Well, I for one am on my knees thanking God Almighty that the votes will be cast in Iowa today and the chattering classes will finally shut up about it.
One cannot help but worry about a political system which depends in such large part on so few votes to set the balls rolling.... and it isn't LITERALLY true, of course, because lots of people win in Iowa and don't win the nominations to come, but STILL....
The WORST part is the nonstop analysis. The endless polling. The endless comparison of yesterday's polling with TODAY's polling. Who's up, who's down, as if any of it makes any difference at all. How would you like to be a regular normal guy living in Iowa whose phone won't stop ringing, whose doorbell won't stop chiming, whose hand won't stop being pumped up and down by candidates.... ?
A cynic might be tempted to offer his vote to the first man or woman to pony up $500. After all, they're spending nearly that much per voter in ads anyway.
TODAY makes a difference. But even today is not the be all end all of primary procedures, only the initiation.
If prayer makes a difference, and I hope and believe that it can, then Pastor Huckabee will be permitted by the grace of God to continue saving souls from the pulpit while someone better suited to political governance receives the nomination instead.
Even so, I suspect the good preacher could stand a bit of C. S. Lewis or John Stott for bedside reading. He's lost his way, in the view of this unschooled layman and wayward Christian man.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Friday, December 28, 2007
My take on Huckaweasel
I still don't know what all the Huckabee fuss is about.
Either his polling is
a) overstated by a press eager for something to cover, a horse race, and NOT eager for conservatives to have an easy time of it, or
b) driven by blind following of an Evangelical Christian Baptist preacher no matter what he says or believes, just because Christians want to vote for a Christian.
The first one is a given, and I expect it, much as I detest it.
The second one is a problem for me. I would be really disturbed to learn that Christians were organized and pulling for this guy simply because he's a preacher. C. S. Lewis always said that being a Christian is not automatically a qualification for any sort of leadership and that it does not in itself convey any special qualities or skills or experiences to do any particular job.
Huckabee, folks, is a weasel. He's crafty, sneaky, and not very nice. And he is no conservative, not on anything besides abortion anyway, and that issue has always been a Christian issue rather than a conservative one.
Huckabee said "I don't know much about Mormonism... "then lightly tossed in "don't Mormons believe Jesus and the devil are brothers?"
It isn't the contemptible sneakiness of this over-the-shoulder shot that bothers me most; it's the lie he told right before it.
He DOES know much about Mormonism, given he was a keynote speaker at an SBC meeting in Salt Lake City nine years ago. The meeting specifically addressed Mormonism, provoking them by having the meeting in THEIR town, distributing materials that were negative about them, sending MISSIONARIES for heaven's sake, to convert the Mormon savages into decent Christian people.
Huckabee was the man chosen to make the meeting's OPENING SPEECH. When he says he doesn't know much about Mormonism, HE"S LYING.
He also has no concept of the difference between taxpayer funds and charitable donations. He seems to think that whenever it's time to be compassionate, the way to do it is to take great gulps of money from the public treasury and pass it around.
Conservatism says government shouldn't be in that business, or at least should do it as little as possible. We want lower taxes so that our charitable efforts, already the best in the world by a long shot, can be even better; but we DO NOT want taxpayer money being used for things the taxpayers themselves might object to, loudly. If there is a genuine cause for compassion, then encourage the people to raise charitable funds to address it, and do it outside government, among other reasons so that it can be more efficient, less wasteful of money.
Speaking of money, he's got a fondness for it. He's STILL taking cash for speeches, folks, even as he runs for President. This is the first time in our history that such a thing has been done. Huckabee makes many times his salary as governor of Arkansas by questionable means that might well be interpreted as influence peddling. He rivals the Clintons in terms of the large scale acceptance of expensive gifts while still in office.
He takes speech money from at least one medical group that researches with human embryos, for example. This from a man who says he opposes embryonic stem cell research because it kills babies. Because it's like abortion, which he says he's against. But he is $50,000 richer, as far as we KNOW, by doing speaking engagements for which they were the underwriters. It could be more.
