Innocence Just Isn't What It Used To Be

Well, the Duke University mass sexual assault case is turning into a victory for all sides.

Over at blackprof.com, they're using it as a soapbox to scream charges of racism. Right. Too bad none of the profs are math profs.

After today's negative DNA tests, the Duke player's parents are claiming innocence.

Robert Archer, whose son, Breck, is a member of the lacrosse team, said the test results only confirmed for parents what they already knew.

"I know the kids on the team and I know they're innocent," said Archer, of East Quogue, N.Y.

If my son and his pals hired strippers to come to their pad and dance for them, "innocent" would not be a word I'd use. "Swine" might be a better one. Or how about "the kid of mine who will now be paying for his own college tuition because he just dragged the family name through the gutter."

No one in the article has interviewed the dancer's parents. The one in the article was a student from North Carolina Central University. It's not like she was some poor, bedraggled, little waif who was picked up on the street, starving to death with no options. She sounds just as pampered as the boys. She's another one that needs to work her way through school. And if she thinks she can do that kind of work, she can kiss the inheritance goodbye.

Hugh Hewitt and Dennis Prager just got finished tut-tutting about the whole affair, lamenting that college wasn't teaching these boys morality. Well, duhhhh. It's not likely that they came to college with any. Both Dennis and Hugh talk about the kids coming from privelege. So what? Since when did money imply morality? Just look at what daddy said about his little tiger's innocence above.

Both of them ought to talk to their Salem Communications colleague, Michael Medved on the state of morality in the popular culture. After all, it's hard out here for a pimp.

Solve the Riddle!

You're all invited to solve this pictograph riddle.

How did I wake up this morning?

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The Feline Theocracy Hosts Carnival of the Cats

Update - Thanks for the Instalanche, Glenn! Instareaders, please have a look around. In addition to animals, we do comedy, political, World of Good and morality posts here at The Scratching Post.

The Feline Theocracy and our Maximum Leader, K T Cat, would like to welcome all of you to this week's Carnival of the Cats! Let us start this week's Carnival with an invocation from our Maximum Leader.


Oh Most Holy Lord, please grant all of these kitties plenty of tuna, petting and sunbeams. They've been very good. Very, very good. I mean really, really, very good! So lots of tuna. Soon. Amen.
And now, on to the Carnival!

This week's Carnival specialty: cats!

The first group of entries falls under the category of cats.

The incomparable Bonnie and Victor lead off this week with cats in bags.

Cascade Exposures may have the most beautiful photography of the week. Thanks for sharing!

On the other hand, Mensa Barbie's kitty photo is pretty darn good.

This one from Strange Ranger gets a big "Awwwwww!"

Ellison shows us the lovins he gets when he gets home.

Judith has sent in the story of Cyril. He's a stray that has won a gentleman's heart. No wonder.

Valerie's kitty, Bow, does some aerobics for us. Remember, always nap first! Most sports injuries come from sudden starts and stops!

Farmgirl's got a splendid photo of a little bit of Heaven.

The inestimable Laurence Simon weights in with two entries. Piper and her tail.

Jennifer shows us a kitty exhausted from hunting.

Just Between Strangers shows us kittens who have snorted the 'nip.

Beezer has an assistant that helps her get ready in the morning.

Someone is ignoring us at Striving for Average.

GigoloKitty gives us a post that is so terminally cute that it requires an insulin injection before viewing.

The second group of entries falls into the category of more cats.

Enrevanche brings us an old Beatles tune.

TacJammer shows us a tuxedo doing what tuxedos do best. Actually, tuxedos do everything best, so this is really just one thing of many.

Niobium has a black kitty that did something black kitties shouldn't.

Old Controller's cat, Pearl, seems to be taking some of the same things that Barry Bonds took.

Kimberly gets rescued by...a cat!

Yakuza goes high tech with his cat.

My Animal Family has a dream.

Kimberly takes a pause to do some contemplation on paws.

Von Krankipantzen has some photos that are just wrong.

An apologetic, fluffy tuxedo is the order of the day from Manxmnews.

Suprisingly, Kitten Picture sent in a picture of a kitten.

Watermark gives us an animated image of a cat that is very well done!

Melange's cat seems to have stuck its tail in a light socket.

