Garden pictures

I finally got around to taking some pictures of the garden.  It's early in the season, but later on the contrast will be striking.

First, the potato patch:

I've planted 120 potato plants, and today I covered the entire area with bio-degradable  mulch.  It looks like plastic, but it's made of corn products.  I've used it before, among my tomato plants, but this is the first time I've tried it with the potatoes.  When the plants start to come up, I'll cut holes for them to emerge, and poke some holes for water to get down to the plants.  Mostly, I want to block all the weeds that constantly form in the lanes between the rows.  I've got bags of shredded dry leaves in the shed, and they help a lot, but the weeds still find their way into the garden.  Plus, I don't apply the leaves until the potato plants get to be about a foot high.  Now I hope that the dry leaves on top of the black mulch will block the weeds AND protect the potatoes from exposure to the sun.

Way at the back are also two hills, where I've planted canteloup and butternut squash.  Later on, at the very back, I'm going to plant garden huckleberries.

This is the "old" garden; I'm going to plant tomatoes and jalapeno peppers here, but the plants are still too small.  The rhubarb is at the end, and that's an apple tree at the back.  The teepee is for pole beans; must get those seeds planted soon.

This is my pink currant bush.  Doing very well this year!  The red and black currants are behind it, and the raspberries are hidden on the right hand side - they're still only about a foot high.

Another currant bush, propagated from the main one, which I transplanted up among the flowers.  Those are columbines and forget-me-nots growing in front of it.

The deck, with the lilac bush in full bloom behind it.

Rhubarb

The first produce from the garden for this year: rhubarb!

 My two rhubarb plants in the old garden are doing very well. Unfortunately, I lost the third plant, which is up by the shed.

 Last winter, I dug it up, intending to take it to the greenhouse at the school so we could try forcing it in the spring. However, the walk-in fridge in the greenhouse wasn't working, so we didn't have the cold, dark conditions necessary. I figured I'd take it back home again (in the plastic tub in which I'd planted it) and put it in our cold cellar. However, the tub was too heavy for me to move, so once I'd hauled it out of the back of my van, I left it sitting on the driveway, and it FROZE to the ground! I couldn't budge it and so it sat there all winter! When spring finally came, I discovered that it had died. This year I'm planting a rose in its place. Two rhubarb plants are enough for us, anyway.


Yesterday I picked some rhubarb and made a pie:

We watched The Thirty-Nine Steps, the 1978 version with Robert Powell and David Warner. A very good adaptation. Dean has never liked the Hitchcock version because it departs too far from the original novel. This one is much more faithful, though even it changes the ending to make it more visually dramatic.

Cheery animal videos

This is the sort of day when you need some cheering up, so here are a few animal videos: A squirrel interrupts a college baseball game. Squirrel Man to the rescue!

And my sister sent me this one; it's by the same guys who did the great Dog Tease video a year ago or so. Different dog, but you can tell the voices are the same:




"Snakes? Blech!"

Spring Fever

Literally.  James came down with some kind of 24-hour flu bug last night.  Starting at 8:00 PM, he vomited at one-hour intervals until about 6:30 this morning.  Dean and I were shattered this morning - we must have gotten about 3 hours' sleep altogether.  Pretty near every towel in the house was soiled, along with sheets, blankets, pillows and me.

I got up with him around 4:50 this morning, because I could tell there was little chance of him actually being able to stay in bed.  I figured I might as well do some laundry, because the weather outside is beautiful this week and it's a perfect opportunity to dry towels on the clothesline.  I think he vomited once or twice more - and he doesn't bother waiting until he gets to the toilet either, by the way.  It was all over the floor, the bed, anywhere he happened to standing or lying.

He finally conked out at about 7:30, and slept nearly all day.  I think he's over the worst of it, and hope he'll be OK tomorrow.

