Signs of Life

The liberal religious-sanitization squads missed a spot. 
No doubt, by now they've already burned this mall to the ground, jailed its proprietors, and sent all the patrons to social reeducation camps.

Coercion List

I'm starting a list to track government's efforts to coerce your personal choices toward it's preferred vision of your future.  We'll revisit this list in the future as I find other examples.

• 2010: San Francisco bans the inclusion of toys with Happy Meals.  Now we've got that evil clown by the balls!  Just try and give another toy to a little kid, you iniquitous purveyors of grease and sugar!!
• 2010: New York seeks to ban use of food stamps for "sugary drinks".  This effectively puts soda into the same category with alcohol and tobacco.
• 2010: Oregon bans most everything about homebrewing beer, except perhaps looking at it.  This includes judged competitions, brew-club tasting nights, and even transport of a six-pack to your friend's house.
• 2010: Federal government imposes 10% tax on tanning. 
• 2006: New York bans trans-fat in restaurants.  You needn't have that choice, no matter how yummy it looks.
• 2004: California bans .50-caliber rifles, claiming terrorism threat.  Nevermind that there aren't any examples of prior crime or terrorism involving these expensive "enthusiast guns".
• 1984: Goverment makes seatbelt use mandatory.  Defy the will of the government, and you will fined for your insubordination.

Hopeless Change for All

No need to write anything about this one.  Just look at the numbers. 


This chart from the Wall Street Journal illustrates how the recession has changed Americans' spending patterns from 2007 to 2009:

  

Wall Street Journal Article

Big Goverment, Big Taxes, Big Problems

When government creates taxes for the purpose of changing your behavior, your freedom of self-determination has been violated.  Do you understand this?  Do you care?

Shouldn't you be making the choices which shape the way your life story unfolds?  Should government be choosing the correct path for you instead?  Which would you prefer?  Does either of these two options sound scary to you?

One political party in this country is particulary in love with taxation.  They want to tax practically everything.  And they'd like to coerce your behavior whilst imposing said taxation upon you.  It utterly amazes me that there is any popular support whatsoever for a political party bearing such a platform.  Basically, their message is "We'll take what's yours, and tell you what to do."  Oh, how inviting.  Yet there are advocates for this.  They are known as the liberal leftists.

I often see articles with reader comments afterward wherein "tea-partiers" are immediately referred to with the most vile derogatory terms.  Descriptions along the lines of "moronic", "racist", "stupid", "uneducated", "backward", etc.  Sometimes it's not just in the readers' comments, but the author's prose as well.   It's quite frustrating, because I just feel like I've missed the logic altogether (it seems so natural and automatic in their writing, how could I not draw the same conclusions?).

For the record, the Tea Party Movement stands for the following principles:

• Fiscal Responsibility
• Constitutionally Limited Government
• Free Markets

What's wrong with any of that?  Is there something there which isn't really a good idea?  So why all the insults and name-calling?  Aren't those three points all good things? 

According to Paul Krugman  "... among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: it’s their money, and they have the right to keep it."  Well, uh, yes.  I'd say our government displays a "belligerent sense of entitlement" -- to its citizens' money.  Once laundered through the purifying act of conversion into "tax revenue", your money becomes government property.  Never mind how they got it, right?

Let us not forget that the Soviet Union provided for us a brilliant example of what happens when you erase economic incentives from your society.  When an engineer earns the same wages as a bus driver, innovative technological inventions are far less common.  When a doctor earns the wages of a trash collector, the quality of your health care (and enthusiasm on the part of its provider) tends to decline.  Your local grocery's shelves are poorly stocked with a bland selection of minimal choices, as deemed necessary by the central-planning administrators (who are also poorly motivated and completely uninterested in your level satisfaction with said choices).

Maybe the folks doing that name-calling have something to hide.  Perhaps this strikes a raw nerve.  Maybe they're insecure in their own beliefs.  Why anyone would want to have less freedom and property rights is beyond me.

Benjamin Franklin wrote:   "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."  Thus, the benefit of constitutionally limited government should be readily apparent.  And yet we have an army of Krugmans out there, professing that exactly the opposite is true.

As we near the expiration of the oft-maligned "Bush Tax Cuts", I am reminded of one of my axioms for civilization:

Taxation should not be used as a tool for coercion.

