Archive for August, 2009

Futility

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Thing I Know #94. There are a lot of people walking around who put lots of energy into telling others that something can’t be done.

Gregory Clark, a perfesser of Economics at UCal/Davis, seems to think success is something our modern society cannot afford:

With the march of technology, the size of a future American underclass dependent on public support for part of its livelihood is hard to predict: 10 million, 20 million, 100 million? We could imagine cities where entire neighborhoods are populated by people on state support. In France, generous welfare has already produced huge suburban housing estates, les banlieues, populated with a substantially unemployed and immigrant population, parts of which have periodically burst into violent protest.

So, how do we operate a society in which a large share of the population is socially needy but economically redundant? There is only one answer. You tax the winners — those with the still uniquely human skills, and those owning the capital and land — to provide for the losers.

The old “The loot can’t come from anywhere else” argument. And yet…those who advance it, never seem content to wait for the crisis. Better get ready to cut the capitalists off at the knees, now, before we have to. Kind of like cannibalizing your hiking buddy’s body, one limb at a time, before those hunger pangs set in. Since it’s just a matter of time after all.

Related: We’ve already put some effort into cannibalizing achievement, just this summer. How’s that worked out for us?

Remember that the labor demographic most likely to make the minimum wage is teenagers, who are often working part-time jobs, summer jobs or after-school jobs. Since 2007 we’ve seen 2 $0.70/hour hikes in the minimum wage, with a third $0.70/hour hike hitting at the end of July. Given that 1/4 of the people who lost their jobs in July were teenagers, it’s likely that business owners were shedding entry-level, low-skill jobs before the minimum wage hike hit:

Another factor that will boost the unemployment rate in future months will be the fate of teenage workers. Teens accounted for a quarter of the decline in the labor force last month. July’s jobs report was conducted before the minimum wage took effect. Therefore, it is likely that the job market for teenagers will be further weakened by the minimum wage increase. Teenagers already have the highest unemployment rate at 23.8 percent, which is more than double the national average. [emphasis in original]

The pattern remains consistent. We thirst for poverty, and we get it.

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Yes, from here on you can click the title and be taken to the front-page. Just like any normal blog. Yup, you click it, and away you go…we’re not going to be special anymore.

Thanks to Daphne for screeching at me until I came to my senses.

End Game

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Mark Steyn takes stock of the formerly rabid Obama fan base, such as it is…an eclectic mix of the ones frantically scraping the “Obama Biden” stickers off their bumpers, and their counterparts who are leaving ’em affixed…

The New York Times’ David Brooks stuck it out longer than most: Only a few backs, he was giddy with excitement over the President’s “education” “reforms” (whatever they were). But now he says we’re in “the early stages of the liberal suicide march”. For a famously moderate moderate, Mr Brooks seems to have gone from irrational optimism over the Democrats’ victory to irrational optimism over the Democrats’ impending downfall without the intervening stage of rational pessimism.

The end-game is very obvious. If you expand the bureaucratic class and you expand the dependent class, you can put together a permanent electoral majority.

Memo For File XCII

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

I had this horrible nightmare in which I was becoming a good friend of mine, an older gentleman who drank himself to death. It got me to thinking some more about Meghan McCain’s idiotic comments, and how they connect together with what I had to say in response to one of Mahatma Ghandi’s most famous quotes. These two things connect together.

This is the biggest of all the reasons McCain is embarrassing herself when she opens her mouth. There are many of those, of course; but this is the great-grandpappy of ’em, and as decent and as thorough a job as Cassy did eviscerating her, nobody’s mentioned this one that I can see.

Let’s walk through some littler ones though. First, Meghan suffers from the delusion that she’s found a “gotcha” on Michelle…

Michelle Malkin, the conservative pundit and author of the recent book Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies, was asked during a live chat on Politico’s The Arena on Friday which conservative political figure or commentator needs to shut up. Guess who her answer was? Yeah, that’s right — yours truly.

So Michelle Malkin successfully rounds out the trifecta of extreme female conservative pundits, following Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter, who believe that I, and Republicans like me, need to shut up and get out of the party…But what confuses me is this: Malkin recently posted an item on her blog about how “drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.”

It’s worthy of note, even if you don’t think so Miss McCain, that Michelle Malkin was asked the question — she didn’t offer up the idea that you should be gagged. No contradiction here sweetie. I, too, think it’s un-American to drown out opposing views. And if I’m asked a question similar to what was asked of Michelle, well…

FailThere’s another thing you’ve overlooked on that point, I think. “Needs to shut up” implies the shutting-up is for that person’s own good; it certainly implies that, much more strongly than it implies it’s worth Malkin’s time to break into someone’s bedroom in the middle of the night and surgically implant a gag-ball over that person’s pie-hole. So with that in mind, how does Malkin’s comment about you shutting up correlate to drowning out opposition? It seems as the matter receives greater study, whatever correlation there seemed to be before, starts to soften up and melt away. I think the crucial focus you missed was aptly summarized by me in my Ten Commandments For Liberals Who Want to Argue About Politics (#4):

If there are some contrary facts, then, it is to your benefit for you to be told about them. Your conservative colleague/opponent just might [be] involved an effort, as any true friend would, to stop you from making an enormous ass out of yourself.

Malkin might have been involved in a desire to see you stop hurting yourself.

Or perhaps Cassy Fiano speaks for Michelle as aptly as she speaks for me. She’s as clear as clear gets: “…I’m pretty sure [McCain will] just continue on acting like she’s being crucified in the GOP, when frankly, no one in the GOP even gives a damn about her. We just wish she would stop making idiotic, asinine remarks in our name.”

Now for the big kahuna, the thing that I said as I shamelessly ripped off India’s savior: “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the resolve with which it ensures that good guys win and bad guys lose.”

McCain wants the Republicans to be more positive and more accepting. That is her central thesis, and it shows many signs of being not quite all that well thought-out…

It’s true that Democrats make being a member appealing in a much different way than the Republican Party does. The Democrats seem to have mastered inclusiveness — whereas Republicans, like a country club, seem to require a litmus test. But if people like Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter think they can bully me into giving up this fight and what I am doing, they are going to be severely disappointed. And I can assure them that unless they start being realistic about the cultural and generational differences between the two sides of the party, there will not be a new generation of Republicans.

The democrat party seems, to a weak mind, to have “mastered inclusiveness.” Those of us capable of paying attention to things have figured out long ago, that what the democrat party has mastered is inclusiveness’ opposite. Just name an issue — any issue you want — and as that issue bubbles up to the surface of a conversation between democrats and non-democrats, each and every time you’ll see a discussion about some “villain” group that has been carefully defined alongside that issue. Whites, Christians, straights, “teabaggers,” those awful corporate chieftan people, “the rich,” stay-at-home Moms, Boy Scouts, anybody who doesn’t want Obamacare, Oil companies, Health insurance companies, lobbyists, bloggers, talk show hosts…I could add on to such a list all day long. Inclusive?

You kiddin’?

What democrats have mastered, is the construction of a barbaric society. Barbaric, the way I’ve described it: Apathy toward the matter that is supposed to be weighing most heavily on our minds, which is the day-to-day assurance that good guys win and bad guys lose. It happens every single time we put democrats in charge of things and it’s happening now. Photo ops with tinpot dictators as we “sit down and talk about our differences with” them. Which are meaningless to us…but mean everything to the tinpot dictator. Next thing you know, they’re emboldened, acting like they’re emboldened, negotiating concessions out of us they wouldn’t be able to negotiate if they weren’t emboldened. First little ones, then big ones.

