Me Vote Pretty This Time
Okay, of late I’ve been a really lousy political commentator. Not much of a citizen, either. I would have cheered on our guys and gals in the Olympics, had I known they were going on. (I’m a big fan, in theory, of beach volleyball and synchronized swimming.) But the games just plain slipped my mind, so all I caught was a documentary with athletes staring goggle-eyed at deep-fried beetles and puppy hearts on shish-kebobs sold from Beijing food carts. And I wasn’t left hungry for more.
I also forgot to watch either party’s national convention. Just plain missed ‘em. Perhaps I have been in denial, avoiding the fact that our nation’s choices boil down to a Chicago “community activist” (i.e., ghetto shakedown artist who mau-maus Whitey for handouts) and a crackbrained Deer Hunter nostalgist whose vision of America is one vast and well-policed Navy base… where we all march in formation, pick up cigarette butts when ordered, and ask our commanders for “liberty”—which they’ll grant us one weekend per month.
Yes, the outcome of the primaries left me feeling… disenfranchised. To the point where I’ve found myself checking on my passport, to make sure I’m still an American—and wondering if I won’t someday end up on a reservation for white, blue-collar Catholics. Where, of course, we will offer bingo.
You know those guns for toys trade-ins they sometimes hold in crime-ridden cities? I’ve been searching in U.S. government Web sites to see if the Feds will let me trade in my voter registration card for a lifetime pass that reads “Get Out of Jury Duty, Free!”
Ever since I read Hans Herman Hoppe’s Democracy: The God that Failed, I’ve been cynical on this topic. Like Hoppe, I’d rather be the subject of some inbred Wittelsbach, taxed 10% of my income and left to live in peace, than a “free” citizen of a monster State that gobbles up 40 or more percent of my wealth—in return for…well, nothing—but grants me a whole 200 millionth of a say in how it is spent. The next time you wonder whether to vote, remember these rules of the game. And think about whether the odds of your changing the outcome exceed the likelihood that on the way to the polls you’ll be abducted by almond-eyed aliens—and wake up buck-naked in a cornfield, in sore need of Anusol.
Speaking of Hoppe, I met him in Zurich in 1999, at the café that used to host James Joyce and V.I. Lenin, sometimes on the very same day. (I picture them tussling peevishly over the same house copy of the Neue Zuricher Zeitung.) I was researching my first book, on Wilhelm Röpke, and wanted Hoppe’s insights. “You ahhr writing about a Cherman thinker, but you do not read any Cherman?” Hoppe inquired.
“Well, most of his writings are also in English,” I said with a nervous smile. “And everyone I’ve interviewed over here speaks it too.”
“Ja, ja. Dat is chust great—everybody speaks the English, even in Europe. Dat’s vonderful,” he answered, filling my face with a cloud of cheap cigarette smoke.
“Well be fair, Dr. Hoppe,” I gasped, respectfully. “If ya’ll had won the War, we’d all be speaking Cherman.”
The good professor squirmed as if I’d microwaved a bag of Jiffy-Pop in his trousers, and ranted for some 10 minutes about key differences between the ideas of Murray Rothbard and the contents of Mein Kampf. All very enlightening.
Still, Hoppe’s book is good. And it taught me the real distinction between a citizen and a subject: Subjects don’t get soaked on April 15th, and no one would think of drafting them into the army. For the State to gain the chutzpah to claim so much of your life and your stuff, it wraps itself in the tricolor bunting of “democracy.” In the red, white, and blue—you know, Napoleon’s colors.
I wasn’t always so cynical. As recently as late 2007, I was helping Ron Paul to plant his “money bombs.” Back when the good congressman was making headlines, and his ideas forcing a few Republican brain cells to rub together, I briefly hoped the friction might yield a spark—and set off a prairie fire that spread from ear to ear, until the dried out conservative movement lit up like Michael Jackson’s hair. I too had a Dream.