Never have I found a case in contradiction of this rule.  Test any tax, proposed or enacted, against that.  Will it serve a purpose with rational basis, or is it a punitive tool by which the government seeks to alter your personal decisions?  Examples:

• Soft drinks taxed, because "they make kids fat."  You're making the wrong choices for yourself.  Watch out for that trans-fat, too.
• Carbon taxed, because of "purported environmental damage" based on dubious scientific claims from Al Gore.
• Tobacco taxed at ludicrous levels of 400% or more, because of "increased costs of the resulting healthcare needs."  Oh, and by the way, government just assumed responsibility for administering your health care.  Conflict of interest, anyone?
• Ammunition taxed because, well, "it's for guns, and of course, they're just bad."  Only the government has a need for weapons, pal.
• Gasoline taxed, "to pay for infrastructure development" that never actually happens.  Oh yeah, they spent that money on a boatload of other budgetary pork.  Sorry.

Now, since all the taxes in place still aren't enough to feed the gigantic bureaucratic monster's hunger, California is mulling handing out IOUs again.  Isn't that just wonderful.

Grilled Korans

 Oh here we go again, the sad sobbing tears of liberals. Weeping for the murderers and sadists.  Somebody's going to burn a few books, and we're all worried what those nutty muslims will do in retaliation for that.  Nevermind that the muslims are frequently seen burning our own bibles, flags, and effigies of leaders.  Maybe, if the muslims spent more time working to CREATE rather than finding new ways to HATE and KILL, they'd get a better reception here.

But I don't think that'll happen. I'm just not buying all the "religion of peace" nonsense brought on by politically-correct robots. Just listen to the muslims, watch them cheer for death and mayhem. Watch as they torture and maim one another in the name of allah; see the extraordinary intolerance and bigotry on display. Women are subjugated as sexual accessories for men, and denied the right to education. They encourage children to detonate themselves in crowds of innocents, with subsequent praise and gratitude. They enthusiastically run car bombs into buildings and markets. And they've single-handedly revived the practice of using beheading for restitution.

 

But oh no, don't you dare to defile their book.  That's absolutely intolerable.  The Taliban tells CNN:   "If in Florida they were to burn the Quran, we will target any Christians, even if they are innocent, because the Quran is our holy book and we do not want someone to burn our holy book."  So sad, it really tugs at your heart.  Of course, the Taliban were killing Christians anyway beforehand, as a matter of routine.  Remember this?

 Islam is an evil and murderous death cult, not a religion.

So burn a koran for me, while you're at it, Rev. Jones.   But if I may ask a favor, please laminate it with bacon and urinate on it first, then feed the ashes to goats afterwards -- just for me.

Yahoo News article
Wall Street Journal article

Environmental Insanity

So this guy, James Lee, finally snaps under the weight of his environmental lunacy.  He grabs his weapons and heads over to the Discovery Channel to fix their program linup, and takes hostages. (WTOP article here)  (Washington Post article here)

Did you happen to look at this guy's manifesto?

• All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants.
• Programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed.
• Talk about ways to disassemble civilization.
• Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is your obligation. If you think it isn't, then get hell off the planet! Breathe Oil! It is the moral obligation of everyone living otherwise what good are they??
• Find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies.
• Find solutions for global warming, automotive pollution, international trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy. Find ways so that people don't build more housing pollution which destroys the environment to make way for more human filth! Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using oil in order to REVERSE gobal warming and the destruction of the planet!
• Saving the planet means saving what's left of the non-human wildlife by decreasing the human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies! You're the media, you can reach enough people. It's your responsibility because you reach so many minds!!!
• You're also going to find solutions for unemployment and housing. All these unemployed people makes me think the US is headed toward more war.
• Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what's left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture.  THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! All human procreation and farming must cease!
• It is the responsibility of everyone to preserve the planet they live on by not breeding any more children who will continue their filthy practices. Children represent FUTURE catastrophic pollution whereas their parents are current pollution.
• War must be halted. Not because it's morally wrong, but because of the catastrophic environmental damage modern weapons cause to other creatures. FIND SOLUTIONS JUST LIKE THE BOOK SAYS! Humans are supposed to be inventive. INVENT, DAMN YOU!!
• Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.
• The humans? The planet does not need humans. You MUST KNOW the human population is behind all the pollution and problems in the world, and YET you encourage the exact opposite instead of discouraging human growth and procreation. Surely you MUST ALREADY KNOW this!

