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Van Jones Aftermath

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

All is as expected: The FARK kids can’t put together a coherent thought about it. Arianna Huffington, desperate to be credited with assembling tomorrow’s most popular left-wing talking point, has cleverly blended together the two old standby ingredients whining and gloating. It will probably work.

The Washington Times wants to know how things went this far without more involvement from our mainstream press. Good question.

Obama is, of course, shocked — shocked! — to learn of Van Jones’ extremist views. But not so fast, says the Wall Street Journal opinion page.

Mr. Jones was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, which was established, funded and celebrated as the new intellectual vanguard of the Democratic Party. The center’s president is John Podesta, who was co-chair of Mr. Obama’s transition team and thus played a major role in recommending appointees throughout the Administration. The ascent of Mr. Jones within the liberal intelligentsia shows how much the Democratic Party has moved left since its “New Democrat” triangulation of the Clinton years.

Mr. Jones’s incendiary comments about Republicans and his now famous association with a statement blaming the U.S. for 9/11 had to have been known in some White House precincts. He was praised and sponsored by Valerie Jarrett, who is one of the two or three most powerful White House aides and is a long-time personal friend of the President.

Our guess is that Mr. Jones landed in the White House precisely because his job didn’t require Senate confirmation, which would have subjected him to more scrutiny. This is also no doubt a reason that Mr. Obama has consolidated so much of his Administration’s governing authority inside the White House under various “czars.”

This gets into a question I have long had about the “czars.” My question doesn’t have to do with the obvious lack of congressional oversight, or what-would-we-find-out if the czars did have to appear before a Senate panel and win confirmation.

My question is, instead: Why does the org chart have to look this way?

Take a look at the way things have to be, as President Obama is first sworn in. We have a cabinet that evolves over time, acquiring new seats much more often than it loses any, and is currently at fifteen plus seven cabinet-level officers. If President Obama has any intention of trimming these down, I’ve yet to hear about it. Then, to this, we add the czars. The definition of a “czar” is not necessarily a measurable thing, so it will be a subjective matter to determine how many such posts Obama has created. CNN says “nearly thirty” and Fox News reports “nearly three dozen.”

Wow, that’s nearly sixty really smart people helping Obama make decisions about things.

Obama doesn’t need help making decisions about things, though. This is a guy who thinks nothing of announcing the police acted “stupidly” in responding to an entirely local incident, in the same breath as admitting He is missing the facts required to decide such a thing. I’ve been listening to Him for three years now, and I’ve not yet once heard Him say He knows something because of something someone else pointed out to Him. Not unless you count that racist asshole preacher of His that He doesn’t want me to think about anymore.

Apart from Rev. Wright, there’s been absolutely nobody. Not His sainted grandmother, not Michelle, not Rahm, not “Nobody Messes With Joe” Biden, not one single soul has told President Obama something Obama felt was worth using in a decision Obama had to make. Not once!

So why does our President need fifty-eight people to help Him make decisions? He has yet to demonstrate His need for even one. There’s no leadership-bandwidth to be conserved here. If Obama was in my kitchen when I was opening a box of Cheerios or unclogging my garbage disposal, He’d have plenty of comments about all the mistakes I’d be making, and how I should be doing it. And He’d tell me all about it without ever whipping out His cell phone and using a lifeline. He’d correct me in the middle of the most meaningless and arcane tasks, fully confident in His own glorious advice, be His advice solicited or not, and He’d do it without breaking a sweat.

The only answer I can see, is that the fifty-something butts in the chairs represent solutions in search of a problem. It must be a classic Washington story of graft. They are fifty-something people who are owed something.

Van Jones reflects badly on the country, in a darkly humorous way. We Americans are a real funny duck, you know. We’re constantly bitching and moaning about our corrupt officials ripping us off, and when we find out one guy profits from a decision and another guy makes a decision, and they happen to know each other, we screech. Perhaps that’s healthy. But every single election is the event by which we “finally take our house back from these crooks,” and just a heartbeat later we find cronies paying each other off out of our tax coffers, nothing’s changed…and we still tolerate it.

So here’s an idea. Don’t go looking for a replacement for Van Jones. Instead, get rid of a whole bunch of czars. Then go after the cabinet. Make it look like George Washington’s, with just four posts. Obama wants to restore His approval ratings; that would do it.

But of course He won’t do that.

Posted in Incumbent Scandals | 3 Comments »

Speaking of Centrists…

Monday, September 7th, 2009

…that being a reference to the previous post…

…our friend down in New Mexico who frequently takes issue with us about our extremist positions, versus his middle-of-the-road ones. He had an opportunity to expound at length on how he thinks people should spend Labor Day. He had, count ’em, one-two-three perfectly decent opportunities to disagree with us about things.

And he ended up three-for-three. We, with our extremist viewpoints, could have authored every single word he wrote. Especially these:

I will resist the temptation to turn this post into an anti-union screed, and said temptation is strong indeed, Gentle Reader. But let me just say this about that… I’m of the opinion that labor unions are the root of all most evil in our post-industrial society. I’ll grant you labor unions have a glorious history and were responsible for righting numerous wrongs in the early 20th century. But like the buggy whip, their time has passed. What we get from our unions today are things like “card check” —a decidedly UN-American renunciation of free elections in the workplace— and outright political intimidation. I’m not seeing much good in that… and neither are most other Americans, as Ed Morrissey notes in this Hot Air post. But let us not digress further; I’m sure you get my point.

I have redacted much there, because our friend down south places much in the clamshells () and as I’ve said before, I consider parenthetical material to be entirely expendable. But within the clamshells and outside of ’em, there is much linky goodness peppered throughout Buck’s Labor Day post, and it’s all well worth reading. Go read it all, every single word. You’ll be doing yourself a favor.

Nevertheless, this “centrist” thing brings up a concern that weighs somewhat heavily on my mind whenever our so-called “moderate” acquaintance takes issue with our “extremist” ramblings. We are, in recent years, strangely unified on our definitions…extremist…moderate…fringe-kook…centrist. There is very little disagreement lately on what opinion falls into what category. And this unification does not work along lines of common sense. This, in my mind, is a bad thing. It is almost a public mental health issue. Something just shy of a crisis.

I don’t like the way “centrist” is defined lately.

Let us say we do something that common sense, as well as history itself, counsels as being reprehensibly unwise. Passing gas into a campfire — after painting one’s hind end with gasoline. Kidnapping baby bear cubs in line-of-sight of their mothers. Telling Hells’ Angels riders something like “Hey, are you faggots going to move your fucking bikes so I can park here?” Flesh out that list of mine in whatever manner most effectively entertains you…

…it seems to me that lately, what defines a “centrist” is the following: We’ve done this stupid thing, whatever it is, ten times. It’s put us in the emergency ward ten times. Let’s go for an eleventh, just for the hell of it!

The guy who says “Let’s not, and say we did” is characterized as the extremist.

Am I right or am I right? We’re tinkering around with the idea of passing nationalized health care — which hasn’t been written into a unified body of legislation yet, let alone passed through committee. Every time some “conservative firebrand” comes up with a word of caution for us…think of Sarah Palin’s “death panels”…we are cautioned that this is a “falsehood,” that it is “bearing false witness,” that it is an “urban legend.” And that she is an “extremist.” But primarily, that the stuff she’s saying is not true.

