Class

Tom Watson, at the end of the third day of the British Open, holds the tourney lead by one stroke.

It is said that golf is the classiest game. Despite that being merely an opinion of a highly subjective quality, it's an assertion that hardly ever gets contradicted. Certainly those who govern its rules and professional tours work hard to build class in its players. But like so many activities in which man engages, men tend to meet the challenge with differing degrees of success.

I do not play golf anymore. I haven't for over twenty years. Maybe my lack of talent for playing golf says that I am lacking something more than merely playing skills.

Still, I know class when I see it. And I like seeing it. So I appreciate watching golf even though I don't play because it provides me an opportunity to witness more of that quality.

In my opinion, as I stated yesterday, Tom Watson is one of the classiest players of the classiest game. Win or place tomorrow, I do not expect Mr. Watson to let me down.

So listen up people. (At least yee few who regularly stop by here.) Whether or not you give a damn about any game or no games at all, I think you may fully enjoy catching a rare peak. This is a quality that TV rarely gives us a chance to witness without it self-consciously trying to tarnish the champion. (And they may yet do that; whomever dares, I wish for them extra whacks in Hell for trying.)

So let me strongly recommend watching ABC tomorrow morning. Catch maybe the last televised and untarnished glimpse of class in action.

-------------------------------*** U P D A T E ***-----------------------------------------
Please see my post for today, 7/19/09.

Go, Tom, Go!

One of Golf's most classy players, Tom Watson, is tied for the lead of the British Open.

He shot a 65 the first day, and was in a 4or5 way tie for first.

At the end of the second day, he was the only one of those to remain in the lead as he shot par 70 while the others didn't fare so well in the weather. There are still two more days to go. You can do it Tom! You can do it in your sleep. You won the Brit Open five times before. The last time you were still a pup and under 40.

Oh, Tom doesn't usually play with the regular pros. He's been on the Senior tour for a decade now. That last major win was 26 years ago. That's right. This man is 59. Fifty-nine.

The following is a public service reminder.

As you hear nasty things about the ØCare plan DC is trying to force down the throats of us all -- such as: mandatory suicide counseling for all medicare recipients -- remember that sometimes even seniors can still teach the youngsters a thing or two.

Now, let us return to our joyous moment, however long they allow us we have left.

Go Tom: Go!

Sonia Sotomayor Thinks [your name here] Is Stupid

Sonia Sotomayor's cavalier assessment of American intelligence appears to be: "You all are a bunch of dopes."

Is that okay with you?

Analysis Summary:

• Sonia Sotomayor(SS) has frequently scoffed at public expectations of judicial restraint. She has injudiciously mocked the faith of the public that judges will refrain from making policy. (Hear her laughing and scoffing in the video embedded below.)
• SS now denies her past statements are how she thinks today.
• SS has been evading questions that could reveal if her attitude has or has not changed.
• By evasively answering questions, SS is exploiting senate traditions because she expects Republican Senators will demand their caucus stick to the conservative rules of senatorial restraint unlike the behavior of Democratic Senators were she a Republican nominee.
• After repeated viewing of the videos, how can those who think SS is one of them, and so aid and abet SS in the evasions, be trustful of her?
  
• Democrats, Republicans or independents: How in the world can such a scoffer of faith, and exploiter of courtesies extended to her, be trusted to respect your wishes tomorrow?
• My fellow Americans: I know most of you have had your fill of politicians who hide their intentions only to go on prove their corruption. How much worse to watch our elected gatekeepers allow advancement of a power seeker who brazenly dares them to stop her despite her open contempt for the trustworthy?
• Senators: Have you become so corrupt that you can stand there and take Sonia Sotomayor's exploitation of Senate's traditions and abuse of its niceties and also expect us Americans to believe you still have spines?
• Sonia Sotomayor's cavalier assessment of American intelligence appears to be: "You all are a bunch of dopes."
• Is that okay with you?
  

Preface:
Our Constitution and traditions provide us safety nets. They are meant to keep incompetents and despots from attaining high office. Observations that the safety nets are badly frayed are too important for anyone to raise an alarm without providing details supporting the alarms. So details supporting my analysis follows.

