Recent Acquisitions

I received a used book bought through amazon, R.R. Bolgar’s The Classical Heritage and Its Beneficiaries: From the Carolingian Age to the End of the Renaissance, a Harper Torchbook published in 1964. It looks promising. The book is about the good effects of classical civilization on western civilization. Bolgar wrote before the rise of the New Left, so I don’t think I’ll come across the words “dead white males” in this book.

The cover features a poor black and white reproduction of the inevitable, Raphael’s School of Athens. You know the painting: Plato is pointing up, Aristotle is gesturing out at the world. On how many philosophy book covers has this painting been used?

I also received the December 2006 Commentary, which has a review of Barack Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope. I won’t be buying his book, as I like to say that anyone who buys a book written by a politician deserves to read it. But I must ask, what is it with Democrats and hope? The word makes their knees weak, and yet, if they really gave a good goddamn about hope, then they would not be socialists. Socialism destroys hope for everyone, even those weak and needy ones it purports to help. Capitalism provides opportunity, raises the general standard of living, advances technology and everything else and creates wealth. Without capitalism there is no hope. Liberals use the word hope to expand the state and destroy the real cause of hope – another example of the parasitic nature of evil.

Any big government liberal who writes a book called The Audacity of Hope is saying to me, “I am a mediocrity who cannot think in anything but the treacliest of bromides and I expect to appeal to ignoramuses who respond emotionally to fuzzy words but do not think critically.” Yes, he is a politician for our time. I expect him to go far.

Good Line

Found at Cassandra Page:

“Six imams removed from a US Airways flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix are calling on Muslims to boycott the airline. If only we could get Muslims to boycott all airlines, we could dispense with airport security altogether.” – Ann Coulter

The Nancy He Knew

Ethan Wallison has given us an insider’s look at Nancy Pelosi in “The Nancy I Knew.” He paints a portrait of the liberal mindset. Because Pelosi is certain that her motives are pure, she can break rules and scheme against others. Anyone who opposes her, she believes is motivated by “malice.” Also of interest is how important her sex was in her climb to the leadership. Being “the first woman such-and-such” is essential to feminists. New Leftists go through life judging people not as individuals, but as members of a group. It is hard to overstate how collectivism warps leftist thinking.

But... if we bomb them, they will get mad

Dr. Hurd quotes this:

MSNBC: You don’t think Bush will attack Iran in the end?

Biden: I don’t think so … The reason being, we have no capacity to do that. Even with airstrikes, now that you’ve energized the Iranian population, what do you do then? (Senator Joe Biden, Democrat, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the new Congress)

We don’t have the capacity to bomb Iran because that will “energize” the Iranian population. And what do you do then?

How about this? We light a cigar, pour some champagne and laugh at the energized Iranians. Not only will this feel good, but we’ll get the additional pleasure of pissing off the French.

Senator Biden needs to think outside the appeasement box. Stopping the Islamofascist regime of the mullahs from getting nuclear weapons is a good thing. If it angers the Iranian people, then they deserve to be provoked.

The Practical or the Moral?

Paul Mirengoff writes:

Republicans concluded that pure government bashing won't work politically during the Clinton years. Hence President Bush's "compassionate" or "big government" conservatism.

Is that right? Were Republicans for smaller government, but then they saw that it didn’t work politically so they threw out their principles and proceeded to expand the state even greater than Clinton did and with the drug prescription program passed the biggest welfare state program since LBJ’s Great Society? If that is so, then the Republicans are cowards without integrity.

I don’t think Mr. Mirengoff is right. I think Bush and many if not most Republicans are ideologically committed to big government. You don’t come up with a theory of government like “compassionate conservatism” solely as a cynical ploy to win votes. Bush’s favorite political philosopher was an altruist. Bush might be the most idealistic President since Woodrow Wilson. He is committed to doing what he thinks is right, both at home and abroad.

The Republicans must look deeper than political tactics and “what works”; they must examine their ideals.