Of course it isn’t! The legislation hasn’t been written yet. But if you want to go by the history of other countries that have this kind of health care plan in place, what she said is absolutely one hundred percent true. Death panels, death courts, death quorums, death committees, call ’em what you will. It’s bureaucrats deciding who’s gonna live and who’s gonna die…and “death panel” is just as good a name as any.

My point is not that what Palin said, in the final analysis, is true. Although it is.

My point is that her comments have been characterized as extremist in nature, and those who contradict her have been characterized as moderates. In a sane universe, it would be the other way around. The evidence is overwhelmingly on her side. I say again: overwhelmingly. Start, if it suits your druthers, with all the countries that have instituted nationalized health care plans, similar or identical to the one we are now considering — who are now rejecting those plans, or in some other way regretting them. They have bureaucrats sitting down to decide who does & doesn’t “deserve” coverage…empowered with decision-making over life-and-death…just like Palin said.

Palin one, Obama zip.

And that leads into this other article of “must-not-miss” stuff straight from the archives of that extremist Libertarian crackpot Neal Boortz: Four Problems That Could Sink America. Briefly summarized here:

1. We don’t like to work. Sure, now that jobs are scarce, everybody’s willing to put in a few extra hours to stay ahead of the ax. But look around: We still expect easy money, hope to retire early, and embrace the oversimplistic message of bestsellers like The One Minute Millionaire and The 4-Hour Workweek. Unfortunately, the rest of the world isn’t sending as much money our way as it used to, which makes it harder to do less with more.
:
2. Nobody wants to sacrifice. Why should we? The government is standing by with stimulus money, banker bailouts, homeowner aid, cash for clunkers, expanded healthcare, and maybe more stimulus money. And most Americans will never have to pay an extra dime for any of this. Somehow, $9 trillion worth of government debt will just become somebody else’s problem.

3. We’re uninformed.
:
People who lack the sense to question Big Lies always end up in deep trouble. Being well informed takes work, even with the Internet. In a democracy, that’s simply a civic burden. If we’re too foolish or lazy to educate ourselves on healthcare, global warming, financial reform, and other complicated issues, then we’re signing ourselves over to special interests who see nothing wrong with plundering our national–and personal–wealth.
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4. iCulture. We may be chastened by the recession, but Americans still believe they deserve the best of everything–the best job, the best healthcare, the best education for our kids. And we want it at a discount–or better yet, free–which brings us back to the usual disconnect between what we want and what we’re willing to pay for.

Do you see a common thread amongst those four? I do. I call it the “ant and grasshopper milkshake.”

People who are willing to endure the dilemma of delayed gratification, for a late reward, are intermingled in their personal fortunes and prospects with lazier people who just want to fuck around. The result: The standard of living for hard-working people who choose to educate themselves and then act on that education, is deprecated; the standard of living for jag-offs, conversely, is artificially enhanced.

To stand in opposition to this, is not extreme. To lend your voice in support of it, is not moderate.

Our friend in New Mexico does not suffer from a lack of brains, or balls, or judgment. He simply misunderstands the debate — some of the time. And he doesn’t even misunderstand the debate quite so much; he misunderstands the enemy.

His values on the other hand, are right where they should be. And his idea is an awesome one — I know this to be true, because it’s an idea we’ve had here many a time. People need to pull their heads out of their asses with regard to old-fashioned honest hard work, and listen to what Mike Rowe has to say. For whatever other disagreements he & I may have, we are abso-freakin-lutely on the same page there. I swear, if people gave up watching American Idol, and spend just five minutes out of that time out of every hour that was spent previously, watching Dirty Jobs — a lot of this nation’s problems would disappear overnight.

Posted in My Blogger Friends, Poisoning Capitalism, Poisoning Strength | 11 Comments »

No Room for a Centrist Like Me

Monday, September 7th, 2009

The Clinton Triangulation Strategy lives on: This side is childish, that other side is childish, so ignore both of them and just listen to what I say.

Hat tip to WebWench, at Nealz Nuze, where Yankee Infidel speaks for me:

Ledger claims to know the facts, but he’s clinging to some “facts” that have already been debunked through analysis already. Rightists are students of history, and as such, we are concerned about what government control of health care will do to the industry. Having 1 party (the government) not only be a referee in the industry but also a player instead obviously unbalances the scale in favor of the government/public “option” to the point were the only option that will survive is the government/public “option”.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Hero Among Mollusks

Monday, September 7th, 2009

Mike Todd at Waving or Drowning wants to give the recently departed Sen. Ted Kennedy a decent send-off. That is certainly his right. I have neither the time nor the inclination, to deny him that right. Part of the reason I’m so dis-inclined to interfere with the expression of one’s innermost thoughts that run so contrary to my own, is this: I’m not like Ted. I understand people are different, and life would be boring if they were not. Kennedy never really was at ease with that. Some of his “greatest” speeches were inspired by his resentment against people and organizations who thought about life in non-Ted-like ways.

But another consequence of me being not-like-Ted, is that I am occasionally curious about things. I notice things are out of place, and when I notice things are out of place I don’t think it is a cause for celebration and drinking, but rather a cause for learning. Mr. Todd’s silly, hagiographic farewell (hat tip: Rick) is a cause for the rest of us to learn something about ourselves if ever there was one.

Just look at it from a thirty-thousand foot level:

Paragraph One comments “I admire people who don’t hide from their brokenness” in the course of building up to the statement “my heroes tend to be imperfect.” Okay, the object of the exercise is to say something positive about Ted. Mike’s managed to squeek out a negative and make it look like a positive; Teddy didn’t try to hide the negative. A couple months back, some homeless guy waltzed into my girlfriend’s store and shattered a bunch of bottles of booze so that he could be sent back to jail — the cops said, alright. You know, he didn’t try to hide his brokenness either. So that jailbird bum is on the same level as Ted? According to you, Mike, he’s managed to match the Senator’s most appealing quality.

Paragraph Two winds up with “Some are describing him as the greatest Senator in history, and I don’t think that is a stretch.” People who can’t admit to what they’re trying to say, even to themselves, write like this quite often. To say “Ted Kennedy was the greatest Senator in history” would be out of the question. Too active; too much responsibility being taken. For a few years now I’ve been noticing this about Mr. Todd, and Rick has occasionally commented on it too. He doesn’t really say things, especially in response to being challenged. He just goes through paragraph after paragraph implying things. In the zoology of writers, he is a decidedly non-skeletal, gastropodic slimy mollusk of a being.

Todd then tells the story of the Senator “accepting,” in 1983, membership in the Moral Majority and then “requesting” the opportunity to give a speech. Todd and myself agree on what is the most notable part of that speech:

I am an American and a Catholic; I love my country and treasure my faith. But I do not assume that my conception of patriotism or policy is invariably correct–or that my conviction about religion should command any greater respect than any other faith in this pluralistic society. I believe there surely is such a thing as truth, but who among us can claim a monopoly on it?

Four years later, Sen. Kennedy made himself “great” in the minds of his fans and lackeys once again, during the confirmation proceedings of failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. Sen. Kennedy rejected everything meaningful about his speech four years earlier. Sen. Kennedy — let’s see, we can just go through the list, can’t we? — assumed that his conception of patriotism was invariably correct, and that his conception of policy was invariably correct. He was steadfast in claiming his conviction about religion-versus-state issues should command greater respect than anybody else’s conviction about the same thing; he was certainly consistent on that from womb-to-tomb.

