It’s a blog comprised entirely of vintage letterheads–both personal and corporate. (hat tip: James Lileks)  Some of these examples of stationery were created for individual movies. And some are from quirky old companies, like this fantastic example:

There are two great posts up over at The Corner which highlight the insanity and damage to which liberalism and political correctness invariably lead.

First Roger Clegg points out that the Obama/Holder Justice Dept. is about to start pressuring mortgage lenders to make the same kinds of bad loans that contributed to the current crisis in the first place.

John Derbyshire responds by pointing out some additional maddening examples–including the fact that, once those mortgage lenders comply with Justice Dept. demands, they’ll be accused by the same Civil Rights division of predatory lending when those loans go bad.

You’ve probably heard or read about the  late-night scheduling trainwreck in progress over at NBC . It’s hard not to indulge in schadenfreude over any pain being felt by the parent company of MSNBC, however, I found the recent news release sent out by Conan O’Brien about the debacle a refreshing gust of good humor, transparency, and most of all, perspective.

His statement began:

People of Earth:

In the last few days, I’ve been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I’ve been getting paid to do what I love most and, in a world with real problems, I’ve been absurdly lucky. That said, I’ve been suddenly put in a very public predicament and my bosses are demanding an immediate decision.

Makes me hope that the rumors about Fox offering him a show are true. You can read the whole thing here.

God has blessed me with a new book deal. Details forthcoming when I’m at liberty to share.

As prophesied in the post below, I loaded up the Expedition with some gear, firewood and food early Wednesday morning and pointed it south. My destination was a cabin in the Texas Hill Country about an hour west of San Antonio. Right about here: View Larger Map

This was my second annual beginning-of-the-year-wilderness-retreat-and-media-fast. The media fast part began as soon as I started my seven-and-a-half hour drive. No radio. No CDs. Just silence, my own thoughts, and my own voice in prayer or song. I’ve found that I spend the first 24 hours of these trips just going through withdrawal from being in a constant media/information cocoon.

That’s my cabin in the pic above. Not quite as spartan as my stone hut on the edge of Palo Duro Canyon but definitely “no frills.” I loved it. The weather was quite cold so I kept a big fire going every evening.

On my first full day I hiked nearby Garner State Park. The Frio River runs through the park and, being the product of spring-fed creeks throughout the surrounding hills, is crystal clear. I mean freakishly clear. The trails at Garner present a lot of steep climbs up rocky terrain. But when you get to the top, you are rewarded with views like this:

And this:

I understand this park is super crowded in the summer, but given the cold temps on this day, I only saw one other group of hikers. The same was true the next day when I drove to Lost Maples Natural Area–a gorgeous park named for the stand of Bigtooth Maples there. (Bigtooth maples aren’t supposed to be in Texas but these old men are believed to be a relics from the last ice age tucked away in a unique microclimate.) I saw one other human being all day.

Along the trail I came across several dripping springs which, given the temps, were creating icicles:

When I came across the spring above, I promptly dumped out both of my water bottles and refilled them from the spring. If you’ve never had natural spring water right out of the rock, there is no purer, sweeter water on earth.

This trip was rich and wonderful and soul-nourishing and spirit-strengthening in every way. Each night for entertainment I pulled up a chair by my fire and watched the dance of embers, sparks and flame. Occasionally I’d walk away and enjoy a different show under a clear, black, star-strewn sky–until the cold would send me back to the embrace of the fire.

Yes, I had hoped for better hiking weather, but then one of the points of all this is to leave comfort behind. Mission accomplished, I think:

Yes, I’ve been neglecting the old blather blog here through the holidays. My excuse? Well, it’s certainly not because I’ve been covered up with work. On the contrary, it’s been decades since I’ve had less going on. Things work wise are s – l – o – w. I mean slower than Joe Biden on NyQuil.

Nor is it because I’ve been doing lots of holiday feasting. Not only have I not gained a couple of pounds through the holidays as in past years, I’ve actually lost about 12 pounds since before Thanksgiving. My secret? I’ll let you know after I’ve lost another 12 or 15 . . . or 20.

We had the first white Christmas this area has seen in more than 80 years. Of course, this added an appropriate finishing touch to all the other charm and wonder that Mrs. Blather always brings to Christmas at our house. It’s amazing how much light and cheer she can create, even in the leanest and sternest of times.

On Christmas morning, our girls–Female Offspring Units 1, 2 and 3–gave us one of the greatest gifts we’ve ever received. In our stockings the wife and I each found three rolled up pieces of paper secured with ribbon. On them, the girls had handwritten long, sweet notes expressing admiration and gratitude. Those notes are now filed away among my most precious documents.