He's also a genuine kindergartener at foreign policy. Iran's mullahs have announced they hope he wins. That's all I need to know.
And just today, I read the 'icing on the cake', the 'coup de gras' story that settled my view of him as a weasel. He went hunting, you see, for pheasants. When a group of reporters flushed a couple of birds, Huckabee's group (presumably including him) blasted away at the birds, directly over the heads of the startled reporters. A Dick Cheney moment it was not; in Cheney's case, the OTHER guy was the one who violated hunting protocol by moving into the wrong place, to where Cheney couldn't see him until it was too late.
But Huckabee's group gleefully fired away even though the reporters were plainly right in front of them. Those guys were upset about it, but nobody was hit.
I do not like Mike Huckabee, and the press's insistence that he's 'likeable' rubs me wrong. It's something else that's happening here, and I suspect it's a Christian grass roots organizational thing designed to teach the other candidates not to take them too lightly.
But I will NEVER like Mike Huckabee.
I like Romney. People who say he's too polished and slick also complain that Bush is too rough around the edges and not polished ENOUGH. They call Romney a flipper on lots of issues, a latecomer to the conservative ranks, but isn't he moving the RIGHT WAY? Isn't he maturing and becoming a better person? Why should we complain about changes when he's changing in the RIGHT DIRECTION?
I like Rudy. He's solid on most of my issues, and on abortion, he's already repeatedly said he'd nominate strict constitutionalist judges, which is another way of saying he'd set things up so that Roe could be overturned later. He's got lots of friends and supporters who would not countenance a flip from him on this issue, but he's already spoken to conservatives about it through his remarks on nominating those judges. I only hope those people aren't too dimwitted to get it. Anyway, the president has no power to veto Roe Vs. Wade. It is established law, and he is not a legislator. All he can do is appoint the right judges, and he repeatedly promises he will do so.
I do NOT like McCain. He displayed bilious contempt for ordinary people during that whole immigration thing, along with a complete inability to even understand our complaints. And his 'campaign finance reform' made the beast that is George Soros a factor to be reckoned with, in my opinion a giant step backward in American campaigns. His reform bill also removed the right of free speech from citizens who wish to speak on our airwaves about our elections within a month or two of them. Grotesque, anti-American, damaging to the nation. McCain isn't just a maverick, he's unstable and crazy.
I like Fred, and hope he plays a part in this, but I don't think he'll win. His issue stands are just not well enough known. No fire catching on there.
Duncan Hunter has not caught even the slightest spark of fire, but his is the most Reagan-like approach of any Republican candidates. Too bad he's a bit flat and uninteresting on TV.
The Huckaweasel seems to be more and more transparent over the passage of time, and lets hope by the caucuses he's at least moderately well known to be a weasel. I suspect he will be.
Either his polling is
a) overstated by a press eager for something to cover, a horse race, and NOT eager for conservatives to have an easy time of it, or
b) driven by blind following of an Evangelical Christian Baptist preacher no matter what he says or believes, just because Christians want to vote for a Christian.
The first one is a given, and I expect it, much as I detest it.
The second one is a problem for me. I would be really disturbed to learn that Christians were organized and pulling for this guy simply because he's a preacher. C. S. Lewis always said that being a Christian is not automatically a qualification for any sort of leadership and that it does not in itself convey any special qualities or skills or experiences to do any particular job.
Huckabee, folks, is a weasel. He's crafty, sneaky, and not very nice. And he is no conservative, not on anything besides abortion anyway, and that issue has always been a Christian issue rather than a conservative one.
Huckabee said "I don't know much about Mormonism... "then lightly tossed in "don't Mormons believe Jesus and the devil are brothers?"
It isn't the contemptible sneakiness of this over-the-shoulder shot that bothers me most; it's the lie he told right before it.