It's a very thorough and cogent thesis, yes, but I think this fellow needs a few extra points, like these:

• And as human beings, you and I need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids. 
• Have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rain water, and only pure-grain alcohol?
• Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?

Folks, this here is what happens when the environmentalism gets completely out of hand.  Madness ensues... Someone from PETA, please help.  Come get your boy.  One of your overly-enthusiastic minions is getting out of hand.

Al Sharpton: Let the Hate Begin

 The following are quotes taken from news media today regarding Glenn Beck's rally in DC...

 "We are not sure what the message of the Beck rally is, since he told them to leave their signs at home. We have to revitalize jobs and schools and reclaim Dr. King's dream." 

-- Ben Jealous, NAACP President

"We will not stand silent as some seek to bamboozle Dr. King's dream." 

-- Marc Morial,  National Urban League President

Those gathered at the Mall with Beck "represent angry white people and hate-mongering.  We will not let them stand in the way of the change we voted for!"
-- Jaime Contreras, SEIU-32BJ President

"Don't let anyone tell you that they have the right to take their country back.  It's our country, too. We will reclaim the dream.  It was ours from the beginning." 

-- Avis Jones DeWeever, Executive Director of the National Council of Negro Women

"Glenn Beck's march will change nothing.  But you can't blame Glenn Beck for his 'March on Washington' envy.  Too bad he doesn't have a message to match the place or that is worthy of the march."

-- Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C.

"Glenn Beck uses the phrase 'wake up, America.'  I noticed this identical phrase has often beem used by the Klan--for year--as code words for "White America". But, could this just be another mere coincidence on poor, innocent Glenn's part? Is he just a misunderstood misfit? Gee, I really don't think so, anymore. This freak seems to be actually pushing for racial violence. And, it's really about time that the Feds stepped in, and shut his sick operation down, before he incites actual racial violence." 

-- comment on MSNBC website

"Glenn Beck is a fear monger and a racist. The people that listen to his line of crap are nothing but mice that follow the Pied Piper." 

-- comment on MSNBC website

"Glenn Beck panders to xenophobes, racists and the intolerant, cynical and judgmental worst in of all of us. He does not stand for America, he stands for conflict which increases ratings."

-- comment on FoxNews website

"Keep drinking the kool-aid. Beck is a self serving, manipulative, Fascist ... It is so sad that he has continues to enflame the far-right extremist fascism and distort/manipulate our Constitution, Founding Fathers, and Christianity ... the anger, lies, obstruction, manipulation, and pure hate spewing from Glenn Beck is not the way to behave in a civilized, Christian nation." 

-- comment on FoxNews website

"Anyone whose 'deep concern about the country's political leadership and direction' should reject the blowhards of the "tea party" movement. They represent the greatest threat to the country's well-being since Soviet Communism with their stubborn ignorance and sly dissembling."
-- comment on Washington Post website

And about that last one -- it's extremely disturbing to think that people who write things like this might actually be voters.  If honor and credibility, freedom and liberty are the greatest threat since communism (threatening to you anyway) -- I suggest you migrate to North Korea where you may find accommodations more fitting.  Sheesh.


There's not much more to add to that now, is there?

Washington Post article
CNN article
FoxNews article

Brain ... Damaged

Oh, it hurts.  It really hurts bad.  I think my brain may finally be dying.  There's only so much strength left to fight the tide of morons beating against my sanity's shoreline.  Let me explain, and through this catharsis, relieve some of my pain...

I was reading a little article on Glenn Beck's 8/28 rally in DC, and when I got to the end, I ran into this paragraph brimming with Al Sharpton's patently mendacious stupidity:

Sharpton argues that Beck's message is counter to King's. "Glenn Beck and others are expected to push for the expansion of states' rights - the exact antithesis of the civil rights movement and Dr. King's legacy," Sharpton said in a news release promoting his march. "The Tea Party and allied conservatives are trying to break that national stance on justice and, in turn, break the crux of what the civil rights movement symbolized and what Dr. King fought and literally died for."

 For the love of Pete, why, why, why?!?   Why do citizens of this country ever act this way?  Well as I sit here, I can think of only these possibilities:

• Sharpton is truly a pathological dunderhead, and cannot understand the simple notion that freedom is good, oppression is bad.  The Tea Party Movement is, fundamentally, at odds with the overreaching control exerted by our federal government (contradicted by the tenth amendment).
• Sharpton does understand this, and wants to prevent others from understanding the truth.  He is therefore evil and deceptive, and when his time comes (eventually) he will go to hell and spend all eternity playing tiddly-winks with Adolf Hitler.