You know what happened next. A pants-wetting catamite at Marty Peretz’s The Neverland Ranch (TNR) fished out some yellowing Ron Paul newsletters on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, conclusively proving… what, exactly? That pointy-headed libertarian ghost-writers in the 80s pretending to be Ron Paul were willing to play at being racist, in the hopes of luring skinheads into reading all 987 pages of Murray Rothbard’s Man, Economy, and State. Which for some reason didn’t work. They really must stop teaching all that Machiavelli in Special Ed.
So the “Reloveution” fizzled. It was squelched in part by the ugly publicity those tinny tracts stirred up, but mostly by the bone-deep dumb-nitude of Republican primary voters who opposed immigration amnesty and the conduct of the Iraq war—and showed their outrage by voting for…John McCain. Not since Larry David’s and Gerry Seinfeld’s parents checked the box for Pat Buchanan in Florida has democracy worked this well.
When Ron Paul faded from view, so did I. I pleaded with Takimag’s editor to let me abandon the autopsy transcript of this year’s elections, and concentrate on what I believe is really important: Rambling, self-deprecating anecdotes of colonoscopies, botched job interviews, failed romances, and Nicorette. Eventually, I’ll cobble these columns together into a book I’ll be too embarrassed to autograph, which readers will lean on in moments of sadness or personal failure. They will look on the bright side of things, and think: “At least I don’t have to be Zmirak….”
The emergence of Sarah Palin did give me a fillip of hope. Her brief embrace of Pat Buchanan, the fact that as a pro-lifer she put her motherhood where her mouth is and refused to abort her retarded baby (unlike some 80% of American mothers who hear such news), her solid, small-town values…. It’s enough to rouse in a cankered old soul like mine an interest in this election. For several days, I’ve wondered whether it might be worth turning out in November. I thought with some seriousness of sending Gov. Palin my vote—and President McCain a weekly shipment of Krispy Kremes and cigarettes. And I still might do it—might raise my mighty 200 millionth of a voice, shouting directions to the driver of the stampeding pachyderm we’re tied to. What could it hurt?
I really should have watched Gov. Palin’s speech. My beloved viewed the whole thing last night, and was thrilled by Palin’s charisma. “She is darling,” my Southern belle gushed. “She’s feisty, she’s fierce—and ohmigod is she beautiful. After five children—did you see that figure?”
These are not virtues we should take lightly—in a world where the alternative is four years of staring down Joe Biden’s hairplugs. No less an authority than Aristotle allowed that ethos and delivery were central elements in rhetoric. So I’ve learned in recent weeks preparing for the writing class I taught for the first time today.
But I didn’t watch the speech. I made the mistake of reading it—in the hope of analyzing it with my students. And what I read was little more than a dreary series of applause lines, bloody chunks of red meat for the Red States hacked out by a prominent vegetarian. Not that their provenance bothers me. The fact that Ron Paul may have tasked his marvelous book to my old friend Thomas Woods just shows the congressman’s good taste. Barry Goldwater hired the great Brent Bozell to provide him with The Conscience of a Conservative—and Bozell’s conscience was surely a whole lot keener than Barry’s.
While Palin’s talk took some delightful shots at the inflatable Superman balloon that is Obama, her positive program boiled down to little more than the following:
- Support our troops.
- Defeatists, go home to Hanoi.
- I love my kids.
- My husband is a real man.
- Harry Truman was unqualified, too.
- I may be much hotter than your wife, but I can be just as scary.
- USA! USA! USA! USA!
- Small town good, big town bad.
- Power corrupts, so give some to me.
- Who needs beaches or seafood? Let’s drill for some oil, baby!
- The Iranians are holding our people hostage.
- The Russians are coming.
- Barak Obama blathers on and on about himself. I blather about my children.
- Obama is skinny, pale, and weak. He went to Harvard, for crying out loud.
- America doesn’t negotiate with foreigners.
- It isn’t just Republicans who can’t stand John McCain. Some Democrats hate him, too.
