Muriatic

Tax Collections Fall

2011-10-20T15:51:00.001-04:00

Oh dear, oh dear. It seems that tax hikes aren't working like they're supposed to. States like California and Washington are seeing their tax revenue drop "unexpectedly" after both states raised their tax rates under Democrat leadership.

As expected, analysts are surprised and bewildered by the drop in revenue. Once again, Keynesian economics has failed to deliver the goods it promises. Washington looks like they're heading for a $2 billion shortfall, after having passed an $890 million tax increase earlier in the year. California is already more than $650 million behind their projected take. New York, too is $392 million behind its projections for the year.

Go figure. Must be those evil 1-percenters again. Where is Paul Krugman when you need him?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/us/states-warn-that-tax-revenues-arent-rebounding.html

There is no Hope

2011-10-03T14:21:00.001-04:00

When a society can no longer diagnose its own ills, and the vast, miseducated and brainwashed masses gleefully seek to amplify the problems which cause their own discomfort - it's just about game-over.

We now have large swaths of population that have wholly bought-in to the lies they've been shoveled for years by savvy politicians. They've been told the rich are out to get them. That we're all at fault for ruining the planet's ecosystem. And that less is more -- less freedom, that is, means more happiness.

I used to think you could reason with people to gain a higher degree of mutual understanding. Now, I believe this is a falsehood. There is a sufficient "critical mass" of people that are totally beholden to illogical, faulty reasoning that society can no longer be expected to "tend toward order" in the long-term. As demonstrated in Adam's startling (and depressing) video above, seemingly "educated" indivudals are incapable of comprehending the reality that motivates their own protest actions. The want more of the same. And they are programmed to disbelieve (or disregard) any potentially conflicting evidence.

That fact ensures their entrapment in the madness.

They use words like "1-percenters" or "corporate masters" or the venerable favorite: "Haliburton". But they don't know the meaning of it all. They think they do, but a simple series of questions, designed to extract a coherent, logical progression -- it causes their ideology to completely collapse. They cannot explain why. Hostility increases, and they become defensive.

And never, ever do they let opposing views for critical analysis. The whole, wicked world is out to get them. The boogeyman in running the bank. The corporations want to digest your blood for fuel. And the Tea Partiers are the zombie-henchman of the corporations. They dare not question any of this, for they are far too long committed to this line of reasoning to ever change.

After all, the Democrats, with which they allied, have told them so. It must be true.

At some point, a viral infection threatens your life when the infection has become sufficiently pervasive. Looks like we're about to collectively succumb to the virus, if you ask me...

Say What?

2011-09-01T16:44:00.000-04:00

Okay, who makes signs like this? I mean, really. "Freedom go to hell"? Seriously? Are these people all completely stupid? Is this some kind of weird joke? A photoshop moment, perhaps?
If this is in any way a real photo, with real people professing their own deep desire not to be free -- how do you deal with that?

One Hilarious Line

2011-04-14T16:09:00.001-04:00

Signs of Life

2010-12-05T11:27:00.000-05:00

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

2010-10-07T14:47:00.004-04:00

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

2010-10-06T18:17:00.002-04:00

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

2010-09-20T12:47:00.005-04:00

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

2010-09-09T13:37:00.005-04:00

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

2010-09-01T16:24:00.008-04:00

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

2010-08-28T19:57:00.006-04:00

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

2010-08-26T11:58:00.000-04:00

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...

2010-08-24T14:36:00.001-04:00

...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

2010-08-23T23:41:00.001-04:00

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

2010-08-17T17:51:00.004-04:00

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!

2010-08-15T23:37:00.003-04:00

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

2010-08-11T18:15:00.003-04:00

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...?

2010-07-15T14:26:00.008-04:00

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:

Something for Everybody

2010-07-15T01:28:00.001-04:00

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

2010-07-12T00:03:00.001-04:00

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

Sometimes, There Isn't Hope

2010-07-07T01:59:00.003-04:00

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

2010-07-05T17:15:00.007-04:00

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

2010-07-03T12:29:00.002-04:00

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...

2010-06-07T16:39:00.003-04:00

Old leftist windbags don't die...

They just go down in flames.

California Seeks Higher Taxes

2010-05-26T16:30:00.000-04:00

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:

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

2010-04-25T11:26:00.002-04:00

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

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Startling New Discovery

2010-04-15T09:28:00.000-04:00

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

2010-03-21T23:10:00.000-04:00

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

2010-03-21T15:47:00.000-04:00

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.

