Archive for December, 2008

Coward of the Country

Sunday, December 14th, 2008

The Blog That Nobody Reads has an informal policy about naughty language. We are mindful of the fact that some of you might be browsing to our humble pages during your lunch break at work, perhaps waiting for some script to compile or whatever. Now that the hour is late, some social compacts have emerged in the world of blogs, which have been divided into those that try to remain somewhat “work safe” and those that do not. They are mostly common sense. For example, we used to put the “S” word that describes fecal matter right into our headline. Gasp! It seems a little nit-picky to enact an informal policy against that, but we did, and we don’t do that anymore. George Carlin’s Seven Words You Cannot Say, are kept out of the headline, or anything that’s in big font. That’s the line we draw.

We also went a little overboard, in our view, going so far as to keep George Carlin’s Seven Words You Cannot Say out of the text itself. We will do that, to a certain extent. But we’ve softened it a bit. That’s because we like to make everyday life safe for real people…not for ninnies. And, I’m sorry, but if you’re walking along in front of some other guy’s computer terminal when he’s on his lunch break and you see in our humble font the word “titty” and suddenly you’re tearing down the hallway to the H.R. department screaming with your arms flailing over your head…well, maybe someone somewhere wants to make life less traumatic for you, but we shall not be joining in that sad charade. No, if we were going to keep that policy rigid and zero-tolerant, it would be out of conern to those corporate firewalls that block websites automatically when they see these words going up the tubes. But how concerned should we be about those? The latter is a direct consequence of the former. Besides, it’s a batshit-stupid policy. I don’t know who actually still enforces it. Having a dirty word down in the actual text of something, could be a situation that easily comes up with doing actual work on the innerwebs. No, I’m not trying to be funny. Think of technical advice forums, professional information exchange forums, membership-only, things that are behind some kind of closed door.

We’ll not think on that too long. In a world where we try to be diverse and all-inclusive, it quickly becomes futile to think every possible scenario out to the very end — at least among things that involve people. We take the Jim Morrison Human Resources approach: “People are strange.”

And, if you act like a grown-up, solutions to problems tend to fall into place.

We use our courtesy-language decal (above) when things are about to get spicy. Out of respect to our readers, so they can apply their best judgment.

We do not use the word “fuck” as many times as we possibly can to show how tough we are. If you want some of that, hang out on a middle school playground. Or, go browse Feministing.

We do not use cute punctuation marks as substitutions here. We’ve simply gotten tired of trying to noodle out the “gray areas” of rules like those. Is “titty” a George Carlin word? (We found out, to our great surprise, that it is.) Should you use bangs in it, i.e., “ti!!y”? The intended meaning does not seem obvious unless the context sheds some light on where you’re going with it; looks kind of like “tilly.” Besides, FARK has a virtual copyright on fark, biatch and shiat. We love virtual copyrights here. We love ’em more than real copyrights. They remind us that people can behave with civility and courtesy toward each other without a bunch of rules forcing them to do so. Renews our faith in humankind. Kind of like, when you’re at the bank, and there’s seven tellers and suddenly six of ’em go on a lunch break, everyone gets into one line.

Besides, we are beneficiaries of the virtual copyright, since we never did actually patent “The Blog That Nobody Reads.” But the catchphrse is still ours, thanks to the common courtesy and decency of others.

No naughty pictures embedded in the pages. Penises nipples and verginers should be covered up; if they are not, then that picture is linked-not-embedded. Unless it has to do with civilized, non-prurient artwork that doesn’t focus on the anotomical tidbit, like for example, here.

So that’s our policy. Use common sense, good judgment, be a little flexible in all things, act like an adult and things will turn out alright for the most part.

Having said all that…and with our little mouth-covered-man in place to warn all you weenies about what’s coming up…we’re going to indulge in the unusual practice of excerpting Misha’s fine prose from the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler without cleaning it up. And the occasion is Rahm Emmanuel throwing a hissy fit, in that adorable way liberals do when they think they’re being manly, when they’re really being quite the opposite. You know how they get when they’re trying to be all big-and-bad — with that whistle tucked in between their lips, tooting on it every two seconds as this thing is declared out of bounds and that other things is declared out of bounds. Like bossy little girls. “Not s’poseda do THIS! Not s’poseda do THAT!”

After a lifetime spent trying to avoid that kind of shemale, we find our skills for dealing with them somewhat atrophied. Which suits us just fine. That’s a man adapting to his environment, there. But a man also has to know his limitations, and the Emperor Misha I is, quite plain and simply, much better qualified for dealing with this type of…eh…personality…than are we.

But it’s not January 20 yet and the Holy One has not yet been crowned. Let that event come and go and tack on another year or two, maybe we’ll have adapted to our environment yet again. It’s about to become a whistle-sissy world.

And if that’s a sign of civilization, then how come things are falling apart so quickly? It’s still early! The iPresident Man-Messiah-God isn’t going to be coronated for a long time. The carpenters aren’t ordering the boards and nails to assemble those platforms for inauguration day, just yet…the pyrotechnicians aren’t even thinking about it.

What a Sad Pussy
Posted by: Emperor Misha I in Democrat Culture of Corruption, Useless Swine
2:08 PM

Rahm Emanuel is now whining that he’s been “receiving death threats” over his obvious involvement in one of the nastiest corruption scandals in the history of our nation, which is saying a bit when you talk about Democrats.

Back at his home, Emanuel appeared “beet-red,” according to an ABC News cameraman who was invited inside by Emanuel to use his bathroom this morning.

“I’m getting regular death threats. You’ve put my home address on national television. I’m pissed at the networks. You’ve intruded too much, ” Emanuel said, according to the cameraman.

Awwww… What a sad, metrosexual pussy of a seemingly male member of the species. What happened to the Capone-like “man’s man” who once listed a number of defeated political enemies at a dinner, punctuating every cry of “DEAD!” by stabbing his steak knife into the table?

Time to brush the sand out of your vagina, “Rahmbo”, isn’t it?

And, by the way, where was your outrage when Joe the Plumber was subjected to similar treatment and worse simply because he’d had the nerve, nerve to ask your nutless empty suit of a Jug-Eared Marxist Freak Candidate an honest question that your neophyte dumbass Anointed One couldn’t answer without shooting himself in both feet?

Have a fucking cookie and a glass of milk, you gutless pansy masquerading as a man, because you’re beginning to annoy us with your whininess. Make mommy kiss it and it’ll be all better, we promise you.

Cowardly corrupt Chicago Machine fuck. It’s all fun and games bragging about how you’ve “killed” your political opponents until the shoe is on the other fucking foot, isn’t it?

That’s art, right there. Don’t argue with me about it…if my Government can declare a crucifix soaked in urine to be art, then what appears above damn sure is some kind of art. Brings a tear to my eye. And besides, I’m not expecting anyone else to pay for it.

Pay close attention, Feministing fans. That is how you use the word “fuck” to make a valid point. How to use it as a tool, the way a man uses it, not as some kind of decoration to be hung on your Christmas tree as many times as you need to in completion of some kind of weird decorating scheme. Like an airheaded woman trying too hard not to look like an airheaded woman.

I note the rich irony, again, that I’m reading about this the morning after watching Kenny Rogers’ 1981 film. That story, too, is about a guy who used his two-fisted masculine Power To Destroy Things with a high degree of selectivity. Except he did it after “twenty years of crawling,” and when he did, it was all substance, no form. Making a mockery of everyone who “considered him the coward of the county.”

Rahm Emmanuel is a completely different type of seasonal aggressor, in that his mouth means everything to the exercise and his fists actually mean very little. He’s all form and no substance. He’s the loudmouth kid on the playground, the one who can dish things out all day long but can’t take ’em.

And that fucker isn’t doing twenty years of anything. He’s not bottling anything up at all. He’s shoving people around when the situation suits him, and changing overnight when the situation changes, suddenly all thin skinned and “receiving death threats.” Good one. Christ, I’m tired of liberals receiving death threats. I wish I could wave a magic wand, and make it so that anytime some asshole drones on about receiving his death threats in his e-mail, no matter for what purpose, he’s got sixty seconds to produce them in fucking hardcopy or his head fucking explodes.