Back at home, it becomes unprofitable and pointless to try to build a business. Why bother? If you’re profitable, the new regime will just take all your money. And so people sit on their asses some more. The democrats rationalize this because the poor, poor pitiful poor who can’t get jobs, are in a different economic layer than the folks who would’ve opened a new business and decided not to. So it’s not like the same malaise is hitting everyone, right? But it is. It’s exactly that way. An entire civilization is being incentivized to sit on its ass. Ass-sitting is the new hard-work. Crime is the new law-abiding. Capitalists are the new bums. Mean is the new nice.

Everything’s upside-down.

Meghan doesn’t see this kind of world, because frankly she’s too young and thick. As Cassy’s commenter MLH says,

I follow Meghan on Twitter (just wanted to see what all the hype was about) and I can’t disagree with anything you say about her…I’ve been following Ms. McCain for three months. In that time frame all I’ve discovered is that: #1 She’s managed to get around four or five speeding tickets in the past few months(no clue how she still has a license other than her last name). #2 Gone to L.A. for a “No H8TE” photo-shoot. #3 Gone to NYC for some kind of photoshoot. #4 Out somewhere at parties & clubs in L.A., and NYC. #5 Learned all the complaints about her apartment and how shopping is such a hassle at various stores. #6 Going to Sturgis to be cool with all the bikers (Daddy told her to “be careful.” #7 Four hours one day of hysterics because she fell for some weirdo’s suicide note to the point where she actually got her PR person to contact Twitter and the police to get the man help — turns out he “wasn’t serious and will seek intensive help” after she gave him the attention he needed (she got a kudos from Alan Colmes on that one with the gracious statement that her actions “only show how much she cares.” #8 And finally, One time she asked all her followers what she should write about in her next column at The Daily Beast. This girl is indeed vapid beyond belief and one glaringly obvious reason why influential people’s children should be rarely seen, and even rarer heard.

People who fit this profile, seem to rise up to outvote the rest of us every sixteen years. Meghan is older than sixteen, but not much, and her comments about politics generally indicate someone who only started paying attention to things over the last year or two, perhaps less than that. She isn’t even up to par with the average voter, who’s already seen it happen a few times: We put liberals in charge when we get sick of conservatives, and conservatives in charge when we get sick of the liberals. And we get sick of liberals about three or four times quicker. It’s their solutions, you see. They don’t work.

They encourage sloth, dysfunction, anarchy and crime.

Meghan McCain is “pro sex.” Good for you, Meghan. Sex, sometimes, is not a vice…sometimes, on the other hand, it is. Evidently you haven’t been around long enough to hurt someone by having sex, so it’s a good thing overall that you’re blind to this. But maybe if you spent a little bit less time Twittering, and a little bit more time actually talking to these people you think want to apply these litmus tests that you yourself are far too decent to apply to someone — hah! — you’d find out what so many others understand they’re really all about.

It’s not about excluding people from things.

It’s about doing what leads to good things, and staying away from what leads to bad things. For our own sakes, and for the sake of those closest to us. FOR the PEOPLE. I had a nightmare in which I hurt people close to me by drinking a lot, something I actually saw someone else do. The hurting people by having sex, I’ve already done. The essence of Christian behavior is to say “Let’s just try to stop doing that stuff okay?” The essence of democrat behavior, and Meghan McCain behavior, seems to be: Don’t you dare say a word against any of that, someone might feel excluded.

When we forget about Morgan’s definition of a decent society, nine times out of ten I notice we do it by starting out on the path you’re on right now. By being “accepting” of this or that. Ghandi also said “hate the sin, love the sinner” — it’s such a great summation of Christian attitude that it’s often mistakenly attributed to Christ Himself. This denotes a distinction requiring an observing mind sharper and more capable than yours, I think. This is the problem you represent, Miss McCain. You’re so anxious to show off that you’re universally accepting of people…when you really aren’t, but that’s a whole other story…that you end up setting yourself up as a champion of just-plain-bad ideas. Drinking yourself to death, dropping out of school, having kids before you can afford to raise them, adopting a kid without both a mother and father in the home, smoking crack, voting for Obama, robbing liquor stores, rioting, calling a motorcycle gang a bunch of pussies…just pointing out these are bad ideas, doesn’t automatically mean you’re “excluding” the people who have been doing them. Failing to regard them as bad ideas, doesn’t mean you’re an accepting person. You don’t have the brainpower to understand this. You’re in some great company there.

But your ignorance isn’t a way out of the wilderness, for Republicans or for anybody else. No matter how much smugness you toss into the stewpot with it.

Michelle Malkin answered the question that was put to her very, very capably. Anybody who thought otherwise for whatever reason, only had to read the comments you had in response. It’s almost as if you read what she said, and thought “Hey, someone who isn’t familiar with me might be confused about what Michelle said there…I’d better throw something out where people will see it, so it will all come together and make sense.”

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Michelle, Meghan, Cassy

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

Meghan has a few words for Michelle.

We will not get anywhere by continuing to sell hate and fear. Of course, there is always going to be a fraction of the GOP that is going to respond to that, but at some point we have to start facing the reality that hate and fear will only get us so far. Those emotions are not sources for inspiration of joining anything, let alone supporting a political party.

The old conservatives of the past need to start accepting that this is a new era and I am a part of a new generation. I am as sick of the infighting as everyone else, but I would like to point out that I am not the one starting this fight or demanding that the other half of the party leave.

Cassy has a few words for Meghan.

But here’s the kicker: just because we don’t want you to lead us does not mean that we are kicking you out of the party. Just because we aren’t appointing you our new rising star doesn’t mean you don’t have a place here. I suspect Meghan knows this deep down, but what kind of attention would she get by acknowledging that? It’s much more fun to sit there and try to fill the role of the new maverick in the Republican party. You get all kinds of lavish attention from celebutards and liberal talking heads who praise you for “keeping it real”. So I’m pretty sure she’ll just continue on acting like she’s being crucified in the GOP, when frankly, no one in the GOP even gives a damn about her. We just wish she would stop making idiotic, asinine remarks in our name.

Now, I really whittled both of these down to size in order to make a certain young lady look a whole lot more intelligent than she really is. To figure out which one it is, why don’t you pop both of them open and give a full reading to each of them — when you run across the “money quote” I think your eyes will bulge out of their sockets, whatever liquids your swallowing will be ejected forcefully from both nostrils, and you’ll wonder why anybody ever prints anything written by…a certain someone.

Give you a hint. It’s got something to do with something that rhymes with “Jitter.”

The Video That Won First Place at Cannes

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

Tea Party Commercial

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

Morgan and Mahatma

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

Mahatma Ghandi

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the resolve with which it ensures that good guys win and bad guys lose.”

— Morgan K. Freeberg

Niner Fiver Six Three Zip

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

I’ve seen both Stepford Wives movies, and I’ve never understood either one of them. They seem to define a tragic situation from what I consider to be a happy one, and vice versa. Gorgeous, graceful, devoted and docile wives — a sign of trouble? Men happily sipping from brandy snifters, smoking cigars, farting into luxurious leather chairs while their happy, agreeable wives bring them plates of sandwiches…that’s an ominous harbinger of doom? Argumentative, buzz-cut harpies arguing with their henpecked husbands just for the sheer hell of it — that’s the way things are supposed to be? The Katherine Ross version came out a third of a century ago. In all that time, I’ve managed to remain entirely clueless. I just don’t get it. I don’t show signs of getting it anytime soon.

But I get the opposite. Folsom, California 95630 absolutely, positively has a “Stepford Husbands” problem.

How do I know this? The parking lots. The parking lots with great big SUVs parked in them. SUVs that no true man would ever buy. With loud, obnoxious, mouse-like dogs barking their fool heads off in the front seats. Dogs no self-respecting man would own.