Don't Touch It! It's Eeee-vil!!

2010-03-21T15:35:00.002-04:00

Ok, I've officially had it with the carbon lunacy. What set me off is this unbearable quote from a recent New York Times op-ed piece by Thomas Friedman:

"It is clear that if we, America, care about our energy security, economic strength and environmental quality we need to put in place a long-term carbon price that stimulates and rewards clean power innovation."

Okay, listen up now. Carbon is our friend! How is this not completely obvious to everyone, everywhere? Without carbon, you wouldn't have a lot of things that you might start to miss, like:

pencils
sugar
gasoline
graphite-based lubricants
coal (used in electrical power generation)
archaeological dating (i.e., carbon dating with C-14)
diamonds
life itself

...and of course, everyone's favorite greenhouse gas: CO2. But that much-maligned gas doesn't account for much "global warming" effect. In fact, it's less than 5%. Why? Because water vapor accounts for the other 95% of it!! Worse yet, 97% of that CO2 comes from naturally-occurring sources. Humans create only 3% of that 5% of "greenhouse effect" arising from CO2. So we could shut down our factories, communications, transportation and the whole world economy to live in squalid indigence forevermore, and only improve the situation by one-tenth of a percent.

In other words, a negligible degree.

Look at the graph below. The primary contributor, by far, to greenhouse effect is water vapor. Note that this is a log-scale graph of percentage. CO2 accounts for less than a tenth of what water vapor does. And man contributes virtually nothing to that.

data source

Man-made CO2 is significant, compared to natural CO2. But compared to water vapor, it's nothing.

Friedman also states, in the same article, that:

"China is also engaged in the world’s most rapid expansion of nuclear power. It is expected to build some 50 new nuclear reactors by 2020; the rest of the world combined might build 15."

Is he actually bemoaning the lack of enthusiasm for nuclear power in western nations? Do liberals really allow him to do that? I thought nuclear power was the devil's hand incarnate (e.g., Three Mile Island, Chernobyl).

Sigh...

Earthquake Shatters Caribbean Paradise

2010-01-15T08:22:00.001-05:00

Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince was rocked by a devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake this week.

Hopefully, intense international efforts will be able to quickly return Haiti to the violent, squalid hell that it once was before...

Health Care Reform

2009-12-27T22:32:00.000-05:00

I think the new government healthcare plan should include public access to the same hallucinogens Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer are taking.

Harry says that we will praise the new healthcare plan with "an earful of wonderment and happiness."

Schumer said,."I believe that the negativity that leader McConnell and others have continually displayed on the floor has peaked, and now, when people learn what's actually in the bill and all the good it does, it's going to become more and more popular."

So I guess that means "We passed it. You're going to like it. "

I hear that Reid went on to say some other things, much less widely covered:

We're not going to have actual death panels; more precisely, we'll have death committees which have much fewer participants than a whole inefficient "panel" would imply. Also there will be some sort of funding for the necessary, mandated gas chambers and ovens.
The healthcare plan won't cost anything at all. In fact, it will generate money. Really! And all that extra money will be used, in part, to produce a series of comic books based on Nancy Pelosi's "Government Man" hero; some children will also receive toys that encourage politically-correct, non-competitive playtime activities.
Adults will also receive similar toys, and will be required to attend play-time with their children. Work will no longer be necessary; the government will handle it all. And everyone will get delicious cake and cookies to eat every evening.
The Leprechauns will bring us, one by one, to the end of the rainbow, where we will each receive a pile of treasure from their magic chest. We shall then take this money to the nearest IRS collections office, where it may (must) be donated (surrendered) to the government, which knows what really should be done with it. After all, we printed it in the first place, so it's ours anyway.
It will rain jellybeans and marshmallows in the spring, to the wonderment of all young and old.
Frosty the snowman will marry the the tooth fairy, and their children will be blessed by the Pope for reducing global warming, saving the entire planet from destruction.
The tomato-men will finally land on Jupiter's moon, Titan, where will will harvest dark matter for the giraffe people.
I, Harry Reid, will grow to twenty feet tall. My might will be unchallenged. My teeth will be so very white. I will become the ruler of the entire universe, spreading joy and wonderment for all. I'll be unstoppable! Invincible! Muahhhh-hah-hah-haaa!!