Sandra Shaw's Art History I

I listened to the first hour of Sandra Shaw’s course, Art History I, which is available online for free. This hour is on prehistoric art. I was surprised by how interesting it was. Sandra Shaw makes some essential identifications on Cro-Magnon art and culture, explains how it is superior to other stone-age art and even suggests a connection with Western Civilization. It is a breathtaking synthesis, although the connection with later European culture, which she makes only in one brief sentence, remains speculative and maybe I misunderstood her point on one listening.

I will pay to hear the rest of the course.

Casino Royale

I enjoyed Casino Royale immensely. The Bond franchise lost its confidence during the Roger Moore era due to what Ayn Rand called “bootleg romanticism.” The filmmakers didn’t take the series seriously and as a result the movies became campy and utterly unrealistic. Some things such as the opening sequences were there just because people expect a Bond film to follow a certain formula, and these sequences became outrageously over the top and unintegrated with a coherent plot.

The new Bond takes itself seriously. Every action sequence is integrated into the plot. The movie has an excellent script; it is thrilling and romantic, with some first-rate plot twists. I would say Daniel Craig's Bond is second only to Sean Connery. He is a more naturalistic Bond who gets cut up and bleeds and he is quite intense. He has a little Mike Hammer in him; he seems to be on a moral mission and, with his license to kill, willing to be judge, jury and hangman.

SPOILER IN THIS PARAGRAPH. The story even has a theme -- when was the last time you could say that about a Bond film? The theme is tragic: one must lose one's humanity and any chance at a normal, happy life to become a 00 agent. I believe the tragedy comes with taking a story seriously these days. Today's filmmakers cannot put happiness and seriousness together. Unalloyed value-achievement leads them to the campiness and comedy.

Unlike some, I thought the Bond girl, Eva Green, was fine. Granted, she is not an exotic type and not a supermodel, but, as a friend of mine used to say, I wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crackers. She can act. You can’t say that about all the Bond girls over the decades.

Who Was Wrong?

Was your first reaction to the story about the police shooting 92-year old Kathryn Johnston what is wrong with the police or what is wrong with the woman?

I suppose libertarians and leftists would say what is wrong with the police.

My reaction was what is wrong with the woman. The police did their job right. They identified themselves as police, she shot three of them and they killed her. Any investigation or restrictions on the police will just make it harder for them to do their job. Cops have to be able to shoot back when someone shoots at them.

Those who hate America and want to break down the objective rule of law love this kind of case because the weak (92-year old woman) was killed by the strong (police). They hope to paint the woman as a victim out of context of the facts in order to further hamper the police. They do what altruists always do: appeal to out of focus emotions.

Of course, the case is complicated by the fact that the raid was unjust and tragically wrong because drugs should be legal. The police should not be busting down doors to search for drugs. And if they do bust down doors, they should damn well do their homework and not just raid a house from one anonymous tip. However, the existence of bad laws in a mixed economy does not change the fact that if we’re going to have police, they must be able to do their job and to protect themselves from gunfire.

What McCain Wants

Matt Welch’s examination of John McCain’s ideas is a must-read. Many politicians show aspects of fascism, but McCain, with his militarism, national greatness, government regulation of business, calls for self-sacrifice and militaristic view of citizenry, is the purest fascist among prominent politicians. Can anyone doubt that a Democrat Presidency (especially with a Republican Congress) would do less harm to freedom than a McCain Presidency?

Do you want to wake up one day between the years 2009-2113 to an America in which every young person must do two years of mandatory service to the state as a "rite of passage"? Is that what Jefferson, Madison and friends had in mind when they founded this country?

Hugh Hewitt's Next Book

The evangelical Christian Hugh Hewitt thinks it is important to sell Mitt Romney to the religious right. He wants to stop any anti-Mormon talk now. Romney is obviously the early candidate of the social/religious right.

Watching how Romney, McCain and Giuliani fare in the next two years might be a good indicator of where the power is in the Republican Party. We should be able to see what the soul of the party is, unless everything gets muddied and complicated (as pragmatists love to make it).

My reading at the moment is that Romney has the social/religious conservatives; McCain has the pro-war, anti-corruption and independent voters; and Giuliani has socially liberal Republicans. All three candidates are mixed bags, and the task will be sorting through the positions to find the most important. My early preference is none of them, but gridlock with a Democrat President and a Republican Congress.

(HT: Andrew Sullivan)

Business As Usual

The Democrats are being cautious:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three Democratic congressmen who are about to take important leadership posts said on Sunday they plan to pass popular legislation blocked by Republicans but would refrain from pushing some of the most controversial elements on the liberal agenda.

Why are they being cautious?

"Democrats like winning elections," said Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, the incoming chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee and the longest serving member of the House.

"We want to win elections and we're going to do our best to do so," he said. "This doesn't mean to get into any extreme positions on any matter. We'll do what makes good sense."

Okay, but look at what they do not consider controversial or extreme:

Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who will take over the U.S. House of Representatives committee that covers banking and other financial institutions, mentioned raising the minimum wage, providing cheaper drug coverage for the elderly and providing more affordable housing and help with college tuition as the focus of Democratic legislation.

Throwing more money down the sewer of the welfare state and expanding government power into every aspect of our lives is just business as usual to these people.

I draw two conclusions offhand from all this. (If you have better conclusions, feel free to comment.)

1. Whatever the Democrats do in the next two years, they would do even more if they were not afraid of the American voters. That’s a good sign, isn’t it? They still have to walk on eggshells. Liberal still has negative connotations in America.

2. The welfare state is the status quo, the given, the non-extreme. Dismantling it will be the mother of all challenges. Forget the Augean stables, cleaning up the welfare state would kick Hercules’s ass. Every step of the way, statists in both parties will lie, fear-monger and demonize the reformers as “right-wing extremists.” It will be ugly. It will take politicians of unbreached integrity and courage.

[Blink]

Did I just write “politicians of unbreached integrity and courage”?

The welfare state will be with us for a loooong time.

What Women Want II

In my last post I discussed what women want for America, which is to turn it into Canada. Now let’s look at what women want in a man.

If you ask women what they want in a man, they will say things like, “I want a man who is tender, who listens to me and is attentive, who communicates. I want a man who isn’t afraid to show his feelings. I want a man who can cry.”

It’s BS. Women are so messed up by feminism that they don’t know what they want.

Women want to be seduced by a strong, confident man. They want to be turned on, thrilled, romanced, swept off their feet and conquered.

If you give a woman what she says she wants, you will become the male equivalent of Canada – pleasant but dull.

If you give a woman what she says she wants, you will become her friend. This is good if you’re gay. You can go shopping together and talk about shoes and Louis Vuitton handbags.

If you’re straight, you do NOT want to become a woman’s friend. Friends end up moving a woman’s furniture while the lout down the street screws her brains out. (I'm writing about the early stages of a relationship here. Long-term, things change. And in marriage, well, the men WILL be moving the furniture.)

Nothing kills sexual passion faster than altruism. Women don’t want men who are groveling and obedient and willing to do whatever they want. That’s selfless. A selfless man does not exchange value for value, he exchanges pity for pity, sacrifice for sacrifice. A selfless man is not pursuing a value, he is doing his politically correct duty. Women don’t want to feel like a duty, they want to feel like a value. They want a selfish man who wants to possess a woman’s body with passion.

A woman wants a man who lusts for her so much that he will throw her across a bed and take her without following the feminist rules and asking permission every step of the way. A man who asks permission is not a confident man.

Now, on the subject of sexual technique: men have to walk a tightrope here. They have to selfishly pursue their own pleasure because they want it and the woman wants it to see her value to the man. But men also have to give women sexual pleasure – and that is more complicated for women than men. Men are microwaves, women are crock pots. They must be romanced. They must be excited one step at a time. It’s called foreplay. Most of the time women need it.

If you want to know what women expect in bed, read a romance novel. Not the Barbara Cartland or Georgette Heyer ones, but the modern ones. They are sexual manuals in fiction form. Really. I was shocked when I first read one, and I’m not a puritan. It was like something out of Penthouse Magazine but from a woman’s point of view. I kept thinking, “This is what women expect in bed? This is like, um… a lot of work.”

It is a lot of work, but you have to make it look like you really want to do it, otherwise she becomes a duty instead of a value. It’s best if you really want to do it; and there is a certain pleasure in taking it slow and exploring the less interesting parts of a woman’s body like her earlobe or the small of her back. If you’re not really interested in foreplay, remember the old line: sincerity is everything; if you can fake that, you’ve got it made. Also remember, the payoff is worth the trouble it takes to get a woman hot and bothered. If you look at the big picture, foreplay is also selfish for a man.

