The Transit of Venus is the term we use to describe the motion of the planet Venus as it passes in front of the Sun as observed from Earth. The transit is a mini eclipse of the sun, much like the moon passing in front of the sun as observed from Earth, the difference being the moon is so much closer to us that it blocks out the entire sun, while Venus is so far away from us it only blocks out a tiny dot, the tiny dot being Venus. The first recorded observation of the Transit of Venus took place in 1639, by a couple of Englishmen, and has been the subject of scientific study ever since. Different cultures had different names for the heavenly bodies. The ancient Greeks, for instance, called Venus Hesperus, the Evening Star, and Phosphorus, the Morning Star, not realizing the two were the same planet. The sun also had various names, like Sol and Helios.  Helios had a son named Phaeton, and a couple of thousand years later the word Phaeton was applied to a four wheeled horse drawn carriage, no doubt named after Phaeton, the son of Helios, who convinced his father to let him drive the sun chariot, with disastrous results. In describing all this to a friend, he sighed, remembering his own personal transit of Venus, with its own disastrous results, and said

So beautiful my Venus was
Friends warned she was jail bait
They warned me not to transit her
Into another State
I scoffed and cried that he who Mars
Her good name with his lips
Will find his Solar plexus turned
Into a full eclipse
Alas my friends were heeded not
She claimed she’s twenty-four
But exiting my Phaeton I
Was shown the cell block door

Every policy espoused by the Obama administration has failed. The Arab Spring has turned once stable dictatorships into unstable terrorist states. The policy of speaking gently to Iran has allowed Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. The policy of giving oil and food to North Korea in return for unkept promises has resulted in threats from the unstable North Korea regime to nuke the United States. And so it goes, a daily litany of failure. I spoke to a high ranking White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject, but he spoke anyway. Between the sobs and moans I gathered this is what he said.

“I never thought we’d fail,” he sobbed
“The future looked so bright
The spin and lies and worse we fobbed
Off on the folks each night
Just made us feel that we were gold”
And here he gave a sigh
“Our prez,” he said, “was wise and bold
And we were riding high
And then through no fault of our own
Just everything we hailed
As right and good was over thrown
By cries that we had failed
In Syria and Egypt and
Benghazi and the rest
And all the good that we had planned
Had failed the final test”
He cried at that and turned to leave
I said, “It’s just as well”
He sobbed, “Just leave me here to grieve
It’s all just gone to hell”

The Obama administration is beset with calamity, a calamity it brought on itself with lies and arrogance. Lies about the terrorist attack on the Benghazi consulate and arrogance to think they could sic the IRS on political opponents and not be called on it. The worst however, by their lights, was the subpoenaing of the telephone logs of the Associated Press, for that turned the heretofore lapdog sycophants in the White House Press Corps against them, at least temporarily, allowing the vast majority of Americans, who get their news from the lapdog media, to hear for the first time what the verminous Obama administration has been up to. It is said that the United States was once governed by the best and the brightest. If it were ever true, it is no longer

The days of the best and the brightest
Are gone and may never return
We’re ruled by the worst and the lightest
Who seem quite unable to learn
The old best and brightest are sleeping
Disturbed in their eternal rest
Their graves undermined by the seeping
Of lies now beginning to crest

The Stockholm rioters who are setting cars and schools on fire are identified as immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East, but their religious affiliation is unmentioned. The law abiding Swedish citizens who attempt to defend their city and their homes and their families are identified by the authorities as right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis. This cowardice by Western authorities will continue until someone puts a stop to it, violently if necessary. The alternative is a slow and increasingly violent death of Western civilization at the hands of the barbarians. The brilliant, briefly lit fire of Western thought, science and art will die, as other civilizations have died before us, and life will continue, though not as before.

The western sky, a setting sun
Snow topped mountains gleaming gold
Shadows turn the desert dun
Science, music, art untold
Once discarded aren’t returned
Once great cities, soul and heart
Of the West, destroyed and burned
Pilgrims harried and depart
Like Detroit, a hollow shell
New York, London meet their fate
Say goodbye and wish them well
Time is gone, the hour late
But the world will soon forget
There was once a better place
Where free people freely met
Challenges with smiling grace
Night is nigh, and come the dawn
Others follow in their way
They won’t miss us when we’re gone
And the sun sets day by day

The Ship of State, once a brand spanking new two masted sweet sailing brig, is now captained by a man who knows nothing of brigs or sailing, but knows everything about siccing the IRS on people he perceives as enemies. We are driven before the wind by a man who knows nothing about governance but everything about blaming an unknown film maker for terrorist attacks. The captain of the good ship USS United States has lashed himself to the wheel and is about to run off the edge of the Earth. The day is growing dark, Vespers is upon us, and we can but say our evening prayers

As evening prayer got under way
And bade the brig Obama stay
The chaplain said in opening prayers
That thanks to folks like good Bill Ayers
The ship of state on which they sailed
Was by the people proudly hailed
As bringing hope and change to all
And for his text he turned to Paul
Obama, though, lashed to the wheel
While steering from behind did feel
The rising wind quite blowing hard
And as he watched the topsail yard
Came crashing down upon the deck
As White House staff cried, “What the heck!”
The forestays went, the jib as well
Now bobbing in the ocean swell
The brig Obama hung in stays
While all recalled the glory days
When sailing proudly ‘fore the wind
Topgallants bent and pennants pinned
Yet in an instant, all aghast
There fell the stately, stout main mast
Into the sea went rigging, sails
The Cabinet reduced to wails
Obama though, remained serene
Lashed to the wheel, at severe lean
“‘Tis but a temporary lull!
Behold the soundness of the hull!”
There came there then a wrenching sound
As planking flew and knees gave ground
And as she sank the band played on
Some took to boats but O stayed on
And as the ship sank ‘neath the waves
There passed one of the greatest knaves
To ever sail the ship of state
Onto the rocks most saw too late
To be the end he had in mind
Lashed to the wheel, led from behind
The sea now calm, the wreckage gone
The vespers sung, awaiting dawn

