First World Problems

Via Brutally Honest

Pointed and brutally honest.  A must see.

xtnyoda, shalomed

I Am Sin

H/T to  Brutally Honest

xtnyoda, shalomed

The Con

"Pretty is cherished. Hotness, on the other hand, is a commodity."

This thoughtful rendering taken from Brutally Honest

Pat Archbold laments the loss of pretty:

Once upon a time, women wanted to project an innocence. I am not idealizing another age and I have no illusions about the virtues of our grandparents, concupiscence being what it is. But some things were different in the back then. First and foremost, many beautiful women, whatever the state of their souls, still wished to project a public innocence and virtue. And that combination of beauty and innocence is what I define as pretty.

By nature, generally when men see this combination in women it brings out their better qualities, their best in fact. That special combination of beauty and innocence, the pretty inspires men to protect and defend it.

Young women today do not seem to aspire to pretty, they prefer to be regarded as hot. Hotness is something altogether different. When women want to be hot instead of pretty, they must view themselves in a certain way and consequently men view them differently as well.

As I said, pretty inspires men’s nobler instincts to protect and defend. Pretty is cherished. Hotness, on the other hand, is a commodity. Its value is temporary and must be used. It is a consumable.

Nowhere is this pretty deficit more obvious than in our “stars,” the people we elevate as the “ideal.” The stars of the fifties surely suffered from the same sin as do stars of today. Stars of the fifties weren’t ideal but they pursued a public ideal different from today.

The merits of hotness over pretty is easy enough to understand, they made an entire musical about it. Who can forget how pretty Olivia Newton John was at the beginning of Grease. Beautiful and innocent. But her desire to be desired leads her to throw away all that is valuable in herself in the vain hopes of getting the attention of a boy. In the process, she destroys her innocence and thus destroys the pretty. What we are left with is hotness.

Hotness is a consumable. A consumable that consumes as it is consumed but brings no warmth.

Most girls don’t want to be pretty anymore even if they understand what it is. It is ironic that 40 years of women’s liberation has succeeded only in turning women into a commodity. Something to be used up and thrown out.

Of course men play a role in this as well, but women should know better and they once did. Once upon a time you would hear girls talk about kind of women men date and the kind they marry. You don’t hear things like that anymore

But here is the real truth. Most men prefer pretty over hot.

I can't help but think that a piece like this would be seen by most as prudish and puritanical. It's sad but true. I found it to hit the nail on the head though maybe I need to come to grips with the fact that I'm simply an old prude. Not sure. I really do however think that most men prefer pretty over hot, at least those men who are looking for life long mates.

The piece finishes with a plea for girls to bring back pretty.

To that I give a hearty amen.

H/T Brutally Honest

Happy Birthday Marines, Semper Fi!

By tim, The Godless Heathen

Gen. James F. Amos, Commandant of the Marine Corps and Sgt. Maj. Micheal P. Barrett, Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps present the 236th Marine Corps birthday message and honor the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and how the events shaped the lives of Marines past and present.



Semper Fidelis and Happy Birthday my fellow Devil Dogs!

And with tim, the Godless Heathen, I join in saying, happy birthday Marines!

Semper Fi!

xtnyoda, shalomed

"We are standing upon a precipice"

Brutally Honest has shared an important article about the current condition we are in, and the spiritual reasons for our condition.

The Anchoress is conducting a root cause analysis on America's troubles:

Last week Mark Steyn wrote, “America is seizing up before our eyes,”and that is a spot-on image. She is like a brilliantly conceived machine that, poorly maintained for more years than any of us cares to admit, has gone too long untuned; the oil of her invention has thinned out and broken down and now bit-by-bit, gear-by-gear—economically, socially, spiritually—she is making an ungodly noise and grinding to a halt.

And yet people want optimism. They crave it, especially when a president is telling one half of the country that it is “time to eat your peas” while simultaneously encouraging another half to take to the streets and demand more dessert. “Where is our Ronald Reagan,” is a phrase that rises with alarming frequency, in some comboxes, and it always unsettles me to see it, because it seems so determinedly obtuse; if we can just find someone exactly like the president from thirty years ago, we will be alright. If only someone will smile and tell us it is morning in America, again, and the city has not slid down the hill!

There are probably ten thousand articles to be found on the Internet all fleshing out their theories of what is behind America’s swift collapse. Curiously, most of them will touch—all without realizing it—on the seven deadly sins; Capitalist Greed; Spiritual Sloth; Physical Lust; Nationalist/Military Pride; Consumer Gluttony; Partisan Wrath; Class Envy. Good arguments can be made blaming some are all of these sins for our current dire straits and for the sense that we are standing upon a precipice.