He DOES know much about Mormonism, given he was a keynote speaker at an SBC meeting in Salt Lake City nine years ago. The meeting specifically addressed Mormonism, provoking them by having the meeting in THEIR town, distributing materials that were negative about them, sending MISSIONARIES for heaven's sake, to convert the Mormon savages into decent Christian people.
Huckabee was the man chosen to make the meeting's OPENING SPEECH. When he says he doesn't know much about Mormonism, HE"S LYING.
He also has no concept of the difference between taxpayer funds and charitable donations. He seems to think that whenever it's time to be compassionate, the way to do it is to take great gulps of money from the public treasury and pass it around.
Conservatism says government shouldn't be in that business, or at least should do it as little as possible. We want lower taxes so that our charitable efforts, already the best in the world by a long shot, can be even better; but we DO NOT want taxpayer money being used for things the taxpayers themselves might object to, loudly. If there is a genuine cause for compassion, then encourage the people to raise charitable funds to address it, and do it outside government, among other reasons so that it can be more efficient, less wasteful of money.
Speaking of money, he's got a fondness for it. He's STILL taking cash for speeches, folks, even as he runs for President. This is the first time in our history that such a thing has been done. Huckabee makes many times his salary as governor of Arkansas by questionable means that might well be interpreted as influence peddling. He rivals the Clintons in terms of the large scale acceptance of expensive gifts while still in office.
He takes speech money from at least one medical group that researches with human embryos, for example. This from a man who says he opposes embryonic stem cell research because it kills babies. Because it's like abortion, which he says he's against. But he is $50,000 richer, as far as we KNOW, by doing speaking engagements for which they were the underwriters. It could be more.
He's also a genuine kindergartener at foreign policy. Iran's mullahs have announced they hope he wins. That's all I need to know.
And just today, I read the 'icing on the cake', the 'coup de gras' story that settled my view of him as a weasel. He went hunting, you see, for pheasants. When a group of reporters flushed a couple of birds, Huckabee's group (presumably including him) blasted away at the birds, directly over the heads of the startled reporters. A Dick Cheney moment it was not; in Cheney's case, the OTHER guy was the one who violated hunting protocol by moving into the wrong place, to where Cheney couldn't see him until it was too late.
But Huckabee's group gleefully fired away even though the reporters were plainly right in front of them. Those guys were upset about it, but nobody was hit.
I do not like Mike Huckabee, and the press's insistence that he's 'likeable' rubs me wrong. It's something else that's happening here, and I suspect it's a Christian grass roots organizational thing designed to teach the other candidates not to take them too lightly.
But I will NEVER like Mike Huckabee.
I like Romney. People who say he's too polished and slick also complain that Bush is too rough around the edges and not polished ENOUGH. They call Romney a flipper on lots of issues, a latecomer to the conservative ranks, but isn't he moving the RIGHT WAY? Isn't he maturing and becoming a better person? Why should we complain about changes when he's changing in the RIGHT DIRECTION?
I like Rudy. He's solid on most of my issues, and on abortion, he's already repeatedly said he'd nominate strict constitutionalist judges, which is another way of saying he'd set things up so that Roe could be overturned later. He's got lots of friends and supporters who would not countenance a flip from him on this issue, but he's already spoken to conservatives about it through his remarks on nominating those judges. I only hope those people aren't too dimwitted to get it. Anyway, the president has no power to veto Roe Vs. Wade. It is established law, and he is not a legislator. All he can do is appoint the right judges, and he repeatedly promises he will do so.
I do NOT like McCain. He displayed bilious contempt for ordinary people during that whole immigration thing, along with a complete inability to even understand our complaints. And his 'campaign finance reform' made the beast that is George Soros a factor to be reckoned with, in my opinion a giant step backward in American campaigns. His reform bill also removed the right of free speech from citizens who wish to speak on our airwaves about our elections within a month or two of them. Grotesque, anti-American, damaging to the nation. McCain isn't just a maverick, he's unstable and crazy.
