritable political choir convinced that Iraq had WMDs and was attempting to increase the size and destructive force of the arsenal?

MINDSATWORK has no idea of just what Mr Libby said to several reporters. The vagaries of memory being what they are, it is doubtful that either he or those with whom he discussed Wilson can be trusted to have unassailable accuracy in such cases. There is a veritable WAREHOUSE of data making clear that our ability to recover the details of items appearing within large data-sets is not only limited but systematically distorted. By the time Libby testified before the Grand Jury, he may well have honestly believed that his first encounter with the name “Valerie Plame” was after any number of news outlets and reporters had given it publicity. Indeed, if Mr Fitzgerald’s case is largely exhausted by inconsistencies in Libby’s recollections, a jury — considering whether this is enough to slam a public servant in jail for 30 years — will need perhaps an hour to return a verdict of NOT GUILTY.

It will not be the vagaries of memory, however, that will stand as Libby’s primary defense. It will be the character, record, conduct and transparent motives of Joseph Wilson and his political cronies that will establish an atmosphere of total skepticism in any jury room occupied by fair minded persons. The “case” against Libby is the best these thugs could come up with in their now pathological unwillingness to recognize that THEY LOST THE ELECTION. They seem to think that they might actually be able to win one if they somehow can get all their opponents imprisoned beforehand!

Oh, and Harry — Chuck — Nancy — Barbara: Alito is a winner, and our nation will benefit greatly from the spectacle of the likes of you attempting to cast him is an extremist. MY LORD, you are shameful!

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MINDSATWORK has decided to ‘go public’ before the Special Prosecutor issues his report. Mr. Fitzgerald has had his $700,000 sleuthing season and the benefit of a legion of leakers willing to say or do anything to undermine George Bush’s presidency. MINDSATWORK, unburdened by such lavish resources, is able to move with greater speed and agility and now offers its own final report:

1. Mrs. Wilson — a.k.a. Valerie Plame — is the target of no hostile agent, either domestic or foreign. Neither Mr Rove nor such of his allies as Joseph Stalin, Rasputin and Adolph Hitler had any interest whatever in bringing harm to Valerie. Indeed, she may have been better known to Rasputin than to Rove.

2. Valerie’s greatest peril is just the one awaiting all women who marry aspiring celebrities. She must speak regularly to a spouse who is looking just past her right ear to see if someone more important than his wife might be ‘networked’. If this should take place as he reaches for the brie and biscuits, she could easily be stabbed with a cheese knife.

3. Mr Wilson, that super secret envoy to Africa, on assignment for the same CIA that did such a crack job protecting us all from Al Qaeda, returned from Africa with a WHAT, ME WORRY? final report the value of which proved to be too slight even for the CIA. But nothing is too trite or too slight for the mass media if it might cost the Bush administration some embarrassment.

4. Saddam was looking for ‘yellow cake’. Take Tony Blair’s word for it. Take MINDSATWORK’S word for it. Take yourself seriously and ask why he would NOT be looking for such lethal sludge. When not electrocuting or drowning his troublesome countrymen, he spent most of his time contemplating the best way to complete Hitler’s agenda for the Jews. Yellow cake? OF COURSE.

5. Mr. Rove, according to MINDSATWORK’S sources — confined, as they are, to intuition, common sense and, yes, a penchant for mirth — said this to Mr Libby:

“Wilson? Do I known him? What on earth was he doing in Africa?
Tenet tells me his wife got him the job. I think her name is Blaze Star
or Stella Dallas or Hilary Flame. I guess she can’t stand him and found
a way to pop him into one of those Africa pouches”.

6. Robert Novak, with a borrowed stethescope, was able make out just enough of this conversation to write a column that included two extremely well chosen words: Valerie and Plame. Editors at the newspaper thought he had mistyped the second word: Flame? Palme? Lame? Plane? NO - PLAME, I said PLAME.

This much established, only sentencing remains. Mr Rove, of course, must be executed. Mr Libby was just unfortunate in choosing that particular moment to enter Rove’s office with the day’s mail. He will get two consecutive “life” sentences, one of them spent proof-reading copy submitted by Robert Novak. President Bush? Impeachment of course or, worse, visitation rights allowing Charles Schumer to spend weekends at Camp David.

Chucky? Wake up and smell the coffee. We’re at war, you nit!

http://MINDSATWORK.blogsome.com

On April 30, 1803, Thomas Jefferson’s negotiations were completed and, for the price of $15 million, the United States acquired the territory of Louisiana. In September of 2005, portions of that territory were ravaged by foul weather as still other portions were ravaged by foul persons. (Jewels, electronic equipment and banks were not pillaged by Katrina).

The government of Louisiana has now spoken in something of the language of reparations! Yes, the Federal Government (that is to say, the citizens of the United States) better step up and underwrite the costs of recovery. And the amount? $250 BILLION! Perhaps MINDSATWORK should provide a context for this number. Try this one:

Add the annual expenditures of New Zealand, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Luxembourg, and to this sum add 50% of the annual cost of the entire body of U.S. military personnel and you have the amount Louisiana expects the nation to deposit in its notoriously wasteful and corrupt coffers.