- Only veterans and torture victims can really be trusted.
- So let’s draft half the country, and send the rest to Gitmo.
I wasn’t entirely swayed by this analysis. Still, given the farcical choices we face, I’m strongly tempted to go ahead and vote. America really doesn’t deserve the five or six more memoirs Obama is sure to exude when he’s not out multiplying loaves and fishes. I don’t think First Lady is a job we should fill through affirmative action, nor would I relish the face of Michelle Obama—that puckered elephant orifice—on my TV when I’m trying to eat. In fact, I think I’ll abandon all philosophical pretexts, and revert to the base, Darwinian standard by which I judge any other man: By the beauty of his partner. On that basis, during the primaries, I revered at once Fred Thompson and Dennis Kucinich. And it clarifies our choices in the election. McCain won for his (running) mate the luminous Sarah Palin. The prettiest date Obama could score is Joseph Biden. I think most Americans know how to spot the Loser.
Comments
“Subjects don’t get soaked on April 15th, and no one would think of drafting them into the army.”
I don’t understand those who protest against the notion of a draft in principle. In
classical republican theory, voting is linked to military service. If you want to
participate actively in your country in peacetime, you should participate actively in
wartime.
In the old days, you either had feudal armies consisting of aristocrats (which did *not*
cut down on the prevalence of war, but maybe on its lethalness) or mercenary armies.
Does anyone want to go back to mercenary armies? Some will say that is what we have now.
Well, if you don’t want that, the alternative is a draft.
Oh, by the way, we don’t have a draft anymore. So are we “subjects” now instead of
citizens?
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Fantastic, Mr. Z. You are an absolute delight to read.
I hope others learn from your example. You are the brightest, sunniest, funniest, near-cynic, I have ever read.
God Bless you.
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“Oh, by the way, we don’t have a draft anymore. So are we “subjects” now instead of
citizens?”
Tobias, registering for selective service is still a requirement. The draft is merely on the shelf, which can be taken down to use at any time. We are still citizens.
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Each night of the GOP convention has a theme. Wenesday was Reform. Sarah Barracuda had to speak more or less on that subject. She could not hit every issue and still be charismatic. And it makes sense to sell the ticket as a Reform Crusader (mildly anti-Bush) Ticket. Everybody knows her Pro-Life bonafides anyway.
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“if I won’t someday end up on a reservation for white, blue-collar Catholics. “
There is no reservation for white people. That is called segregation. McCain Obama offer us extinction the hard way. Vote Chuck Baldwin if you don’t like it. Baldwin is excellent on everything or close to it at NumbersUSA.com.
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Well written, as usual. But you say, “the fact that as a pro-lifer she put her motherhood where her mouth is and refused to abort her retarded baby (unlike some 80% of American mothers who hear such news).” Hooray for Sarah Palin, but surely, that 80% of Down’s Syndrome babies are aborted can NOT mean that 80% of American mothers make such a dreadful choice! Say it ain’t so!
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On the one hand, it is good to hear my family, the Wittlesbach’s, mentioned so favorably; I am a descendant of Ludwig I, on the wrong side of the bed. My brother is a dead ringer for Mad Louie.
I do not agree however that subjects don’t get drafted. Shared defense of the realm has always been the mark of male citizenship since we were all villagers. It would be more accurate to say that citizens wouldn’t be drafted into foreign adventures in remote lands.
But this is a fine distinction not usually made by the libertarians, indeed, it cannot be made by them because they view “liberty” in terms of individualism, not in terms of community; the “liberty” they advertise is formal rather than material.
So it is no surprise that Palin speech is a confused mess. She tries to mix pre-enlightenment notions of family and community with post-enlightenment radical individualism. It won’t work.
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“ That pointy-headed libertarian ghost-writers in the 80s pretending to be Ron Paul were willing to play at being racist, in the hopes of luring skinheads into reading all 987 pages of Murray Rothbard’s Man, Economy, and State. Which for some reason didn’t work. They really must stop teaching all that Machiavelli in Special Ed.”
nice!
“But I didn’t watch the speech. I made the mistake of reading it”
same here and was similarly unimpressed
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John “nothing can make me vote for McCain” Zmirak.
Palin’s record in her 6 years as Mayor of a town of about 5500 saw their deficit go from $0 to $22M. She had to bring in an Administrator to run the place as she had triggered a recall movement. She raised taxes ~38% and increased spending by 33%. Her first main goal for the money was a money pit sports complex she rushed to build on land that layers are still litigating about. She lobbied long and hard for millions in Federal welfare to get around to infrastructure projects like a sewer plant which was lower on her agenda. She is pro-life but hasn’t gone our of her way to do anything with the legislature on the pro-life agenda.
She is a mainline tax and borrow big government Republican and fits in well with McCain, Biden, and Obama.
But she is a hottie.
I watched the Rally for the Republic. Read Tom Woods speech or Lew Rockwell’s or watch the rally at the CSPAN archives.
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I congratulate John on another great piece: the image of Hans Hoppe comparing and contrating Mein Kampf with Murray Rothbard, in Cherman dialect, is priceless. For some reason it reminds me of the perhaps apocryphal story of a rally held in 1914 in Fredericksburg, Texas, mostly by black descendants of slaves of German-Texns, in support of Germany, with speeches to the effect that “ve Chermans haff got to stick togedder...”
Along with Hoppe’s book, another in the same line that I am starting to read now is Tage Lindbom’s “The Myth of Democracy”,http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Democracy-Tage-Lindbom/dp/0802840647 posing the baaic question: who rules, God or man?
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Whats wrong with you people?....you’re not supposed to read a modern speech for content, you’re supposed to watch the event and put on your funny hat and jump up and down while peeing your panties. Content? Who would suggest such a thing....this is a content free era....the currency aint even based on anything. Get with the program buster.
After all, if you read and ponder the torrent of simplistic cant emanating from our Authoritarian Sunbeams for the Unitary Executive, you’ll too soon detect the great hilarious irony of it and it will not do to have folks laughing whilst fear is being sowed.
Leni Riefenstahl would be so proud of the new Amerika Korps and it’s uber-theatrical National Socialism Fer Ijits. Perhaps, rather than “The Triumph of the Will”....we can call it “The Triumph of Public Education”.
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it’s the american idol campaign. the camapaign is about itself.
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As a (very) old law review editor, the typos above are very embarassing, but are the result of the combox not fitting to my screen. Mea culpa.
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A great and funny column, but this is really unfair:
That pointy-headed libertarian ghost-writers in the 80s pretending to be Ron Paul were willing to play at being racist, in the hopes of luring skinheads into reading all 987 pages of Murray Rothbard’s Man, Economy, and State.
First, I seriously doubt the authors of that time were hoping to recruit skinheads. Second, I wouldn’t characterize the writings themselves as “racist” in the pejorative sense.
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Herr Zmirak, as pathetic as my life is, I would never stoop to Schadenfruede at your expense. God Bless
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Hilarious! Send this quickly to Mo Dowd so she can see how far she has to go…
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Finally someone points out how . . . mediocre the speech was. It was “good” in the sense that it got the crowd riled up, and it was sincere, but there wasn’t much substance there at all.
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Great article Dr. Zmirak! But, many of the people on this thread seem to lack the proper understanding of how elections are decided, and hence the strategy behind the political rhetoric. Politics is more truly an art than a science. Sciences deal with forces and substances, arts with perception and images. Very seldom is anyone elected on the basis of substance. If that were not the case, we would be seeing Ron Paul as the shoo-in for the Oval Office, after 8 years of the Buchanan Administration. No, substance does not really matter, at least the substance of the people you have decided to vote for on the basis of emotions. Only the substance and the copious mistakes of your evil opponents matter at that point. So, pointing out how the champion of the one political party worked as a “community organizer” for an organization founded by a hard left rabble rouser and has many associations with seedy crooks and other members of the Daley Machine is no more relevant to the voters’ choice than that the leader of the other ticket was a reverse ace, having lost several rather expensive aircraft, and has been involved in some really seedy financial dealings among other foibles. No, none of this matters except to the people who have already decided to support their opponents. So, it is not worth bothering with details about what an administrative disaster, Mrs Palin was as a mayor. No, just sit there sipping your Bid Lite, and be impressed with what a babe she is. Throw logic, reason, and evidence in the trash. Be a real red blooded American voter! As the good Bishop Berkley once said, “The essence is in the perception.” At least in the realm of American politics, he was right on the money.
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“It would be more accurate to say that citizens wouldn’t be drafted into foreign adventures in remote lands. “
Then how do we explain the scramble for India? Or the French and Indian War? Or the
War of the Spanish Succession? Or the Thirty Years War? Etc., etc. Yes, kingdoms have engaged
in foreign adventures.
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Hello John,
I share the burgeoning cynicism about modern liberal democracy - and the preference for an inbred Wittlesbach (or even better yet, Hapsburg) monarchy. But as for that draft thing?
We shouldn’t forget that those Wittlesbachs, along with the Hapsburg, Hohensollerns, Romanovs, and other dynasties all had drafts in their fin-de-siecle years. Of course, in fairness this was a forced adaptation to the citizen-in-arms assault of the Revolution, perhaps one they were never entirely comfortable with.
Stll, they didn’t have to worry about three day tracking polls and color psychology, either. Advantage: Wittlesbachs. Just watch out for that conscription statute.
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Scheunemann told the New York Sun that despite a number of “realists” such as Brent Scowcroft among McCain’s other foreign policy advisors, his own influence, as well as that of other like-minded advisers like William Kristol and Robert Kagan, has been paramount. “I don’t think, given where John has been for the last four or five years on the Iraq War and foreign policy issues, anyone would mistake Scowcroft for a close adviser,” Scheunemann said, adding that even if Scowcroft were close, McCain “was not taking the advice.”
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…ghetto shakedown artist who mau-maus Whitey for handouts
I don’t think First Lady is a job we should fill through affirmative action[.]
…pro-Native Born White Ameican [sic]…
…there is very likely a large population of Americans-Native Born White variety
John, you are amazingly funny and I’m looking forward to The Grand Inquisitor but I’m confused, the last I heard, you were Catholic. And, I assume the comments are, or could be, moderated. So why the racism? Even racism-lite? The magisterium looks askance at it – it has those odd soul-destroying properties. (I needn’t find the relevant CCC references, I’m sure those who are interested can look for themselves.)
You’re too good for this, much too good. You needn’t slay those who love death with inappropriate ugliness that also maims your readers’ souls (and yours too). You can slay them with your amazingly funny and witty way of speaking the Truth. (You do have that gift.)
And, we Catholics don’t vote based on the odds of []our changing the outcome. We vote because it is our duty to participate as citizens of a particular country and, I would think, out of gratitude (voting is something totally whack in many countries). Opting out is really for those who, after careful consideration and in good conscience, can’t choose a candidate. (Again, I needn’t find the relevant CCC references. Those who are interested can look for themselves.)
A few comments on the Native Bron [sic] White Americans platform:
1 - repeal of the 14th amendment - An American citizen is whom exactly? Equal protection belongs to whom?
2 - 9)normalize relations with Cuba. - Not all Cubans are white so I’m not sure you’d want them.
3 - 11)keep abortion legal - WTF???!!!! This was a mistake, right?
Drusilla
heirsinhope.blogspot.com
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Jupiter, I’m curious. Do you care as deeply about the Native Born NON-White Americans?