I could be mistaken on a few pf his points, but the general idea I think is still there.

20 Years Ago

2009-11-09T10:23:00.000-05:00

My God, what do we have left anymore? Who'll stand? Anyone???

No surprise here

2009-11-07T23:12:00.000-05:00

Take the test, it's interesting.

California Saves Us from TV

2009-10-15T22:16:00.000-04:00

California appears poised to be first to ban power-guzzling big-screen TVs

The payoff could be big for TV owners, said Ken Rider, a commission staff engineer. Average first-year savings from reduced electricity use would be an estimated $30 per set and $912 million statewide, he said.

So you see, not having a choice to buy an energy-inefficient TV is actually a Good Thing.

You might suggest that the energy-efficiency of a TV is a feature with a particular market value; Maybe some people would pay a little more for TV up front in order to get a savings in the long-term by reduced power consumption. But if you think this way, you would be a moron by California's standards. That's because everyone knows that markets don't function by assigning a monetary value to product features. The government is supposed to dictate the standards so that no choices are required of consumers, who are all naturally stupid.

By the way, at $30 per set, $912M savings implies 30.4 million new TVs. Assume there are 30.4 million new TV screens replacing energy-hogging older screens in the first year. And to get to that figure, you must exclude people who are replacing displays already considered "energy efficient". The population being somewhere around 37 million people, that's one new TV purchased for 8 out of every 10 Californians (including both adults and children). Seems a bit of a stretch. How often do you buy a large screen TV?

Stop Board Violence, Now!

2009-09-29T09:17:00.000-04:00

Derrion Albert was killed by violent tribal thugs near his school on 9/24/09. It needn't have happened.

If sensible measures were in place to assure that wooden construction materials (i.e., "boards") did not fall into the hands of misanthropic gang members, maybe he'd still be alive. Boards are dangerous when misused. Just look at what happens when they fall into the hands of kids afflicted by psychotic malevolent tendencies.

We can't allow this to go on, can we? If only sensible wood-control measures were in place, our streets would be safer. Our children's schools would be safer. After all, who really needs wood, anyway? The average person does not need to have wood, and therefore why shouldn't it be a crime to possess wood in the streets? Only trained and licensed construction personnel have any real need to handle potentially dangerous wood products.

And let's not forget the horrific weapons of murder used to work with wood -- drills, saws, and various hand tools. In the wrong hands all of these things can be misused to terrible effect and loss of life. Senseless, wanton carnage.

The euphemistically titled "construction products industry" keeps pumping out these instruments of death and mayhem with frightening efficiency. They're filling our streets with unlicensed, unregulated weapons that average people shouldn't have in the first place. For what? "Craftsmen"? "Do-it-yourselfers?" I'll say. Take a look at the photo at the top of this article again. Those are some real DIYers, there.

Where is Dianne Feinstein, champion of public safety through regulation, to this end? Just because her long sought restrictions on gun ownership have failed to stem the violence, why should she give up now? By banning or regulating more of these hazardous items, maybe one day we really can turn all our feral psychotics into decent, happy people.
People don't need wood - it causes violence. So make boards illegal, please senator. Then perhaps we will have tranquility and peace in our schools. Do it for Derrion.

Acorn in Meltdown

2009-09-26T22:07:00.001-04:00

Way to go, Andrew Breitbart! Along with the brilliantly clever James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, we're witnessing the spasmic fireworks show of the iniquitous ACORN organization, falling apart and disintegrating before all our eyes. Even "mainstream news" can't gloss this one over neatly enough this time. There is no plausible path by which to ignore en masse on journalistic grounds. The the status quo ante that is rpidly becoming the new status quo is a place without an ACORN organization left operating... in any capacity ... and utterly humiliated and discredited, defunded, anad dropped off all the regular invitation lists in coming weeks.

Beware dying institutions of political advocacy. When they go down, it gets ugly, and it's best to stand clear during the final eplosive meltdown that blows its wicked core to smithereens.

Health Care Reform ... Or Jail?

2009-09-26T10:47:00.000-04:00

After reading this little article, we can distill the message thusly:

If you can't afford health insurance you can 'choose' the government plan.
If you opt to go without insurance THEN you will be fined.
If you cannot (or will not) pay the fine, THEN you could face jail time.

