You remember this dog.

You saw her in many posts, back in 2009, when I sojourned in Cincinnati and lived, for a time, in a little love nest with Meade. She was the dog next door, but Meade borrowed her and took her on many adventures, chasing deer, encountering skunks, and fending off coyotes. Her name was Holly, and I've made a tag to collect the 20+ posts with pictures of her.



She died yesterday.

At the Frozen Playground Café...

... all you cold-hearted bastards can have your fun. Nice people... be careful!

"He was a political radical & met Giffords once before in '07, asked her a question & he told me she was 'stupid & unintelligent.'"

One of many tweets from catieparker, a woman who supposedly knew Jared Lee Loughner, the man who supposedly has been detained as a suspect in the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. She says: "I haven't seen him since '07. Then, he was left wing."

Via Jeralyn at TalkLeft. Also at TalkLeft, screenshots from Loughner's YouTube page, which make him look deranged. His favorite books include "The Communist Manifesto" and "Mein Kampf" — for what it's worth.

Giffords has apparently survived, but a federal district judge, who was also shot, has died:

Appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1991, Federal Judge John McCarthy Roll was shot and killed today when an assailant opened fire in a Safeway parking lot in Ariz., where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz. was meeting with constituents.

Just two years ago, he was targeted with death threats -- and given a security detail -- after ruling that a group of illegal immigrants could go forward with a multi-million dollar civil rights lawsuit against a state rancher....

Kite-assisted ice skating.

Video by Meade, who braved the cold out on the ice of Lake Mendota today, while I took refuge in the car.

Hans Rosling's "200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes."

The Capitol at midday, seen from the ice on Lake Mendota.

Meade took this shot:



Enlarge to appreciate the way the sun glints on the tips of the frozen waves.

"Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem."

"They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently."

Go read the whole thing. It's very interesting, beginning with a list of 10 rules that few American parents would be able to accept — at least not without modification. Never "get any grade less than an A"?! How can the parent dictate such a thing?

U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot, along with at least 11 others, at a political event...

... in Tuscon.

UPDATE: Dead?  That's NPR (linked by Drudge). The NYT, updated 4 minutes ago, says her condition is unknown.

ADDED: Gabrielle Giffords was the member of Congress who had the honor of reading the First Amendment when the Constitution was read on the House floor January 6th. Video. 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Peaceably to assemble.

AND: Linking to my post, Instapundit says:

And judging from the comments to this post, people are already trying to score political points. Well, they kind of telegraphed this strategy, didn’t they? Remember Bloomberg making a fool of himself by blaming the Times Square bombing on the Tea Party? How about waiting until we actually know something, this time? That’s likely to be soon enough.

Yes. Please.

"May your bare ass always be shining" — a telegraph message from Eleanor Roosevelt...

... to Gypsy Rose Lee.

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government..."

The part of the Constitution that by accident was not read in the House's Constitution-reading ritual. Somebody turned 2 pages at once. Intentionally left out was the Three-Fifths Clause. Obviously, the accidental omission was unfortunate, but was the intentional omission wise?

You can read some of the debate on that question at the link. I think it's quite interesting that we list the amendments after the original document instead of integrating them into a new, amended document. Considering how much shame we now feel for the parts about slavery and how much we want to revere the document, you might think we'd have changed our approach to formatting by now. But our traditionalism about the Constitution extends even to the placement of the amendments.

The ad yanked from Pepsi's Super Bowl contest.

There are over 5,000 entries in the contest, but this was so "irredeemably offensive" it couldn't even be permitted to contend:



So... if Christians are really that touchy, maybe you shouldn't even be using the expression "irredeemably offensive." Don't be having any fun with The Redeemer.

***

Did you used to play "Communion" with with Necco wafers? Was that okay in a way that Doritos would not be?

Don't miss the regatta.

The iceboat regatta.

Best vantage point: James Madison Park... scheduled to begin at 10. Yesterday, they got started at 11 (and it was over before 1).

The main Four Lakes Ice Yacht Club page is here. And pics here. Hey, this is me.

"The biggest hero of the Vietnam War" has died.

Vang Pao was 81.

The Hmong are a tribe in the fog-shrouded mountains separating Laos from southern China, and they were natural allies for the C.I.A. because of their enmity toward Laotian lowlanders to the south, who dominated the Communist leadership.

General Vang Pao quickly organized 7,000 guerrillas, then steadily increased the force to 39,000, leading them in many successful battles, often against daunting odds. William Colby, C.I.A. director in the mid-1970s, called him “the biggest hero of the Vietnam War.”

Lionel Rosenblatt, president emeritus of Refugees International, in an interview with The New York Times Magazine in 2008, put it more bluntly, saying General Vang Pao’s Hmong were put “into this meat grinder, mostly to save U.S. soldiers from fighting and dying there.”

"I do not own a dog and never have, but I do own a television, and from the evidence it emits..."

"... the whole danged species needs to go on a lengthy timeout."

By "species," you do mean human being, right?

At the Sweet Potato Café...

... you can vent.

Suing the government because it didn't stop you from becoming the fattest man...

... in the world.

Is this what happens when the government is in charge of health care? Yes, it's delusional. But delusions are what happen when the government succeeds in convincing people that it is the solution for all of the problems.