But I wonder if it is not the first and greatest sin named by Yahweh and given to Moses, that is most at fault: the sin of idolatry. We have loved ourselves so well; we have denied ourselves nothing and placed too much of what we love between ourselves and God; we have cherished mere things or other people; over-identified with ideas or ideologies and made an afterthought of God, who will not be mocked.

...

Contemplating the drop from our trembling heights is dizzying. We are safer on our knees. Even so, if we are going to survive what is before us, we’ll have to cast off our idols and cling to something else, without despair. And it will have to be something that can bear us up when all about us goes into collapse. Something like a rock; something that has managed to continue even as one government after another, one nation after another, one trend after another, has been swept away. Something that is promised to prevail.

Wise, very wise, words.

Heed them friend.

And all I can add is, Amen.

xtnyoda, shalomed

The "Unconsciousness" of Occupy Wall Street

Brutally Honest shares a great, brief, video revealing Rockford's take on the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters ... disposition.



"Practically unconscious 24 hours a day!"

Classic commentary.

xtnyoda, shalomed

Korea Has Talent

via Brutally Honest.

Watch it.

xtnyoda, shalomed

Hamas' Quick Response to Obama Speech

I really don't understand efforts to appease terrorists? Evidently ... terrorists don't understand it either.

.... Today, we find that Obama's outreach to Middle East peace isn't sitting well with those who might soon share power with the Palestinian Authority

Abu_zuhri_sami: President Barack Obama's Mideast policy speech Thursday was a "total failure," Hamas said Thursday evening.

"The (Arab) nation does not need a lesson on democracy from Obama," said Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip, Sami Abu-Zuhri. "Rather, Obama is the one who needs the lesson given his absolute endorsement of Israel's crimes and his refusal to condemn Israel's occupation."

"We will not recognize the Israeli occupation under any circumstances," the Hamas spokesman said, while adding: "We object to intervention in our internal affairs." .....

Brutally Honest full article

Who is advising this President to do such a thing? Do they really think/believe that offering a little sliver of a "fig leaf" is going to bring "peace" to a region like the Mid-East? I mean ... wishful thinking is one thing ... but ... this is like madness. We are not dealing here with some fancy social experiment ... we are dealing with unmitigated evil.

xtnyoda, shalomed

The Maple Kind?

A MUST SEE! from Brutally Honest. Prepare to laugh.

Vindication

By tim, The Godless Heathen, via Brutally Honest

When the loudest critic of your policies achieves his greatest success because of them.

The secret to targeted assassinations abroad...

The secret revealed by Brutally Hones is having a liberal in the White House.

So surmises Victor Davis Hanson and it's a point extremely tough to counter:

This neutralizes criticism from the media, universities, the legal community, and Hollywood. Obama the law professor can assassinate bin Laden in Pakistan, dump his body in the ocean, and with first-person emphasis boast of our brilliant mission in a way Bush the Texan could not get away with—in the same manner that killing the son of Qaddafi, and the effort to kill Qaddafi himself, are not really forbidden targeted assassinations under Obama, and in the manner that Guantánamo, tribunals, renditions, preventive detentions, Predators, wiretaps, and intercepts that so bothered Senator Obama and others are now deemed essential. This paradox is just the way it is; the media will report a liberal president’s Predator drone attack or commando hit as done with reluctance and without other viable choices. Were a conservative leader to take the same actions, he would be portrayed as a trigger-happy war-monger reveling in the violence. Thus, the street celebrations that ensued when news ofbin Laden ’s death broke are seen by the media as a new unity inspired by Obama. Three years ago, they would have been seen as macabre triumphalism.

Of course, there are pockets out there who still see macabre triumphalism in the street celebrations that took place but there's no media frenzy about it, no plethora of editorials decrying the behavior, no 60 Minutes exposé lamenting how backwards and neanderthal we've become. And no real criticism aimed at actions engaged in by this President for which Bush would've been excoriated.

As 2012 approaches, we'll see more if it, guaranteed.

Might more Americans notice the duplicity.

Is the Bible Reliable?

Reclaiming The Mind

What Pi Soiunds Like!

H/T to BroKen at Brutally Honest!

"Enough oil to COMPLETELY REPLACE all imports"

Tom Flake, posting over at Brutally Honest ... has done his home work and has make a remarkable discovery about our actual oil capability right here in the continental United States.