I like Fred, and hope he plays a part in this, but I don't think he'll win. His issue stands are just not well enough known. No fire catching on there.
Duncan Hunter has not caught even the slightest spark of fire, but his is the most Reagan-like approach of any Republican candidates. Too bad he's a bit flat and uninteresting on TV.
The Huckaweasel seems to be more and more transparent over the passage of time, and lets hope by the caucuses he's at least moderately well known to be a weasel. I suspect he will be.
Finally, a real world solution
.. I hope it is, anyway.
There is a company making solar panels whose manufacturing cost, and thus retail cost, will make them competitive with traditional sources of electricity.
Is this the breakthrough we conservatives have been waiting for? So far, the solutions have always been more expensive than traditional energy, oil and coal and whatnot, and thus would require taxing people into obedience. That, of course, is economically destructive and makes the solution NOT a solution at all.
But if these panels have any kind of durability at all, I would seriously consider putting them on MY roof, assuming my tyrannical homeowners association would even take my phone call.
I would love to have a self sufficient home, powered without the grid, or at least offsetting the grid so that my expenses drop to near zero.
But I'm not going to spend $150,000 on it, because it would take longer than my remaining lifespan to pay off the investment.
That's just real world economics.
The lowest cost form of energy is the one that will remain the most popular. If some leftist taxes it punitively to make some other source of energy 'cost less', the economic damage will make EVERYTHING cost more. It has to be real, actually less expensive, not falsely so.
And this might do it.
There is a company making solar panels whose manufacturing cost, and thus retail cost, will make them competitive with traditional sources of electricity.
Is this the breakthrough we conservatives have been waiting for? So far, the solutions have always been more expensive than traditional energy, oil and coal and whatnot, and thus would require taxing people into obedience. That, of course, is economically destructive and makes the solution NOT a solution at all.
But if these panels have any kind of durability at all, I would seriously consider putting them on MY roof, assuming my tyrannical homeowners association would even take my phone call.
I would love to have a self sufficient home, powered without the grid, or at least offsetting the grid so that my expenses drop to near zero.
But I'm not going to spend $150,000 on it, because it would take longer than my remaining lifespan to pay off the investment.
That's just real world economics.
The lowest cost form of energy is the one that will remain the most popular. If some leftist taxes it punitively to make some other source of energy 'cost less', the economic damage will make EVERYTHING cost more. It has to be real, actually less expensive, not falsely so.
And this might do it.
The famous one-way street
Everywhere a Muslim deigns to grant the West his considered opinion on religion and history, it always seems to include a mention, however oblique, of what Christianity did to Islam several hundred years ago.
They have a long memory, it is said. But they always ignore the present while chewing on the past.
Here's a classic example; a column by a Muslim who cannot understand how Tony Blair could possibly become a Catholic. After all, he has said good things about Islam, and that mean old Catholic church has done some awful things.... how could Blair self-identify with pedophiles, anti-science Popes, gays in the priesthood, yada yada?
Here's my favorite paragraph--
Islam certainly stands for tolerance and demonstrates this by giving a special status (!?!?) to the Christians and Jews calling them people of the Book - Ahl al-Kitab. Christianity does not do the same. Blair reminded us that "the standard-bearers of tolerance in the early Middle Ages were far more likely to be found in Muslim lands than in Christian ones". Yes, but why has Mr Blair converted to Catholicism? Surely he stands for tolerance, progress and good governance.
If Christianity, anywhere, can be found to levy extra taxes on people for not being Christian, to officially call them second class citizens, I'd like to know where it is.
If Christian society is so intolerant, I'd like to know why so many Jews live here in the States, and why so few Jews still remain in those 'tolerant' Islamic countries. Remain there, remain alive, whichever.
If a Christian society can be found anywhere that is less tolerant of other religions, other cultures, homosexuality, adultery and public dancing than Islamic society is, I'd like to know.