UPDATE: Slight revisions.

What Women Want

I hereby pledge to write nothing mean-spirited in this post. I like women. I love women. I lust for women. I respect women. My Mother is a woman. Margaret Thatcher is a woman. I study the philosophy of a woman, Ayn Rand.

(After a start like that, you know I’m heading for major trouble in this post.)

Ellen Goodman writes about how women voted in 2006.

This was… the year women provided the Democratic margin of victory. If men had been the only voters in Missouri, Montana or Virginia, we'd have a Republican Senate. This is also the year in which women drove the agenda.

All right. That’s no crime. Many intelligent people voted Democrat. Let’s go a little deeper into Ms. Goodman’s analysis. (See how I used the feminist neologism Ms.? This caveman is on his best behavior here.)

So if women drove the agenda, what will make things "better"?

I was wondering that myself. What do women want?

Women worrying about a diminished future for the next generation are looking for a broad, overlapping domestic agenda. Some pieces can be found in the to-do list assembled for the Democrats' "First 100 Hours": raise the minimum wage, fix the Medicare prescription drug program, halve interest rates for student loans and bury the dead horse of Social Security privatization.

Oh, I see. Women want more socialism.

So for many, the biggest concern still is health care. As Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, one of the new breed of young moms in Congress, says, "I don't want the next generation of moms hand-wringing over how to deal with the sniffles and waiting until it turns into pneumonia." It's past time to make health care available to all kids.

Well, if the ladies want it for the kids, I guess it’s okay if we TURN AMERICA INTO A SOCIALIST HELL. Let’s make doctors slaves of the state because women are wringing their hands over the sniffles. No problem!

Sorry. That was mean-spirited.

As for education, especially early education and child care? The desire to truly "leave no child behind" tops terrorism on the female list. And for women who share a family-table view of the world, economic security includes the increasingly elusive retirement security.

Cradle to grave nanny state. Thanks, ladies.

It's been a long time since Americans have looked to the government with expectations. Now, we're making a list. And checking it twice.

While the men slip out the back door to have a drink at the corner bar. “The ol’ lady’s making a list,” one mutters, then knocks down his rum and coke. The other men nod in silent commiseration. They know. Women don't make lists that say, “watch football, drink beer, golf with your buddies, sit around in your underwear scratching your ass, watch me clean the house.”

They're making a list. Will America survive? Will we march into a fascist tyranny because a preponderance of women just are not motivated to study economics and politics and philosophy?

In my day job, I listen to FM radio stations. The hard rock stations targeted toward young men are obsessed with sex because young men are obsessed with sex. (Old men are too, he says after two seconds of introspection.) Go to the station web sites and you’ll find “Babe of the Day” – pictures of hot young girls in bikinis. It is horrible how men objectify women. Certainly, women are right to condemn such adolescent behavior.

You know what they have on stations targeted toward young women?

Daily horoscopes.

Daily horoscopes.

Draw your own mean-spirited conclusion.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving went well. No stress, no arguments. We played a movie trivia game called scene it? that was a lot of fun. The great thing is that you use a DVD and watch movie scenes on TV in the game, then you answer a question about the scene. Watching famous scenes everyone knows adds to the festive holiday atmosphere. When you divide up the teams, try to get different generations on every team. One question asked who was the leading lady in the Hope-Crosby “Road to” movies. No one under 40 knew who Dorothy Lamour is. Likewise, the kids knew about the modern teen movies. It’s a good game for our functionally illiterate video culture. Everyone had fun.

My Top 11 Favorite Rock Guitarists

11. Chuck Berry. Bill Haley was fast, but his sound is a little pre-rock. With Berry, you hear where it started. Instead of Haley’s clean scale-type riffs, Berry would play two strings at once, putting some texture and crunch into his lead. Big influence on Keith Richards. And everyone else.

10. Tony Iommi. An interesting figure because he is Classic Rock but also the Godfather of Heavy Metal. But if you listen to those early Black Sabbath songs, they are quite different from today’s metal. They have a horror-movie moodiness and tremendous imagination. Unlike today’s metal, Iommi was firmly connected to the blues.

