Brutally Honest

When should you not mind being flipped off?

When Glenn Reynolds is flippin' an Instabirdie:

No road rage after that flip. Just gratitude.

Thanks again Glenn.

About Brutally Honest updated

I'm updated my about page... in case anyone's wondering and is interested.

Last night's debate, the 999 tax plan and other flights of fancy

By Locutisprime

On the surface, Herman Cain's 999 tax plan sounds fresh and seems like something that should be given a closer look and due consideration by the voters. In my opinion, it probably would be better for everyone if we were to go to this plan or the more extensive plan called the Fair Tax plan but the chances of that happening are somewhere equal to a snowball's chance in hell.

The simple fact of the matter is this, aside from the politicians in Washington who stand to lose power, control and influence over the masses should they allow a quantum shift in taxation, these same politicians will never allow their arbitrary and capricious tax code to be tinkered with, much less eliminated and replaced by anything even remotely associated with real balance and fairness.

Combine those facts with the fact that several million accountants, tax attorneys and tax preparation businesses will never stand still for a quantum shift in tax policy and you have all the necessary reasoning for any politician to oppose such a plan. The cacophony of lobbyists voices alone that will rise in opposition against Herman Cain's proposal begins to grow exponentially at the mere hint of any serious consideration of any alternative tax plan. Therefore, 999 simply isn't going to happen in this lifetime. Absent a complete collapse of our society and a complete restructuring of our government and its laws, don't look for our tax code to change anytime soon if ever.

Meanwhile, Herman Cain has stepped into another mine field of controversy with his recent commentaries concerning immigration and his electrified fence proposal. A good idea presented poorly in my observation. And now comes Obama bearing down and taking aim at Cain's 999 proposal, which means that Cain is recognized as an alternative black man at the least and a potential threat to this White House.

The media laps up the results of these self initiated dramas and they go right back to their journalist boiler rooms to cook up more logic bombs and more ploys to draw in the easily duped candidates and their target audience. The masses with thirty second or less attention spans are their primary targets. The media continues to play scrappy dog with the GOP for the entertainment ratings and all save one (Newt Gingrich) in the GOP fail to recognize their game. Gingrich knows better than most that the media coverage of politics has absolutely nothing to do with either truth or substance, it all orbits around ratings and angst and drama and what the media can do to act as controllers and spoilers of the debate.

My review of last night's debate, tells me that it appears that Mitt Romney is attempting to apply the 'coup de gras' to the person he considers his only real adversary presently, Rick Perry. It may be perhaps a bit early in the contest, but none the less, Romney senses blood in the water as it concerns Perry and he very well may have scored his Reagan moment against Perry last night with his quip about Perry having and a rough couple of debates lately and Perry being understandably testy as a result.

That moment immediately struck me as the Reagan: "Well there you go again" moment of thirty years ago with Walter Mondale.

As it concerns Herman Cain, Romney knows that Cain (compliments of media spin) is in self destruct mode right now, as he knows that the media are pursuing Cain for him; therefore, Romney isn't focusing on Herman Cain right now. Romney recognizes that the next real challenge to his candidacy is the dark horse Gingrich who is coming up fast on the outside. We are not even at the half way mark of the race or at the first primary yet, so there is plenty of room to move up and down in the polls. None the less, those with staying power and the ability to stay on message and deflect and side step the media traps will be the ones to prevail to the final leg of the nomination process in my opinion.

Right now it is my belief that the race is coming down to Romney and Gingrich as we go into the holidays and the first primaries. And by middle of March we will know who the people have chosen.

Blog of the day at Legal Insurrection

Nice surprise that has resulted in some traffic coming our way today via Professor Jacobson, who goes on the blogroll as a result:

 
 
 
 
 
 

Truther dare

Yesterday evening, after a long day of working on an RCIA presentation that's due in about a week and squeezing in some Redskins football, I logged into the Brutally Honest admin dashboard and noticed that Fr. D. had a draft post ready for publication.  I read the first couple of paragraphs or so, found an appropriate image, published the piece and moved on.

Imagine my surprise this morning when I find that Fr. D. had put up a comment to his piece, and in it, he was addressing none other than Ann Barnhardt, who had left her own comment about an hour earlier.

I was initially confused.  Where in heck did references to truther conspiracies get posted that would garner Ms. Barnhardt's rightful and righteous smackdown?

