Bad day

By ALI KOTARUMALOS, Associated Press Writer
Sun Jun 8, 2:14 PM ET
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Scuba divers swept away in strong currents survived 12 hours in shark-infested waters before scrambling onto a remote Indonesian island where they faced yet another threat: a Komodo dragon.

The divers — three from Britain and one each from France and Sweden — came face-to-face with the giant, carnivorous lizard on Rinca's palm-fringed beach, and fought it off by pelting it with rocks and pieces of wood, Pariman, a port official said Sunday.

"Luckily, they were able to chase it away," said Pariman, who, like many Indonesians, goes by only one name.

The beasts have sharp, serrated teeth and often come out when they smell something new, including humans — whom they've been known to kill, Pariman said

The divers encountered treacherous currents after plunging from their wooden boat off Tatawa island on Thursday afternoon. They drifted 20 miles from their dive site before swimming to Rinca, their last chance to avoid being swept into the open ocean.

"We struggled against the current for several hours, but eventually stopped," Laurent Pinel, 31, of France, told The Sunday Times of London. The group tied their diving vests together to preserve energy, he said. Once on the island, they scraped mussels from the rocks for food, he said.
[...]
Komodo dragons, which can grow up to 10 feet long and weigh as much as 365 pounds, are only found in the wild on Rinca and Komodo island. There are believed to be 4,000 left in the world.

Thousands of tourists visit the area in eastern Indonesia each year to see the lizards in their natural habitat. They are normally shown around the arid and rocky island by guides who carry large, forked sticks to ward off the animals.

Komodo Dragons send chills up my spine. Their razor sharp teeth ooze with bacteria-filled saliva which infects a wound and sickens the victim. The saliva also carries some natural poisonous elements.  Update: They have poison glands inside their mouths, along their jawlines. The poison is an anticoagulant which lowers blood pressure until their victims go into shock. The Dragon will follow a victim's scent for a day or two - until the victim is sickened enough to lay down. The Dragon - and Dragon friends who have picked up the victim's wound scent - then move in and begin feeding while the victim is still alive. Komodo Dragons are very fast in short bursts. They are agile: they can easily climb trees, they can balance on hind legs and stretch their mouths up into bushes, et al. Komodo Dragons have no natural predators. To a Komodo Dragon: everything it sees is food - if only it can be bitten.

O'Keeffe: Dark Mountains

Augustine:

No creature, howsoever rational and intellectual, is lighted of itself, but is lighted by participation of eternal Truth.

h/t

O'Keeffe Red Snapdragons repost

I've been in a bad mood, and seeing no way out. I remembered the following post, which I'm reposting. It helped, some. I need wine for my whine. I like this painting, a lot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




Something is very right about the difficulty of a task, for it creates opportunity for greatness.


Something is very right about pain and suffering, for they draw us closer to God, and they delineate pleasure and joy.


Something is very right about want, for it defines fulfillment.


Something is very right about fear, for it defines love.



For a couple of weeks, maybe, I've been in a horrible terrible mood. Life has seemed terribly full of unhappiness and woe. I've asked myself: was I ever happy(?) - at any time in my life after about, say, the end of third grade? Have I always been unhappily searching for contentment and fulfillment? Have I never had it? Have I only fooled myself into thinking I had it - or even that it was available? Is this existence all about coping inside a continuous state of woe? Can I even remember an extended state of happiness and fulfillment and contentment? Was I content and fulfilled in college? Not really. During any period thereafter? I really cannot remember any period of life when I was consistently happy and fulfilled and content. Maybe I am misremembering. Or not.

I've noticed, in comments which I've dashed off on other blogs, I've been unusually harsh and mean and hubristically full of myself. Not pretty. I've been a jerk. I've felt mean and horrible and terrible, and it showed. I've written two blogposts which I never put on the blog b/c they were so harsh. I've known I was in a horrible terrible mood, and I've been unable to shake it.

