And the award goes to:

France.

A country? I thought awards went to people.

Well gosh, boys and girls, for my very first award, I decided to make an exception.

Why France, you ask (I suppose perhaps I should be just a little bit ashamed; after all, they are such an inviting and easy target for one to mock)?

All seriousness aside, it has nothing to do with their wines (Fornicalia wines are every bit as good if not better) or their cheese or their vast tracts of unshaved body hair or lack of hygiene — dammit, Jim; there I go with the cheap shots — or their wonderful cars (man, those Renaults, Citroens and Peugeots — huh, I wonder why we don’t import them any more?).

It has everything to do with ten, count ’em, ten days of Muslim rioting. And the French response to same.

Let’s see. What has the French government done? Oh, yeah; they had some really, terribly harsh words for the rioters:

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin — who cancelled a trip to Canada to tackle the crisis — said the violence was “unacceptable.” President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday called for calm, warning that an escalation would be “dangerous.”

In the meantime, rioters have burned close to 1,000 vehicles, nursery schools have been burned, firefighters and police officers have been the targets of bullets, rocks, bottles, Molotov cocktails and more. The French claim 250 arrests have been made. Puh-leeze. . . I can make 250 arrests at any Ozzy Osbourne concert.

Faced with such violence and mayhem, I’m certain the Chirac government is seriously considering an unconditional surrender.

What ostensibly began as upheaval following two Muslim teens getting electrocuted whilst climbing a fence at an electrical transmission facility in order to evade the police, has now turned into night after night after night of rioting orchestrated via the internet and cellular telephones.

France is now, essentially, reaping what it has sown. And I must admit I have but little sympathy for the French government or its citizens — who, by the way, though you’d never read about it, despise the Muslims.

Ah yes, that liberal, generous, accepting, non-judgmental, admirable Euro culture? Check this: You think unemployment is “horrible” in the United States? The October US unemployment dropped 0.1 percent from September, to 5.0%. The unemployment rate for France is over 10%, twice the US national average.

Yes, those accepting Euro cultures, the French in particular, are reaping what they have sown in terms of unlimited immigration, non-assimilation, elitism, and conciliatory non-judgmentalism.

The French, unfortunately, remind me of oh-so-many American mommies and daddies I see in stores and restaurants, telling their belligerent, spoiled children: “Tommy, don’t do that. Tommy, I said, don’t do that. I’m not kidding. Tommy put that down. I’m about to get really harsh. Tommy, stop that. I’m going to make you stop if you don’t stop that. I told you, Tommy. Stop. I really mean it, now. Tommy stop that.” Blah blah blah.

France: how stupid are you? You couldn’t see this coming?

Evidently not. And you appear to be disinterested in stopping it.

= MOONBAT.

From the ending of Sydney Pollack’s 1975 movie Three Days of the Condor:

TURNER:
Jesus, what is it with you people? You think not getting caught in a lie is the same as not telling the truth.

HIGGINS:
It’s simple economics, Turner. There’s no argument. Oil now. Ten or fifteen years it’ll be food or plutonium. Maybe sooner than that. What do you think the people will want us to do then?

TURNER:
Ask them!

HIGGINS:
Now? (shakes head) Huh-uh. Ask them when they’re running out. When it’s cold at home and the engines stop and people who aren’t used to hunger — go hungry. They won’t want us to ask. (quiet savagery) They’ll want us to get it for them.

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I’ve been reading blog after blog after blog after blog about any number of topics. On any number of issues. My mind was reeling after attempting to process all this information. Perhaps a bit of sensory overload occurred, but I attempted, actually on my off-duty day (and not at work), to step back and see if there was any form of commonality to these seemingly divergent threads.

And you know what? There was.

Globally. Then nationally. And it got down to this:

We did what we did because we could.

Everyone does.

It’s as simple as that.

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This cuts through any and all arguments. Who. What. When. Where. Why. How.

It’s all about PITAP. PITAP?

I call this: Positioning In Time And Place.

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I challenge you: prove me wrong.

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A nation, a people, a community, a group, a click, even an individual, does what it can when it can because it can.

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What does this have to do with you? With me? With us as a nation? With us as divergent political groups? With us as a planet?

Everything.

Recognition is power. As is realization.