Right here... on my blog... by a guest blogger who has been publishing sermons nearly weekly on Sundays for two years... un-freaking believable:

When the 9/11 itself was over, there followed, of course, several more days of fire fighting and rescue efforts, and then a massive clean up and repair effort. As the time went by, the tensions of the day began to subside, little bit by little bit. But the big questions of How did it happen? Who did it? Why did it happen? all remained to be answered. This led us in the period, continuing right up to the present day, that I think of as the Great Cover–Up. This event had literally thousands and thousands of witnesses, each with some bit of evidence to contribute. The official report simply ignores the evidence of most of those witnesses and leaves unaddressed a lengthy list ofquestions. It says to the American people, “trust us, this is what you should believe if you know what is good for you.” What foolishness! To think that Americans would ever accept such instructions is really foolhardy, and they have not. There is strong evidence that points to an inside job, indicating that the lease holder of the World Trade Center had to have been at least complicit in the destruction of the buildings. This suggests that the US Government was also involved to allow the Pentagon attack to happen.

I initially felt the blood drain from my head, only to return quickly, most quickly.  My first reaction was to put up a comment followed immediately by a decision I knew I had to make.  And so I updated Fr. D.'s post:

UPDATE: It is with some alarm, with lots of surprise but with firmness and resoluteness that I do two things this morning.  Confess that I published this post from Fr. D. without fully reading it... and announce that as of this moment, Fr. D. has published his last guest post at Brutally Honest.  I'm an open-minded guy who will listen to perspectives that I don't agree with... however... there are limits to that oppenness and Fr. D. with this post has breached those limits.  To suggest that 9/11 was an inside job, to suggest that the American government was somehow complicit in the atrocities, and to do so on my blog as a guest blogger is to cross a line one cannot simply step back over.  

Carry on.

-Rick

That decision stands.  Fr. D. asked in email if he could put one last post up and I refused.  I told him to post a comment and he has... with more nonsense... complete nonsense.

Ann followed with a promise to send me something that rebuts the nonsense and I've put that PDF here.

To say that I'm stunned by this turn of events is to not give that stunning its due.  Fr. D., an Anglican (not Catholic) priest has, to my knowledge (and here again I confess to not reading every one of his sermons fully) never brought this subject up before.  He had reached out to me in email two years ago and asked if he could post his sermons and after reading a sampling, I agreed.

And two years later, he decided to take a figurative dump right in the middle of my figurative living room.

I sit here tonight incredulous... and wonder how I might've been so trusting.

The only silver lining in it all is finding out that Ann Barnhardt stopped by my little ole place.  Hope she plans on doing so again.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

God’s Grace and 9/11 (UPDATED)

UPDATE: It is with some alarm, with lots of surprise but with firmness and resoluteness that I do two things this morning.  Confess that I published this post from Fr. D. without fully reading it... and announce that as of this moment, Fr. D. has published his last guest post at Brutally Honest.  I'm an open-minded guy who will listen to perspectives that I don't agree with... however... there are limits to that oppenness and Fr. D. with this post has breached those limits.  To suggest that 9/11 was an inside job, to suggest that the American government was somehow complicit in the atrocities, and to do so on my blog as a guest blogger is to cross a line one cannot simply step back over.  

Carry on.

-Rick

By Fr. D.

Trinity 12

2 Corinthians 3:4–9
St. Mark 7:31–39

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Today is the twelfth Sunday after Trinity, the second Sunday in our mid–Trinity season summary on the Grace of God. As it happens, it falls this year squarely on the tenth anniversary on the horrific events of the 9/11 attacks on World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Thus we find our minds unavoidably divided between two ideas today, one the message of God for our lives, and the other the message of evil men who have total disregard for our lives.

The enormity of the 9/11 event seemed to overwhelm us. There had not been a direct attack on the continental United States since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941, and it shocked all of us that someone, we knew not who, had made a brazen daylight attack on both New York and Washington. We had no idea how much more was coming, but our sense of security was crushed. A number of years earlier, the US had abandoned the Cold War practice of having jet fighters constantly at the ready, ready to scramble at the appearance of any menace coming over the horizon. Consequently, we were totally unprepared to put up any aircraft quickly to respond to other threats that might be coming, and to search for Flight 93 which had disappeared and was feared heading for Washington. Our confidence in our own military might was just about zero at that point; our defenses had been completely breached and we knew that the enemy had gotten through. Americans were afraid of what might be coming.