In the twinkling of an eye, anyone with a head that’s worth more than a hat-hanger knows exactly what has taken place here. She (and maybe the kids) came home with an adorable puppy dog that he did not pick out, nor did he assist in picking out…and in response…he said “oh, alright.” Folks, I’m here to tell you right now, no man from the planet I call “Earth” would react that way. Nobody with red blood would react that way. Normal people raise it as an issue — um, would you care to discuss this with me before you consign me to indentured servitude living adjacent to this annoying little yip-dog? What in the hell is the matter with you, woman?

Beast from HellYes, I mean it. It’s not a “man of the house” thing; it has nothing to do with dominating your wife. It’s basic self-respect.

Not so with the Folsom husbands. They just say “oh, alright” and that’s the way life is from that day forward. I speculate recklessly? How else did that damn dog get in there? It was his? Hah. Tell me another. It’s a rapidly spreading sickness. An epidemic. How do I know this? Because the next car over is also a halftrack-sized leviathan gleaming-metal-skinned creature…with an annoying little yip-dog barking his head off in the front seat. And the next car over from that. And the next car. And the next car. You think Folsom is like any other place in the union? You think wrong.

These Stepford Husbands who do the unthinkable so regularly…behold such an evil canine/rodent creature taking over their home and acquiescing to the invasion in such an unmanly, French way…they don’t live in my world. But they live in Folsom, that’s for sure.

Folsom — land of the tank-sized vehicles people drive to work, while they worry incessantly about global warming.

Folsom — urban mecca of the enormous SUVs with irritating little marsupial-rodent dogs, bred to be carried around in purses, barking, barking, barking some more, with high, glass-cutting animal sounds you’d expect out of a birdcage.

Folsom — where men talk to their very own kids as if they aren’t really men. Children go through their entire childhoods, never seeing anything good coming out of masculinity. Folsom, which is slightly conservative-leaning…for now. Nobody with a brain expects it to say that way. How can it?

Why do we live here? Because until people start forcing each other to raise their kids the same way, it’s still a good place to raise kids. And you can unpack groceries from your car, forget to lock up your car…in fact, leave the trunk yawning wide open…and come back the next morning to a concerned neighbor (walking his wife’s annoying little yip dog) pointing out “Hey dude, you left your trunk open and I closed it for ya.” This offsets my concerns about what’s happening to the culture. We don’t have manliness, but for now we do have some order. We still have the “good guys should win bad guys should lose” spirit. It may be the next casualty, but it’s still around for now.

I’m reminded of a protocol that is supposed to be effective within the United States Marine Corps: Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one. This is a good distinction to keep in mind, I think, and it would benefit the average Folsom family man enormously to learn it. It would be good for his family, too. It’s never, ever a good thing for kids, to have a “friend” instead of a father…or a mother. And I think that’s the problem. I see kids playing with toys, obstructing heavy pedestrian traffic. The proper response from the parent is to move the child out of the way and then provide admonishment, commensurate with the age of the child who doesn’t know his place, that he shouldn’t be getting in the way. This doesn’t happen often in Folsom; seems lately like I’m the only one who bothers.

Gum on the sidewalk. Let’s be fair about it, Folsom is not a “gum on your shoe” capital of the world by any means. If I want to get gum stuck on my shoes, I’ll head to midtown. But nevertheless — why does it ever happen at all? My own kid isn’t even allowed to chew gum outside. He hasn’t expressed an interest in it. If he did, he would be properly schooled in how to dispose of the gum when he’s done chewing it. Kids leaving gum where it can get stuck to your shoes, reflect poorly on their parenting. They should’ve been taught things. They show, yet again, their parents were in too big of a hurry to be buddies rather than parents.

Leave Barack Alone!

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

On Thursday, James Taranto discussed the Obama healthcare plan and how it was being “promoted”…

If the plan were good, you would expect its proponents to be staking their arguments on its merits. Instead, they are turning this into a debate about the plan’s opponents. A telling video clip of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) on MSNBC’s “Hardball” has been making the rounds:

So all of this is a diversion by the people who want to, frankly, hurt President Obama. You’ve heard the Republican senator Jim DeMint say it: Let’s make this “Obama’s Waterloo,” let’s break him. That’s what this is about.

And by the way, I saw some of the clips of people storming these town hall meetings. The last time I saw well-dressed people doing this was when Al Gore asked me to go down to Florida when they were recounting the ballots, and I was confronted with the same type of people. They were there screaming and yelling, “Go back to California,” “Get out of here,” and all the rest of it–until I finally looked at them and I said, “You know what? Your hero Ronald Reagan is from California. You should show a little respect.” And then they quieted down.

So this is just all organized. Just go up on the Web site, Chris. You in the media have to take a look at what’s going on here. This is all planned. It’s to hurt our president, and it’s to change the Congress.

Most of the ensuing criticism has centered on Boxer’s weird fashion commentary. This may reflect no more than a regional difference: Californians tend to be more casual in their sartorial standards than regular people. Still, it’s a head-scratcher why Boxer would think it is to her opponents’ discredit that they are “well-dressed”–i.e., that they look respectable.

This golden-stater says — hey waitaminnit. Don’t go looking to me for an explanation about what my aging-hippie-girl senator was raving about. In fact, if DeMint is looking for a way to hit back, if you’re ever in conversation with the gentleman from South Carolina Mr. Taranto, you might recommend to him that the campaign commercials be made to directly address this strange culture war we have raging under the surface. Who deserves attention? People who request it respectfully, dressing like they have something important to say that’s of interest to more people than just themselves? Or the folks with whom Boxer apparently feels more of a kindred spirit, the assholes who block bridges with bicycles during rush hour? She seems to live in a world in which you don’t deserve attention until & unless you dress down. This is an apt illustration of the decision that was made last November, to put the kids in charge of the dinner menu, what’s on teevee, bedtime, et cetera. Remind the voters again, please. Boxer looks like she’s ready to help you remind everyone what she & hers are all about.

Taranto continues…

But what caught our attention was the plaint that ObamaCare opponents want “to hurt the president.” It reminds us of those hilarious “Leave Britney alone!” videos that were the rage on YouTube a couple of years back. How exactly does Boxer expect this to persuade anyone to support the legislation? Just imagine the thought process: I don’t want higher taxes and government rationing of medical care. But doggone it, I’m for it anyway, because I don’t want to hurt the president!
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So, let’s review the arguments:

• Republicans are bad, they lost the last election, and they have partisan motives for wanting to stop ObamaCare.

• People who are angry about this are crackpots who display swastikas and other invidious symbols. Also, their anger is insincere, and they are shills of the RNC. They wear nice clothes, and this is not to their credit.

• Some of the arguments against ObamaCare are false, according to Obama.

• If ObamaCare is defeated, Obama would be hurt.

Is there any argument for ObamaCare? In all the material we reviewed for this item, only this, from the Obama email:

Every day we don’t act, Americans watch their premiums rise three times faster than wages, small businesses and families are pushed towards bankruptcy, and 14,000 people lose their coverage entirely. The cost of inaction is simply too much for the people of this nation to bear.

In other words, the “crisis” is so urgent that any thoughtful deliberation would entail intolerable delay. This is the same old argument that has already failed.

If this is the best the president can do, he deserves to lose resoundingly. If that hurts him, there’s always aspirin.

If I wanted to motivate large numbers of people to make wrong decisions on a regular basis, I would take this list of ways to make such a thing happen and start fleshing it out.

I’d demand people support my dumb ideas, for any number of conceivable reasons that had nothing to do with the content of the ideas. Prove you’re not a racist. Don’t hurt that guy. So-and-so might get mad at you if you oppose my dumb idea. We’ll have riots…

I’d end up behaving exactly the way the democrats really do behave. All the time. It seems to always be a question of “here’s today’s reason why you should do this…and notice I’m not discussing what’s going to happen if it goes through, I want to talk about everything else.” I miss the days when the bullshit was of a different grade, one that pretended to be concerned about what was going to happen to us. “Don’t let Reagan stockpile more nukular weapons, he’ll get everyone blown up” comes to mind. What happened to that?

