….and all that sort of thing.

I’ve never been big on “new year resolutions”, particularly ones centered around some fitness goal. Particularly in the season where one tends to indulge in the gooey, fat-laden goodness of so many social functions that happen around Christmas and the New Year.

Particularly also, when those conveniently targeted/placed fitness magazines - whose publishers keep several actors/fitness models - most of whom are college kids at the peak of their metabolism and sports performance envelopes - gainful employed for several hours per day in gyms to guilt us into (a) buying those mostly useless and repeated/regurgitated diet and exercise plans repeated each year by the publishers and (b) provoke a slight fit of envy or sober realization that the many of us who are sedentary office schlubs will probably never even come close to looking like these kids.

So it is with this partly in mind, considering the (primarily American) obsession with slim and trim good looks as the basis of their new year resolutions (which might be a bit ironic as most Americans are rather obese), that I look forward to upcoming tradition in Japan, the “Hatsu Basho” or New Year’s Grand Sumo Tournament!

Most Americans can hardly take a sport like this seriously, with most people I’ve ever talked to about Sumo referring to the sport as “a bunch of fat men in diapers stomping about and then slamming into each other”.

Hardly a fair assessment, though while some of these guys do tend to have quite a bit of fat, underlying it all is no lack of muscle and skill.

And they do not wear “diapers”, but a type of stylized loincloth called a “mawashi”, which can be quite expensive given that for the upper-ranked wrestlers (sekitori) they need about 9 meters (30 feet) of silk. They also have a much more luxurious version with an embroidered apron front called a “keshō-mawashi” which can cost upward of $10,000 USD and is used primarily for the massed ring-entry ceremony.

Much of the tournament’s time is consumed in very many ceremonies and rituals, all of which harken back to some rather ancient purifying elements in the native Japanese religion, Shintō; the actual combat portion of the bout typically lasts only a few seconds.

In particular, the two current reigning Yokozuna, Asashōryū and Hakuho are known for their lightning-fast force-outs, and long standing Ozeki (recently demoted to sekiwake) Chiyotaikai has proven to be a perennial favourite amongst Japanese viewers.

There are also recently a number of Eastern European sekitori as well, most notably Kotoōshū (born as Kaloyan Mahlyanov from Bulgaria) and Baruto, an Estonian. These two have a fairly good shot at making Yokozuna and Ozeki, respectively… in this coming year.

In light of the recent releases of manifestoes by such noted bloggers as Charles Johnson (the legendary lefty-leaning bicyclist blogger-turned-by-September-11th-to-right-leaning-anti-jihadist-recently-turned lefty-again founder of “Little Green Footballs”) and Andrew Sullivan (a British “conservative” gay blogger who has an infatuation of sorts with an Alaskan former Republican vice presidential nominee) …

… I thought I’d release a bit of a rebuttal to these otherwise useless gasps of hot air.

To wit: it seems that Mr. Johnson was somewhat already ideologically in orbit with the left (based upon his recent screeds against Christianity, young-earth Creationism, and clamouring against “climate change science” unbeilvers… I’d peg him as at least centre-left) - he was someone, who like a great many folks who became for a time somewhat radicalized by the events of 9-11 into a fair bit of war-hawkish flag waving and stirred against the threat of Islam.

At least when he finally “came to” and realized he was a left-wing nutjob (most of his right-side readership being either banned, squelched out, or otherwise alienated by his martinet bouts of carping against AGW doubters and creationists)… he had the decency to let us know he was parting company with the right-side blogosphere.

Mr. Sullivan, on the other hand… would have us believe that he is still some sort of a “conservative”, who just happens to stand out as a “thinking man’s conservative” agree with nearly every bit of rubbish fed to us by the socialist left. He pegs his star in the same constellation as David Frum, the young master Conor Friedersdorf (who would actually be one of his proteges) and others of the sort of ilk who aspire to be latter day bearers of the pen of the late William F. Buckley - defending a perhaps over-thought form of “conservatism” from the unwashed, undereducated, gun-toting, head-bobbing, NASCAR watching, Sarah Palin admiring masses.

But, Mr. Sullivan has thought to grace us with a follow-up to Mr. Johnson’s lengthy and tiresome “manifesto” with one of his own, which appears to have left many on the right-blogosphere with the mind to maybe snark something along the lines of “don’t let the door hit you … on the way out”.

I’d like to offer something in rebuttal to Mr. Sullivan’s bleatings that may offer some sensible response to his self-identity as - for the most part - a drinker of the Socialist Kool-Aid.

I cannot support a movement that exploded spending and borrowing and blames its successor for the debt.

See also: Obama and the Democratic Congress expanding government spending by four times as much in one year as Bush and the mostly GOP-led Congress did in the total of his eight years in office.

I cannot support a movement that holds that purely religious doctrine should govern civil political decisions and that uses the sacredness of religious faith for the pursuit of worldly power.

See also: Iran. Of course, Sully is not referring to an actual theocracy (or more accurately, a theocratic dictatorship) but rather to the previous Bush administration and its faith-based initiatives, none of which actually advocated for a direct theocracy, or even submission of our federal government to a church synod, board, diocese, or even a gang of Baptist preachers. Nope - despite Sully’s imagination, we somehow survived the Bush administration as an intact, secular republic populated by people with some degree of empathy and identity with Christianity.

I cannot support a movement that is deeply homophobic, cynically deploys fear of homosexuals to win votes, and gives off such a racist vibe that its share of the minority vote remains pitiful.

