Conservativa

Yes, that is what it looks like. A Claxton fruitcake. It’s that time of year again!

Spotted in a local grocery store. You’ve gotta have at least a cell phone cam, at all times. You never know what you might see!

To all veterans, Thank You.

Photo is of a WWII Memorial Rose, in one of the two rose gardens at the Virginia War Memorial.

Gateway Pundit has a good collection of charts and graphs showing ways of looking at the election results. Go see. Some of the comments are good, too. It is worth looking at these numbers in many different ways, partly because people will use the numbers in different ways, to illustrate that they are right. Always keep that in mind when anyone tries to “wow” you with numbers.

…because I am old enough to remember the Jimmy Carter years. They were a bit dreary, but the Republic survived. Then we got Ronald Reagan! I am thinking an Obama presidency will look a lot like a Carter presidency.

Couldn’t find Chevalier singing this, so the astounding and wonderful Lena Horne will do nicely.

…who won, holding his own very well, while some other R congressmen did not. Good thing, too. Cantor is needed in the Congress more than ever.

Yes, it is very cool that we have just elected our first African-American President. It is worth savoring that. And I will pray for him what I pray for every President, that he will have courage and good judgment, to know and to do the right thing for the Country.

A Walk After Dark

by W.H. Auden

A cloudless night like this
Can set the spirit soaring:
After a tiring day
The clockwork spectacle is
Impressive in a slightly boring
Eighteenth-century way.

It soothed adolescence a lot
To meet so shameless a stare;
The things I did could not
Be so shocking as they said
If that would still be there
After the shocked were dead

Now, unready to die
Bur already at the stage
When one starts to resent the young,
I am glad those points in the sky
May also be counted among
The creatures of middle-age.

It’s cosier thinking of night
As more an Old People’s Home
Than a shed for a faultless machine,
That the red pre-Cambrian light
Is gone like Imperial Rome
Or myself at seventeen.

Yet however much we may like
The stoic manner in which
The classical authors wrote,
Only the young and rich
Have the nerve or the figure to strike
The lacrimae rerum note.

For the present stalks abroad
Like the past and its wronged again
Whimper and are ignored,
And the truth cannot be hid;
Somebody chose their pain,
What needn’t have happened did.

Occurring this very night
By no established rule,
Some event may already have hurled
Its first little No at the right
Of the laws we accept to school
Our post-diluvian world:

But the stars burn on overhead,
Unconscious of final ends,
As I walk home to bed,
Asking what judgment waits
My person, all my friends,
And these United States.

In Henrico, the “near west end,” so to speak. Arrived right at 6 a.m., to a long line. For the 2004 Bush election, I was number 22 in line at 6 a.m. Today I was number 77? 79? (Working on less than one cup of coffee here, sorry). Voted at 6:45. By the time I left the line was half of what it was when I came in. [Note - timestamp on this post may be a Central time - please ignore - I am  posting at 7:35 Eastern].

Obama attacks…. himself! Heh.

Fed up with politics? It helps to do something non-political, like, say, cooking. This is my first run at a no-knead bread recipe. Pretty good! Jaden’s Steamy Kitchen version. Vegan Feast Kitchen version. Lots of other people have tried it and blogged about it.

I will definitely make this bread again, but with more salt. They say if you leave the dough in the refrigerator a day or two the flavor of the bread is better. It’s very plain, but it’s good.

The loaf is sitting on parchment paper, which I used to line the deep casserole dish I cooked the bread in. The crust came out very well - chewy, but not tough. (Now. We’ll see, tomorrow).

I have a story to tell. Please read and think about it. So I was in college, working, and one day I walked into the workplace, and my co-workers were all wide-eyed. “We’ve been trying to reach you! There are [government agency] security men in your office and they want to talk to you NOW!” I had no idea what for, so I walked in my office and sure enough, there were two G-men in there. Turns out they wanted to know about a former roommate. She had graduated in [science field] and gone on to get a cool job with [government agency]. Now she was about to get a job physically working on [extremely valuable project] but they had to clear her.

You would not believe the questions they asked me about her. She was one of several roommates I had, and we were in the same apartment for about two years. They wanted to know everything - friends, family, boyfriends, any drinking or drugs; associations, where she spent her weekends… it was personal and thorough. Fortunately she was a very quiet-living, family-oriented, down-to-earth person, so I was able to assure them that there was nothing remotely shady about her or anyone she hung out with. After many,  many questions, they thanked me politely and left.

That’s the kind of going-over a person gets, to be cleared to work on [one valuable thing, sorry to be so vague] - former roommates are hunted down and closely questioned to find any hint of anything dodgy.

Which makes me wonder… could Sen. Obama withstand that process and get any kind of security clearance? Please read this American Spectator article.
http://www.spectator.org/archives/2008/10/17/obama-couldnt-be-cleared

Holding the presidency is not like being a state senator, or a U.S. Senator. The president can order a nuclear attack. It is right for us all to demand to know who he lets into the circle of people who influence him. It is right for us to reject him if we see that those influences are actively hostile to this country.

Leslie Carbone has the clip of Obama plainly showing his socialist wishes in a discussion with a man he walked up to, one Joe, a plumber. Now see this great clip, including Obama laughing at the guy (technically, knocking McCain for sympathizing with him) and hear Obama’s supporters laughing. The contempt on display is ugly to see.

Now it looks like Obama followers have swung into action and dug into the life of this plumber to find anything on him, so they can destroy him for daring to ask the Chosen One a couple of questions on his views on taxes. NRO publishes some letters from readers who find the savaging of Joe, this regular kind of American guy, appalling.

Great roundup on this from The Anchoress. And this from Zombie - super post on all of us, polling, the media, engineered perceptions, etc. Please go read.

There were Obama protesters at the Monday Palin rally, and here is their photo. The sign the guy is carrying says “Joe Six-Pack for Obama-Biden.” Yeah right. More like Joe [Obama] Intern or Paid Campaign Staff. The girl in the middle waved her hand and said, “Don’t take my picture! It’s illegal!” Yeah right, maybe under an Obama administration… not here and now.

Former AG Jerry Kilgore was happy to have Gov. Palin visit Virginia. Kilgore serves as the McCain campaign’s Virginia co-chair.

Former Gov., now Senate candidate, Jim Gilmore, spoke to the enthusiastic crowd.

A sign says, “You Bet’Cha.” I guess this is the obligatory shoe photo as well.

There were many red shirts, showing a wish to “keep Virginia red” in November.

J.R. and Danae from Bearing Drift are live-blogging the McCain Palin Rally now. Go on over and join in on the comments.

I will be at the Palin rally in Richmond later today. Will do a little live-blogging, but will be concentrating on getting photos.