And absolutely, positively, during the Bork nomination and at many other times, Sen. Kennedy knew there surely was such a thing as truth, and he himself claimed a monopoly on saying what exactly it was —

Mr. Bork should also be rejected by the Senate because he stands for an extremist view of the Constitution and the role of the Supreme Court that would have placed him outside the mainstream of American constitutional jurisprudence in the 1960s, let alone the 1980s. He opposed the Public Accommodations Civil Rights Act of 1964. He opposed the one-man one-vote decision of the Supreme Court the same year. He has said that the First Amendment applies only to political speech, not literature or works of art or scientific expression.

Under the twin pressures of academic rejection and the prospect of Senate rejection, Mr. Bork subsequently retracted the most neanderthal of these views on civil rights and the first amendment. But his mind-set is no less ominous today.

Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.

America is a better and freer nation than Robert Bork thinks. Yet in the current delicate balance of the Supreme Court, his rigid ideology will tip the scales of justice against the kind of country America is and ought to be.

The damage that President Reagan will do through this nomination, if it is not rejected by the Senate, could live on far beyond the end of his presidential term. President Reagan is still our President. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate, and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and on the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice.

In light of the 1987 Bork speech, Mike Todd’s words seem even more risible than usual when he says, in reference to the 1983 speech, “[it] is yet another piece in the puzzle of [the] ‘unity’ theme that seems to be hammering me lately.”

Mr. Todd, I think I have found the last piece of that puzzle for you. People like Ted Kennedy, do, after all, leave large gaping holes behind when they depart, suitable for causing an utter collapse of the flimy structure built on top. It is their vision of the world and how it should work; it requires their leadership in order to make sense. Their ramshackle, inconsistent, quivering, whimsical, vacillating leadership. It would make much more sense, of course, to champion the cause of unity all the time. It would also make much more sense to demonize and derogate those same concepts all the time. Or, if one is committed to being a fair-weather friend to unity, to tack back and forth in the interest of the Constitution and the country…rather than to get a few more licks in against the Moral Majority and against Republicans.

But of course, it’s really just about attacking people isn’t it? That’s why you can’t go into any great detail about what made Sen. Kennedy great. Kennedy was great because he shared enemies with you and had brilliantly refined the fine art of inflicting damage on that enemy — by holding it to standards of behavior while rejecting any standards for his own behavior.

This is the final nail in the coffin on Todd’s eulogy for the Senator. It doesn’t suffer damage because I disagree with it personally; it suffers damage because it disagrees with itself. It is an apt illustration of Thing I Know #265: “You can’t be better than everyone else when you’re trying to be like everyone else.” This is the internal contradiction that ultimately robs it of any structural strength, and destroys it from within. For all this great urgency to salute Ted Kennedy with this giant-among-mortals theme, it seems so few among his fans can really follow through on it. Todd himself availed himself of the perfect opportunity, oozing his gastropod form within a slug’s antenna of calling him, but not actually calling him, “the greatest Senator in history.” He can’t quite bring himself to bubble out the superlative. What’s the problem, Mike?

The problem is with — to borrow a phrase from the departed Senator from the famous “Bork” speech — a glaring inconsistency with Ted Kennedy’s America.

Ted Kennedy was not known for his respect for the concept of individual achievement, and here and there are some bits of evidence to suggest he was quite antagonistic toward such a thing. Praising the New England Patriots, he read into the Congressional record “At a time when our entire country is banding together and facing down individualism, the Patriots set a wonderful example, showing us all what is possible when we work together, believe in each other, and sacrifice for the greater good.” [emphasis mine] Now, think on that for just a minute or two. If you want to go to a country that faces down individualism and where life is all about sacrificing for the greater good, why, there are scores and scores of places around the world where you can go. But that wasn’t good enough for Ted; he wanted the United States to be transformed into just another filthy collectivist socialist mudpuddle. He said so. He specifically identified the very concept of the individual as an inimical force, one to be engaged and defeated.

Doctor Zero made a brilliant point about this last week:

This is why the death of Mary Jo Kopechne doesn’t trouble liberal intellectuals all that much. In fact, they think you’re a bit childish and primitive for being obsessed with it.

The meme floated by the Left over the past few days, that Kopechne’s death was a reasonable price to pay for Ted Kennedy’s wonderful political career, is a brutally candid expression of the principle that even an individual’s right to live is negotiable — a commodity to be measured against the “needs of the many,” which the Left believes were far better served by Kennedy’s politics than Kopechne’s insignificant little life. The striking thing about the two most infamous expressions of this opinion, by Melissa Lafsky and Joyce Carol Oates, is how breezy they are. They don’t caution the reader to brace himself for an outrageous, controversial assertion, which the author plans to defend. Both Lafsky and Oates are rather wistful in tone. They don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t think Kopechne’s life for Kennedy’s legislative agenda was a sweet trade, the deal of the century for America.

If it’s fair to presume some things about the idol, based on the demonstrated priorities of those who worship it — and I think, in this case, it is — we are ready to re-write the Bork speech because know some things about Ted Kennedy’s America.

Ted Kennedy’s America is one in which the value of all individual attributes and possessions, including human life itself, is negotiable.

It is a culture in which unity is the primary collectivist asset, the prize to be jealously guarded by us all…until a leader of some stature tells us it is not, and then we are to turn on it and tear it asunder. Unity is good when it helps democrats and hurts Republicans, but it’s bad when it helps Republicans or hurts democrats.

It is a business environment in which, if any one individual manages to do more than his part to make life better for the rest of us, and receives payment in kind — no way can that story be concluded just yet. The dirty bastard must not have been taxed enough! Unless, that is, his last name is Kennedy.

It is an economy in which it is terribly important to us all how high the minimum wage is going to be this year…since so few of us make any more than that.

It is a nation in which leaders join hands, reaching across the aisle, overcoming their differences to write legislation together and the partisan divide should finally be healed. For just a certain amount of time. And then, as soon as the Republican can’t do anything to help the democrat, the democrat should be ready, willing and able to give blistering scolding speeches about “George Bush’s Vietnam.” The pattern remains; it’s a strategic mindset, one that exists to inflict damage on the enemy. Like a slug devouring your strawberry patch, it pretends not to be non-destructive, by moving slowly.

It is a place where we all ask ourselves what we can sacrifice for the greater good, while people sufficiently fortunate to carry the name “Kennedy” respond with the Not-In-My-Back-Yard protest “But don’t you realize — that’s where I sail!”

It’s all so clear, Mike. You’re being whacked upside the head repeatedly with this unity theme. How much less traumatic the experience would be for you, if you could show some consistency about it. But you can’t, being a slimy mollusk who lacks a skeleton, and so your heroes are the ones who similarly cannot be consistent about it. They, like you, pulsate, vibrate, meander back and forth: Oh, now we’re all to pick out an individual from among us, and worship him. Whoopsie, no today’s a different day, and now individualism doesn’t matter and is to be frowned-upon. Oh, today we’re all going to help each other out. Whoopsie, no, the most wonderful among us are the ones who inflict the greatest sum of damage upon that guy over there.