Of course, he couldn't go to school, so that meant I couldn't do my WAVE program composting today.  I'd warned them before I started that James was always the weak link in the plan; if he has to stay home, then so do I, because Emma can't possibly look after him for a whole day.  But I took Thomas out for his day program - better to have him out of the house, and hopefully he and the rest of us won't catch this bug. UPDATE: Thomas came down with the flu Saturday morning, and I got it Saturday evening. Feeling OK now, though my muscles are sore. Don't know if it's because of the flu or because I rototilled the garden during the day. This flu sneaks up on you with no warning - I was working in the garden in the afternoon, feeling fine, then it knocked me off my feet at 5:00.

"I wasted time, and now doth time waste me"

On the radio this morning, I heard the morning lady describe the effect on the Boston Marathon bombings on her little girl.  The child was worried, asking questions like "Why would someone do this?"  Naturally, the parents reassured her that she was safe at home and nothing bad would happen to her.

But one phrase really made me wince: the lady said she and her husband hadn't told the little girl about this when it first happened on Monday.  Actually, they'd tried not to tell her at all, but the news was everywhere and finally the child realized that something bad had happened and began to ask questions, which had to be answered.

"We'd hoped we wouldn't have to tell her about things like this," said the mother.

Twelve years after 9/11, and this is how we've employed the time: by studiously ignoring unpleasant reality and hoping that terrorism would just float harmlessly over our heads and never land on earth to damage us.  When the news reports ground into action again on Monday, I couldn't even feel shock anymore.  All I could think was, "Well, I guess we're just going to replay the last 12 years again, because we've done absolutely nothing to produce a different result from what occurred on 9/11/01"

Did you think it would be like this?

That's the question I'd like to ask today's pro-abortion cheerleaders, who are lashing themselves to the mast to defend the bloody abattoir run by "Dr." Kermit Gosnell in Philadelphia.

As they lean ever more stubbornly against the galewinds of horror rising furiously from that bloodsoaked outpost of Hell, I'd like to know if their minds go back to the days of their youth.

When they were smart, progressive college students, with all the energy of youth before them for crusades for peace and justice, did they ever think they would end up like this?  When they were passionately marching and speaking and arguing for abortion rights, did they imagine that it would bring them to this day?  Did they honestly think the time would come when their convictions would land them here - swinging shovels at the despised conservative enemy while trying to keep their footing on a shuddering, slimy heap of decomposing, shredded body parts?

There must have been people like this in Germany in 1940, 1941, 1943, 1944, 1945.  Guys who signed up for the easy stuff in the 30s because they were kids, it was fun and everyone else was doing it - nature walks, civic beautification, campfires, group bonding.  How many perfectly natural steps led them through the darkening tunnel until there they were marching toward the Russian front, or guarding trainloads of prisoners.  And some of them must have wondered, "How the hell did I get here?"

I don't think most people become evil through a conscious, deliberate decision.  Satan says "Evil, be thou my good," but I don't believe many humans do.  I think most people end up living lives of evil this way - small, gradual steps, with a declining gradient hardly visible to the naked eye.  Until they get to this point, and would rather fight than look back that long, tilted path and admit that they never would have come this way if they'd known what it would be like. 

Margaret Thatcher has died

I knew she'd been ill for some time, but I was so sorry to hear that Margaret Thatcher had died yesterday morning.  I had the radio on for much of the day, and the coverage was constant.  Henry Kissinger paid tribute to her, and I thought to myself that he must be almost the last of the great names from that era who's still alive. 

Among one of the items I heard on the radio was a CTV interview with Brian Mulroney.  He was very appreciative of Mrs. Thatcher, and spoke about how honoured they'd been to be invited to give eulogies at Ronald Reagan's funeral.  He said that when they were watching her pre-recorded address (she'd taped it the year before, because her faculties were already being worn down by dementia) she said to him (they were sitting together) "Bron, I've gone on too long."  He told her not at all, he'd have liked to hear her say more.  I wondered if she was really speaking only of the speech, or if it was a reflection on having LIVED too long.  I hope not - maybe she was only thinking that her speech could have been shorter.

