Right As Usual

I was reading Jay Nordlinger, of the National Review , and I found a reference to a recently deceased soldier of WWII, who had been captured in Japan. After his return, he worked as a Christian missionary in Japan after the war. Why? Amid his misery, Corporal DeShazer had one source of solace. “I begged my captors to get a Bible for me,” he recalled in “I Was a Prisoner of Japan,” a religious tract he wrote in 1950. “At last, in the month of May 1944, a guard brought me the book, but told me I could have it only for three weeks. I eagerly began to read its pages. I discovered that God had given me new spiritual eyes and that when I looked at the enemy officers and guards who had starved and beaten my companions and me so cruelly, I found my bitter hatred for them changed to loving pity. I realized that these people did not know anything about my Savior and that if Christ is not in a heart, it is natural to be cruel.” Corporal DeShazer gained the strength to survive, and he became det...

I read the above article in Real Clear Politics (you really must check them out), and was struck by the way the article clarified what, to me, was the puzzling differences in the way the media and NGOs treat Israel and - well - just about every other country. Except us, of course. The kicker is at the end: Israel's Jewishness is a major part of the Muslim world's hatred of Israel. It is also part of Europe's hostility toward Israel: Portraying Israel as oppressors assuages some of Europe's guilt about the Holocaust -- "see, the Jews act no better than we did." Hence the ubiquitous comparisons of Israel to Nazis.

I just got off the phone with someone I knew about 30 years ago. We haven't seen since a few years after that. We re-connected when my husband Googled her, and sent an email. We're just making plans to get in touch this summer in person. I gotta lose weight.

I'm watching The Biggest Loser, and I'm getting steamed. The guys on that show are acting like jerks, deliberately ganging up on the women. They decided to work together to make sure that neither woman could possibly win the competition. The women were saying, if a woman falls below the line, she's gone. And it's true. The guys systematically work to eliminate the women, sparing men in their place, even when a man's performance is weaker. They're calling it teamwork. I'm calling them JERKS.

I was checking out Instapundit , and came across a reference to Obama's tax returns. Being curious, I checked them out. I did come across a curious thing, relating to Treehouse Foods. In their December 2007 balance sheet , Treehouse declared a Goodwill Asset of $ 590,791 (in thousands), up from $ 432.581 in Sept, 2007. It seemed a little high, compared to an inventory of $ 297,692 (in thousands), for the same period. Without that seemingly inflated goodwill, their Net Tangible Assets ($ 163.863 loss) would have been even worse. So, my question about the Treehouse income for 2006, of $ 51,200 - where did that come from? Was that a sale of an asset? Or something else? It was reported as ordinary income.

I was reading some posts in Gates of Vienna , and noticed an interesting commenter. I followed his link, and discovered escape from freedom . A taste from an especially thoughtful post: When one of these Pakistanis was asked why he would move to a country so alien and brave the long and cold winters he replied that he liked the law and order. That got me to thinking. There you have it in a nutshell. My home country is an utter mess so I will move to yours not to assimilate and appreciate your own unique culture. No siree bob, I will take what took your country hundreds of years of hard work and bloodshed to accomplish and become the ultimate usurper. Why not? It’s easier this way, and all I have to do is cry racism and your elites will give me what I want. It is almost the same as buying a successful company and reaping the rewards that took that business years to build. My country is a loser so I will take yours. What these dolts fail to recognize is that the reason their home count...

In an interview of prominent female bloggers, Emily of American Princess, is quoted as saying: I think politics isn't something women are necessarily as interested in. I have to disagree - in my experience, many women are avidly interested in politics. However, many of those women are less inclined to argue, considering disagreement to be unpleasant. Me, I don't care. I grew up in a family that used the after-dinner hour around the table as a wonderful excuse to air their opinions on EVERYTHING. None of us hesitated to put in our thoughts, and my youth was not used as a way of negating my heatedly stated opinions. I breathed in the stuff of local, state, and national politics at an age when my peers were watching Leave it to Beaver. As my family often had visitors to the table, I was able to hear what a variety of people had to say. As a result, I was a classroom whiz at Current Events, History, and Civics. School was like grade school, compared to the graduate-level tra...