From what I see, what little that defines this mindset has to do with valuing destruction over creation. Someone destroys something or inflicts damage on something, it’s time to idolize the person who is the destroyer. But if nothing is destroyed, and the only way anyone has set himself apart from the rest is by creating something, suddenly that’s when we’re back to our war against the individual. Maybe you could confirm that for me, since Sen. Kennedy isn’t around to do it anymore.

But that’s not really necessary. I was privileged to watch the Senator for a good long time, and that pattern always remained consistent. Invidual contributions important when individuals destroy things; individual contributions toxic and resented, when individuals were creating things. That’s the Kennedy pattern. No wonder you can’t bring yourself to call him history’s greatest Senator, even though you so clearly want to. What an uncomfortable, tortured existence you must be living out, you little slug.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Olby Executes Order 66

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

Emperor Palpatine:

Every single Jedi is now an enemy of the Republic. Do what must be done. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy.

Al Capone:

I want you to get this fuck where he breathes! I want you to find this nancy-boy Eliot Ness, I want him DEAD! I want his family DEAD! I want his house burned to the GROUND! I wanna go there in the middle of the night and I wanna PISS ON HIS ASHES!

Blofeld:

Kill Bond! Now!

Michael Corleone:

My father made him an offer he couldn’t refuse…Luca Brasi held a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract.

High Sheriff of Nottingham and Prince John:

Sheriff: I hope our little golden hook will catch the fish.
Prince: You hope?
Sheriff: Oh it will… if he’s here.
Prince: If he’s not we’ll stick your head upon the target and shoot at that.

Darth Vader:

Asteroids do not concern me, Admiral. I want that ship, not excuses.

Keith Olbermann:

I don’t know why I’ve got this phrasing in my head, but: Find everything you can about Glenn Beck, Stu Burguiere, and Roger Ailes.

Sadly, Olbermann is not a Vader, Capone or Corleone. He’s just a deranged little man.

And the anger he feels is one that comes by way of shock. Scandals are not supposed to take down liberals. Scandals have become tools, customized to the task of dealing with troublesome conservatives. Every twenty scandals take down ten public figures, and of those ten taken down, nine of them are conservatives. Liberals ride the scandals out. Conservatives get taken out. It’s just not supposed to happen this way.

He wants to be Darth Vader.

But he comes off as just a spoiled little boy stamping his feet. He can’t do any better than that. Poor guy.

Hat tip to Ace and Howard Portnoy, via The Other McCain.

Posted in Deranged Leftists | 2 Comments »

Not In It For The Attention, Mind You… XXXIII

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

We’ve decided to try an experiment. Advertising, at Cassy’s spot. We’re pretty pleased with the friends we made when we guest-blogged for her a year back, and can’t help but wonder what other ones we might pull in from thereabouts.

Also, Smitty over at The Other McCain is making up new words to try to be cool like us.

Phil is making up some new words, too.

These are some pretty damned useful words. Nowadays. I’m afraid.

And on that note, Gerard thinks our latest bitch-pitch and occasional embrace of pessimism, goes pretty well with a music video of good-lookin’ girls in skimpy clothes. We agree.

Update: Recent events have left sensible individuals with a healthy thirst for some good old-fashioned optimism. The above-mentioned Smitty has found some, and its name is Senator Tom Coburn.

Posted in About Me and My Blog | 3 Comments »

Mister Wonderful Gets a Lecture from Jack Webb

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

Hat tip: IMAO.

Posted in Deranged Leftists, Obamamania, Poisoning Western Civilization, Services Abuse | 3 Comments »

What’s With the Tone, Whore?

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

Jenny isn’t getting along with her GPS.

Hat tip: FARK.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Come and Take It

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

That is the only title that can be affixed to this wonderful clip, as you shall see:

She nailed it. Nailed it. The health care debate, like all significant disagreements in human history, comes down to a difference in philosophies. Does government exist to do all the minimal tasks that can’t be done at the local levels, organize a military, provide redress of grievances — the things actually listed in the Constitution? Or is it a teat to be suckled?

If the purpose of government is seize wealth for redistribution to others, then let us view that act as the theft that it really is. Stop dressing it up in bullshit town hall meetings, fancy legislation, marble buildings and business suits. Stop with the pious platitudes about “Doing the Work of The People” and get down to the brass tacks. Just come on over and take my twenty bucks. With force. Let’s see it happen in front of our faces.

Hat tip to Ace, via Robert Stacy McCain.

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

My Hopes For Bond 23

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

There have been a lot of long, fun discussion threads over at the James Bond Wiki, but near as I can tell this one has become by far the longest. And it may become among the most fun:

My hopes for Bond 23
Having just seen QOS, one thing that I hope they do (or more accurately, DON’T DO) in the next one:

Enough of the rogue agent thing. It’s effective once in a while, but now they’ve done THREE in a row where Bond going rogue has been a major part of the story. Having *really* established a relationship between Bond and M now in QOS, it’s time that Bond go on an assignment where MI6 have his back. Bond having to dodge his own people as well as the villains? Let’s give that device a rest for one or two films, shall we?

Nearly three hundred posts since then. Lots of ideas for locations, girls, weapons. Maybe there’s even a post in there from Yours Truly, about which I completely forgot. Much speculation about the mysterious organization of Quantum. I dunno about that…I think it had a lot of potential, but Marc Forster might have screwed the pooch on it. Could be wrong.

Appended the following to the end:

We seem to have a clear consensus here and I’m just adding to it. But here I go nonetheless:

1. The things that made the old ones kinda silly in a charming way, should be converted to gags. Like “My name is Pussy Galore” “I must be dreaming.” That needs to be “demoted,” in a manner of speaking, to a lady making something up about her name, then Daniel Craig says “You must be joking” and she says “Yeah, actually, it’s Susan.”
2. Agree about the love thing [Bond falling into it]. Enough. He bangs 4 gals in one flick. Anybody who doesn’t like it can work on some other movie.
3. One of the ladies is a “closing-credits girl” of course.
4. Another one is a bad girl he makes good with his awesome prowess. Is that the same as the closing-credits girl? I think it has to be. Dunno.
5. It almost goes without saying that another one of them is a doomed-girl who gets killed.
6. Another one is a “Fiona Volpe” who’s just plain bad and stays bad.
7. Every third or fourth Bond movie, the bad guy died first in the climactic battle scene, and then just as life returned to “normal,” the henchman came after Bond for a final assault. I think it would be pretty cool to do that here.
8. The henchman should be developed into a “real” character. This is one thing that’s been missing from Bond movies. It would be really awesome to have a strained, Vader-vs-Sidious relationship between the 2 bad guys, where it shows they don’t really trust each other.
9. Love the ideas about the locations. Philippines, Australia, etc.
10. Bugatti Veyron. Why not.
11. A little more attention to the actual threat. Le Chiffre was a threat because he was going to direct funds to terrorists who would then do God-knows-what. That was great, but vague. Green just wanted to make poor people thirsty. Please do better. Back to the orbiting laser cannons please.

Pussy Galore's Flying CircusI have an idea for the discussion thread itself. First of all: Curse you two-thousand-character post limit! Discuss your ideas for the next Bond movie but make it fit in a 2,000-byte buffer? Secondly: Go ahead and allow the use of the word “Pussy” when we’re talking about cool ideas from past James Bond movies. Really, if anyone cannot see the conflict there, I challenge that person’s James Bond Fan credentials on solid grounds.