English translation:

Rich people can do what they want.
Poor people must do what the government demands or else face imprisonment

Wow, what - whoa! Hold on here. Ummm... I'm still a bit concered about those "death panels". Can we talk about that again?

Back to the Future

2009-08-14T13:45:00.000-04:00

Ronald Reagan, speaking close to 50 years ago on the government-run healthcare issue. It sounds prophetic. It's simply uncanny...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs

Silly, Unnecessary Freedom of Speech

2009-08-03T10:20:00.000-04:00

More than a dozen of 34 radio stations ordered shut by the Venezuelan government went off the air on Saturday, part of President Hugo Chavez's drive to extend his socialist revolution to the media.

"We haven't closed any radio stations, we've applied the law," Chavez said on state television. "We've recovered a bunch of stations that were outside the law, that now belong to the people and not the bourgeoisie."

"They're closing the space for dissidents in Venezuela," William Echeverria, head of the National Council of Journalists, told RCTV, a private cable TV station, which did not have its broadcasting license renewed in 2007.

Full article here

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

-George Orwell, "1984"

"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain."

-George Orwell, "1984"

...is everybody feeling ... happy? Mr. Glover? Mr. Penn? Hello? Anybody there?

Succinct

2009-08-03T10:06:00.000-04:00

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

Radar, USA Style

2009-06-20T01:41:00.000-04:00

The Sea-Based X-band (SBX) radar platform, referred to obliquely by the news media today. Very few pictures. I wonder why. This monster of a floating radar platform is just stunning. Used to provide high-resolution object tracking for the THAAD anti-missile system. There are a lot of great pics of it here, in quite high resolution, including various stages of contruction: http://eyeball-series.org/sbx1-birdseye.htm

S.Korea sends more troops to N.Korea border

2009-06-12T19:41:00.001-04:00

S.Korea sends more troops to N.Korea border

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Illegal Immigration in San Diego

2009-06-02T17:56:00.000-04:00

Here in San Diego we see a lot of illegal immigration (euphemistically referred to as "undocumented workers" locally). I will be the first to say that the Mexican people whom I have met are extremely hard-working, courteous, and kind people. The effects of illegal immigration (and I stress the word illegal) are well known. California is currently struggling within itself as to what do do with a lot of the economic ramifications tied very closely to the issue.

So it occurred to me, most people who live elsewhere never see the kind of signage we have here. The above image is taken from the I-5 freeway heading south toward Tijuana, just prior to crossing the US/Mexico border. The first time I saw it I was stunned. A warning sign to drivers about families fleeing unexpectededly across the highway? Yep. No joke.

Inventory Time

2009-05-29T00:33:00.000-04:00

"We have so much room for improvement;"

"Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory ... of how we are taking responsibility."

Is everyone ready to provide dear Nancy with their detailed inventories now? Do not delay, lest you risk incurring the wrath of the Barney Frank. I don't even want to go into what that might entail.

A Random Thought

2009-01-08T01:24:00.001-05:00

It just occurred to me. There's something that's really gotta piss off the left-wing, communal, kum-bay-yah, tree-hugging crowd. Something they probably didn't realize.

They're always so busy, toting around their iPods filled with music written by socialistic-thinking musicians. You know, the ones who tell us over and again how capitalism is the bane of utopian bliss.

Surfing the 'net till their eyes bleed, writing on their blogs how evil president Bush is, how America is so wrong. How we've never done anything right, and never will so long as we're beholden to the ideals of a free market. Such an unruly, unregulated behemoth -- it crushes every delicate thing under the mighty wheels by which it advances.

They're texting their cohorts incessently about every annoying minutia of the day. Stuff that couldn't matter less, filling the communications network infrastructure with profit-making data packets that ultimately make the quarterly statements of the familiar industry giants.

It's alright with me if they do these things. Hey, it's great to be able to do all that. What a wonderful technological playground we have in our lives. I don't know how we all got along without it. And for sure, it has opened up the "information age" in ways we barely could imagine only a scant 15 years ago. A blip by any account, when considered in the context of what we would say is modern history.

So what's this silly little thought?

While those folks are busy bashing the military as a factory of evil, they're doing it via the global internet, which was a direct product of our military's research efforts ... we know that better as DARPA, the defense advanced research projects agency. That's a little ironic.