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Let us consider, for just a moment, and as an example, the indigenous American Indian. Many persons ascribe glorious and positive aspects to this culture; in truth, in many cases Native Americans were overbearing, repressive, female-suppressing warmongers. Do you think that, for example, if they had experienced their Bronze Age first, and then their Industrial Age, they would have embraced Euro invading forces from overseas? I submit they would have slaughtered whom they could, when they could, to stem these assailing forces.

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And this brings me back to today.

It is easy to blog and write about the hideous travails and ideosyncratic ideations, documentations, abrogations and simulacrums of that which we hold normal. We generally write about what we consider to be something disparate from the norm. War. Injustice. Violence. Right. Wrong. All within the context of our cerebral and idealogical interpretations and, more importantly, our primal and base beliefs.

What do I define as normal? In my ideom, I define normal as those who read me within the continental United States, who can read and interpret English, and who are sufficiently educated to find a computer, seek the internet, log on to same, and then purposely, PURPOSELY, seek my website.

There are literally millions and millions of websites. Why have you sought mine? What brought you to my poor, miniscule slice of the web today?

It would be: that which you find normal within your sphere of relativity.

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So what is normal? Is it normal to find a porcelain bathroom with a toilet?

Is it normal to find a table in a restaurant where you can be assured there will not be an IED affixed to its base?

Is it normal to enter Nordstrom and find the socks you wanted?

Is it normal to take your 2001 Chevrolet Tahoe and fill its tank with $2.49/gallon gas for $74 and then complain?

Is it normal to wash your clothes and bedding every week with Tide and wish the Kenmore washer had more settings?

_______________________________________________________________

What would you do without oil?

What would you do without your connection to the internet?

What would you do without this Winter’s depletion of your wood or heat?

Take away your car. How would you get around? How would your life change?

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The United States is repressive. Horribly repressive.

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It’s easy to criticize the United States.

Whilst enjoying free universites. On student loans. Embraced by the Constitution. On various forms of welfare.

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H.R. 1606 is not yet in effect. So I can write this. I can have an opinion. I can make my website as attractive as, say, that of General Motors.

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To those who would want to destroy the United States:

You set this goal at your own peril. You make your comments, rally the populace, circle the weakest-minded of our genetic pool.

If the shoe were on the 1975 foot, no matter the political leaning, I would bet this would equal the belief: get what you need to get when you need to get it.

It’s funny: hunger and darkness tends to cut through the most base of political leanings.

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Why does the United States do what it does?

Because it can because it can. Because, quite frankly, we have God beside us.

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And because it’s right.

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Period.

Thus endeth my blog post.

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IF YOU ONLY READ ONE POST ON ONE BLOG TODAY, IT SHOULD BE THIS ONE. AND YOU’D BETTER PAY ATTENTION.

There’s a knock on the door and you answer. Two men in dark suits and ties stand at the threshold. They’re from the federal government. And you’re under arrest. Out come the handcuffs. You’ll have to sit in the back seat of their plain blue Ford Crown Victoria. You’re booked. Fingerprinted and photographed. Your bail is $125,000.

It’s a bad dream; this can’t happen! You live in America!

Think again, fellow blogger, think again.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Online political expression should not be exempt from campaign finance law, the House decided Wednesday as lawmakers warned that the Internet has opened up a new loophole for uncontrolled spending on elections.

“Online political expression?” Who, me? I’m just some little person sitting at my home posting on the web. Sure, I like the (Green, Republican, Libertarian, Democratic, Independent) party, who doesn’t? Campaign finance law? H.R. 1606? What is all this?

The vote in effect clears the way for the FEC to move ahead with court-mandated rule-making to govern political speech and campaign spending on the Internet.

From RedState.org:

Make no mistake – the Democrats killed The Online Freedom Of Speech Act last night. At the same time, we did get a majority in favor of the bill, but since it was brought under special rules – it needed 2/3rds to pass. Where do we go from here?Well – the first thing we need to do is pay close attention to the Republicans who voted against the bill. We need to do some more education. Let me say – some of these members may have voted against HR 1606 because of the procedure that brought it to the floor. Others may well have been swayed by the patently dishonest arguments from folks like Democracy21 and the Campaign Legal Center. Some may well have believed that HR 1606 was going to open the gates of soft money once again. That’s not true. That’s not true. That’s not true.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Last night, the House voted 225-182 for a bill that would have excluded blogs, e-mail, and other Internet communications from regulation by the Federal Election Commission. That was 47 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed under a procedure that limited debate time and allowed no amendments.