He said another thing I remember:  that she worked tremendously hard to keep herself informed and educated on every topic she dealt with, even if it required staying up to 3:00AM studying documents.  At every conference, said Mulroney, she was always the best-prepared, "and she had the smallest entourage.  Just one or two aides, and Margaret."

What a telling contrast between the bumptious nobody Obama and his endless train of lackeys trotting and frisking about him.  

Obama's personal security staff itself will be huge, and it has already started making its own arrangements in Mumbai. "A team of secret service agents has already arrived, and has surveyed the areas of his stay and the roads and places on his itinerary," the officer said.
  

To ensure fool-proof security, the President's team has booked the entire the Taj Mahal Hotel, including 570 rooms, all banquets and restaurants. Since his security contingent and staff will comprise a huge number, 125 rooms at Taj President have also been booked, apart from 80 to 90 rooms each in Grand Hyatt and The Oberoi hotels. The NCPA, where the President is expected to meet representatives from the business community, has also been entirely booked.
  

The officer said, "Obama's contingent is huge. There are two jumbo jets coming along with Air Force One, which will be flanked by security jets. There will be 30 to 40 secret service agents, who will arrive before him. The President's convoy has 45 cars, including the Lincoln Continental in which the President travels."

Mark Steyn writes often about the royal pretensions of the supposedly egalitarian Americans, but this story of the imperial progress through India is the one that I always remember. 

Very big news

The big event right now is that I'm moving to a new job! The Green Shoots composting program I started last year to provide some employment for Thomas and a few other special-needs young adults has been a success, and is going to be taken over by a new program called the WAVE program, and they want me to come and work for them!

I know the teacher who has been working on getting it up and running; my project is going to be one of the worksites that will be providing some employment for autistic graduates, and I'll be working as a job coach. I'll be taking small groups of the kids ("apprentices" is how they're called) and supervising them as they do the work. Some may be able to graduate to working with minimal supervision, while others will have to have someone with them all the time.

But what's important is that they'll have something to look forward to once they graduate. Too often, they just stay at home with nothing to do. We're going to start with a small number of kids and job positions, and then more will arrive in September once they've graduated from highschool. I'm hoping we can branch out and start up another composting program at another school, or perhaps even at Algonquin College nearby. It's all very exciting and happening very quickly.

My last day driving for Direct Transportation will be Friday. The one thing that made me hesitate about giving up my driving job was that someone else would have to drive James to school, and I'm just so worried that nobody else can do it. His teacher said that they'd make it work somehow; ALL the kids in the Autism Unit have some sort of behavioural issues, and yet they all get to school, so James can too. I thought I'd better start preparing him for the change, so last week I started very tentatively:

Me: James, you're going to have a surprise.

James:  Surprise.

Me: You're going to have a new driver. Mommy is going to stay home, and you'll go to school with a new driver.

James: New driver! New driver, new bus! Goodbye, blue bus! Easter, and then new driver! Next week, and then new driver!

He's been jabbering about the new driver ever since. So much for the wrenching separation - he can't wait to see the last of me! I've had to stall him, in fact, because I gave a proper 2-weeks notice, and he couldn't understand why he couldn't have the new driver the very next day. This always happens; I'm convinced that I'm indispensible, that NOBODY else can do my job, and then I find that I'm quite easily replaced. I guess I want to be the one who does things that nobody else in the world can do. Oh well, I sure do hope he adjusts well to another driver. He's older now that when I started driving him, and not quite as volatile at 18 as he was at 14.

Compare and contrast

I don't mean to brag or anything, but read this article in yesterday's Ottawa Sun, and tell me, which representative comes across better: the Anglican chick or the Catholic bishop?

Both were asked the same questions, and look at how evasive and gassy the Canon Ascah's responses are, compared to Bishop Prendergast's:

SUN: What kind of changes have you seen, in terms of the number of Ottawans involved, in the Anglican Church in the last 10 to 20 years? Has there been a noticeable difference (higher/lower) in the number of people involved with the church?