To repeat: Is there any argument for ObamaCare?

Andy’s Creative Writing

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Those three hundred days of thick gray overcast that greet Seattle every single year — evidently they don’t kill all the brain cells. Take that, hippies.

Military Humor

Monday, August 10th, 2009

All told, I’m up to a quarter-century now man-n-boy struggling to get machines to do what they’re supposed to be doing, and humans who work with the machines to do what they’re supposed to be doing. I’m really not sure which one is a tougher challenge. Perhaps it says something about my quirky personality that I’ve generally struggled less, and been far less confused far less often, with the machines.

And so out of these military jokes, I found these two to be the best ones…

One reason the Services have trouble operating jointly is that they don’t speak the same language.

For example, if you told Navy personnel to “secure a building,” they would turn off the lights and lock the doors.

Army personnel would occupy the building so no one could enter.

Marines would assault the building, capture it, and defend it with suppressive fire and close combat.

The Air Force, on the other hand, would take out a three-year lease with an option to buy.
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THE COLONEL TO THE EXECUTIVE:
At nine o’clock tomorrow there, will be an eclipse of the sun, something which does not occur every day. Get the men to fall out in the company street in their fatigues so that they will be able to see this rare phenomenon. Should it rain we will not be able to see anything, so take the men to the gym.

THE EXECUTIVE TO THE CAPTAIN:
By order of the Colonel, tomorrow at nine o’clock, there will be an eclipse of the Sun; if it rains, you will not be able to see it from the company street, so then, take the men in fatigues to the gym. The eclipse of the Sun will take place in the gym, something that does not occur every day.

THE CAPTAIN TO THE LIEUTENANT:
By order of the Colonel in fatigues tomorrow at nine o’clock in the morning the inauguration of the eclipse of the sun will take place in the gym. The Colonel will give the order if it should rain, something which occurs every day.

THE LIEUTENANT TO THE SERGEANT:
Tomorrow at nine o’clock the Colonel in fatigues will eclipse the Sun in the gym, as it occurs every day. If it is a nice day you will fall out in the company street.

THE SERGEANT TO THE CORPORAL: Tomorrow at nine the eclipse of the Colonel in fatigues will take place because of the Sun. If it rains in the gym, something which does not take place every day, you will fall out in the company street.

COMMENTS AMONG THE PRIVATES: Tomorrow, if it rains, it looks as if the Sun will eclipse the Colonel in the gym. It is a shame that this does not occur every day.

The Missing IT Talent

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Read one CIO’s tale of woe, and come to your own decision about how much of your sympathy he can claim…

As the depressed economy lurches along an uneven bottom, I have been trying to selectively upgrade key areas of our team with new talent to get ready for the eventual recovery.

We are training our existing staff in technologies that will progressively reduce our operating costs, but I had been expecting to find experienced workers to speed up the familiarization and assimilation process.

It’s not happening.

Not only am I not finding the people I need, some of the few that I have recruited aren’t sticking around for very long. This is troubling.

Whenever we’ve looked to hire new staff — in good times or bad — we’ve been deluged by resumes of people who did not seem to have read the requirements. It’s as though someone is running a search-and-match engine that uses any vague similarity between what we need and what a candidate claims to have done.

Our own scanning technology eliminates a lot of these resumes. (I have never liked automatic filtering much, so we look at some of the automatic rejections to make sure we aren’t missing a hidden gem.) But we still waste a lot of time screening candidates by phone and in interviews.
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So, two questions: Where are all the good people? And why are we seeing so much turnover in a supposedly poor job market?

I’ve been looking at these issues for a few months now, and I’m starting to see some patterns, if not answers, in our data.

First, a lot of people are going freelance. I can rent them, but not hire them. They don’t seem to care about (or maybe believe in) “corporate” benefits such as health insurance or 401(k) plans or even performance bonuses. If they have a hot skill, they are willing to roll the dice on being able to keep busy even in bad times.

I have employed several people who work this way. The arrangements can be mutually beneficial, but the complexity of managing a work force that’s less “loyal” (and less accountable) taxes our managers and systems — and may not be sustainable in the long term.

Second, a lot of the skills we need are scarce, and the people who have them — and have jobs — seem reluctant to move, even for more money. Other employers I have talked to see the same thing and most are willing to match an offer to keep the skills in-house.

Third, those who are willing to move keep on doing so. Even if I find someone who will quit to join us, he or she is probably going to do the same if another offer comes along.

It’s as if the available population is dividing into three groups: independent, static and mobile. I really haven’t seen this before — especially not in the three past recessions I have had to manage through — and it’s causing us to rethink some of our resourcing strategies.

When you’ve built an operating model that depends on ready access to skilled technologists and the skills aren’t there, problems loom. We’ll need to get ahead of these challenges quickly if we are to build an organization that’s ready to grow when the recovery arrives.

Well, whaddya think? Can you manage to shed a tear?

My own reaction: Well, he seems to be appropriately inquisitive, but he can’t cover up the nagging sensation he obviously has that maybe he’s overlooking something. And I think he is. We have a lot of technology employers, and recruiters as well, wondering how it is that the “talent” is so hard to find. And yet at the same time we have a lot of “workers” in the force looking for a place, wondering if they’re in the right field, or if it’s time to move on to something different altogether.

We got both of those problems. Something’s obviously busted.

Check out the comments, though. They’re loaded up with input from the folks on the other side of the table. They say they are probably the qualified folks for which the boss has been looking, but many of them have had to move on, get into real estate, go get law degrees, whatever. Not much sympathy. A goodly chunk of venom.

Quit IT because of this stupidity at 8-15-09 @ 10:52 am EST, speaks for me in a comment that was much more civil than most:

Here’s why you can’t find people

1) We need these 15 skills, you only have 14, not qualified.
2) That 15th skill is an obscure 30 year old loader program that no one uses or has hear of anymore
3) We will not train or have you learn that 15th skill, we need people who “hit the ground running”
4) Your experience is in C sharpe, but we need C pound sign!
5) No security clearance, no job, no exceptions.
6) H1B’s work alot cheaper because they have no mortgage and did not go to college so have no student loans.
7) Your resume says SQL but our resume scanner is looking for sequel.
The problems are with the idiots doing the recruiting, the great people are right in front of your noses.

My story is one of gradually migrating into IT from software engineering, and then because of the same frustration these folks found, going back to software engineering. Isn’t software engineering part of IT? If you think that’s so, then I guess I ultimately prevailed and managed to make a living again, after making a months-long pursuit out of something that should’ve been a routine job search. If engineering and IT are different things, then it would have to be said I hit a career-ending cul de sac as many others did, and fortunately fell back on some skills I developed many years earlier.

It really doesn’t matter though. There’s a horrible problem churning away deep under the surface that affects those who seek the talent, as well as those who have the talent and are seeking the work.

People whose job it is to get the talent-demanders in touch with the talent-suppliers, are woefully underqualified. I remember talking to one who was asking if I had such-and-such training. I just came out and asked her: I’ve been doing exactly the work your client needs and I’ve got positive references to show for it, and yet nobody asks if I did a good job at it, they ask about my training. What kind of training do you recruiters have? Frankly, that seems to be more the issue here.

She agreed.

I think the CIO hit the nail on the head halfway through his tragedy. “Our own scanning technology eliminates a lot of these resumes. (I have never liked automatic filtering much, so we look at some of the automatic rejections to make sure we aren’t missing a hidden gem.) But we still waste a lot of time screening candidates by phone and in interviews.” Here’s the problem that’s causing grief on both sides: If 50 resumes is a manageable number but 500 is not, then anything that knocks out 90% is a “good” filtering system. Be it a keyword search, be it the “wrong” answer to a written interview question, be it…anything that doesn’t land you at the wrong end of a discrimination suit. Just get the number down, and don’t worry about how.