The Common Room shows us an uncommon kitty with an amazing tale!

Texas Oasis gives us Henry the cat and his 'nip bag.

A third set of submissions dealt with still more cats.

Ian Dodge at Dodgeblogium gives us a macabre tale of cats.

The Mind of Mog is keeping us on the edge of our seats with a real cliffhanger as she tries to track down the elusive Izzy! Like any good page-turner, there's more than one chapter. Will Mog be able to solve the problem in time?

Scribblings shows us cats that know just how to foil photographers.

Niobium comes back at us with a gorgeous tortoise shell.

Mr. Toast demonstrates that the only thing better than a cat is two or three or more cats.

The Mind of Mog returns with the one and only...Meowza!

Mog starts this next post claiming that she is really forgetting stuff and goes on to say that she hasn't sent in any links for the Carnival this week. Mog gets points for self-awareness, if not memory. No worries, Mog. We can never have enough of your cats!

Peaches seems to have adopted a boneless, robot cat. Peaches, I might consider hiring an exorcist right about now.

Meryl Yourish shows us that Jodhpurs never really went out of style.

Meryl comes right back at ya with a gorgeous Gracie.

It's baseball season again and Rahel has a benchwarmer on her hands.

Laura over at the Wide Awake Cafe discovers yet again that life with a seafaring cat can be full of surprises! Arrrr, maties!

Lab Kat has a simple request for his owner.

PJ's cat, Rhett, examines some purchases.

Coyote Mercury gives us a tuxedo on his back.

Bootstrap Analysis shows how to curl up in style. Well, two styles to be exact.

It's Athena's birthday and Athenamama celebrates with some pictures of Athena.

Niobium has a sad cat tale. The Feline Theocracy will keep this kitty in its prayers.

Melange sends us some pictures of a cat checking into an unusual hotel.

Catymology shows us that any number of interesting things come in paper bags. Cats, for example.

A Fast Attack Cat is the order of the day at Baronger's place. How about a Littoral Combat Cat, instead?

Lastly, I grouped the remainder of the entries into even more cats.

Ellison has his cat ready for packing and shipping.

Wolf's Den gives us a bad, bad cat.

Over at Middle Fork, Houdini is on the prowl.

Lisa Violet confronts a thief.

Jack Cluth's Siamese is contemplating barbecued tuna.

Leigh-Ann wonders if she's being a good mommy. She plopped her kittens down in front of the tube and let them watch the same things over and over. Don't worry, Leigh-Ann. We've all done it from time to time.

Hobbes over at Where Dolphins Play shows that he is an iron kitty!

Over at Composite Drawlings, Furfur makes sure everyone knows his opinion.

Meemsnyc at Furry Paws shows us Sebastian's new bed. Cute!

Stereophile has two submissions:
Good Lord!

I'm voting for severe gastric distress.

Keewee is playing peekaboo with a reluctant friend.

The Omnibus Driver does her best to get some good photos of Miss Marilyn.

Tata's cat has decided to claim a piece of furniture.

Niobium is a prolific poster. She sent us some pictures of Francesca cavorting at near top speed as well as some very nice, tiny flowers.

Martin over at the Egoist gives us Morris jumping around.

Mr. Completely shows us all that he is completely unclear on the concept. However, he is completely funny!

Athena Momma has some pictures of things that look suspscious along with a cat.

Someone sent in three links to posts with photos of cats and topics that were totally unrelated. The Feline Theocracy declares thee an apostate! To the tuna mines with you!

And that's it for this week. Thanks for coming! Please have a look around at the blog and drop us a line or a link if you'd like.

All the best,
K T Cat

Postscript

In the comments, you will find a brief catfight that I started through stupidity. All has been resolved. Sissy Willis is the bomb and Kukka-Maria is a good cat with a great blog. Correcting my errors led to a post that will be in next week's Carnival of the Capitalists.

K T Can't Wait for the Party!

Today we host The Carnival of the Cats. Our Maximum Leader is too excited to sleep! Well, almost too excited to sleep.


Actually, she seems to be sleeping just fine

Celebrating Iraqi Liberation Day

Michelle Malkin has a great round up of bloggers who are hosting guest-posters who are gold star parents.