Believe me ... you will want to follow the link and read his entire post ... graphs and all.

By Tom Flake

My mother recently forwarded me one of those emails that make the rounds either offering some amazing discovery or incredible wealth creation by working with someone in Nigeria. In this case it was an email that had apparently been around for quite some time, claiming that the United States had vast quantities of oil, more than the entire Middle East and more than enough to wean us off of Middle East oil and its attendant problems.

It didn't pass the smell test, so I went to Snopes.com the urban myth debunkers and did some research. This presented a problem. While Snopes took the position that the email was bunk, their article seemed to confirm some of what was in the email. So I did additional research and found some amazing facts.

Tom Flake at Brutally Honest

You will probably even be motivated to do something about what you read ... I certainly just have.

Consider and Ponder.

xtnyoda shalomed

Now it's Sarkozy

This via Brutally Honest

On Monday, I referred to the lessons from Europe coming our way via Britain and before that Germany.

It's France's turn:

Sarkozy French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared Thursday that multiculturalism had failed, joining a growing number of world leaders or ex-leaders who have condemned it.

"My answer is clearly yes, it is a failure," he said in a television interview when asked about the policy which advocates that host societies welcome and foster distinct cultural and religious immigrant groups.

"Of course we must all respect differences, but we do not want... a society where communities coexist side by side.

"If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome in France," the right-wing president said.

"The French national community cannot accept a change in its lifestyle, equality between men and women... freedom for little girls to go to school," he said.

"We have been too concerned about the identity of the person who was arriving and not enough about the identity of the country that was receiving him," Sarkozy said in the TFI channel show.

Hope in Europe.

Might it emigrate here.

Good Intentions and the road to Hell

Shamelessly taken from Brutally Honest

There is some pretty good discussion going on regarding the below video that is posted over at Brutally Honest. I thought some pretty salient points are being made that we would and should consider on the call for repealing obamacare.



Here are a few of the responses to the gentle-woman's statement that obamacare is mandated by the constitution.

.... “This bill as been vetted, this bill is constitutional…”

Yea, it was vetted so much that the then Speaker of the House, Pelosi, said “We had to pass the (healthcare) bill so we can know what’s in it”.

As far as being constitutional, that will be decided, but as of today there are 26 state attorney generals who think otherwise.

“…and it protects the constitutional rights of those who ask the question - ‘Must I die, must my child die, because now I am disallowed from getting insurance?’

Disallowed? Who’s “disallowed” from getting insurance?

I missed the part where the constitution says - “Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and healthcare”. Maybe Rep. Lee has a different copy than mine. Never mind that it’s in the Declaration of Independence.

Posted by: tim akak The Godless Heathen | Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 03:15 PM

It is interesting when Healthcare is proposed as a "right". If it is a right, it is unique amongst the other rights listed in the Bill of Rights. You know, that curious portion of the Constitution that is actually in the Constitution.
What I mean by unique amongst all other rights is that while:

You have a Right to Freedom of Religion, the government doesn't provide Bibles.
You have a Right to Assembly but the government doesn't provide halls in which to do it.
You have a Right to bear arms, but the government doesn't buy you a firearm and ammunition.
You have a Right to freedom of the press but the government doesn't buy you a printing press and ink.

You get the picture, by putting forth the notion that healthcare is a right, those who do so are also putting forth the notion that, at the point of a gun, the government has an obligation to take your children's money (you see yours is all gone) and give it to you neighbor to treat their erectile disfunction, pay for their abortion or otherwise pay for services that they cannot afford.....

Posted by: Tom Flake | Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 04:19 PM

Those who put forth the notion that "health care" is a "right" are positing that one person has the "right" to another persons time and treasure. How does this jibe with the notion that one of the inalienable rights is the right to liberty? If you claim, as your "right", the fruits of MY labor (be they money paid in taxes, OR my professional skills, if I am in the medical field), does that not make me, at least in part, your slave?

Posted by: Shifty1

Interesting comments, insightful comments, and interesting days ahead.

We'll see how long the 'progressives' stay 'civil' as the debate heats up... and obamacare is either voted down or stripped on any financial resource.

Thanks for the discussion men.

xtnyoda, shalomed

"There's a climate of hate out there, all right..."

Brutally Honest has a pointed editorial about the instant blame game going on against conservatives... attributing guilt for Saturdays shootings.