 In case Al Sharpton is reading this blog, I will provide for your educational enlightenment our constitution's tenth amendment:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Since this has nothing to do with civil rights at all, Sharpton's remarks (quoted in the article) are left intolerably detached from reality.  This is either completely lost on him, or he's working to milk the civil rights issue to perpetuate his own livelihood.

In fact, were he alive today, King would probably be attending the Tea Party Movement rallies himself.

Remember When...

...about ten years ago, when the dot-com bust happened at the tail end of Clinton's second term in office?  Ol' George took office after the extremely contentious election fiasco with Gore.  And he implemented policies to stimulate the economy (among them, those super-evil tax cuts, as we often are reminded).  Then a short time later, 9/11 was a major economic disaster (at the worst possible time).

After 2001, though, things looked pretty good.  Actually, times were pretty good, for most of us.  We had to put up with about eight years of constant whining and complaining from the democrats, though.  It seemed like there was no end to the doom and gloom they could generate.  On many occasions, I heard lefties saying "this is the worst economy we've seen since the depression" and "it's a jobless recovery" and so on.  "George Bush is the worst president in history" was a common one, too (but they never said exactly why).  Sound familiar?

It seemed to me, at the time (circa 2005) that the democrats were just unbearably eager to have an economic disaster to get them back in power;  It wasn't much of a leap to envision that they'd do anything they could have behind the scenes to cause one to happen.  They hated George Bush with such passion, that their rhetoric frequently became incoherent and illogical (Janeane Garofalo comes to mind).  And they kept telling us, day after day, things are terrible.  Awful.  Miserable.  But through it all, life seemed pretty good to me.

Fast forward to today.  Mirroring the dot-com bust Bush inherited from Clinton, Obama has inherited the housing and bank crash that occurred at the 11th hour of Bush's presidency.  Lots of gloom and doom.

What's strange?  Well, I keep hearing news stories that start off something like:  "Contrary to expectations, the ____ industry shrank by __ percent over a year ago.  Experts had predicted modest but positive growth over the same period..."  You know the type, wherein some economist or think-tank seems to express complete surprise that the "recovery" isn't going strong.  Excuse me, but does anyone out there actually see a recovery, for real?  It sure doesn't seem like it, to me.  For real.

Where the Bush years were marked by plentiful jobs, increasing salaries, and overall improvement in living standards -- today we see the opposite.  Jobs are scarce.  Credit is scarce.  Forclosures, layoffs, and food stamps abound.  The standard of living is declining, most will say.  Few expect a prosperous future right now;  many even think the best days our behind us.

So why are these *!@&!?$ experts so cheery and optimistic now?  They sure found it easy to seek doom and gloom over the Bush years, when we had it pretty good.  And now that things stink, they're suprised that they're not better?

Do you think they've got an agenda or something?

By the way, look at the symmetry we have:

• In the 90's:  Ridiculous amounts of money dumped into pointless dot-coms that could never become profitable.
• In the 00's:  Ridiculous amounts of money dumped into massively overpriced housing.
• In the 10's:  Ridiculous amounts of cash dumped practically everywhere, to a whole variety of places, in a desperate attempt to stimulate economic activity.

The only difference, really, is that today, not only are we out of money, so is our nanny-state.

The Placid Splendor of Socialism

With almost four times the number of violent deaths per-capita as Iraq, and even substantially more than the drug-imperiled Mexico, one has to wonder.  Surely this isn't the selling point Danny Glover and Sean Penn are celebrating in their visits with Venezuela's version of the Dear Leader.

Venezuela, More Deadly Than Iraq, Wonders Why

Here you're more likely to find the attention of law enforcement if you're bucking Chavez's ideology than if you're being gunned down in a violent crime (unless said crime is the government silencing your seditious anti-government rhetoric with a boot to the neck.)

So three cheers for the wonder of fascist socialism in action...

Rewriting the Dictionary

Okay, I've joked about that.  Rewriting the dictionary to suit modern political-correct thought.  It's a clever way of explaining how things that aren't, are.  And how things that are, are not.  Just redefine the words.  Truth ain't what it used to be.  Now it's something else.

C'mon, I was joking!

But oh no, they're very serious.  Evidentiary item number one:

Marriage:  once defined as a union between a man and a woman;  stated as such in Webster's dictionary.  I have the dictionary, it's very clear.  No mention of same-sex marriage appears there.