Last night I spent some time surfing the Iraqi blogs. A few of them are getting discouraged because of the violence. I had a chance to visit Russia 7 years ago and I'm sensing the same thing out of the discouraged Iraqi blogs that I sensed in Russia. Freedom is a bitch.

In absence of a dominant, all-powerful government, the citizens of a country have to look in the mirror when things go wrong. The Russians back then and some Iraqis today don't seem to be prepared for it. Not that we could expect them to be. Nothing but experience will change that. The Iraqi blogs who are getting depressed have a common theme: How come the Americans aren't doing more?

It's your country, not ours. If you don't like it, do something about it. We came to liberate your country from a dictator and remove a government that supported violence against us and our allies. We can get you started, but what you do after that is up to you.

Contrast their entries with those linked at Michelle Malkin's site. Each of the guest posters has lost a family member. None of them despair. After 230 years, Americans have a pretty good handle on the cost of freedom.

While some Americans have gotten too soft to accept the responsiblities of freedom, there's still a majority of us who know that for the most part, we determine our own fates.

Having said all that, let me share with you some Iraqi bloggers who get it.

Iraq the Model

Eye-Raki

Healing Iraq

Finding Rain on a Sunny Day, Hall of Fame Entry

This one might just put an end to the competition for all time.

Best of all, Yahoo! felt it worthy of running on its front page news summaries.

This is beyond surreal. It is something even Scrappleface couldn't parody.

Words fail me.

Dinosaurs Can Drag You Down

In previous posts, I have shown that race and politics are irrelevant when it comes to social issues. I have also claimed that the ACLU is a dinosaur. Many others in the blogosphere have proven that the MSM is a dinosaur.

France is showing that dinosaurs can drag you down. No Pasaran is giving frequent updates from a country where the dinosaurs have accumulated so much power and so much momentum that they cannot be stopped short of a prolonged national catastrophe and perhaps not even then.

Dinosaur Attack! French student-sauropods confront the modern world with predictable ferocity.
In my terminology, dinosaurs are those organizations and institutions that have outlived their usefulness. The problem with dinosaurs, as is being shown in France, is that they retain influence over decision-making bodies and help the nation squander precious resources on worthless or destructive efforts.

Evolution is Scary! A herd of dinosaurs led by Rep. Cynthia McKinney tries to fight the upcoming ice age by claiming her problems come from racism.
With total statistical certitude, the dominant social problem in the US today is the breakdown of the two-parent family. Anyone that addresses social issues from a point of view other than that is a dinosaur. That means that the NEA, the NAACP, the ACLU and many, many others are all dinosaurs. There is no government solution to this problem. It’s a societal problem and can only be solved by changing social attitudes. Social attitudes can only be changed by national awareness. None of the dinosaurs are working on this, since their power stems from the public believing the opposite.

The MSM is the lynchpin of the whole problem. They continue to frame debates in outdated terms. For example, Jesse Jackson is still a staple on their news programs and they continue to talk about race as if it were a determining factor in society.

The MSM has got to be revectored and soon. This video and the fact that ABC News was sufficiently self-aware to show it is a good sign. It is a single good sign in the midst of many, many bad ones.

Why I Admire Frank J

Right now I want to blog, but I don't feel like being funny. I also don't have the time or energy to get good sunset or pet photos. Since I have placed no limits on my blog, I can sit down and write about anything.

Over at IMAO, Frank J dedicated himself to writing humor. Once in a great while he does a serious piece, but in the main, he posts some pretty complicated and elaborate humor articles. His In My World posts are fabulous.

Life being our reactions to random external events, Frank's had to have gone through doldrums where stresses and pressures have suppressed his imagination for his comedy writing, but he has managed to post with fairly consistent quality. Over at the excellent blog Scrappleface, the humor is fairly formulaic. Each post can be condensed into a single joke, typically pointing out the irony of some statement or event through the use of exaggerated dialog or fictional incidents. Frank's work, however, has always been more complicated, requiring more effort.

My own current ennui gives me considerable respect for what Frank has managed to do over the past several years.

Thanks, Frank.

What Happens When You Run Out of Talent?

Michelle Malkin has an excellent round up of the incompetencies at Homeland Security and the INS. She misses the bigger picture.

The problem is not that inexperienced people are being chosen for crucial jobs. The problem is that there are more positions to fill than willing, qualified people to fill them. As the government grows, the quality of people in leadership positions declines. Government employment places a cap on what you can earn. Private industry does not. There is a limited pool of people who are willing to forgo higher salaries in private industry in exchange for the relative safety of civil service. The more leaders you need, the deeper you have to pull out of that talent pool.

What you're seeing is that the pool is getting pretty shallow. Firing the incompetent people and replacing them will help, but there is no guarantee that their replacements will be much better. The government is larger than what the country can support in terms of personnel resources.

Open Mike Night at Stoptheaclu

Stoptheaclu sent out an email inviting an open thread discussion of the ACLU on the various blogs that make up their blogroll. Rather than pick a specific topic out of some list of outrages, I surfed over to the ACLU website and read some of their stuff.

The ACLU is a worthy collection of individuals who defend civil rights in court. Their website gives compelling reasons for their work and offers many stories of success in fighting for people who had been oppressed in one way or another. I watched their short video on gay rights and the people they interviewed were sincere and seemed to have been seriously wronged. Thank God there are lawyers who will take on the cases of people like these.

The ACLU as an organization or a movement, however, is a dinosaur. For example, gay rights is simply not an interesting topic any more. To repeat a common joke, homosexuality has gone from being the love that dare not speak it's name to the love that won't shut up. It has been protected by law to the point where unaffiliated lawyers specializing in Equal Employment Opportunity or discrimination law can take on these cases and win them in court. The ACLU is unnecessary in these instances.

The ACLU is an example of many institutions in our society that have long outlived their usefulness. At one point in time, the balance of power may have been too far on the side of institutions and a mass movement led by the ACLU may have been necessary to protect individuals. That time has come and gone, but we still have the institutions associated with that movement.

Like any other organism, the ACLU wishes to survive and grow. Since it lives by fulfilling a perceived need, it has to work constantly to create that perceived need. Hence the gay rights video on their website. That video, however, doesn't show masses of gays being herded into re-education camps, it shows individual gays being denied their rights by individual organizations. The video gives the impression that this is commonplace, but our own experience says that this is not.

I'm beginning to think that fighting the ACLU through direct attack on their causes may be inefficient. To me, the ACLU is simply irrelevant and should be fought that way. When they come out and complain about gay rights, the response should not be a hysteria about gays taking over the world, but instead a prolonged sigh and a pat on the head for the ACLU proponents saying, "Yes, dear, that's very nice. I'm glad you care. How about if you move on to something meaningful now?"

Hugh Hewitt had a great line on his show last night. In a meeting between the President and some citizens, the President was asked why the government was tapping phones and spying on people. The questioner said he had never been more afraid. Hugh laughed about it saying that here the person came out and slagged the President on national broadcast media about being terrified of the government and then drove home in safety. The fellow asking the question was totally unaware of the irony of his remarks.

In a society in need of the ACLU, that questioner would have been arrested and jailed. It didn't happen. The ACLU has outlived the real needs that created it.

Socialists Make Bad Economics Teachers

Yahoo! has an article on the poor state of high school students' understanding of personal finances.

On average, high school seniors answered correctly only 52.4 percent of questions about personal finance and economics, according to a nationwide survey released Wednesday.

Whoa! Dog bites man! Let's run with this story!

Considering who's teaching them, 52.4% might be considered an amazing victory. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that public school teachers have even the vaguest grasp of economics. Endless political campaigns begging for money have led to whopping increases in education spending year after year with no results.

These are the same people who are teaching our kids about economics and personal finance? Here's another shocker from the article:

Only 14.2 percent correctly said that stocks likely would offer the higher growth over 18 years of saving for a child's education. That was down from 17.2 percent who knew the right answer in the 2004 survey. In this year's survey 44.8 percent thought a U.S. savings bond — one of the most conservative investments — would offer the highest growth.

Let's see here, the capitalist investment option, stocks, is seen as less valuable than the government investment tool, savings bonds.

Gasp! THUD!

Sorry, I just fell over from amazement. You mean to say that our public school children, educated by a pack of statist failures bet on the wrong horse financially? No. Can't be!