Glenn Reynolds at The Wall Street Journal:

There's a climate of hate out there, all right, but it doesn't derive from the innocuous use of political clichés. And former Gov. Palin and the tea party movement are more the targets than the source.

American journalists know how to be exquisitely sensitive when they want to be. As the Washington Examiner's Byron York pointed out on Sunday, after Major Nidal Hasan shot up Fort Hood while shouting "Allahu Akhbar!" the press was full of cautions about not drawing premature conclusions about a connection to Islamist terrorism. "Where," asked Mr. York, "was that caution after the shootings in Arizona?"

Set aside as inconvenient, apparently. There was no waiting for the facts on Saturday. Likewise, last May New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and CBS anchor Katie Couric speculated, without any evidence, that the Times Square bomber might be a tea partier upset with the ObamaCare bill.

So as the usual talking heads begin their "have you no decency?" routine aimed at talk radio and Republican politicians, perhaps we should turn the question around. Where is the decency in blood libel?

To paraphrase Justice Cardozo ("proof of negligence in the air, so to speak, will not do"), there is no such thing as responsibility in the air. Those who try to connect Sarah Palin and other political figures with whom they disagree to the shootings in Arizona use attacks on "rhetoric" and a "climate of hate" to obscure their own dishonesty in trying to imply responsibility where none exists. But the dishonesty remains.

To be clear, if you're using this event to criticize the "rhetoric" of Mrs. Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you're either: (a) asserting a connection between the "rhetoric" and the shooting, which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie; or (b) you're not, in which case you're just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible. Which is it?

Which is it indeed. Wouldn't it be great to hear progressives answer the question especially before they publish yet another hit piece against Sarah Palin, the Tea Party or whomever else it is they reserve their venom for?

Fat chance.

I Accuse

This today from Brutally Honest.

What follows is written by Hani Shukrallah, presumably a Muslim. May there be more who think like this amongst Islam:

We are to join in a chorus of condemnation. Jointly, Muslims and Christians, government and opposition, Church and Mosque, clerics and laypeople – all of us are going to stand up and with a single voice declare unequivocal denunciation of al-Qaeda, Islamist militants, and Muslim fanatics of every shade, hue and color; some of us will even go the extra mile to denounce salafi Islam, Islamic fundamentalism as a whole, and the Wahabi Islam which, presumably, is a Saudi import wholly alien to our Egyptian national culture.

...

I am no Zola, but I too can accuse. And it’s not the blood thirsty criminals of al-Qaeda or whatever other gang of hoodlums involved in the horror of Alexandria that I am concerned with.

I accuse a government that seems to think that by outbidding the Islamists it will also outflank them.

I accuse the host of MPs and government officials who cannot help but take their own personal bigotries along to the parliament, or to the multitude of government bodies, national and local, from which they exercise unchecked, brutal yet at the same time hopelessly inept authority.

I accuse those state bodies who believe that by bolstering the Salafi trend they are undermining the Muslim Brotherhood, and who like to occasionally play to bigoted anti-Coptic sentiments, presumably as an excellent distraction from other more serious issues of government.

But most of all, I accuse the millions of supposedly moderate Muslims among us; those who’ve been growing more and more prejudiced, inclusive and narrow minded with every passing year.

I accuse those among us who would rise up in fury over a decision to halt construction of a Muslim Center near ground zero in New York, but applaud the Egyptian police when they halt the construction of a staircase in a Coptic church in the Omranya district of Greater Cairo.

I’ve been around, and I have heard you speak, in your offices, in your clubs, at your dinner parties: “The Copts must be taught a lesson,” “the Copts are growing more arrogant,” “the Copts are holding secret conversions of Muslims”, and in the same breath, “the Copts are preventing Christian women from converting to Islam, kidnapping them, and locking them up in monasteries.”

I accuse you all, because in your bigoted blindness you cannot even see the violence to logic and sheer common sense that you commit; that you dare accuse the whole world of using a double standard against us, and are, at the same time, wholly incapable of showing a minimum awareness of your own blatant double standard.

And finally, I accuse the liberal intellectuals, both Muslim and Christian who, whether complicit, afraid, or simply unwilling to do or say anything that may displease “the masses”, have stood aside, finding it sufficient to join in one futile chorus of denunciation following another, even as the massacres spread wider, and grow more horrifying.

This is good and necessary stuff. Most good and most necessary.
Do read it all. Do pass it on.

I agree with Rick... we need more of the same from about 1 billion Muslims... and about 5 billion other humans.

xtnyoda, shalomed