9. Richie Blackmore. I call Blackmore the architect. By that I mean that no one structures a lead more intelligently. Exhibit A: “Highway Star.” Blackmore is all rationality and planning – and he had a great Strat sound.

8. David Gilmour. Epic sound, which is exactly what Pink Floyd needed. (Chicken and egg question: Was it because he was in Pink Floyd that he developed an epic sound?) Listen to the long, soaring notes in “Time.” It’s like Lord of the Rings in a rock lead guitar.

7. Duane Allman. To me, Allman defines the Gibson sound. Those Humbucker pick-ups have a kind of horn-like sound to my ears that can sound cheesy when played by your average guitarist. Using his slide he could be graceful and energetic at the same time. Too bad he ate a peach.

UPDATE: According to Wikipedia, I fell for an urban legend.

There is a widely believed urban legend that Eat a Peach was a reference to the type of truck that killed Duane, however that is not true; though the cover art of the album does a depict a truck underneath a giant peach, and whether or not it is a reference to Duane's accident or not is unknown.

6. Johnny Winter. He smokes. Listen to “Be Careful With A Fool.” He is unbelievably fast. And the great thing is that, unlike the post-new wave/punk/metal revolution guitarists, Winter never loses the emotion. He never sounds mechanical and alienating.

5. Jeff Beck. I can’t play as well as anyone on this list, but I can understand what most of the others are doing. I mean, they sound rational. With Beck, I think, “What th… WHAT DID HE JUST DO?!” He is the most imaginative lead guitarist. He does things with his whammy bar most people would never dream of.

4. Neil Young. No, really – he’s good. I’ve heard guitarists laugh at him because in some of his leads he plays one note over and over. Yes, but what a note! Nobody else sounds like Young. I get the impression that he never copied anyone else, he just sat down and worked to make the sounds in his head reality. The result is quirky, sometimes naïve and straight from the heart.

3. Alvin Lee. Fluid. No one comes close to his fluidity. He moves his fingers over a fretboard with astonishing ease. He gets from note to note the way Muhammad Ali moved in a ring, the way Fred Astaire danced. I think the new wave/punk/metal revolution of the late ‘70s was particularly hard on him and Winter, both blues rockers, whose careers went into decline after the deluge.

2. Jimmy Page. Defined hard rock lead guitar. He puts a bite into every note that energizes his leads. His style is the opposite of Alvin Lee’s because every note is distinct, like he had to work for it, but he’s also fast. There is one amazing moment in the lead of “Dazed and Confused,” where his lead is working and working, building to a frenzy, and then he hits a pick squeal – a mistake or was it planned? I don’t know, but it is the perfect variation from the flurry of notes that makes the lead both exciting and moving, and then it climaxes in power chords with Bonham wailing on his drums.

1. Jimi Hendrix. The sorcerer. Before him rock leads were black and white; he showed us color. Before him, Newton; he was Einstein. The opposite of Blackmore, in that I don’t think he really planned it out, but was all improvisation of the moment. At his worst he is unfocused and dull (read: stoned out of his gourd); at his best he is the best. “Voodoo Child” walks the edge of anarchy and chaos, exploring how far one can go with an electric guitar, but never quite falls over the edge. Like all of hard rock, I can only take him in small doses (I listen to classical music more now), but when I was a child, he was the man.

Why 11 instead of 10? Hey, haven’t you seen Spinal Tap?

(My thanks to Billy Beck of Two-Four for his insights that sparked my thinking on rock guitarists.)

UPDATE: Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists list puts Neil Young at 83, after such guitarists as Joni Mitchell, Steven Stills, Johnny Ramone, Jack White and Lou Reed. Please. That is just idiotic.

I Did My Part

In preparation for the feast tomorrow, I went to Marie Callendar's and bought a banana cream pie and a chocolate cream pie.

