Archive for May, 2009

How Will Future Generations Define the Word “Obama”?

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

I saw a tee shirt design a few weeks ago that had a picture of an outhouse on it. The caption was “Be back in five, I have to go take an Obama.” This, to my thinking, is disrespectful and unacceptable. But it does raise an interesting point about that name. It is so unique, that in a few years it is bound to possess an abundance of meanings it does not have now.

So seriously — what will it mean throughout the years?

I decided to scribble down some ideas. Ideas, upon which, I would presumably be willing to bet some real money. The timeframe of each usage, as is the case with all slang words, will have a morphing effect on it. Over and over and over again, I’m thinking.

So here are my ideas. Obama (n.)…means…

2009. The name of the One True Savior who will rescue us from our economic malaise. He’d better, anyway. Or oh boy, are we ever screwed!
2010. Some guy who keeps apologizing for America’s historical misdeeds, even when they are grossly off-topic.
2012. Synonym for “Carter.”
2016. Anyone in possession of a sales ability that is so remarkable and overpowering, they easily can sell pure crap to the most skeptical buyer.
2024. A product that is so incredibly substandard and pure in its crappiness, that only an “Obama” can sell it.
A generation from now: A social phenomenon in which people get so wrapped up in the “charisma” or whatever of a movement’s leader, that they forget all about policies.
Two generations from now: Extreme danger that rises up to confront a nation or culture as a direct result of electing such a charismatic leader.
Three generations from now: Journalists’ term: The childlike euphoria which captures the media’s attention as such a charismatic leader becomes more widely known.
A century from now: Financial professionals’ term: A nosedive on the stock market caused by the reckless and ignorant remarks of a nation’s leaders.
In the next cultural eon:
 • Pilots’ term for the panic that results from aircraft flying low over crowded metropolitan areas.
 • The apology issued by a nation or its leaders in order to get foreign countries to like it better, or to stop hating it.
 • The extreme futility associated with such an apology.
 • The point in time when an advanced civilization “jumps the shark” and begins an irreversible descent of perpetual apology-for-self.
 • Any effort which is presented as creative, which is, in reality, a process of destruction.

As a verb:
 • To select a candidate with dark skin, as a representative of some historically ineffectual, damaging or undefined policy ideas. The strategy is that if & when anyone points out the inherent weaknesses of what is about to be done, you just call ’em a racist and be done with it. Everyone knows this is a stupid idea. They’ll never go for it unless we Obama it. It’s the only way.
 • To bullshit people with careful delivery, cheerful tone and a calm, steady demeanor. You’ve got the most gullible professor on the entire campus. If you’re late with your work just Obama your way through, he’ll fall for it every time. Or… My grandson swears he doesn’t know anything about the money missing from my purse, but I could swear that little bastard is Obama-ing me.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Ideological Purity

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

Dick Cheney thinks it is a mistake for Republicans to try to be more moderate.

“I think it would be a mistake for us to moderate,” Cheney said. “This is about fundamental beliefs and values and ideas … what the role of government should be in our society, and our commitment to the Constitution and constitutional principles. You know, when you add all those things up, the idea that we ought to moderate basically means we ought to fundamentally change our philosophy. I for one am not prepared to do that, and I think most of us aren’t. Most Republicans have a pretty good idea of values, and aren’t eager to have someone come along and say, ‘Well, the only way you can win is if you start to act more like a Democrat.'”

Republicans Need Ideas?Blogsister Daphne brings us a disturbing tale of true intolerance in one particular Republican considered to be most-pure.

It’s no wonder less than 25% of the public identifies as Republican when we’ve elevated Joe The Plumber as a conservative poster boy. I’m sure he’s an honest, decent guy, but give me a break, he doesn’t exactly sell conservative philosophy eloquently to anyone with an IQ above 60. When Joe speaks, I cringe.

People don’t understand the dictionary—it’s called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It’s not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we’re supposed to do—what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we’re supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins. I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children. [emphasis Daphne’s]

And Neo-Neocon seems to me to flat-out disagree with the former Vice President, making her preference for quantity over quality abundantly clear.

So, what’s behind the conservatives’ targeting of RINOs, when they know that the states from which RINOs come are likely to elect Democrats instead? [Olympia] Snowe’s Maine, for example, is now a solidly blue state, and to deny this is to deny reality.

I don’t think that conservatives really have a death wish for the Republican Party. It’s that the extreme wings of either party are just that: extreme. As such, they tend to be inherently less practical, less willing to compromise, and more inclined towards ideological purity and purges.

I think NN is correct in her observations, but also that this is a good thing. If Sen. Snowe wants to go the way of Specter, then good riddance. There is a deeper issue here than simply winning this-year’s-election, an objective in which Republicans never enjoyed winners’-money throughout the entirety of last year. They were always fighting a losing battle on this. The year 2008 was a liberal-year, period, full-stop.