It’s e-mail (I assume…Rahm-a-lama-ding-dong does not say…I’m just making the leap, and it isn’t a big one). Private e-mail. Not like Sarah Palin’s e-mail. Most e-mail isn’t hacked. You could say there’s an invitation from Queen Elizabeth to join Her Majesty at tea time tomorrow afternoon, and nobody is in any position to doubt it…only to call it into question, and that’s all. Whining about “death threats in my e-mail” is about the most gutless thing you can do, even if it’s true. The whole generic statement, no matter what the probability in any context, would be stigmatized into meaninglessness overnight in a truly sophisticated society.

Hardcopy printout or it didn’t happen. And even then I call shenanigans. Fuckers.

Sucky Economy, Souped-Up Machine

Saturday, December 13th, 2008

Jerry Pournelle offers his thoughts about how to put your Xanadu home computer to work helping you cope with a Mad Max world.

I disagree about C. To me, when you make a new computer language, you do so not to get people to talk to computers and vice-versa — that’s already possible when you start to create the language. The purpose of the language is to facilitate communication between first guy who touches the computer program, and the second guy who has to take it over after the first guy gets run over by a truck or gets a new job. Debugging? If the language is a success, there should be less of that to do than there was before. Otherwise, why did you go through the trouble.

In that sense, C was a huge step forward. C++ was something of a step backward. It was built to make programmers out of people who didn’t have that much passion for doing it.

As far as how to publish, this is my primary reason for linking his work. Lots of good thoughts from a seasoned, respected professional in this area, some of them original, others not. And he’s right, it’s probably the best time in human history — ever — to come up with something, add to it incrementally, and then when it’s polished and ready to go, find some ways to make a buck off of it.

Losers stare at the door that just slammed shut, with a stream of drool running down their chins, winners go look for the other door that opened. Can’t hurt, might help.

Hat tip: Inst.

Girlfriend Bailout

Saturday, December 13th, 2008

Me, I’ve been successful. The road’s been rocky, but in the girlfriend department I’m in a good place. (My expanding waistline demonstrates this.) Others have not been so fortunate, and that’s just plain not fair.

So altogether now…one…two…three…

Bailout!

Office of the Speaker
H-232, US Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Madame Speaker:

I am writing to you as a natural-born citizen of the United States (copy of birth certificate available on request) who is suffering mightily during this recession. While my finances are mostly in order, my emotional life is a shambles, and therefore, as my share of the national bailout/stimulus package/whatever, I request herewith that the Congress take steps to find me a girlfriend.

I do not undertake this request lightly. The feeling that one is not desired, even in a heterosexual manner, is a serious blow to one’s self-esteem generally. We know the Congress takes an interest in self-esteem: this year Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) introduced a bill to “encourage initiative and promote self-esteem,” and while he was thinking specifically of persons who are drawing Social Security for disability, it’s clear, given the size of the debt load inflicted on the nation by the Bush administration, that the government cannot afford to let persons with emotional difficulties become disabled as a result of those difficulties and subsequently end up drawing Social Security.

$1.67 a Gallon Regular

Saturday, December 13th, 2008

…$1.87 a gallon premium.

If George W. Bush is really out to take my last dollar away from me at the gas pump, to give to his oil buddies…like people say…he must be just as incompetent as everybody says.

A “change” from this means what?

Guess we’ll find out next year.

Inauguration Song for the iPresident Man-God

Saturday, December 13th, 2008

Gerard has an idea as good as anybody else’s. Seems to fit in a lot of ways.

Can’t improve upon this, although “Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies” by Fleetwood Mac does come to mind.

Just in Time for the Election

Saturday, December 13th, 2008

Via Rick: The Associated Press brings you…wait for it…some inconvenient facts you just might want to know about the iPresident-Elect Man-Messiah-God Unicorn-Fart Man.

Just in case you were thinking about voting for Him.

What the HELL…??

Yeah that’s just great, AP. You’d better run that right now. I mean, I was just about to entertain some thoughts that your service just…might…be…useful! Can’t have that.

Powell’s Moral Authority

Saturday, December 13th, 2008

Hawkins says it is a piece of history, assuming it ever existed at all.

We agree.

Turn your back on popularity, to stand up for principles? Or turn your back on principles, to get popular and stay that way?

It’s a no-brainer. You stand for something through thick and thin, or else you don’t stand for it at all.

This Is Good LVIII

Saturday, December 13th, 2008

Ah…Buck found a good un’. Craig’s List.

Room for Rent — Inauguration Day/ObamaCon 2009
Date: 2008-11-11, 11:45AM EST

In a search of a room in DC so that you can spend Jan. 20 standing in the bitter winter cold with thousands of like-minded souls watching the historic transfer of power from one Harvard grad to another? Look no further.

Me: Heartless, greedy right-wing oppressive type looking to make a buck.

You: Obama’s election was Christmas/your first kiss/May Day all wrapped into one. You dutifully wore his button — which you have yet to remove — contributed money to his campaign from your non-profit job and chanted “yes we can” as if it were the 11th commandment. A strange void now exists in your life and — like an old hippie looking to recapture the spirit of Woodstock — you are undertaking a pilgramage to Washington for one last gulp of the Kool-Aid.

Along with my bedroom you will have access to the house’s many amenities including cable television (not that you watch much TV) for viewing Keith Olberman’s latest unhinged rants and CNN in high-def. Wireless internet means that the Huffington Post and DailyKos are only a click away on your MacBook. American flags and other patriotic paraphernalia in the room can be removed upon request.

The house is located in the diverse neighborhood of Adams Morgan with people of many different skin pigmentations that will allow you to revel in your tolerance. Rest assured, however, that this diversity does not extend to ideology and that you are sure to march lock-step with the prevailing sentiment ensuring that your most strongly held beliefs remain unchallenged.

Easily accessible subway and bus stops will help ensure a minimal carbon footprint while fair trade coffee is never more than a few steps away at any number of independently-owned establishments. Nearby non-chain bookstores similarly mean that tomes such as Mao’s Little Red Book, Chomsky’s latest masterpiece or additional copies of The Audacity of Hope can be easily purchased either for yourself or as early holiday shopping.

Rather than state a price I am requesting that you bid on this fabulous opportunity to ensure profit maximization on my part so that I can better weather the Bush Recession.

it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
PostingID: 914613135

The Only Two Things You Need To Know About the Auto Bailout

Friday, December 12th, 2008

One — yes, it’s true (probably). There will be weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth if something isn’t done. And that something damn sure isn’t gonna be selling cars. History has shown the American economy can tolerate a lot of things, but it doesn’t tolerate a high unemployment rate very well.

Two has to do not so much with the bailout itself, but with us, and our reaction to things like this. When we have to act to save jobs, and the proposed action is something our labor unions do not like, the thing to do has very little to do with the proposed action. It’s more likely got something to do with coffee drinks that cost a lot and that you can’t pronounce the name of, American Idol, Survivor, and dogs-in-purses.

When our labor unions like what we’re thinking about doing, all of a sudden, it’s important that everyone be concerned. As in, it’s the first thought you have when you wake up, and the last thought you have when you call it a night.

I find that curious.

This is a situation that has been in the making for a very long time. People working on cars in Detroit didn’t have to start worrying about their jobs just in the late autumn of ’08. That’s when the labor unions stood to make millions of dollars from us worrying about it, though, so that’s when we started worrying about it. Labor unions are good at telling people what they’re thinking and what they’re worrying about. The rest of us are good at obeying. And so, all of a sudden, in the span of just a few weeks, we have a +++cough+++ “real” +++cough+++ problem.

Maybe we do have to do this awful thing because we’re all out of options. Let’s just not start thinking this is going to solve anything long term, though. And let’s not forget what this is really all about.