Of course, the military didn't make the net what it is in totality; not at all. It was innovative things laid upon this infrastructure that made it really amazing. Things like the world wide web. And e-commerce.

How did we find all those Starbucks shops without it? Or anything at all, without Google maps?
Or what about the definition of "defenestration" at a moment's notice? Or where to get a good recipe for Swedish meatballs?

Yes, the human need for things of every manner drives the creation of those things, and gives rise to ways to profit from them. It's called free market capitalism, and it made the internet a richly filled universe unto its own. Irony number two.

And it's comes via the network that was spawned from the devil's hand itself - the military research budget.

How can you possibly write any more text messages knowing it's likely going to pass through a communications satellite? Those satellites are directly a result of technology produced in our space program - a race with the Soviets in the 60's to ensure our military and strategic superiority.

Yes indeed, the Code Pink and Daily Kos crowd would have to find this a little hard to explain. Without those cool toys of the 21st century, life would just, well, suck. But you wouldn't catch 'em ditching all that to stand by those leftish ideals. Seriously, now - are you kidding?

All thanks to your wicked US military and the firey hellspawn that is capitalism.

What to do... oh what to do...

A Metaphor for Our Times

2008-11-18T01:35:00.000-05:00

Currently under construction by the corporation of Reid, Pelosi, Frank and Pork. Your tax dollars at work (and hell, all the dollars they're still printing for it, too!)
Thanks to www.failblog.org for this fine photo. Unfortunately this train carries not only deleriously jubilant Obama-supporters, but everyone else, too...

The Fall of Night

2008-11-15T02:10:00.001-05:00

There was so much to say prior to the elections. In the hope that enough people would read, and become educated about what is going on in our country and world, many people said a great many things.

It has been a little more than one week since elections concluded in utter catastrophe. We will of course not know the full extent of the damage which will be done to our country over the coming four years until it has happened. My belief is that the economy will not rebound quickly, and with the nearly omnipotent supervision of democrats throughout the federal government, the suffering will be prolonged.

Expect to lose freedom. Freedom of speech ("Fairness doctrine"), freedom of your puruits of happiness (including "gun control" and "assault weapons ban"); Expect to have less control over your financial choices ("higher taxes, targeted tax breaks") and greatly reduced control over your own medical care.

If you're poor, you can expect to stay that way. You probably voted for democrats, and they'll help keep you in your place, protected like small children from the big, bad wolf.

Republicans will be hailed as evil warmongers who have wrecked the nation and its economy. The solutions proposed will be worse the problems. Then you will be told "it just needs four more years to work".

Expect to pay more for your energy (gasoline, electricity, etc.) as the incoming administration seeks to prevent entrepreneurs from having the economic incentive to build their industries' capacities.
Expect problems overseas to increase, as our enemies got their man for the prez, and they've got a green light in two months or so to kick it up a notch. Which should be easier for them to do once all the "evil Bush" surveillance policies and the resultant secret counter-ops missions are discontinued in favor of "dialogue".

And expect all the rules blown off the table when The Israeli-Iranian conflict finally explodes.

But I'm hopeful that at least all those self-hating liberals will start paying my car payments and rent bills after I've been taxed into poverty. And the medical bills, too. We've got 'em by the bucket-full, so fellow citizens, please pay up so I don't have to!

Ah, Utopia awaits... Until all that nasty bombing in Iran and Israel gets started, anyway. Maybe Utopia Planetia is more appropriately descriptive.

In four years' time, expect the nation's definition of what a truly "hated" president is to come much more clearly into focus. And expect a lot of people who voted for this to learn the true meaning of "buyer's remorse".

2008-11-05T00:56:00.001-05:00

If Obama Wins...

2008-11-04T14:16:00.000-05:00

You're traveling through another election -- an election not only of spin and rhetoric but of partisan madness. A journey into a dystopian land whose boundaries are delineated by massive socialistic bureacracy. That's a voting booth up ahead! Your next stop: The Obama Zone?!!

Could this be what the election night party will look like? "Let us bow in prayer. No, all of you, on your knees..."

"Pray to me!!"

Okay, maybe a little too much late-night rerun TV for me lately...