I’m not terribly pleased with Bond 22, Quantum of Solace, I’m afraid. It remains the one single installment we have not quite yet gotten around to acquiring, here at Freeberg Manor. Which says something; Freeberg Manor has everything. We even have Never Say Never Again. It is likely that we’ll be past the opening weekend for Bond 23 before we ever bother to snag Bond 22.

It broke far too many rules.

Bond should screw every single beautiful woman involved. Ever single one that has a speaking line. Period.

Another rule broken: While sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong is an indispensable part of being a spy, Bond embarks on treacherous territory when he becomes Robin Hood. He has never come out of such a thing completely whole, and there is a reason for it: James Bond is something of an inconsiderate asshole. You make your hero into Robin Hood, to prove his inner, shining, wonderful good-natured qualities. Economic injustice! It cannot stand! This doesn’t fit Bond. Bond comes to find out about an impoverished layer of humanity being oppressed, he walks right past it all and continues with the Big Five: Finding the clues, fighting the henchmen, saving the world, drinking and whoring. Stick to business.

There is a wonderful line in Casino Royale (the book), or maybe I read it in Ian Fleming’s notes somewhere, about how Bond’s value as a good guy, is in the fact that he is just as loathsome and detestable in his methods as any of the bad ones. This is what the Bond franchise is really all about. It is a live-action story that depicts that famous quote questionably attributed to George Orwell, “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

I’m not up on Marc Forster’s politics…although, better-than-even-odds, I can make an educated guess. But I suspect Double-Oh-Seven suffered a gaping flesh wound because his story was taken up by someone who doesn’t believe in such a thing.

As the old M might have said: Let’s try to keep that from ever happening ever again, shall we old boy?

Posted in James Bond | No Comments »

Van Jones is Down

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

AP, short and sweet:

WASHINGTON — Obama aide Van Jones resigns as environmental adviser amid controversy over past statements.

Poor Obama. If this keeps up, He’ll have to find someone, somewhere, who is not a racist neo-communist antisemitic tax-cheating Truther asshole. And that, I guess, would put Him in a helluva spot.

Posted in Incumbent Scandals | 3 Comments »

The More We Owe, The Wealthier We Are

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

The video is over a year old by now, but it’s an interesting object lesson.

It’s exactly what I was writing about before. Up is down, wet is dry, black is white and cold is hot…if you question any of it it means you’re a big ol’ dummy. Do you have a Masters Degree? Do you have a Doctorate? Did you graduate from a college (of which I’d approve)? If no to any of these, then you’re too boneheaded to have the conversation.

One of my fondest ways to respond is to innocently inquire what is the minimal level of education at which one could start to form an opinion about the pertinent concepts. More debt makes you wealthier? If anyone wants to proffer that a Masters Degree level of education somehow puts a new perspective on that, I’m all ears. Meanwhile, I’m gonna nail that one down at somewhere between third & fourth grades, elementary school. Simple multiplication with fractions involved.

Hat tip: Michelle, on a blurb from Neal Boortz’ reading assignments.

Thing I Know #173. I often become aware of people coercing those around them to support a certain position, citing educational credentials held by themselves, or some prominent figure in the disagreement. I don’t believe these people maintain the fascination in the topic they imply they have. I’ve noticed the slightest bit of skepticism causes them to change the subject.

Thing I Know #183. When an education has given you the ability to dismiss ideas more quickly, it’s not really an education.

Posted in Incumbent Scandals | No Comments »

Photoshoot For Her New Book

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

Posted in Women in Skimpy Clothes | 1 Comment »

Why There Are No New Jobs

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

Jennifer Rubin writes in Commentary Magazine:

James Sherk of Heritage makes a compelling case that the problem is not persistent layoffs but a drop in job creation. The labor market simply can’t absorb new workers entering the labor force. That slowdown in job creation, he says, is in large part attributable to “enormous increases in federal spending on traditional liberal priorities, such as for government-run health care, [which] raise the prospects of vastly higher taxes or rapidly rising inflation.”

He explains:

The federal deficit is expected to approach $2 trillion this year, and to remain well above $1 trillion for many years to come, doubling the national debt in just five years. This situation is not sustainable…Gross private investment in equipment and software—a good measure of business investment spending—has fallen by a full 20 percent since the recession began. As long as business investment remains low and entrepreneurs hold back from starting new enterprises, job creation will remain low—and unemployment, high.

Couple that with the prospect that employers may be hit with higher energy costs, a cap-and-trade regulatory scheme, and health-care mandates and one can understand that a hiring paralysis may become a fixture in the economy, absent a substantial change in the administration’s approach to economic recovery. If the president and his advisers think we can have a recovery while they attack the private sector and seek a vast expansion of government, they are in for a rude awakening. It turns out we need those private-sector employers. Who knew?

Let’s play Devil’s Advocate on this one, just to see if I can —

Silly Jennifer Rubin! Doesn’t she realize United States history, and world history, are chock full of stories of the private sector enterprises being hounded, taxed and regulated into providing more jobs they otherwise wouldn’t have. Like…uh…uh…er…ah…

Oh dear. Let me get back to you on that.

Hat tip: Inst.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

“The Films End Up on YouTube in a Compromising Position”

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

Wow, we certainly can’t have that, can we? In your congressional office that you’re running…that belongs to you & everything…as you run it as you see fit. Can’t have the little people watching you do it, that wouldn’t do at all.

Hat tip to Rick, who seems to delight in offering the Indiana Congressman as much rope as he needs to hang himself. Oh yeah, I am so down with that.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Men; Men Trying to Please Women…

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

…we have very few things that we do not owe to this. Observes Blogsister Daphne:

I will never understand a certain breed of woman who discounts the power lying between her legs. Those who choose to use their pussy as a crutch, rather than ratchet that bitch up to the highest level of architectural management.

Men bend to to the smell of us, they love some premium snatch, will murder and humiliate themselves to obtain the furry object of their prime pink affection. Men love pussy, they kill for this shit, overthrow countries, gain thrones, change the course of history following their loin’s longings, entertain depths of madness following thwarted passion. They’ll slit the throats of blood kin over a piece of our ass.
:
Without man’s raw need for our bodies or intense cravings for the soft approval of a beloved woman’s smile, the world at large would be experiencing little more than cold caves, raw meat and gritty beer.

Sometimes women miscalculate their choice, find themselves bruised by a bad man, that’s called living, not a vaginal tragedy. The existence of these brutal outliers shouldn’t be a wholesale indictment of the male sex. The misogynists, rapists and wife beaters crawling the earth can’t be discounted, but let’s face the bald fact that most of these men were raised by women.

We truly do mold the world that exits the soft folds between our thighs. When women abdicate the responsibility of raising sound male children and accept twisted partners as lovers, we breed and sustain the very thing we despise most.

Knights and Princesses.

Then along comes the feminist movement, and suddenly the worms are breeding just as fast as the workhorses. Because the fairer sex, striving to assert itself, in an irony of irony suddenly becomes less picky and less choosey. They held their revolution to achieve the “power” they thought they were being denied, when in reality, they had power wielded by nobody else in all of human history. Until they gave it up.

