Tut, Tut Readers

I am most disappointed with you, my readers – I go out of my way to provide a time wasting fun music quiz and you all only get 1 correct answer – coming from NineMoons. Those marked with an * are the easiest – song title comes from the first line! Come on people, I expected more from you.

1. Mercy on the Fallen - Dar Williams = Oh my fair north star I have held to you dearly


2. Hold on, hold on - Neko Case = The most tender place in my heart is for strangers


3. *Johnny Cash/Nick Cave – Running Kind  = I was born the running kind


4. *Susan Tedeschi – Security = Security…I need some security


5. The Saw Doctors - Never Mind the Strangers = It takes 2 to get together and time to make it last


6. Buddy Miller – Quecreek =At the Quecreek mine the miners went down


7. *Loretta Lynn – Don’t think = (Well you thought) I’d be waiting up when you came home last night


8. The Highwaymen (Woody Guthrie) - Deportee = The crops are all in and the peaches are rotten


9. Bruce Springsteen - Part man, part monkey - They prosecuted some poor sucker in these united states


10. Dixie Chicks – Wide Open Spaces = Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about?


11. Neil Young – Walk On = I hear some people been talking me down


12. *Dashboard Confessional - Picture = Carry this picture for luck


13. *Whiskeytown – Well, excuse me while I break my own heart (..tonight)


14. Richard Shindell – By Now = Window open wide blowing through the north woods


15. Alejandro Escovedo – Sex Beat = Johnny’s got a lot on his eyes, Shirley’s got a lot on her lips


16. Billy Bragg and Wilco - Way over yonder in a minor key = I lived in a place called Okfuskee


17. Jayhawks - Come to the river = My heart is tuned to the morning wind


18. Wolf Parade - This hearts on fire = She tells you rock and roll


19. **Gomez - Love is better than a warm trombone  (It’s the 1st line and the title exactly!)


20. Vashti Bunyan - Here Before = Once I had a child and he was wilder than moonlight


21. Caitlin Cary/Thad Cockrell - Something less than something more = It’s a pretty tired story now it happens all the time


22. Bob Dylan - Just like a woman = Nobody feels any pain


23. Minus 5 – Out there on the maroon = I had 6 white Russians tonight and 2 of them were people (Dealga’s fantasy! Great band)


24. Willie Nelson - Big Booty = She said I ain’t gonna fix you no more sausage


25. Gretchen Peters - Circus Girl= I work the highwire in the centre ring

That wasn’t that hard! (was it?)

Why Victor Davis Hanson WON'T Get An Irish Times Slot

VDH nails his colours in this NRO article.
"It is now a cliche to rant about the spread of postmodernism, cultural relativism, utopian pacifism, and moral equivalence among the affluent and leisured societies of the West. But we are seeing the insidious wages of such pernicious theories as they filter down from our media, universities, and government - and never more so than in the general public's nonchalance since Hezbollah attacked Israel.

These past few days the inability of millions of Westerners, both here and in Europe, to condemn fascist terrorists who start wars, spread racial hatred, and despise Western democracies is the real story, not the "quarter-ton" Israeli bombs that inadvertently hit civilians in Lebanon who live among rocket launchers that send missiles into Israeli cities and suburbs.

Yes, perhaps Israel should have hit more quickly, harder, and on the ground; yes, it has run an inept public relations campaign; yes, to these criticisms and more. But what is lost sight of is the central moral issue of our times: a humane democracy mired in an asymmetrical war is trying to protect itself against terrorists from the 7th century, while under the scrutiny of a corrupt world that needs oil, is largely anti-Semitic and deathly afraid of Islamic terrorists, and finds psychic enjoyment in seeing successful Western societies under duress.

In short, if we wish to learn what was going on in Europe in 1938, just look around."

(It's not as if his position would have been anyway ambiguous anyway....)

While not in the same issue, but my NRO reading session, Claudia Rossett, Oil-For-Food expert, discusses Hezbollah's non-terrorist UN designation - But without a clear definition of what terrorism entails, U.N. member states — including the liveliest terror sponsors — pay no penalty for interpreting these measures in any warped way they might choose, or effectively ignoring them altogether.
This gridlock goes far to explain why Annan, apparently forgetting his reform pitch of last year, has been calling with the regularity of a cuckoo clock for an immediate “ceasefire” in the current conflict. In doing so, he ignores the desperately lopsided setup of any deal in which Israel would be constrained by U.N. words on paper while the terrorists — by definition, if only the U.N. had one — can be reliably stopped only at gunpoint. That asymmetry is pretty much the arrangement that incubated this war in the first place. Israel complied with U.N. rules and withdrew six years ago from Lebanon. Hezbollah violated the rules, expanding its protection rackets and stockpiling illicit weapons under the terror-neutral gaze of U.N. “peacekeepers,” until it was ready to strike.