If I may, the standard-bearers of tolerance NOW, unlike in the early Middle Ages (I grant this stipulation but it is arguable), are JUDEO-CHRISTIAN societies. And anywhere that Christianity is losing its influence, those societies are rapidly becoming ISLAMIC ones, so the tolerance question is nearing irrelevance.
Read the whole thing, and then imagine a public figure converting to Islam and a columnist writing that he cannot understand this, because Islam has so much baggage, so many wrongdoers, so much evil attached to its name.
The columnist would presently be living under an assumed name, fearing for his life and the lives of his family.
The old one-way street.....
They have a long memory, it is said. But they always ignore the present while chewing on the past.
Here's a classic example; a column by a Muslim who cannot understand how Tony Blair could possibly become a Catholic. After all, he has said good things about Islam, and that mean old Catholic church has done some awful things.... how could Blair self-identify with pedophiles, anti-science Popes, gays in the priesthood, yada yada?
Here's my favorite paragraph--
Islam certainly stands for tolerance and demonstrates this by giving a special status (!?!?) to the Christians and Jews calling them people of the Book - Ahl al-Kitab. Christianity does not do the same. Blair reminded us that "the standard-bearers of tolerance in the early Middle Ages were far more likely to be found in Muslim lands than in Christian ones". Yes, but why has Mr Blair converted to Catholicism? Surely he stands for tolerance, progress and good governance.
If Christianity, anywhere, can be found to levy extra taxes on people for not being Christian, to officially call them second class citizens, I'd like to know where it is.
If Christian society is so intolerant, I'd like to know why so many Jews live here in the States, and why so few Jews still remain in those 'tolerant' Islamic countries. Remain there, remain alive, whichever.
If a Christian society can be found anywhere that is less tolerant of other religions, other cultures, homosexuality, adultery and public dancing than Islamic society is, I'd like to know.
If I may, the standard-bearers of tolerance NOW, unlike in the early Middle Ages (I grant this stipulation but it is arguable), are JUDEO-CHRISTIAN societies. And anywhere that Christianity is losing its influence, those societies are rapidly becoming ISLAMIC ones, so the tolerance question is nearing irrelevance.
Read the whole thing, and then imagine a public figure converting to Islam and a columnist writing that he cannot understand this, because Islam has so much baggage, so many wrongdoers, so much evil attached to its name.
The columnist would presently be living under an assumed name, fearing for his life and the lives of his family.
The old one-way street.....
Thursday, December 27, 2007
quick linkless note
In 1963, Karl Popper said this--
"A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice."
Lots of sensible people have already noted that the theory of Manmade Catastrophic Global Warming appears to be confirmed, in the eyes of its proponents, by almost any weather event or scientific datum. It seems sometimes there is NO weather pattern or scientific measurement that cannot be explained by the anthropogenic global warming theory.
I've been covering a lot of ground on this tonight, looking at lots of stories and websites and databanks; it is a subject in which I have no professional expertise at all, so I won't attempt to make scientific arguments myself.
Nor, since I don't have much time to refine this post, will I hammer you with a bunch of links.
It will suffice for me to use this post as a sort of bookmark, as we are now in the final week of 2007.
You see, I've found a lot of blogs and other conversations amongst experts, hobbyists and interested people about the solar cycle, the sunspots-- or lack of them.
At present there are none. And it has been this way for a long long time, TOO long in fact.
For hundreds of years the solar cycle has been on an 11 year basis, with almost no variation.
If the next cycle begins when predicted, it will be more like 13 years. And recent predictions have been proven wrong with each passing month.
The last time we had an extended solar flat cycle was about 300 years ago, and it got so cold on this planet that crops failed and generations died of starvation.
Just google "Maunder minimum" and go from there, if you have a few minutes to spare.
IF the planet gets warmer, more things can grow, including the plants and animals we eat. Plants require sunlight and warmth, and animals eat plants. It is an adjustment we can all handle.