I've prayed. I've tried to meditate and think of what is going on with me. I've idly wondered if I've a hereditary disposition towards depression, and I've idly cursed the ineffectiveness and danger I perceive in anti-depression medications! Dang it! I wish there was a pill! Only really, I don't. I would rather experience my own life fully, for better or worse. Only, really, sometimes, I wish there was a pill. I've known exercise would help get some endorphins going, and I've not exercised. Tomorrow. I'll exercise tomorrow.

And I've felt just horrible. And in despair. And I've chastised myself: I'm healthy. I'm safe and warm. I'm living in no kind of hardship. Reminding myself of that hasn't helped me feel less horrible or less in despair.

And I finally remembered, thanks to various discussion and various circumstance: I've been acting like a lefty! I've been acting as if something is very wrong about life! I've forgotten the nuggets (composed by me[!], after studying and co-opting the reasoning of others) listed beside the red snapdragons: Something is very right. Something is very right about the design of existence. I'm so happy to remember/be reminded of this.

"Everything has already been said, and well said; but one must always recall it anew."
-Frithjof Schuon

I'm so happy because I think remembering something is very right is what I needed. I think my horrible, terrible mood shall soon subside. I was so happy to remember, I poured a big glass of wine and composed this post in celebration. So, this is written on wine, and Lord knows what it will look like tomorrow. But I'm publishing it, with nary more than a spellcheck. No proofread, no nothing. Life happens. I say let it. Blogposts happen. Let them. Proofreading is for sissies - and sober sissies at that. La'Chaim! To life with beloved friends.

Note: hah! I just spellchecked, and I hadn't mispelled or mistyped a thing! Stone-cold sobriety is overrated.

Great sports name

Yonder Alonso

1B, University of Miami

To be drafted in Thursday's MLB Draft.

New plan when commenting on Obama

New plan: comment only on the ONE THING which most offended me.

Tuesday night, it was this:

"[W]e spend billions of dollars a month on a war that isn't making the American people any safer."

In other words:

You troops who are sweating and bleeding and dying: you are not making us any safer. You parents who have lost sons or daughters: your sons' or daughters' sacrifices have not made us any safer. You wives who have lost husbands: your husbands' sacrifices have not made us any safer. You children who have lost fathers: your fathers' sacrifices have not made us any safer. You veterans who are wounded: your sacrifices of your healthy bodies have not made us safer. America hasn't been hit since 9/11, but our military has had nothing to do with that.

What an insulting jerk.

There's a way to make an anti-war case without slapping our military and our military families in the face. Both Senator McCain and Senator Lieberman once spoke out forcefully in opposition to our Iraq strategy. They did so in a way which respected our military, and which did not provide succor for our enemies.

As to Barack and his speechwriter: I don't know if it occurred to them - even for a moment - what an insulting slap their words were.

Josh Hamilton is so good

that if you genuinely describe how good he is, you sound like a fool.

Sigh

WaPo's Richard Cohen jumps the gun by 5 months: unconsciously writes elegy about why Obama lost the general election. It's the racism, natch. link

Jesus Christ framing a 0BR/0BA. They're going to bang this meme every week for 5 months, then bang it monthly till the day we die.

Travelling heh

happened to my cousins during the Lakers-Jazz series.

Danish Embassy bombed

Today, the Danish embassy in Pakistan was bombed. Four innocent Pakistani bystanders were killed. No Danes were killed. Property was destroyed, including: the wall outside the Danish Embassy, windows on the Danish Embassy building, and much property along the street - including a Pakistani "Development Office" across the street. Debris was blown as far as 200 meters.

Everyone knows this was done as retaliation for the 2005 publication of the Danish Muhammad Cartoons (which resulted in the Jan 2006 protests).

Ultimately, though the bombers may or may not have thought things completely through: today's bombing was retaliation against Denmark for allowing freedom for their citizens. In Denmark's case, those freedoms include: freedom of the press, artistic freedom, freedom of speech. The terrorists oppose freedom.

Smart people on the left are infuriated whenever the right say the terrorists fight because they hate our freedom. Today's bombing is objective proof: the terrorists hate our freedom.