Switching Bodies Would Suck

Friday, December 12th, 2008

“I Am Senate Candidate 5”

Friday, December 12th, 2008

FrankJ has a confession to make.

I have a confession: I’m the Senate Candidate 5 referred to in the Blagojevich complaint.

Let me explain. I hear this guy Blagojevich has some great deal on something, and it’s getting near Christmas so I’m keeping an eye out for deals. So I go meet with this “Blago” guy downtown to see what he has. He tells me he has a Senate seat for sale. Now, I wasn’t really that interested in a Senate seat, but still I figured I might as well ask how much he wanted.

He tells me three thousand dollars.

So I’m like, “Three thousand dollars is a lot of money… in this economy.” Again, I didn’t really want a Senate seat.

So he tells me, “This isn’t just any Senate seat. This Senate seat used to be owned by international celebrity Barack Obama.”

Now I was interested. That could be a real conversation piece. Friends would be like, “I hear you’re a Senator.”

And I’d say, “Yeah, but guess who used to have this Senate seat: President Barack Obama.”

Still, I was a bit suspicious. I looked up this guy Blagojevich before I met with him, and according to Wikipedia he is the Governor of Illinois. Even so, the name really sounds made up and anyone can edit Wikipedia. So I tell him I need some certification to prove this Senate seat was actually owned by Obama. He shows me the certification and it looks pretty official, so I decide I should go ahead and buy the Senate seat. I’m guessing he could have gotten a lot more for it on eBay, but he really needed the cash right now for some reason.

It gets better from there on, believe it or not.

Web Browser for Blacks

Friday, December 12th, 2008

Firefox isn’t black enough.

I’ll do a better job of checking it out later…it seems to be serious.

Hat tip: Boortz.

You know, as a computer networking professional, I have always considered the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) to be a little bit on the milquetoast side as well…just sayin’.

Power and Freedom Mean Pounding Your Verginer Like a Pork Chop Under a Jackhammer

Friday, December 12th, 2008

Our good friend in New Mexico told me I should lower my blood pressure by paying less attention to dimwits. He’s not the first to say so. We, here, see Buck as an exceedingly sensible gentleman, one who possesses a past different from ours but is united with us in the future. In other words, throw us into a time machine, crank it ahead by a couple decades, out pops Buck. And it certainly does make good sense to monitor issues related to the systolic and diastolic when one is in one’s early forties, than in his late fifties, so we did what he suggested.

And paid more attention to intelligent, sophisticated people.

Like Dr. Helen.

Crap. More nonsense. Being a lady of class and dignity, she does not endorse, she just points, but there it is, getting me all worked up. Got any more wonderful ideas, Buck? The idiocy, it would seem it surrounds us on all four sides.

Young women ‘have more sexual partners’ than men
Young women are more promiscuous than men, according to a survey that claims the average 21-year-old has had nine sexual partners compared with seven for men.

The poll of 2,000 by the magazine More also found that one in four young women has slept with more than 10 people, compared with one in five men who had done the same.

In addition, half of those questioned admitted they had been unfaithful, whereas only a quarter said they had been cheated on by a boyfriend.

It comes just a week after an academic study branded Britain one of the casual sex capitals of the Western world, with residents having more one-night stands and more liberal attitudes than those in Australia, France, the Netherlands, Italy and the US.

Lisa Smosarski, the editor of More, said: “Our results show that after decades of lying back and thinking of England, today’s twenty-something women are taking control of their sex lives and getting what they want in bed.”

First of all, there are problems with statistics…which I’ll get to later on.

But before that — whoomp, there it is. Lisa Smosarski puts a voice behind this thought that’s usually just rolling around out there, contemplated but unspoken. The five thousand years of oppression, by thoughtless, piggish men against the innocent, doe-eyed women, continues throughout this day and beyond…until girls start screwing like minks, and then that will somehow magically bring it to an abrupt end and it’ll be time for the ladies to start dancing like Ewoks at the end of Return of the Jedi (or Obamatons on January 20, but let’s keep the awkward metaphors to a minimum).

Captain Obvious is availed the luxury of dropping a single paragraph and then bailing out to attend to more pressing matters. Here’s his contribution: When you screw, you have a good chance of getting pregnant whether you use contraceptives or not. And a big round belly has very, very little to do with power. Or freedom. And it damn sure doesn’t have much to do with taking control of your sex life. More like surrendering same for a couple decades.

The floor is thus yielded to the owner of The Blog That Nobody Reads, so he can again bewail — with his blood pressure topping out — the continuing progress of all the civilized world, seemingly, past the second milestone on the way to complete insanity, which is the act of feeling your way around challenges rather than thinking your way through them. This doesn’t make any sense. The picture of a lady who has taken charge of her sex life, doesn’t have much to do with sleeping with lots of guys. Such a lady more likely sleeps with one guy. Think about it. Whether you’re a male or a female, cheating means lying. It means sneaking around. It means all the encumbrances that come with deceiving someone. And there’s nothing liberating about that.

Now, on to the statistics.

And Guthrum has put forward a decent, although somewhat incomplete, attempt to field this one. It comes down to a simple rhetorical question: With whom are these young ladies doing their fornicating? The study doesn’t seem to have much to do with lesbian sex, foreigner sex, or with a male-heavy domestic population. By process of elimination he determines someone is lying.

Well, I have another explanation, since Guthrum’s explanation would have to controvert the conventional wisdom of boys lying upward and girls lying downward. And this is a piece of conventional wisdom I believe…at least…when alcohol is not involved.

Here’s my explanation. And if it is true, it is not at all helpful to the study, or Ms. Smosarski’s idiotic conclusion(s), which is why it was left out of the article.

The fellas are subject to more of a 80/20 rule when it comes to frequency of sex and number-of-partners: Among those who are young and available, twenty percent of them are having eighty percent of the sex. This is not necessarily true of the women, since this would only take effect if there was some personal attribute that would make it likely for any particular instance to have more sex than her sisters. That would be physical beauty — which I think we should take into account only if we want to presume, when an appealing young lady is presented with lots of opportunities, she takes advantage of all of them. Let’s give the fairer sex the benefit of the doubt here.

So if you were to draw a graph about how much sex each person is having, and with how many partners, and draw two graphs on two pieces of paper for two genders — the female graph would be more of a flatline and the male graph would be all spikey.

And these “Alpha Males” who are screwing anything with a skirt, don’t participate in polls.

It’s just that simple. It fits in well with my philosophy about polls: They separate themselves from reality, when it is presumed, too casually, that that which was tested, extrapolates safely into that which is the universe. There are lots of things, generally, that confound this, and the tendency among study-makers and poll-takers is to not check those things out too carefully. Whether you buy it or not — Guthrum’s beef with the study makes good sense. With whom are these freewheeling strumpets doing their cavorting? Smosarski doesn’t seem to possess the mental horsepower to seriously entertain the question…which I find unsurprising.

Finally, my blood pressure trickles a little bit upward when I consider the issues of time and history. Those who cling to this notion that women will finally be free of male oppression the day they’ve finally done enough screwing, after all the other transgressions they’ve committed against responsibility and common sense, have failed to make use of long-term memory and allowed history to slip out of their mental fingers. Has this not been a doctrine that has already been put in practice for four decades or more? Free-love and all that shit?

Aighh…it’d be funny if nobody was listening to it. But congratulations to Editor Smosarski and those like her. Your next generation of urban-sprawl welfare queens, and all their litters of whelps, is comin’ right up. And half those whelps will be girls…whom you’ll tell to have lots of sex with lots of guys so you can sell your shitty magazine.

Their mommas who’ve spent so much of their lives with swollen ankles, big round bellies, and no man hanging around long enough to handle the extra work — somehow, for reasons I still fail to grasp — will, for the most part, fail to take the time to set ’em straight.

Who cares about any of it.

Women are having lots of sex. More sex than guys. That means they’re “free.” And empowered.

Yeah.