Mistake. Big mistake.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Van Jones’ CD Highlights

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

I’m going through Malkin’s new book and one thought keeps reverberating off the walls of the sound chamber that exists between my ears rather than within them. And that one thought is this: It is getting really, really hard to dredge up nasty feelings about Sarah Palin’s clothes.

Meanwhile, Gateway Pundit found, via Verum Serum, a piece of fascinating insight into Van Jones, who is the very latest czar to be “nominated” to an Obama Administration post.

When one listens critically to propaganda, it is a simple matter to tell if it has been paid-fer. Some of the outrage against the War on Terror is genuine, true enough; but most of it is not. Most of it is phony, most of it is funded.

And the people who fund anti-War-on-Terror propaganda, are the same ones who fund the “Oh no, we can’t drill here, why that’ll mess things up for the Caribou and the adorable penguins.” Meanwhile there’s an ugly anti-semitic undertone permeating throughout all of it.

We really don’t have any direct way of stopping a czar’s “appointment.” For all this lofty rhetoric so regularly dispensed by our leftist politicians about representing “The People,” about all The People can do to block such obviously mistaken (or wicked) maneuvers such as this, is with an outpouring of rage. That’s the only recourse available to Them.

Hope it works this time…

Posted in His Blank Slate, Incumbent Scandals | No Comments »

Memo For File XCIV

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” — Upton Sinclair

I was watching democrat party advisors and consultants “guest” on the Fox News Channel to peddle their shit, and a very simple thought jumped into my head. At first I thought it was such a simple thought that it couldn’t possibly be worth anything. But then I realized it was impossibly difficult to tell whether it was a simple thought or a complexificated thought. Which one of those it was, I was not sure. But it was one of those two.

And that’s the sign of a good thought.

By which I mean, you may claim this is a thought not worth having…and perhaps you are right. But having been through this cycle a few times, I know beyond any doubt it’s a thought worth jotting down.

Let’s jot it down.

I have a perception, which I could quantify properly if I had a mind to do so, but I have no mind to do so because the benefits would be slight and the effort would be cumbersome. Let us simply presume the thought may be properly quantified but I don’t feel it worth the hassle of proving it. My perception is that we have embarked on some kind of “quickening.” Things, today, compared to the way things were a year ago — are vastly and drastically more changed compared to the way they were changed between one year ago and two years ago. We are in a measurable acceleration curve. Do I really need to provide data to support that? Is there any intelligent soul out there who would honestly contest it? I think not…and so I shall skip that part of the exercise.

No, in observing this quickening, I wish merely to observe, and I think it only necessary to observe, this: Something has fallen away. A facade. A mask. A mask has fallen away. We pretend it is not so. But we seem to be merely going through the motions of carrying out an elaborate deception, that a generation ago was somehow more honest. People pretend to be falling for things that, in times past, really did fool them. And can fool them no longer.

To understand what I mean, it is necessary to divide people into groups. Oh, how we hate to do that! And yet we cannot explain why we so hate it.

Some of us seek to deceive, and others do not. The necessity of separating the one from the other, is self-evident and self-explanatory.

There are those who seek to convince all within earshot and line-of-sight, that the planet will die unless we unplug our phones as soon as they’re done charging.

There are those who seek to convince all within earshot and line-of-sight, that terrorists seek to end their own lives in order to kill a few of us…and yet if we simply change our foreign policy, they’ll start loving us all to pieces.

There are those who seek to convince all within earshot and line-of-sight, that we are not a very good people. But if we simply create a binding structure of public government-owned and government-administrated insurance for our lives and medical needs, that we will become wonderful people.

There are those who seek to convince all within earshot and line-of-sight, that our young children know a great deal more about how to make our society work properly than we do; and that those who have been on the planet far longer than we have, know far less about this than we do.

There are those who seek to convince all within earshot and line-of-sight, that our economy sucks so much because our country is so far in debt; but that we can turn things around by taking on more debt.

There are those who seek to convince all within earshot and line-of-sight, that a woman who is loyal to her man, who makes his life easier, who uses her daylight hours to create a home he will want to approach when the day’s work is done…and brings him cold beverages to drink and hot meat to eat, perhaps dressing herself down to titillate him and make him feel more important…is somehow doing damage to herself, and perhaps to him. And that a miserable, demanding, bitching dried-out old harridan is somehow fulfilling some sacrosanct destiny, for her benefit and for his.

There are those who seek to convince all within earshot and line-of-sight, that Iraq was a much better place with ol’ Saddam in charge.

Here is my complicated but simple thought. And perhaps it will diminish what faith you have left in humanity. Or perhaps it will help to preserve it.

ThreeNOBODY is falling for this bullshit. Nobody. No conservatives. No liberals. Nobody in between.

No, in our parents’ generation, our so-called “leaders” told us sweet little lies…some of us immediately figured out what they were doing, but also, that they had a stake in the lie being successfully told. And so they became passive liars. They listened, they smiled, they nodded — not believing a single word of the lie being told. But understanding right off the bat, that it was to their material benefit for the lie to propagate. And so they behaved as if they believed the lie, that they were far too smart to believe.

Some others among us were just-plain-duped. They were the suckers. Their wallets held the fuel that kept the whole Ponzi scheme going…and they did not hang on to that fuel for very long.

Nowadays — we have the quickening. And I do not think things are staying the same. The lies being told are so much more brazen. We can have a “public option” on our national healthcare, with no rationing. Nobody has any reason to oppose His Glorious Wonderfulness’ ideas, other than their own unapologetic racism. Hollywood celebrities are the wisest among us. Unplug that coffee pot, or the planet might die. Keep importing that oil from the states that sponsor terrorist acts against us, or else Fluffy the Polar Bear won’t have any chunks of ice waiting for him as he swims around, and Fluffy just might drown.

I fear we have lost that all-important distinction, as we embark on the 21st century Anno Domini.

I fear we have lost our ability to distinguish between those who profit from the lies, and those who honestly fall for the lies.

I fear we are now telling lies that are so substandard in quality, that nobody is falling for them. Nobody. Anywhere.

I fear we have been suckered into a kind of infinite vortex. I fear we have become pawns in some pyramid scheme. That nobody’s dumb enough to fall for the lies being told, but also, that we are all in a desperate search for the next sucker…the next sucker who simply doesn’t exist anymore.

I fear that we have, for generations now, been divided among those who seek to deceive, those who pretend to be deceived, and those who honestly are deceived.

And that, while nobody was paying attention, the last of those three groups quietly dwindled down to nothing. I fear we are caught in some bizarre little puppet show. One in which all, or most of us, are caught defining our individual existences around the act of selling something nobody is buying.

I fear this is the beginning of the end of a mighty civilization. I, and you, are blessed to be born at just the right time to witness it.

Blessed, and at the same time, cursed.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Posted in Poisoning Individuality and Reason | 12 Comments »

This Is Good LXII

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

I just like it.

Found it here.

Anyone who has a beef with it, I have two complaint departments you can visit. You must first ask yourself “Do I have a problem if any OTHER country on the face of the globe acts like it’s all that & a bag o’ chips?” That is your litmus-test question.

If yes, go here…

If NO, then go here…

You may now proceed with registering your complaints with me. Don’t be shy.