Reverend Canon Catherine Ascah: Over the past 10 to 20 years, it's fair to say that numbers have plateaued. Christ Church Cathedral has always been strong in terms of the congregation. Cathedrals are unique that way.

Archbishop Prendergast: The urban parishes tend to have better results in drawing young people; in some of the rural parishes many of the young have left for school so the congregations tend to be composed of mainly older people which, at times, are not as attractive for younger people. However, there are exceptions and some of our rural parishes are developing stronger links with elementary and high school students.

The difficult challenge is to engage the "new evangelization" which means approaching those in their 30s to 60s who have ceased practicing their faith (they sometimes describe themselves as spiritual but not religious and are numerous enough that they are referred to as SBNRs) to "come home", renew their faith or otherwise interest themselves in the gospel message they no longer have time for. This is our biggest challenge and we are only now beginning to address it.

ALL the questions are answered the same way: Ascah speaks in generalities, Prendergast sounds as if he's actually met the people he talks about. Wherever possible, the Anglican turns the conversation to her cathedral, her little personal fiefdom, which is a solitary success story in the midst of a languishing diocese. It's the difference between a shrinking, stunted, parochial organization and one that still sees itself as part of a larger, continuing body.

Screaming paranoia

One last thing (really, because there are only so many ways you can say "We're doomed!").  I wasn't going to mention this because I was sure it was just my own imagination getting carried away.  But lo and behold, here's the New York Times publishing a piece that actually outdoes me:

As Francis’ papacy lengthens, the reasons for Benedict’s eventual seclusion inside the Vatican become clearer.

It is, Vatican experts said, a solution that not only provides a secure environment for Benedict, but also effectively avoids setting up a power center rivaling the Vatican. And it discourages any following that could coalesce around the pope emeritus in a church mindful of painful schisms that have shaken it at important moments in its history.
      

Now that resignation from the papacy has been resuscitated as an option after 600 years, the Vatican is no doubt concerned about setting precedents, said Alberto Melloni, the director of the John XXIII Foundation for Religious Studies in Bologna.
      

“You couldn’t have the pope in a German convent where he could become a pole of attraction for those faithful reluctant to accept his resignation,” Mr. Melloni said.

I actually mentioned this to Dean, but as I said, I figured it was just a bit of exaggerated suspicion.  In any case, these days it wouldn't be necessary for Benedict to be physically located someplace where a rival power base could form; the internet makes it possible for dissidents to coalesce even if they're scattered around the world.  But even I didn't imagine what comes later in this article:

The Vatican has rejected any prospect of meddling by Benedict. But concern remains among some cardinals, Vatican officials and church experts.  

“There is a duality, and even if the old pope says he will retire from the world, he will be an awkward presence,” said Roberto Rusconi, a church historian at Third University of Rome.  

But he dismissed the possibility of a new schism like the one that occurred with the death of Pope Gregory XI in 1378. Afterward, one pope lived in Avignon, France, and another in Rome. Such divides were fomented by secular rulers, he said, with the dueling popes each claiming legitimacy.  

Even so, he said, better to keep Benedict inside the Vatican — in its own way a prison of sorts, like any cloistered convent — because not everyone might resist asking the old pope’s opinion. Professor Rusconi added, “That just can’t happen.”

Wow. Not just "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer" but a sort of Spandau confinement for the previous pope. If anything could galvanize opposition to the new regime, that would be it.

Chesterton: "A Sneer Against Medievalism"

"One of the queerest and most nonsensical of modern notions is that the worship of simplicity is one in which there can be no hypocrisy.  It is the notion that nothing can be sailing under false colours, so long as they are primary colours....

Such people seem to forget that there can be corrupt motives leading to the Simple Life as well as to the Scriptures or the Sacraments; and that there are Socialists who betray Socialism as well as Christians who betray Christianity.  It is certainly not by becoming Puritans that we can make certain of not being Pharisees.  For that matter, it is not even by being Early Christians that we can make certain of not being Simon Magus or Judas Iscariot.  No creed or philosophy, simple or complex, ancient or modern, can be altogether free from the peril of being employed for ends of venality or vanity."