++sigh++ Blood pressure not coming down yet. I’m off to stare at my own Things That Make Me Smile page, to put me in a better mood.

Powered by Four Chainsaw Engines

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

Blagojevich Questions

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

…are censored on Obama’s web site (hat tip: Boortz).

That last question is a little on the tart side. The first two are about as polite as can be. But I guess if you simply ask a question that might lead to an unflattering tidbit of information about the iPresident-Elect Man-Messiah-God, then you have sacrileged and must be shunned.

At this point, is there a difference between Barack Obama and Mao Tse Tung, other than head shape, age and fashion ensemble? This stuff should scare the bejeezus out of you even if you’ve been a rabid ass-licking Obamaton for the last two years solid…especially if you’ve spent the last eight years blowing the whistle on various complaints containing the words “George Bush” and “Constitution.” This guy is going to be the most powerful homo sapiens on the face of the globe — apart from being a religious figure, within a religion that escapes accountability by being a phantom religion. And you aren’t allowed to say anything bad about Him. You can’t even inquire if someone thinks the inquiry is straying off into territory that might be uncomfortable for Him.

I got a feeling if President Bush was really out to undermine the Constitution, we’re about to be shown how much of an amateur he really is in that department. He’s about to be seriously upstaged.

Heh. What am I saying? It’s Obama’s bootlickers doing this. The Chosen One doesn’t even have to take responsibility for what’s going on on His web site. La dee da…don’t know anything about it…

Update: Also — these news articles uploaded to the web earlier, from television station KHQA — they ain’t there anymore.

Buckle up America. You’re in for a wild ride.

Skeletons Having Sex

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

All you little kids go away. There. That’s my disclaimer. Yup.

Memo For File LXXVII

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Morgan Rule Number One lately — which says:

If I’m going to be accused, I want to be guilty.

There are a lot of reasons for my thinking about that right about now. We’re just coming off a two-year-long Presidential election, and I’ve been up to my ears like everyone else in all this talk about whether X is a “good guy” or not. We spend an abundance of energy trying to sort out whether this-guy or that-guy is a good guy. I don’t know why we do this. I think deep down, we all understand Barack Obama can be a wonderful guy and still botch quite a few things; John McCain can be a dirty rotten creepy jerk (DRCJ) and still make a lot of good decisions.

Maybe it’s television. When I was a little kid, it was very popular to have these things called action TV shows, which lasted roughly an hour, and aired about eight or nine o’clock weeknights. Pretty much every minute of that hour was spent proving over and over again what a good guy the main character was. He’d do wonderful ordinary things, like gettin’ down to the latest tunes in a honky-tonk bar or discoteque. And then he’d do wonderful amazing things like jumping over a grain silo in an orange car yelling “yee haw!” Or clocking a bad guy in the jaw with his fist. (Back in those days, you could get hit in the face a hundred times with another man’s fist and suffer no structural damage or even any bruising; a swift karate chop between your shoulder blades, however, would knock you out for a couple hours.) Ordinary or extraordinary, it was all wonderful.

He’d put his arm lovingly across the back of the tender doe-eyed vixen of tonight’s episode, and sensitively tell her that her stepfather’s drinking problem was not her fault and she’d have to stop blaming herself. Of course, as an amateur psychologist, every word he said was gospel, even though this was a guy who chose to wear cowboy boots when chasing bad guys on foot.

You know, we really should have known better. When those shows were on, we had a nice southern peanut farmer in the White House who was about as nice a guy as you’d ever want. Sure, I never saw him jump an orange car over a grain silo, but he was generally regarded as a Good Man. Even all these years later, most people think he’s a Good Man. Even people of different political leanings than his, will grudgingly acknowledge this. At least, the ones who haven’t been paying attention to the pus-filled rancid rot that so regularly spews out of this guy’s cakehole. Today, only by paying close attention can you come to the conclusion that Jimmy Carter is an asshole.

But back then, even the people who followed political events, were convinced he was some kind of super-duper-Messiah guy. Not Jesus, but a really nice man come to deliver us from our own inherent nastiness.

Know what happened?

He screwed up everything he touched. Foreign-policy, stagflation, unemployment, energy, hostages…etc., etc., etc. Jimmy Carter would take charge at noon; by seven o’clock that evening, everything that could possibly be busted, would be.

Therein lies the problem with proving what a good guy you are. If you’ve proven it once, you shouldn’t have to prove it again, like Buck Rogers or Those Duke Boys or Dr. David Banner or Steve Austin or Walker Texas Ranger. And people shouldn’t be spending that much time or energy wondering about it.

There is another reason I’ve been thinking about the Morgan Rule.

Blogger friend JohnJ referred me to an unusually informative article over on — of all places — Cracked Magazine. Really. Y’all gotta go check this out.

5 Government Programs That Backfired Horrifically

No, it’s not a bunch of Bush-bashing about the invasion of Iraq. America figures in to only two-and-a-half of them. Your list is…

#5. Prohibition
#4. Glasnost
#3. The Strategic Hamlet Program
#2. The Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909
#1. China’s Great Leap Forward

I’m glad to have an excuse to highlight this one. I think more people need to understand the correlation between dimwitted government programs, and waking up one morning with a trantula the size of a poodle sitting on your face. (Fair disclosure: My grandparents were those people, and they worked through the situation okay. The chronicles scribbled down by those who lived through it, all agree, though, that it wasn’t easy and it wasn’t too much fun.)

Now read that, from top to bottom. Do you see what I see?

Yup. An essential pillar of all five plans…sometimes stated, sometimes not…is…

And after it all falls into place, everyone will be forced to recognize that we are really, really good people.

Why is this a bad idea. Why, in fact, does this always seem to lead to disaster.

The hitch in the giddy-up is a simple one: People will think whatever they want to. This is the simple truism people in power seem to forget, after not too long a time. The worst plans all have it in common that they’ll convince people whoever made the plan, was “good.” In reality, even if the plan turns out to be a roaring success…and this really hasn’t happened very often…the most likely outcome is that after a few years, people can’t remember whose idea it was. There really is no such thing as a plan that will force the common people, to think any identifiable band of elite people, are good. People think what they want to think.

On the other hand, the best plans are the ones that end with “And then people will think about us, the architects of the plan, whatever they damn well want. But at least the plan will be effective.”

These are two diametrically-opposed styles of thinking about plans.

This is why America is a good country: It doesn’t rush to the front of that big pack of countries desperately trying to prove how generically wonderful their leaders are. Quite to the contrary, America is founded on the non-negotiable platform that our leaders are lousy, lying, drunken, dirty-rotten-creepy-jerks. Not so much that, but they require constant oversight.

It’s a precious part of our legacy. And I’m afraid we’re going to lose it on January 20. Millions of my fellow citizens are already convinced that if an idea came out of the mouth of the iPresident-Elect Man-God Modern-Messiah, it must be a good idea.

Face it, Obamatons: Barack Obama could do all five of those things on that list, all over again. He could do ’em before breakfast. After they turn out the same way they did before, you’d still think His poop doesn’t stink.

And that’s fine. An incoming President, by definition, should be popular. Just not to the point where everyone’s distracted from the central issue of whether his ideas are good or not.

Because I think it’s been demonstrated, by now, that governments like ours are at their least effective when they are 1) turned over to people who’ve proven what decent wonderful nice guys they are, and then 2) thrust into a bunch of feel-good experiments designed to prove what is supposed to have already been proven.

Gosh, you know, someone should start a country that is dedicated to not repeating such failures. We could have some, like, really really super-important pieces of paper to remind us not to think that highly of our leaders, so they won’t be tempted to launch such hairbrained schemes to prove what decent guys they are. We could call one of ’em the Declaration of Independence and the other one, the Konstitooshyun…

Seriously, though. I think that’s what the Founding Fathers were trying to do. I think this is exactly what their concern was. Here we are learning it all over again, the hard way, as if we have some internal wiring that compels us to live as serfs within a monarchy. The whole “Make This Guy Think That Guy Is Wonderful” is nothing but a fool’s errand…for both sides. It’s true outside of governments, too. When people are constantly proving what good people they are, something bad is about to happen. It’s a much better option, once you’re accused of something, to just go ahead and be guilty of it if you aren’t already. Because experience has taught me you might as well — people don’t change their minds about things after they have ’em made up. And if you have to work that hard to prove something, you’re probably hiding something ugly, and you’re probably hiding it from yourself.