Long time readers will recall that I spent the opening days of 2009 on walkabout in Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Panhandle. It was a long-overdue and badly needed few days of quiet, reading, prayer, hiking, stargazing, introspection, and personal inventory taking.

One of the most jarring yet beneficial aspects of the retreat was the complete cut off from all media noise. Until then, I hadn’t realized how I tend to spend every waking hour in a broadband media cocoon. The silence was good. I needed the silence. So I’ve scheduled another retreat for next week.

This time I’m off to the Hill Country of central Texas, northwest of San Antonio and southwest of Austin. Through the power of the internets, I found someone with a solitary cabin to rent a few miles outside of Utopia, Texas. From my cabin, it’s a short drive to two great hiking spots. On my first full day, I plan to hike Lost Maples Natural Area and the next day explore some of the trails at Garner State Park.

As last year, Mrs. Blather expressed some concern about me hiking steep canyon trails alone and in unfamiliar terrain. I reassured her by reminding her of all the Survivor Man episodes I’ve watched and therefore know how to build a fire using nothing but the power of my thoughts and know which grubs and slugs make the best eating.

These assurances didn’t seem to produce the level of comfort in her I had anticipated.

My hope is to come away with some fresh vision and a renewed sense of just what it is God wants to do with the gifts and desires He has deposited in me. You see, in a sense I’ve been hiking unfamiliar terrain for some time now. Having turned 50 a few weeks ago, I find myself in circumstances I’d never dreamed I’d be in at this stage of life. Frankly, I’d hoped for better, more comfortable times. But don’t we all.

It’s not just us, of course. For almost everyone I know, 2009 was tough. But for me, I’m leading my wonderful family up a new, unfamiliar trail.

I’ll let you know what we find around the bend.

How would monks who have taken a vow of silence sing the Hallelujah Chorus? Like this:

One of the joys of watching “A Christmas Story” over and over is the challenge of deciphering Darren McGavin’s made up swear words when he’s doing battle with the furnace in the basement or with a flat tire on the Oldsmobile.

With that in mind, here are some key phrases that may come in handy for you over the holiday or in the next three years of the Obama administration:

“You wart mundane noodle”!

“You schottin’ shiskafaskafa!”

“You snort tunger”!

“Lay munger snacka shacocker”!

“Notafingah”!

“You filthy piston helkin”!

“You whip mauker”!

“Smelly wump wustler”!

“Grab dump fratin’ hosstickel fifer”!

“You bladder pussnot grapah”!

“You dortin’ donobado”!

My thanks to “Rhod” over at “It Don’t Make Sense” for having the gift of interpretation of tongues.

(All this reminds me of one my very first blog posts here more than two-and-a-half years ago: “On Faux Swearing, Gosh Darn It!“)

Jonah Goldberg has a great essay up over at Commentary Magazine about the way Battlestar Galactica deteriorated into liberal nonsense and New Age gobbledygook. Excerpt:

In the two (awful) sequels to The Matrix, a -science-fiction hit about humans being used as a fuel source by a world overtaken by machines, Bush is visually compared to Adolf Hitler. In the Pixar film Wall-E, the “global CEO” of an environmentally devastated Planet Earth apes Bush’s “stay the course” line. In -X-Files: I Want to Believe, Bush and J. Edgar Hoover are paired. On television, Bush hatred or liberal antiwar paranoia suffused the NBC series Law and Order like a metastasizing cancer. The hospital show Grey’s Anatomy, the attorney show Boston Legal, the cop show Bones, and even the mother-daughter show Gilmore Girls included notable and needless instances, some playful and others less so, of what Charles Krauthammer dubbed Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Read the whole thing if, like me, this kind of thing irritates the living daylights out of you.

This long and mildly technical post by Marc Sheppard over at American Thinker is a pretty devastating explanation of just how bad the Clima-quiddick scandal is. As I read it, it occurred to me that we now have a couple of generations of “Postmodern” scientists.

By Postmodern, I mean that these scientists start with a preferred “narrative” (po-mo’s are all about narratives) — in this case, the narrative is: “Modern humans through capitalism and progress are destroying the planet. Both capitalism and progress must be rolled back to save Nature and ourselves.”

Like all good Postmoderns, these scientists ignore or suppress all information that tends to undermine or falsify the preferred narrative while seeking out and highlighting data that validates it. It’s a process tailor made to create a “scientific consensus.”