G. K. Chesterton

Something is very wrong

One thing that really gives me the creeps about the Francis triumphalists in the Catholic blogosphere is their complete separation from reality when it comes to their hero's reception by the secular world, especially the press.  They insist that "the usual suspects", i.e., the press, immediately rose like a Herodian swarm to destroy and devour the newborn papacy of Francis I.  As proof, they offer one hoary story about being on the wrong side during the Argentinian military dictatorship.  The suspicion was no sooner raised than it was debunked and dropped, and in the New York Times, no less, but the pope's cheerleaders still fancy themselves as plucky Davids engaged in dramatic combat with a hulking, malevolent Goliath.

In truth, the press coverage of Francis has been almost uniformly positive.  He's enjoying nearly Obama-level approval from the New York Times and the Washington Post.  Their pages for over 2 weeks have been filled with bubbly reports of his heartwarming simplicity and humility, usually set against pointedly disapproving comparisons of his predecessor, to show him to greater advantage.  It could hardly be plainer that the press and the left think he's one of them.  But it's too uncomfortable for Catholics to look around and recognize that they're now allies with those who have always been the enemy, so they keep pushing on a now-open door and pretend that nothing has changed.

Except for a few perfunctory "Of course I loved Pope Benedict, too" disclaimers at the very beginning (which have pretty much disappeared by now), Francis's cheerleaders have gone along with this distorted media campaign.  In what is practically a repeat performance of Obamamania, Catholic blogs like Little Green Catholics and even The Anchoress have thrown themselves giddily into a brainlessly emotional enthusiasm over a blank slate, filling the spaces with their own fantasies and wish-lists.  Like the Peggy Noonans and David Frums of the right, they've spent the last few weeks furiously digging themselves into their entrenched positions, and thrown themselves into aiming their artillery on their former allies who are now reviled as pharisaical mugwumps too hidebound by tradition to recognize the time of their visitation.  (Though Elizabeth Scalia has shown some signs of sobering up.)

I think it's worrisome when people don't recognize when they're living in a fantasy world.  It was a bad sign when people couldn't see the truth about Obama and actively resisted accepting it.  It's just as bad now when they won't recognize a song half-sung from the Vatican. 

Jimmy Carter in a dress

Yeah, there, I said it.  That's what I think of the new pope.  No, I don't like him.  I haven't liked him from the moment on that spooky, rainy night when he stepped out on the balcony and glared down at the crowd in St. Peter's Square, and I don't think he's improved upon acquaintance.

I suppose this puts me in the ranks of the "rad-trad" haters, even though I've never been to a Latin mass in my life.  Too bad.  I've got a memory long enough to have seen this sort of "breath of fresh air" blowing a lot of dust around.  Plus, I've got the experience of Anglicanism to spot the warning signs of destructive modernism hiding behind a butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth facade of mildness.

I was so shocked by Benedict XVI's abdication, I still haven't really gotten over it.  Maybe I never will.  What's clear by now, at least, is that the indefatigable "look on the bright side" brigade who filled the blogosphere with their sage explanations of why this was such a brilliant strategic masterstroke got things completely wrong.  So much for the theories that this was a way for Benedict to "influence" who would succeed him; that a younger man could be ushered in who would ensure the continuation of his work, rather than allowing age and illness to weaken him to the point where his pontificate would fall into the untrustworthy hands of the Curia.

Instead, Benedict's Folly insulted the Holy Spirit, demanding He show up and perform to our schedule, and now we've received the reward we deserve.  I'm not surprised the former pope looked frail and shaky when he met his successor last week.  I'd be feeling shaky too if I'd spent a week contemplating how I'd just pissed away my life's work. 