The boss knows about this. He looks at some of the automatic rejections to make sure they aren’t missing a hidden gem. But when he’s sanity-checking a process to carve an impossible number down into a smaller, possible number…this just amounts to a partial backpedaling against a rejection process that he knows doesn’t work. He’s figured out the automatic filtering has failed to win over his confidence, so he’s implementing only 99% of it.

The problem isn’t that nobody’s qualified to do the work. The problem is that nobody’s qualified to figure out who’s qualified to do the work.

Meanwhile — the IT profession is not just staffed with kids who are looking for something to do during the summer, and know something about rebooting servers. These are adults who are still paying off student loans, putting down payments on houses, having kids of their own, putting together college funds for those kids…all that good stuff. They need to make a living.

If, every single time it becomes necessary to land another gig, after all the training and all the experience and answering all the questions right, it’s a matter of hoping the ball lands on black-seventeen…there comes a time you have ask yourself the hard question: Is this making a living? And so the promising field of car insurance beckons, or maybe it’s time to chase that other dream of opening a smokehouse restaurant. Then we get more weeping and wailing from CIOs who can’t find the talent. Perhaps they got rid of the talent themselves, and didn’t realize it at the time.

Obama’s Birthplace

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

Via Buck, who produces two possible reasons why The Holy One has not yet produced the long form…

(a) Suppose Mr. Obama is a legal bastard? Which is to say his mother and father weren’t married when he was born… wouldn’t YOU want to preserve your dead mother’s dignity? Especially in America, where one can easily imagine the hue and cry about a “love child” occupying the White House. This is NOT beyond the pale.

(b) To continue to give the Lunatic Fringe enough rope to hang themselves, as if they haven’t done so already. But this approach, if it is indeed the case, is simply clever politics. And it seems to be working.

I think (b) is far more likely than (a), myself. But I can also produce a (c): When you’ve got a brand new pretty shiny 24k gold hammer, everything you see looks like a nail. Barack Obama’s hammer is that He can convince people something is true by making them feel awkward and teetering on the brink of ostracism if they dare to believe the opposite, or simply harbor doubts. It is His chosen method for selling things, and He is exceptionally good at it.

I believe what we’re seeing with regard to the long form birth certificate, is His oh-so-tried-n-true brandishing of the big 24k gold hammer, as a means of proving something that’s really true. This illustrates the depths to which He has sunk in becoming a master of bullshit-sales; He just can’t help Himself. It’s a lot like the Clintons lying about things in such a way that they’re bound to get caught, and in the meantime provide no discernible benefit to them or to any of their friends even if someone should be deceived by the lie — “I was named after Edmund Hillary,” as just one example.

I don’t think Obama is capable of using what the rest of us understand to be inferential logic. He’d have done it by now. I mean, by that, “I’m thinking of a prime number between 270 and 280 that does not end in 7; what is it?” Process of elimination, if-this-then-that. It isn’t that it’s beyond His intellectual capacity; He seems like a bright enough guy. The issue is that it is not part of the world in which He lives. He’s a socialist. All thinking, in that universe, is social. It’s all “I have to show my faith in X because I will be shunned if people think my faith is in not-X.”

The political benefit from the teapot-tempest that ensues from His keeping the long form under lock and key, is just an afterthought. His primary motive is that on His home turf, this is how you “prove” things and there is no other way to do it: By stigmatizing the opposite. We are discussing an individual possessing a dizzying and breathtaking lack of understanding or concern about what is & is not true. And not only is He our President, but He is also in great company. Quite a few of our countrymen are sufficiently divorced from reality that, if they were struggling with the everyday tasks and exigencies that were a natural part of life a century and a half ago, they wouldn’t make it.

The Ill Logic of the Left

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

As the previous school year drew to a close, which seems like perhaps Wednesday before last although the calendar says something different — I made an effort to trace the path upon which the momentarily negligent become hardcore fanatical liberals, identifying ten terraces descending into the pit. The final terrace is, of course, a simple thing to define. Extremist; fanatical; completely distrustful of anyone with a different point of view on anything. Able to make a liberal/good versus conservative/bad issue from just about anything, like taking out trash, getting a cup of coffee, attending the birth of a child, watching a movie about space aliens invading earth…we all get the picture. My pontifications had to do with how one gets there. I liken it to threads on a screw, acting in concert with each other by handing off work from one to another.

Occupants of all ten threads have ideas about themselves they are anxious to prove to others. But the first of these, let us say the first four, use this What-I-Want-to-Prove feature as a recruiting tool. On the first of these there is the desire to alleviate pain for others. Who in the world can doubt the nobility of such a thing? But the critical error is made when the new recruit accepts that, since Plan X would make the trains run on time or deliver health care to everyone or clean the water, that anyone who is opposed to the plan must be opposed to its intended goals. Then they’re ready to graduate to the second stage. All ten of these are like this; each one designates something to prove, and a common error. Yet another fall from fidelity toward intellectual sensibility and truth. A slipping-down, to the next terrace.

Gagdad Bob has been noticing things about the clumsy logic of liberals too, and apparently been laboring just as hard to remember that they’re like the rest of us — making their errors out of some weakness endemic to us all. But his analysis, rather than simply dissecting the liberal mind, dissects human consciousness and comes up with some explanations for why they do the things they do. It’s pretty fascinating stuff, worthy of reading and re-reading as one fails to escape the civil war currently raging between right-versus-left. It explains substantially more than one can absorb at one sitting; and, perhaps, a great deal more than what would leave one feeling comfortable about things.

[W]hen they dissent, it is the highest form of patriotism; when conservatives do, it is nazism. How can this be? Are they just cynical and calculating? Or is there something deeper going on?

Human beings are not “logic machines.” Or, to the extent that they are, there are at least two distinctly different forms of logic that govern thought: the machine-like asymmetrical logic of the conscious mind and the very unmachine-like symmetrical logic of the unconscious mind. One of the most important points to bear in mind is that we might believe a person to be illogical, when they are in fact obeying a different form or logic: symmetrical logic.
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To take an example ripped from this morning’s headlines, it is obviously kooky for the left to regard citizens who don’t want the state to take over their healthcare as “fascists.” For one thing, logically speaking, anyone who wants a smaller and less intrusive government is the polar opposite of a fascist.

But in the unconscious mind, where symmetrical logic rules the night, it is the work of an instant to convert terms to their opposite. This is how we may understand what makes the leftist tick: whatever he accuses others of, is what he is unconsciously guilty of. Thus, when he says, “you are astroturfing,” he means “I am astroturfing.” When he says “American citizens are behaving like fascists,” he means “we and our union thugs are behaving like fascists.” When he says “you are a racist,” he means “I am preoccupied with race and cannot see beyond it.” Etc.
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One Revolution AwayBut it gets even more complicated. For example, many people are drawn to social work because of an unconscious sense of victimization that they try to spuriously heal by projecting into others. This is why these fields are so overrun by leftist do-gooders with rescue fantasies. The leftist feels victimized by anyone or anything that arouses their tendency to feel victimized. Thus…on a deep unconscious level the real abuser — the persecutor — becomes a sort of rescuer who rescues the social worker from her feelings of victimization, allowing a temporary discharge of victim feelings.

Again, think of the typical leftist activist who is “rescued” from an otherwise meaningless life by entertaining persecutory fantasies of global warming, or “income disparity,” or “male oppression,” or “racial profiling,” or what have you. This explains why the leftist clings to his persecutor long after the persecution has stopped. The left cannot “let go” of George Bush, any more than the radical feminist can let go of her symbolic “rapist” or the Islamist can let go of his Jew hatred, for these are the organizing principles of their own rage and hostility. Six months ago I predicted that the left would be unable to let go of George Bush. I was right. They cannot let go because “he” is a vital part of them.

