baldilocks

Fausta's Show

I made my third "appearance" on Fausta's BlogTalkRadio show today. It will be up for your listening pleasure tomorrow at 8AM PDT/11 EDT.

It was the first time that I forced myself to listen critically to my speaking and I must say that my public speaking skills have gone down the tubes. That will have to be remedied.

Of Interest, August 27, 2008

• Chris Muir's Day by Day needs your assistance. I don't think that the pay-off it too obscure.

• La Shawn Barber, who did a great deal of work to chronicle the Duke Lacrosse Saga, notes that Crystal Mangum—the woman who falsely accused three Duke University lacrosse players of raping her—has a book coming out on October 1. My comment: it seems that everyone involved in that case has paid for Mangum’s lies except Mangum herself.

• The Donovan does the DNC by proxy: Different women, same politics.

• Mocking the Left: Who better to identify the art of Bravo Sierra than a former Soviet agitprop pooper? And it most certainly is art.

• What is it with Obama fans and Classic Star Trek imagery? (See the other example here.) VDH isn’t laughing.

• Amanda Carpenter posts three lecture videos featuring a Khalid al Mansour—an apparent adherent to the Nation of Islam creed. But is he the same Khalid al Mansour who civil rights icon Percy Sutton says helped Barack Obama get into Harvard Law School? Richard Fernandez investigates.

• And Matty O’Blackfive, Jimbo, Marc Danziger, NZ Bear and Mary Katharine Ham visit that deep, dark place that is the HQ and genesis of every Right-Wing Plot--Blackwater—and they don’t invite me.

What I'm Reading, July 7, 2008

Bloggy version.

• Criticism for the National Black Republican Association for the 'Racist Democrats' ad from Harry R. Jackson Jr. at Townhall (via Hip Hop Republican).

• Patterico Wants You.

Help me compile a full list of Obama’s flip-flops.

Leave a comment fully documenting one or more flip-flops. Links are critical.

Neo-neocon says that it doesn't matter.

His only deep commitment is to becoming President, and that he has not compromised.

• Get out of Africa or it will perish...instructions for the UN.

Climate change? Bullsh*t. The UN is killing Africa by coddling butchers like Mugabe and hyping a “problem” that we barely understand. What’s worse, [UN Secretary-General Ban-ki] Moon wants the wealthiest nations in the world, which are in the best position to help Africa, to demolish their economies to “solve” the problem. That’s beyond ignorant. It’s reckless.

Preach it.

• So what does it indicate if a black person doesn't like watermelon? Wait. Forget I asked. (Via Instapundit)

• Why your love for America isn't like your love for your Mother.

American patriotism is fundamentally of a different class than all other patriotisms, because [...] it is not founded on a place, nor on a heritage, but on a set of ideas, to which any may freely subscribe.

If true, then the patriotism of some can indeed be questioned.

Two Years It's Been

And it seems like yesterday.

I missed the anniversary (June 26th) of the death of my friend Rob Smith aka Acidman, but I don't think he would care. It wasn't his style to get all in a snit about such things. That's why I liked him.

His blog remains updated, using reposts of his excellent missives and the repeats garner few comments; however, on the day in question there are many tributes to that crazy "old" man. Go and see.

Listen to Fausta's Podcast Tomorrow!

Tomorrow at 8AM PDT (11AM EDT), I'll be talking with the lovely Fausta Wertz on her Blog Talk Radio Show. I'll put up another reminder in the morning.

The subject is Obama, of course.

Form of Flattery...or Something

I found this site because of a link to the post 'Over the Side.' When I checked it out, the posts seemed strangely familiar.

Glenn says that it doesn't belong to him. So is this site an aggregator or is the proprietor merely a thief?

New Media Support

I do need your support, but if it comes down to a choice, I'd rather you hit Bill Ardolino's tip jar than mine; he's going back to Iraq.