There must be an alternative to this. Suppose the U.S. were willing to underwrite a year’s expenses for the Czech Republic, New Zealand, Hungary and Luxembourg, then distributing among them an additional $50 billion, in return for which each nation would accept 25% of the residents of New Orleans, including its mayor. There are about 480,000 of them, imposing a burden of no more than 125,000 on each of the receiving nations. With a bounty of $12.5 billion each, there would be a cushion of $100,000 for every man, woman and child taking up life in one of earth’s lovely lands. Large arriving families would have perhaps a half-million dollars to fall back on, less the amounts deducted by the host nation for food and housing until the immigrants were able to support themselves.

What, then, to do with New Orleans? Well, there is a desperate need for oil refineries and New Orleans seems to have a bit of a head start in that category. As for jazz and gumbo, these are now so international in their appeal that both could be served in huge helpings in, say, Budapest or Prague.

There will, of course, be some sort of screening, for other nations are rather more scrupulous in the matter of admitting felons and deviates into their homeland. MINDSATWORK cannot estimate how many of New Orleans 480,000 would have trouble at Passport Control. If Katrina exposed this side of local life, a figure on the order of 1 or 2% would seem reasonable. Accordingly, 5-10,000 would be returned, some of them only gangland visitors from Texas and California in any case. A few will be New Orleans police officers, several surely will be municipal employees. But this assortment can be easily absorbed into the urban populations of any State in the U.S. where they will find kindred spirits and ample opportunity to develop their vices further.

The history books are unanimous in applauding Jefferson’s prescience in finding a bloodless way of elminating French influence in the New World. What he failed to see on the horizon was the Big Sleazy, now insisting on $250 billion to resume its dubious part in our national life. Hey, if it’s so terrific, why not share it with New Zealand?

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Once it was reported that Martha Stewart’s ankle-transmitter was to be removed, it was obvious to MINDSATWORK that the nation’s security was to be seriously compromised. Sure enough, no sooner was the thing cut off but Katrina hit New Orleans with Level-4 destructive force. Not only did Martha’s freedom play into the hands of the darker forces of nature, but it also encouraged those like her — the truly lawless among us — to compensate for their lack of food and water by breaking into stores and running off with TV sets, hunting rifles and some of the coming Fall fashions. Clearly, New Orleans and the Gulf Coast will never be the same unless Martha is again removed from the public square. But what to do in the interim? …

Well, there are at least some half-measures that should significantly improve morale, if nothing else. Begin by focusing on the Bush administration! Why, if all that energy had not been expended to save Iraqis from Saddam’s rape rooms, there would have been military personnel available to prevent the rapes taking place in the New Orleans Superdome. Not only that, but there would have been Rangers at home who then could be deployed to engage in fire fights with the New Orleans snipers now shooting at firefighters and members of their families.

So, to begin to deal with this disaster, let’s get to the basics: Bush launched Katrina FOR OIL! Specifically, Katrina was designed to increase oil prices to such an extent as to defeat all ecological initiatives. There’s more: The neo-cons, with their Free Market mumbo-jumbo, pulled off the greatest “natural” disaster in American history so that our dependence on cheap labor would intensify, thereby increasing corporate profits. And, with much less oil at home, the justification for ‘outsourcing’ — not to mention open season on the snail darter — will face no opposition by the sane ‘middle’.

Once all this is made clear, the next step is to base the midterm election rhetoric on Bush’s three flagrant failures, which, as MINDSATWORK has shown, are linked: Martha, Iraq and Katrina. If all goes well, New Orleans will still be damp, Martha will be richer, and Iraq will still be hot in 2006; the perfect mix out of which Liberal victory will be precipitated. The slogans begin to write themselves: “Win the REAL Gulf War”; “No More Blood for Oil”; “Not Enough Swift Boats, Mr President?” “Pro-Choice and Forget the Floral Arrangements!”

MINDSATWORK admits to great perplexity. Forty years ago, the American Left made the very phrase, LAW AND ORDER, sound as if it was the campaign slogan of the NAZI party. All decent citizens were then warned against LAW AND ORDER, which was, of course, “code” for racism. The ACLU gave real teeth to the rhetoric, helping to paralyze the police and to make victims of criminals. Victimhood placed one on all sorts of chic invitation lists. And then remember the crimes of Watergate, that subversive enterprise that forced the resignation of Nixon, the law-and-order President. But if LAW AND ORDER is just code for racism, then police gunning down the rogues of New Orleans are lacking only White Sheets. If, instead, the looters and snipers are “the real victims”, then what’s the fuss? They are finally getting their piece of the pie. One other perplexity: Remember the looting in Iraq as our forces were putting Saddam’s to flight? Didn’t the Left condemn the Administration for not preventing this, and by force of arms? Well, Nancy Polosi, let’s hear it: Should the troops gun down the ‘minorities’ now making New Orleans a war zone?

Ah, but who needs LAW AND ORDER anyway? Looters are simply expressing a cultural value. Rapists are frustrated by the failure of the Bush administration to act swiftly enough. The police are to blame in any case, for they should have reasoned with the looters and initiated peace talks. HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING SINCE 9/11? Violence only breeds violence. If the power-elite has no trouble letting Martha Stewart loose on the innocent, might not the same conciliatory strategy quiet things down a bit in New Orleans?

Hello, America, how are you? Still getting dumber by the day?

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