Update: This aside comment about radical feminist and rapists reminds me, I had damn well better be sure and bookmark this wonderful essay, a link to which arrived yesterday in an offline courtesy of Daphne. It only relates to the topics above insofar as it is a wonderful example of them. No question about it — if liberal silliness and douchebaggery was fast food, this would be the Taco Town. She managed to hit every single bumper in the pinball machine, even making quick work of the list of words I totally hate.

While I agree that abortion and contraception are necessary at the moment, because we are living under male supremacy, women do not have any level of sexual freedom and intercourse is an unfortunate reality in many women’s lives… I am also looking forward to a time where abortion and contraception are no longer necessary. A time where women can engage freely, safely and lovingly in relations with other women, or in non-coital relationships with men.

I cannot in good conscience jump on the abortion/contraception is great for women bandwagon. In my opinion it has done as much damage as good. In reality, it gives men another crowbar with which to wedge open women’s legs. Yes, it gives *some* women, *some* level of control but it is a very, very far cry from actual liberation.

It’s terribly sad watching someone, whether it’s a liberal or a normal person, building such an identity around a quest for a prize. It takes someone on the outside looking in, to see what remains hidden from the person in the middle of the struggle: The identity is built upon the journey, not the destination, so if ever the day comes that the journey ends, the misery will have only just begun.

And that, in turn, reminds me of another e-mail I got from one of my former colleagues…it’s a Family Guy clip. Careful with this, it’s got dirty words in it.

Yup. That’s a hardcore liberal for ya. The (imaginary) day comes where some Golden Fleece or Holy Grail has finally been acquired, and any sense of self that has been cobbled together up to that instant, is gone forever. In its place is nothing but a sickening, desolate sense of emptiness. How can you not feel badly for them?

Leading the Supreme Court Back to the Mainstream

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

Somewhere out there is a delicious quote from Sen. Feinstein or Schumer — I think it’s the latter — about the new Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. It’s yet another one of these liberal daydreams that are given voice as if they are observations about what has taken place in the past…as I noted a day or two ago, it has become a trait of modern liberalism to conflate what has really taken place, with what one wishes to see take place. This fell into that. The quote was something about how Justice Sotomayor will not be just another Justice on equal footing with all the others, but rather, that she will lead the country’s judicial branch back to the “mainstream.” Mainstream as left-wingers define it. You know the drill. You have a right to stay alive if you have deprived others of their right to stay alive, but not if you’re an unborn baby who has yet to deprive anyone of anything, except your mother of her flat stomach and her lifestyle. Yeah, that.

Justice Sotomayor has been held aloft as someone deserving of support because her confirmation has always been inevitable. I have no objections to that. But another point has been that she rolls up her sleeves and digs into the facts of the cases. This one, I must say, causes me a bit of indigestion. Look up her “verdict” on the Ricci case and get back to me on that if you will.

I just don’t see her as a leader of much of anything. If she’s pressed to lead the Supreme Court in a certain direction, she’ll need some instructions, because rightly or wrongly she’s given me the impression she’s one of those who need instructions for things.

This responsible citizen is here to serve.

1. Do not cite law from other nations to justify a verdict. This suggests, and in facts provides some damn solid evidence, that a majority on the Court just voted the way they wanted to vote. Then they went out shopping across the globe for little bits of paper that would make the pre-determined decision look alright. That, obviously, is not a good thing for American justice or for the Court’s reputation.

2. Do not cite statistics about what state legislatures are doing. Do not use “prevailing viewpoint” or “evolving standards” or…or…or. Culture is a matter for the states, or something geographically smaller than them, to decide. This country was founded on that simple concept.

3. Stick your empathy where the sun don’t shine. We saw in the Ricci case you’ve got what it takes to do this, Justice Sotomayor — no empathy at all there, huh? The litmus test should be, when my case comes to the Supreme Court, do I have a shot at winning even though I’m a miserable awful horrible stinker guy who happens to have a sound case? And can I lose my case if my case is weak, even though I’m a pillar of the community, represent all the esteemed historically-oppressed ethnic groups, rich, poor, lovable, smell good, suave, handsome? Our society loves to talk a good game about the law applying equally to everyone. It’s high time we did something to get back to that, for reals.

4. Don’t worry about consequences, except with regard to jurisprudence. That is the only thing you need to worry about molding, shaping, refining. It is improper to decide cases based on the dreaded consequence of: Angry white males getting out of line, buildings getting blown up, race riots, women getting “back alley” abortions, illegal aliens not finding their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, Social Security running out of money…any of that stuff. Handing down verdicts out of concern for positive and/or negative consequences, is the very definition of judicial activism. You’ll notice nobody’s championing that cause anymore. Everyone who’s trying to promote it is disguising their agenda as something else. You could be one of them, Justice Sotomayor, or you could do what’s right. Leaders do what they know is right.

5. Know your damn place. There is no evidence that the judicial branch was intended to reign supreme over the other two branches of government; quite to the contrary, the original articles of the Constitution make it quite clear that Congress is there to regulate it. As the high court has been spending the last five decades spiraling outside of the perimeter defined by my four recommendations above, Congress’ failure to act represents a dereliction of leadership, nothing more, nothing less. Put your house in order before someone else does it for you. And I’d love to see Congress do it for you.

That goes for your eight peers on the Supreme Court as well. That is what I call mainstream, and you’ll notice there’s not a single word about right-wing or left-wing in any of it.

Things Said Just Prior to an Accident

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

Hat tip: Theo Spark.

Hitler Rants About Right-Wingers and Healthcare

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

Update: I see Gerard has a clip up that butchers this fine scene just a little bit more…

“Don’t Get Mad, Get Popcorn”

Friday, August 7th, 2009

Daphne has banished the liberal gadfly commenter at her site and Gerard’s, known as Arthurstone.

This is my house, the only freedom of speech you own here is at my discretion. Shit on my kitchen floor too much and I’m showing your rude ass the door…I call pussy on you, sweetmeat. You dish it out like a bully, Arthur and cry like a girl when your bad behavior gets smacked back in your face. You don’t like rejection? Try behaving like a decent human being when having adult discussions.

Interesting the week that’s gone by, which this inglorious event concludes. All these events, what do they have in common? Ideology. Liberal ideology. It’s supposed to be making people all decent and wonderful and good…and let us not forget liberty-loving…and it’s failing quite miserably. Liberalism, which we were all supposed to be showing off last November to prove we want everyone to stop worrying about health & sickness, prove we’re not from Texas, prove we’re not racists…motivates Congressmen to shut out concerned citizens from “town hall” meetings, it motivates Presidents to create lists of said citizens who happen to have dissenting opinions. And it makes blog-posters act like jerks.

So I added my wisdom, as I so often do. I’m very giving that way. Because, after all, the issue isn’t that liberalism makes people act like jerks. It’s that people tend to forget liberalism makes people act like jerks.

He’s doing the Lord’s work, you know.

When Obama turns out to be a one-termer, it won’t be because people personally dislike Him, or even because they’re fed up with liberal politics. It will be because very large numbers of us will have figured out that professing allegiance to the more adorable position on any issue that comes along, does absolutely nothing to make you a better person.

On this particular week, thanks to Arthur, we have (I think) five reminders of this instead of just four. And then there’s next week, the week after that…fifty-two of ‘em per year. Liberal nastiness, it’s in our faces, all the time, and people will get sick and tired of it thank God. It’s really happening, and it’s happening because of twits like Arthur.

Don’t get mad. Get popcorn.