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Dear Drusilla,
Sorry if my assessment of Obama’s previous career seemed racist to you. I thought it simply accurate. As for racist sentiments by commentors which you cited, I made sure that they were removed. Thanks for pointing them out.
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“Well, most of his writings are also in English,” I said with a nervous smile. “And everyone I’ve interviewed over here speaks it too.”
“Ja, ja. Dat is chust great—everybody speaks the English, even in Europe. Dat’s vonderful,” he answered, filling my face with a cloud of cheap cigarette smoke.
“Well be fair, Dr. Hoppe,” I gasped, respectfully. “If ya’ll had won the War, we’d all be speaking Cherman.”
The good professor squirmed as if I’d microwaved a bag of Jiffy-Pop in his trousers, and ranted for some 10 minutes about key differences between the ideas of Murray Rothbard and the contents of Mein Kampf. All
very enlightening.
My response to John would have been “No, you would still be speaking English, but you would have given us MTV and exposed underwear. Mein Gott, truth is stranger than fiction!” Cheap cigarettes trump cheap shots, but one will have to trust Gentleman Johnnie that he counted coup on a person whose help he wanted that he disarmed by engaging in friendly conversation. Yes, very enlightening - it should be a warning to people to be very careful in their dealings with the likes of Zmirak.
Other than that, a fine article from a fine witty writer. A pants-wetting catamite - how did you do the research on that one? Still laughing about it. I didn’t know the word ‘catamite’ until I read David Drake’s and Karl Edward Wagners’s book, “Killer”.
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Dear Simon,
I don’t know why you interpreted my account of my interaction with Dr. Hoppe as an attack. He was snarky, I was snarky back, and we had a lively exchange. I certainly didn’t intend to denigrate him in recounting it--in the context of highly recommending his book. Stop looking for back-stabbers under every rock. You sound here a bit like Stormin’ Norman Podhoretz, or “Crazy Larry” Auster....
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JZ, at what point was HHH snarky? You claim that you came to him seeking help with your scholarship, not the otherway around. Not looking for backstabbers under every rock, only this particular claim of yours that could have been handled better had anonymity of your subject been maintained, unless you had to try to elevate yourself by comparison to an intellectual giant. And you still haven’t written what made you conclude that your other subject was “a pants-wetting catamite”. That story must be a laugh riot, but HHH is likely lucky that the two of you did not continue your conversation in the loo. Remember, I enjoyed this particular article, and admire your works in general, esp in defense of the Church, the unborn (the tale of your Ma impaling Ferraro is priceless), and peace(your article at http://www.insidecatholic.com was particularly fine). Cheers. ST
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Well, Simon, I met HHH for a friendly lunch, and he expressed scorn, in no uncertain terms, that I wasn’t fluent in German--even though ALL the books about which I was writing were published in English as well, and were economics/ social philosophy, not poetry or fiction where style is essential. In fact, he said it the typical European style of complaining about “typical Americans.” So I made a crack about his country’s failed attempt to attain a similar status to America. No fighting words there, nor any in my blog post. Hoppe’s a big boy, and can stand up for himself. As for “catamite,” it’s a mild piece of hyperbole; Kirchick is loudly, shriekingly gay, and very much “out.” I don’t see why I have to tiptoe around that, given his own propensity for libel.
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JZ, thank you for the clarification re: HHH. I now understand your position - my modest experience with Europeans has been with the many I have met in the USA, and they have been mostly courtly and generous.
You surely misintrepret my reasons for asking about the pwc comment. I am wholly on your side and praising you ofr your wit in characterising the foulness so. I was merely trying to make a funny, given your pendhant for ‘hands-on’ research - see, I am doing it again. I am still chuckling in your adroit use of the expression, and hope that you will continue to so employ your wit. You would disappoint if you tipped around, kind of un-Zmirak behavior, no? Regards, Christian Mystic.
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Okay Simon, thanks. Hatchet buried!
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Agreed. Here’s to your next installment. Cheers. Christian Mystic
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