The left will say: "Fool! They don't hate our freedom. They hate that we insulted them." The right's response, by necessity, belabors the obvious: Freedom of speech includes freedom to insult. If you hate the freedom to insult, you hate freedom of speech.

Wretchard comments on the current feebleness of radical Islam, and on the irony of the bomb attack:

objectively speaking the entire bombing attack illustrates better than anything else how weak radical Islam has become. Making a lesson of a small European country must have been high on their list of priorities since the cartoons were published. That it has taken this long; that it needed to be mounted in a country that is practically the stronghold of al-Qaeda; and that it failed to be delivered directly into the embassy compound shows that this is the best they can do. Their arm has become very, very weak.

And BTW, was this the image they wanted to prevent people from seeing?

We in the West ought tweak Ben Franklin in a fun way:

We must stand together, or we will surely be blown up separately.

Also this:

We have given you a Republic, if you can keep it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

from Michelle Malkin:

In response to the notion that the West (or Islam) has ever followed the prohibition against depicting Mohammed, Zombie has created the “Mohammed Image Archive,” which contains dozens of Mohammed images from throughout history.

My favorite link from Zombie: Islamic Art Images of Muhammad.

The other Danish Cartoons:

Barack must repent

Left-side commentary:

Barack left his church. Why are the right and the Hillarys not happy?

Because Barack has not:

1. rebuked the church
2. repented from his acceptance of it’s Marxist economics and it’s racist ideology.

Heh 4

Obama spokesman says Obama's decision to leave church was "deeply personal". Of course it was. Had nothing to do with anything else. The spokesman makes a deeply personal verbal choice to repeat "deeply personal" three times in sixty seconds. video link

Heh 2 & 3

Jules Crittendon on Obama:

"It’s only a matter of time before he's forced to distance himself from himself."

Gateway Pundit on Obama:

“It’s getting crowded under that bus.”

Flashback to Heh #1, from Not Barack Obama h/t :

I did not have spiritual relations with that church......Trinity United.

White Priest = harder to play the race card

Karl at Protein Wisdom:

The Obamas leave Trinity [Karl]

Apparently, crazyass, race-baiting, crypto Marxist politics dressed up as religion just got to be too much… when it came out of the mouth of a white priest. Much harder to play the race card as trump.

My bolding. Could this be the case in this instance? It could.

I'm not confident it is the case. I need to let things marinate awhile. But it could be.

That it could be is a commentary on our cultural demurral to this PC argument:

Party A doesn't know enough to criticize Party B.

This PC argument is ruining our country.

I know enough about Islam to criticize Islam. If our nation doesn't know enough about Islam to criticize Islam, then our nation risks being slowly conquered by Islam. If our nation doesn't have the moral confidence to criticize Islam, then we risk dissolving into a puddle of Euro-goo.

I know enough about Black Liberation Theology to criticize it. I know enough about Trinity United Church of Christ to criticize it. I know enough about the "experience of African Americans" to criticize African Americans. To say I do not is either ludicrous fantasy or strategic misdirection. If our nation doesn't have the moral confidence to criticize BLT, TUCC, and fellow human beings whose skin happens to be darker: then we risk watching Barack introduce Jimmy Carter 2.0, and all the stagflation and terror genuflection that implies.

If we don't have moral confidence, we are limp wet noodles.

So true

from neoneocon's comments:

Vince P Says: May 31st, 2008 at 1:54 pm

What I ... really enjoy about the primary is how the Democrats [have] the one side calling the other sexist and the other side calling the other racist and neither denying that their party apparently consists of a lot of sexists and racists.

This is partly why Dems are so desperate for Hillary to concede: Dems are split into halves which are firing "racist" and "sexist" at each other. The national party wants unified Dems firing "racist" at McCain.

Dems have no shame. They have only the desire for self-justifying victory.

Heh

Not Barack Obama h/t :

I did not have spiritual relations with that church......Trinity United.

Kate h/t :

"There goes that historic, transcendent, life-changing, not since the Gettysburg Address, "I have a dream," must-be-taught-in-every-school race speech

Yeah, that speech stood the test of time, didn't it?