Next week: high school students show low test scores in military history!

Civil War Means Time to Withdraw

I bow down and worship Right Wing Duck from IMAO for this post.

I wanted to do a Thursday 13 today, but it will have to wait until after work. It's been a hectic 7 days, but it should let up tonight.

World of Good Blogburst, Hospice Style

Thanks to A Tic in the Mind's Eye, we have the World of Good Blogburst. This week's entry at The Scratching Post is about Hospice.

Several years ago I worked with a librarian in our technical library on some research. In the process of working with her, it came up that she volunteered at Hospice. I told her that I could never imagine doing that and how impressed I was with her. She told me some of her stories from her work and it made me want to do it myself.

Volunteer work goes on all around us. Maybe it is so common to us that we don't even recognize it. Like beauties of nature that we hurry by, the time and care of people volunteering to help others is something that deserves some thought. Instead of stopping to smell the roses, maybe we need to pause in our busy days once in a while to relish our neighbors' generosity.

Excerpted from Hospicenet.org:

Volunteers ... provide comfort and enrich the quality of life for those served. Volunteers serve on a regularly scheduled basis and provide the following:

Support services - companionship, friendly visiting, active listening, bedside sitting, letter writing.

Sharing hobbies and special interests -- reading, gardening, listening to music, sports, travel, crafts, etc.

Assisting with errands - grocery shopping, picking up prescriptions and supplies, banking.

Transport patient/family - appointments, shopping, social outings.

Homemaking tasks - light housekeeping, dishes, laundry, meal preparation, child care.

No task is too big or too small for a hospice volunteer, but often the most important thing you can do is just "be there" for patients to reassure them they are not alone, to hold a hand, to offer a smile, or to just listen. It is not easy work, but the personal rewards are enormous. The strength and courage of patients provide a constant source of inspiration, and volunteers usually feel they gain more than they have been able to give.

Hospicenet also has some stories from surviving family members. The stories are way too complex to paraphrase, so let me link to one of them here and give you a tiny excerpt. At the Hospice website, at the bottom of this story, you can find links to the others. This story is about a woman's mother who was dying of cancer.

Then, on what turned out to be the last day of her life, our hospice nurse came for her daily visit, and brought with her a stranger to us, a young intern who was doing his hospice rotation, something recently added to the training of doctors. This was obviously his first hospice experience, and he seemed ill at ease to be there, but he watched and listened as our nurse compassionately cared for Mom and for us. I had a sudden realization (I believe it is God speaking to me when that happens) that this stranger whom Mom had never met was the ONE whose life she was supposed to touch before her work here was done. And then she died later that same day.

I am convinced that God sent that young doctor to Mom's bedside to help him learn how to deal compassionately with the dying patients and their families he will encounter in his future. It enabled me to give some meaning to Mom's suffering and death, even when it seemed to serve no purpose. I believe my Mother was able to reach out to someone even at the end of her life.

Wow. As I write this, it is dawning on me that everyone involved was giving of themselves to others. Even the dying woman, supposedly the recipient of the care, was able to help someone else.

Today, try to take some time to stop and smell the roses. Better yet, take some time to appreciate the people around you.

Please visit our previous World of Good posts about the US Navy, the Royal Australian Navy and some Catholic high school students from Nebraska.

Dutifully Turning in my Homework

Ahhh, insomnia. Sweet, sweet insomia. Blogger’s friend, worker’s enemy.

The Alliance has made requests of us and there’s nothing good on TV and the book I recently bought at a used bookstore is the worst piece of printed material since Noam Chomsky learned to write.

Cynthia McKinney, the congresscreature who recently assaulted a Capitol Hill police officer, says she has demonstrated her support for the police many times in the past. How does she do this? My bet is that she frequently leaves bowls of water and kibble on her patio for the police in her neighborhood. Cynthia McKinney is an idiot.

Explanation here.

If I were to send Glenn Reynolds a message, it would be this. Get a clue.

Explanation here.

Justin, just get over it. Go do you victory dance or whoop it up or shoot AK-47’s in the air and get it out of your system. Right about now, beating me at these assignments is about as rewarding as the ’27 Yankees beating your local t-ball team. Insert standard chest-beating here wherein dire threats are issued about revenging myself with next week’s Alliance assignments. Whatever.

Daylight Savings Time is the Work of the Devil

Including watches, ovens, VCRs, car clocks, alarm clocks and what have you, there are about a dozen different clocks in my house that need to be changed an hour, all of which have different instructions for setting the time, none of which I can find. Consequently we are running around trying to determine exactly which clocks are right and which ones you need to add an hour to.

A few years ago I left my wristwatch alone, because by the time I had found the instructions it was three months into the change and it was easier just to wait it out until it was correct again.

Between the clocks all being screwed up, the accident, travel and snowboarding combined with normal, randomly spaced traumatic events, blogging will be light until I can find a way to restart my insomnia so I can have more time to blog.

Communication and Multiculturalism

I don’t quite know how to start this post, so let me start in the middle. What in the world are we doing providing support for all these languages here in the US? Why is it that everywhere I go, I get information in any number of languages? It’s even at the landfill. It’s not just Spanish, either. Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, all kinds of languages are supported. How in the world are we supposed to work together if we can’t even talk to each other?

I thought that one of the purposes of multiculturalism was for us to communicate and share our cultures with each other. If we don’t speak, read and write a common language, then sharing our cultures is impossible unless we plan on using sock puppets or pantomime. While it might be entertaining in very small doses to watch a mime explain La Dia de Los Muertos, it certainly doesn’t work on a regular basis. Just getting your car worked on forces us to act like spastics when stranded near a garage run by people who don’t speak English.

It seems to me that communication and understanding is utterly defeated when people can’t comprehend each other.

If your primary goal was to facilitate thoughtful understanding between races and cultures, why would you allow this to happen?

Postscript

I just surfed the web a little bit looking for references to this subject. The opponents I came across argue that English as an official language is racist. That doesn't even vaguely make sense. Why not argue that using English as a standard language might cause a skin rash? I don't understand how being able to communicate is racist. It's insane.

The only thing I can think of is that weak political leaders can maintain power if their constituents don't have access to alternatives because of language barriers. If you want to be a bigshot in the Hmong community, for example, why open up competition by allowing your supporters access to alternatives?

The World's Most Expensive Hamster

I am the world's most expensive hamster.


I will prove it to you.

Today, the human in our household that serves our Maximum Leader, K T Cat, and also cares for me, had to go out to Petco to get new bedding for me. After purchasing said bedding, he left the store and began to drive home. On the way home, he needed to make a U-turn at a stoplight. He pulled up in the turn lane and stopped at the light. When the light turned green for the turn lane, he pulled out and as he was making his u-turn, an older gentleman in a new minivan ran the red light and his minivan was struck by our human's car. The fellow's van was going so fast that he caromed across the median of this four lane street and skidded 150 feet across the road until he rammed into a parked truck with a trailer which jacknifed and and was driven backwards 25 feet. The distances were all visible from the skid marks.

The litter for my cage, then, cost $8 plus a new front end for our human's car, a totaled minivan and about $2000 or more damage to the parked truck. It took the police officers an hour to completely survey the scene and record the details. The driver of the minivan was taken to the hospital for observations at still greater expense. No one was hurt badly, but the property damage was substantial. Easily in the five figure range. All for my litter.

By the way, if the Knight Protector and Defender of Yarn Balls is reading this, I'd be interested in hearing his professional opinion on the speed of the minivan if the skid marks go for 150' and the van managed to push a similar sized vehicle with a trailer back another 25' after the skid.

And that is why I am the world's most expensive hamster. I'm very cute and I move quickly. Don't you think I'm worth it?

Race and Politics Don't Matter II

Link 1 Full text (long) here.

Link 2

Link 3

The proof is left as an exercise for the reader.

HT: Supremacy Claus the sometimes right, sometimes wrong, but always entertaining commenter at BlackProf.com found link 2.

Snoozy Cat

Back to the blog! Went snowboarding all day yesterday after a full week on travel. K T gave me some good photos showing how I feel today.





Special thanks to this week's Carnival of the Cats for linking to this post!

Little or no blogging this weekend

Due to fun events entirely within my control, I will be doing little or no blogging this weekend. Have a great weekend and see y'all on Monday!

KT