But this deeper issue, of which I speak, is being a decent and reliable representative for your constituency and that constituency’s concerns. And the criteria is unfulfilled if your party only does this so long as it’s accepted by a popular vote. Loyalty endures throughout waxing and waning popularity, or else it is nothing. Let’s put it this way: When you go off into a closed-room meeting with someone else who’s going to try to change you, your constituency understands you will continue to fight for their interests, even though they personally can’t be in there to make sure you do. That is the kind of loyalty I’m talking about.

It’s a pretty big concern. Neither of the major political parties have that quality right now. The democrats got past it last year by being hip and edgy and cool…which works out pretty well when the race is a sprint and not a marathon. But who could be relied-upon? Nobody. Certainly not the guy who won the elections. The cuteness-contest came to decide things not because one among the candidates had a great deal to offer there (although that was part of it)…but rather, because it was a tie-breaker. All superior methods by which the electorate could’ve decided the election, had been tried, and the results were inconclusive. Nobody had this quality of resilience and reliability of which I speak.

And, let us not forget: Losing that quality is exactly what cost the Republicans power in the years previous. That’s how they lost Congress two years ago. You say “I’m a Republican!!” — and what, exactly, do I know about you? Do I know you’re going to insist on punishment for the kid who threw the first punch in a fight, instead of the other kid who threw the last one? Do I know you’ll stand up for Israel, protect my right to keep and bear arms from being infringed in any way, fight MoveOnDotOrg’s network “neutrality” schemes? Fight to make sure kiddy-diddlers are kept in prison for their entire lives? To bring back the electric chair and fry up the murderers extra crispy? Cut my taxes? Whittle government down to size, appoint some judges that will award child custody to the father when it makes sense to do so, consign affirmative action to the ash bin of history where it belongs?

No. No no no. No. No. No. No, no and no.

This is what blogger friend Phil meant, I think, when he eschewed the notion that the Republican party needs to broaden its base, and instead insisted it needs to deepen it. I don’t know what people mean when they call themselves Republican, and neither do you. About all you can discern from the willing personal association with that word, now, is that the speaker must be a glutton for punishment. Nothing else.

The confusion between extremism and moderation is the fatal mistake, here, I think. Neo-Neocon has fallen for it, and she’s not the only one. This is what needs to be straightened out.

Take, for example, Joe’s ugly thoughts about homosexuals. That seems pretty extreme, and I don’t agree with it at all. Sexual preference is sexual preference, nothing more; to associate it with perversion, or likelihood of perversion, is discriminatory, just-plain-wrong, and not just a little bit treacherous. Lots of straight folks, it should be unnecessary to point out, have been dangerous perverts.

And yet — what is truly extreme here? Joe’s attitude that his children should never be around homosexuals?

Or some centralized authoritarian government program, hard (regulatory) or soft (“education”), to force Joe to immerse his children in a homosexual fellowship?

My point is: Stop it with this “proving” that Republicans are just as tolerant as, or more tolerant than, democrats. They are, of course. I’ve yet to hear a major candidate for President on the Republican side intone that those edgy urban liberal people are bitter and clinging to their hybrids and hallucinogens. I’ve yet to see a conservative condemn some proposed program just because it would be too helpful to people of color and females, the way liberals condemn things just because they fail to achieve sufficient unpleasantness or abuse toward whites and males.

Just stop proving it.

Because when both sides claim to be decent, and both sides show some evidence that they do in fact contain indecent people in their midsts; when both sides claim to represent people, but neither side can be relied-upon to carry a simple message to Washington and have it codified into our laws; then it becomes a contest to see which side is cuter.

Which is what happened six months ago.

And Republicans are never going to win that. Look at the people saying Republicans are down for the count, never going to get up off the mat ever again. Within the tiny world those pundits live in, they’re right. Because they think style is all that matters. It is not going to be stylish, any time in the next twenty years or more, to be conservative. Not gonna happen.

But it could very easily make a great deal more sense. And we don’t have to wait twenty years for that to matter. Just be honest, sincere, reliable and consistent. Tell us what is important to you, and convince us that when you meet with other people who recoil from it, you’ll continue to defend it. Even when they argue against it and say asinine stupid things like “I’m the only thing standing between you and the pitchforks.” Even when those who are hostile to it, start to use blackmail. And then bribery. Start out with sensible, logical positions like…”She shouldn’t get custody when she’s a cokehead, just because she happens to have a vagina.” Or…”What part of ‘shall not be infringed’ is hard for you to understand?” Or…”If your state doesn’t recognize gay marriage, and you’re gay, and you want to be married, then MOVE.” Or…”If you’re going to let innocent people die just so you don’t have to bring discomfort to a brutal savage murderer, I see nothing morally superior about that decision.”

And then stand firm. The nation is hungry for that — the entire nation, not just half of it. That’s all that’s needed.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Real Man’s Barbeque

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

Had to mark this piece of human achievement properly…I was doing a GIS for “real man” to find some artwork that would appropriately complement the previous post.

What’s hosted below, didn’t quite fill the bill. But it certainly is good, so I felt the need to snag it somewhere else. And the page in which it is embedded, is even better. In addition to being timely.