I'm going to Baghdad next week to embed with the 2/1 Stryker Cavalry Regiment operating in and around Sadr City. The showdown between the Mahdi Army and US and Iraqi government forces is currently the most important story in Iraq being covered (and miscovered) by the mainstream press, and I'd like to provide an accurate, on-the-ground perspective.

Why Ask Why?

Over at the blog iSteve, Steve Sailer has been blogging Obama for some time. He happened to come upon the work I've done regarding the situation in Kenya, featured it and, as a result, I'm getting a nice little traffic upswing. Thanks and I take my not-wig off to you, sir.

Steve finds it fascinating that Obama and I managed to develop polar opposite political philosophies while having frighteningly similar (but obviously not the same) origins. But long-time readers of this blog will know that our political philosophies were not so opposite once upon a time.

I don't know why I went one way and Obama went the other. Some might think that his Ivy League education is the factor. Perhaps. However, I suspect that there are three additional issues which make up part of the difference: 1) my upbringing was not foreign (his was partially), 2) I grew up without the type of identity crises which the senator seems to have experienced* and 3) my parents are still around for me to argue with.

But, of course, these factors by themselves or even considered as a whole don't necessarily lead to conservatism. Sometimes the answers to such questions aren't immediately at hand. Sometimes the answer is--Grace.

[Re-edited with more caffeine]

*IMO, this is due to his being biracial. Now, careful. I'm not saying that all--or even most--biracial persons experience this. But his biracial-ness coupled with the fact that both parents essentially abandoned him had to cause him to ask "who am I" for quite some time.

Caution: Women Blogging

John Hawkins profiles five popular bloggers of the distaff persuasion and poses several variations of that musical question of whether it's hard out here for a chick.

As for me, I don't get a lot of nasty email, nor too many ugly comments regarding my gender or my race, especially since I moved my photo down "below the fold." (On the down side, when I do get them, they're infuriating.) Having a handle that seems masculine helps to alleviate this. Many people aren't inclined to read my "About" page, where my obviously female given name appears.

But even when I had my pic at the top, I received scant verbal abuse. Perhaps there's some about a nearly bald black woman which discourages such behavior.

Another advantage of having my pic at the top on the front page: I got more traffic. But I decided to leave the photo where it is and let my words do the communication. Everything is a trade-off.

However, I may change my mind twenty to thirty pounds from now. :-)

Of Interest

A rare, non-Kenya round-up...well, almost.

While President Bush meets with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Crawford, Texas, a Crawford grandma almost turns a Danish report into Swiss cheese. The whining in the comments is hilarious. (Thanks to Memorandum)

That lady isn’t the only grandma who needs to be monitored more closely by her offspring.

Barack Obama praises Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) for reading the NIE and voting against the Iraq War Resolution. One problem with this: Rockefeller voted yea on the resolution.

Christopher Hitchens departs pleasantly from political fare and enumerates some of the hazards of being a bibliophile. I empathize and have another one to add in a subsequent post.

Having been originally handed the novel No Country for Old Men by his wife, Actor and Conservative Brotherhood member Joseph C. Phillips reviews the Oscar-nominated movie. Observes Phillips: “There is clearly a side to my wife that I do not know.” Good going, Mrs. Phillips!

Oh the Humanity! (Blame Nice Deb)

I bet when someone looks up USMC or Marine in an encyclopedia, that there’s a photo of this guy. Well done, sir.

The Moderate Muslim—not so mythical after all. Michael Totten:

Almost no mention is given to the Kurds of Iraq who are just as Islamic as the Arabs in that country, and who purged Islamists root and branch from every inch of their autonomous region. “We will shoot them or break their bones on sight,” one Kurdish government official told me. More people have been murdered by Islamists in Spain than in their region of Iraq in the last five years. Such people can hardly be thought of as passive.

And finally, a missing perspective on the Obama-in-Somali-garb flap, from a Newsday columnist named Katti Gray—another black woman who chooses to look like herself. Read the first comment also.

UPDATE: Ouch! (Psst! Dude, they have cordless phones!)