Irish Bloggers Blogging the Blogging

It's something we seem to do a lot of - today
Sicilian Notes has some thoughts and the great-grandaddy of Irish blogging, Gavin Sheridan "bows out" (When I say shut down, I mean leave it online, but simply let it slide and move on to pastures new.)

It will be interesting to see how mainstream blogs get here, if it at all.
I bought www.realitycheck.ie about 6 months ago and blacknight are still waiting for my letter to say I am me and want to use the domain - I'm the slowest internet/broadband type going - after a little break from blogging (mainly because everytime I tried to write something I found problems with and deleted it - this non-editing approach works best!) I feel rejuvenated. Like I had a blogonic irrigation, or something.

It’s A Pretty Tired Story

Now that my 80hour plus working week has become a little more like a routine than just a hellish way to spend my time, this blog will shortly resume proper blogging (well, the kind of stuff I did before becoming a working girl).
In the meantime – try this little test out. Fence introduced me to this meme – put ipod on random – first 25 “firstlines” and no googling – get the song and artist. I was surprised at how they actually form quite a nice little playlist (deleting the instrumental trad/swingle singers numbers that don’t lend themselves to such exercises)
Here’s mine – they’re quite hard (and some are the title of the song) I doubt I would have gotten many of them and they are biased towards the alt.country/folk side of things - but have a go! I’ll provide answers on Friday.

1. Oh my fair north star I have held to you dearly
2. The most tender place in my heart is for strangers
3. I was born the running kind
4. Security…I need some security
5. It takes 2 to get together and time to make it last
6. At the Quecreek mine the miners went down
7. Well you thought I’d be waiting up when you came home last night
8. The crops are all in and the peaches are rotten
9. They prosecuted some poor sucker in these united states
10. Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about?
11. I hear some people been talking me down
12. Carry this picture for luck
13. Well, excuse me while I break my own heart
14. Window open wide blowing through the north woods
15. Johnny’s got a lot on his eyes, Shirley’s got a lot on her lips
16. I lived in a place called Okfuskee
17. My heart is tuned to the morning wind
18. She tells you rock and roll
19. Love is better than a warm trombone
20. Once I had a child and he was wilder than moonlight
21. It’s a pretty tired story now it happens all the time
22. Nobody feels any pain
23. I had 6 white Russians tonight and 2 of them were people
24. She said I ain’t gonna fix you no more sausage
25. I work the highwire in the centre ring

Canadian Bacon

The Torydiary blog has a post on Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his recent speech to the Canada-UK Chamber of Commerce. Canada is not a place I think about much at all, no offence to all the lovely Canadians I know. I like what he has to say about the "war on terror" -
It is a conflict without borders. A conflict fought abroad and at home. A conflict in which the aggressor stands for nothing yet seeks to impose its will. Through the destruction of terrorism. Through the slaughter of the innocent. And through the perversion of a faith. So once more we face, as Churchill put it “gangs of bandits who seek to darken the light of the world. And once more we must appeal to our values, marshal our resources and steadfastly apply our will to defeat them. This war on terror will not be easy. Nor will it be short. But it must be won. And Canada’s new national government is absolutely determined, once again, to stand shoulder to shoulder with our british allies, to stay the course and to win the fight."
I never realised that Canada was so "big in oil" -
Even now, Canada is the only non-OPEC country with growing oil deliverability. And let’s be clear. We are a stable, reliable producer in a volatile, unpredictable world. We believe in the free exchange of energy products based on competitive market principles, not self-serving monopolistic political strategies. That’s why policymakers in Washington – not to mention investors in Houston and New York – now talk about Canada and continental energy security in the same breath. That’s why Canada surpassed the Saudis four years ago as the largest supplier of petroleum products to the United States. And that’s why industry analysts are recommending Canada as “possessing the most attractive combination of circumstances for energy investment of any place in the world.”