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JibJab's Year In Review.

Vote For The Impolitic

The Impolitic is up for a Weblog Award.

Libby and I don't always agree but she's a good egg. Go vote for her.

Holy Cows and Death

I've been pondering death a great deal this year. It's something you don't think about until it hits you in the face. Pondering one's own end can feel beyond morbid. But it is important for everyone to make sure their wishes for any post-life festiivities be clearly known. As a funeral director once told me, once the soul leaves your body, your immediate family can do damn near anything they want with your remains.

After witnessing my grandfather's funeral where a pentacostal preacher spent 20 minutes sermonizing on "The DaVinci Code" I immediately called a friend and explained to him that I was writing explicit instructions for my burial and if he didn't follow them to the letter, I would return from the other side and haunt him for the rest of his life.

Which leads me to Billy Graham. One of my earliest memories was watching his "crusades" with my grandmother. I was fascinated by the pagentry, the ritual and the music. Especially the big baritone guy who always sang "Just As I Am" during the altar call.

Billy is now 88 years old and approaching the end of life in this world. His son Franklin is busy making plans to honor his father.

The building, designed in part by consultants who used to work for the Walt Disney Co., is not a library, she says, but a large barn and silo -- a reminder of Billy Graham's early childhood on a dairy farm near Charlotte. Once it's completed in the spring, visitors will pass through a 40-foot-high glass entry cut in the shape of a cross and be greeted by a mechanical talking cow. They will follow a path of straw through rooms full of multimedia exhibits. At the end of the tour, they will be pointed toward a stone walk, also in the shape of a cross, that leads to a garden where the bodies of Billy and Ruth Graham could lie.

What an end for a great man. Lying a few feet from some damned Disney-fied animatronic bovine.

Death is never an easy conversation but it's one you and your relatives should have. Otherwise, you might end up as a taxidermy experiment sitting in cousin Edna's parlor.

Maverick McCain and My Comments Section

McCain wants to protect the chilluns and rights of artists from the mean, nasty bloggers.

– Commercial websites and personal blogs “would be required to report illegal
images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000.”
– Internet service providers (ISPs) are already required to issue such reports,
but under McCain’s legislation, bloggers with comment sections may face “even
stiffer penalties” than ISPs.

Considering the majority of blogs are like mine, run by individuals who don't have a spare 300k sitting around., the real world impact is I would likely have to shut off my comments section. So much for furthering the discourse.

And exactly who would enforce these new laws? Most likely it would be some segment of the Justice Department. Are you seriously going to tell me that we are going to take manpower and resources away from the section of government responsible for ferreting out real threats to surf the web for trolls?

Welcome to wonderland, Alice.

Gasper Is Not Doing Well

Gasper, one of the Georgia Aquariums five Beluga Whales, is not doing well. He's been sick for some time with an auto-immune disease.

The Carp Circles gang visited the aquarium yesterday and took the above picture of one of Gasper's companions. We asked about the sick whale's health and the volunteer used her hand to make the universal signal for "so-so", but her face registered something much more dire.

The Belugas are truly fascinating. It would be easy to sit for hours watching their ghostly gyrations. So let's all pull for Gasper as we would for any sick friend.

Yes, You Can Believe In Santa Claus

He's been there all along. We just had to catch up. Relativity helps.

Based on his advanced knowledge of the theory of relativity, Santa recognizes that time can be stretched like a rubber band, that space can be squeezed like an orange and that light can be bent. Silverberg says. Relativity clouds are controllable domains, “ rips in time“, that allow him months to deliver presents while only a few minutes pass on Earth. The presents are truly delivered in a wink of an eye.

As children we knew these secrets of the universe. Perhaps age clouds our reason..

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
and filled all the stockings,
then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
and giving a nod, up the chimney he rose

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim,
'ere he drove out of sight

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Now This Is A Helluva Lead

From Cracker Squire:

In the days of ancient Greece, the Greek city-state Sparta, upon defeating another city-state, would reward those who had supported Sparta, exile those who had opposed it, and execute those who had remained neutral.

Sid Cottingham stating he will vote for Mike Berlon for Chair of the Democrat Party of Georgia.

The Outsiders

Ever since Kos posted his screed on Libertarian-Democrats an idea has been burbling beneath the surface of the political ocean. Why do the Republicans seem to have a lock hold on the libertarian vote? Placed side by side, libertarians disagree with Republican positions at least as much as Democrat positions. In some opinions, mine included, more so.

Previously, I wrote that libertarians fall into three camps. Time has caused a modification. Although I stand by my original thoughts on an ideological level, I believe in real world politics Libertarians fall in to two categories: The Financials and The Socials. Every libertarian believes in the core philosophy of smaller government in all areas is beneficial. The only difference in the two camps is focus.

The Financials focus on tax cuts, reducing regulations and free market at all levels of life. They are for privatizing social security, against any form of government health care, against the minimum wage and usually are flat taxers although there is a new breed of fair taxers. These philosophies line up perfectly with not only libertarain ideology but the public face of the Republican Party. Compared to some of the social positions of libertarianism, it's an easy sell.

Of course we all now know the Republicans were selling snake oil on financial restraint and their complete surrender to the social nannies is about as far from the libertarian ideal as you can get. The financials woke up one day and realized their sacrifice of the social to further the financial eventually left them with neither. In November, these libertarians made their displeasure known at the ballot box.

For years, as if a single hemisphere of the brain is completely absorbed, other than gun control, the Financials chose to downplay or completely ignore social libertarianism. However, they are not the only ones with brains half-sparking.

The Socials focus on pro-choice, privacy rights, and drugs. They tend to accept some government interference in business but are usually absolutists when "the man" tries to interfere with individual lives. Even to the point of pinning what many call the albatross of the libertarian party around their necks; legalization of all drugs.

Strangely, the Socials rarely associate with the Democrats the way the Financials aligned in the past with the Republicans. Although they agree with progressives on practically every social issue, gun control once again being the notable exception, the Socials perceive the Democrat agenda to be just intrusive as the Republican. For every nodding of the head on sodomy laws there would be an equal shaking of the head on every spawning of a new tax or social program. However, somewhat like the Financials, Socials suppress their pro-business instincts when individual rights are on the line. A Social might vote for an ardent supporter of the Fourth Amendment even if they know the candidate wants to require every business in America to provide workers with daycare, paid vacation and lollipops on mandatory breaks.

The issues of course go much deeper and can never be so easily distilled. I would never support lollipops for everyone and few Financials would stomach an absolute ban on abortion. Like any other polticial movement libertarians have many different shades and most have value. In the real world, a good example of a Financial would be Jason Pye. I present myself as an example of a Social.

Unlike outsiders in the Republican and Democrat parties for the last 30 years, we both are accepted in the ranks of Libertarians. There is room for all and we accept that our differences are not disloyalty but rather continue to advance the discussion.

Given the results of November, the voters are tired of talkers who do not listen. Libertarian electoral gains both locally and nationally indicate the masses are willing to listen to the outsiders. Even the ones with some "wacky ideas. Possibly because at least the outsiders listen back.

UDPATE: An emailer pointed out that the actions of the libertarian party are not always ones of acceptance and tolerance. It's a fair point, but I would note that if you look at any political movement close enough, you will find warts. But the warts of the Libertarians are rough spots compared to the explosive buboes of the parties in power.

UPDATE II: I've had some really good feedback on this post and I appreciate it. From another perspective, a North Georgia Democrat offers the point of view when a libertarian official converts to the Republicans for percived political advantage.

Vegetarians Are Sissies!

I think I'll have a steak for lunch. According to Jim Rutz at WingNutDaily soy products cause homosexuality.

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products.

There's going to be a lot of shocked South Georgia farmers when they discover they have been part of the homosexual agenda for decades.

Jimmy Carter, Ken Stein and Israel

I've been pondering over the last few days how to write about the latest Jimmy Carter flap. Part of me wants to shout at him that he isn't helping anymore. Part of me wants to yell accolades for someone who continues to ask the difficult questions no matter the consequences. Throw in an instinctive urge to defend another South Georgia boy and you get a slippery eel of a mess with a handle that seems too tough to find. However the lack of comment from a blog of my nature seems dishonest.

I recently remarked to some fine folks that I believe Jimmy Carter could have been the greatest Secretary of State this country has ever seen. As President, he was lacking. He was not the absolute disaster some on the right would believe but I am not so delusional to ignore the severe problems brought on by his at least perceived lack of leadership. In my biased mind, I like to believe he was a good man beaten down by a crap ass job in a crap ass town.

I haven't read Jimmy Carter's latest book "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid", but I have heard him interviewed on both NPR and Meet The Press. I came away from both with the feeling that he was right. The rhetoric was not inflammatory. Colored by my belief that President Carter is as knowledgeable about the Middle East as anyone, I took his points to heart.

