Assorted

I have a battery of MRIs and other tests to endure in an hour or so, so for today I'm reverting to grab-bag style.

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First up, a bit of brilliance from Canada's crown prince of commentary, Michael Coren:

This badly needs to be said over and over, until the Muslims we've unwisely admitted to North America get the message, pack up, and return to the hellholes they left behind. Just as much as America, Canada is a nation founded by heroes; its blood is quite as good as ours. There are strong indications that Canadians -- outside their political class, anyway -- are throwing off the multiculturalist / moral relativist virus and recovering their principles. Just in the nick of time, too: it's a beautiful country that deserves a much longer run in freedom than the emissaries of sharia would allow it.

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Second, from DailyPundit (via InstaPundit), we have "The Coming Republican Depression:"

What these numbers describe is an ongoing depression. We may not technically be in a recession (although who knows, given how thoroughly the statistics get cooked these days), but we are most certainly in a depression.

It probably won’t be actually identified as such until it is long over, though. Well, unless the GOP takes congress and the White House this fall. Then the fellating tools and hack propagandists of the DNC media will line up to wail about the “Republican Depression” we are enduring.

This is indeed foreseeable, even from much farther away than the half a year we must wait for a "regime change." But what struck me even more forcefully is the description of our economic condition as a depression. A classical depression is characterized by very tight credit -- "money's hard to come by" -- usually in consequence of a contraction of the supply of currency and extensible credit. That's not exactly the case today: the supply of currency and extensible credit is far greater than it was before conditions trended to this point. Nevertheless, credit in the sense of the availability of loans for any purpose is very tight, because the conditions for establishing creditworthiness have been tightened considerably.

The old saw runs that to get a bank to grant him a loan, the prospective borrower must prove that he doesn't need it. Well, today, he has to prove not only that he doesn't need it, but that he's never needed it, never will need it, and could painlessly lend the bank an even greater amount should the bank approach him. There's a moral in there, somewhere.

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One of my favorites in the DextroSphere, Nice Deb,, has produced an important assembly of deductions, inferences, and reactions to the tactics of harassment, threat, and occasional outright violence the Left has adopted in our time. I can't usefully excerpt this critical piece, except for this stirring bit:

Wombat says that those jerks have messed with the WRONG people and now it’s Game ON.

Stacy holds Neal Rauhauser personally responsible, and invokes the dreaded War Oath of Clan Cameron: How’s Your Gaelic, Neal Rauhauser? Also be sure to read the following related posts at The Other McCain: Because Liars Hate Truth, Poison Pen E-Mail and the Harassment of The Lonely Conservative, and of course, The Kimberlin Files.

WJ Hoge correctly calls those responsible for this wickedness Cowardly Thugs.

To which I will add my favorite quote from Victor Marguerite: "The Fascists cannot argue, so they kill."

However -- and this is critical -- the plague will not abate in any slightest degree until events have proved two things:

• That it is not effective at silencing its targets;
• That decent persons of all political alignments have leagued against it: to expose it, to counter it, and to punish it with the mechanisms of the law.

Perhaps that moment is truly at hand.

Take notice, thugs of the Left, you who adopt the foulest of tactics to gain your ends while simultaneously accusing us of being evil: You are craven and contemptible. More: you will fail -- and you will suffer the just consequences of the tactics you've employed. I pray only that God will spare me long enough to witness it...and perhaps to participate.

Where do you stand, Gentle Reader?

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My thanks to everyone who's written to offer sympathy and prayers for my recovery from this...this...whatever it is. (That's the most irritating part of this whole saga: no one knows. These past three weeks I've seen more doctors than can typically be found in a Northeastern hospital at Happy Hour. The diagnoses have never been better than "Well, maybe it will go away.") Bearing up has been hard. Remaining productive has been even harder. Remaining stoic has been harder still.

Quoth Seneca: "Scorn pain. Either it will go away or you will." Easier said than done, I fear. But I'm trying. Really and truly. And I'll keep posting as long as I have at least one hand to type with. (Maurice Ravel, where are you when I need you?)