We can move to higher ground, we can build with better codes and live through hurricanes, etc etc yada yada. (assuming their arguments about those things are correct.)
But how can we generate enough energy to create sunlight to grow crops? It's a ridiculous thought.
Global cooling would be devastating to the human race. Global warming, not so much.
There is nothing to debate here, except to argue for warming or cooling. Right now, the warming guys are better organized and are making more money off it (and poised to make LOTS more in the form of worldwide taxation, mainly aimed at America), which is better motivation. But the cooling guys are coming up hard down the stretch, as the sun just sits there. Silent.
Spotless.
For way too long. The cycle was to start last spring. Now nobody knows, because the normal indicators are absent. This past winter set records all over the world for cold, in the northern hemisphere and then through June July August in the southern. Snow in Peru, first time since 1918. Frozen vineyards in New Zealand, new cold records broken every few days in Australia.
And we all know how well the new winter is going here in the States. More than half the country is presently under ice or snow, with record snowfalls already recorded from one end of the country to the other, as well as several notable new record lows.
No sunspots. No indication of the beginning of a new cycle, which was first noticed in 2006 and has attracted more and more attention as the dead time continues.
Just look around, do some googling. Even I wouldn't enjoy the exposing of the Gore fraud if it came with this kind of price tag, genuine human misery on a large scale.
Well, maybe I'd enjoy it a little. :-)
"A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice."
Lots of sensible people have already noted that the theory of Manmade Catastrophic Global Warming appears to be confirmed, in the eyes of its proponents, by almost any weather event or scientific datum. It seems sometimes there is NO weather pattern or scientific measurement that cannot be explained by the anthropogenic global warming theory.
I've been covering a lot of ground on this tonight, looking at lots of stories and websites and databanks; it is a subject in which I have no professional expertise at all, so I won't attempt to make scientific arguments myself.
Nor, since I don't have much time to refine this post, will I hammer you with a bunch of links.
It will suffice for me to use this post as a sort of bookmark, as we are now in the final week of 2007.
You see, I've found a lot of blogs and other conversations amongst experts, hobbyists and interested people about the solar cycle, the sunspots-- or lack of them.
At present there are none. And it has been this way for a long long time, TOO long in fact.
For hundreds of years the solar cycle has been on an 11 year basis, with almost no variation.
If the next cycle begins when predicted, it will be more like 13 years. And recent predictions have been proven wrong with each passing month.
The last time we had an extended solar flat cycle was about 300 years ago, and it got so cold on this planet that crops failed and generations died of starvation.
Just google "Maunder minimum" and go from there, if you have a few minutes to spare.
IF the planet gets warmer, more things can grow, including the plants and animals we eat. Plants require sunlight and warmth, and animals eat plants. It is an adjustment we can all handle.
We can move to higher ground, we can build with better codes and live through hurricanes, etc etc yada yada. (assuming their arguments about those things are correct.)
But how can we generate enough energy to create sunlight to grow crops? It's a ridiculous thought.
Global cooling would be devastating to the human race. Global warming, not so much.
There is nothing to debate here, except to argue for warming or cooling. Right now, the warming guys are better organized and are making more money off it (and poised to make LOTS more in the form of worldwide taxation, mainly aimed at America), which is better motivation. But the cooling guys are coming up hard down the stretch, as the sun just sits there. Silent.
Spotless.
For way too long. The cycle was to start last spring. Now nobody knows, because the normal indicators are absent. This past winter set records all over the world for cold, in the northern hemisphere and then through June July August in the southern. Snow in Peru, first time since 1918. Frozen vineyards in New Zealand, new cold records broken every few days in Australia.
And we all know how well the new winter is going here in the States. More than half the country is presently under ice or snow, with record snowfalls already recorded from one end of the country to the other, as well as several notable new record lows.
