I don’t see why Greta Van Susteren should have bothered.

With what? Responding to Meghan McCain, that is. No matter what Lindsay Lohan has done, at least she’s only harming herself as opposed to making vile jokes about people with whose politics she disagrees.

Why the hell would anyone care about what Meghan McCain thinks about anything, for that matter? It’s not as if she’s riding on her own accomplishments as opposed to just being the daughter of a famous politician. Let’s face it: if she was just Meghan Smith, some Jane Blow off the street, she’d just be some no-name blowhard writing for a Web publication to which no one who cares about real news gives any credibility anyway.

Saturday musical observations…

Almost 20 years later, I still think Alan Jackson nailed the Eagles’ “Tequila Sunrise.” I got the Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles cassette for Christmas the year it came out. Wore it out, too. I went & bought the cd a few years ago. Those recordings have held up very, very well. I’ve said before that it’s a really sad commentary on today’s country music that most if not all the cuts on Common Thread sound more country than a lot of what passes for country these days. Hell, the original versions of those songs sound more country than “country” does.

A few minutes ago I heard Motley Crue’s “Kickstart My Heart” being used on a Kia commercial. It made me wonder if the marketing idiots at Kia have any idea that it was inspired by something quite, shall we say, unsavory — namely, a Nikki Sixx drug overdose. Maybe it’s just me, but songs like that are best used in ads for things like Mustangs and Camaros. The demographic’s not getting any younger, though, and you know that one day they’re going to be using, say, “Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room” to sell Cadillacs. That’s gonna be a depressing day, indeed.

Once again…

I don’t understand why Texas law should be revisited in light of what happened in Florida with Trayon Martin. I am not the least bit surprised that Wisconsin expatriate O. Ricardo Pimentel does, though. Time and again, he stands up for those who would prey on the hard-working, law-abiding citizens of this great state. This is one of the most rambling, disjointed and unsupported pieces he’s ever written, though — which is saying a lot, considering how much of his ranting the Express-News has inflicted on us. I did find this bit to be quite revealing, though:

Those opposed to the bill clearly understood the broadened scope. Their objections just didn’t seem to be registering. Or, I’m guessing, believed. You know, a case of those “anti-gun nuts” just blowing smoke again.

So they understood the “broadened scope” of the law but still opposed it. They opposed people being able to defend themselves wherever the people had a right to be. I wouldn’t call it blowing smoke so much as, shall we say, Chicken Little shrieking about blood running the streets or all those other things. Such is par for the course for the anti-self-defense crowd, but why is such an opinion almost never called out for the crap that it is?

Overheard earlier at Armadillo’s…

Me, singing to the baby: “Well Tuesday, you see, she had to be free, but somehow I’ve got to carry on…Tuesday’s gone, with the wind…”

Sabra: “That song’s not over yet?”

Me: “Nope. I think it’s about seven minutes long.” (7 minutes and 32 seconds, to be exact.)

Sabra: “Well. No wonder she left.”

Me:”HAHAHAHA!”

Gee, I wonder why that is?

From the Associated Press, by way of the San Antonio Express-News:

Jim DiPeso of ConservAmerica, a group that recently changed its name from Republicans for Environmental Protection, says the EPA is caught in the center of a perfect storm. “This time of greater cynicism about government, more economic anxiety and the fact that the problems are not immediately apparent, has created this political problem for EPA,” he said.

And what an incredibly biased story, right from the damned headline. “In ’72, EPA battled pollution; now it’s politics.” Politics, eh? So all that concern about the new regulations passed by the agency that are going to force the closure of God only knows how many power plants is just politics? I’d like to see the reporter and all the people quoted in this story tell all the people who are going to lose their jobs and everyone who’s going to face higher electricity & gas prices about how “it’s for the environment.”

And don’t you love how Lisa Jackson basically implies that people who even just want to rein in the EPA want to rape the environment? That’s pretty much the only way the EPA and its rabid supporters are going to win the argument — frame the people who want a thorough analysis of its actions as people who want to club baby seals and pour barrels of oil into the rivers. “Huge gulf”?  I bet it isn’t as huge as she’d like us all to think, especially if the American people have any clue about the link between later EPA regulations and closing power plants.

And why do the same people who bitch about unelected judges making decisions that affect all of us don’t say anything about the unelected bureaucrats doing the same thing? Why is one better than the other?

They shouldn’t get to do that.

Rich Lowry’s column this morning reminded me of this:

A government official at the center of lavish spending at a Las Vegas conference claimed his Fifth Amendment rights against testifying at a congressional hearing Monday…

I realize this point of view is going to be controversial and perhaps shared by a very small number of people, but Jeff Neely shouldn’t have gotten to do that.   Yes, the Constitution protects all of us, and I know that even includes monsters like Verna McClain. But I don’t think government officials accused of blowing the public’s money should get to invoke any kind of protection when they’re asked about it. It may be his Constitutional right, but it’s almost as if Healy is claiming some sort of sovereign immunity. He was in charge of that whole thing and he’s going to get away with it. Such is the price of living in a country with such protections, I suppose, but that doesn’t make it any more palatable.

Yes, I really believe this.

Maybe this is just the husband and father in me talking, but if Verna McClain is guilty of the crimes she has been charged with, then she ought to be dismembered on the 50-yard line at Reliant Stadium, pour encourager les autres. And they should sell tickets to the event and put it on national TV.

It’s not just Willie Nelson…

…but the entire genre of country music that’s being reduced to a caricature as of late. Witness Ashton Kutcher’s recent appearance on the ACM Awards in some sort of “country” getup that looked like it was from some theme park as he sang a George Strait song out of tune, jackasses like Colt Ford and Jason Aldean reducing George Jones to some swerving drunk on a lawnmower, and of course there’s the entire list of “country life rules and city life drools” songs.  It’s all extremely disheartening, of course, but this is just another insult on the long list of them. I fully expect a similar tribute to Merle Haggard soon, based of course on the whole “Okie from Muskogee” image. I also fully expect Chet Flippo to come along and voice some righteous indignation over one or both tributes, blissfully unaware that he and people like him have enabled this sort of thing.

Leave it up to Jesse Jackson…

…to stand up for the criminals among us. To paraphrase one of the comments on that story, heaven forbid the thugs should run the risk of being shot when they’re out stealing from those who still work for a living. Jackson even acknowledges SYG is a self-defense law and still calls for it to be repealed. What the hell is wrong with him?

Where would anyone have gotten the idea that he wouldn’t have been?

Debra J. Saunders:

 Why is Obama drug war’s Rambo?

Why? Because he’s just like every other authoritarian piece of crap in Washington. The man he appointed as attorney general hates drugs at least as much as he hates guns. I know a lot of people like to think Democrats are more friendly to individual liberties than Republicans, but anyone who’s been paying attention knows that’s a filthy lie.