But there was indeed a great turning of the nation to God. It was truly amazing to behold, and, as St. Paul says in the Epistle lesson for today, 2 Corinthians 3:4-5 4 And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: 5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; It was a strong indication that the American nation remembered its Christian roots, and houses of worship were packed. There was a sense of re–awakening of religious faith in America, enough so that we could almost look at 9/11 as having been a good thing because of this re–awakening, although at extremely high cost. Regrettably, it was short lived; within a few months, the new religious fervor seemed to wear thin and people went back to their old ways. But we see, that when people are jogged by something that awakens their conscience, those who know and recall the Christian faith are drawn back into the ways of faith even by great catastrophes.

All of us have our own recollections of what we were doing when we first learned of what was happening in New York and Washington. It was a Tuesday morning, so for most of us, it involved whatever our Tuesday morning routines were in 2001, only to be interrupted by news that would change our world forever. Our lives would never be quite the same afterwards as they had been before 9/11. For the many who were directly involved in fire fighting and rescue efforts, they were called upon to perform absolutely heroically that day. Many died in their efforts. It is only by the grace of Christ that these are able to make the choice to put their own lives at risk in order to assist others. The response of the natural man is to protect himself first and let others fend for themselves, and only with the aid of Jesus Christ do fire fighters and rescuers put themselves at risk to save others; 1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

When the 9/11 itself was over, there followed, of course, several more days of fire fighting and rescue efforts, and then a massive clean up and repair effort. As the time went by, the tensions of the day began to subside, little bit by little bit. But the big questions of How did it happen? Who did it? Why did it happen? all remained to be answered. This led us in the period, continuing right up to the present day, that I think of as the Great Cover–Up. This event had literally thousands and thousands of witnesses, each with some bit of evidence to contribute. The official report simply ignores the evidence of most of those witnesses and leaves unaddressed a lengthy list of questions. It says to the American people, “trust us, this is what you should believe if you know what is good for you.” What foolishness! To think that Americans would ever accept such instructions is really foolhardy, and they have not. There is strong evidence that points to an inside job, indicating that the lease holder of the World Trade Center had to have been at least complicit in the destruction of the buildings. This suggests that the US Government was also involved to allow the Pentagon attack to happen.

One may ask what role has grace played in post–9/11 America on the national level? It seems to me that grace has played a two sided role in the nation in recent years. It has allowed the nation to restore a sense of normality, so that everyday life goes on much as before. This is important if people are to live without the enormous stress of impending disaster. It is very hard on people to live thinking that they may be at war at any moment, and since we have no clearly identified enemy (who is al-Qaeda, anyway?), we need not live ready to go to all out war. On the other side, grace has enabled the questions of what, why, who to remain active. These are important questions for justice that many of us think has not been done and still needs to be attended to for justice to be served. Without grace, these ends might have only been served by violence, but there has been little or no violence that I know of in this regard.

Let us pray that the American people will turn more strongly toward the Lord, that they may be filled with His grace, for their benefit and that of the whole world. This is a strange weekend, but let us keep the grace of Christ Jesus upper most in our hearts, now and evermore.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

A million here, a million there

A quick note to record the fact that I was online when this blog, according to Sitemeter, received its 2 millionth visit... hats off to that person... I am indeed grateful.

Yes, I'm fully aware that there are blogs out there that achieve a million visits in the time it takes Obama to play a round of golf so the achievement is miniscule in the eyes of many but I trek on nevertheless.

It took me 5 years to reach the first million and about half that time to reach the second which would suggest that readership is expanding... and that's pretty cool... though the reality is that the numbers have been down quite a bit over the last 6 months or so... nevertheless, the blog continues, despite the predictions of those who say blogs like this will need to be bigger or die.

Time will tell.

While we await the blog's demise, allow me to say again that I'm gratefull to all you regulars who make this a regular stop and to all you who simply drive by on the way to your next cyber destination.  

From the bottom of this brutally honest heart, thank you. 

Fr. D. on vacation in August

Which means his Sunday Sermons are on hiatus until he returns.

Please do check out his archives while he's absent.  Always good stuff.

Carry on.

Will Brutally Honest die a slow and painful death?

I've been in the 'sphere since October of 2003.  I've outlasted many.  I hope to outlast even more.  I've not 'grown' the audience in terms of numbers I'd find to be awesome and exciting though I've certainly seen some growth (should hit 2 million visits according to Sitemeter in next couple of months).  Nevertheless, John Hawkins at Rightwing News is predicting that this blog's days (and blogs like her) are numbered:

During the nineties, that was the Right and a lot of websites like Free Republic and Townhall got big and burly as part of the opposition to Bill Clinton. The Right side of the blogosphere, that was just starting to come into existence in the very late 90s, managed to get off to a running start for that reason.

