Left Wing Cracker writes: “When I grow up / I want to write just like The Rude Pundit. I have wanted SOMEBODY to say this since 1981…”

Since 1981, Left Wing Cracker has wanted a Democratic Presidential candidate, in a televised debate, to encourage the Republican candidate to concede defeat prior to the election, to preemptively claim a landslide victory, to refer to the opponent’s anticipated defeat as a beheading, to repudiate the service of Vietnam War veterans, to reject any mention of left-wing domestic terrorists, to reveal perverted ideations about public exposure and necrophilia, to describe sexual encounters with the skulls of public servants (both living and dead), to detail homosexual acts to be performed on him and his running mate, and to describe plans to have his administration sodomize a Governor and members of her family?

I’m about to do some work on the back end, so this site may disappear for a bit. But it will return, in full. Unless I mess it up.

In his July 4 post, Independency and Dependency, Josh Ross presents something that’s part straw man argument and part false dichotomy.

After acknowledging that Independence Day will be celebrated for “as long as the US remains the US” and noting ways in which our nation has changed, Ross says what the U.S. actually commemorates on this holiday is “independency.” By using this variation of the term, he suggests Americans are paying tribute to a generic condition of self-sufficiency, rather than a specific, political Independence.

Having defined the holiday as such, Ross then goes on to indicate his prayer that we instead seek dependence upon God.

What we remember on Independence Day is not self-sufficiency, but instead our nation’s birth, our deliverance from tyranny, our political freedom, our equality and our mutual interdependence. The signers declared that they had mutually pledged to each other their “lives,” their “fortunes,” and their “sacred honor.”

And our celebration of Independence is certainly not in conflict with our dependence upon God. The founders wrote that we were entitled by God with political equality, and that our Creator had endowed all men “with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Furthermore, the signers wrote that our Declaration of Independence was supported “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.” John Adams wrote that this occasion “ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty,” celebrated each year with a “great anniversary festival.”

It’s clear that Ross misunderstands the nature and character of this great holiday, if not the nation itself, which may help explain why he believes “we need people who will refuse to be defined by American values and principles.”

Should we refuse to be defined by our reverence for the equality of mankind? Should we refuse to be defined by our understanding that our rights come from God? Or by our unique system of checks and balances that protect the people from tyranny? Or by our religious and political freedoms? Or by our representative democracy, our exhaustive justice system and transparent governance? By our history of defending liberty at home and abroad?

Should we be ashamed by our nation’s exploration, innovation, industry, diversity, opportunity and tolerance? Or by our dedication to diplomacy, philanthropy and justice? Should we be ashamed of our people’s generosity and optimism? By our eagerness to forgive our enemies, offer aid and amnesty to the destitute or stand as a beacon of freedom around the world?

I will never refuse to be defined by my belief in these uniquely American values and principles.

Each year, I strive to offer a certain number of blog posts purely as a public service; this is one of those posts. Below are just a few of the things I have learned as a conservative blogger, and I’d like to share them with you, so that won’t make these mistakes:

You are not allowed to criticize Jon Stewart, because his show is classified as “fake news.” It’s perfectly fine to lie, misrepresent and distort if you’re a “comedian.” Stewart never claimed to be a credible journalist, so his political commentary cannot be expected to adhere to any measure of honesty or responsibility. So long as there’s the expectation of a punchline at the end of his monologue, he is free to invent facts, strip quotes from their context, make totally slanderous statements and distort the news items under discussion.

You are not allowed to criticize the Memphis Flyer, because that organization has never considered itself an objective, straight news source. It’s perfectly fine to lie, misrepresent and distort if you’re a “decidedly liberal” alternative newsweekly. So long as every word printed or posted serves the Leftist agenda, its authors are free to invent facts, strip quotes from their context, make totally slanderous statements and distort the news items under discussion.

You are not allowed to criticize socialist Christians who declare themselves “non-partisan.” Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo and other Christian leaders of the radical Left have not officially accepted the Democratic label and accordingly should be considered forever above the fray of partisan politics, no matter how consistently they adopt and circulate Democratic rhetoric.

You are not allowed to criticize global warming alarmism, unless you happen to be a meteorologist, climatologist, atmospheric chemist or geophysicist. If you are a scientist with a degree in one of these fields, you are still not allowed to criticize global warming alarmism because it is already a settled consensus. You are also not allowed to criticize global warming alarmists who have no degree in science, whether or not you have more expertise and/or credibility in the field than they do.