In fact, perhaps this is an apropos time to ask: Where’s the evidence that liberalism does anything to make people good? That’s supposed to be its one redeeming feature.

We’ve got Clinton flying over and rescuing those two people from North Korea…if you want to fall for that kind of thing. Anything else?

Krugman on the Town Hall Rent-a-Mobs

Friday, August 7th, 2009

Paul Krugman does his bit to make sure the powerful have a voice that will prevail against the powerless…

There’s a famous Norman Rockwell painting titled “Freedom of Speech,” depicting an idealized American town meeting. The painting, part of a series illustrating F.D.R.’s “Four Freedoms,” shows an ordinary citizen expressing an unpopular opinion. His neighbors obviously don’t like what he’s saying, but they’re letting him speak his mind.

That’s a far cry from what has been happening at recent town halls, where angry protesters — some of them, with no apparent sense of irony, shouting “This is America!” — have been drowning out, and in some cases threatening, members of Congress trying to talk about health reform.

Where to begin?

I always took it as a given that the painting was about “ordinary” citizens, once given the courage to find a voice, being entitled to use it. The man speaking, after all, is in casual clothes that indicate a humble working and social status, and it’s obvious that this was central to Rockwell’s intent. But of course it isn’t central to the intent of Krugman, who wants to champion the cause of the poor, powerless and oppressed Congressmen who are determined to vote bills into law that they haven’t read.

Secondly, if the argument is one about anecdotes that suggest one side or the other is connected to some kind of organizational structure, with the matter settled upon the discussion of the first or second such anecdote, verified or not — that isn’t much of an argument, is it? Is this how the nation’s most prestigious economist decides things? I suppose that beats the snot out of “every single idea on the ideological spectrum is better than the idea to its immediate right, but not as good as the one to the immediate left” which is how I previously thought Mr. Krugman decides what’s wonderful and what’s odious. But it seems to me the former forensic method is simply a thin, purely cosmetic justification for the latter. Could someone place a call to the New York Times and inform Krugman that some of these mobs on the left have been known to benefit from central coordination as well? Judging by his remarks here, it should come as quite the learning experience.

Thirdly, I notice Krugman’s logic defeats itself. If these are isolated cases of nutbars and whack-jobs speaking out at town hall meetings, interrupting these poor, poor oppressed legislators who want so badly to vote on bills they haven’t read…but the real mainstream Americans understand what a wonderful idea it is to have this universal healthcare (in this bill the Congressmen haven’t read)…the solution is quite simple. Just stop holding the town hall meetings. Stop talking to us. Just pass the whole mess into law, and in the next election cycle the constituents can decide whether they thought that was a swell idea or not. After they’ve spent two to four years living with the consequences and had an opportunity to receive the benefits of that wonderful, wonderful state-provided health care.

Stop talking, start doing. That would shut down the enemy’s propaganda machine right then & there, wouldn’t it?

I realize it’s become cliched to ponder “What Would The Founding Fathers Think of X” and everyone wants to resurrect the gentlemen who gave us Independence within some mythical bubble, in which the old white guys in knee breeches and wigs, who seldom agreed with each other on much of anything, magically march in lock-step with whoever’s speaking about it. It’s not an honest way to argue about anything, and we try to stay away from it. Still and all, in this case, I have to wonder what Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Adams would have to say about what so obviously weighs on Paul Krugman’s mind here — the right, and the ability, of the powerful to speak out over the objections of those who lack any real power to stop them, and are committed to living with what results from the decisions of those powerful people, be it good or bad.

I try to envision a train of thought any one of them would use, just before announcing “and so this economist you have, Paul Krugman, is absolutely right and you should listen to him.” I’m not having much success with this. Such a train-of-thought would suppose that this nation was put together to make sure our elected representatives would be able to pass poorly-thought-out laws upon how the rest of us live out our lives — how our bodies are to be maintained — with an absolute minimum of fuss, hassle, thought or challenge.

Many’s the Krugman column that has inspired me to question: Upon what planet does this fellow live? This one’s just more of the same. Planet Propaganda, I guess. Krugman’s a shill, but that’s just stating the obvious.

It’s a bitch when those democrat-party paychecks don’t clear, huh Paul?

The Barack Obama Experiment

Friday, August 7th, 2009

Melissa Clouthier wants to know what people think of this…

I suppose time will tell.

Me, I like the concept. In spite of all the “hope,” lightly laced with an undertone of pugnacious bullying, Obama’s installment into the Presidency wasn’t a “that fixes things once & for all” but a “let’s see how this goes.” The appalling lack of vision regarding what exactly the result was supposed to be, does very little to change this. The word “hope” is supposed to entail some kind of vision toward the near or distant future, a vision involving a status that is somewhat positive. Which means — I think all would have to agree at this point — something different from what we’ve seen for the last two hundred days.

We still have a lot of hold-outs out there insisting The Man has not yet been given enough time. Their argument, whether they realize it or not, is one that says we shouldn’t expect beneficial results just yet. And of course the obvious question it raises is what is the Launch Date. C’mon, just give us a ball park…

But they won’t. Deep into 2012, the catchphrase is going to be that George W. Bush messed things up so badly that it takes two terms to fix it all…and this should’ve been obvious to everyone from the get-go.

For a savior possessing messianic healing qualities, Obama is surprisingly dependent on bromides, cliches and bumper sticker slogans designed to vanquish any & all performance expectations. It’s like watching Christ try to make loaves and fishes, fail at it, and then blame His predecessor for messing things up so badly and nobody should be imposing such unrealistic expectations on Him. Well dude — the loaves and fishes we already do have, are disappearing. When things aren’t even staying static, they’re getting worse, there comes a point where your Divinity and Exaltedness and Glory have to at least be put into question if not doubted entirely. That isn’t even politics, that’s just common sense. It applies to deities just like it applies to anything else.

A and B

Friday, August 7th, 2009

Annalynne McCord and Beyonce Knowles…

They’re both out-of-this-world lovely, but I fail to see how or why anyone would give the trophy to Annalynne. Hair, face, breasts, stomach, hips, thighs, arms…everything. Brains? I’ve no way to tell. I’ve always had the uneducated impression Beyonce had a lot going on there too. Beyonce is genetic wonderfulness, maybe perfection, come to life and nobody’s competing with that by vomiting her way down to a double-zero dress size.

Samrich, Annalynne sweetie. Have one with mayo, and maybe two.

Blogsister Daphne has inquired as to what our thoughts are about Welch, Loren, Bassinger, Jaclyn Smith, two selected supermodels and the craziest Desperate Housewives. We’re researching it, but we can say at this point that back-in-the-day, Raquel Welch takes the prize. Just out of that list. Because it didn’t occur to Daphne in the moment to mention the immortal and incomparable Natalie Wood.

Best Movie Car Crashes

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

Fifty Sound Freedom Metrics and One Stupid One

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

President Obama wants anyone saying something “fishy” about His health care scheme, to be reported to Him.

Nancy Pelosi feels free to publicly hallucinate about free citizens, exercising their constitutional right to petition their government for redress of grievances, wearing “swastikas.”

My own Senator Boxer de-legitimizes those same free citizens and demeans their entirely meritorious complaints, for no better reason than that they aren’t dressed like pigs as she evidently expects…

It hasn’t been a good week for freedom. And this helps to solidify, at least in my mind, exactly what was wrong with some of these arguments we heard over the last two weeks about the whole Obama-cop-perfesser-beer thing. I refer here specifically to the argument that in the privacy of your own home, and on your front porch, you should be “free”…to follow the cop around, berating him, insulting him and his mother, and you oughta be able to walk away from that. Failing that, the argument goes, the whole situation plunges headlong into that post-sixties territory of “If one of us can’t do it then we are all enslaved!”