It's a little known fact of American history that when the Indians were en route to the first Thanksgiving they stopped at Marie Callendar's to buy banana cream and chocolate cream pies. They presented the pies to the pilgrims, which made the recipients lower their muskets. Both red and white man ate the desserts in the spirit of brotherhood. One pilgrim exclaimed, "Verily, savage -- thy cream pies are most delectable!" The pilgrims were so impressed by the pies that they presented the Indians with a gift of blankets that had been used in their small pox ward. I will add this knowledge to the Wikipedia entry on Thanksgiving after I have had more to drink.

American Accents Quiz

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
Boston
North Central
The Inland North
The South
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

I was born in Kansas but have lived in California most of my life. I have no idea how they can figure out my accent from those questions they asked.

(HT: Born Again Redneck)

Grover Cleveland

Found at Cassandra Page:

"Though the people support the Government, the Government should not support the people."

Democrat President Grover Cleveland - 1887 - vetoing a bill that would have provided $10,000.00 in aid for drought stricken farmers.

And he was a Democrat! From Wikipedia:

His admirers praise him for his bedrock honesty, independence, integrity and commitment to the principles of classical liberalism. As a leader of the Bourbon Democrats he opposed imperialism, taxes, corruption, patronage, subsidies and
inflationary policies. His intervention in the Pullman Strike of 1894 in order to keep the railroads moving angered labor unions. His support for the gold standard and opposition to free silver angered the agrarian wing of the party.

Without question, he was one of the greatest US Presidents ever. But not everyone loved him. There were no-nothing statists back then, too:

Critics complained that he had little imagination and seemed overwhelmed by the nation's economic disasters--depressions and strikes--in his second term. He lost control of his party to the agrarians and silverites in 1896.

And it’s been downhill ever since. I rather suspect that what his critics meant by “imagination” was the willingness to use the power of the state to force citizens to do what the state wants. Leave imagination to the poets.

Yet One More Problem to Evade

From Western Resistance we find:

MARKA, Somalia Nov 21 (Garowe Online) - More than 100 people, including children, were arrested Tuesday by Islamic Courts militia in Lower Shabelle region of southern Somalia after Islamists stormed into a movie cinema.

The arrested people did not include the cinema-owners but the Islamists took away all the equipment the cinema had, witnesses reported.

The Islamist administration in Marka, the regional capital, had been undertaking steps to combat “un-Islamic practices,” including shutting down cinemas and banning khat, a leafy narcotic popular throughout Somalia.

Movie cinemas in other Islamist-held regions of Somalia have also been shut down in recent months as the Islamists gradually consolidate their power in the country.

The Islamists are locked in a power struggle with the Baidoa-based interim Somali government, which has been trying to assert its power since late 2004.

So if some hellhole like Somalia becomes a breeding ground for terrorists, if it isn't already, what do we do? Look the other way because bombing will generate bad pictures on CNN? Give them more foreign aid? Make them the 51st state? I’m sure with geniuses like James Baker and George McGovern around we’ll think of something.

Gridlock in '08

Mitt Romney attacks McCain on gay marriage:

Eager to position himself as the most conservative GOP presidential hopeful, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney accused Sen. John McCain Monday of being “disingenuous” on gay marriage.

In an interview with The Examiner, Romney described himself as more conservative than Republican rivals McCain, R-Ariz., and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on a variety of issues. “We’re in a different place on immigration; we’re in a different place on campaign reform; we’re in a different place on same–sex marriage; we’re in a different place on the president’s policy on interrogation of detainees,” Romney said.

So in his first move in the 2008 campaign Romney uses homosexuals as a wedge issue against McCain. This validates the left’s worst fears of Republicans, doesn’t it?

I support gay marriage. What do I care if two men get married? Granted, there are complications involving business. Companies will be forced not to discriminate against homosexual spouses getting benefits, but this comes from a wider problem of government interfering with the economy and regulating business. The answer is not to make gay marriage illegal, but to free the economy.

On the other issues Romney brought up, I probably agree with him on campaign reform and interrogation of detainees.

Michael Medved said today on the radio that Romney will get the nomination easily because he is the only real conservative. I don’t see any evidence that Romney is a free market conservative. He is a social and religious conservative.

It’s way too early to endorse yet -- the primaries are still a year and a half away -- but I’m leaning toward a vote for Hillary for President and Republicans for Congress. Gridlock in ’08, that’s my bumper sticker. You heard it here first.