You are not allowed to criticize Darwinism, unless you happen to be a biologist, chemist, physiologist, paleontologist or zoologist. If you are a scientist with a degree in one of these fields, you are still not allowed to criticize Darwinism because to do so would somehow violate the separation of church and state, or would in any case reveal you to be an authoritarian Christian fascist.

You are not allowed to criticize anti-war, anti-American radicalism unless you have served in the military. If you have served in the military, you are still not allowed to criticize anti-war radicalism because you are a war-monger whose character has been thoroughly compromised by the Bush administration propaganda machine and whose hands are forever bloodstained by the illegal war in Iraq.

You are not allowed to criticize Leftist political figures who publicly stump for political causes or candidates if they can conceivably be classified as “victims” or if they happen to be married to the candidate. You are also not allowed to mention that candidate’s middle name or display photos that reveal the candidate in a less than heroic light.

You are not allowed to criticize any Leftist with an advanced degree and a funny hat, particularly if you currently live, or have ever lived, in a suburban area that is primarily inhabited by one demographic group, maintains traffic cameras at certain busy intersections and hosts an annual horse show. It goes without saying that this holds true regardless of your own educational level, your particular socioeconomic status or your feelings on horses and traffic cameras.

I recently spent what seems like hours examining the stylesheet behind this Wordpress theme, “2Exquisite,” as well as the code for each page, trying to get the theme fully customized with my new design. The one sticking point has been getting the sidebar to load properly on the category and archive pages. On those pages, the sidebar would load beneath the posts, rather than resting to the side (as sidebars typically do).

When I couldn’t locate the source of the problem, I sifted through several forum pages and help pages, only to find people with similar problems but nobody with a valid answer. But when I looked at the code with fresh eyes just a minute ago, I finally discovered the ONE TINY LINE that was throwing everything off. I can’t tell you how satisfied I feel at this moment.

For anyone who may be experiencing this same problem with the Wordpress 2Exquisite theme, make sure “< ?php mytheme_sidebar();?>” is copied on EVERY PAGE, including “date.php,” “search.php”* and “category.php.”

I also had to create a new style to make the background color consistent and without breaks, which I placed around the “content” div. If you stumbled on this post out of Wordpress theme frustration, and you can’t figure it out, leave me a comment; I’ll be glad to help.

*Updated after finding a third page without the proper code.

I warned you this would happen; the puppies have invaded my blog time. The show will return when I find the time to post one of my original thoughts (TM). Meanwhile, I’ve been considering additional websites and projects that I also don’t have time to actualize; go figure. See you on the flip side.

It appears the anti-Thaddeus has arrived after discovering, as we did, that Thaddeus Matthews scrubs his comments.

In response, Matthews wrote a post fingering talk radio host Andrew Clarksenior as the site’s author. True to form, however, Matthews has taken the post down. It’s still available in the Google cache, though, so you can behold it in all its glory.

I’ve placed a screen-shot below the fold: (more…)

A friend of mine sent me a photo of his desk the other day, and it reminded me how much I like to see how people work. I’ve always enjoyed seeing how people like Hemingway, Buckley or even Al Gore arrange their offices.

Here’s my workstation:

It’s a goofy enough day, being April 1st. Perhaps we can start a new meme — blog a photo of your desk or workspace and tag five friends.

I will tag Matt Dabbs, Ainsley’s Mom, Jason Middlekauf, Bob Krumm and James Wood.

Could somebody explain to me why I can’t get Google Maps to open? I can’t get it to load in either Firefox or Safari. My iBook G4 runs OSX. I’m able to open Google, Gmail and Google Reader, but Google Maps refuses to come up. I’ve cleared cookies and cache, tried disabling all of my Firefox plugins, nothing works. Help!

P.S. I will also accept help from Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey and Rhonda.

UPDATE: Rebooting the modem and router seems to have done the trick.

Another tag from A.C. at Fore Left!

“Here are the rules. The rules are simple. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages), open the book to page 123, find the fifth sentence, post the next three sentences and tag five other bloggers.”

If you’re following Project:BOY, you won’t be surprised that my entry comes from The Daily Bible by Harvest House Publishers. Page 123 falls into the reading for January 28th:

So Moses went down to the people and told them.

And God spoke all these words: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”

“You shall have no other gods before me.”

I’m a few days behind on Project:BOY, otherwise I would have blogged about this already. At the moment, I’m on the reading for Jan 24.

In the spirit of the Spirit, I’ll tag the five radical leftists at The Flypaper Theory: autoegocrat, Jeff, PeskyFly, kibitzer and The Christian Progressive Liberal.