Hypocrisy/Double Standard Alert: Sully’s personal Jesus (read: Obama) and his VP have actually stated their personal disagreement with the homosexualist lifestyle and goals for same-sex marriage (SSM). And as for injecting race into the matter, the only common thread here is that the majority of African Americans also reject SSM as an institutional threat to family.

I cannot support a movement which has no real respect for the institutions of government and is prepared to use any tactic and any means to fight political warfare rather than conduct a political conversation.

See also: The Democratic Party, ACORN, SEIU, and various intimidation tactics such as ordering state and local police (Truth Squads) to break up and suppress the political speech of the GOP. (link: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/09/missouris_obama_truth_squads_2.html )

I cannot support a movement that sees permanent war as compatible with liberal democratic norms and limited government.

See also: Obama’s wavering commitments on expanding the war in Afghanistan (apparently resolved by promising to surge 30-35 thousand troops, with a firm pull-out date). Hello, Bush War Redux. Except this is now Obama’s war.

I cannot support a movement that criminalizes private behavior in the war on drugs.

I can actually agree somewhat with this one - but alas, both parties are, for the most part, very avid supporters of the War on Drugs. Not because it actually stops people from using, or traffickers from drug trafficking, but because it is an enormous source of revenue and manpower for the prison and law enforcement support industries. Not to mention keeping unemployment rates artificially lower by penning up about 10-15% of America’s underclass on relatively harmless drug use/possession charges.

I cannot support a movement that would back a vice-presidential candidate manifestly unqualified and duplicitous because of identity politics and electoral cynicism.

Of course, this is a snipe at Ms. Palin… but I recommend that the reader also take a look ant the DNC’s VP pick: Joe Biden, (sc)AMTRAK, who filled a need to offset the “magic mulatto” with someone slightly more palatable to those working class Joe Doakeses in those not-quite-always-blue states, those folks desperately and bitterly clinging to their bibles and rifles. After all, when you are done wooing the Hollywierd elites and the east coast limousine liberals for their cash, you still need those little people to yank the levers for you in those marginal states, right?

Oh, and then there’s that competence factor - Biden is amazingly competent in opening his mouth to exchange feet.

I cannot support a movement that regards gay people as threats to their own families.

Context please? Gays in and of themselves mostly just want to live their own lives. Aside from a very select few who constant trying shocking people with public displays of affection on TV, or bogarting the gym equipment and occasionally engaging in illicit congress in those semi-public spaces goes, what they do has very little impact on the 97% of America that does not identify with them.

The only threat they may pose, through their particular one-issue (SSM) politicking, would be disrupting the tax code and the causing those churches whose very faith derives from Biblical mandates restricting marriage to a male human and his (female human) wife.. and seeking to brand even the most placid disagreement with the LGBT political activists’ agenda as “hate speech” and “bigotry”.

I cannot support a movement that does not accept evolution as a fact.

SCIENCE, or specifically, the scientific method itself, does not regard evolution as “fact”, but as a “theory”. A theory well supported by a high degree of evidence… but then there’s that thorny “ClimateGate” issue. And somewhere there is that drawer full of hog jowls and teeth that some pinhead tried to pass off as “Piltdown Man”.

SCIENCE, when addressing topics that exist outside the scope of human existence is at best, a slightly more well informed thing than a guessing game - as is the case for climate data for ice ages, interglacial and interstadial periods (as some scientists belief that we are in an interglacial period within an ice age - hinting that at some point, we could be heading for an interstadial period substantially warmer than Al Gore’s hockey stick climate).

I cannot support a movement that sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as the core plank of an energy policy.

Climate change happens. See above… but it is the nature and the degree of climate change a lot of people - including scientists who have some serious doubts about “evidence” that has been fudged. And drilling for domestic oil isn’t a silver bullet, but it sure will help us stop being so dependent upon the a pile of despotic Middle East regimes, while serving as an interim solution to greener, or at least, less oil dependent energy solutions.

I cannot support a movement that refuses ever to raise taxes, while proposing no meaningful reductions in government spending.

Hard to support that when our corporate taxation level is the second highest in the world (39.5%) and estate taxes drain away half the value of private wealth with each generation. These sorts of things drive away wealth to other countries that are a bit more accomodating about taxation.

That said, there is plenty of room for cutting pork-laden spending (such as public options from everything from health care to ownership of failing/failed banks and corporations).

I cannot support a movement that refuses to distance itself from a demagogue like Rush Limbaugh or a nutjob like Glenn Beck.

Last I checked, Rush and Glenn were not elected officials or even appointed policy makers by the GOP. And I reckon that most people in the 40% of America that are Independents, or less charitably, the “mushy middle”, do not listen to either radio talk show host.

I cannot support a movement that believes that the United States should be the sole global power, should sustain a permanent war machine to police the entire planet, and sees violence as the core tool for international relations.

Partial agreement: America should be a major global power, one that has power equal to or exceeding that of all other nations. Naval and space power should be unquestionably in America’s favor, in terms of (defensive) national security, but for everything else, America should have *soft power* to wield and to use as a core tool for international relations. With the hard power held as a silent, but big stick to dissuade the tyrants who would have it any other way.

As for the permanent war machine/world police item — yes, we really should get away from that. We should use soft power to build alliances where we can, and to play one antagonist against another for the sake of balance, to keep them from building coalitions against us. Having to deploy our children to 130 countries on a continuous basis does grow burdensome.