My mother was like that. Since us boys had thick heads, it took shoes or nails to get us in line. She didn’t make 5 feet and was right about 90 pounds but she sure had strong 1 inch nails on those little fingers. Once she got hold of your upper arm, pulling away was about as smart as trying to pull your arm out of a hungry sharks mouth. The shoe was used if we were wearing jackets (she wasn’t about to break those weapons…I mean nails).

Jeesh, reminds me of a story I once heard that I’m sure the Monk will enjoy. Back in the day when the Phillipines were still under American control, command responsibility was shared by a U.S. Navy admiral and a U.S. Army general. The two reputedly hated each other’s guts. It got so bad that they stopped speaking to each other. Whenever they had to communicate, they sent some poor enlisted guy back and forth with messages. That went on for a long time.

Well, the admiral and the general both died and were buried in Arlington Cemetery. When the enlisted guy died, they also buried him in Arlington…..right between the graves of the admiral and the general.

I swear this. When I was a young college chap, I had a part-time job as a tour guide, including tours of Arlington. I used to point out the three tombstones to the tourists in my charge. Just can’t remember the names of the three guys anymore.

Jacob — Do you recall anyone around her implying that the Monk was a “9o lb mother hen”? Maybe we can blame it on Zimzo?!!

BTW, forgot to add that my mother-in-law told me there was only one person who could make all those boys back down when they got out of hand. Their mother…and she didn’t weigh no more than 90 pound soppin’ wet. I tell you, we’ve lost something over the years in this country.

“you Rebs were desperately seeking the help of the British in your battle against us Yanks.”

We were seeking the acknowledgement from the UK that the CSA was a soveriegn nation so we could get goods and support, yes. We also used the French to fight the British in 2 other wars I remember and paid them back threefold. We didn’t like the British but they had arms and we had cotton and we didn’t have much of a Navy to fight the blockade. It was nothing more than a “back-rubbing” session. They hesitated, we went to Gettysburg without Stonewall and the rest, as they say, is history.

To unite the Repub party we need to offer things different from the Dems. They have liars, cheaters, con artists and free-loaders….and that is how they got into office. How is any other party going to be able to compete with that without being the same cloth with a different name? So what do we have to lose by being truthful and law abiding in our nominees? Can’t be any worse than what it is now, can it?

I am putting an open-ended offer on a get together and I won’t bring it up again. I have a little over a year left in this area and you just need to leave your burrow and get out. My credentials are impecable and my word is golden. You keep your ananimity and I get to use audio instead of wearing out my digits. And, no, you explain to Mrs. W this ain’t no fancy date or nothing.

Let’s take this one part at a time.

“We (Americans) have been overspending and overconsuming for a very long time.”

Overspending and overconsuming is that which takes money and a persons’ want or need. It is called freedom and capitalism. I’m assuming that you would like to curtail this by “rationing” available goods and keeping the U.S. citizens poor? Very stupid statement on your part which brings us to “We (Americans)..”. Which America do you refer? If you are a U.S. citizen then your loyalties seem to lie with some other american country with a communistic/socialistic bent. All the rest of your blather was just noise.

We don’t need your opinion or instructions-we can get that from Obama.

Well, the family feuding has been fun. The Convention is over and done. Now, some strangers have showed up in the neighborhood just alookin’ fer trouble. Time to unlimber the political weaponry, present a united front, and run those troublemakers clear out of town. You can go back to feuding after the place is cleaned up.

Leaving exactly HOW many in the middle??? My math says 49%.’
Read the rest of the comment BM, and read LI’s copmment to wwhich this was a response. Otherwise you are just barking.

The point here was that the country as a whole is not leaning left. Those in the middle span the gap between lib and con. Given the data points at the ends it is not unreasonable to assume that the middle leans more to the right than the left.

We got sold a bill of goods by the media. McCain was more your guy than he was mine. You should be more ticked than I am. So why are you lighting into me about this?

“So must we sink? and at the stern command,
That bears the terror of a tyrant’s word,
Bend the weak knee and raise the suppliant hand,
The scorned, dependent vassals of a lord?

The wintry ravage of the storm to meet,
Brave the scorched vapor of the autumnal air,
Then pour the hard-earned harvest at his feet,
And beg some pittance from our pains to share?”

J. Trumbull, “An Elegy on the Times”, 1774.

“Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power.”

P. Henry, Richmond, Virginia, 1775.

“We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately.”

B. Franklin, Philadelphia, 1776

“But now, by the power of transplantation, like all other plants, they have taken root and flourished! Formerly they were not numbered in any civil list of their country except in those of the poor; here they rank as citizens. By what invisible power has this surprising metamorphosis been performed? By that of the laws and that of their industry.”

Michel G. J. Crevecoeur, “What is An American?” 1782.

Now, if you just want to go on fighting amongst yourselves….

1. You claim the problem is big spending and deficits. I don’t disagree, actually. We (Americans) have been overspending and overconsuming for a very long time.
2. Your solutions to #1 (at least indirectly based on the candidates you seem to prefer) are to (a) cut taxes and (b) focus on abortion, gay rights, and guns.

The problem is that your solutions in #2 in no way help solve #1.

i. Cutting taxes just makes the deficit worse but we’re already at the lowest taxes in what, 40 years?
ii. The focus on the social issues, while perhaps laudable, is very tenuously related, at best, to our soaring deficits.
iii. And, most people DON’T CARE about deficits. By becoming fiscally prudent, you will negatively impact people’s lifestyles in the short term. No way around it. So even if it is the right medium-term solution, it will be a tough sell. That’s why even Reagan was a “spend like crazy” president.

So, my recommendations would be to:
1. Focus on spending less, but in ways that will have reasonable impact: no more bailouts, reasonable steps for SS and military.
2. Push for health care reform that breaks up the HMO “cartel”. We spend more on paperwork than most countries spend on health care. We need to get over the “we have the best health care in the world” because we don’t. We spend too much and our life expectancy is too low. There has to be a Republican alternative to BHO’s proposals other than “stay the course”.
3. Get past the “lower taxes, lower taxes, lower taxes” mantra. It’s prudent to, say, index gax taxes to inflation, have reasonable estate taxes, bring high-earner rates in line with the Reagan years.
4. Embrace reasonable candidates with reasonable views on abortion and gays. Have a goal to reduce abortions, not outlaw them, and while gay “marriage” may be a barrier to you, there’s no reason why gays couldn’t/shouldn’t have civil unions with the same financial benefits that marriage brings. Embrace that and you would be seen by many as the more reasonable of the two parties.

I don’t believe for a minute that you’ll do any of these, and, frankly, I’m glad, but if you did, you would be surprised how many people would begin to identify as Republicans.

Jack, perhaps I should have brought up the Voting Rights Act under the Sotomayor thread.