Just a little thing to think about, in the weeks and years ahead.

Thing I Know #272. When people accuse you of doing something or being something and it isn’t true; when it comes as a surprise to you that anyone would think such a thing about you; I’ve found it is a mistake to put any effort into proving them wrong. If they’re sincere, something is coloring their perception, and whatever it is, it’s outside of your control. If they’re not, then they’re trying to get you to do something that’s probably contrary to your interests. Either way — you aren’t going to change their minds. Don’t try.

Thing I Know #273. This is the flip-side to TIK #272. When you want someone to do something, and you don’t have the authority to force them to, it’s contrary to their interests, and they’ve figured out it’s contrary to their interests or they’re plenty bright enough to figure out it’s contrary to their interests — accuse them of something. It’s your only option. Make sure they aren’t guilty of it. If they’re guilty, they’ll resign themselves to the fact that you’ve figured them out; if they’re not guilty, they’ll do anything you want to prove it. Then you just tie that in to what you want them to do.

Merkel on Global Warming

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

The worst thing you can do to a flimsy, ramshackle idea, is to take it seriously. And on January 20, we’re going to take the idea that liberalism is the solution to all of life’s problems, very, very seriously.

Europeans are runnin’ scared. Starting with Germany’s Chancellor:

with the last grownups scheduled to leave Washington next month, Europeans have been forced to drop the sanctimonious posturing and defend sanity.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has been keen to promote herself as a tough actor on climate change, but with a new EU climate deal in the making, she’s issued a new caveat: It must not jeopardize German jobs.

Merkel used to exploit the hoax with the worst of them, even traveling to Greenland to pose with melting ice. But it’s becoming clear that moonbattery has a price.

According to an unpublished report by the economy ministry, Germany risks losing more than 100,000 jobs if the EU were to force industries to pay for pollution rights that are currently free.

Another study by the Muenster-based EEFA research institute pointed to increased costs stemming from reforming pollution rights, making Germany’s key industrial sector less competitive and threatening up to 300,000 jobs by 2020.

Infuriating environmentalists who couldn’t care less about human suffering, Merkel now says of the impending EU climate deal,

It must not take decisions that would endanger jobs or investments in Germany.

Merkel is showing a common human failing here…especially among bosses of things. People in charge tend to be very much in favor of bad ideas, provided they have that all-important protection of virtual anonymity later on. When it all turns to crap. That’s the mediocre boss’ happy-zone right there: It’s kinda-sorta my idea, kinda-sorta not.

That means I get to take all the credit if it succeeds, none of the blame if it turns all soft and brown, and regardless of what happens, I don’t have to do any work.

Well, now that Chosen One is going to be in charge of the United States, a lot of this stuff that wasn’t gonna happen, now has a much more likely chance of happening.

That strips anonymity off. It’s a pretty safe thing to be the Grand Marshal of a parade that isn’t really going anywhere. Now the balloon are going up, the floats are moving…and wow. Some ceremonial positions that weren’t scary before, suddenly are.

So the mediocre bosses are scrambling. Like rats on a sinking ship. Or like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton after Move On Dot Org told ’em what to think about invading Iraq.

Flip.

Flop.

It’s a good time to keep your eyes and ears open, and learn some interesting things about politicians.

Little Kelly

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

Kelly can be a girl’s name as well as a boy’s name…so poor little Kelly has a problem with Santa Claus leaving him adorable pink girl stuff.

And the feminists have a problem with Kelly having a problem with it.

Okay, one MORE time…what does this have to do with promoting dignity in the stature and treatment of women in a civilized society, and developing and defending the opportunities they have?

Feminists. They want so badly for people to listen to their propaganda. And they want so badly for people to join on in when the feminists say “please help me deplore the latest thing I’ve placed in the crosshairs, today.”

But that ends up meaning they don’t want people to have memories.

Because if you remember all the things that have ever been in-the-crosshairs-today, across any significant swath of time…the propaganda just crumbles. You know what propaganda I mean. The “narrow agenda” propaganda. The “oh no, we’re not here to dismantle gender differences or anything like that, we just want a fair wage.” The a-man-can-be-a-feminist propaganda.

The it-doesn’t-have-anything-to-do-with-being-a-bitch propaganda.

The propaganda that says feminists are just as loving and charming as any other kind of woman. If you aren’t knocking a woman’s tooth out, or swatting her on the butt, or behaving in a way toward a woman that you wouldn’t behave around your own grandmother, then we have no beef with you.

The propaganda that comes out anytime they’re called on their crap. The propaganda we saw when Cassy, Hawkins, myself and others helped Jessica Valenti get that free publicity for her book.

It’s all a crock o’ bullshit. At least, on web sites like Feministing, it is.

Keep sufficient wits about you to observe and remember trends, and you can’t help but form some opinions about these post-modern feminists they aren’t gonna like. They aren’t friends to chastity, or even to any kind of discretion an available young lady might use in choosing her sexual partners or keeping the number thereof down beneath a non-scandalous ceiling. Somehow, that rankles them. It always has. The one exception seems to be the woman who resolves not to sleep with any conservative Republicans — that’s alright. Any other kind of criteria applied…no. If you have something to say about an Aspirin between the knees, or waiting for marriage, or waiting until he meets Mom and Dad, or waiting a few weeks — feminists ain’t gonna like it.

They might like it if you say women can do something.

If you say men can do something, they won’t like it.

If you say women and men can do more things than they’re doing, feminists won’t like it.

If you say women can’t do something, they’ll come out swinging.

If you say women and men can do things together, they aren’t going to be too happy about it. Unless it’s holding a candlelight vigil and calling George W. Bush a war criminal.

It’s pretty tough to get them to opine at length about the draft.

They’re very passionate about gay marriage. I don’t think I’m ever going to understand that one. If a woman wants to support the feminist movement with her time or her money, but she’s opposed to gay marriage, feminists don’t want her support? What’s gay marriage got to do with womens’ rights? It’s just stupid, in my opinion. It’s like starting a movement to promote responsible pet ownership, and spaying and neutering and proper veterinary care for your pet — and oh, by the way, we’re also big Monster Truck fans. If you don’t go to the shows then we don’t want your support. One has nothing to do with the other, so why tie the two together?

Actually, re-defining marriage has a distinct effect of diminishing the role of women in society. So I would say it’s like promoting responsible pet ownership and also owning your own monster truck. But whatever.

When Feministing opined about Sarah Palin for the first time — that is when the site hit the low nadir. That just completes the picture, doesn’t it? A more complete and fulfilling role for women in society, goes off in this direction…progressive politics dashes off in the other…Feministing follows the progressive politics. Embarrassing to watch. Just like when liberals circled the wagon around Bill Clinton when he was trying to stop the women he’d been exploiting from having their day in court — and went on to call themselves staunch defenders of womens’ rights. Based on what? Just plain ol’ tradition? We’re supposed to think left-wingers think highly of women just because they’re left-wingers?

Left-wing politics, in general…and the feminist movement, in particular…these are, at a breakneck pace, rapidly degenerating into places that are ideal for a lifelong male chauvinist pig to join, places where he can feel at home. I mean, just stand back and look at it. If a male politician supports the right policies he should be able to exploit women, shove his penis into the faces of perfect strangers, and that’s okay. The whole world should be his glory hole. If women are offended by that and want to sue, they shouldn’t have their day in court. They aren’t entitled to it. Because the right political agenda is worth exploiting a few broads, if they’re good lookin’. Wives aren’t special. Housewives aren’t special. Stay-at-home-moms aren’t special. There’s no need to feel appreciative about any of these women or what they do. Actually, when they get down on their hands and knees and scrub your toilet so it sparkles, you should behave as if it just happened…by magic. Like Tinkerbell flew in and sprinkled some pixie dust on it. Anything but show the goddamned minimal gratitude your mother eventually insisted you start showing.