Remote

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

Now that Bessie’s retired, it would seem the next-most-durable appliance in the household is a Memorex DVD/VHS combo unit that has done little-to-nothing to go above & beyond the call of duty, but has filled out an impressive lifespan of heavy use, with no grief involved whatsoever. I realized this all of a sudden when the remote went missing.

A missing remote is like nausea. Most of the time the “spell” is over in a flash and means nothing. Every now and then it flares into a real problem. And then there is the exceptional crisis that drags on and on. This was that. It ran on for just a little over twenty-four hours but it seems(ed) like so much more. Years. The coffee didn’t taste as good, the wine soured, the air didn’t smell as fresh — and it damn sure hasn’t felt like our living room. We lost some domestic tranquility as we proceeded to seriously entertain ideas that I, the wise and benevolent patriarch, had —

 • stuffed the remote into a dry cleaning bag with our laundry,
 • carried the remote into the bedroom and stuck it under my pillow,
 • stuck the remote into the junk drawer in the kitchen,
 • dropped the remote behind the couch and somehow ensconced it underneath,
 • carried the remote into my son’s bedroom,
 • walked out onto the balcony with the remote and left it in the rain,
 • …and my personal favorite, dropped it into the chest freezer.

Watching movies is not the same without a remote. Not now that we’ve had one and used one.

I should add that Thomas Jefferson was to books what I am to DVDs, especially of silly television shows from the 1980’s. I’m pretty sure we’re up to half a ton now. My DVD collection is almost a decent retirement vehicle. Me missing the living room DVD remote? It’s like a centipede getting athlete’s foot.

The lady of the house found the remote. I rewarded her by forcing her to recant only half of her wild-ass accusations toward her wise and benevolent patriarch, none of which turned out to be true. First order of business tomorrow, after a Mother’s Day session in which she’ll be plied with — what else? — DVDs — is to go out and score one of those remote-pockets. Time’s come. The deluxe model, please, that drapes over the back of the couch and has ten crazy-pockets. This cannot be allowed to happen ever again.

On the other hand…I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again…it’s evidence of how good we have it, if this ranks real high on our list of problems. Of course it’s easy to keep that in mind now that we’ve found the goddamn thing.

Update 5/10/09: Alright we have some candidates — here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

I finally decided that second-to-last one was the champion.

Best Day EvahI have a number of rules that I am persuaded to violate when remotes go missing. One of these is, I really hate bringing my engineering-thinking home with me. A home already has an engineer, after all, and it is the Lady of the House. I step on toes when I do that. But…sometimes, women are blind to certain things. Like — “I put all the remotes on the living room coffee table, why did they ever go anywhere else? If they stayed on the coffee table none of them would ever go missing?” Me: “Because…they got USED.” Her: “So put it BACK on the coffee table when you’re done with it, does that require so much effort?” Me (crisply, haughtily, dancing closer to the edge, I’ve come this far why turn back now): “It’s not a matter of how-much-effort. When people accommodate inanimate objects, as opposed to inanimate objects accommodating people the way the Good Lord intended, your precious plan will be rent asunder. That’s not even a rule; that’s just things the way they are.” Her: (That awful, scolding silence)…

See how terrible this is for domestic harmony? The remotes have to stay found. Period.

The other rule this violates is — I’m really not pleased with myself when I have complaints about things a man living a hundred and fifty years ago would not have. Like, fr’example, where’s that f*cking remote. It tells me I’m turning into a soft-bellied twenty-first century veal calf.

And I don’t continue to wrestle and wrestle with problems, without solving them at some point once-and-fer-all. Because I’m a MAN, dammit!

So those last two rules are placed in direct conflict when the remote goes missing.

Thirteen dollars plus shipping to recover my manhood. Pretty cheap. Sure, a man can tolerate inconveniences, but there’s more to life than tolerating inconveniences. If you think that’s all a man does, you’re just a feminist shill. When the man’s done with the day’s work, it’s time for hot chicken wings, cold beer, and…let us get this one thing straight…the REMOTE!

As Yul Brynner said: Thus it shall be written; thus it shall be done.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Serving His Country

Saturday, May 9th, 2009

Before...AfterBlogger pal Gerard has remitted a service to his country of priceless value.

Maybe not priceless, actually…the piece o’crap he started with cost just north of 350 big ‘uns. That’s a lot for a picture, you know. If you tasked me to go out and find a camera that costs as much as a house, I wouldn’t even know how to begin. How did it come to cost that much? In case you’ve been living in a cave, this is that debacle that had those frightened Manhattan folk scrambling around like ants beneath a magnifying glass…our wonderful in-touch-with-the-common-folk Prez, doing His wonderful work, with His finger on the pulse of America, knowing what we’re thinking before even we are too sure about it. Someone in His office didn’t understand that flying a huge plane low over the 9/11 site might not be too swell of an idea. There’s that Holy Empathy for ya.

On a related note, a scapegoat that is supposed to be that someone…just threw himself on his sword. Wonder if that’s the right guy. Ya think?

Anyway, why don’t you give a quick glance and see if something’s improved over what our wonderful (soon to be auto-manufacturing and healthcare-providing) government put out. Before…after.