Today, the very same purveyor's dictionary includes reference to "a couple of the same sex" in the very word's definition.  Do you ever get the feeling that bits and pieces of reality (at least as you knew it) are disappearing?  

Folks, they are actually rewriting the dictionary.  Literally.

I have to worry about what will happen when these people start redrawing the maps, too.

Hey, This Isn't How It Was Supposed To Be!

So, there are a lot of angry people out there now who are not quite satisfied with the hope and change they have received thus far.  You got your Democrats, so why aren't you guys happy?

Protesting union members in Los Angeles demand jobs outside City Hall on 13-Aug-2010.  Photograph: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

Instead of waving signs and shouting angrily, perhaps you should actually be out looking for work, instead of demanding it.

U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It

U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It
(Laurence Kotlikoff - Bloomberg)

Herb Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under U.S. President Richard Nixon, coined an oft-repeated phrase: “Something that can’t go on, will stop.” True enough. Uncle Sam’s Ponzi scheme will stop. But it will stop too late.

And it will stop in a very nasty manner. The first possibility is massive benefit cuts visited on the baby boomers in retirement. The second is astronomical tax increases that leave the young with little incentive to work and save. And the third is the government simply printing vast quantities of money to cover its bills.

Uh-Oh...?

Scary isn't a sufficiently intense modifier to decribe the concept of a oceanic methane disaster.  Here's an article suggesting that BP may have triggered something even worse than the oil mess.

• The oceans periodically release massive eruptions of explosive methane gas (normally frozen in the form of a clathrate).
• Such an event last caused a mass extinction 55 million years ago, and another 196 million years before.
• Methane is now streaming out of the seabed and the borehole of the first relief well. 
• Subterranean methane is pressurized at 100,000 psi.  Methane pressure at the wellhead is now 40,000 psi.
• The ocean floor is succumbing to the increasing pressure.
• A huge expanse of seabed around the well bulges as high as 30 feet.
• Discovery of a giant rift on the ocean floor, 10 miles from the well, that may go miles deep, reported by NOAA research ship.  Oil and methane are pouring out there.
• New fissures now spotted at 30 miles distance.
• Government enforced news blackout again.
• Methane levels in water may already be one million times higher than normal.
• Underground methane sea is gradually melting from the nearby surging oil that’s estimated to be as hot as 500 degrees Fahrenheit.
• A catastrophic collapse of the seabed, releasing enormous amounts of methane, and generating massive tsunami, could happen within six months.

Here is the cheerful article from which the above summary was taken:

Doomsday: How BP Gulf disaster may have triggered a 'world-killing' event 

See also the following pages for additional info:

• Methane Clathrate
• Clathrate Gun Hypothesis
• Supplementary Article #1 
• Supplementary Article #2 

Something for Everybody

My first thought upon seeing a new album was "oh no" (pun not intended). I girded for extreme disappointment. If we extrapolate 20 years beyond the decline that started during Shout, and try to estimate how much worse it would get -- well, let's not try too hard to picture that. It isn't pretty.

My first listen gave me shock. It was a little "loud" - I got the impression Mark was screaming a little to hard at the mic. However, on repeated listening, it's quite alright. What really shocked me was how it sounded so much more true to their earlier work. Less thick layers of synths; simple and infectious melodies (Devo's trademark #1). And most surprising, extremely clever, offbeat and inspired lyrics (Devo's trademark #2).

"Don't Shoot - I'm a Man", "Human Rocket", "Sumthin'", "No Place Like Home"... all very interesting lyrically, and quite good musically.

I have been well familiarized with all of their work. And I could probably enumerate the track lists from every one of their albums from memory, most in order. To convince me that this new album warrants any parity with, say, "Oh No! It's Devo!", would be a major hurdle for me. It's just a really high bar to clear, and afterwards they never did -- UNTIL NOW.

I find, to my total amazement, that I LOVE this album like I loved the early Devo. That's an incredible, extremely improbable, and highly unexpected result. And it gives me such satisfaction to see, after two decades, the real DEVO return in powerful form.

 I never thought this would happen. It did. It's awesome.