And wives are disposable, because now we’re going to re-define marriage as being whole and complete if there aren’t any women involved in it at all. Two guys can raise a kid just as nicely — which means mothers are disposable too — and oh by the way, if you dare to disagree with us about it, we’ll crush you.

Anything a woman can do a man can do better. Including playing with pink toys.

Looks like a chauvinist pig platform to me.

So after today, let’s not have any further discussion about whether modern feminism, or Feministing anyway, is all about erasing the gender divide, trying to make men and women the same. We don’t need to wonder about it anymore. It’s settled. That is what it’s about. And it’s about eradicating masculinity. They don’t like it; they want to see it go away. I guess when a boy is unfortunately saddled with fluffy pink toys, he should just turn gay on the spot.

Intellectuals Sympathize With Criminals Because They Must

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

Fascinating point raised at Dr. Helen’s place:

BC: Why do we as a society automatically extend empathy and compassion to criminals rather than the victims of their crimes? There’s a phrase that you use in this context: “a preference for barbarism.” Why do our intellectuals rally to the cause of miscreants rather than that of good, honest citizens?

Dr. Dalrymple: Intellectuals need to say things that are not immediately obvious or do not occur to the man in the street. The man in the street instinctively sympathizes with the victim of crime; therefore, to distinguish himself from the man in the street, the intellectual has to sympathize with the criminal, by turning him into a victim of forces which only he, the intellectual, has sufficient sophistication to see.

Now that’s a Thing That Makes You Go Hmm.

Innovation is Vital During Hard Times

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

Common sense from Floyd at Making Ripples:

In order to keep earning income, we have to come up with compelling reasons that our services will make someone else’s life easier.

He goes on to say…

When there is not enough money for business as usual, buyers and employers alike start looking for ways to bring costs in line with income. Every expense gets scrutinized to see how it contributes to survival.

This doesn’t seem, at first glance, very profound at all. And perhaps it isn’t. But if you think on it in conjunction with other things, you realize that some folks who may be laboring under the delusion that they’re not in for some kind of surprise, in fact, are indeed due to be whacked upside the head by a big ‘un.

Like for example…here.

This woman appears to be living in a house with her daughter, and therefore, I’m going to presume, has a job in which she makes a living. I hope that’s true. The job absolutely cannot demand anything by way of critical thinking skills. I’m further presuming that, for reasons I hope are obvious.

What are the odds that this woman is, by the fruits of her labor, “mak[ing] someone else’s life easier”? I’m gonna peg that one at about one-in-four, maybe one-in-three. Perhaps she’s an extraordinarily conscientious receptionist in an office somewhere, maybe in a doctor’s office, blossoming with organizational skills to make up for the other deficiencies she so clearly has. Please don’t blast me, all you insulted medical receptionists; I’m trying to give her the benefit of the doubt here.

So there’s at least a two-in-three chance that she just clocks-in-clocks-out.

And a nine-in-ten chance that the iPresident Man-God is not really going to pay her mortgage for her.

Those guesstimates are on the down-side. They’re on the low end.

So the lady is more than a little bit likely to receive that layoff notice Rick was talking about…which by itself isn’t big news. But again. Think of all the millions who are in the situation she’s in, who think on things the way she does. All these mediocre people sick and tired of their own mediocrity, looking to pandering politicians to somehow make them extraordinary.

It’s already happened to one Obamaton I know. Two solid years of listening to him crow about how Obama’s gonna lead us, and Is America Ready to Elect a Black Man? And then Mister Hopenchange prevails…the Dow falls into the crapper…poor fellow’s been working so hard at falling into line, being whatever he’s expected to be by the youngest, cutest, hottest fashion trend. Achieving extraordinary levels in his ordinary-ness. And he ends up not standing out in any particular way, when the bosses go through and try to figure out who doesn’t stand out in any particular way.

That’s the oddest thing I’ve noticed about these layoffs. We’re trained, in the public school system, to maintain our employability by falling into line, being similar to everyone else around us (right before paying that lip-service to “diversity”). Chasing that theory of Nonconformity Is The Surest Way To Get Your Ass Replaced Around Here. People work like the dickens to fit in…just like little schoolkids…to be like everybody else. To be, instead of to do. It’s exactly the wrong approach.

So Rick’s layoff notice, without anyone working to make it come true, ends up coming true nevertheless:

So, this is what I did. I strolled through our parking lot and found 8 Obama bumper stickers on our employees’ cars and have decided these folks will be the first to be laid off. I can’t think of a more fair way to approach this problem. These folks wanted change; I gave it to them.

Obama To Revive the Sixties

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

Hawkins really found a humdinger this time. On Huffington Post, one Stephen Mo Hanan has made the point that capitalism is simply beyond saving. An important message, since his viewpoint no doubt represents the same of many others:

The oft-prophesied collapse of capitalism is looming over our world’s daily supply of goods. The global economic system is on the ropes and must not be allowed to fail. So proclaims government, financial marketeers, tottering czars of industry, media mandarins, and just about everybody else who can pay to be heard. But since their efforts to avert failure have so far inspired little confidence, some attention might be given to Plan B. After all, despite its arcane procedures, capitalism is really just an accounting system, a way of ensuring that the world’s work gets done and that those who do it are properly compensated.

Now I’m not stupid enough to forget that capitalism is also a system that has allowed a substantial though relatively small group of human beings to amass titanic wealth and, so to speak, to capitalize on that wealth by exercising transformative power over the whole planet and everyone on it. If they were all wise and benevolent, that might be a satisfactory arrangement; they aren’t, and it isn’t. So any discussion of how human history (let alone human well-being) might continue after the demise of capitalism must get a good fix on the roots of greed and why it has persisted despite the abundant evidence of its perversity.

Ah yes…greed. The House of Eratosthenes Glossary says

Greedy (adj.):
An undefined word. If it does have a meaning at all, the closest one we’ve been able to extrapolate from the pattern of the word’s actual usage, is: Someone who manifests a desire to keep his property when someone else comes along wanting to take it away. A wealthy person who wants to stay that way (but you’d better click on the word “wealthy” to find out what it really means).

Mo Hanan takes a few paragraphs to say what he really means, but eventually gets around to it…

What if we began to ask whether corporate consumerism was really the ultimate flowering of America’s promise? For one thing, capitalism as we know it would fade away. But since it may be doing that anyway, we might be wise to drop our resistance and bid it a fond farewell. We could thank it for its efficient promotion of the Industrial Revolution, while observing that by creating an interconnected world it has rendered its own creed of frenetic competition obsolete. A satellite can’t go into orbit till its booster rocket falls away. If the accounting system is in flames, let it drop and disintegrate, mission accomplished.

This is the first part of his long column in which that voice in my head, screaming “What in the hell have YOU been watching, Mo Hanan?” finally subsides. I agree with him a hundred and ten percent here. Socialism…anti-capitalism…modern liberalism…call it what you will. It is dedicated to an axiom that whatever has helped us up until this point, is a hindrance from here on out and has to be jettisoned.

I live in a world in which fathers teach their sons how to use guns, even though in these times, you don’t need to know that in order to feed yourself. How to tie knots, even though you don’t need to know that in order to travel. How to change a flat tire, even though a service that will handle that for you, is a phone call away. How to make a car last three hundred thousand miles, even though you’re expected to trade the bucket o’ bolts in after fifty or sixty, seventy tops.

Mo Hanan, and those like him, live in a metrosexual world. A Twilight Zone in which yesterday’s assist is today’s burden and tomorrow’s toxin. He lives in a world in which we’re expected to provide payback to whatever has ferried us, rescued us, lifted us up from disaster, by casually discarding it. To reward life with death.