The Arab Spring was set off by Obama applauding the overthrow by an Islamist mob of an American ally, President Mubarak of Egypt, and continued with the ouster of Khadaffi from Libya by the US Navy, to the benefit of al Qaeda, and which has now spread to Syria, where al Qaeda is on the verge of grabbing another country. Watching this disaster unfold, President Obama has either delighted in the outcome or refused to get involved, regardless of the interests of the United States in not allowing al Qaeda to rule the Middle East, preferring to kick the can down the road, letting events take their course. Obama is the most adept Chief Executive we’ve ever had at kicking a can down the road. But what happens to the can when the road ends at an eight lane highway full of speeding eighteen wheelers?

How sternly he speaks, his words dark as the thunder

His visage a scowl and a threat

His actions though cause the observer to wonder

Is this all that we’re gonna get

The trouble with roads and the can that he’s kicking

A highway soon looms at the end

And all of the options he could have been picking

Are gone and he now must depend

On getting across those eight lanes that a bolder

Executive could have shut down

The can now at rest on the gravelly shoulder

And O looking on with a frown

We know what he’ll do, he will send the can spinning

Into traffic that’s blurry with speed

He’ll smile to himself this is just the beginning

And stand there and watch us all bleed

The Obama administration has so trashed the reputation and integrity of the United States that some have taken to calling them vandals. Now we all know that the word ‘vandal’ comes from the name of a Germanic tribe called the Vandals, who undertook the largest migration in European history, when they moved south from their Baltic home to Gaul and then through Spain to North Africa, leaving, so it has been said by their enemies, a trail of destruction in their path, hence the verb to vandalize. They sacked Rome about fifteen hundred years ago, but that was because Rome double crossed them, something Rome was wont to do with barbarian allies. So I think they probably got a bad rap. Not so the current administration. Obama and his hard left socialist cronies have vandalized the United States, and it will take some time to repair the damage.

Well we can’t just call Dems Vandals

Just because they have some scandals

And besides the Vandals took a lot of blame

For untidiness and so forth

When they left their Baltic homes north

And set out to find a land that then became

Such a tidy, peaceful nation

That defies all explanation

Of why people thought them rude and just uncouth

They were pirates, sure, and sacked Rome

But were neat as pins when at home

And I tell you this because it is the truth

So do not compare Obama

And young Chelsea’s lovely mama

To the Vandals who broke only odds and ends

You may call me Doubting Thomas

But they never broke a promise

As Barack does as he taxes and he spends

Radical Islam declared war on the United States in 1979, and has been killing us ever since, one at a time or by the thousands as in the Twin Towers. Nonetheless, we have resolutely determined not to call the enemy by name. We refer to our killers as the disciples of the religion of peace, and put up the killers we capture in a five star hotel we call Guantanamo Bay. The Obama administration ordered the FBI to remove the word Islam from its field manuals, allowing the Boston Marathon bombers to skate through, despite dire warnings from the Russians that they were trained terrorists. We use euphemisms and outright lies to deceive ourselves. In time of crisis, the Carthaginian elite would sacrifice their children to Melqart, the God of the Underworld, in hope of staving off disaster. But the tiny burnt sacrifices offered up on the altars in the Tophet availed them not. A Roman army destroyed them utterly. And this is where we are today. We have sacrificed truth for euphemism, and euphemism for falsehood. And an enemy as fierce as the Romans watches the smoke from the Tophet and waits for the chance he knows will come.

Remove the name of Allah

From the list of those who may

Intend to maim and kill us

For we know there is no way

That a peaceable religion

Could engage in such a course

And would never think to harm us

Or employ a deadly force

But in case we are mistaken

We shall pray for a reprieve

And prepare the sacred fires

For in Melqart we believe

Build a Tophet in each city

Line the children one by one

And we’ll march them to the altars

At the setting of the sun

In Italy, France, Greece and Spain the unemployment rate for men ages 18 to 25 hovers around 25 percent. One out of every four young men in these Mediterranean countries is unemployed, with no prospect for employment any time soon. What to do with millions of unemployed young people? Do what has always been done, take in each other’s washing.

In Spain the young can dance and sing

On corners for their suppers

In France the washing is the thing

To keep them off their uppers

In Italy the pizza guys

Deliver to each other

In Greece the young can drink all day

And then go home to mother

It’s all the same, Madrid or Rome

And none can stop the bleeding

And so will be right here at home

Though no one here is heeding

It develops that President Obama dislikes the Internet, specifically the blogosphere, as well as social media like Facebook and Twitter, because he can’t control them. The mainstream media is in his back pocket, doing his bidding, but plain folks in the blogosphere and social media are beyond his grasping fingers, and he fears the force of ideas generated by these uncontrolled outlets. In structural engineering mv=f, or Mass times Velocity equals Force. It would seem that in politics Media times Velocity equals Force. Especially the right wing blogs and social media, to the chagrin of the Obama administration. I spoke to a senior member of the Obama White House recently, and this is what he said.

The president will never be a quitter

The simple facts are always on his side

Regardless of what things be said on Twitter

The president has not a thing to hide

Transparency is what we always strive for

And honest, open dialogues to boot

The narrative we always keep alive for

We want the facts to not be in dispute

Of course we hear the lies of our opponents

And answer them with dignity and calm

We’re fortunate we have a few proponents

The Post and New York Times sit in our palm

The problem is these little folks with iPnones

Who publish pictures as events unfold

And flesh out things we much prefer were dry bones

And tell the public things we’d like untold