Today's Alert:
A commenter yesterday reminds us that

Judges enforce a demand for straight answers from those testifying on the stand by threatening them with contempt of court. Well, then is not it inequitable to permit a judge to evade questions?

Traditionally, yes, we have granted that exclusion, particularly about their inclinations and beliefs that inform their judgments. Because such questions tended to be political in nature, and we wanted our judges to be freer from the political process than our lawmakers and executives. It was part of a unwritten code of conduct carried over from noble and chivalrous times:

"We won't subject you to a political third degree because we have faith that you won't permit your political inclinations to color your judgments."

When faith in judges' political neutrality was consistent with the result, judges were spared intense questioning. When a judge has demonstrated with his or her record to have kept faith with that expectation, then they have earned our trust.

In our current state of the courts there are a great many activist judges who have made their presence known. That informs us that procedures designed to prevent them gaining access have failed. Thus, we expect our elected representatives to revise the procedure. We expect them to take a harder look before acceding to a nominees promotion. We expect them to test on a case by case basis: "has this judicial nominee earned our trust?"

And so we have the case for the current nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. Has she earned our trust she'll be neutral? Has she demonstrated impartiality by not permitting her personal inclinations to color her judgments?

Since she became a nominee to advance to our highest court, her political backers and our media expect us to believe that the lady sitting in the dock of the senate is the epitome of the modest jurist. We are to believe that despite her past rulings that belied the faith placed in her before, she has since undergone a miraculous conversion? Doesn't that seems an odd belief and level of faith to place in a human? (And from those who run secular institutions no less. Well, it is miraculous, or something.)

But when Judge Sotomayor was questioned even indirectly into how deeply regretful she has been of her past remarks and rulings and current beliefs, she has been deliberately evasive. Does that not rate a prolonged procedural "Hmmmm?"

In matter of fact, in addition to the activist stances she has exhibited in rulings, she has been brazenly injudicious with political statements she has made in public appearances, on tape. One of those outright mocks the presumption that judges are not permitted to make policy. She laughs at the very idea that judges don't make policy.

That video show us a woman mocking you for expecting restraint from a judge, a person to whom you have granted your trust. It should not matter if you believe she is for your cause today. How in the world can you trust such a scoffer to respect your wishes tomorrow?

This video also sends another message. The candidate is counting on the Senate procedure to lack substance even as its participants carry out its formalities using polite and sonorous voices. She expects the Senate to go through the motions and never push too hard. She is saying the current confirmation process is a joke.

Listen again to that video people!

Listen over and over again to that video Senators until its meaning penetrates your protective layers long hardened by the grind! Have you become so corrupt that you can stand there and take Sonia Sotomayor's abuse of the Senate's traditions and also believe you still have spines?

What she is essentially saying in that video is: "Those people who extend to me the faith in judicial neutrality that they grant other judges are dopes."

"No Controlling Legal Authority" to Self Defense -- Sotomayor

I just heard a soundbite of the following question "Do you believe that an individual has the right to self defense?" and Sonia Sotomayor's response to it:
"I don't believe the court has addressed that issue.... but I could be wronnnnnnng."

Evading the question of whether or not an individual has the right to self defense calls to question her intelligence and her decency BIG TIME.

Charges are dropped based on the presumption of self defense all the time. People have been exonerated forever based on a determination of self defense. But Sotomayor, rather than simply say "Yes," the answer that God fearing human beings have been saying forever, demurred.

Let me observe that I have a right to demand that she promise not to introduce to the United States the kind of horrors visited upon our British cousins. They have been denied this basic right now for over a decade. Thus, I do not believe she was being stupid as some will claim. She is being devious.

This nomination is OVER.

Unless, of course, a majority of senators hate the innocent human beings whose inalienable right to life they have vowed to protect!

******************----------- U P D A T E -------------*************************

As reported by the Washington Post

COBURN: Thank you.