And his preaching is in favor of brotherly love, and against materialism.

Oh, the irony.

No, we share effectively only when we do so from love, as children spontaneously teach. They teach it not only in those moments when they suddenly share a prized possession, but especially when they share some unexpected aspect of themselves, the harvest of self-discovery. We could travel steadily through life making such offerings of ourselves, giving and receiving delight, except for being conditioned by fear to suspect the worst of each other.

Of course, living can inflict a thousand wounds on our ability (or willingness) to “love one another.” But with the advances since Bible times in our understanding of how the psyche functions, self-realization techniques are widely available to repair the damage done to our inherent nature. Why not make use of them? The world’s work would get organized and performed in a collective spirit of mutual assistance and shared benefit.

Mr. Mo Hanan, you possess a remarkable ability to abandon in a great big hurry whatever dollops of reality contradict this vision of yours, so I’ll pose this question as if you’ve not yet thoroughly noodled on it and it’s not a mere formality: What in the world were the last forty-five years about? What was going on since this vision first gained widespread recognition and acceptance, and the election last month? Was America just s-l-o-w-l-y allowing the lesson to sink in?

What was 1968 about? What was 1980 about? What was 1994 about? Could we have been experiencing the same kind of fatigue with the party-in-charge, leading up to those years, that we displayed in 2008 with their ideological opponents? Or were the people just going off willy-nilly, showing a mindless Pavlovian response to — aggressive marketing?

No, what you’ve managed to ignore here, and I get the impression you have an impressive talent for so ignoring, is the well-established fact that while the capacity to share and give and love is an ingrained part of this mystery-shrouded human psyche, so too is the ego.

Seriously, there is some thought with some horsepower behind it going into Mo Hanan’s column. I’m not entirely sure it’s all his…it has the flavoring of something ripped off from somewhere else, and it is a rather tired message I’ve been hearing over and over again, here and there, since my childhood. But there is some good thinking somehow getting injected in there. It’s just not very well informed. Someone has achieved way too much talent for expurgating ideas he doesn’t like, before he adequately checks ’em out.

Hey, here’s a fun exercise for you during your down time. Every time Mo Hanan talks about loving each other and getting along with each other in this new post-modern era of mutually cooperative human history, in your mind’s mind, insert afterward “with conservatives and Republicans.”

For a chuckle.

But don’t get too humorous with that chuckle. Don’t forget — there are millions upon millions of people who see the world exactly the same way as Mr. Mo Hanan. And they want “everyone” to get along and love each other, to be included. But their definition of everyone excludes quite a few folks, folks just as real as any other, that they don’t want to talk about. Their Utopia is a sort of modern version of Noah’s Ark, built from stem to stern for the express purpose of providing a shelter to an elite crowd…leaving the balance behind. In their world, “everyone” never really means everyone. And they don’t want to admit it.

And always, always, always…their plans for creating this new world, fall apart when the time comes to decide who’s going to be in charge. Because every face on the totem pole thinks it’s going to be the one on top. Everyone in their new Starfleet wants to be a Captain, and nobody wants to clean the Starship latrine. They confront the mystery and the power of the human ego, later rather than sooner — always insisting on the dubious privilege of allowing it to take them by surprise.

That’s why, as you survey all the gear that has given good things to you and those you know, from coffee makers to green (!) automobiles to the weaponry Mo Hanan hates so much, to nuclear reactors…capitalism continues to retain a complete monopoly on providing it. Every nut, every bolt.

So with all due respect, Mr. Mo Hanan, maybe we still have some waiting to do before we talk about jettisoning things.

My Heart is Hardened, My Mind Enslaved

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

Okay, I’ll talk about the damn sign.

Atheists brought their own seasonal message to Olympia on Monday, saying the religious beliefs that underpin the holidays are superstitions that lead to conflict.

“We can’t solve the world’s problems by getting rid of religion, but it would go a long way,” said Dan Barker, co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

The sign his group erected in the Capitol rotunda is the second such capitol display in the nation, he said. The other is in Madison, Wis., where the foundation is based.

The sign says there is no god or heaven, only the natural world. It also criticizes religion, saying it “hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

Isn’t that funny? You talk about how religion motivates people to do nice things, like donate to charity, offer a home to those who need one, put food in the bellies of poor people who wouldn’t be able to come by it any other way — you have to put in a disclaimer that not all atheists are dicks. And true, some aren’t. But the point is, you have to have that disclaimer. Even on a blog.

On the other hand, if you want to talk about religious people being a bunch of nose-picking rubes, you can just leave it at that. Even under a state’s capitol dome.

A depiction of the birth of Jesus, the central figure of Christianity, also was installed Monday just a few feet from the foundation’s sign. And workers set up a 30-foot noble fir tree that will be decorated and lit in a public ceremony Friday.

Those other displays might lead some to think that Washington is a Christian institution, Barker said. “Us being here underscores this is not a Christian state. It’s a secular state, where Christians are welcome.”

Based on what, Mr. Barker? And what’s your definition of “welcome”?

Let me see if I can paraphrase this for you…

“Welcome to our proud, secular state, you hard-hearted, enslaved-minded Christians with your religion that hardens your hearts and enslaves your minds. Please accept this liberty to indulge your pea-brained religion within our secular borders, as a gift, to you, from us, your more big-hearded large-minded secular overlords.”

Like that?

Lois Walker of Shelton, who died last month, requested the foundation sign after a local real estate agent set up the nativity for the first time last year.

That nativity was inspired by the installation of a menorah, symbolizing the Jewish holiday Hanukkah, in December 2006. There is no menorah display this year.

“I’m not very fond of all the competition to set up religious displays on state property,” said Bette Chambers of Lacey, who attended Monday’s dedication.

Bette Chambers is the only one so far, in this fracas, with whom I agree. This is sick.

A member of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, she pointed to the recent terrorist attacks in India, which Indian authorities believe were carried out by Islamist extremists.

“Religion is fine, as long as it’s not too fiercely believed in,” Chambers said.

Oh, scratch that. The woman’s a coward. What else would you call it…she cites violence committed by crazed Islamic extremist thugs, and uses it to put a damper on this other religion, the one that has something to do with that guy who was nailed to a tree. The religion of people she knows won’t come after her and cut off her head.

The nearby nativity was installed without fanfare early Monday, with a sign explaining that the birth of Jesus, believed to be the son of God by Christians, is celebrated around the world.

The tree is a project of the Association of Washington Businesses. Originally called a Christmas tree, the group named it the “Capitol Holiday Kids Tree” to be more inclusive of non-Christian families, according to executive director Don Brunell.

People in northern countries long have recognized the shortest day of the year — Dec. 21 this year — with festivals, said Barker of the foundation. “We nonbelievers are happy to welcome Christians to the celebration of this time of year.”

The group also set up a billboard in downtown Olympia reading “Reason’s Greetings.”

Aren’t we forgetting something?

If this hostile, snotty atheist message is to be allowed into the capitol, so that Christians can have their faith ridiculed just a few paces away from where this “capitol holiday kids’ tree” is to be erected, and the concern is some sort of fairness-doctrine equal-time, why…that must mean atheism is a religion.

Now, waitaminnit. That isn’t true of the decent atheists I know. The ones that aren’t dicks. They just want to be included-out of something. They’re simply looking in from the outside at a vision of the cosmos, with which they choose not to participate because that isn’t how they see it.

You know the old cliche — atheism is a religion like bald is a hair color.

According to that, we have nothing to worry about a secular “religion” being enshrined as the official state creed. Because it isn’t one. It’s an opting-out.

Well if that’s the case, there would be no need for equal-time or rebuttal, because there would be no religion demanding this equal-time. You can opt out of the Christian religion or any other religion; you can, just as easily, opt out of staring at these displays in the capitol.

So a truly secular form of atheism has no need for equal representation, equal expression, or anything of the like. It need not concern itself for how the li’l darlings of the next generation are indoctrinated or are not indoctrinated.