Posted in Ayn Rand Spins | 2 Comments »

D’JEver Notice? XXXVIII

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

Not entirely sure how many months, weeks or days we’re talking about when we read one more article about Levi Johnston living with the Palins and getting his inside scoops on what goes on in that household. But his talking about it, is starting to take on the air of a Barbra Streisand or Cher or Madonna “final farewell tour.”

Do we have to “learn” new “truths” about Sarah Palin every time Johnston needs a new tin of chaw now, or it’s time for him to gas up that ginormous expensive truck?

It goes without saying these stories have currency and demand. And it further goes without saying that the reason they’re in demand, is that the public has this fascination with warped, dysfunctional personalities.

What’s not so obvious is — maybe the public’s real fascination with “Levi has more dirt to dish on Sarah” isn’t quite so much a fixation on the flaws in her character, but rather on the flaws in his. After all, it isn’t every day you get to make an acquaintance of a Sarah Palin, but there are Levi Johnstons everywhere you look, and we’re all a little bit unsure about how to handle them. Other than the obvious things, like not counting on them to do anything important, or say anything that’s true.

Those who doubt that, should probably read this. By all means, buy that issue of Vanity Fair, but know what you’re getting. Not quite so much an accurate portrait of events, but a window into a troubled soul. And I’m not talking about hers.

Posted in VPILF | 2 Comments »

Stopping the “Pledge” Echo

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

Blogger friend Buck has just caught wind of the “I Pledge” video, and he’s not too fond of the smell.

Well, the video itself is just the leafy part of the weed. The root of it has to do with this absurd notion that, under the right set of rules and under some Really Swell Guys elected and appointed as our leaders, we suddenly become a better people. Our friend in New Mexico didn’t ask for any advice here, but I think I’ve got an idea or two about how to stop an echo when you run into this…this…let’s call it “used food.”

First, forget the damn video. Remember, leafy part of weed, root part of weed. You’re much more likely to run into other manifestations of this errant mindset. Maybe not quite so much now as you were last winter, but here and there you can still encounter the starry-eyed Obama fan. Even as they recover from their stupor they can still be heard to utter a few words of nonsense about “being led” by someone who will “inspire us to do better.”

Here is how you stop that echo.

Agree. Agree with every single word. After all, all they’re saying is that people should try to be the best they can be; you’re only disagreeing about the gimmick used. So let them drone on about all the things they can do, kind of nudge them away from the “trim down my carbon footprint,” and toward things that make sense like “be a better parent,” “write to my teevee network to put on more wholesome and educational shows when kids get home from school,” et al.

And then you lay the smack down.

Just get that number-eleven between your eyebrows, frown just ever so slightly, as if you’re thinking really hard about something; if you have a beard, maybe run your fingers through it ever so thoughtfully. And then interject that bit of wisdom “Hey, you know, these things are so wonderful we can probably put some thought into doing them no matter who happens to be President, right?”

It’s just freakin’ glorious. Fun to do, and fun to watch.

As an added benefit, if they choose to find a way to argue with you on this point — they’ll fail on all counts. They won’t find a way to do it, and they’ll give away the fact that they’re trying to. Which, in turn, tells you something very useful about the real motivations of your “opponent”…whether he really does want to do good things, or whether he has something else in mind. And that’s always a good thing to know early on.

Posted in Everyday Dimwits, My Blogger Friends, Obamamania | No Comments »

D and E

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

D, as in Daniella Sarahyba; and E as in the legendary Erica Durance, who left “Smallville” viewers gasping for breath and wondering, briefly, if it wasn’t a horrible casting decision to make the latest Lois Lane so incredibly hot-looking. But, ultimately, not caring about that question as much as they thought they did.

At first glance, it seems Daniella enjoys a slight edge in the “this is what a woman’s body should look like” department. But it’s 2009, and the hot girls are all skinny, which is something of a shame. As readers have previously pointed out, Daniella’s just as rail-thin as any of ’em — and while I disagree with those readers about who looks better than who, they’re right as rain in matters of shape and form.

Both girls could use a cheeseburger and a milkshake. But they both offer a certain inner beauty, a style, a panache. Daniella’s cursory superiority in this contest, I’m sorry to say, is an illusion. It’s all in the hat. The darker tan is due to the lighting. The “tiebreaker” comes down to the girl-next-door look; Daniella has plenty of this, and it’s good, but what Erica has is just a bit more & better.

Advantage Erica. Your mileage may vary, as the saying goes.

Posted in Women in Skimpy Clothes | 11 Comments »

White House Rescinds Call for Help

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

Aw darn…

President Obama’s plan to inspire the nation’s schoolchildren with a video address next week erupted into controversy Wednesday, forcing the White House to pull out its eraser and rewrite a government recommendation that teachers nationwide assign students a paper on how to “help the president.”

Presidential aides acknowledged the White House helped the U.S. Education Department craft the proposal, which immediately was met by fierce criticism from Republicans and conservative organizations who accused Mr. Obama of trying to politicize the education system.

White House aides said the language was an honest misunderstanding in what was supposed to be a inspirational, pro-education message to America’s youths.

I had come up with five ways to have a lot of fun with this. The idea of my little darling applying his own creative-writing exercise to this, and handing in gems like the following, made me positively giddy. Now, I’m afraid, it is not to be:

1. I could send President Obama an e-mail about anything I’ve heard that might seem a little “fishy”;
2. I could find him another “spiritual leader” who’s a flaming bigoted asshole, just like that other guy he can’t talk to anymore;
3. I could give him a few lessons in how to be humble, it seems that might do him some good and he really doesn’t know how at the moment;
4. I could take flying lessons, hop in a plane, and fly it real low over Manhattan scaring the piss out of everyone;
5. I could find out the names of some people who haven’t been paying their taxes, so he can nominate them to cabinet positions.

Oh well. Life goes on.

Posted in Obamamania | 4 Comments »

How Can You Help Barack Obama?

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

Posted in His Blank Slate, Obamamania | No Comments »

House for Purse Dogs

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

A purse-dog-house. A house-dog-purse. A purse-sized-dog-house. A dog-sized-purse-house.

Whatever.

Thousands of years from now, archeologists will come together and agree…that great country known as America, began her downfall with those damnable rodent-sized dogs and their damnable stupid accessories. Gladiator games for the Romans, softball-sized canines for us.

One other thing — the English language leaves me ill-equipped to express what a terrible photographer is you-know-who. Can’t she afford a better camera?

More here.

On an offline from loyal and frequent commenter Rob.

Posted in Everyday Dimwits, Poisoning Western Civilization | 1 Comment »

A Smoking Crater, Where Your Argument Once Stood

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

She’s been given something to go off and think about.

Hat tip to Moe Lane via, once again, Gerard.

If you go to the original clip, there’s an even bigger and better whallopin’ — in my opinion — at somewhere around 30:10.

Posted in Deranged Leftists | No Comments »

In an Antagonistic Role, It’s Best to be Hard to Read

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

Cassy Fiano, who works hard at developing all the attributes the rest of us are supposed to be wanting to have…beautiful, nice, articulate, quality thinker, wholesome values…is experiencing a case of culture clash. She’s come in virtual contact with someone who works equally hard (if we are to believe what we read, which isn’t much of a stretch) at being a nasty, toxic person. And is admired for this, for the time being, with regularity…

After reading this interview with Megan Fox, I’m convinced that she epitomizes everything that is wrong with women today. Check out her illuminating statements in the new Cosmopolitan:

MEGAN FOX is scary as she is sexy.