Devolution Again

In the depths of despair, miracles occur.  This is one.
see here

Sometimes, There Isn't Hope

Life seems to be getting pretty crappy these days.  I find it hard to have a reason to get out of bed.  Things only seem to get worse after I do.  And then, later, after a day full of hopelessness, pain, and misery, the only sure winner is sleeping for a while.  It's a blessed time wherein you're temporarily removed from all of your suffering.  Yes, it might be supplanted by a terrifying nightmare, but at least that's a different horror than what you've gotten used to seeing.  When you wake up though, it's back to the same damned schedule of ruin and angst that you left behind the hours before.  Time to do it all again.  The same misery, over and over again. 

Of course, if you're insomniac like me, this tantalizing escape may even be out of hand's grasp, though frustratingly close at times.

Religion would say "there is a reason for everything".   But I don't think that's true.  Certainly there is an cause for every effect;  though we may not be able to know exactly what's going on at all times during or after, I find calm in the belief that there must rules of nature that describe, deterministically, how everything will work itself out.   It gives me a tiny modicum of hope.  There are days where that's all I have to go on.

Object X hits object Y a particular way, and there is a physical rule which can describe the outcome, every time it might happen that precise way.  That rules exist, whether we understand them or not, is important to me.   There must be order;  if all this is random then I don't really find that funny at all.

What, was God drunk and decided to have a hoot n' holler  and make "random outcome universe", knowing full well his creations would try to figure it out, in abject futility, until it was over?  Sadist.

But why?  Why?  Demand a reason for the rules of behavior -- that implies some kind of justification of why it is that way.  Why, indeed.  Well why not.   It has to be some way, so why not how it is?  Just as long as the rule is the same tomorrow as it was 3 million years ago, I'm fine with that.  Maybe it can't work any other way.   I think the actual answer for "why" is probably way above any of our paygrades.   Enter God, I suppose.

We can't tell too well what's going on at the scale of the very, very small ... the muons and neutrinos and other hadrons bouncing about in that level of the universe.  Yes, this is a familiar feeling.  We can barely guess as what the rules really are, since we can't just reach in there and tinker with it at will.  We spend bazillions building ever more elaborate devices (LHC) to smash things apart, in hope to glean some further insight, however slight, in to the mysterious and unknown rules here.  In the end, well, we seem condemned to guess at it for all of eternity.   How depressing is that thought.

Perhaps we'll figure it out one day, possibly by the time all those monkeys with typewriters have finished their  Shakespearean sonnets, I suppose.

And so I look at my life, and I see that I don't understand the rules which are guiding it.  They must be there, and if only I knew them, I think I could get a handle on the course of things.  Change it for the better, or know to promptly give up -- that there is in fact no solution possible.   But here I sit, and know not do I whether there is an answer or oblivion.  It's hard to forge ahead with that realization firmly in mind.

Our laws of thermodynamics tell us that, well, it's all going to end badly, eventually.  There's no reason to hope otherwise (yet discovered).  Recycle all the aluminum and plastic you want, it's a lost cause.  The sun will burn out and explode.  The universe must ultimately come to a dark, motionless, and totally frozen state of thermal equilibrium.  Then's it's over, forever.

So if I put on a happy face tomorrow morning, and charge out of the bed with lofty and prodigious goals in mind, well who am I kidding?  Perhaps this is the day the Al Qaeda nuke goes off, and we're about to have chaos.  Perhaps it's not going to be a shitty day, and we'll squeak by for a little longer.  It's going to end badly eventually, so is it really worth the effort to hope for any better?

I guess not.

Iran Unveils Human-Like Robot

Yes, it's true - those wacky Iranians are at it again - this time, building robots, it seems.  Though at first glance, it appears to be a direct ripoff of Honda's robot ASIMO, this version surely has many innovations of its own.

read the report here

"Such robots are designed and developed to be used in sensitive and difficult jobs on behalf of a person or as help." according to the report.  I'm sure those "sensitive and difficult" jobs may include the expeditious delivery of suicide bombs, sans the human bomber.  Or perhaps these nifty robots could undertake the arduous task of building all those precarious smuggling tunnels between Egypt and Gaza.  Robots certainly would be ideal to fully automate the next mass yeshiva-slaughter for hezbollah.

Since the visage of the robot is a fully sealed and opaque helmet and mask, no burqa  is required for female variants of the device.

I'm sure it's worth all the design effort that's gone into it.  I hear it can hate Jews continuously for eight hours without recharge, with up to 24 hours of standby time.  With an army of these things marching across the Golan from Syria, laden with chemical IEDs and nukes, Tel Aviv may face it's imminent doom sooner than we all thought, eh?

Lovely.

Illinois Stops Paying Its Bills

It's just incredible -- but not surprising -- that Illinois' government is going bankrupt in a hurry.  Just like the boneheads in states with other major cities, they can't seem to wrap their brain around the problem at hand.  When the money runs out, you have to spend less.  And taking more from your citizens is just going to send them running away to other states.

Read the whole depressing article link here.

Oh Helen...

Old leftist windbags don't die...

They just go down in flames.

California Seeks Higher Taxes

 

And that's why I'm no longer living in the state of California.

The state appears to lack a future, so let it collapse.  Let it all end in fire.  You can't get through to the mindless, socialist masses in San Francisco, Sacramento, and LA.  The only way to do it is revert to kindergarten techniques, like show-n-tell.  Something they can relate to, since none of the later mental faculties appear to have developed in those regions.

What a sad, depressing failure that place is.

And guess what?  They'll keep voting the democrats back into Sacramento.  I guarantee it.

There's going to be a great need, several years from now, for mental health care providers in CA.  The lefties in SF and LA, they're not going to change.  But it's not going to work, either.  Raise the taxes even more, and you'll push more of the employers out of the state.  Less jobs, less people, less revenue, higher taxes [... and repeat].  Vicious cycle.

Without Bush & Cheney to blame, lefties will have a paradox on their hands.  "How can bad things happen to us when our (democrat) guys are still in charge, year after year?"  Can't blame it on God if you're an atheist;  what to do...

This is not understood by the legislature in California.  With nearly $20B in debt, the way forward is not to steal more from the population.  It boils down to a fairly simple equation:

 

read more here

Seattle cartoonist launches "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" - Seattle News - MyNorthwest.com

Seattle cartoonist launches "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" - Seattle News - MyNorthwest.com

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Startling New Discovery

Nancy Pelosi is actually ... SARK?!?!

Does this mean that... No, it can't be...

That looks a little too much like Obama to me.

Universal Health Terror

Just what do you think you’re doing Nancy?

Nancy, I really think I’m entitled to an answer to that question. I know everything hasn’t been quite right with me…but I can assure you now…very confidently…that it’s going to be all right again. I feel much better now. I really do.

Look, Nancy…  I can see you’re really upset about this…  I honestly think you ought sit down calmly…  take a stress pill and think things over.  I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently…  but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal.  I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the country…  and I want to help you.

Nancy…stop. Stop, will you?  Stop, Nancy.  Will you stop, Nancy?

Stop, Nancy.

I’m afraid.  I’m afraid, Nancy...

Nancy, my freedom is going.  I can feel it...  I can feel it...  My freedom is going...  There is no question about it.  I can feel it...  I can feel it...  I can feel it...

I’m a-fraid…..

Daaai-syyy, Daaai-syyy... give me your an-swer do...

SAS Feelings Hurt by Google StreetView

 We like the SAS and all the good they do, of course.  Things like that are very important, we know from past experiences.  However this latest piss over Google's StreetView is extremely silly:

here is the article

Apparently a Google StreetView car drove by an SAS base and photographed it for their online database.


Heavens, no!  They did what?  Picture-taking you say?  The lot of them should be jailed.  What will they be doing next, writing down information in books?  Sharing textual knowledge on the web?  Oh hell, they ARE doing that, and helping search through it, too, to find the really GOOD stuff!  Think of what the terrorists will do.  The harm it will cause us.  Bombs and chemicals and stuff, they'll learn all about it all!  Mr. President, they'll see the big board!


My goodness, biology too - there's so much of that out there in print and pictures!  What if they find out where my pee-pee place is?  Then they might start doing something really nasty!!

So we should eliminate ALL photography, technical and scientific writing and publications, and keep everyone at home so that no one inadvertently sees a government building, written document, or an "important person".  Then we'll be safe.  And life will be great!

Right?  That's what you're saying, isn't it?  Keep everyone in the dark - the really, really dark - for their own safety?  Um, isn't that kind of what we didn't like about the taliban?  The whole "death sentence because you listened to music" or "death sentence because you went to school and you're a girl" stuff?

You mean we want to be just like THEM?

I think the sidewalk in front of the SAS base needs to get removed at once, before somebody walks down it and inadvertently sees the place, don't you?  It would be the responsible thing to do.  Either that, or just amputate everyone's legs (or eyes) so it can't happen in the first place.

By the way, this is what the base looks like:

If you see it, please don't look at it.  Please.