It could use reason to convince the next generation of how true it is. Or not. It could remain blithely unconcerned about who does or does not believe in it. It isn’t a religion, after all.

Unless it is.

I’m not sure which one is the case. Seems to me the folks who are responsible for putting up this sign — aside from being just plain nasty — are trying to have their cake and eat it too. If it’s all about reason and not religion, there’s no need to put up such a sign; nothing to be gained from it. In fact, I would add, no legitimate beef for insisting upon it. If it is a religion, on the other hand, then it’s a matter of great concern that one of its bishops is insisting that Washington State belongs to his order. How many Washington State citizens had no idea of such a thing? Beware, Washington State people, there’s a bunch of religious zealots trying to put you under the iron fist of a theocracy!

Also, if this kind of atheism is an actual religion, and we’re taking these extreme measures to ensure fairness across all these different religions, shouldn’t it be evaluated like any other? What if the Christians, instead of simply putting up their holiday tree, put up a sign criticizing all the things that are wrong with Judaism? Oh wait, I got another one! What if the Christians and Jews got together and put up a sign that said “all Muslims aren’t terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims”?

What that be of the proper civility and decorum to put in a state capitol? Would that lay the groundwork for everyone to get along with everybody else?

Because this atheist-sign seems, to me, to be on par with that. There’s not too much difference between saying the other-guy’s-religion can motivate you to become a terrorist, versus saying it’ll motivate you to have a small heart or a weak mind.

I think we’ve got a “Joshua” situation here: A strange game, it seems the only way to win is not to play. Or more like a Momma situation. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.

You know, I think if we apply that standard equally across all these “religions,” we just might possibly have a happy “holiday.”

Merry Christmas.

Best Use of Jar Jar

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

From Reddit.

“They’re All Dead”

Monday, December 8th, 2008

Can you sense the conflict, as they try to demonstrate 1) ideological purity and 2) nuanced/diverse/tolerant thinking?

This is your fourth milestone on the way to insanity right there, folks, and it’s about to get a whole lot worse. Nobody from their camp can ever have a shitty idea. Nobody from the other camp can ever have a good one. Everyone on their side of the aisle is sweetness and goodness and light, and everyone from the other side is just a walking heap of dog feces.

“Conservatives consider liberals well-intentioned, but misguided. Liberals consider conservatives not only wrong, but really, really bad people.” — Larry Elder

And if that isn’t enough to brighten your day, you can always take a peek at this other thread charmingly titled “I’ll hate this rotten bastard as long as I live. I’ll teach my kids and grandkids to do the same.”

Whatever it takes to bring about that new utopia of peace, love and harmony.

H/T to Stop The ACLU, which was considerate enough to provide this nifty graphic of girls-n-guns, shot in Baghdad:

Miss Mexico Won First Place

Sunday, December 7th, 2008

More at Powerline.

There’s also a bunch of words…and stuff…mixed in with the pictures. They say some things. I think. Didn’t spend much time lookin’ at those.

Freebergfinger

Sunday, December 7th, 2008

Blogger friend Buck wants to know what makes G. Gordon Liddy, in the mind of anyone, an appealing spokesman on behalf of anything — let alone an investment vehicle. Good question.

I’ve opined on much here, but this is something upon which I’ve opined only over there. At least one other commenter thinks I might possibly have a point. Which I find comforting, because this is one thing upon which I’m likely to stake some real largess, very soon…

I’ve had this theory in my head since about…1981 or so (right after learning my lesson). That if your investment plan is to simply buy as much gold as you can get your hands on whenever a democrat is President, you’ll end up very, very far ahead.

I have never fired up a spreadsheet and put my theory to a quarter-by-quarter test. But I probably will now, because what your convicted felon is pointing out is very much in line with my evil sinister plans. I could make some pretty impressive wagers right now about where I think the price of Au is going to be in 2012, and I’d make them with confidence.

There’s better than even odds, in a year I’ll have a report on how well my plan to achieve world domination has done. Hope it’s a good one.

Mint julip, anyone?

Top Ten Irritating Phrases

Sunday, December 7th, 2008

Wired, via Lemondrop, via English Teacher Blog, via Attack Machine, via Maggie’s Farm.

They missed “stereotypical” and “such as.”

Why Infamy?

Sunday, December 7th, 2008

Steeljaw Scribe, not favorably impressed with the way September 11 has been diminished in seven short years to a simple “optional head nod,” is wondering where December 7 is going to go with the passage of time.

I have no answer for this; in fact, I’m inspired to come up with a question.

President Roosevelt commented in passing that this was “a date which will live in infamy.” It was unnecessary for him to go into the reasons why that would be so, and back then it would have been a silly question to ask. After this seven-year media blitz that has successfully muted the horror of September 11, which is December-seven’s tragic grandchild…it has sadly become necessary…as a whole menagerie of viewpoints that would have been patently absurd all those decades ago, are now legitimized.

Here are my offerings.

1. December 7 is a date which will live in infamy because those dirty rotten creepy jerks suddenly and deliberately attacked us, when no state of war existed with us, in order to cripple our fleet.
2. December 7 is a date which will live in infamy because we were caught with our pants down, with our fleet unwisely congregated around a single central point, when it should not have been.
3. December 7 is a date which will live in infamy because our jingoistic policies and our swaggering cowboy mentality had provoked oppressed persons around the world to despise us.
4. December 7 is a date which will live in infamy because it inspired an overly-aggressive foreign polikcy and provoked widespread feelings of hyper-patriotism.

I imagine you could easily round up some “ordinary” Americans who’d be down with any one of those four, perhaps more than one. If that’s the case, it would be dishonest and silly to drone on at length about all the “infamy” involved in this date, without elaborating at some point about why exactly it is there. Seems to me some of those ideas are taken somewhat seriously only because they’re never taken completely seriously.

Being taken seriously can be rough treatment on an untested idea. Let see if they’re up to it.

And if the date remains infamous, but the justification for the infamy is going to rock over time…like a barstool shifting from one leg to another, but remaining the same height…it goes without saying it would be good for our national sanity to admit that’s what’s going on.

Clueless Oprah

Sunday, December 7th, 2008

Now that the election’s over, she’s willing to have Sarah Palin come on her show. Which means, it would seem, that Gov. Palin is supposed to.

In an interview with TV tabloid schlocker Extra, Oprah acted all shocked that Palin has yet to agree to an “O” interview.

“I said I would be happy to talk to Sarah Palin when the election was over… I went and tried to talk to Sarah Palin and instead she talked to Greta [Van Susteren]. She talked to Matt [Lauer]. She talked to Larry [King]. But she didn’t talk to me. But maybe she’ll talk to me now that she has a [multi-million dollar] book deal.”

It might be remembered that back in September, Drudge reported that Oprah had been heard to say that she would never interview Sarah Palin. Not long after the Drudge flash, Oprah issued a press release where she denied the reports of the mean things she said about Palin. Oprah made some vague claim that she had “decided” not to open her show for political candidates despite the fact that she was an open participant in Barack Obama’s campaign and had the now president elect and his wife on her show several times during the campaigns.

So, now Oprah is wide eyed with shock that Palin has snubbed her thus far?

I sense resentment that the Governor of Alaska has a “book deal,” and therefore is soon to have access to some medium-large lucre.

From Oprah Winfrey.

I guess it’s alright for women to get hold of some loot…and lay down some ultimatums, too…provided they’re the right women. Oh well. I can find out about Ms. Palin from lots of other places besides Ms. Winfrey’s show, which I don’t watch anyway.

I’m still a little confused and disoriented over what’s happening here. Am I supposed to be mopey and depressed over how that election turned out? Because this is like being a kid in a candy store. Everywhere I look there’s some spoiled brat leftist — who should be celebrating — and instead is throwing a hissy because she used to be a media-darling and is in imminent danger of maybe, possibly, just perhaps, losing that media-darling status for a week or two.