It did not take long for the right wing in this country to pounce on Carter's stance as anti-Israel. Fuel to the fire was added when Carter Center fellow Ken Stein resigned his "position" at the Carter Center. Stein was the Carter Center's first Executive Director but President Carter states he has not been affiliated with the Center in 13 years.

A prominent fellow, even one who inhabits a basically emeritus position, resigning over Carter's stance is certainly newsworthy. It gave me pause. As I am wont to do when I struggle with a particular issue, I wait for the chaff to begin to clear. Rush to judgments are not in my nature.

John Sugg sweeps away some of that chaff by providing a context on Ken Stein and his possible motivations. His current position is with Emory University's Institute for the Study of Modern Israel. Alledgedly a think tank funded by staunch pro-Israeli supporters. A fact that is conveniently ignored both by the local media and right wing blogs.

But all this is sideshow, isn't it? The real question is Israel. I'm weirdly reminded of a discussion I once had with a friend about the American Civil War. He asked me if the Civil War were fought today would I take up arms to defend Georgia. I paused. He was astonished I would even hesitate. I explained that although I know Georgia would be wrong, to not defend your home would be difficult.

It is not an easy thing to criticize a people who have given so much to defend their homeland and I will not do it now. But the question is open in my mind. I will endeavor to learn more and if I find criticism is needed, it will be given. Until then, I will continue wrestling the eel.

A Withering Quote

Reagan Chief of Staff Ken Duberstein on John McCain:

A profile in courage can become a profile in unrestrained ambition," says former Reagan White House chief of staff Ken Duberstein, who was one of the few G.O.P. establishment figures to support McCain's 2000 presidential campaign. "He has to remember who his friends are and not spend his integrity on one-night stands with those who will never fully trust him.

An interesting perspective from a staffer of a President who brought such "one-night stands" as the Christian Coalition into the Republican party, paid them lip service for eight years and pretty much ignored them in practicality.

Other than that, he's spot on. McCain may have gone too far in toadying to the worst elements of the right to come back to the side of light. Time will tell.

We Really Need Some Good News

And it just doesn't seem like we get any.

The Taliban is setting up a mini-state in Northern Pakistan.

Islamic militants are using a recent peace deal with the government to consolidate their hold in northern Pakistan, vastly expanding their training of suicide bombers and other recruits and fortifying alliances with Al Qaeda and foreign fighters, diplomats and intelligence officials from several nations say.

And this is exactly how they got started in Afghanistan in the early 90s. If this development isn't bad enough, please remember this region is right next door to Kashmir.

It's as if an ill wind stirs a cauldron of horror.

Sunday Funny

If a dead snake fell on me, I'd soil my britches.

The Baker Report: One More Thought

Criticism of the Iraq Study Group report is blazing from all sides. It ranges from "its too pie in the sky" to "it retreads the same old policy" to "its just face saving for a failed administration". There is some validity to all of these points. David Gergen on the other hand is one of the few persons to view the report as unabashedly positive.

To paraphrase his key statement, imagine how many lives would have been saved if a report like this had been published in 1968.

Isn't that really the bottom line?

F.U.E.L. Update

Remember my quasi-interview with one of the founders of F.U.E.L.?

Well, things are definitely moving along down near Camilla. Ground will be broken after the first of the year and the $170 million plant is not only innovative in its primary purpose.

The project did not receive any tax abatements.

Almost unheard of in this day and age of municipalities cravenly crumbling to pressure from industry to sweeten the slop in the trough or the pigs will go elsewhere. Good for F.U.E.L and good for Mitchell County.

Songs In My Head

Damien Rice - The Blower's Daughter

Saturday Shootin!

Go get em gals!

Hide The Chilluns! It's Friday!

Batons for everyone!

Bling! Bang!

Go read part one of Mara Shalhoup's story on the Black Mafia Family. NOW!

If only another local notorious publication still cared about this type of in depth reporting. Kudos to the Loaf for understanding there is still a need for good old fashioned journalism.

Presidential Rumblings In Florida

While the rest of the country seems to view Mitt Romney's presidential campaign as a curiousity, an opportunity to discuss Mormonism and American's religious tolerance, he has picked up some very heavy Republican support in Florida.

Verrrrrry interesting. Remember what I said earlier. Watch Florida.