A little perspective, please. There are lots of ways to measure whether we’re still free or not; many things have been placed in compromise, and yet still remain with us at some residual level. That means there are lots of things we can watch to see if we’re still free or not, and if we are, how much.

Whether we can get lippy with cops — it’s a non-issue. Really. Keep a vigilant watch, instead, on some of these other metrics. I count fifty of them. Fifty really sensible freedom metrics.

And that one really stupid one.

1. I can eat meat
2. I get to go to a sports bar and drink beer and eat meat
3. I get to go to a sports bar surrounded by girls in skimpy clothes young enough to be my daughter, drink beer and eat meat
4. I can buy a gun
5. I can buy ammunition for my gun
6. I can store a gun in my house, with ammunition, ready to use
7. I can use my gun in my home to defend it from a criminal, if I have to
8. I can pray if I want to
9. I can keep objects of my faith in places where I can see them
10. I can keep objects of my faith in places others can see them
11. I can pray where others can see me doing it, even if it’s on government property or in a place maintained by a government agency
12. I can spank my kid’s butt if he has it coming
13. I can spank my kid’s butt where others can see me doing it, if he has it coming
14. I can blog
15. I can blog in ways that are not politically correct
16. I can blog, and not get fired from my job if people at work happen to find my blog
17. I can stop an echo, and if I’m so inclined, I can start one of my own
18. I can say, write, and e-mail “fishy” things without the White House putting my name on some kind of a nag list
19. I can ride a motorcycle without a helmet
20. I can smoke
21. I can camp
22. I can hunt and fish
23. I can teach my kid to go camping
24. I can teach my kid to go hunting and fishing
25. I can teach my kid to fire a gun
26. I can teach my kid politically incorrect things, like that women and men are different, and the feminist movement is full of crap
27. I can teach my kid to avoid high maintenance, nasty women, so that in his adulthood he could support me as opposed to me supporting him
28. I can earn a living even if I don’t belong to a union
29. I can earn a living even if I don’t believe in global warming
30. I can earn a living even though I’m caucasian and straight
31. I can fight back, anytime, anyplace, about anything; I am never, ever obligated as a free citizen to just sit somewhere and take abuse
32. I don’t have to pay taxes to give someone else an income they’ve decided they don’t want to earn
33. I’m not legally obliged to help anyone out even if they genuinely need it; I get to choose my charities
34. I can have opinions
35. I can have detestable opinions
36. I can have reckless, extravagant, unlikely opinions
37. I even get to have just-plain-wrong opinions
38. I get to have opinions about who’s “married” and who isn’t
39. I can show up to a protest my government’s dumbass healthcare plan wearing clothes just as snazzy or as shabby as I want (within reason)
40. I can emit carbon
41. I can buy things from people who emit carbon
42. I can acquire goods and services that involve the emission of carbon
43. I can leave my child unmedicated when all the “experts” are screaming at me to “get him the help that he needs” to make him pliable
44. If my case is sound, I just might prevail in a court of law — even if I’m a stinker and the other guy is oh so wonderful
45. I can hurt myself
46. I can do stupid things to make it likely that I, and only I, might get hurt
47. I can make foolish purchases and investments; I can buy high and sell low
48. I can buy alcohol on a Sunday, and skip church
49. I can have sex with a willing partner in any position we choose
50. I can be a non-participant; not partake in a prayer, not partake in a fashion trend, not drive a hybrid
51. ……..I can make a complete asshole out of myself in front of a cop?

Why Everything Sucks

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

Hat tip: Washington Rebel.

D’JEver Notice? XXXII

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

Separate post for this one, I decided, although what we’re talking about ties in so strongly with the one previous, in which our current House Speaker starts to fantasize about health care plan protesters walking around with swastikas on armbands…

Did you ever notice this thing about liberals? The liberal voter has very, very few things in common with the liberal politician. They don’t think the same way. The politician, who lives out his life in sort of a game of political chess, thinks in terms of cause-and-effect about every little thing — and then pretends he isn’t doing that. Example: Call it “gun safety” rather than “gun control” because the former phrase does so well in front of focus groups. The liberal voter on the other hand, is not inclined toward chess games. He just wants all risk eliminated from everything. What the voter considers to be an unacceptable threat that must be jettisoned from this plane of existence if the dream Utopia is ever to come to be, is simply an adrenaline rush for the politician. You can tell it once in awhile, in the lies they get caught telling. They tell lies that are obviously being told just for the thrill of the possibility of getting caught. “I was named after Edmund Hillary!” What would you hope to gain from saying such a thing?

So the liberal politician and the liberal guy-in-the-street are two completely different animals. But this one thing they have in common —

They don’t have a firm footing on this plane of reality. We saw it with the Nazi thing linked above, and we saw it with the Mike Malloy thing yesterday. The politician and the left-wing political junkie both do this. They’ll start to describe, in detail or at the abstract, things that are going on. They remind us of what we saw, with them…or they give us information that perhaps we’re hearing for the first time. And then —

It happens.

It’s that hairpin turn. That “I expect to see” thing. Malloy and Pelosi both did it. They slip, casually, easily, into this other realm of things that have not happened, and most of the time you can’t point to any evidence of likelihood of the thing happening, but the liberal starts droning on about it anyway as if it did happen. Over and over and over again, we see the only tincture of relevance this latest train of thought has to anything, is that it makes the liberal feel good to think about it happening.

What is that? A propaganda technique? Symptom of a mental illness? A sign that the person speaking spends way, way, way too much time watching modern sit-down comedians like Bill Maher or John Stewart? Some combination of all those, perhaps?

To a normal person, when you stop talking about things that have actually happened and start talking about things you want to see happening…there is a meaningful divide separating those two things because the concepts are entirely different. Not so with our liberals. But here’s the amazing part: They are political animals, skilled in winning arguments in which people are only halfway paying attention. Look what happened nine months ago. You can’t tell a passionate liberal who’s losing an argument, anything about what he needs to say in order to win, that he doesn’t already know. Well, the liberals are losing the health care plan argument right now. It should be intuitively obvious, even to the most obtuse, where they went wrong with this: It was with the revelation that Congress was about to vote this monstrosity into law without knowing a damn thing about it.

Health care is foundering because the middle-of-the-road voters have figured out liberals aren’t very dedicated to reality. The concern isn’t that liberals are going to erode our independence, or that liberals are going to ruin our health care; the concern is quite simply that liberals don’t know what they’re doing. They have a remote shot at maybe recovering this sense of confidence, but what they need to do is convince people that their fastening to reality is healthy. That’s the message they need to get out. And I’m pretty sure they know this.

They can’t do it. Even now when officials like Speaker Nan talk about what they have seen with us…they just can’t help it…there’s that hairpin turn. Swastikas this time. What’s it going to be next time, Republicans disemboweling adorable puppy dogs and roasting their entrails?

Crap, now she’s got me doing it. Well, if you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. Let’s all just make shit up. Hey, I hear the Palins are getting divorced

“Carrying Swastikas”

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

Crazy Aging-Hippy Cat Lady chirps up yet again…

The radio guys leveled a rather devastating fusillade in response to this a few minutes ago, in one of their opening comments…something along the lines of “you know, if there’s a Nazi somewhere who doesn’t like this health care plan — he’s probably right about that.”

Is there someone somewhere ready, willing and able to hold Speaker Pelosi aloft as a shining, shimmering icon of the high confidence they hold in the people making decisions right now? Just wondering.

Really, really wondering.

Crazy cat lady.

A Thousand Frames a Second

Thursday, August 6th, 2009


EMBED-Amazing Cam Shoots 1000 Frames Per Second – Watch more free videos

Hat tip: Musket Balls.

“Restaurant”

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

Hat tip to E Maua Ola i Moku o Keawe.

Fun Garage Doors

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

Geekologie.