I finally came around to grudging forgiveness when I reflected that greater powers than Benedict were at work here, and he didn't know for what purpose God was using him.  I think though that this is a working-out of the final Fatima prophecy, and he may very well finish his life as a martyr.  Isn't it odd that as Cardinal Ratzinger, he was the one who tried so hard to slam the door shut on this particular mystery, and he might end up being the one who causes it to be fulfilled?  I always thought that the official explanation that seized on the attempted assassination of JPII as the final and 3rd prophecy was lame; it was so obvious that 1981 was not the "culmination" of anything.  In the more than 3 decades since, things have just gotten worse and worse for the Church.

 Honestly, I thought that though everything else was falling apart, Rome would stand to the end.  Now I don't know what to think.  But I don't expect anything but trouble from Francis.

Too clever not to preserve

This is about to scroll off the front page of Ace of Spades, and once it's gone, I don't know if I'd be able to find it again.  So just because it's so clever, I'm going to preserve it here, so I can look it up again when I need a laugh:

At this point, [his] fate is about as mysterious as the guy on Columbo who tells Patrick McGoohan "I'm going to keep blackmailing you for every penny you have and there's not a damned thing you can do about it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to perform a minor but dangerous DIY electrical-repair operation in my isolated mountain cabin."

And then the camera goes to Patrick McGoohan, whose eyes narrow in that "Hmmmm..." kind of way.

"And you've told no one else about this blackmail information,
or about your relationship with me?
Absolutely no one else, you say?"

Sob...

From Ninety Miles From Tyranny (by way of American Digest, where I first saw it):

 

Casting off

Last week I did something I'd been talking about for a long time, but somehow never managed to rouse myself to do: I cancelled our cable TV service.

My sister got rid of her cable some time ago, and I kept reading posts from people on blogs stating that they'd done the same, so for the last 6 months or so I'd occasionally mention doing the same. It seemed to me that we didn't really watch that much TV anymore, and we could use the money we saved, but somehow it never seemed very urgent. True, the last TV series I'd watched was "V", which petered out ignobly in the second season. "Hoarders" is being cancelled, and I was finally getting tired of the increasingly bizarre and disgusting people who were being featured on it anyway. I wasn't even watching golf that much anymore (especially now that that asshole Tiger Woods is winning again).

But what finally galvanized me was an incident a few weeks ago. I'd hired a handyman to install wood panelling on one wall in the TV room. It was necessary to disconnect the cable box and move the TV to the other side of the room so he could do his work. The job was done in 2 days, and so then I moved the TV back, reconnected all the cables and plugged everything in again. However, I forgot to turn on the button on the surge protector/power bar all the units were plugged into. It was four days before I noticed!

 At that point I said to myself that this was ridiculous - we really didn't watch much TV anymore if I could go that long without even turning on the TV! I also got my cable bill shortly after, and discovered that we were paying over $100/mo for a digital cable box and an HD cable box. That's a lot of money for something we hardly use, so I called up Rogers and told them I wanted to cancel.

Naturally, they wanted me to continue, and offered me a reduced bill for just one box (the digital cable); but that STILL would have been $50/mo for something I don't really use much anymore. I mean, $50 just to watch the Weather Network? And yet that's what's happening most of the time. If it were $50 for the HD box, maybe I'd have agreed, because I really do enjoy the aesthetic beauty of HD.  I happened to catch 'The Wizard of Oz' on an HD channel last week, and I was stunned by all the detail I'd never seen before!  Even the walls and the doorknobs on the sets!  At the end, when Dorothy and the Wizard are preparing to fly back to Kansas in the balloon, I noticed things like these weird silver spiky wheels scattered throughout the crowd of Ozians waving and cheering.  What are those things?  I'd never noticed them before - it had always just been a big blurred crowd scene to me.  But no, it was just the regular non-HD cable channels I'd have gotten, and as I said, I can barely find anything to watch anymore.

So I said no, cancel it all.