No sunspots. No indication of the beginning of a new cycle, which was first noticed in 2006 and has attracted more and more attention as the dead time continues.
Just look around, do some googling. Even I wouldn't enjoy the exposing of the Gore fraud if it came with this kind of price tag, genuine human misery on a large scale.
Well, maybe I'd enjoy it a little. :-)
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Minor golf adventure
Last week I had a bit of fun.
Non-golfers will not be interested by this tale, nor will most golfers I guess... but blogs are for telling exactly that kind of story, so here goes--
I was driving around Dallas on Saturday and heard that British Open champion Todd Hamilton from the 2004 event was very near, and would be there for a couple of hours.
I changed my unimportant morning plan and went to meet him.
When I arrived, the room was filled with a couple dozen people like me-- middle-aged men, slightly overweight and underhaired, standing in rapt attention with cell phone cams at the ready.
There was one difference-- I had forgotten the phone when I left the house. No photos were saved of this next moment.....
I leaned over the broadcast table where Hamilton and the hosts were swapping golf stories, examining the Claret Jug (Todd had brought his with him for this event), reading all the tiny engravings of all the great names (did you know that Bobby Locke is on the trophy as A. D. Locke?), and Todd Hamilton smiled, leaned over, picked it up and handed it to me.
I turned to the wall of photographers with my Claret Jug in hand, kissing it from afar, waving at the crowd, "thank you, thank you" while the flashes popped--
Alright, I told you this story wouldn't be interesting.
But now, I, Dave Perkins, occasional holder of a single digit handicap (it's been as low as 4, but not recently), have walked the hallowed goat-track fairways of St. Andrews' Auld Course; I have played eighteen holes of immensely difficult golf at Royal St. George, the Open rota course in Kent in southeastern England (shot 84, first time there, didn't have caddie, just good luck, good day) and now, now I have held the Claret Jug in my hands, taken from the hands of the Champion Golfer for 2004.
Todd Hamilton, btw, turned out to be a good guy, local DFW guy, grew up in Illinois but likes Texas and doesn't plan to leave. He's even played my own course, Hackberry Creek in Las Colinas.
Hamilton is an interesting story. As a kid in a small town in Illinois, he grew up playing golf at a high school that had no golf team. He entered school tournaments as an independent, and in that manner, alone and unsubsidized, he won two straight Illinois championships. Those Fighting Todds from Hamilton High were at the top of their game, eh?
His next claim to fame, which even he didn't know (the radio hosts had googled this and were informed), was that he was the all time money leader on the Japanese tour among the gaijin, the foreigners. Todd Hamilton, the best Japanese player ever to be NOT Japanese. Sort of.
And he won his PGA tour card at 38, a very old rookie indeed. That was the year he won the Open.
It wasn't a brush with greatness, in the classical sense; more like an oblique thump against the shin bone of something that had brushed greatness recently.
But avid, rabid golfers will know exactly what I felt. It was one of those moments when real golf legend floats down from the mists of the mythology and settles as simple dry fact, a moment when the giants who move in those shadows of the myth sit down and have a cup of coffee with you and just yak.
Todd Hamilton is kind of shy, probably not the guy who'll lead a room either in prayer or in drunken song. And he's not the best golfer around, year in and year out.
But for those four days in September 2004, Todd Hamilton was more than a man... he joined the list of faces who will flash back at us down through the decades, the men who conquered all the other conquerors, and vanquished a great golf course too-- the men who are called "Open Champions"......
And as one golfer to another, it really was great to meet him.
Non-golfers will not be interested by this tale, nor will most golfers I guess... but blogs are for telling exactly that kind of story, so here goes--
I was driving around Dallas on Saturday and heard that British Open champion Todd Hamilton from the 2004 event was very near, and would be there for a couple of hours.
I changed my unimportant morning plan and went to meet him.
When I arrived, the room was filled with a couple dozen people like me-- middle-aged men, slightly overweight and underhaired, standing in rapt attention with cell phone cams at the ready.