He did it in two minutes, he claims, and I’ll bet you he didn’t even scare the bejeezus out of anyone in order to get it done. Van der Leun for Prez, I say. Or Picture-Czar at the very least.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Dresden Apology

Saturday, May 9th, 2009

Jammie Wearing Fool, via Ace:

[President Obama] will be aware of the sensibilities of his German hosts before the D-Day commemoration and by traveling to Dresden — a city destroyed by ferocious Allied bombing in February 1945 — Mr Obama will also acknowledge how Germany suffered during the Second World War.

I have deep misgivings about the Dresden thing. But I don’t know enough to condemn them and can’t acquire the knowledge needed to condemn them; I didn’t grow up in that kind of a world. And I know my limitations.

We need a word to describe this. It is escaping a lot of criticism that it rightfully deserves, simply because no word exists to precisely describe it —

— these ineffectual, meaningless, purely-political apologies offered by soft little boy-men who’ve never known war…or who represent a constituency of soft little boy-men who’ve never known war…sitting in judgment of the memories of tougher, stronger, better men who did what they could to end war. Their casual proclamations of what is & isn’t deserving of an apology, have long since exploded past the perimeter defined by the limits of their knowledge. They don’t know what they’re talking about, and they know they don’t know what they’re talking about. It stinks to high heaven.

Thing I Know #61. Disaster is sure to follow when the legacy of a man who has courage, is decided by other men who have none.

Your Hiroshima/Nagasaki apology is just around the corner, I’m thinkin’.

Barbara Ehrenreich and Adam Shepard

Saturday, May 9th, 2009

Stossel, in his latest column Making It. He’s writing about the economy and asking people to keep just a little bit of old-fashioned perspective…

…Barbara Ehrenreich won fame by claiming that it’s almost impossible for an entry-level worker to make it in America. She wrote Nickel and Dimed, a book that describes her failure to “make it” working in entry-level jobs.

Her book is now required reading in thousands of high schools and colleges. I spoke to her for my ABC special “Bailouts, Big Spending and Bull.”

“I worked as a waitress and an aide in a nursing home and a cleaning lady and a Wal-Mart associate. And that didn’t do it.”

If you do a good job, can’t you move up?

“That’s not easy. Wal-Mart capped the maximum you can ever make.” But if you do a good job, you could be promoted to assistant manager, store manager.

“Well, I suppose.”
:
“I read Nickel and Dimed,” Adam Shepard told me. He was assigned her book in college and decided to test Ehrenreich’s claim.

He picked a city out of a hat, Charleston, S.C., and showed up there with $25. He didn’t tell anyone about his college degree. He soon got an $8/hour job working for a moving company. He kept at it. Within a year, he told me, “I have got $5,500 and a car. I have got a furnished apartment.”

Adam writes about his search for the American Dream in Scratch Beginnings. It’s a very different book from Nickel and Dimed.

“If you want to fail, go for it,” he said.

Barbara Ehrenreich wanted to fail?

“Absolutely, I think she wanted to fail — and write the book about it.”

I asked him for evidence.

“She is spending $40 on pants. She is staying in hotels. I made sacrifices so that I could succeed. She didn’t make any sacrifices.”

I sure wish Stossel went to the universities and asked why, exactly, Nickel and Dimed was required reading. Not that he’d get an honest answer, but some of the tortured excuses might have been interesting. (Update: The DUmmies have more than a few things to say about this.)

Regarding the subject at hand, it really comes down to two fundamentally different ways of looking at the world: If one guy can’t make it somewhere, then nobody’s really guaranteed to get it done anywhere; and, if one guy can do something somewhere, then anyone else can do the same thing anywhere.

California May Cut Jobs of 2,000 Firefighters

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Yup, we found a place to make a cut. Fire halls.

Radio guys are busy reading off a list of California state agencies that could, possibly, absorb some kind of a cut so the firefighters might be able to stay on and fight some fires. But these agencies are not absorbing any such cuts, and nobody’s asking them to. So they must be running lean-n-mean.

It is quite a list. Gay/lesbian/transgender caucuses…womens’ studies, department of…lottery…Native American heritage commission…optometry, board of…professional fiduciary bureau…mediation and conciliation services…motor vehicles, department of…workers investment board, workers’ compensation adjustment board, workers’ compensation advocacy board, workers’ compensation sweetening board, workers’ compensation this, workers’ compensation that…astrologers’ union…(okay I made up some of those). This has been going on for, dare I say, twenty minutes and is starting to make for some medium-to-poor radio. Just keep in mind: They aren’t giving a one-paragraph summary of each. Not even one sentence. They read the name and go on to the next one. Twenty minutes. And then some. Twenty-five, almost.

None of these can be cut. Nope. The firefighters have to go.

Because it’s high time we got the government to do what it’s really supposed to do: Lecture young chubby goth chicks on what towering assholes men really are…and let the buildings burn to the ground.

Aulinsky’s Rules for Radicals

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

Had an older relative e-mail me a link to these. Most interesting seeing put into words, for the very first time in my experience, what I’ve seen in act and spirit so many times…especially lately. Especially items #4 and #12.