I have to admit, though, that after I'd done it I felt really queasy and shaken for a day or two. It was as if I'd announced I was marrying out of the tribe, or something. Give up cable? It's like seceding from society! I'll be an outsider! I got over it, though, and every day since, when I've noticed that I click through all the channels without finding a thing to watch, or see ads for some new upcoming show about backwoods hillbillies and vulgar tattooed boors, I feel that I've made the right choice. We still have the cable boxes until the end of the month, but I'll have them packed up and ready to go when they come to collect them.

Vulgarity - it's what's for breakfast!

I happened to read this piece at American Digest today:

It is no surprise to anyone paying attention to the long and unwinding national nutrition neurosis that we need to have some new mountain of diet bullshit to climb every five years of so.

Mount Organic.
Mount Sustainable.
Mount Lo-Fat No-Fat.
Mount Creamy No-Fat.

Yes, it is a libidinal landscape made of featureless false and phony foods. It is a dietary desert of drifting sans. Sans lactose. Sans meat. Sans chicken. Sans land animal. Sans face. Salt free. Sugar free. Gluten free. And, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever will be, Kosher.

But I only wandered in that brave new kelpflaked world beyond bogglement for a bit before I came across, just this afternoon, a new product that offered me even less food for more money. It was something called "Crispibread" and its selling points were proudly displayed on the box:

And then, just by chance, one of the kids I drive in the morning mentioned that he'd seen a new cereal in the grocery store, and I came home to look it up. Here it is:

Each bag is 225 grams and contains 8 full servings

organic
kosher
gluten free
lactose free
sugar free
salt free
nut free
all-natural
vegan
high in fibre and iron
source of calcium
source of omega -3 and -6
no cooking required

But it also adds a roguishly vulgar name, something the innocent-sounding 'Crispibread' can't claim.

Maybe it could be adopted as the official breakfast cereal of the Episcopal Church and the ACC.

Oh, and it's made in Canada, just to add shame to the disgust I was already feeling. Bon appetit!

Ow! That...stings!

Mark Steyn giving the Episcopal Church a drive-by pie in the kisser:

As America's Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, assured the House Intelligence Committee at the time of Mubarak's fall, the Muslim Brotherhood is a "largely secular" organization. The name's just for show, same as the Episcopal Church.

A little levity

(Hat tip: The Trousered Ape)

So, what's going to happen tomorrow?

Dean is the one who makes sensible political forecasts; I tend to just blurt out my gut feelings. So here's my gut feeling: Obama scrapes through to re-election.

I'll be extremely happy if I turn out to be wrong, and all my favourite blogs are assuring me that I am. I enjoy reading Ace of Spades, and hearing all the raucous pooh-poohing of the polls which show this to be a very close race. I want to believe them, but I remember how certain everyone was in the summer when the traitorous Supreme Court left Obamacare standing as the law of the land. Basically, I don't want to be made a fool of again.

Everyone talks about the media's and Left's "narrative". Well, I suppose I have a narrative too, and it's that America has lost the Mandate of Heaven. And when you lose that, you don't get it back by punching a button or throwing a switch. I think the disease that produced the symptom in the White House has not gone away one bit. This is the same country, the same people who defiantly gave God the finger in 2008 by electing an enemy to Christ to rule them.

The people who saw Obama for what he was in 2008 are still there today - they will do the same thing, and vote against him. Of the people who voted for Obama in 2008 and will NOT vote for him this year, a very small number have joined the people in the first group; they've awakened from their dream and have seen reality.

But the majority of those former Obama voters are not honestly repentant: they're surly and resentful because the con they took part in did not pay off. They're now in search of the next great conman who'll fill their pockets and bellies.

America is not like the people of Nineveh, who recognized their sin and repented in ashes, fasting, sackcloth, and prayer. I see no sign that they have any feeling at all that they themselves are at fault, merely that the mechanical contraption that is supposed to carry them along and satisfy all their whims got a bit of grit in the gears and failed to meet their expectations.

UPDATE 11/19/12: Well there...you see what I mean.