Let me follow up with one other question. As a citizen of this country, do you believe innately in my ability to have self-defense of myself -- personal self-defense? Do I have a right to personal self- defense?

SOTOMAYOR: I'm trying to think if I remember a case where the Supreme Court has addressed that particular question. Is there a constitutional right to self-defense? And I can't think of one. I could be wrong, but I can't think of one.

I am happy to report, based on the above report, that my memory stood up well to the test.

The Emmanuel Goldsteining of Sarah P

The Emmanuel Goldsteining of Sarah P is what I conclude has been an ongoing two step process we have been observing and often participating in.

1. The statists and their media want us to focus on Sarah Palin to get the focus off them.
2. They seem to want us to think of her as the embodiment of their opposition.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
For those who do not recall details of George Orwell's novel "1984" I will mark* them as I mention them below: Emmanuel Goldstein* was the alleged leader of the opposition to the ruling party of the novel's totalitarian country. I say alleged because it was not clear if he exists or ever existed. He simply serves as the whipping boy for all bad things. And good party members were expected to participate in daily cathartic exercises called "The Two Minutes Hate"* in which images of Goldstein and his brotherhood* and allies were flashed across media (Ministry of Truth*) controlled viewing screens* everywhere (really everywhere) in the country.

I decided to write of this today because someone made the following proposal which seems to be the generic wish of most people who would rather focus on solving problems than the politicians who exploit them.

"There are a lot more important, even dire, issues we face right now. ... Certainly, our politicians have more important things to discuss right now than Palin’s future." -- Rob

I attempted to point out to Rob, "Well, good luck with that" It is not as if it is we who determine what the Ministry of Truth and party hacks will consider important and promote into a brouhaha. Another pointed out the threatened trials of GWB and his officials would also become prominent; they would be persecuted in show-trials such as those endured by alleged members of "The Brotherhood."*

Look. I know there are people who think George Orwell’s dystopic vision is passé for any of a number of reasons, some reasonable, some silly. Nevertheless, Sarah P, whether she or we like it or not, appears to be serving as our ruling class’ Emmanuel Goldstein.

If only she was subjected to simply two minutes hate every day.

It’s more like an industry has sprung up to deliver to us some variation of it 24/7. And it’s been going on every single day for coming up on a full year. Will there be a first anniversary doubleplus* hate session? Count on it!

(How about, instead, a first anniversary memorial session to remind us that once, long ago, it was still okay to be normal?)

She has so been the target of BOTH party’s core leadership that it is bordering on proof positive that the “two” parties share the same central command office.

It has become cliché to say that aiming at Sarah is deliberate so as to divert our focus from the widespread thefts and multifaceted constitutional violations. Well, duh!

Bottom line: The attention directed at Sarah is so obviously diversionary, it is logical to expect that if any birth certificate is eventually made public, it will be hers.

Progress-of

Altruistic ==► Casuistic ==► Craven ==► Shameless ==► Brazen ==►[TBD]

The decline of the seemingly intelligent Progressives, "blessed" with an abundance of influence, money and power, is one of life's very sad ironies.

Progressives have so bought into the idea of population growth being a zero sum game, they've been blind to their inevitable fate due their contribution to the progress of Zero's home game.

BTW, Zero may aptly fit the current puppet of the power-mad, but it is to another, older Zero to which I allude.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Original Sin was revealed for its essence when the snake saw that Eve had an ego through which he could gain access to her soul.

By telling her that God had lied to her and Adam; that the reason He didn't want her to eat of the Tree Of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, was that it would allow her to know what God knows.

That is the original sin.

The desire to be as God has been used to mislead and harm mankind from the beginning. We are merely His agent. We fall short in our pursuit of our purpose when we seek to be as Him, insisting that only achieving the Zenith of Perfection can we really be satisfied.

It is a foolish insistence. Time after time there are those amongst us who overreach. That displays more than dissatisfaction, more than ingratitude; a hubris without equal.

And yet, there it is like a willful childishness that too easily leads to death. And that appears to be the aim, all along, of our stalker.

The folly in trying to be what we are not meant to be is hinted at in the story of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice."