Archive for November, 2008

Veteran’s Day 2008

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008

Thank you for your service, vets.

Your Latest Load of Palin Dirt is a Hoax

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008

A popular meme emerged in the latter part of the election season that just ended…”Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?” Perhaps, for those still inclined to look backward, a more appropriate question would be “Do you know enough to oppose Sarah Palin?” Did you ever?

The bathrobe, the yelling, the Africa thing…all made up by some guy who doesn’t even exist. (H/T: Sister Toldjah).

Don’t worry though. The bit about the tanning bed is real. So you have that goin’ for ya, Palin haters.

Memo For File LXXVI

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008

There are four things about people I’ve never been able to figure out. Maybe they’re all related to each other.

1. We Kill God Whenever We Get What We Want

When the very essentials of life require a struggle, and such struggles entail uncertainty, we believe in God. It’s quite unavoidable, you know. It’s said there are no atheists in foxholes; there is some truth in this, but it may be closer to the truth to say there are no atheists on a farm. When every foodstuff and every staple requires effort and every effort involves working waiting and wondering, there has to be prayer. When you pray, you have to send your prayers somewhere.

And then when things are better, and we go too long a time without working waiting and wondering, even for our luxury items…after awhile, God dies. Or disappears. Carrots and cabbages can be had for a ritual, which will be over in fifteen minutes with a quick drive to the corner market and a swipe of the debit card. Cigarettes, too. And candy-coffee. Purified water, tampons, chewing gum, electronic gadgets whose names begin with a lowercase “i” and tote around our personal music collections. Look how smart we are, we don’t have to wonder where we’ll be getting anything. We’re way too smart for God. We think we’ve killed Him, we think this is the result of cool reasoning and logic, but all that’s changed is that the necessity for prayer has momentarily disappeared. And so anybody who still believes in Him, must be a big dummy. Just because we can get sweet coffee drinks with long unpronouncable names whenever we want to.

Saving Your Ass2. We Really Hate Having Our Asses Saved

There’s something going on here that has to do with our own ignorance. We have such a breathtaking and heartfelt gratitude for those who save us from a calamity we know is coming, that we’ve had time to dread. For the savior who spares us from some looming disaster of which we’ve been ignorant the entire time, right up until the danger has passed, we have nothing but spite and scorn. Someone kills a nest of black widows under the equipment your kids play on — if you’ve known about the black widows for a month or two, and haven’t been sure what to do about ’em, you’re all, thankyewthankyewthankyew. If you’re just finding out about ’em, it’s more like, What the hell are you doing in my yard, man? Get outta here. The guy who tells you your tire is flat, just as you’re getting in your car; the guy who calls you on the phone with your wallet in his hand, when you thought it was safely in your pocket. For a single instant there is a flash of inexplicable anger for such well-intentioned strangers — for no good reason. It’s as if, if we refuse to accept the danger, maybe that’ll re-write history so the danger was never there.

Even then…how do you explain the nastiness? Someone saves you from something. Maybe you want to believe in the something, maybe you don’t. If you don’t want to believe in it, and you think you’re right and this fellow who “saved” you is wrong, why do you hate him so? No, don’t give me your pablum about “illegal and unjust war,” etc. George W. Bush is hated by millions upon millions of the people who live in the country he leads; only a tiny fraction among them know anybody serving in the military, let alone anyone who was a casualty. And if they cared about the “Iraqi civilians” one bit they’d have been popping champagne corks over the end of Saddam Hussein’s regime, because when you really care about someone, that’s what you do when they no longer have to live under an oppressive dictator.

It’s the action itself. We have a whole lot of spite for action that takes place early on, in the middle of our debating. When the debating extends past the point where it’s obvious what’s the right thing to do and what’s the wrong thing to do, we get white-hot-pissed at the guy who does what is clearly the right thing while we’re still arguing.

3. We Value Association as an Adequate Substitute for a Workable Plan

It’s true, you know. Once we come together on something, or when we’re even simply invited to come together…no plan is needed. We don’t even need to agree on what the goal is, which is something I’ve always thought of as particularly absurd. How many times does this happen in your daily life. How many times are you told “together…we can do this,” and nobody takes the time or trouble to say a few words about what exactly the “this” is.

It’s quite a simple and durable piece of logic, that if there is a benefit to be realized from laboring on something together, we need some synchronicity here. But the people who are the most enthused about coming together seem to fight any effort to define that. It’s just “this.” We’re all going to work on “this” together.

4. We’re Always Causing the End of the World

This is the one thing on which we’ve been completely consistent, it seems, throughout all of our various civilizations right back to the dawn of recorded history and probably before even that. The end of the world is imminent, and it’s all our fault.

Time was when God was going to get mad at us and figure out His whole experiment was a wash…because of our screw-ups. That was part of the magic, you know — our own culpability, our own sin. Nobody ever trembled at the thought that God might’ve built the human race as a tool, back when He was unaware there was some other resource at His command which would do the same thing, and then one day say to Himself “oh silly Me, this whole thing was unnecessary.” No apprehension that Armageddon would be brought about by some factor completely outside our control. No, the fantasy was always that we caused it. And of course it wouldn’t do to say we’d mess up something that would cause the end of ourselves as individuals, or of our families, or our countries. Nope, never any local damage. That would’ve spoiled the fun. It was always lights-out for the entire human race, with our own fingers on the switch.

Nothing’s changed. Now that God is dead, we have Global Warming. It’ll make the entire planet uninhabitable, and once again…drum roll, please…it’s all our fault.

The millenia tick on by, we believe in God then we don’t, our asses get saved by people we hate…and this stays consistent. We just can’t get away from it.

Happy 233rd Marines

Monday, November 10th, 2008

Thinking of you on your birthday. True guardians never worry about whether or not vigilance is in style. But you made it through basic, you know that.

Thank you.

Democracy’s Fair Weather Friends

Monday, November 10th, 2008

Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can be voted down…but it might go to court over it. It thinks you can be reasoned with. It feels pity, remorse, fear, phony compassion, and tons and tons of guilt. And it might stop, before you are dead. Maybe. Or it might maybe undo you.

Doesn’t have the same ring as Kyle Reese’s classic line, does it?

And yet, the killer robot that “absolutely will not stop, EVER, until you are dead!” engaged in such a spectacular display of wishy-washiness, that a better example I do not believe I have ever seen:

In an appearance Sunday on CNN, [California Gov. Arnold] Schwarzenegger said the state Supreme Court might overturn Proposition 8, the Los Angeles Times reported. He also said it is likely Proposition 8 will have no effect on the estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages already recorded in California.

“It’s unfortunate, obviously, but it’s not the end,” Schwarzenegger told CNN. “I think that we will again maybe undo that, if the court is willing to do that, and then move forward from there and again lead in that area.”

The comments seem to represent a change in Schwarzenegger’s thinking, the Times said. In the past he has said he believes marriage should be between a man and a woman, but he has also said the matter should be decided by voters or the courts and he opposed Proposition 8.

How un-Terminator-ish can you get. He goes on to say backers of same-sex marriage should “never give up,” which fits into the theme of chasing Sarah Connor down until she’s dead, dead, dead. But then again, are the voters deciding this or aren’t they?

The courts have no business intruding on this one. None at all. You might as well declare it unconstitutional to swear in a new President because he’s been palling around with a long list of America-hating asshole friends of his.

How outrageous this is, might perhaps be lost on someone from a different corner of the union…and this is the innernets, with all geographic boundaries rendered obsolete, or mostly so. So let me give some background.

This would still be an outrage, even if the electorate had not voted properly on Proposition 8…which they damn well did. It’s an outrage because our referendum process is an enormous joke in this state. Every election cycle, bond issue after bond issue after bond issue is thrust in front of the voters by gutless politicians who don’t want to take the heat. And then it’s up to Joe Six-Pack in the voting booth to figure out if $165,000,000 is too much for the state to spend on a new water supply system, or light rail system, or raise for the prison guards. On and on it goes. This year, we had, I think, fourteen of these beauties, and that was an exceptionally light year.

I think it’s fair to say the situation’s gotten ridiculous when most people are flipping coins over these matters. And really, California’s there. Been there for awhile.

But nobody, on either side, was flipping a coin over Prop 8.

We are seriously strapped for cash here. Our state is. It raises taxes…businesses move out. The tax receipts fall short, and so the state raises taxes again. Lather, rinse, repeat. We have no damned business spending good money to put propositions on ballots, and then when the votes come back in some way contrary to the wishes of some grand high muckety-muck like our Royal Terminator Governor, deciding hey, that doesn’t count. If it doesn’t count, save some nickels then…don’t put it on the ballot. Don’t ask the question if you didn’t want the answer.

But generally speaking, when a high-profile politican such as Arnold says something, and the FARK kids start going giddy about it and repeating it over and over again, we’re looking at a new meme we’ll be seeing echoed in the years to come. In this case — CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUES SHOULD NOT BE DECIDED BY VOTING. Maybe.

It’s a good thing, for the sake of this argument, that we’re well past the point of deciding anything according to intellectual honesty and logical consistency. Because intellectual honesty and logical consistency are not friendly to this one. If a class of people possesses an attribute that deprives its members of one or several options under our laws, as they now exist, that is a violation of civil rights…and perhaps this should place the matter into the courts auto-magically, with the popular vote of a specific region having absolutely nothing to say about the matter.

Okay. As a dude, I want to have a say on when pregnancies should be continued. Personally. If I get someone pregnant, I want a legally-binding, equal vote. It’s unfair that I’m deprived of this just because of my sex. If you say no, you’re depriving me of my civil rights.

It’s exactly the same logic.

Exactly.

Nope, it doesn’t work that way. Men don’t get pregnant. Homosexuals aren’t “married,” if this is contrary to a regional culture. One-legged guys don’t have a right to kick butts. Women can’t pee in the snow and write their names. Some of us are missing options that are available to others…and that’s just the way things are.

In fact, if every class of person could do everything every other class of person could do, then the classes would lose all meaning. And this is the very last thing desired by those who choose to make an issue out of such things…over and over again. Now, go away. If the people have spoken about President-elect Obama, then surely they’ve spoken about same-sex marriage.

Is Scott Adams Making a Comment About the Incoming Obama Administration…

Sunday, November 9th, 2008

…or is he just trying to come up with a 21st-century version of the Tytler Cycle.

As loyal readers of The Blog That Nobody Reads might’ve predicted, the panel below in particular is by far my favorite. I have captured it and expect to use it very often over the next four years, and of course I shall give proper credit. As if the creator isn’t obvious to the casual observer already.

But boy howdee. You certainly don’t need to wait around for a high-tech project to get a green light, nowadays, to see plenty of this…

If you toss aside the funny papers, and jump to the front page of my local newspaper this morning, you see this already coming to pass. Peculiar nonsensical tidbits morphing into common knowledge. What a challenge the new President Obama has with juggling the economy with a bunch of other things…and some journalistic curiosity, perhaps, about what He’s going to do when He so juggles? Ha! Ha! You should live so long. Nope. A detailed exploration of His racially mixed ancestry, and how good that makes everybody feel. Paragraph upon paragraph about what He is…after a nearly two-year-old campaign in which someone could’ve explored what He’s going to do…but very seldom did anyone anywhere, outside of the right-wing blogs, so explore.

He is all about being, and not about doing. That is His style, that is His schtick, it is His public image. He is something…what He does, nobody knows, and nobody who has a voice is overly curious about that.

Being over doing. He is a leader for our times, after all.

Update: On that note, this cartoon strikes a chord as well. H/T to The Anchoress for finding it:

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

New Hampshire Gets Rid of War

Sunday, November 9th, 2008

Recalling Sally Field’s wisdom…

Renewed optimism for you, Ms. Field. Nancy Pelosi may have disappointed you, but perhaps your prediction will come true up in New England:

New Hampshire’s State Senate is now unlike any in the country and unlike any before it. After Tuesday’s election, women now make up the majority of the New Hampshire State Senate. In an election year that saw Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and Nancy Pelosi grab headlines and airtime across the country, New Hampshire didn’t just vote blue, it voted for women.
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Previously ten women held senate seats out of twenty-four in Concord, but now they hold thirteen.

I wish this meant something.

The problem is, it doesn’t. It doesn’t even say anything about voters in New Hampshire; they could very well have looked at two candidates running and decided one of ’em sucks, and that undesirable candidate just happened to be the only dude, therefore a woman was the best person for the job.

Vicious CycleAnd we know it doesn’t mean the ladies have taken charge of anything. You don’t truly own a project, until and unless a blight upon that project is a blight upon you. One of the drawbacks to term limits in our system of government is that we defeat this attribute of ownership somewhat — all kinds of weeds in the garden are supposed to have taken root under the trowel of the predecessor.

I see it in President Obama. He’ll be mostly blameless for any domestic problems, and completely blameless in anything arising from foreign entanglements. There’s something our print media leaves undiscussed quite often, I see, since it has nothing to do with selling more newspapers — this dulling effect of women and minorites taking charge of things, since there is such an elongated dampening effect over time of their representatives truly taking charge of things. Perhaps that doesn’t apply to the New Hampshire senate. Perhaps there will be a genuine “The Buck Stops Here” attitude. Perhaps if they make the same mistakes the MEN make in the California legislature, they’ll admit it; or even better yet, they’ll have the foresight not to make those mistakes.

But knowing what I know about state-level politicians, I doubt it. And far be it from me to ever infer there’s something about women hobbling them from possessing such wisdom, since many women do — but having it, and keeping it, has nothing to do with one’s sex.

So we’ll just see.

To me, it would be much bigger news if the supply-siders took over a state legislature. The print media has a tendency to let us down, big-time, over this. They’re protected by their very own Constitutional amendment, but if such a thing ever happened, they’d never write about it. What an education that would be.

Streaker Justice

Sunday, November 9th, 2008

Oh my

Sex charge worries streaker in Boulder Pumpkin Run

Now that the general election’s over, let’s get on to more important matters: Justice for the Pumpkin 12.

Recent University of Colorado graduate Eric Rasmussen, 23, is among the 12 runners ticketed Halloween night for indecent exposure after running naked with a wobbly orange squash on their heads along the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder.

If convicted, he and 11 others could be required to register as sex offenders. Like many of the Pumpkin 12, he is finding a lawyer.

Rasmussen said it was his first time streaking. He had a great time – until he saw 12 police awaiting him and 150 other naked people at the courthouse.
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“I was under the assumption there would be safety in numbers – it didn’t occur to me that it would be OK for the police just to take 12 people and disregard the other couple hundred.”

Now that I have some measure of empathy for a stranger looking at this kind of conviction, I must admit — and it pleases me to admit this — I’m ignorant of the details involved. That’s a lifetime, interstate thing, is it not? It would have to be, wouldn’t it?

Folks in the law profession are assuring this fellow that the judge will likely let him off, or at least, not force him to reprise John Turturro’s role in The Big Lebowski. That doesn’t impress me as an adequate protection. I’m sure some judges are wonderful, but I just voted for a couple of judges Tuesday evening, and they were both running unopposed. So who’s swinging that gavel? It seems to all come down to that.

I’m left wondering who’s swinging something else. Who streaks? We live, today, in a time in which hanging a calendar in your private work cubicle with pictures of women wearing tasteful bathing suits is thought to be “going over the line.” So tearing through a public venue in your birthday suit just to be a bad boy, with the curse of Je-soos dangling over your head like the Sword of Damoclese, I guess, would be a result of a) intoxication b) knowledge that you already have to ring doorbells in your neighborhood, and therefore have nothing to lose, or c) profound recklessness bordering on stupidity.

You know, this movie has a judge-scene in it. It’s not likely to invigorate anybody’s faith in the legal system; maybe it should be required viewing at the UC, and in the rest of our colleges.

(Note to self: Scribble down that link somewhere, you’re going to be needing it quite a lot over the next four years.)

Nerds in the Age of Obama

Saturday, November 8th, 2008

I wonder how technology is going to do now. I hear it’s going to get better, more prosperous, better nurtured, more flourishing. Now that we have that Texas cowboy outta there.

I don’t know. I really don’t.

As I say fairly often (moreso in technical circles than here, at The Blog That Nobody Reads)…it’s easy to forget that technology is the process of doing something other than what everybody else is already doing. You cannot con-form and per-form at the same time. And I remember what happened when Clinton got in. Yeah, yeah, e-mail, innernets, etc….you do realize, don’t you, that most of that was protocol, hook-ups, etc.? The technology came along in the years prior.

But I dunno. If there’s a line of people who’ve been disappointed at the state of technology during the Bush years, I’m surely at the head of it. I don’t wanna be an ingrate, but post-2001, we haven’t got squat. A bunch of stuff that hauls around your music collection. Vista. Miniaturization of what we had in the years before…on an impressive scale…and it runs much faster. But still. Oh, and don’t forget the social networking sites. FARK, eBay, eHarmony, Facebook, Myspace, etc. etc. etc. There’s a difference between mixing up stuff you’ve done before with the innernets, Reeses-chocolate-peanut-butter-style…and actually inventing something new.

I’m hungering like Dagny Taggart for the next tidal wave of Wozniak’s and Jobs’. Where’s the guy building an entire industry in his garage. Where’s the guy saying “hey, if you put out this kinda signal, you can make a gadget that does this”…and a zillion onlookers cursing themselves for having not thought of it first.

So we’ll see.

If we’re feelin’ all hopey-changey and hopeful and optimistic and setting new goals for ourselves because The One inspires us to do so — you know, we could start with that. Beats the hell out of unplugging our cell phones from the wall to save the planet from some carbon boogeyman.

The Election Is Over

Saturday, November 8th, 2008

I’m sick of politics.

Sick of politics.

Coffee at SunriseSick of politics.

Sick of politics.

Sick of politics.

Sick of politics.

Sick of politics.

Sick of politics.

Sick of politics.

Sick of politics.

Sick of politics.

Sick of politics.

Enjoy the holidays, everybody. Have fun. Be nice. Give thanks. Drive safe.

It’ll get better.

Update: BUT — if it’s really true that we’re all going to be unified from here on out, going forward; if history records The Chosen One was successful in stopping the fighting, bringing us together, and beginning a new eon of mutual respect and cooperation that started in the very week He first won the election; if it was all a wasteland of bitter snarking and sniping and ankle-biting on both sides, before, and from here on out it really is all love and harmony and hope and mutual adoration (H/T to Ace, via Hawkins)…

I’d like to make a simple request. A request for a somewhat-decent national memory of past events. Not even distant ones. Fairly recent ones. It’s not too much to ask, is it?

Let’s just remember how we got here.

We took the people who are always going to be filled with hate and anger if & when they aren’t in charge, and we put them in charge. We’ll leave ’til tomorrow all the debating about whether that’s a good thing or not, but let there be no confusion. That’s how we got here. That is how we got this “harmony.” Half of us are filled with rage if they don’t get their way, so we let them have what they want. Those are the folks who are all about mutual cooperation and mutual adoration now.

They’re fair-weather friends to it. That isn’t even theory. That’s recorded fact.

Now let’s all say grace together, dine on our Butterball turkeys, drink fine wine, watch the sun rise, and be thankful for each others’ company.

D’JEver Notice? XV

Saturday, November 8th, 2008

File this one under lessons to keep in mind for 2012, I guess.

The theme here is distinguishing a candidate from the left-wing against which that candidate seeks to compete. With the benefit of hindsight, it seems to me if there was one huge letdown among the many, many errors of the McCain campaign, that would have to be the big one right there. Obama talks to you for five minutes, and you hear all kinds of stuff about The Failed Policies Of The Bush Administration, and McCain Voted With Bush Ninety Percent Of The Time. Change, Hope, Hope, Change.

You listen to McCain for five minutes, and you get the impression it really doesn’t matter very much who’s in charge of things.

The intellectual error committed by McCain is really quite simple. You can distinguish yourself from the opposition in your policy approach, and you can distinguish yourself from the opposition on the spectrum of class. These should, by rights, not be mutually exclusive messages…but somehow we got this rule going that if anyone associated with McCain started giving reasons why we’d regret putting Obama in the White House, that would cross the line into an “ugly smear” campaign.

Obama labored under no such burden. And if the onus was ever placed upon him to work with such surgical precision, criticizing-without-criticizing, he’d have easily been able to pull it off. He benefitted throughout the election season from a comfortable disconnect with regard to his gaffe-prone running mate — let alone his slobbering, angry fans. As in, okay maybe that attack on John McCain for his POW status was over the line, but prove The Messiah had anything to do with that. Okay, it was a bad moment to make fun of McCain’s inability to use a computer, when it’s his beatings at the Hanoi Hilton that leave him physically incapacitated…but Obama had nothing to do with that, either. Then someone screams something less-than-diplomatic at a McCain/Palin rally, and McCain Must Apologize. And if nobody screams anything, the press will just make up fancy stories about someone crying “Kill Him!” McCain was connected by default to anyone doing or saying something ugly; Obama was disconnected by default from such things on his side. Meanwhile, if McCain and Palin didn’t go so far as to actively campaign for Obama/Biden, they were somehow “crossing a line.”

All of which meant that McCain had to make the right choice — distance himself from his opponent through policy, or distance himself from his opponent through superior character. Simply put, McCain made the wrong decision. You can’t prove you have superior character to someone whose mind is already made up about you. You certainly can’t prove it when you’re viewed through the lens provided by a third party, who has already made up their mind about you.

It was a futile endeavor. Maybe it would’ve worked if Obama was known for being class-less. But He simply isn’t, and He won’t be. He could rape a hundred girl scouts in broad daylight and the talking point would be that George Bush made Him do it. (Here’s something else…if anybody actually read The Blog That Nobody Reads, I’d have to apologize for that metaphor and then flog myself.)

So the memorandum that emerges with regard to 2012, to be opened and studied by whoever is nominated at that time, is this: Distinguish yourself through policy…not through class. Run a clean campaign, but don’t talk about how clean your campaign is. Keep it to yourself. Let people make up their own minds about you, because they will anyway.

Policy, policy, policy, policy, policy. The template should be one of McCain’s brighter moments — during the debates when he asked “Why would you want to raise taxes on anyone in this economy?” That was good.

Yes, The Walking Luminescence will be running for re-election. His acolytes and minions will begin reverberating with their mindless chatter that you’re going over the line. Let them. It bears repeating: People will make up their own minds, one way or the other. Respect that. Go over the pundits’ heads, straight to the people.

Talk about cause-and-effect, cause-and-effect, cause-and-effect. When you subsidize something, you get more of whatever it is, when you tax something, you get less of it. Repeat that over and over until people associate your name with that sequence of words, and if people think that simple reminder somehow reveals an inner ugliness about you, go ahead and let ’em. Keep it away from the personal, and that counterattack will enjoy no domino effect. I promise.

In fact, mock this little mini-debate about “civil tones” once in awhile. Take it on directly, like Palin did. Talk about making a major purchase of an appliance that is expected to last four years or more, like a television set or a refrigerator, and somehow obsessing over the package in which the appliance was shipped. Then get straight back to cause-and-effect so people are reminded why the appliance itself is far more important. Without admitting you crossed a line. Because you didn’t.

Active on the policy.

Passive on the class.

Show us why you are so spectacularly different on the policy. The debate on the class issue will resolve itself.

If you argue instead that you’re a classy guy, people will just look to The Annointed One to see how classy He is, notice that he sits up straight and smiles so well, and decide He’s the superior one. When you’re the guy who started that debate, the standard imposed on the opposition, is breathtakingly low; if he picks his nose on national TV, but with his pinkie properly extended, alrighty then. That’s class. As to whether that is the most important issue to decide, they’ll see that you brought it up in the first place and make up their minds it was all your idea. And they’ll be right.

The voters were not terribly concerned with policy in this election. They weren’t given too much reason to be.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Batter Up!

Saturday, November 8th, 2008

From Why I Like Kids.

Obamaton’s Comeuppins

Friday, November 7th, 2008


This is a follow-up to what we were discussing last night.

Let’s just clarify a few things here.

 • I am not in favor of anyone losing, or being jeopardized in, their position of employment because of their political beliefs. To clarify further, I wish there were a few more Obamatons who felt so protective of me and people like me. In my experience, that has not been the case.
 • If His Holiness and His Holy Supporters and Minions come up with an idea that will be good for the country, I will sacrifice things to help get it implemented, should such a necessity or opportunity arise. If they come up with some knuckleheaded ideas but at least intend to help the country, I will sacrifice things to help get them educated.
 • I cannot recall seeing evidence of the two scenarios in the previous bullet, having come to pass…not too often. I haven’t seen positive ideas out of them, and I haven’t seen positive intent out of them.
 • This is the House of Eratosthenes, named after a library administrator who paid off some nameless walkin’ dude to pace out the distance between Alexandria and Syene, to figure out the circumference of the earth. In this place, we think what we know; we think what we’ve seen; we think what we’ve computed; we think what we’ve concluded from process-of-elimination. We do not think what we are told to think here! Go to Huffington Post if that’s what you want to see. And so far, all we’ve seen out of Obama and people backing Him, is a lot of dizzy nonsense, a few servings of America-loathing bile, and a great abundance of bullying-around that I should perceive patriotic sentiment in those who’ve shown no evidence at all of any such thing.
 • Thomas Jefferson said if a nation desires to be ignorant and free, it wants what never was and never can be. I say, if you’ve figured out Obama’s the guy for the job and you happen to be well-educated on the facts involved, but you haven’t given any thought at all to how a reasonable mindset could draw different conclusions from seeing the same evidence you’ve seen — you’re still ignorant. By that definition, nearly all Obama supporters are ignorant. I’m calling that out based on what I’ve seen. They’ve digested a nugget of news about WMDs and Iraq, about Hurricane Katrina, about Enron, and from these things they’ve come to a conclusion they should vote for The Chosen One. I don’t begrudge that, quite so much, but too many of them never once considered that some of the things they’ve seen might possibly mean something else. They haven’t pondered it; it never entered their minds. That’s ignorant. You can’t be ignorant and free. Not for long.
 • Just for the record, it is my personal wish this woman gets a good talking to, maybe a written warning, but then is allowed to keep her job. I’m as disturbed about it as the next guy when someone falls into a momentary lapse of judgment, and suffers career-death over it. I don’t think she deserves it.
 • Also for the record, I’m willing to bet a large amount of money that if she was commenting on me, and I was in the situation she’s in now, she would not have the same attitude about me and my job. I think she’d want me to lose my job even if I had not been guilty of exercising horrible judgment about anything. I think she’d want it to happen to me just because. Since I dared to oppose her Messiah.
 • Furthermore, there are a lot of Obamatons just like her who have that same problem. That one, you need not consider to be a “large wager” from me. It is a testament to empirical observation and a chronicling of personal experience.

Obamatons are dangerous. To themselves and to those around them. To many of them are thinking, and behaving, like religious fundamentalists. In fact, in too many cases, that’s exactly what they are.

His Blank Slate

Friday, November 7th, 2008

Because when He was trying to get you to vote for Him and promised that “change,” He very seldom went on to elaborate what kind of change was being offered, did He? Now there’s a tiny bit less reason to ask. You know now.

Wall Street plunged for a second day, triggered by computer gear maker Cisco Systems warning of slumping demand and retailers reporting weak sales for October. Concerns about widespread economic weakness sent the major stock indexes down more than 4 percent Thursday, including the Dow Jones industrial average, which tumbled more than 440 points.

Major indexes have lost about 10 percent since Barack Obama was elected president — a vote preceded by a steep rally — and the losses represent the Dow’s worst two-day percentage decline since the October 1987 crash.

Two ways to look at this.

One: Oh, don’t be a silly goose! He is not the President yet, so He could not have had anything to do with this.

Two: Pretend you’re an investor; He has said He is going to spread the wealth around, which means you can’t accumulate it anymore. Remember, that doesn’t mean it’ll be a little bit tougher to accumulate wealth. He’s not raising the bar, holding investors to a loftier standard, cleaning up the gene pool. He’s going to change laws. He has made His intentions specific and plain.

When you’re an investor, it’s your job to accumulate wealth.

Stock prices are based on the anticipations of the investors, on what kind of job they think they’re going to do, in accumulating that wealth.

It’s just become something of a pointless exercise to even freakin’ try anymore. We’re not all the way there yet, but we just took a huge step. And it had a chilling effect.

One way to get the stock prices up again, might be to define how far we want to go down this road. Uncertainty is bad for the market. If we wanna go all the way — get rid of money, get rid of industry, when you need something you present your citizenship papers and some government agent just hands it to you — then let’s just declare that. If we’re only going halfway, then let’s declare that. If it’s just a li’l dab’ll do ya stuff, a little sprinkling of marxism on our capitalist sundae — then we’ll stop — then declare that.

We haven’t declared squat. Obama is a synonym for uncertainty. He has a completely blank slate, and nobody knows how far He’s going to go with this stuff. Right now He thinks you’re rich if you pull down 250k a year, but no one knows if the line is going to stay up there, or if it’s going to creep down.

He hasn’t had to commit one way or the other. He’s just so wonderful, He has not had to.

When an Obamaton Says Everyone’s Entitled To Their Opinion…

Friday, November 7th, 2008

…they never mean it, and don’t you forget it. That’s the truth, boys & girls. When they say they want a discussion, what they want is an echo chamber, nothing more and nothing less. I’ve not yet seen it fail.

The blogosphere is chock full of weary but optimistic comments from those who share my views, but have more class. The leitmotif is to roll up our sleeves, swallow hard, and find ways to work together.

Sorry. When the party in power has the idea to tax the businesses and people who are responsible for providing jobs to everybody else…and it’s already well established what happens when we do that…I don’t think being a good American has too much to do with bucking-up, sucking-up, and falling in line. I don’t think it has to do with protests or strikes or revolutions or riots, either.

Sure, respect High Holiness as the legitimately elected President of the United States and Commander in Chief. A deeply flawed Commander in Chief. Corrupt, mistaken…one or the other, perhaps both. Talk reasonably about the issue to whoever will listen.

But the policy doesn’t work, and that’s just a fact. It’s provable. It’s been tried. Many times. We know it’s counterproductive…what we don’t know, is the extent of the consequences of giving it one more go.

Obama himself is smart enough to know spreading the wealth does not work. If he isn’t that smart, certainly, more than a few of the people working for him are. Somehow they’ve got loopholes built in so this doesn’t hurt them.

We are not in this together.

And Obamatons do not want a free and open exchange of ideas.

We are not laboring toward the same goals with different methods in mind for getting it done.

No, this is a cold civil war. A war in which the enemy has won the latest battle, and that means if we play by the rules we give them the respect the deserve as the victors of the latest battle. Nothing more, nothing less.

And never ever forget — that is far greater civility than they ever showed when they were out of power. It is far greater respect than anything demonstrated at the Wellstone Memorial.

Some tax policies don’t work. It’s just a fact.

Some strategies of “diplomacy” are tantamount to surrender. It’s just a fact.

Some dialogues are nothing more than a monologue. It’s just a fact.

And calling out a small girl in your class because her daddy’s in Iraq and you want to ridicule what he’s trying to do, is being a classless turd. That’s just a fact too.

H/T: Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler who, true to form, has lots of well-chosen dirty words about the occasion. And a snail-mail address by which you can reach the superintendent’s office of this schoolteacher’s district, to let ’em know what a swell job you think she’s doing.

Heartbeat of Stupid

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

Quoting myself, as I engage in debate about this regular sixteen-year event in which the youngest guy wins the election on behalf of a new generation without offering any good ideas.

Why, I wonder, is this a post-World-War-II thing. Young people have always wanted to go out and make their mark; change the world. This notion is fairly young — that this world-changing should be done by voting, with a large mob of people who are of like mind and similar age, to elect the candidate closest to your young generation, without demanding he define what “change” he’s bringing. A hundred years ago, the whippersnapper with stars in his eyes would talk about what HE is going to do. “And then I’m going to marry that girl! Over there! I just know it!”

Okay, some of that I’m conjuring up from movies, which is always a mistake.

But the point stands. There’s been an insidious attack upon the individual sometime during the 20th century. For all the bluster raining down upon us throughout the generations, it seems, looking back, that is the single most significant political transformation within our shores during that hundred years; the individual doesn’t matter very much. Achievement is something you do after you “come together,” and what exactly it is you do, together with the ultimate effect of it, are just meaningless trivialities.

ABC News is reporting that Obama will inherit a bad economy. That’s some rich spin right there; The Messiah In Chief will milk that one for…well, forever. If we repealed term limits and he was in there for ninety years he’d still be playing that one up: I didn’t screw up anything, it’s the “failed policies of George W. Bush.”

You know what ABC is trying to tell you? Obama won the election, and then the Dow tanked the next day.

That’s highly unusual, you know. It’s sufficiently unusual that it really says something about The Chosen One, and it isn’t good. The market is an emotional construct — but not completely so.

For those who’d care to activate the left side of the brain as we proceed to inspect this…it doesn’t require much inspection at all. There’s not much to inspect, because we don’t know a great deal about what The One will do after His Holy Hand comes off the Bible.

We know things are supposed to be better for everyone because He is going to spread the wealth around. As I’ve pointed out before — we’re not that young of a nation. We’ve spread the wealth around before. Always, a generation or two have to pass on by before we think it’s a good idea worth trying again. If it worked out okay, we’d just start doin’ it and stick with it. That didn’t happen.

We also know he’s going to tax the snot out of any company involved with producing oil, so that we pay less for gasoline. Now, remember: We’re thinking with the left brain here. Cause and effect. Facts and conclusions. Reason. You make it more expensive for a company to do business, and the price of the product that company produces, comes down? Come again?

And we know universal healthcare is coming. A lot of other countries have universal healthcare. American patients who need medical care, are not going there to get it. The people who live there, come here.

He’ll end the war no matter what. Wars are ended through negotiation and coordination involving both sides. The point of decision is part of those negotiations. You don’t walk into them with your own commitment already in hand, written up, ready to be tossed on the table. When one side decides to end the war without any concessions from the other, they have a name for that: Surrender.

Other than those…well, if we’re tuning out passions and just sticking to logic and reason, the bottom of the barrel’s been scraped hasn’t it? We’re down to how young and handsome and charismatic he is, and “there’s just something about him!” and tingling feelings in the leg and (planted) schoolgirls fainting when he speaks at those rallies of his…and hope…and change.

And I guess, in 2024, we’ll be doin’ it again. By which time Obama will look like a silly old buffoon, like Bill Clinton, and all the “young” people who voted for him. Well there is some satisfaction in that.

But this isn’t a timeless trend, this heartbeat of stupid. It has an origin, and if you go back in time before that origin, it isn’t here yet. Therefore, it must have a terminus somewhere. How is that brought about, that’s the question. This is still a wonderful, mighty nation that can survive an onslaught of underqualified, lackluster leaders, even in the White House. But it doesn’t deserve to be condemned to an endless, pulsating supply of ’em.

Compassionate Conservatism

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

Melissa Clouthier doesn’t want the phrase to be used anymore.

You know what? I’m gonna go ahead and agree with that one. The event Tuesday night could be regarded not so much as a final burial of President Bush’s legacy, but more like a final burial of the dreaded and dubious c.c.

It certainly is a legitimate argument to present, and worth pondering, that c.c. was the primary target of the referendum Tuesday night. Lessee…President Bush was the universal pariah, no question about it. Liberals just plain hated him because of the “R” after his name, plus that whole cowboy smirk/swagger thing. Conservatives recoiled from the ballooning budget. Didn’t hear too much, in 2008, about “thousands of soldiers killed and no WMD.” That doesn’t seem to be the hot topic of the hour. Not post-surge. It’s more all about financial issues. Our government spends too much freakin’ money.

What Happened to Smaller Government?The “compassionate” part of compassionate conservatism, seems to have something to do with making it spend even more. It could be about something else; but I don’t think so. Like President-Elect Obama, it has little definition because it needs little — its intellectual appeal, what there is of it, lies in the fact that its name has been repeated over and over again. It is therefore up to each individual paying attention to form his own understanding of what it is.

And I think it is this: An organized response to what took place in our nation’s political scene, pre George W. Bush. Pre Clinton, actually. Back in the Tip O’Neill days. This is the problem, for which compassionate conservative was formulated as the solution. At least, in my mind…

The most eye-opening civics lesson I ever had was while teaching third grade. The presidential election was heating up and some of the children showed an interest. I decided we would have an election for a class president. We would choose our nominees. They would make a campaign speech and the class would vote.

To simplify the process, candidates were nominated by other class members. We discussed what kinds of characteristics these students should have. We got many nominations and from those, Jamie and Olivia were picked to run for the top spot.

The class had done a great job in their selections. Both candidates were good kids. I thought Jamie might have an advantage because he got lots of parental support. I had never seen Olivia’s mother. The day arrived when they were to make their speeches. Jamie went first. He had specific ideas about how to make our class a better place. He ended by promising to do his very best. Every one applauded. He sat down and Olivia came to the podium. Her speech was concise. She said, “If you will vote for me, I will give you ice cream.” She sat down. The class went wild. “Yes! Yes! We want ice cream.”

She surely would say more. She did not have to. A discussion followed. How did she plan to pay for the ice cream? She wasn’t sure. Would her parents buy it or would the class pay for it. She didn’t know. The class really didn’t care. All they were thinking about was ice cream. Jamie was forgotten. Olivia won by a landslide.

Every time Barack Obama opens his mouth he offers ice cream, and fifty percent of America reacts like nine year olds. They want ice cream. The other fifty percent know they’re going to have to feed the cow.

Compassionate conservatism was a response to this. It was, from the beginning, a solution in search of a problem because orthodox conservatism already had two good responses.

It used to be the response was something like “You’re Americans, and Americans are better than this.” That worked. It meant people should work, get back up again after being knocked down now and then, do things every day a little bit better than they did ’em the day before — in the land of opportunity, sooner or later they’d have their ice cream. Well, Vietnam took care of that, and then Watergate really took care of it. People don’t want to be lectured about decency, from people they know to have done indecent things.

And then, with the Reagan era, people were persuaded to understand the difference between freedom and coercion when it came to helping others less well-off. The Gipper had an easygoing charm and a soft, non-militant adoption of Ayn Rand principles — people saw this, and saw the logic. The light went on. When you labor under state-imposed requirements to remit funds that the state will then, in turn, remit to others…this does not make you a decent person.

This second wave seems to have just kinda gone-somewhere. Nobody’s been able to define what exactly happened to it. Logically, it should’ve worked; historically, it did; it seems it was ultimately defeated by attrition. The younger voters do not like to cast their first ballots over a lifetime, in a landscape in which problems have been solved. They do not like to believe that. The younger generation always wants to believe everything that could’ve been screwed up, has been, and it’s up to them to fix it.

And anyway, since Reagan’s election, the democrat party put up so many “Olivias” to give away ice cream. One of them was named William Jefferson Clinton. Politicians like to solve problems with politics first, you know…you knew that, right?

And so, that second-wave argument didn’t work anymore. Enter the solution in search of a problem. Compassionate conservatism.

Roughly translated:

Hey, let’s have our side give away ice cream too!

The rest is history…and so, today, we find ourselves in the aftermath of Election Day 2008. Compassionate Conservatism. Coffin. Nail. Hammer. Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang.

The lesson is a rather simple one. Actually, there’s more than one lesson. First of all — Reagan had it right. You can’t legislate a nation into a state of decency, into feelings of compassion, into caring for others less well-off. These things do not come from a nation’s laws, for the concept of requiring a citizenry to turn over their production to the tax man is antithetical to real charity and compassion. It has to be voluntary or else it doesn’t count.

Secondly: Any principled movement in politics, is monolithic or else it is nothing. You do not compromise these and then expect to prevail over the long term, because by compromising, you’re admitting that the other side is probably correct. This makes it look like you’re trying to snooker someone, even if that isn’t really the case. Think of going out camping and then getting into that argument over whether the driest tinder should be gathered for the campfire, or is it alright to dump any ol’ mossy mess in a pile and try to set it ablaze. You do not say “dry wood burns the best, but in a spirit of compromise let’s gather up some stuff that is kinda sorta wet.” If you know you’re right, and you have the interests of the camping party at heart, you would not be making such a concession. Makes you look like a flim flam man.

That’s the lesson for the Republicans from this one. They tried to put together their own program for giving away ice cream, and in so doing eradicated the meaningful distinction between themselves and the other guys. This has always mystified me about national politics. Compromise, to me, might make some good sense when you’re not in office yet, and you’re trying to get there. Once you’re in, I have the sense that politicians are not too much aware of exactly how rapidly the electorate becomes tired of ’em — it makes far less sense to expunge the defining differences between yourself and the other guys, when you’re in there, being talked-about every single week, with your welcome being a little more thoroughly worn-out by the minute.

So let’s bring the whole compassionate-conservatism train wreck to a halt, right here and now. Real compassion is voluntary. You can’t require someone to be compassionate. And government with regard to domestic matters, no matter what the issue being discussed, is all about force. It has nothing to do with anything that’s elective, and therefore is entirely removed from any discussion about what innately good people we are, or aren’t. Compassionate conservatism is illogical, causes far more problems than it solves, is more expensive than anything we can afford, and politically, over the long term, doesn’t work anyway.

If bodies are to be tossed overboard on the Republican ship, they can start with that bloated carcass right there. Within the realm of American politics, it emerges eminently as the big boondoggle of the new milennium.

Not In It For The Attention, Mind You… XXIV

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

…but blogger friend Gerard picked up a tiny sliver of one of our ramblings that he thought was worthy of repetition. We did not think so in the moment in which the snippet flowed from our undulating fingertips, and we still did not think so when we went snooping ’round the “blogosphere” this morning to see the reactions to last night’s Big Event. But when we saw it snipped out and hung up in his sidebar, we had to admit that, once again, our older and wiser friend was correct and we were wrong.

It’s a good ‘un, alright.

People will flock, like moths to flame, to a way of showcasing some inner decency that is costless.

One the one side of the spectrum is laying down on a plank of wood so a bunch of Roman assholes can nail your hands and feet to it, and hang you on it all afternoon until you’re dead.

On the other side of the spectrum is voting for Barack Obama.

On the cross-hanging side, you have something nobody does willingly.

On the voting-for-Obama side, you have something “everybody” does. In fact, that’s really about the only good thing they themselves can say about the decision they made. Popularity. Togetherness. They stuck it out and battled a boogeyman…whom now, logic and reason must doubt was ever there in first place.

On the cross-hanging side, the inner decency is undeniable, for the side-benefit of having people squawk away about what a swell guy you are, surely must be discounted as a motivating factor. That’s a true sacrifice. It was done for the benefit of others and not to get props.

On the voting-for-Obama side, it is the childlike hunger for positive strokes from others, that is undeniable…it is the concern for others, that must be exposed to scrutiny, question and skepticism. We know they did it “to be a part of this thing” and to exchange high-fives with others who were part of it. We heard them say it all year long; last night, we saw ’em doing it. We don’t really know if they were motivated by anything else.

History is just, and ironic too. Those who act solely out of a desire for thumbs-ups from total strangers, deprive themselves of any other benefit, and soon lose that as well. Those who sacrifice their personal well-being out of a desire to make things different for the total strangers in a positive way, and not to showcase this inner decency, end up showcasing it — and they receive the thumbs-up denied to others, that didn’t even motivate them.

Let December 25th be a reminder of this powerful irony. Because that’s exactly what it is.

We now return you to the pre-coronation festival of Ozymandias.

Best Sentence XLVII

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

The 47th Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately (BSIHORL) award goes out tonight to FrankJ…who clinches this, actually, with four sentences. Plus a headline too. It’s a glitch we’ll have to learn to tolerate, as we learn to tolerate something else far less tolerable, so that should make it easy.

Hey, Europe!
Posted by Frank J. on November 4, 2008 at 9:44 pm

So how many black leaders have you elected?

Yeah, I thought so. So shut up.

Racist crackers.

When I Start Running This Place

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

Now seems as opportune a time as any to beef up my list…because once we’ve put up with President Obama for four years, the country will be about as ready for my special brand of leadership as it ever has been before. By the fourth quarter of 2012, I figure President Obama’s definition of a rich person will be someone making double-digits an hour, or more. Somewhere in that neighborhood. He’ll be smackin’ a luxury tax down on the kid who cooks your fries.

So we’re up to…what…forty-three things. I just came up with a 44th when I was waiting in line to buy my lunch, looking at all the glossies and tabloids.

We need truth in advertising in our glossies and tabloids. Good Housekeeping doesn’t have much to do with good housekeeping. There’s nothing cosmopolitan about Cosmo. People is all about really strange people; I don’t know any people like those.

We’re in the mood to regulate things, huh? Let’s start there.

You aren’t teaching any of your female readers 105 ways to please their men in bed that night, so stop printing things on your cover implying you are.

And the titles have got to go. When I am Dictator Of America For Life, the glossies have tightly regulated titles…maybe it’s more accurate to say tightly stenciled titles.

Pick one of the following:

 • Hollywood sluts in really nice clothes;
 • Hollywood bitches in really nice clothes;
 • Hollywood whores in really nice clothes;
 • Hollywood termagants in really nice clothes;
 • Hollywood trollops in really nice clothes;
 • Hollywood hookers in really nice clothes;
 • Hollywood tramps in really nice clothes;
 • Hollywood strumpets in really nice clothes;
 • Hollywood floozies in really nice clothes…

…I’ll give my thesaurus imagination a really good workout thinking up some more, because as a benevolent dictator, I think I owe it to the noble supermarket-glossy-mag industry to cast my net of ideas far and wide — to capture the true spirit of intellectual diversity that is the hallmark of those who sell overpriced paper-petroleum products to bored shoppers who don’t want to admit to having bought ’em.

If you see any articles in an overpriced glossy mag you don’t want to admit to having bought, that falls outside of the exhaustive list above, do let me know so I can produce a quick update. Well, you know. Anything outside those cantaloupe/blackberry recipes.

Not that I’ve ever personally bought one, or anything.

Goin’ John Galt

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

Dr. Helen discusses the ramifications with Roger Simon and Bill Whittle. This is somewhat valuable as your video-Cliff’s-notes for Atlas Shrugged, if you haven’t read it already. Which you should, of course.

Yeah you have to install an ActiveX control, and they use the word basically quite a lot…which I hate. But it’s a clip far more educational than most.

These All Come Down Off the Web Now, Right? Since Everyone Likes Us Now?

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

To Remember in the Dark Days Ahead…

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

1. We will get through this. America’s brightest days are still ahead. They just won’t happen with this person, or anyone from his party, in that office…that’s all.

2. Our government is restricted from establishing a state religion. It is also restricted from infringing on any free expression thereof. So long as atheism is not enshrined as the official state religion, this is still America.

3. Regarding Point #2: You are not obliged to agree with President Obama about anything. That’s not what this election was about.

4. If you believe in something, you believe in all of it. You do not compromise on any of it, because if you do it calls into question every other article of your beliefs — even the things on which you did not compromise. That’s the McCain error here, I’m afraid.

5. The mistake the country made tonight, is part of a growing process. Keep your frustration with the child, in the moment, but retain your hope for the grown-up he’ll someday become. The electorate will learn.

6. McCain has been a class act from beginning to end. To a fault. Yes, there are narratives to the contrary. They seem to be true, because they are repeated so often. They have been repeated so often, because they needed to be. That’s the funny thing about class…down in the marrow of their bones, people truly appreciate it, but skin-deep, they’ll abandon it pretty quickly when it’s convenient. Class makes the mistake of making itself a costless enemy.

7. Tomorrow’s another day. We had to get this out of our system. Because we are not color blind. The people who make the most noise about desiring an era of color-blindness, are the ones who least desire to see it come about. This is intuitively obvious to everyone paying attention: A white guy named “Barack Hussein Obama” who’d never accomplished anything of note, with a menagerie of America-hating asshole friends, wouldn’t even have gotten this thing out of the gate. Yeah, go ahead and crucify me, Ferarro was right. Leave me alone — go take it up with the people who decided that way, for the reasons they did. Your issue is with them.

8. President Obama will be the most powerful President ever, since he’s promised absolutely nothing even while promising everything. Truly, he writes on an entirely blank slate as he writes his own legacy. But to repeat Point #1: This too shall pass. He’ll be our commander-in-chief for four years, or eight, and when it’s all over it’ll be another lesson, nothing more. Our country will survive in spite of him.

Lessons from the 2008 Election

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

1. Moderation is quite futile. People say they want it; they really don’t. McCain has been stabbed in the back by every single interest group, every single sect, every faction and sub-faction, with whom he ever compromised by “reaching across.” Had he compromised on his pro-life principles and compromised with the pro-death forces, he would’ve surely been stabbed in the back by them as well.

2. High-profile public figures can possess a powerful sex appeal and still win elections — if they’re male. So many have stepped forward to qualify their personal dislike for Sarah Palin; they’ve all done a thoroughly substandard job of this, clearly offering surface excuses for something strikingly different, churning away in the depths below. Seriously — has anyone, anywhere, been harboring long-standing animosity against women who go moose-hunting? Nope. This wasn’t about moose-hunting. In national politics, chicks can have one of the two: Frumpy or dead.

3. For some reason, people think the best about a vote cast in favor of a black guy against an old guy. I’d sure like to have someone explain that one to me. I’ve heard some frighteningly disgusting things about old people, from some of the Obama supporters I know.

4. People will flock, like moths to flame, to a way of showcasing some inner decency that is costless. Costless, meaningless, and insubstantial. I tremble for my country when I reflect that if people envisioned themselves as truly decent, such a gimmick would not be so attractive to so many of them.

5. When I visit the ocean, the salt air clears my head, makes it easier for me to think clearly. It would appear that when you actually live there, prolonged exposure induces the opposite effect.

6. Someone — PLEASE — explain to me where this notion came from that we have a problem with not enough people voting in this country. How’d that start? Who started it? And how, pray tell, did it catch on the way it did?

7. Coming-together is a nectar that satiates our appetites when we hunger for a logical plan. It is a more-than-adequate substitute…for the moment. Rather like having a fifth of vodka for dinner.

8. Democracy’s weakness is that a lot of people believe in it, only when it returns the results they wanted. It has too many fair-weather friends. This is ultimately what is going to kill it.

9. Some people love to feel oppressed, if the time is right for it. Obama’s infomercial showcased a family that’s having a tough time makin’ it…a family filled with children, in a huge house. The wife showed off the affection she has for her brood, with the etchings of her children in the rear window of her SUV. This fairly petite woman had to point up at the etchings in the window of the SUV. And the SUV…yeah, you guessed it, she was bitching about gas prices. We’re ready for a modern Rome-like fall, because we value empathy more highly than we value ingenuity. At least, today, we do.

10. Last but not least. We don’t think that highly of a temporary government. We’re ready for a king. And the very picture of the king we want, is the Wizard of Oz…the “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” scene. In a popularity contest, transparency kills. We aren’t big fans of transparency. Making use of transparency means someone has to look. Looking means studying. Studying is work.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be. — Thomas Jefferson.

Closing with a repost of a clip. I’m going to call her “Ms. Election 2008,” because to me, that’s who she is. She is the symbol of this night. A little bit of hopenchange…and no necessity for critical thinking.

Hope someone sticks a microphone in her face again when she finds herself having to pay for gas and mortgage after January 20.

May Our Lesson Be Cheap

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

Carter, Clinton, Obama. We need to re-learn this, it seems, over and over again, every sixteen years. Like clockwork. Like a heartbeat of stupid.

Best Sentence XLVI

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

The Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately (BSIHORL) award for this evening goes, once again, to Dr. Thomas Sowell…and the entire column linked is just like this. Go read.

But after thoughtful consideration, it emerged that this has to be the jewel in the crown.

For someone who has actually accomplished nothing to blithely talk about taking away what has been earned by those who have accomplished something, and give it to whomever he chooses in the name of “spreading the wealth,” is the kind of casual arrogance that has led to many economic catastrophes in many countries.

Old people like me enjoy getting a few licks in against the younger set, now and then, with snide time-honored witticisms such as “you should really solve all the world’s problems while you still know everything.” Our critique is against those young adults who possess certainty the same way a baby rattlesnake’s teeth possess sharpness…through a lack of past exigency that would otherwise have somewhat worn it down.

The targets of our snarkisms have ideas that will not work; they are inexperienced. They’re young.

Barack Obama is in his late forties.

So what’s his excuse?

For the Obamatons

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

I do believe this nation has not ever seen, going back all the way to that stuffy summer in Independence Hall, a strain of citizen less enlightened, less intellectual, less curious, less skeptical, less introspective, less scrutinizing, than the Obamaton. So if you know one or two of ’em…it’s highly unlikely they’ll ever read this — certainly unlikely they’ll read it before voting tomorrow.

They know what they know. They wanna do what they wanna do. They’re like your kid sister who waits until you start your shower before knocking on the bathroom door right that very instant because they gotta go RIGHT NOW. They want what they want when they want it. They are the living, breathing model of the unthinking human who makes every decision by vibe.

But what the hell. Let’s run it. Give ’em a chance to prove me wrong. The stakes are high.

 • One question about Obama that has never been satisfactorily answered is “What has he ever accomplished?” The best his supporters can come up with is “He was elected to the U.S. Senate.” So was John McCain … several times. Besides, take a look at his election. He had two opponents self-destruct with scandal. The GOP had to go to Maryland and talk Alan Keyes into moving to Illinois to run against Obama. Trust me, that win was no sterling accomplishment.
 • Don’t argue with me here. You’ll lose. There is NO constitutional right to vote in a presidential election. We’re going to learn in a few days just how smart our founding fathers were in this regard.
 • Obama is a product of the Chicago political machine. Several times during his political career Obama had a chance to either cast a vote or make a statement against the corruption that permeates Chicago’s machine. Never – not on one occasion – did he do so.
 • The fact is, Obama has benefited from corruption (Tony Rezko?) but has never fought it.
 • Do you know how Obama won his first election in Illinois? He had campaign operatives go to the voting office and work hundreds of hours pouring over petitions to have his opponents thrown off the ballot. I guess that means that this is the first real election battle he’s ever been in!
 • I guess it’s just me, but all this time I thought that the government used its power to seize property … i.e., to tax … in order to fund the necessary and appropriate functions of government. Now, under Obama, we’ve learned that one of the appropriate functions of government is to take from those who have and give to those who have not. I prefer a different phraseology: Take from those who achieve, and give to those who achieve not. Karl Marx was of a like mind.
 • Obama’s “spread the wealth around” mantra means that he believes that we do not leave our homes every morning to work for ourselves and our families. We leave our homes to work for the government. We belong to government, not to ourselves. The government will determine how much of the money we earn we deserve to keep .. the rest goes to people the government believes to be even more deserving of the fruits of our labors.
 • Obama’s candidacy would have faltered before an educated electorate. Why do you think Democrats love government schools so much? Do you want examples? I’ve got examples.
 • Obama says he’s going to give tax cuts to 95% of Americans. Americans don’t realize that over 40% of their numbers don’t pay income taxes; and since they don’t realize that, they aren’t asking themselves how Obama can give a tax cut to someone who doesn’t pay taxes.
 • Obama has effectively change the definition of “tax cut.” From now on any government handout to any worker is a tax cut. Changing this definition may well be one of their greatest accomplishments in this election and that new definition will cause us problems for decades.
 • Obama constantly rants about those dirty corporations who shipped “our jobs overseas.” An educated voter knows that those jobs belong to the employers, not the employees. Workers look for jobs. Employers with jobs look for workers. Pretty simple, really.
 • Obama also tells us that 95% of small businesses out there will not have their taxes increased. The only reason this line works is because our government educated voters cannot grasp the idea that it isn’t the percentage of small businesses hit with tax increases that counts; it’s the percentage of small business employees represented by the unfortunate 5% that counts. Tomorrow thousands of workers – perhaps tens of thousands of workers – employed by what we call “small businesses” will cast a vote that, a year or so down the road, will cost them their jobs.
 • Over the weekend Obama promised to bankrupt the coal industry if they tried to build any more coal-fired power plants. Can any of you think of a time when any president has ever made an overt threat to bankrupt a large American industry?
 • Obama says that his “cap and trade” policy for controlling greenhouse gas emissions is going to cost electricity prices to “skyrocket.” Oops … there goes some of that middle class “tax cut.” Guess he’ll have to transfer some more wealth to help his constituents pay the increased price.
 • There are literally millions of Obama supporters out there who think that once Obama becomes the president their lives are going to become sweetness, roses and light…
 • Remember Obama’s 30-minute infomercial? If a foreigner with no knowledge of our country or our people were to see that program they would think that America was a country mired in abject misery and depravation. Thanks, Obama, for the nice positive message.
 • How long after the election, whether Obama wins or loses, do you think it will take for that America-hater Jeremiah Wright to surface?
 • The top 10% of income earners in this country pay over 70% of all income taxes. The top 1% of income earners earn around 19% of all income, but they pay almost 39% of all income taxes. When these people don’t want to give up a larger share of their earnings Obama call’s them “selfish.”
 • When someone is content to sit on their butts and wait for Obama to transfer some wealth from someone else to their pockets they are not “selfish.”
 • Every one of the points I am bringing up here is “hate speech” to an Obamacon.
 • The great Democrat goal is to have more than 50% of the voters living, at least in part, on the efforts of the minority of voters. When we pass that tipping point … and we’re nearly there … game over.
 • In every election since 1952 Democrats have told the voters “vote for the Republicans and they’ll take your Social Security away.” In every election after 2008 the Democrats will say “Vote for the Republicans and they’re going to make you pay taxes.” Then if Obama wins again, in every election after 2012 Democrats will say “Vote for the Republicans and they’ll make you pay for your own Social Security and Medicare.” How long before we hear: “Vote for the Republicans and they’ll make you work for a living!”
 • Obama will definitely destroy your right to be armed outside of your own home for your own protection. The question is whether we count the time until he accomplishes this in days, weeks, months or years.
 • Do you see now why politicians, especially Democrats, aren’t fond of the FairTax? Without playing his tax scam and wealth envy card Obama would have been toast by Super Tuesday.
 • Surveys in Israel show that 76% of Israeli citizens want McCain to win. American Jews will vote for Obama by pretty much the same percentage. What do Jews in Israel know that Jews in America do not?
 • Peter Nicholas is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He has been traveling with Obama for almost the entire campaign. Nicholas writes “After all this time with him, I still can’t say with certainty who he is.” Nicholas doesn’t know him, but so many voters are so sure they do.
 • Obama wants a national civilian security force that, in his words, is “just as strong as our military.” Who would they serve under? What would their mandate be? Would they be unionized? (oh HELL yes!). Would this be like the Soviet Union under Communism where neighbors ratted on neighbors for anti-government statements? And what does he mean “as strong as our military?” Would this national civilian security force have nukes? Tanks? Fighter planes? Are we just talking about a glorified national police? (Show us your papers!)
 • Obama has talked about reducing spending on our military. One leading Democrat Senator has suggested a 25% spending cut on defense. Do you feel comfortable with that? You do know that all of the savings would be spent on buying votes, don’t you?
 • Do you home school your children? Obama has called home schooling a fraud. Put him in office and you’ll be putting your kids back in government schools for their indoctrination.
 • Do you run a small business? If Obama wins start planning immediately to lower your work force. The best way to do this would be through efficiency measures and temporary staffing agencies. Not only is Obama going to make it easier for your workers to unionize … he’s going to expand onerous measures such as the Family Leave Act. You will end up paying your employees a good portion of their salary to lay out for weeks on end.
 • Maybe you shop at Wal-Mart. Get ready for higher prices. Obama’s instant unionization bill will surely result in the unionization of Wal-Mart’s workforce. In fact, as much as Democrat politicians hate Wal-Mart, it’s safe to say that Wal-Mart is target number one. The result? Higher prices for you. If Obama can call a government handout a tax cut, we can call higher prices a tax increase. This will be Obama’s tax increase on the poor and the middle class.

I’d like to add a couple to this list.

First of all, the more potent one. It’s become a foregone conclusion that the democrat party will hang on to both houses of Congress. Hillary is even hoping for a filibuster proof Senate. You knew that, didn’t you?

Main Street America…not blue-state America, not red-state America, but centrist, middle-of-road, salt-of-earth America…is leery of one-party rule. And rightfully so. This is the wedge to be driven between democrat party bosses, and the people who would vote for them.

The democrat party wants that point-of-commitment to pass on by. They want the power locked in, so that nobody can take it away, even after people yearn for a resurrection of the checks-and-balances process that has been surrendered. What’re they hidin’. That’s the question.

According to American tradition, if the democrat party is going to have this kind of commanding lock on the legislature — Obama must lose the election. For the good of the nation. Yeah, it’s an uphill battle to try to get the message across to Main Street USA that Sarah Palin might not be that dim, or that Joe Biden might not be that bright — but no salesmanship is required for the idea that power should be shared. People understand that value. It’s one of the few articles of the true American legacy that has survived as well as it has, for this long.

That’s the first thing I’d like to add.

Here’s the second.

It has to do with Obamaton Number One…Sen. Barack Hussein Obama Jr. That guy and his curiosity, or lack thereof.

I’ve been hearing, like a constant drumbeat, for eight solid years now — that George W. Bush is a spectacularly non-curious executive. It’s become quite the popular talking point, and what this depends upon, but is often unstated, is that this is a primary consideration in declaring him undesirable. People in positions of power should be curious…so we’ve been told. They should be nuanced thinkers, we were told four years ago. They should show a willingness to change their viewpoints from time to time, to comport with newly refined or discovered evidence.

Whatever happened to that?

Can anyone name for me a single instance in which Sen. Obama has showed this quality of curiosity? I’m not talking about very much curiosity at all…I’m not even talking about sincere curiosity. The first sentence of this paragraph is a great example of my inquiry — here’s a spec of something I’m waiting to see, does anybody have a lump of evidence that will fill it. That’s what I wanna see out of Obama’s mouth.

When’s he ever talked like that?

I saw him call for a dialog ONE time — and that wasn’t even sincere. He was supposed to be asking for a “dialog on race.” He didn’t want it. He didn’t follow through. He was just trying to rub out the tracks leading to Jeremiah Wright…drag a red herring across the trail…and it worked. No dialog ensued, nor was one ever supposed to.

Since then, he could’ve “called for a national dialog on” a whole litany of other things as well. He doesn’t work this way. He doesn’t want a dialog on whether we’ll do better as a country if & when wealth is spread around. It’s just the same nonsense he always spews…Barack’s made up his mind. Barack says this is the way it is. And you’d better believe it’s going to keep working that way after he lifts his hand from the Bible on January 20.

In short, there’s no reason whatsoever to think we’ll be hearing about President Obama looking into the possibility of doing this, that, or some other damn silly thing. There’s been no sign that Joe Biden has had any input on any of these things…or Michelle Obama…or even Rev. Wright. It seems to be just Barack pulling things out of his butt. So that’s the way it’ll work. He’ll just announce this is the way it is. Obama says this thing is good and that thing is bad. He woke up that morning, and decided it.

Curiosity.

Whatever happened to all that hunger we were supposed to have for it?

Higher Pitch

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

I was doing three seemingly unrelated things that got me to thinkin’. The first was to re-read Gerard Van der Leun’s excellent piece about the American Castrati

If you focus on it, you realize that you hear this voice every day if you bounce around a bit in our larger cities buying this or ordering that, and in general running into young people in the “service” sector — be it coffee shop, video store, department store, boutique, bookstore, or office cube farm. It’s a kind of voice that was seldom heard anywhere but now seems to be everywhere.

It is the voice of the neuter .

I mean that in the grammatical sense:
“a. Neither masculine nor feminine in gender.
“b. Neither active nor passive; intransitive,”

and in the biological sense:
“a. Biology Having undeveloped or imperfectly developed sexual organs: the neuter caste in social insects.
“b. Botany Having no pistils or stamens; asexual.
“c. Zoology Sexually undeveloped.”

You hear this soft, inflected tone everywhere that young people below, roughly, 35 congregate. As flat as the bottles of spring water they carry and affectless as algae, it tends to always trend towards a slight rising question at the end of even simple declarative sentences. It has no timbre to it and no edge of assertion in it.

The second was listening to my own voice upon stumbling across an old video, in which I teach my son to ride a bike without training wheels. I’m not talking like a Castrati, thank God. My declarative sentences are indeed declarative. It’s the pitch. Slightly diffferent from what I use talking to grown-ups. Or even him, and his friends, in different settings. Somehow, when little kids are scared out of their wits, we’re indoctrinated to try to defuse the situation by altering the pitch. Just a fraction of an octave. Why do we do that? It doesn’t calm me down when a woman is addressing me and the pitch of her voice goes up.

The third thing I did was just wander around Folsom. It’s a kid-friendly place. The patchwork-quilt of folsom is polka-dotted with parks of varying size, and being a parent myself I get to watch lots of parents interact with their children.

This last part is a little disturbing.

Fathers…and mothers…modulate their voices way, way upward. Several octaves in the case of the gentlemen. It does not sound like me telling my kid to keep his feet on the pedals. It does not lack a declarative tone at the end, like the Castrati described by Van der Leun. They declare things. They just declare them in this weird, other-worldly, somniferous voice. Kind of like Marvin the Martian. Except Marvin the Martian sounds like an opera baritone compared to this.

Kailey…hunny? We have…to stop…it’s time…to go…eat din…ner……okay?

And way freakin’ up there. It’s not just strange. It’s creepy.

In quieter moments, usually before the sun peeks up over the foothills, like right now — I worry more about this than I do about Barack Obama winning the election tomorrow. That’s one of tomorrow’s leaders swinging away in the playground. Boy or girl, when does s/he ever get to see some masculinity in some form or another? When is s/he allowed to see it implemented to solve a problem? How can that happen, with the Daddy talking like that?

Does the little curtain-critter put the XBOX controller down long enough to wander out into the garage and see Papa Bear repairing the lawnmower engine? Or…simply replacing an inner tube in a bicycle? Are they walked through the exercise, or is it just — give your broken whatever to the small-d dad, like a toddler giving a used tissue to momma to crumple up and put in her pocket. Pick it back up from him, later, fixed.

Does he teach the children about maintaining gear properly? Not losing things? How to watch for those tell-tale signs you didn’t spend enough money on something? Anticipating the need to have certain safety-related items working…well…the very first time they’re needed…with no fiddlin’.

Do they use the “Batman” analogy, like my son and I have been? You know — when Batman’s falling off the building, it’s way too late to ponder whether he brought with him the “good” bat-a-rang or settled for that crummy bat-a-rang he can’t really count on.

In what pitch do they tell their children about gear, supplies, tools and skills? Is it that creepy faux-female voice I see on the playgrounds so often? This…is my…workbench…I wash my…hands before…I go in…Mommy’s kitchen…

I suppose it’s none of my business. Or at least it seems not to be — until I start to think waitaminnit. This is all the kids I’m seeing around here. An entire generation. Now, look at the kids voting for the first time tomorrow. When were they on the playgrounds; Bill Clinton was already President. We really haven’t got that long to wait, and then we’ll have some decisions made by an entire generation of kids who have been raised to think of testosterone not even as something despicable or deadly, but something even worse than that: Something alien. Strange. Undesirable. Something to be kept distant.

An enemy at the gate.

Maybe that’s already happened. Maybe that’s why Obama’s ahead in the polls right now. Four years ago, John Kerry had better military credentials than George W. Bush, and that was supposed to mean a lot. Now, the delta between McCain’s experience fighting for the country, and Obama’s…it isn’t even necessary to find a counterpoint to this one. The discourse doesn’t even head off in that direction. Masculinity is an enemy at the gate. As a voting society, it seems we comprehend its useful purpose, about as well as a thawed-out caveman might comprehend the useful purpose of a calculator.

With one exception. The caveman might grasp that the calculator is assembled to get something done that otherwise could not have been done. To our prevailing sentiment, it would appear masculinity lacks that much meaning for us. There are signs — on the playgrounds, and in a lot of other places too — that our culture has come to view it as a hindrance. Something that is, quite simply, in the way.

And we got here without investing too much quality thought in the issue. What a shame.

A Woman…

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

…with the world’s biggest boobs. You know, to help take the edge off your dreary Monday morning. I put it behind a link because I know you’re looking at this at work, or will want to send it to someone at work…

Palin Pranked

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

(Warning, some adult language near the end)

Know what I’m thinkin’ during the six minutes?

Wow…what if this was a prank call to Barack Obama. Maybe we’d see Erica Jong’s prophecy of rioting in the streets come to pass a few days early. Seriously, just imagine it…”Hello, this is Barack Obama” in his most authoritative, Walter-Cronkite-like baritone pitch. He’d use his superior forensic powers to figure out this is a prank call? Really? No…the six minutes would go exactly the same way. I’d bet serious money on it. Shame that theory will never be put to the test.

And THEN what. “Christ with an iPod in the toilet,” as Rachel Lucas might say. Racism this…sleazy right-wing attack that…new low for the McCain campaign…blah blah blah. Keith Olbermann would have a new Worst Person in the World, fer sure. Right about the time I’m typing this, there’d be a poll coming out about whether John McCain should apologize. The Messiah himself would go on The View and talk about how that’s okay, some people are just bitter and insecure because they know change is comin’…and He accepts that because He’s just a swell guy.

All of which is somewhat ironic, in my view. Because the remarkable thing that has emerged in this race, is that the lawyers who’ve been really running Washington since the fifties, are all stacked up on one side of this race, and they’re all on the ticket promising hope & change. Isn’t that interesting? And the slobbering fans who want this change so badly that they’re not waiting for a definition of what it is, are going to these absurd extremes to try to stop any non-lawyer from getting into the White House.

Just amazing.

That, or it’s just plain raw naked sexism.

Hey…sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander…