What about stereotypes about Americans, patriotism, and military veterans?

Oh, those aren't in poor taste. Those are accepted conventional wisdom.

That doesn't follow.

Eh?

Yeah. Conventional wisdom can still be in poor taste. AAMOF, it's practically part of the definition.

Oh. I getcher point.

Thanks for your kind wishes.

What kind wishes?

Well...? They could! Not everybody is as hateful as you.

Not hateful. Just honest.

Well thank YOU! (Tomayto/tomahto.)

In the meantime, we need to always exercise skepticism toward “authorities” who tell us to simply trust their judgment regarding sunshine, diet, climate change, or anything else. It will become increasingly critical that we do our own research in the years to come as government has expanded into every aspect of sciences. At the same time, the sheer mass of legitimate discoveries is making it harder and harder for anyone to keep up.

Patrick Cox, Sunshine, Vitamin D, and Death by Scientific Consensus

RTWT. Me, I'm doubling my daily dose.

Silly old leftist.

Goodnight, Gracie.

But only progressives can see doing more of the same and expecting different results as sane and sensible.

Similarly, when one needs to "spin" an act of government, and try to shoehorn it into a spun interpretation of the constitutional text, the wise and informed voter will always see the attempt for what it is -- a lie.

And remember: when a politician cannot tell you the truth for fear you will no longer trust him, why should you trust him in his lies? A politician who lies to you once should never be trusted again. On anything.

Right?

So why do you continue to support leftists?

Artistic vision requires that the artist fall in love with his subject -- if only a little. Without that, you can't put the beauty into the work that makes it a work of art and not just auto-eroticism. In this picture, there is a lot of detail to discover. There's mystery -- what's happening, here? There's natural beauty of the snow outside, but also in the deadly nature of an ice storm and what it can do to the underpinnings of our comfort. We are reminded of that by the lights reflected in the window. There's also an element of serendipity. I wasn't trying to shoot the reflections. I wanted to get a shot outside the window. Set up a time exposure on a tripod to get it. The reflections in the window glass were a happy accident. But when I saw them in-frame, I knew I had it. They're what makes the picture.

And, conversely, if the left will not allow the conjecture to be falsified, then let us deny them any increase in spending.

II. Criminy Crimea or, Meet me in Sevestapol, Louis

Sunday, August 15, 1998, Cincinnati, Ohio

Dolly came padding and shuffling down the back stairs in her fuzzy slippers. One could tell it was early morning by her generally rumpled condition and the red-gold halo her unruly hair formed around her head. Pillow hair, she called it. She was dressed solely in the aforementioned slippers and an oversized terrycloth bathrobe that must have belonged to her lover, Drummond, who was easily twice her size.

She reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped sleepily for a moment, dithering over whether to go out front and get the paper or if it would be more gemütlich to start up a pot of coffee.

Then, like the sun breaking through a layer of cloud, her nose woke up and she could smell that there was already coffee brewing. Her heart swelled with affection for the man who shared her life. He didn’t drink the stuff himself, but had started a pot of it for her before he left on his morning run. He was always thinking of her like that.

She shuffled over to the coffee maker and found a cup set out on the counter, along with a cream pitcher full of her favorite condensed milk and a little silver tray piled high with packets of her favorite sweetener. A spoon stood in the cup. Tied to the spoon by a green curling ribbon was a mylar helium balloon with Garfield the Cat printed on it and a large numeral “6”.

There was a running joke in the household that her feline buddy, Orange Jell-O, most times known as Jelly, was the model for the cartoon cat. He was big and orange and lazy and had an attitude. But he adored Dolly.

“What’s that all about?” she asked the empty kitchen with a sleepy rasp to her voice. She released the balloon to bounce against the overhead and drift in the wind from the ceiling fan. Pouring a cup of the rich, brown liquid, she savored the aroma of it.

Just like a freakin’ commercial, she thought wryly to herself. She poured in a liberal dose of condensed milk and the contents of a handful of the blue packets of sweetener, then shuffled back over to the table in the breakfast nook, stirring the hot liquid briskly as she walked.

When she got there, she found a wrapped box at her place at the table. It was a heavy box, but what it contained was quite dense. She shook the package and could feel the weight of the contents mostly centered in the box. Whatever the box held, it was asymmetrical. It seemed to want to tumble, a bit like a precessing gyroscope. She set her coffee cup down and turned her full attention to the mysterious parcel.

It was wrapped in creamy gift paper, embossed with the words “Happy Birthday” in a fancy script. That was odd. She had been born in February, if her Genesis could have been called a birth.

She twisted at the waist and stared for a moment at the helium balloon, bouncing against the blades of the lazily turning ceiling fan. Turning back to the package, she saw a small folded card — a gift tag, really — tucked under the binding ribbon. She finagled it out with her slim, elegant fingers and opened it, recognizing Drummond’s messy script immediately. It took her several tries to decipher it, but eventually, she could make out:

Dearest Gabrielle;

You are six months old today. I realize it is not an anniversary, so it’s not properly your birthday, but it is a milestone, and an important one nevertheless. So here’s a present. Happy Un-Birthday.

I love you,
Mitch

This was so like him to get her a present just because he felt like it and then make up some occasion. But then, she was six months old. And it was a big deal for her, even if nobody else in the world knew or cared. She shivered a little with delight in her lover and then started in on the package, tearing it open greedily. She recognized the Browning Arms box immediately when it was exposed and she gave a little cry of glee, her nails scrabbling on the slick cardboard as she rushed to open it.

“Oh, wow! A new High Power! Oo! And it’s .45 ACP, too! Neat! OH!” Then she got the box open and found that there had been some custom engraving done on the weapon, chased in gold.

“Gabrielle Dolly, August 15, 1998, with love, from Mitch,”

...she read aloud, a tear coming to her eye and her voice as she did so. By the time Drummond got back from his run, she had it out of its wrapping and cleaned of the cosmolene, had dug out some snap caps, and was sighting it and dry-firing it all over the kitchen.

“I see you found your present,” he said dryly as he came through the back door.

“Sure did,” she said, carefully pointing the pistol at the floor with well-trained muzzle discipline before she bounded over to give him a big sloppy wet kiss. “It’s neat. I love it! Thanks! Can we go to the club this morning and get it sighted in?”

“Sure. Sure!” he laughed, holding up both hands in surrender. “I’ve got us some time with Wex already scheduled. I figured you’d want to. I also figured you’d want to pick out a new holster for it, but in the meantime...” he reached into a basket of laundry and pulled out another wrapped present, “... I thought this might come in handy.”

“Wow! A Bill Taylor holster!” she enthused when she got it peeled. “Wow! You love me. You really, really love me!”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to think that that is the reason, but, yeah. Pretty much.” He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side while she eagerly inspected the fit of her new gun in its new holster. “And since I also thought you couldn’t stand the suspense of any more presents, I’ll just tell you. There’s a box of wadcutter in the bread box and a case in the back of the Jeep.”

The smile on her face and the glow in her eyes just about made his day. Then she put the gun down and thanked him properly and it did make his day.

Exsqueese me?

I am an American. Citizen. Native-born of longtime residents. Born of a tradition in my family going back through the generations to the early 17th Century on these shores. We came here in the pursuit of the freedom afforded us in this new land. I am a firm believer in the founding creed of this nation: "All men are created equal; they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. That among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

On the basis of my firmly-held moral beliefs, I do not accept the authority of Congress to legislate in this matter, nor of any executive under the Constitution to impose regulations by fiat. I therefore claim a waiver of the requirements and penalties under Obamacare.