RULE 1: Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.
RULE 2: Never go outside the expertise of your people.
RULE 3: Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.
RULE 4: Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.
RULE 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.
RULE 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy.
RULE 7: A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
RULE 8: Keep the pressure on. Never let up.
RULE 9: The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
RULE 10: If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.
RULE 11: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

I’m just teasing the first sentence of each; you have to read the paragraphs to get the full essence. But I am impressed, not so much by what is present, but by what is missing.

Two things.

Intellectuality. It is used, here, solely for the purpose of winning and for no other purpose at all. In all other aspects, the behavior that is dictated by these rules is the behavior of savage animals.

And that brings me to the second thing I see missing: A sense of unity…harmony…symbiosis…coming together to solve common problems. Everything is strategic. And I mean the classic-dictionary, military school meaning of strategic:

Intended to render the enemy incapable of making war, as by the destruction of materials, factories, etc.: a strategic bombing mission.

Against an enemy. So these are twelve rules that, following the fulfillment of the progressive dream of constructing that utopia in which we “all” can live, would have no place anywhere whatsoever.

So these are rules for hard-left types to use when they lack any semblance of culture, civility, intellectuality, and any intent of living in peace or harmony with diverse points of view. You know, those two things are exactly what “progressives” are supposed to support…everlastingly and unconditionally. Well, they don’t support those things all the time.

But the lefty types we know, do support the above twelve rules — pretty much all the time.

Sunbeams From Cucumbers

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

George F. Will:

It is Demagoguery 101 to identify an unpopular minority to blame for problems. The president has chosen to blame “speculators” — aka investors; anyone who buys a share of a company’s stock is speculating about the company’s future — for Chrysler’s bankruptcy and the dubious legality of his proposal. Yet he simultaneously says he hopes that private investors will begin supplanting government as a source of capital for the companies. Breathes there an investor/speculator with such a stunted sense of risk that he or she would go into business with this capricious government?

Its chief executive says: “If the Japanese can design (an) affordable, well-designed hybrid, then, doggone it, the American people should be able to do the same.” Yes they can — if the American manufacturer can do what Toyota does with the Prius: Sell its hybrid without significant, if any, profit and sustain this practice, as Toyota does, by selling about twice as many of the gas-thirsty pickup trucks that the president thinks are destroying the planet.

Twelve Step Program for Obama Supporters

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

A needed public service right now, and bound to become moreso as the year becomes more mature, I should say.

I can’t remember where I saw this, but somewhere I saw someone say “democrats won the elections, and they just need to learn to deal with that.” That captures it, I think. Never in the history of sore losers has any loser been quite as sore as these winners.

They never seem to run out of excuses. But who asked them for any? They won. It’s their policies…that is the problem. The policies don’t work. Those are the best policies that don’t work; the lesser policies, do damage. And they know it. If conservatives still ran things, barely significant things, somewhere, it would be all their fault. But unfortunately that isn’t the case. And so there is a wandering maelstrom of blame looking for a home. Like a frenzy of hungry sharks with no meat around, or a wild lightning storm without a ground.

I don’t know where in the world I can find a conservative nearly as bitter and angry as the most tranquil and relaxed liberal right now. They snap at their perceived opponents, they snap at their own, they snap at disinterested bystanders. And you’d better believe everyone is a racist.

So I would expect the twelve points of advice are best implemented — after things have calmed down. Just a bit.

1. Establish honesty in admitting failure.
2. Show faith in a higher power.
3. Assist in surrender of control.
4. Help in taking a personal moral inventory – Liberals absolutely hate this.
5. Encourage admission that the previously held belief was incorrect.
6. Help recovering Obama supporter accept defects in judgment.
7. Help restore humility.
8. Establish a willingness to make amends.
9. Assist the Obamican in giving and finding forgiveness.
10. Help recovering supporter maintain his progress.
11. Help develop an action plan – Democrats love action plans.
12. Encourage recovering lefty to follow through on action plan.

If there was a walking demigod that was the very incarnation of pure disappointment, I’m afraid Barack Obama would be the guy. There simply is no way to establish higher expectations of something, or to depress the threshold of actual delivery any further. He’s become the “Phantom Menace” of Presidents…and if you’re old enough to have possessed awareness of your surroundings back then, you have to remember how angry, bitter and heated things got about that. A 12-step program would have been a soothing tonic to purge the aftertaste from pod-racing and Jar Jar Binks, so it’s easy to see it’ll be needed now with regard to our latest disappointment pandemic.

Poor, poor, bitter, sad, angry, disappointed people. Poor hurting people, with their bruised, bloated, brittle egos. Good luck to you all. Don’t get too angry at everyone else, mkay? Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering…and that, of course, is a path to the Dark Side.

Yikes! XII

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

I just don’t want to go into detail about this one too much.

Some of us have more to lose than others.

I Hit Your Car

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

From I Am Bored, via Miss Cellania.

Wine Opener

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

The Chief Justice of the Delaware Supreme Court is in trouble for forwarding an e-mail with a racy video. That’s a shame, but it gave me the information I needed to track down what I think is the video…and some others.

