Archive Listing
June 17, 2011 - June 10, 2011

Sunday, July 18, 2010

ELI, ELI, UH-OH! Has anyone else noticed that there have been quite a few end o' the world type of things floating around the media for the past few years? Have you also noticed that, aside from maybe the "Left Behind" novels, they spring primarily from the visionary progressive left? Of course you have. Duh. But have you also noticed that in each case there is a kind of celebratory longing for the destruction to hurry up and get here? It's a bleak, soul-crushing despair that says there's nothing we can possibly do to prevent the impending apocalypse, but out of this unavoidable badness will come a greater good. And if the greater good never comes, that's OK, too because we deserve whatever happens to us. To paraphrase what IP says in the link up there, thinking about this gives liberals a hard-on.

Like Denzel said in the Book of Eli: "People used to have too much. More than they needed. They forgot about what was precious to them." Poignant, no? Presumably Denzel is waxing poetic about the glory of living in a nuclear wasteland. Except that people in his world seem to not only have much less than they need, but have even further forgotten about what is precious to them, seeing as how there are roving bands of cannibals and what not. But we're not supposed to think that far ahead. We're merely supposed to think about the "tru-dat" of Denzel's words. We have more than we need in America, right? And we get so caught up in our capitalist pursuit of money that we often forget to remember what is precious to us, yeah? So wouldn't it be great if we had a nuclear holocaust or something and could start all over?

Well...no. Remember: cannibals. This thinking is very prevalent with the lefties, though. Take, for example, this op-ed piece from the WaPo (boldface added):

A.C.'s obvious public-health benefits during severe heat waves do not justify its lavish use in everyday life for months on end. Less than half a century ago, America thrived with only the spottiest use of air conditioning. It could again. While central air will always be needed in facilities such as hospitals, archives and cooling centers for those who are vulnerable to heat [WTF??], what would an otherwise A.C.-free Washington look like?

In a world without air conditioning, a warmer, more flexible, more relaxed workplace helps make summer a time to slow down again. Three-digit temperatures prompt siestas. Code-orange days mean offices are closed. Shorter summer business hours and month-long closings -- common in pre-air-conditioned America -- return.

...

Families unplug as many heat-generating appliances as possible. Forget clothes dryers --post-A.C. neighborhoods are crisscrossed with clotheslines. The hot stove is abandoned for the grill, and dinner is eaten on the porch.

Saying goodbye to A.C. means saying hello to the world. With more people spending more time outdoors -- particularly in the late afternoon and evening, when temperatures fall more quickly outside than they do inside -- neighborhoods see a boom in spontaneous summertime socializing.

Rather than cowering alone in chilly home-entertainment rooms, neighbors get to know one another. Because there are more people outside, streets in high-crime areas become safer [why not, right?]. As a result of all this, a strange thing happens: Deaths from heat decline. Elderly people no longer die alone inside sweltering apartments, too afraid to venture outside for help and too isolated to be noticed [because they are herded into the aforementioned "cooling centers"?]. Instead, people look out for one another during heat waves, checking in on their most vulnerable neighbors.

Well there you have it. Easy, peasy, jap-a-neezee. Nobody will have to go to work in the summer and instead can spend time grilling on the street with their neighbors, which will make crime go down since it only exists in the first place because all the good guys are in their apartments, cranking up the A.C. We know this because third world nations that don't have the option to use air conditioning are virtually crime free, yes? Can't wait to see his winter column talking about how you shouldn't heat your home, either. Maybe mass snowball fights will keep everybody warm. If you can manage to make your way through the entire article, it's hard not to come away with a sense that the author is - how shall I say - completely fucking nuts.

Is he, though? Perhaps not. I might be able to chalk it all up to insanity if he were the only one with these fantasies, but that's not the case. Here's a quick list of apocalyptic orgies, or what you might call "progressive porn":

• An Inconvenient Truth - It's not about saving the planet. It's about selling you on the belief that the planet deserves to get back at us since your mere existence is causing all the bad things that happen on the planet. And it's about meaning well.
  
