Pink Panther Predictions

Kevin Kline killed Beyonce's Dad.

That is all.

Golden Showers Of Praise

Oscar noms are in, for those who care. No surprises to speak of (at least, not in the four "major" categories. William Hurt getting nominated for A History Of Violence? Okay, that's surprising.)

Best Picture
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Crash
Good Night, And Good Luck
Munich

Best Director
Ang Lee - Brokeback Mountain
Bennett Miller - Capote
Paul Haggis - Crash
George Clooney - Good Night, And Good Night
Steven Spielberg - Munich

Best Actor
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Capote
Terrence Howard - Hustle & Flow
Heath Ledger - Brokeback Mountain
Joaquin Phoenix - Walk The Line
David Strathairn - Good Night, And Good Luck

Best Actress
Judi Dench - Mrs Henderson Presents
Felicity Huffman - Transamerica
Keira Knightley - Pride & Prejudice
Charlize Theron - North Country
Reese Witherspoon - Walk The Line

You can read the rest of them HERE.

I'm A Proud Conservative

At some point, you just have to concede that you're in the minority:

the president has won himself some daylight on the issue of warrantless wiretaps; 56 percent now call them justified.

This depresses me.

At the moment, I'm in the midst of an amusing argument with "A. Acacia" over at Libertas. I try to stay clear-eyed and cool-headed, but my greatest failing as a human being is probably my continued irritation over sanctimonious assholes, and the need to confront them. In the midst of our little back-and-forth it occured to me: Aren't I a conservative now?

After all, I'm a proponent of smaller government. I believe that the United States should stay out of the private lives of its citizens. I think that spending trillions of dollars wastefully is a bad thing. I oppose the idea of Crusade, and think money spent at home is money better spent.

Sounds pretty...well, conservative to me. And people like Acacia, with their crippling fear and their need for a figurative Mother to tuck them in at night and tell them everything will be alright (if they just believe!)? Well...they sound pretty liberal to me.

And we all know what shiftless cowards those liberals are, don't we?

When did "Conservatism" become synoymous with big-spending, sprawling government? When did the party of fiscal frugality embrace the 21st century-equivalent of FDR's New Deal? Was there a meeting? Did I miss the meeting?

On the issue of warrantless wiretaps, amazingly, I'm in the minority. I'll get taken out by some lunatic radical and have my Freedom loving US of A avenge my death with righteous fury before I mewl like a kicked kitten and curl myself around the heel of someone who offered to protect me - if I'll only just give up the pretense of privacy.

Who knew that when Patrick Henry uttered his immortal words, "Give me liberty, or give me death," what he meant was "Give me security, or give me death"?

Vegan For Vendetta

From Pandagon:

The ACLU of Georgia has released photos and documentation that vegan groups are being monitored as potential threats by the FBI and the DeKalb County Division of Homeland Security...

....more than two dozen government surveillance photographs show 22-year-old Caitlin Childs of Atlanta, a strict vegetarian, and other vegans picketing against meat eating, in December 2003. They staged their protest outside a HoneyBaked Ham store on Buford Highway in DeKalb County...

...detective arrested Childs and another protester after he saw Childs approach him and write down, on a piece of paper, the license plate number of his unmarked government car...

...The detective wrote that he ordered Childs to give him the piece of paper on which she had written his license tag number, telling her that he did not want her or anyone else to have the tag number of his undercover vehicle...

...The detective did not comment in his report about why his license tag number was already visible to the public....

Nice. Your tax dollars hard at work, people. You are safe from the terrible vegan menace. No longer will you live in fear of a people whose very life philosophy sort of SCREAMS non-violence.