Khalid Habib Killed By U.S. Forces

2008-11-03T02:25:00.000-05:00

Khalid Habib Killed By U.S. Forces - Planner Of Next al Qaeda Terror Attack

Friday, 31 October 2008

Khalid Habib, the al Qaeda figure believed to be organizing a new terror attack against the United States is dead.

The official says the U.S. now has evidence that Khalid Habib was killed in an unmanned air strike two weeks ago in the South Waziristan region of Pakistan. Until now, there had been no official confirmation of reports of Habib’s death from local militants in the area.

“He was the person responsible for planning and organizing attacks in the Pakistan and overseas, including the U.S.,” the senior official said. “This was a really big deal that has not received much attention.”

Considered the number four leader of al Qaeda, Habib was a long-time associate close to both Osama bin Laden and Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Habib had been reported killed by Pakistani officials several times over the last few years, only to re-emerge at the center of what U.S. official say is the al Qaeda operational command.

Source

In case you missed SNL...

2008-11-03T02:10:00.000-05:00

McCain grinds ahead

2008-11-01T01:58:00.000-04:00

The latest Zogby poll shows McCain +1 over Obama. Completely within the error margin. However, my prediction: if it's polling even, McCain wins. I do not think the folks in the late-deciding political center will break in Obama's favor. I never did, and still don't think that.

It's very interesting to see the variety of polls (and news organizations) saying such dire things about the McCain camp - like it's over already. Clearly, McCain is much more a centrist than Obama (don't laugh - I'm trying to keep a straight face - "Obama" shouldn't be in the same sentence with "centrist"). Who is the middle likely to vote for? Uhhh... McCain?

After Obama's dour and depressing half hour dispair-o-mercial, how many of those folks do you expect he gained? What about how many he turned to McCain? Yeah, I think so, too.

For the first time in a couple weeks, we suddenly are starting to see what looks like the very real possibility of McCain victory. I think this is because the political wind machine is winding down. Biden is hidin' with his mouth duct-taped, and Obama's even tossing press people off his flights now. (would be nice if he'd start doing that in-flight, I'd say.)

My bet, today: Prepare for blood in the streets and burning cars. It's going to be a wild week ahead.

WTF is wrong with you people?

2008-10-29T17:38:00.000-04:00

How can people deliberately arrive at a position of support for Obama's campaign?

Some people just think socialism is great, pehaps because they're emotionally retarded.
Maybe they have an excess of guilt about their own financial success, and feel compelled to have it stripped away by law.
The black community is apparently predisposed genetically to vote democrat, except in sporadic cases that can be attributed to DNA mutations caused by cosmic rays.
Some people are just guilt-ridden and need to vote for the minority candidate to "break out of the mold".
Many of these people are still living with their parents, and want the government to take over after they (the parents) leave the picture.

I've had plenty of my own crises, and still do today. I don't blame any of them on the Bush administration. If anything, the problems I have had (or continue to have) are by my own poor choices. Heck, I can't think of anything in my life to blame Clinton for, except the embarassment he caused us all. Well wait, maybe he signed Feinstein's stupid assault-weapon ban, or was that Bush the elder?

Whatever the reason for their political dysfunction, this is now my official anthem for all of those child-like, glassy-eyed, useful idiots we see at those well-publicized rallies. Let the screams in your heads be the last thing you hear:

What is the LA Times hiding?

2008-10-29T16:44:00.001-04:00

This Khalidi videotape with a side-serving of Ayers must be uncomfortable for the Obama camp, no? Could the Times raise any more suspicion about the content than they already have by refusing to release it? Are you getting the feeling that the news you're getting is being carefully filtered and purified before its distribution?

"we owe reparations to the Iraqi people."

Natural citizen, or not?

2008-10-29T14:53:00.000-04:00

Why does Obama not present a birth certificate, and quash this question about his natural-born status? This is really starting to bother me a lot.

It's an undeniable requirement - natural citizenship - that is explicitly required by our constitution. Do rules matter anymore, or is this another one of those pesky "fundamental flaws"?

What is the big deal in answering this question?

Thanks, Phil Berg, for raising awareness of this. I think that once we have set the precedent - that is that the rules don't really matter as written - well, anything therein can be discounted as obsolete, outmoded, or irrational...

2008-10-29T02:49:00.000-04:00

This is Xander. He's very confused as to why giving his food to the neighbor's cat makes him patriotic..

an OBAMA NATION is an ABOMINATION

Please keep this in mind while voting. Thank you.