However, a funny thing happened in 2002-2003 — the left side of the blogosphere took off and eclipsed the Right side of the blogosphere. Liberals ferociously loathed George W. Bush, just as conservatives had detested Clinton, and they went online to congregate and get the information they needed to fight back. Soon, the liberal blogs were considerably bigger than the conservative blogs….although, and this is an often overlooked caveat, there were still a number of significant conservative websites, with large audiences, that many people don’t consider to be “blogs:” Lucianne, The American Spectator, WorldnetDaily, Newsmax, etc.

So, since that was the case, when Barack Obama got into power, you’d have expected that traffic on the Right side of the blogosphere would have surged just as it did on the Left side of the blogosphere in the early Bush years.

That didn’t happen.

Sure, there were a few outliers that took off: Hot Air, Redstate, and the Breitbart empire for example, but most conservative blogs have either grown insignificantly, stayed the same size, or even shrank. Most bloggers on the right side of the blogosphere haven’t increased their traffic significantly in years. Moreover, the right side of the blogosphere as a whole is definitely shrinking in numbers as bloggers that have had trouble getting traction are quitting and fewer and fewer bloggers are starting up new blogs.

Why is this? There are several reasons for it.

And he goes into those reasons... then concludes:

So what’s the strategy to deal with this?

Really, it’s simple: Get big or go home.

Find a way to dramatically increase the size of your blog, expand into multiple websites that together are big, hook up with someone who’s already big, or accept that there isn’t much of a future in a small, niche market for you. Maybe that sounds a little grim, but unless something changes, independent conservative bloggers who haven’t already made it big don’t have a bright future.

I have had some thoughts of late focused on whether the time I spend here is worthy time... whether I might instead be doing something more meaningful... but I come back to the fact that what I do here is cathartic.  It's a way I have of shaking my fist at the nonsense I see and to occasionally share a laugh or an inspiring thought with those who come by.  So though I do at times wonder about whether it's time to give this up, those thoughts disappear soon enough.

So my aim as I write this is to prove Mr. Hawkins wrong.  My plan is to continue trekking.  Hope many of you will make the trek with me.

A big welcome to the 'sphere to Easmeil

I know him as Mike... as a funny guy who actually does stand up comedy locally... as a pillar of the community... as a business owner... as a Dad and husband and uncle and brother and friend...

But now I get to know him as a blogger at Interesting Times:

Do you remember when the future was cool? Do you remember when you were a kid? Do you remember growing up with visions of electric cars, flying cars, space travel, cool ways to live and cool ways to grow food? Do you remember lasers and how cool they were going to be? I remember visions of Buck Rogers, saving the planet with laser guns. I remember, when I was a kid, how amazing the future would be. I remember looking ahead thinking that whatever my current circumstance was, "the future" was going to be different, better.

I remember when the future was going to be cool.

We need that kind of belief again.

...

It's a tough time for optimists like myself. I usually believe that every problem has a solution. I believe that people are generally well-intentioned. I believe that if, as a society, we focused more on possibilities and solutions and rejected the fear mongering by our 2011 snake oil salesmen and the toxic political discourse by our politicians we could create a better tomorrow. It's really not that tough. We can make the future cool again. So what,  if the lasers Buck Rogers used aren't saving the planet. So what, if instead of saving the planet, they're now being used to remove hair from women's upper lips and dude's backs (You know... on some level those applications are kind of like saving the planet).

Here are some practical steps that I humbly suggest:

1. Ignore anybody who uses fear to motivate you or manipulate your behavior.
2. Spend time reading about future technologies, about new trends and solutions in education
3. Consume less
4. Turn off your TV once in a while
5. Remember, fear is not your friend
6. Spend time thinking about when you were a kid and how amazing things could be.
7. Laugh.
8. Take a nice long walk regularly
9. Check your closet daily for boogymen, and if you don't see any, relax.

Read the whole thing and bookmark the boy.  If you're like me, you'll occasionally disagree with him but I promise he'll make you think... he does that for me... and in the spirit of focusing on possibilities and solutions as Mike has asked us to do and as my welcome to Mike to the blogosphere, I bring you (and especially Mike) the following video that I find amazing, that I think brings much promise and that I think makes the future cool again:

Crossposted at Wizbang.