The Transformers beauty has been giving her verdict on relationships and leaves us in no doubt who wears the trousers in her house.

She told Cosmopolitan magazine: “Women hold the power because we have the vaginas.

“If you’re in a heterosexual relationship and you’re female, you win.”
:
“I never call them guys, I always call them boys,” she explained.

“Maybe it’s a superiority complex – my needing to keep them down.”

Ya think??

Reading this, I just couldn’t help but think that this is exactly the problem with women and relationships today. Too many women think exactly this way, “empowered” by third wave feminism and Sex and the City. When the woman in the relationship has this kind of attitude, it dooms the relationship. It doesn’t matter how Beta the man may be. It will be doomed to fail.

My wisdom:

At her age, [her shitty attitude] actually makes a lot of sense. Twenty-somethings think of it as commodities trading, and she’s worked really hard to achieve precisely the look that is in the greatest demand, so she’s showing the behavior that capitalizes on it the best.
:
[Trouble is,] When you have set yourself up in an antagonistic role, it’s best to be hard to read. The power-mongering-bitch thing is such a simple thing to read, and an even easier thing to understand. And so long before the immature male mind figures out this kind of woman is a waste of his time and energy — like, ten years earlier than that — even if he possesses only a mediocre amount of intelligence, like what Ms. Fox possesses of acting ability, it’s a relatively easy task for him to begin…drum roll please…

…manipulating her right back. And there are lots of ways to do this.

The glossy-mag puff piece doesn’t go on long enough to direct any attention toward how Ms. Fox perceives men — whether she has some complaints about them or not. Anyone want to place some bets that the starlet has a negative comment or two to make? That among these complaints might be that she has found them to be manipulative?

Wouldn’t exactly be sticking your neck out, would it.

It’s a rather sad thing what is happening to the bridge across the divide between the sexes; it’s sad what is happening to sex itself. The act used to be the highest compliment a woman could pay to a man. It’s still a positive thing, I think, but now it has some meaning as one of the few things a woman could want from her fella, that isn’t exploitative. Think about it — a woman wants something from you, what she wants is not sex, nowadays that’s likely to mean it’s something you wouldn’t give up willingly. And if sex is part of it, that means she’s bartering with you, which means it’s something more in her interest than in yours. This applies to anything, I don’t care what. It’s become so difficult to simply share a positive experience in which you both want to participate.

I think a lot of women are in Ms. Fox’s camp, and have simply given up. “He” is just a lowercase-h little-boy thing…something to be manipulated. So there aren’t things she wants to do that he’d also like to do, versus, things she wants to do that he’d despise…and therefore are to be avoided. Instead, there’s this vast encyclopedia of things she wants to do, in which he would not willingly participate — and so he has to be bribed, blackmailed, ridiculed and coaxed into it.

So easy to read, even for a young, inexperienced beau. And that is to the “lady’s” detriment. This is a house that cannot stand.

Posted in Is It Really a Man's World? | 6 Comments »

I Have the Balls to Link It…

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

…but not to copy the text and paste it in.

Best. List. Ever.

Posted in Eugenics, Glad I Learned About This | 3 Comments »

What a Wonderful Scenario

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

Boortz, I believe (and I could be wrong), is not giving proper credit; I heard this described word-for-word on Mike McConnell’s show as he recounted a verbal he had with a prior caller. And he probably got it from somewhere else, too. But heck, maybe that was Boortz.

It’s a wonderful scenario because it’s completely irrelevant whether it is a likely one or not. It is constructed to showcase the inner decency, or lack thereof, of the players within it…and it has complete license to do that because it is constructed to confront an errant philosophy designed to make us good people. So to those who say it shouldn’t count because it’s improbable: Yes, maybe you’re right, but it’s all about stopping us from becoming a society of monsters, and keeping us all wonderful. So let’s put some quality thought into defining exactly what a monster is, and what a wonderful person is. You started the dialogue. I think Boortz just managed to finish it for you.

Let’s try a little scenario here. No fudging. No “buts.” This is your scenario … if you don’t want to accept it as-is, then walk away.

Scenario: Your spouse and child have been kidnapped. They’ve been buried alive in a box. They have enough air and water to last a day or so. You have someone in your custody whom you know with absolute certainty can tell you where your family members are buried. Now .. what are you going to do to get the information you need to save your spouse and child. Don’t give me this “call the police and let them deal with it” scenario. You know that the police are bound by the rules … but are you? Will you put a washcloth over this person’s face and pour water on it? No? Will you point a gun at his head and tell him that he has seconds to live if he doesn’t give up the information? No? Would you start breaking this thug[‘]s fingers – one-by-one – until he gives you the information you need? No? Are you kidding me? Well … tell you what. Why don’t you call your spouse and children into the room right now and read this to them. Tell them that if [it] was they who were buried in that box waiting to die that you wouldn’t torture someone to save their life. Tell them that this guy would walk away with every body part [intact] .. no scratches .. no broken bones. You would do nothing to frighten this man into thinking that his life is in danger. Why you wouldn’t even po[u]r water on his head. Tell your family members [they] would just have to die before you would do anything closely related to torture to the man who had the information that could save their lives. Tell them that — and then live with the look in their eyes. Tell them that — and then live with the knowledge that they know what a wuss you are.

Me? I’m just not the nice reason you are. I can’t think of a single thing I would not do to this man if it would give me the information I need to save my wife and daughter. Get out the glass rods and the bamboo shoots. I’ll need some pliers and a blow torch as well. When it’s all over, and my family is sa[f]e, I’ll let the jury decide.

The only thing that would’ve made it better, aside from maybe fewer typos, would be a reference to the “get medieval on yo’ ass” scene from Pulp Fiction (NSFW language behind that link).

History is chock full of stories about entire societies catching raging white-hot cases of Goodperson Fever and then becoming monsters as they try to become good people. Generally, they don’t become monsters as they do things to defend the innocent from the guilty; they become monsters when they put too much work into trying to impress each other with obsequious, ineffectual and/or ironic platitudes and gestures.

The early casualties, ironically enough, are Sen. Kerry’s beloved shades of “nuance.” Attention-seeking is the primary goal, and so when Big Bad Bart comes to town and the Sheriff takes that long walk down the main thoroughfare to challenge him to a gunfight — nothing about Big Bad Bart, be it large or be it small, can ever be bad. If there’s something bad about Big Bad Bart, to notice it and say it out loud, would defeat hours of prior effort at this attention-getting game…and the same goes for noticing anything good about the Sheriff. So everything about the bad guy is good, and everything about the good guy is bad. There can be no exceptions. Because every little thing that comes out of the attention-seeker’s lips about the subject, has to be something that will provide the highest level of assurance that more attention will be coming. He wants to be asked “What do you mean by that?” over and over again.

They end up flipping reality upside down like a pancake. They seek attention, and because they seek attention it becomes desirable to see some “other side” of what is plainly good, and also the “other side” of something else that is plainly evil. They become Isaiah 5:20 people.

And that’s just about where we are with this torture debate. That’s my opinion, anyway. Your mileage, so the saying goes, may vary.

Posted in Torture and Civil Liberties and What-Not | 5 Comments »

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