Painfully Slow, It Is...

I really like that new widget I put in a week ago… the hit counter that shows visits from different countries. One strange thing about it, though. The widget has been in place for eight days now, and not a single hit from the Peoples Republic of China. Not all that strange, I suppose: I’m still banned in the PRC. But not, as yet, in the Peoples Republic of Greater San Francisco Bay Area Soviet Socialist Republic, though. Lotsa hits from that space…

I’m told we have a few conservative operatives still left remaining there, although it’s getting harder and harder to stay. It’s also pretty hard to maintain a good, plausible cover story while operating amongst some of the most dedicated socialists in the world, too. I know from experience.

All y’all may have heard or seen parts and pieces of the brouhaha that happened in the House night before last…the one that Charles Krauthammer likened to legislative-body spectacles we’ve seen in Third World legislatures, like Taiwan and South Korea (during last night’s “Special Report w/Brit Hume;” transcript not posted on FNC’s site as yet). You know, fist fights, brawls, and various other melees. While our Good Congresscritters didn’t actually come to blows Thusday night, it was danged close. Congressional Quarterly has the whole story, and it’s a doozy. I saw video of the House floor right after the vote was declared a failure, and I AM surprised a brawl didn’t develop. Passions are running pretty high right now, on both sides.

Another ray of hope…in today’s Telegraph (UK):

It is worth reminding ourselves why the Anglo-American alliance matters. Many Europeans, and some Britons, believe that we are approximating our policy unconditionally to America's: that we have decided, in a dangerous world, to stick to the mightiest power, right or wrong. But this misunderstands the nature of our compact. It is true that America has an unrivalled military capability, with air- and sea-lift, advanced communications satellites and nuclear capacity. It is true, too, that our Armed Forces enjoy a degree of technical and even nuclear collaboration with the Americans that is unique between two sovereign states. And there is no dishonour in admitting that it is better to be with the world's leading power than against it.

All these considerations, however, are secondary and contingent. The Atlantic alliance rests, as we argued on Monday, on shared assumptions, prejudices and interests. Faced with the same problem, Britain and America - and, indeed, the other free English-speaking nations - tend to react the same way. Our shared heritage gives us a common belief in freedom and free trade, a common indignation at injustice, a common scepticism toward Utopian schemes.

Gordon Brown evidently agrees. Hence his evocation, quoting Churchill, of "the great principles of freedom and the rights of man that are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, Habeas Corpus, trial by jury and English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence". It was these principles that led the Anglosphere nations to fight against the enemies of freedom in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and, now, in the jihadist training camps.

The whole thing is worth the read, but I get the feeling the Telegraph is preaching to a choir of rather limited size, given the rather astounding number of horror stories emanating from the UK of late (some of which turn out well, in spite of, well, everything). Still, it’s good to see there are still candles in the wind, eh?

Lordy, but surfing has been painful today. My ‘net connection has been erratic as all Hell, slow at times and disappearing altogether at others. I’ve rebooted the modem several times today, and things get better for a while before going back to sh!t. And it’s Saturday, so if there are issues with the local infrastructure they will most likely persist all frickin’ weekend.

I hate it when this happens…

Today’s Pic: Another in what could be a long, long, line of windshield pics.

“Rumour spreadin' a-'round in that Texas town
'bout that shack outside La Grange
and you know what I'm talkin' about.
Just let me know if you wanna go
to that home out on the range.
They gotta lotta nice girls ah.

Have mercy.
A haw, haw, haw, haw, a haw.
A haw, haw, haw.”

I had to snap this, Gentle Reader. I just simply HAD to do it. But did I GO? Nope. Had someplace else to be...

Near that famous lil town in Texas. April, 2000.