the triumph of Viral Marketing.

Conan's 4 day old replacement computer has been slipped a mickey- some delightful haxor from Zambia infected me with the "Opaserv/Brasil.exe" virus. Drat. Sniffle. Back when I feel all better.

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

Figures I would finally get around to starting my own blog AFTER Barbie did. Shoot me now.

All my talk about the opening of deer season, I guess I'd better tell my tale of woe.
Saturday morning, Mr. Perfect and I do it right- up at 3:30, out of the house at 4:30, ensconced in our aerial perches an hour before shooting light. About 7:30, in the murky recesses at the edge of a clearcut, I see the fabled 10 pointer I've been hearing about on this land for 6 years. Calculated it to be a 160 yard shot, at the edge of my competency with my muzzleloader, but all the conditions were right. Steady rest, deep breath, exhale, gentle pressure on the trigger, try to be surprised by the shot....
Before the cloud of smoke completely obscured my vision I saw the buck stagger and whirl to the north. After a decent interval, Gordie and I set out to find him. We picked up the trail exactly where we should have, but it was very light- hands and knees trailing- over hill and dale for nearly two hours, crawling through the briars and the brambles. The deer ran off the farm we were hunting, across a utility easement and into an adjoining farmette. As we approached the end of the trail, literally within a hundred feet of our now-expired buck, a lunatic Bambi idolator came screaming out of his house, demanding we leave immediately, and "stop hunting on his land", threatening us with the police, etc (Mr. Perfect took this very hard). An extremely contrite and polite conversation, explaining that we weren't hunting on his land, that we had hunted elsewhere and were just recovering our deer; that it was immoral to wantonly waste game; that we took the responsibility that goes with taking life extremely seriously and did our best to honor the deer by using every bit possible; that the deer was now dead and would only rot where it lay, all was for naught- his land was HIS land and inviolate, and when my deer crossed the line it became HIS too! I called the DNR, hoping I could get a game warden to maybe meet this fellow with me and explain the concept of "fair chase" as well as wildlife management, but no luck there either.

The perfect irony is that his horses had wandered off his land that same morning, came to visit the horses on my hunting land, and the owners not only didn't accuse his handyman of trespassing and threaten to call the police and blah blah blah when he came trailing them, but they went out of their way to help him lead the horses back to ProtectorOfWildlifeAndSanctityOfBoundariesMan. If they'd applied his own logic, we'd be elbow deep in horsemeat.

Oh, and I also had to hear all about how hunting was immoral. Yeah, buddy, that cow JUMPED into the shrinkwrap down at the Safeway.

When opinions are outlawed, only outlaws will have opinions.

Sorry about the huge lag in posting, between the opening of deer season and my hard drive's unscheduled self-destruct, I've been useless, I know.

The blogosphere has sure been going through some changes this last week. The pile-on at Jen's place continues apace, and she's fired back with a double-barreled dose of good-ol' 1st Amendment "Freedom of Association" action. Close your eyes and imagine a sphere where free speech AND freedom of association peacefully coexist! It's easy if you try. I can't understand how those you'd expect to be anti-thought-police types can so quickly abandon their principles and move to censor one of our own. YOU, friend, may safely de-lynx here...

Wish I could learn to live and let live like George Dubya. Glenn Reynolds hits the nail on the head-- Dubya is content to let his enemies think what they'd like, then serve them their words, hot or cold, with a nice side of crow every day. .

Libertarian Party guerillas go ape. Not sure just how serious or tongue in cheek these suggestions are, but reading them sure got the old anarchist impulses going in me. When political campaigns are outlawed, only outlaws will have political campaigns--- testimony supporting Congressman Ron Paul, et al., v. the Federal Election Commission. Read it!

Too soon old, and too late smart.....

Sorry about the delay in posting, things have been crazy busy chez Conan. Boy Scouts, Gettysburg, deer season-- I know, excuses, excuses.

Little Green Footballs has a wonderful piece concerning the "noble rock throwers of the Intifada", and has been accumulating some awesome comments; this post by Montaigne's Cat about the IDF vs the Pali chilluns is priceless...

The proof that the European Union and the American peace movement are racists and hold the Arabs in contempt is that they do not believe that the Arabs are capable of reason and democracy. Therefore they do not expect of the Arabs to do what they believe is below their human capabilities.

The proof that the Israelis are not racist is that despite everything and all evidence to the contrary they do expect the Arabs to live up to their humanity.

Amy follows up with:
The restraint shown by Israeli troops time and again simply amazes me. That 18-19-20-year-olds can show such mature judgment in the face of such unrelenting provocation is awesome.

It's a game, all right - if there were real brutality, these mental defectives would be too scared of reprisals to scream about the brutality, as is the usual case in Arab countries. Assad pere turned one of Syria's cities into a parking lot when its Islamonazi inhabitants challenged his authority - end of problem. We've all seen what Saddam does to dissenters, and Jordan is busy kicking ass right now.

Israel knows that it's better to have these morons do whatever they're going to do out in the open than to have them go deep underground. Israel has succeeded in killing or arresting so many top terrorists by courting collaborators, by sending Mizrahi Jews (who hate the Arabs much more than the Ashkenzim do, having had to live under their heel) to infiltrate them, by surveillling them, etc. The Israelis have satellites, and they share intelligence gathered from U.S. satellites. Arafat can't so much as take a shit without the Israelis knowing about it.

Meanwhile in the fever swamps of the Left, hope still springs for a mass defection ala Jim Jeffords to the Idiotarian party. They really never will learn, will they? And Salon's movie reviewer regrets that Bush's AmeriKKKa doesn't want you to see this masterpiece. BooHoo. Big Meanies.

I think Rush missed the point of Dasshole's latest flatulence- all the little guy wants is to establish his Democrap preferred status as a "certified victim", and the only way left for a rich white male with a rich white lobbyist wife is to pretend to be scared of the big, bad po' white trash. I may be plumb outta tears.

Hey-- what if Iraqis are actually inscrutable orientals?

Whaddaya think of the possibility that the crafty Iraqi Parliament actually voted Saddam out in the only way available to them? Hmmm...
If only Lawrence of Arabia were still around to ask (and if we could get him to take a break from writing the Seven Pillars of Pederasty or whatever that book of his was called).

I was thinking of starting a pool on the kick-off of the war. Back in the First Gulf War days, I missed the opening gun by only 2 hours. Dubya certainly has his mandate, and the great likelihood of chemical or biological attack almost demands our troops be prepared to fight in their protective suits, which would be a hell of a thing to put up with in the 100 degree+ months. So I'm thinking Thanksgiving or the neighborhood thereof is looking pretty likely.

The indispensible Cato Institute has filed an amicus brief against the "Defense of Incumbents Act", oops I mean McCain-Feingold. Kudos to them for fighting the good fight! Also a great article on the injustice of the mandatory sentencing guidelines so in vogue recently. There is hope for an onslaught of challenges to many of the anti-"small-d"-democratic abuses of the last decade.

I'm finally getting down to business writing a thesis that's been on my mind for years- about how the Democrats went, in one generation, from defeating Nazism to becoming Nazis. The wholesale embrace by the Abortion Party of the concept of "lives not worthy of being lived", which was Hitler's excuse for forced abortion, sterilization, ethnic cleansing, and ultimately genocide, planted the seed in my mind 10 or 12 years ago. Watching their increasing appetite for demonizing and shouting down opposing thinkers, applauding campus idiotarians for burning newspapers espousing "incorrect" views, and their attempt to impose Orwellian thoughtcrime laws on America further strengthened the similarity. But the latest wave of anti-Semitism seals the deal. American Jewry is finally waking up to the fact that the Israelis have known for years, that conservatives and the Christian Right are the best friends Israel, and Jews in general, have.

Maybe Nancy will take Bab's faxes a little more seriously???

What a refreshing blast of honesty after the years of dissembling by the "New Democrats"- they've finally gone ahead and admitted they're San Francisco Democrats by leaning toward, well, a San Francisco Democrat as their leader. Stefan Sharkansky has been collecting the goods on Nancy for a while,enjoy them here.
There's a lot to be said for this move, if carried to the logical conclusion- a showdown between a frankly socialist Pelosi/McKinney/Hillary party and the Republicans will silence the "not a damned dime's worth of difference between 'em" types and give the country a wonderfully clear choice of direction.

Meanwhile, the world-renowned Parliament of Iraq has delivered a stinging rebuke to the imperialist white male oppressors blah blah blah....

Off we go, into the wild blue yonder...
Novenber 5, 2002- Unbelievable-- a Republican President, Senate and Congress. Ronaldus Magnus deserved this. Now it's up to them to prove that they deserve it- that they can pry off the cold dead hand of go-along-to-get-along, "less of the same" country club Republicanism, confront the National Socialists- oops I meant Democraps- head on, and move to make America safe for Americanism again. Legalize Freedom!