There was one difference-- I had forgotten the phone when I left the house. No photos were saved of this next moment.....
I leaned over the broadcast table where Hamilton and the hosts were swapping golf stories, examining the Claret Jug (Todd had brought his with him for this event), reading all the tiny engravings of all the great names (did you know that Bobby Locke is on the trophy as A. D. Locke?), and Todd Hamilton smiled, leaned over, picked it up and handed it to me.
I turned to the wall of photographers with my Claret Jug in hand, kissing it from afar, waving at the crowd, "thank you, thank you" while the flashes popped--
Alright, I told you this story wouldn't be interesting.
But now, I, Dave Perkins, occasional holder of a single digit handicap (it's been as low as 4, but not recently), have walked the hallowed goat-track fairways of St. Andrews' Auld Course; I have played eighteen holes of immensely difficult golf at Royal St. George, the Open rota course in Kent in southeastern England (shot 84, first time there, didn't have caddie, just good luck, good day) and now, now I have held the Claret Jug in my hands, taken from the hands of the Champion Golfer for 2004.
Todd Hamilton, btw, turned out to be a good guy, local DFW guy, grew up in Illinois but likes Texas and doesn't plan to leave. He's even played my own course, Hackberry Creek in Las Colinas.
Hamilton is an interesting story. As a kid in a small town in Illinois, he grew up playing golf at a high school that had no golf team. He entered school tournaments as an independent, and in that manner, alone and unsubsidized, he won two straight Illinois championships. Those Fighting Todds from Hamilton High were at the top of their game, eh?
His next claim to fame, which even he didn't know (the radio hosts had googled this and were informed), was that he was the all time money leader on the Japanese tour among the gaijin, the foreigners. Todd Hamilton, the best Japanese player ever to be NOT Japanese. Sort of.
And he won his PGA tour card at 38, a very old rookie indeed. That was the year he won the Open.
It wasn't a brush with greatness, in the classical sense; more like an oblique thump against the shin bone of something that had brushed greatness recently.
But avid, rabid golfers will know exactly what I felt. It was one of those moments when real golf legend floats down from the mists of the mythology and settles as simple dry fact, a moment when the giants who move in those shadows of the myth sit down and have a cup of coffee with you and just yak.
Todd Hamilton is kind of shy, probably not the guy who'll lead a room either in prayer or in drunken song. And he's not the best golfer around, year in and year out.
But for those four days in September 2004, Todd Hamilton was more than a man... he joined the list of faces who will flash back at us down through the decades, the men who conquered all the other conquerors, and vanquished a great golf course too-- the men who are called "Open Champions"......
And as one golfer to another, it really was great to meet him.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Weak and pathetic...
So 400 very credible scientists, many of whom were involved in some way with the IPCC report on climate change that Algore is so fond of, have signed off on a letter that says in essence the 'consensus' is a myth, that the science isn't anywhere near settled, and that too many political influences are driving these catastrophic fear-mongering global warming claims.
And the best the Gore camp can do is claim that Exxon Mobil "might have funded" 20 or 30 of them-- a claim which EM denies vigorously.
Nobody ever asks who is funding the ones who insist on the myth.....
Like the previous post says, the consensus argument is over. Global Warming, maybe, and even that is questionable after six years of NON warming and two years of no sunspots, but Man Made Catastrophic Global Warming a la "inconvenient truth" is just speculation, upon which good scientists disagree on scientific principle.
And the best the Gore camp can do is claim that Exxon Mobil "might have funded" 20 or 30 of them-- a claim which EM denies vigorously.
Nobody ever asks who is funding the ones who insist on the myth.....
Like the previous post says, the consensus argument is over. Global Warming, maybe, and even that is questionable after six years of NON warming and two years of no sunspots, but Man Made Catastrophic Global Warming a la "inconvenient truth" is just speculation, upon which good scientists disagree on scientific principle.
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