I don’t particularly feel like talking about Chief Justices getting in trouble, so on with the videos.

Bench At Islands Brygge

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

Mad Photo World. Go to his site for a larger image…really amazing. And that’s with a Nikon D200, you say? Hmmmm…Father’s Day is comin’ up…

Lessons of the Great Depression

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

I’d just like to point out that “Government Plans to Meddle in the Economy, That Worked” is in my collection of really thin books, sandwiched somewhere between “Movies Made From Video Games That Don’t Suck” and “Well-Known Liberal Women I Wish I Could Date.” There are forty books crammed in that one section of my bookshelf, but you can whip through every single word while waiting for a pot of coffee if you’re quick enough flipping ’em open.

Hat tip to Maggie’s Farm.

Paris Hilton Doesn’t Know…

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

…like…anything at all about paying bills. Doesn’t even know what a cell phone bill looks like. That came out during a deposition after she got sued

The deposition offers several other glimpses into Hilton’s life, including her preference for David Letterman because Jay Leno asks questions she doesn’t like. She also acknowledges she’d never seen her own cell phone bills until attorneys showed her one in an attempt to figure out who she was calling.

Asked who gets her bills, she replied, “I don’t know. I’m assuming, like, whoever pays my bills. I never ask about that stuff.”

Wow. She doesn’t even know who pays them?

Interesting.

Before she gets to that, she might want to make a study out of things that are & aren’t good to say when someone sticks a microphone in your face.

Extremism Dictionary

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

Homeland Security just recalled it and I think I know why.

It could be because there are one or two “definitions” that would create a problem…although I don’t think so. If there is a hot-potato like that in there somewhere, it flew under my radar when I skimmed through, and I wasn’t really looking for one anyway.

No, I think what’s really incriminating here is the mindset revealed when such a “lexicon” is assembled in the first place. Because these “groups” are all — or could be reasonably inferred to be — lawful citizens, whom the law says belong here, who are supposed to be here.

It is indicative of a government at war with the very people it is supposed to represent.

It takes all those talking points about “working for everyone” — and derails them like wayward locomotives. It’s the Big Reveal. This government isn’t here for “everyone.” It isn’t even here for some of us. It is here to sit in judgment of us.

Cats Are So Dramatic

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

Fellow Webloggin contributor Bookworm Room.

Socialism-Free Vacation!

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

So remember boys & girls, you have to have your tax dollars pissed away on a whole slew of “They’re Too Big To Fail” bailouts, or else you just might get cholera.

Enjoy a little bit of False Dilemma on your next vacation.

Trekkies Don’t Like the New Star Trek

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

Jennifer Ellison on Rollerblades

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

I Made a New Word XXVI

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

Libmus Test (n.)

A test a liberal (supposedly) lays down to (supposedly) test the validity of an opposing argument that has him backed into a corner, to which he will (supposedly) show a decent level of respect if only he can be (supposedly) satisfied that the conditions of the test have been (supposedly) met.

Like here, for example. Where “Rob” schools me in no uncertain terms about tea parties.

I thought I made my position on the protesters’ racism clear, MK. I’ll repeat it in case you somehow missed it:

[Tea party protesters are] racist and stupid only when they speak out against a black president who hasn’t raised our taxes when a white president was responsible for massively expanding the size of our government and national debt. In other words, they’re racist and stupid only when their tea tantrums are clearly hypocritical.

Since you’ve yet to say one word about Bush’s policies, you’ve yet to demonstrate that you aren’t a hypocritical racist. Feel free to address my point rather than repeating your point about how you oppose Obama’s policies.

“Feel free” disguises the intent that this is a command, Colonel-to-Lieutenant (or President-to-automaker), that I should be following, in a mine’s-not-to-reason-why style. And the dressing it up as a command, in turn, shifts the focus away from the terms of the exchange that is ostensibly taking place here. I have absolutely no hope whatsoever of convincing Rob I am not a racist, should I fail to produce this criticism I’ve previously dished out about President Bush’s policies? Or is it more like, Rob will be required to disclaim any of his thoughts that I might be a racist, if I do so produce?

But you see what’s happening here? It’s a subtle topic drift. Rob — poor dumb bastard — created this thread called A big thank you to Janeane Garofalo for calling it like it is. Jeneane Garofalo, you see, thinks tea parties are all about white supremacy. Rob is lending his good name, such as it exists anyway, to the idea that Garofalo hit a bulls-eye.

So whether Rob recalls it or not, the topic is really about whether that raging nutbar Jeneane Garofalo is a raging nutbar or not. Pursue that subject too diligently, too accurately, and too long…and Rob will look like a raging nutbar. So we need the topic drift, for Rob’s sake. We have to start going down this bunny trail about whether I’ve ever criticized President Bush for outrageous spending, or not.

The very first post at House of Eratosthenes, from four and a half years ago, would settle that one; many other entries would do the same thing. But I am prevented from presenting these links to Rob by 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.

