Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Tweet of the Day
Saying we need to stop immigration until the welfare state is gone is like saying we need to ban relocation until the federal debt is erased
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 17, 2015
Putin on @realDonaldTrump: “He is a very outstanding man, unquestionably talented.” (Trump has endorsed Russian intervention in Syria.)
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 17, 2015
Glenn Beck is right: no Trump and no Clinton; the GOP may go the way of the Whigs. Note the Know Nothings had a role; Lincoln despised them.
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 18, 2015
@marcorubio :"We need more tools, not less tools [like the loss of the [valuable] metadata program]".We need more Constitutional protections
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 18, 2015
There is no evidence phone metadata collection has resulted in stopping any terrorism, contrary to @marcorubio. https://t.co/FzANNFlLMR
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 18, 2015
Throwing money at stopping immigration or terrorism is not the answer. Target diseases, not symptoms: restrictive policy; foreign meddling.
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) December 18, 2015
Image of the Day
Trump the Demagogue and Big Government Whore
My Favorite Traditional Christmas Song
Familiar readers know that my seventh-grade French class sang the French version in our performance of Le Jongleur de Notre Dame Here are a couple of arrangements I haven't heard before:
My Favorite Cable Christmas Movie Scenes: Angels and Ornaments
This movie, which is on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries rotation, is a fantasy Christmas romance. Without revealing the whole plot, let me summarize the context. Dave is a music store owner who employs a former high school classmate, Corrine. Dave has a secret crush on Corrine, who has been in an on-off relationship with bad boy cheater Tim; he is also an amateur poet.
The story takes shape as Corrine makes a wish for true love on a heirloom Christmas ornament, which was made by her grandfather Henry, a glassblower, in courting his future wife Emily. Henry was an amateur composer and left his pregnant wife to serve in the war. Instead of writing letters, he sent her sheet music for the music of his heart for his one true love--but the song was left unfinished when he died in the war. When Corinne was 7, she adapted a version of the famous poem "The Night Before Christmas" as a present for her grandmother.
The grandmother's ornament is in the form of carolers. Henry, in a role similar to Clarence in "It's a Wonderful Life", is an angel trying to make his way to heaven and his beloved Emily. His mission, in honor of his granddaughter's wish, is to connect Dave and Corrine, although he doesn't realize his own connection to Corrine. He takes the alias of Harold and his first encounter with Corrine is when he cames caroling in a group in front of her house, almost exactly like the ornament. Harold then takes a long-vacant Christmas season help job with Dave.
Oddly, Corrine doesn't put together a couple of pieces, like Harold's resemblance in a photo of her grandparents in her grandmother's scrapbook or his playing a composition at the store's piano remarkably consistent with her grandfather's unfinished song. Harold/Henry eventually visits Corrine after his angel supervisor criticizes him for not knowing Corrine and Dave better, spots his unfinished composition and thumbs through Emily's scrapbook; he knows but cannot reveal himself given the rules of his mission.
At the point of the first clip below, Corrine has become suspicious of Harold's cover story. Tim has reentered the picture, as Harold's attempts to mentor Dave into professing his love for Corrine seem constantly frustrated. Finally, after Corrine finally breaks things off with Tim, she walks past the store and overhears Harold/Henry playing his completed composition.
In the second clip, Dave finally makes his big move to win Corrine's heart. Corrine, earlier in the movie, has lost the competition for the solo performance at the Christmas concert. Dave writes lyrics for Henry's composition in the context of Corrine's above-cited gift to her grandmother and persuades the concert director to make the finished song a surprise solo performance for Corrine.
Guest Post Comment: Last night's GOP debate: Donald Trump, Republican Party win big
It's utterly absurd to argue that Trump "won" the debate. In my blog, I've published one-off posts analyzing each debate (the fifth debate writeup is in process) and Trump has not only lost each debate--he has been last or next to last on each scorecard, and he was easily the worst Tuesday. Now, granted, I'm not favorably disposed to Trump--he's an unqualified, unprincipled, ill-tempered, inexperienced, economic-illiterate, uncivil, self-serving demagogue which is obvious to anyone intelligent--but a debate is not a popularity contest, and this post and others on this blog treat it as one, treating the unscientific convenience polling (especially self-selected Internet "polls") as legitimate. All it proves is that a number of the Trump cultists, including editors of this blog, are more motivated.
No, just about everything out of Trump's mouth is a political soundbite or some ad hominem attack against other candidates or the media. This guy is willing to say whatever is takes to win votes, worse than Clinton's finger-in-the-wind politics. He doesn't have a clue about policy; he makes promises that are illegal and/or unconstitutional. For the most part he has been marginalized, especially starting with the second debate, rarely in any substantive discussion on policy that goes beyond a soundbite we've already heard 100 times. In fact, part of his shtick is anti-intellectualism, not exactly new in American politics. He draws the bulk of his support from the lesser educated, who know him primarily as a television celebrity. He has flip-flopped on just about every issue (his latest populist stunt is to call for execution of cop killers, not even a federal issue except in very nuanced circumstances like going after drug lords), even most recently in the discussion of Syrian refugees, which he initially favored and then migrated to a position of promising to kick out any existing ones as well. He may have "won" in the eyes of those who would support him no matter what--something we call a halo effect; but if you're one of the 70% who do not support him, there was nothing he did or said which convinced you to support him. In fact, there were points during the debate where he was clearly rattled (e.g., some booing from the crowd) and looked like a fish out of water.
Guest Post Comment: Cast your vote now for the worst Christmas song — ever
[It looks like Acton Institute hasn't approved my comment on the post, at least within the first hour of posting. Acton Institute is a free market Catholic portal which I've cited, primarily in video clips. Usually pro-liberty blogs are empathetic to privacy concerns, but here is my choice, whether or not Acton approves it:]
"Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town". I'm not into the idea of bribing children to be good. But in particular, I find the verses "He sees you when you're sleeping/He knows when you're awake/He knows if you've bad or good/So be good for goodness sake" are rather creepy.
Fair Use
Hall of Shame: Anti-Semitic FBI Poster from 1909
HT: PG Eddington on Twitter
Political Humor: Trump "Writes" a Children's Book
It starts later in the clip.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall |
Faith Hill, "Where Are You, Christmas?"