The vote in effect clears the way for the FEC to move ahead with court-mandated rule-making to govern political speech and campaign spending on the Internet.

Before the vote, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas), the main sponsor of the legislation, said: “If bloggers are compelled to hire lawyers to navigate this complex, gray, murky world of federal regulation, many would simply cease to operate. That would only leave the wealthier participants in this blogosphere.”

He warned that without his bill, bloggers could be fined for linking to campaign Web sites or forwarding candidates’ news releases to e-mail lists.

Bradley Smith, one of the six commissioners sitting on the Federal Election Committee, says that the freewheeling days of political blogging and online punditry are over. He warns that bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign’s Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate’s press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines.

Licensing bloggers? You don’t think that’s coming?

“Okay, fine, waitaminnit ol’ BZ,” you say. “Take a big breath. Bring things down from 210/190. Take a large hit of CTFD. Think about it: what’s the big deal about not being able to link to a campaign website. That’s not so bad, is it? Certainly not! And forwarding some political hack’s press release to others? Yeah, like you’ll ever get that chance! What’s the loss?”

Every loss! The crushing of our very US Constitution. Do the logical extension: the nature of any human being is to push and then push some more. So it is with government. I am all, and I mean ALL about free speech. I take the strictest constructionist view on the First Amendment. Free speech means just that. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have served or laid down their lives to protect that very concept. Why would any US citizen even remotely wish to consider the limiting of free speech? The internet is the very embodiment of same — which is why relinquishing control of the internet to the United Nations scares me blue.

This wouldn’t be just a Republican loss — oh, no. It would be a Democratic loss, a Libertarian loss, a Green loss, a Tory loss, and a total abrogation of the First Amendment.

Hey, hold on a minute, will you? There’s a knock on my door just now. . .

French Riots: Who is Rioting?
In the title link, Yahoo writes about the Parisian riots. Not until the 12th written paragraph do you discover that the rioters are Muslim. Very interesting comments by Robert Spencer and bloggers at Jihad Watch.

Three Christian Girls Beheaded: Buried by DEM:
JAKARTA, Oct 29 (Reuters) – Men in black clothes and masks beheaded three teenage Christian girls on Saturday in eastern Indonesia as they walked to school near the Muslim town of Poso, officials said. Security experts have said local Islamic radicals may have been responsible for the bombings in Tentena.

Or Did You Even Read:
From the AP:

EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey (AP) — Five Muslim football fans were detained and questioned during a game at Giants Stadium because they were congregating near an air duct on a night former President Bush was in the stadium, the FBI said Wednesday. Some of the Muslims said they did not know they were in a sensitive area, and they complained that they were subjected to racial profiling while they were praying, as their faith requires five times a day. “I’m as American as apple pie and I’m sitting there and now I’m made to feel like I’m an outsider, for no reason other than I have a long beard or that I prayed,” said Sami Shaban, a 27-year-old Seton Hall Law School student who lives in Piscataway. At a news conference Wednesday, Shaban said he and four friends had just gotten to the September 19 New York Giants-New Orleans Saints game when they left their seats to pray. Around halftime, 10 security officers and three state troopers approached the men and told them to come with them, Shaban said. The men were questioned and then were not allowed to return to their seats, but were instead assigned to seats in another section, Shaban said. Three guards stood near them, and escorted them to their cars when they left the stadium, he said. FBI agent Steven Siegel, a spokesman for the bureau’s FBI office, said the men had aroused suspicion because they were congregating near the main air intake duct. Bush was in the stadium that night as part of a fundraising campaign he and former President Clinton were leading for victims of Hurricane Katrina. “You had 80,000 people there, Bush 41 was there, and you had a group of gentlemen gathering in an area not normally used by the public right near the main air intake duct for the stadium, and a food preparation facility,” Siegel said. “It was where they were, not what they were
doing.” The site is now fenced off and is no longer accessible to fans. “We do not profile anyone that comes into our arena, stadium or racetrack on any basis,” said George Zoffinger, president of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which operates the stadium. “There was no profiling of our customers. I want to make that clear.”

Beating Your Muslim Wife In Australia: No Problem
Can wife-beating be justified under any circumstances? According to some in Australia, yes — if the couple is Muslim.

Just a few incidents of note in a literal world of many.