Why does Rob need to throw down this lib-mus test? Because he “knows” things he doesn’t really know, and he damn well knows he knows things he doesn’t really know. He seeks to prove the unprovable: That you show Rob fifty tea-party protesters, Rob can show you fifty racists. He doesn’t know this, of course. He pulled it out of his butt. Or, rather, Ms. Garofalo’s butt. But he thinks he has a way to make it evidently true…

So we have a “Rob’s Rule.” If you have a word to say against the precious Replacement Jesus in the White House, you have to have said the same things against the last guy or Rob will call you a racist. And you have to have documented proof. Give it to Rob.

Well, I’ve got the proof but there’s my own TIK #272. Rob will have to sit & spin.

But isn’t it strange? Conversations with liberals tend to go this way. They think and do all these weird things that inspire all these incredulous questions from reasonable people…then they turn it around. Suddenly, you’re the guy who has to prove something.

They are exceptionally skilled at it, I notice, even the dimwits. Through repeated practice. Because they just keep on going there. Why do they keep doing that?

Thing I Know #273. 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.

In this case it’s “stop criticizing my Replacement Jesus President.” But it can be any one of a number of other things as well. Support affirmative action; slam the border gates wide open; help us oppose the invasion of Iraq; stop all foreign aid to Israel; send more money to the teachers’ unions; help us criticize Rush Limbaugh; help us make fun of Sarah Palin; support the S&L and auto bailouts; increase the minimum wage; increase taxes; reinstate the death tax.

Do all these things or we’ll call you some kind of an “ist.”

But here’s the funny thing. Here is the truth of TIKs 272 and 273. If you are told “I’ve made up my mind you’re a racist,” you aren’t motivated to do what the liberal wants. If you are told “I’ve made up my mind you aren’t one,” similarly, you aren’t motivated. If you’re told “I’m sort of on the fence about whether you’re a racist or not, but I’m leaning toward you not being one,” again, you aren’t motivated.

And the really funny thing. If the liberal takes that fourth option…”I’m undecided about whether you’re a racist or not, but I kind of think you just might be one”…and deep down you know you really are a racist? Again — you aren’t motivated. You just think, well shucks, I’ve been found out.

TIK #273 only works when it’s practiced on the innocents. That’s why it explicitly says, “make sure they aren’t guilty of it.” Make sure the accusation is false. Make DAMN sure. Make sure it’s false, and that you also impart the message — I’m not saying my mind’s made up on this, mind you, I’m just saying I’m open to it. I’m in the process of figuring out whether you’re a racist or not. You’re on your laaaaaaaaaast chance to state your case, because I’m just in the final stage of making up my mind.

And that completes the circuit. The “mark” then has the poles of his battery plugged in; and however much desperation he has to prove he is innocent of the TIK #273 accusation, that is the “voltage” that now actuates the circuit. Now you’ve got him doing whatever you want him to do.

If he falls for it, that is.

And so we have the lib-mus test. The throw-down. The phony trial. The liberal perches, like the Sphinx by the City of Thebes ambushing the travelers with the riddle — demanding an answer to the challenge that isn’t built to be met. Show me how you’ve criticized Bush for spending money! Heh. I’ve got a list of links he can choke on…but what’s the point? From that moment forward, if he ever ran into someone on the innerwebs carping away about “that mkfreeberg character is a big fat disgusting racist!” he’d chirp in and say “Not so! I slapped him with my racist test, and he satisfied my conditions!” He’d do that? Really?

Because if not…I would think even someone who couldn’t see the logic up to this point, upon realizing that, would find it to be crystal clear. The lib-mus test is a big ol’ pillowcase stuffed with pure phony. It is bullshit pure enough to grow tomatoes the size of cantaloupes, turnips the size of watermelons.

But people have been giving in to it.

So it’s been going on and going on…by now, it’s got a good ol’ bundle of momentum behind it, like a toddler that’s been conditioned to throw around the F-word, or a dog that’s been trained to shit in the middle of the living room. But hey. We’re all sentient creatures capable of learning, and learning is simply a non-instinctive behavioral change.

So folks, here’s the lead for you to follow. Quit giving in to this bovine-feces…and quit it now. If you’re innocent of the charge and you know it, stop trying to prove it, and instead call out these people who are trying to bullshit you like I did here.

And Rob — you’ve just been properly schooled. Next time do your bullying properly, and pick on someone beneath your own size.

Eight Extreme Body Parts

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

Etch-A-Sketch Art

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

Cracked, via John Hawkins’ Conservative Grapevine (5/4/09 0745), via Musket Balls.

Just Switch Them Around, Barack

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

I keep hearing that Barack Obama is this awesome and mega-wonderful President. I’ve been skeptical about that, but out of the blue I suddenly realized: Have you ever given some thought to how little it would take for that to be really true? All He really needs to do, is treat people who make money the way He treats terrorists, and treat terrorists the way He treats people who make money.