• The Book of Eli - We've been over this one. [ED. NOTE. And now DocZero has. He likes it, he really likes it.]
• 2012 - Everything blows up. Just because. And it's probably your fault somehow because the Mayans knew about it.
• The Day After Tomorrow - Nature totally screws with everybody because Americans drive SUVs and George Bush is president.
  
• The Road - Everything blows up in an unspecified but probably nuclear event. If you are unlucky enough to survive, you'll trudge around with a rusty revolver and a shopping cart while trying to keep rednecks from raping and eating your eight year old son.
  
• George Romero movies - Everybody turns into zombies and eats you because of capitalism or something. Or maybe everybody is already zombies? In America, anyway. Deep, man. Pass the brains. *nom nom nom*
  
• 28 Days Later - Everybody turns into zombies because of an evil corporation. And some well-meaning animal rights activists.
• Resident Evil - See "28 Days Later" minus the well-meaning animal rights activists.
• Fallout - Everything blows up in a nuclear war not long after the Chinese invade Alaska. This one is at least somewhat plausible.
• Life After People - All the humans disappear just because. Thank Gaia. Join us on the History Channel as we jerk off to Western Civ falling apart one non-maintained skyscraper and highway overpass at a time.
• Aftermath - Basically the same thing as "Life After People", but Nat Geo was jealous they didn't think of it first.
• The Great Turning - You should be excited that the global economy is crashing down in flames. We all deserve it because of America and the Industrial Revolution. Then we can get back to basics like starving to death and dying of malaria.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Feel free to mention any glaring omissions in the comments. What I have never quite understood is, if all of these progs are so miserable and spend every waking moment fantasizing about humanity dying, why don't they just kill themselves? Some of them do, but a pitifully small percentage of them. Why do the rest of them feel the need to hang on to life and try to make us just as miserable as they are?

It's because these people think they are going to be spared the worst of whatever is coming. They know this because when Al Gore flies around on his private jet, he's really winking and sending a private message, ya know? "Don't worry, baby. I'm talking to 'them', not you." Same with the op-ed writer above: "some" places will still be allowed to run the air conditioner *wink, wink*. "Oh right, like my house and my social justice non-profit group's office" thinks the prog disciple. And even though Obama contradicts himself every time he opens his mouth, whichever sentence has the stuff these guys like is the one that must be true; he's only saying that other stuff to be political. So since they blame everybody else for their self-imposed misery, they think they'll get a front row seat to watch the payback happen to the rest of planet's population. Not them.

The progs think that they're going to be in a car with John Cusack, miraculously driving away from destruction. They're going to be the guy that gets away from the zombies and meets a hot chick in the process. They're not going to be the skeleton in the bombed-out car or the dead guy Denzel takes the shoes off of. They're going to be the lone wasteland wanderer, gallivanting around the rotten remnants of a capitalist society. However, there's not so much room in John Cusack's car, and the lone wasteland wanderer is a-lone, not part of a group. It's a little bit like a high school athlete fantasizing about and betting his whole future on becoming an NFL hall of fame player. It's probably not going to work out that smoothly. They haven't thought that far ahead yet and they probably never will.

InstaPunk touched on this issue a little bit already:

When the ultimate deathlord descends and decides that he will lead mankind to species-wide suicide, his most ardent followers will be half-smart, half-educated women who are absolutely committed to the cause. They will be eloquent, articulate, and totally f___ing nuts on his behalf. Why? Because a small percentage of women are wise and wonderful, but a far greater percentage are permanently, completely, absolutely OUT OF THEIR F____ING MINDS about absolutely f___ing everything. Especially their conviction that the deathlord loves them in the deepest possible way, even though they only see him on alternate Tuesdays.

But it's not only women, it's men, too. [ED. NOTE: The archives also contain this...] Including Stan Cox the op-ed writer, who is definitely batshit crazy. He and all the rest of them. They are all out of their fucking minds about everything. It's an important thing to remember.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go run my dryer with no clothes in it.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

KEEPING MY PROMISES. Not many wanted me to write this review. I know that. So I'll keep it short. Here are the contenders:


I guess what I have in mind isn't really a review. It's more a kind of liveblog long after the fact. Which would make it a deadblog. Sounds promising. So we watched all of them. Because it was so infernally HOT outside. And I honestly don't fully remember which was which in all cases.

Macy's had outstanding fireworks. I remember that. They went on and on, and they were gorgeous. The DC fireworks were also spectacular. I especially liked the fact that those two little windows at the top of the Washington Monument were lit. Why is it the little things that make you tear up? And I think -- I think -- it was the Macy's show that played all the verses of The Battle Hymn of the Republic. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It must have been the Macy's show, the stark incomprehensibility of hearing the name of Jesus Christ belted out in an unashamedly lavish patriotic display. As if New Yorkers are actually Americans. It sends shivers down the spine. Even now, as I write this so long after the fact.

The Philadelphia show was a mess. Some band with a lot of dreary grunge love songs. I mean, being from here, you want to like it. But you just can't. Awful is awful when all is said and done.

I wasn't expecting much more from the Boston show. But there I got two surprises. One good, the other just baffling. Probably the reason I'm writing this. I know a lot of conservatives love Toby Keith. Me, I'm agnostic on the Toby Keith question. Or I was anyway. Seems to me he's fallen into a lucky career thanks to his fortunate hit and Hannity support. But up there in Boston, that night, he sang his newest hit, "American Soldier," and I saw Marines and other military personnel singing along with him, tears streaming from their eyes. They knew all the lyrics and even I could see what he meant to them, that whatever his motives, he somehow understood them. So whatever it was I might have had against Toby Keith I no longer do.

The second surprise was Craig Ferguson. I can't figure this dude out. Which bugs me because he's a Scot and I think I should be able to figure out Scots. At least. But I've been seriously annoyed with Ferguson for a long time now. He was responsible for my first ever glimpse of Sarah Palin. Back when he was conducting his public campaign to get made a U.S. citizen faster than average. Which he did by actively soliciting "Honorary Citizen" status from every state, municipality, and village in the country. Palin played along and named him an honorary citizen of Alaska, and he was impressed. (Not that this accrues any particular merit to Scotland. The woman is a beauty.) But when she became the VP nominee, he did exactly the same kind of trashing of her everyone else was doing, and I wrote him off. Another Hollywood lefty. And NOT a gentleman, to boot. She'd done him a favor, and he was a cad in return.

It was Craig Ferguson (obviously) who presided over the Boston Pops Fourth. And I have to say I'm now totally mystified about who he is. He is a citizen of the United States. That happened some time ago. And his hosting of the event was actually moving. There was a singalong portion featuring all the patriotic songs, and there he was, unabashedly singing along next to Toby Keith, obviously, obviously, loving every patriotic lyric and moment of American belonging. And I'm watching with my jaw on the floor. Who the hell is this guy?

The easy answer to the Palin bashing I saw him do is that he's a dyed-in-the-wool Hollywood lefty. But if you want the United States to be a socialist paradise like Europe, why fight so hard and loudly to become a citizen of a country that's not enough like the one you left? A marriage of convenience maybe? You have a career here, as opposed to the slim pickings in Scotland? Okay. But then why put your newly American heart on your sleeve and sing along as if you really really love this new nation of yours? Exactly what is it about the United States you love, Craig?

The thing that would resolve the mystery is an apology to Sarah Palin. But I'm guessing that's not going to happen.

Therefore, the mystery remains. He's a Scot, a patriot, and a cad. Not unusual, but in this case a mystery nonetheless.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

BREAKING NEWS. Things are exploding right now. My wife is is figuring out how I can rejoin the newly recreated Boomer Bible Forum, courtesy of our old friend Null. That will happen. More importantly, I'm trying to figure out how I can set before you a lifetime of work, including The Boomer Bible, The Naked Woman, Shuteye Town, Shuteye Nation, and the maybe dozen books embedded here at InstaPunk. In the meantime a random shot into the void resurrected a totally vanished friend, an incredibly talented young man named Matthew. I asked if anyone remembered my speculation about time, and Matt did: He's still the smartest kid I know. Ever. Scary smart. Like a guy who'd hang onto this:



Let’s say we have a box of three-dimensional time. For any event E_n we can assign a location in the box based on three coordinates: X, Y, Z. Thus event E₁ is identified by coordinates X₁, Y₁, Z₁. Now: what attributes of an event require being called out uniquely and necessarily? Remember, there is no before or after here; the location information provided by the coordinates must constitute a replacement for the before and after, because before and after mandates cause and effect, which do not apply here. To explore this question, let’s imagine that event E1 is me striking the letter Q of the keyboard at my computer. To assign E1 a unique location, what do we need to know about it? First, I would suppose is the identification of the event; that is striking the letter Q, which gives it a unique identity on the axis called “What event”?, which we can designate as the X-axis. Next, to my view, would come the identifier Who; that is, from whose perspective the Q key was struck, which we can designate as the Y-axis. Is this sufficient information to give us a unique identifier? No. For it should be obvious that I have struck the Q key many many times. Yet, if I am declaring all events simultaneous, I cannot determine a third unique attribute by identifying a “when” in terms of before or after some number of other Q keystrokes by me. I must frame this third category of identifier very carefully. It is clearly a matter of defining context uniquely, but the cause and effect constraint complicates the question enormously. “Purpose” is not acceptable. “Physical location” is presumably identified by the other three dimensions, and does not allow us to distinguish between the numerous events of me striking the letter Q at this very keyboard on the second floor of Melanie’s house. Perhaps because it seems direct and simple, and perhaps because I am not smart enough, I choose to identify this third coordinate as corresponding to “which”; that is “which unique key,” was struck. I do so because at every instant, this key is identified uniquely in the same way that I am identified, as an entity in the “real world” which has a “right now state of being” different from every other apparent “right now state of being,” even if in the case of the key it is is a minuscule difference in weight, color, edge integrity, etc, associated with what we in chronological time would call “wear.”

The graphic [up top] is a primitive representation of the dimensionality we have been imagining. Note that an event does exist in three dimensions; that is, it has a shape featuring height, width, and depth. We can also imbue the shape with other attributes that correspond to the reality of human experience. An event may have color if we assign to each axis an illimitable spectrum of unique hues. Such hues may vary in intensity according to the brightness or lack of it that causes an event to be vividly perceived or hardly perceived at all. The shape may also have a weight/solidity that corresponds to impact; that is, its gravity to the agent and/or others who may perceive it, such that it takes precedence over the natural conformations of other events in nearby time-space.

It will be observed that the the choice of these dimensions is roughly analogous to syntax. The “Who” axis represents the subject, the “What” axis a verb or participial phrase, and the “Which” axis the direct object. I concede that the “What” does, in our example, seem to contain its own direct object; however, the syntax analogy still applies and neatly illustrates an important distinction: the “What” in this model is conceptual, i.e., striking a key, and the striking only becomes real when a unique key becomes the actual direct object of the “sentence” the event signifies. The inclusion of an apparent direct object in the “What” corresponds to the concept of a transitive verb, wheich, when it is used, brings into the sentence the requirement for a direct object to complete its meaning. Thus the direct object is implicit in the verb itself. The additional refinement here is that the concept may be more specific than a transitive verb; that is, in the time world of events, there are as many different verbs meaning “to strike” as there are things which can be struck.

Why is this distinction important? Because it is obvious from the graphic that not everything we might conceive of as an event requires coordinate information from all three axes. We must therefore consider the variations of events made possible by this observation. For example, it would be possible to have an Event Et that does not have a coordinate on the “Which” axis. On our graphic Et would still exist in time-space, but its shape would be two-dimensional. What would such an event be in reality? It would be the thought of “What” by a specific “Who”; in this case, my thought of striking the Q key without doing so. It does not acquire the three-dimensional reality of an actual keystroke, yet it exists as a thoughtform which may also have a color and intensity, and perhaps even a certain solidity.

Note that imagining a thought event allows us to refine our understanding of the role color may play in this time-space. For if every “Who” has its unique hue in the spectrum of all “Who hues,” then perhaps it is the case that this is the only color which is transparent to the percipient of an event. The significance of this will be clearer if we realize that an event like E1 or Et can, and almost always is, part of some larger event Ec; that is, an event which consists of multiple/innumerable sentences, such that its size is large, its shape complex, and its connections to other events manifold. The “What” of Ec might be “write a letter,” and the “which” might be this letter. This larger event does contain E1 within it, but E1 is not an event wholly observable by anyone but me. Thus, the enclosing form, shape and color of Ec would conceal the overall shape and size of E1 from everyone but me. Even so, attributes of E1 would be observable by other “whos”—specifically, the point at which E1 connects with the “which” axis—because Ec could not exist without E1. Not so for Et, which would be entirely invisible to everyone but me.

Returning to the matter of incomplete sentences, we can also postulate an event Ex, which has coordinates on the “What” and “Which” axes, but not on the “Who” axis. An example? A thunderstorm. Envisioning this on the graphic provokes an intriguing observation. It has the two-dimensional existence of a thought form, but differs by being oriented at an angle to that cannot be formed by a thought form; that is, all of its possible angles vary from a center that is perpendicular to the corresponding arc center of a thought form. Thus, we may caustiously assert that a real world event without a human agent is conceptually perpendicular to a thought that is not translated into a real world event.

Initially, this seems an oddity. A thunderstorm is a very vivid and spectacular event, but only if there is a “who” to perceive it. Thus, it is the consciousness of the observer which gives it its three-dimensionality and therefore its real size and weight. These are only latent in the event itself.

A corollary generalization is that this model does seem to confirm the relation posited by quantum physics between the conscious observer and reality. The thunderstorm does not fail to exist because there is no observer, but its existence is quite similar to that of a thought not acted upon.

The third possible variation of an event, coordinates for “Who” and “Which” but not “What” can also be displayed on this model, resulting in an arc center that is perpendicular to both the thought form and the agentless event. What is not clear, however, is the real experience such a two-dimensional form might represent. A verbless sentence? Or is this the realm of the verb to be, of identity itself? And is the “Which plane” also the home of Jung’s archetypes of the collective unconscious?

*****************

I wrote that years ago. I was smarter then. And dumber. Back then I thought it was possible to share ideas. Now I know different. But I still miss Matt.

PAYING THE DEBT DOWN. It's a strange feeling to want to like a movie so much and then not like it. That's where I am with this one.

Even the trailer is pompous. I know that people respond overwhelmingly to good intentions, and so I feel like a cad for stating the obvious. This is a bad movie. Sorry. Truly. Let me count the ways. [spoilers ahead...]

In the first place, it's a trick movie, like the Sixth Sense. They want you to go back and watch it again to see how you were fooled. But if your maguffin is the King James Bible, maybe you shouldn't be a trick movie with a pompous trailer.

Did they play fair? Sort of. And sort of not. By the end, I'd sort of left off admiring Denzel for wanting to make a movie about the Bible and started wondering if what he really wanted was to pull off the 'trick' by virtue of his stellar acting. Which is stellar by the way. We're huge Denzel fans here, and this movie is in no way a demerit or blot on his record. It's just not what we all wanted it to be.

That's the thing. It's rare that one word sums up a movie and constitutes an adequate review. This time, though, there's one word that works: 'Empty.'

So the USA gets nuked and everybody blames it on the Bible. Every single copy of the Bible but one is destroyed. Huh? Fugeddaboutit.That's the premise. Watch the pitcha. But wait. The "Da Vinci Code" survives and the Bible doesn't? Maybe you could pull that off in a well organized, not utterly destroyed totalitarian state with a lot of torture and executions and such. Maybe. Uh, probably not. Fugeddaboutit. It's the premise and we're really not supposed to be thinking about The Road Warrior.

Isn't that Mel person awful? Yes. But The Road Warrior was a much much better movie. Which you know because you keep being reminded of it as you watch The Book of Eli. Because of the more excitement, the less pompous plot, the more character-driven dramatization of the exact same theme, that kind of thing.

And, by the way, if your maguffin is the King James Bible, how about quoting from the actual, uh, King James Bible? If you've spent 30 years memorizing the thing, maybe you could remember the part about "restoreth my soul."

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sniping, right? Sharpshooting. We're SO happy that Hollywood has made a movie in which Christianity is not the villain that we're peeing ourselves with delight over Denzel's Defense of the Divine.

Hold your horses. Sometimes, small fissures are the signal of immense chasms. So it is here. The entire premise is anti-Christian and nihilistic. Think about it. The Bible is just a book. Without it, people are pure animals. Really? I don't think that's what the Bible is saying, but maybe that's just me.

But maybe it isn't just me. After all, it takes Denzel 30 years to understand the first principle of the New Testament he's spent all that time memorizing -- and he still gets it wrong. His reconfiguration of the Second Commandment is the lowest-common-denominator interpretation one could ever conceive of. He's a delusional thug.

What would Jesus do? Sorry. An imposition on my part. Jesus Christ is never mentiuoned in this movie. Apart from the mangled interpretation of the Second Commandment, there is no reference whatever to the New Testament. Throughout. And all we get of the Old Testament is a Revised Standard Version quotation from the 23rd Psalm.

But Christians are determined to like this movie. Because it doesn't actually make Jesus the villain. Fine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I liked the bleached cinematography. And I just loved the muslim iconography of the dying Denzel completing his memorization exercise in a white bedouin robe. (And the restraint of not having him wear the organ grinder monkey cap of imams immemorial on his deathbed.)

But I didn't love the shoe-horning of the King James Bible on the shelf between the already recovered Koran and the Hindi mess.I know it was meant as political correctness. But it was the bullshit that stinks up the whole picture. You can't take the Bible out of America, even by burning every copy. Which you just couldn't do. The Koran sitting there on the shelf ahead of the suddenly recovered Bible makes me mad. Nobody thought to burn all copies of the Koran when the world went away? Really?

Really?

ADDENDUM.  One review commitment down, so many more to go...

P.S. Sometimes the kids are smarter than their parents. Had to share this comment from the Brizoni:


I admit it. I'm getting old. Brizoni should take my place. And MATT if he'd only belly up to his responsibilities...

Monday, July 12, 2010

JEFFREY.24.1-23. All of us here at  InstaPunk have been deliberately avoiding in-depth political commentary of late because things are happening under the surface on many fronts, and it's impossible to make sense of therm on a day-to-day basis. It's very easy to outsmart yourself by drawing inferences from the movement of individual grains of sand. When it comes to sand, the question becomes: When do we reach a tipping point at which some variation on an avalanche occurs?

As far as I'm concerned, we're still building to the next tipping point. But a lot of sand grains are shifting.

Our incompetent congress is about to approve an Associate Supreme Court Justice whose career has been exclusively political, with experience in neither litigation nor judicial opinions. And regardless of spin, she is a radical lib, anti-military, pro-partial-birth abortion, and lefty elitist in all her associations. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice is in the process of trying to reconfigure the balance of powers under the Constitution by ramming its political agenda down the throats of individual American states and citizens in three different arenas:


All of these initiatives represent an anti-democratic opposition to the will of the American people as a whole or to the will of Americans in specific regions of the country. Overwhelming majorities of American citizens favor the Arizona law the DOJ can't even wait to go into effect before trying to preempt in a raw judicial power play. Overwhelming majorities of people in the Gulf states oppose the removal of a key high-employment industry from their local economies in a time of severe economic recession which for them, given the poorly managed spill response, threatens to become a long-term depression. And I will make the point, if it needs to be made, that a poll I haven't seen taken yet would also show the American people opposed to a federal legal policy of giving a total pass to black racism, intimidation, and registration fraud at the polls.

[Throughout, the administration, led rhetorically by this same DOJ, continues to pretend Islamic radicalism is not the source of terror attacks against the U.S., even while the normally amoral Euro-World exhibits a becoming frisson of distaste for the "death by stoning" sentence imposed on a muslim woman by nuclear-weapons-bound Iran.]

But the administration plows on, almost naked in its contempt for the Constitution and the citizenry. The president himself seems to become more acidly superior to any and all opponents of his will in his public utterances. He's taken to challenging reality itself by claiming economic improvements no one believes are occurring, His tone gets more scornful the farther his assertions get from reality. Why? I don't think there are any "conventional" political explanations that work. Which is why the typical pundits are at a loss. (Note that Newt Gingrich and Charles Krauthammer are finally arriving at conclusions articulated here before Obama even became president {not to mention after.}. In this respect, they're late to the game and probably falling further behind what's really going on.)

I hesitate to say what I'm thinking because I'm still waiting, waiting for more shoes to drop. But I also feel an obligation to share an outlandish hypothetical I haven't come to any decision about yet.

What if the Obama administration is pursuing a two-pronged strategy contrary to all previous political machinations in the history in the United States? What if it's seen as a PLUS by his minions that the Democrats lose both the house and the senate in the midterm elections? Even the worst case predictions give the Republicans nothing more than scant majorities in both houses of congress. Nothing that would amount to a threat to the president's veto power. Clinton used Gingrich's ascendancy after the '94 elections to make him the villain of contemplated government shutdowns. In fact, he used Gingrich's political success to destroy Gingrich's career. That was inspired defense. What if we're looking at now is inspired long-term offense? Obama might actually prefer a Republican congress he can depict as paralyzing, obstructive, and an irrelevant posturing distraction from the needs of the nation. Their majority, made impotent by his noncooperation and thunderingly self-righteous vetoes, might serve to demonstrate that the constitutionally equal branches of government are (and hence the Constitution itself) permanently broken and therefore obsolete.

Which leads us to the second prong of attack, already in motion. The courts supersede legislative functions at both the atate and federal level. They can rewrite the Constitution on the fly, overrule legislation (or rewrite it from the bench), ratify regulations written by bureaucrats who never have to receive congressional approval, and ultimately merge the executive with its handmaiden in beneficent black robes, even to the point of deciding an ugly, racially nasty, and automatically contested presidential election in 2012, when the prospect of an Obama defeat can be spun as an anarchical danger to the long U.S. tradition of smooth (non)transitions of power. "We can no longer trust the archaic constitutional process to serve us in a time of such immense national crisis." [No need for martial law or any appearance of a coup.] "The Department of Justice will investigate and make its determination of applicable law," said Robert Gibbs, as seconded by editorials in the NYT and WAPO and the anchors of CBS, NBC, and ABC. Everybody happy now?

Toss in the chaos of a deliberately provoked unilateral strike by undefended Israel against Iran -- and the resultant shock to the 'oil-addicted' economy of a U.S. more dependent than ever before in its history on muslim oil, and what do you have? The opportunity for more reforms, transformation, and CHANGE than anyone in the U.S. ever dreamed possible. Hell, we could even begin to achieve something like social justice (with an asterisk called Sharia).

But that's why we haven't been analyzing the drip-drip-drip of current events. We don't want to get ahead of ourselves.

We're thinking about it all, though. Just so you know.

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