POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

Camp Wingnut?

Since I, like so many others, couldn't be at CPAC11, I'm considering organizing the first annual Camp Wingnut up here in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. The place that I'm currently looking at is Jackson's Lodge and Lake Cabins, and the dates would be Monday, August 1, to Sunday, August 7.

The Northeast Kingdom is Vermont's most remote area, and this location is just beneath Quebec Province. So, if you want to plan a day trip to Canada to pick strawberries, or visit Quebec City or Montreal, you can bring your passport and pick up some duty free liquor on your way back. I'm thinking of making this a family friendly affair, but I'll leave it to everyone interested whether that's their preference or not.

Cabins, with WiFi, run $800/week for either 6 or 4 (I believe there is a Vermont 9% accommodations tax on top of that). They include kitchenettes, though there is a lodge that serves meals and a tavern. Activities include fishing (there's nice trout in these parts), canoeing and other boating, bicycling (there are some wonderful trails in the area), hiking, and golf within a half hour's drive. It's probably easiest, if you are going to fly, to go to Burlington, VT (BTV Airport), but you could fly into Montreal, particularly if you're coming from elsewhere in Canada or from overseas.

I know some of the countryside, and there are some wonderful opportunities for swimming in waterfall sink holes and the like. If you're a kayaker, this presents some excellent opportunities as well. I haven't investigated bike rentals, but I know of some locations nearer to Jay Peak, though the terrain there is . . . challenging.

Right now, I'm interested in gauging the interest. Please let me know what you think, because it's never too early to get a jump on this kind of thing.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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This Weekend’s Intentions

Beginning early this weekend, because we've got a lot of praying to do.

First up, as per the post below, is Johanna.

Then there's Jerry Wilson, who's still not recovered from his sinus issues.

Meep has asked for our support. I don't know offhand who the patron saint of actuaries is, but I reckon I'll try to Google it up.

Enoch has difficulties with his son Matthew, who has been judged too rambunctious for the local Catholic school.

My son Brendan has experienced troubles at college, and I crave your thoughts and prayers.

BJ Tex is still on the list.

The unborn deserve our thoughts and prayers every day. May truth and goodness prevail.

May God guide the Egyptian people somehow to a representative government that respects their aspirations and their moral agency as individuals.

And since nothing is beyond the power of God, may he give Barack Obama wisdom and guidance to make our country a force for good abroad.

For all who are confused, afraid and suffering, whether by virtue of their own choices or someone else's, may God grant them peace and understanding.

For all those who suffer ridicule and persecution in His name, may His promises comfort them, and may they find an audience in the troubled hearts of unbelievers.

We ask these things through Christ our Lord.

Please feel free to add other intentions in comments.

Proof that anything is possible: Jimmy McMillan with Andrew Breitbart together on Dana Loesch's show at CPAC 2011:

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Decisions

My husband I have some major decisions facing us over the next week or so. I can't divulge what they are at the moment, but it's been a stressful time. I humbly ask for your prayers for us that we seek God's will and accept it. Regardless of cost.

God Bless,

Johanna

Johanna

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BBC: Male sex hormone testosterone ‘interferes with empathy’

Well, boo freakin' hoo.

Actually, it's quite an interesting speculation on the roots of autism.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Did Obama Screw the Besenji? [UPDATEx6]

As Bob rightly noted earlier today, in his post below, we were supposed to trust Leon Panetta and his group at the CIA, despite their horrible record on Egypt. We were supposed to listen to the administration's mouthpieces, despite Director of National Intelligence Clapper's insane insistence before Congress today that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was a violence-eschewing, largely secular organization that really means us no harm.

Believing his advisors, and emboldened by the performance of the Egyptian general who told the crowd in Tahrir Square that Mubarak was going to come on television and accede to their demands, Obama decided that he'd come on television and let the American people and the world know that he was privy to a very important announcement that would make history. It was important for Obama to do this, because he wanted to be seen as being out in front of events in the Middle East, and to imply thereby a causal relation between his diplomacy and the Egyptian government's bowing to the will of the people, as expressed by the crowds in Tahrir Square.

Perhaps the President's advisers were too optimistic about what was going on in Cairo, or perhaps, just perhaps, Obama and company so badly overplayed their hand that Mubarak felt he could not possibly stand down without being accused of having collapsed under the weight of American pressure. That's on the pride side of the equation for Mubarak personally. But the other side of the equation is simply this: Mubarak saw in Obama's glory-hogging an opportunity to justify his staying on till September's elections by playing to Egyptian national pride and animus against the United States.

Any way you slice it, it's incompetence all around on our end. Mission accomplished.

UPDATE: Ace and Yid have related thoughts.

UPDATEx2: Obama's written statement makes it clear he has no plans to butt out.

UPDATEx3: And King Shamus links me up, suggesting in his extended analysis that the anti-war left could become the pro-war left if they thought it suited their statist ambitions. I don't know. Some, perhaps, but I think that there's a lot of animus there from the frustration they feel that Barry couldn't just usher in the New Utopia by fiat. Thus their ranting about how they wish Americans would rise up the way Egyptians have, only against, presumably, what's left of private enterprise and private profits.

UPDATEx4: Da TechGuy reads this the same way.

UPDATEx5: Anderson Cooper:

“He kept repeating these lies, that this is all some sort of foreign interference and that’s something we’ve heard on state television, they’re being paid, they’re being motivated to go there. They’re being paid $100 or 100 Euros depending on what report you hear. He talked about they will not accept to listen to any foreign interventions and dictation. Trying to play up on Egyptian national pride, saying they are resisting the United States and others from who want to dictate to Egypt what they want. Again these are lies of a regime who is trying to stay in power. He says its not about me, Hosni Mubarak, its about the people of Egypt. What you are looking at are the people of Egypt, it’s all about Hosni Mubarak, and he believes it is all about him, he believes he is Egypt.”

Gee, who does that sound like, saying it's not about him? Look, Anderson: in my view, Obama opened the door for this gambit on Mubarak's part by having to be a limelight-hogging big shot and trying to make it all about him. Why don't you bitch about that, for a change?

UPDATEx6: At Cato, Leon Hadar defends Obama, stating he's not a Carter. At Boston Herald, Lindsey Parietti hails the reasonableness of the Egyptian protesters.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Michael Wilbon Loves Obama

Hey, that's all right, but here's what he says in his ESPN column about going to the White House for the Super Bowl:

I met Barack Obama years ago, first in Chicago at a reception and then with Charles Barkley when I was helping organize and edit Barkley's second book, "Who's Afraid of a Large Black Man?" Obama was about to run for the U.S. Senate and he was extraordinarily generous with us, granting Barkley and me time to talk, mostly about race and politics.

We talked about sports as much as anything that day, about sports and education, sports and labor, sports and civic passions. And over the years, the senator and then the president made time to talk with me about sporting issues of all kinds, including how a guy from the South Side (me) could chose the Cubs over the White Sox. Turns out that's one of the few places the president and I have a fundamental disagreement.

Obama is hardly the first U.S. president with a sweet tooth for sports. We're at five straight: Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama. But Obama's capacity for, passion for and range of knowledge is greater than any of the others. His ability to tie the issues of the day as they relate to sports to other cultural happenings is fascinating.

When one of the president's lieutenants called last week to invite me (and my "PTI" co-host Tony Kornheiser) to attend the Super Bowl party, there was precious little time spent figuring out how to change my Sunday around. That phone call doesn't come every day, maybe not a second time ever. That it came from a president who calls the same plot of land where I grew up home, whose wife grew up in an adjacent neighborhood at exactly the same time, whose friends in a great many cases are my friends, made it even more desirable.

Okay. I guess it may be time to remind people that Reagan was a radio sports announcer in his youth. It may not be that he had much to say about the relations between sports and race in the US, or had much of an opinion whether it was acceptable for someone who grew up on Chicago's South Side to root for the Cubs rather than the White Sox, but it's likely that he could have supplied a questioner with the names of some favorite players from the teams that he followed. The argument from intellectual capacity, at any rate, is a non-starter.

George Bush the Younger was famously--or notoriously, depending on one's point of view--involved in the Texas Rangers organization, and likely to have had some rudimentary knowledge of the game in that capacity. Nixon was a pro football fanatic, and stupid old Gerald Ford played the game for Michigan, if I recall correctly. I'm not saying that Obama doesn't have a basic understanding of football or baseball, either, but I don't recall ever hearing him hold forth on the virtues of the 3-4 vs. the 4-3, for example.

As regards affairs foreign and domestic, I think he could use a little more strategery. Apart from his well-orchestrated undermining of the US economy, what I see is a lot of ad hoc favoritism that is more tactical than strategic. Offhand, it's hard for me to imagine someone in an executive position who would make a worse GM of a football team.

But Obama knows some of the people who grew up near Wilbon, and they're not fundamentally disagreed on most things, so . . . I guess that makes Obama a genius.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Prayers for Jerry

Jerry posted last night about his ongoing health issues, after a heartfelt mea culpa regarding CPAC (picked up by Stacy). So, let's keep him in our prayers.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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