That would be cool. He’d be all, like, “Hey you terrorists, if you’re killing less than 250,000 people a year you don’t have a thing to worry about.” And then behind closed doors He’d let loose with that maniacal James-Bond-bad-guy laugh that you just know He’s got down cold, and tax the ever loving snot out of ’em. Instantly, terrorists all over the world would wonder why they ever bothered to get into this line of work in the first place. He’d call up the biggest baddest terrorist and tell him “You know, I think it’s My preference that you should quit,” and the big bad terrorist would have to resign in disgrace. Then the U.S. Government would use TARP funds to take over that terrorist organization and start calling the shots about what kind of terrorist strikes it should make, until the damn thing goes bankrupt anyway.

As far as businessmen go, He’d be counseling the rest of us, leading us, guiding us, and lecturing us like we’re a bunch of paste-eating first-graders…that the businessmen are not our enemies. You know what, we really need to just get over our anger and fear and sit down & talk to them. All you guys with your bad attitudes toward ’em, you just change your attitudes because you’re the ones messing everything up. That’s precisely what’s needed! He’d sign a bunch of executive orders saying we can’t torture them with ever-increasing corporate taxes because America is a place where that just plain never, ever, ever happens. And when it does, people get angry with us, so if we know what’s good for us we’d better just stop it.

Then He’d point out that terrorism is a leading cause of global warming and He’d lay down a bunch of timetables for the terrorists to cease and desist. Stop polluting our planet, you terrorists!

He’d be talking so tough about them, that if there was a “stock exchange” for terrorists, every time He opened His mouth the average daily index would drop by several hundred points.

What a super-ultra-mega-mega-President He would be. He’d make George Washington look like Millard Fillmore.

Protest Fail

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

One ringleader babbling away about “command hierarchy” and “consensus”…but it doesn’t seem to me anyone else believes in such things. And that includes the people on his side of the conflict. He’s herdin’ cats.

Just like the “real leaders” with such strangely simplistic notions of consensus-building. In many ways. Like, end results, how well it’s thought-out, how well it’s coordinated…how funny it looks (when there’s nothing really important at stake).

Well — I’m off to get myself a glass of Corporate Water and get ready for bed. Night, all.

Attention Faithless Men

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

Let’s see, Hillary Clinton, Silda Spitzer, Elizabeth Edwards… if you want to be an adulterer, marry a Democratic lawyer. No self-esteem whatsoever.

Don Surber, whose scorecard today was tweeted by Gerard.

Someday I should really put together a list of democrat documents that don’t mean anything. The “I’m not going to invade Poland” pacts, the “Our nuclear research is strictly for power” statements, the marriage licenses, the “You’ll never see your taxes go up by a single dime” promises, the “I’m a practicing Catholic” statements, the quotes about “All the scientists agree about climate change”…

It’s like they aren’t strictly lying, per se. More like they have bifurcated brains that can embrace two different and separate planes of reality at the same time.

Religious Leftist Bigot-Fest

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

Blogger friend Rick:

At our favorite go-to loving, compassionate and oh-so tolerant Religious Leftist hide-out:

A few days ago Brian McLaren commented via Sojourners on some disturbing findings from a recently released Pew Forum study, reported on here by CNN:

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.

There’s no getting around this one. Those unaffiliated with any religious organization were less likely to support torture than the white evangelical Protestants surveyed. To borrow a line from Anne Lamott once again, I suspect Jesus has been drinking a lot of gin out of the cat dish this week.

Just to avoid confusion, let me be crystal clear on this one: I don’t believe you can be a Follower of Jesus and be in favour of torture, no way, no how.
:
I’m wondering if those “six in 10” white evangelical Protestants are not so much for torture per se, but in reality are for torture as long as it is practiced against people who do not look like them.

“No getting around this one.” Heh. Heheheh.

He said, “Go and tell this people: ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.'” — Isaiah 6:9

No time to elaborate on where the flock has gone astray here, but it has to do with what you truly believe if you’re a gnostic atheist. We grew here, we’re nothing more than the natural result of wetness and nutrients coming in contact with each other, there is no Divine Will placing us here.

And therefore when one of us places several others of us in mortal peril, there is no moral imperative to do anything about it. Our leftist Christian-bashers are mistaking the absence of something for an abundance of it.

Suburban Pastoral

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

Blog-sister Daphne

Nice Looking HouseA few blocks down an oak shaded boulevard lined with stately brick and mortar middle class aspirations, lies a small side road. A left turn there will put you on short cul-de-sac where nine families reside. These people know each other well. They’re raising children of a similar age, belong to the same clubs, sit on the same committees, volunteer their time and money to the same causes. They experience more personal detail than your average neighbors share, and given the right conditions, a cul-de-sac can create a little hot bed of juicy intimacy.

The house sitting in the dead center at the end of the loop was beautiful, the nicest pick of the nine by any measure. The yard was professionally landscaped and meticulously maintained, the large home had a beautiful limestone facade, the interior was immaculate. The people who lived there cared about appearances, had high standards for their chosen lifestyle and managed it all well. The husband practiced law for a living, the wife raised their four children and kept up the house. A good looking family, they were prosperous, well adjusted pillars of the neighborhood.

“Desperate Housewives” doesn’t do it quite as elegantly. It tries but it falls short.

Yes, you bet your ass there’s a twist ending, and a fine one it is.