Archive for February, 2009

Men See Women in Bikinis as Objects

Friday, February 20th, 2009

science says. Just tell me my taxpayer dollars didn’t pay for it, pretty please? Lord knows they’re paying for everything else.

It may seem obvious that men perceive women in sexy bathing suits as objects, but now there’s science to back it up.

New research shows that, in men, the brain areas associated with handling tools and the intention to perform actions light up when viewing images of women in bikinis.

The research was presented this week by Captain Renault, professor of psychology at Princeton University, at the…

Hah hah! Did I just type “Captain Renault” in there? Oh, dear me, naughty, naughty fingers. I slap my own hands. Let’s get back to business…

I See Her As An ObjectThe research was presented this week by Susan Fiske, professor of psychology at Princeton University, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

“This is just the first study which was focused on the idea that men of a certain age view sex as a highly desirable goal, and if you present them with a provocative woman, then that will tend to prime goal-related responses,” she told CNN.

Although consistent with conventional wisdom, the way that men may depersonalize sexual images of women is not entirely something they control. In fact, it’s a byproduct of human evolution, experts say. The first male humans had an incentive to seek fertile women as the means of spreading their genes.
:
Men also remember these women’s bodies better than those of fully-clothed women, Fiske said. Each image was shown for only a fraction of a second.

This study looked specifically at men, and did not test women’s responses to similar images.

Wow, that Obama sure did deliver up some “change.” Any week now, we’ll be seeing that phony egghead study that says “Study: Men actually appreciate women.” We’re dogs, I tell ya.

You do realize what’s going on here? If I were to hop in a time machine and travel back by — let us say — three or four years, and say “Hey guess what, in 2009 it’s treated as a scientific discovery that men see screwing women as a thing to do, like a household chore, albeit an exciting and pleasant one.” It would be looked upon as very poor, very low-grade, very unfunny, sarcastic humor. Nobody would take it seriously. They’d lock me up in a loony bin.

And yet, here we are.

If it wasn’t for the swindle-us bill passing, I’d say we need a complete overhaul and audit of all scientfikal studies being done, anywhere, inside government as well as outside.

But now, everyone’s paying for everything — save for those who don’t pay taxes. So now I don’t see the point. But good heavens. Where do they get these asexual, passionless, sex-deprived scientists? “Susan Fiske” isn’t even a hyphenated name. Must be a typo or omission of some kind.

I read these stories, and I feel like I must’ve been frozen and thawed out again. Geez people, it’s called testosterone. It’s not a relic from a bygone era…well, not yet anyway…and it’s the source of every single good thing you have, & then some. Am I really Buck Rogers here? Who’s been sawing logs for a century or two here, me or everyone-else?

Past studies have also shown that when men view images of highly sexualized women, and then interact with a woman in a separate setting, they are more likely to have sexual words on their minds, she said…Taken together, the research suggests that viewing certain images is not appropriate in the workplace, Fiske said.

My God! You realize what this is? This is one step removed from saying…Study: Men enjoy looking at women in bikinis. It’s one step removed from saying “Study: Castrate men before allowing them to work in an office with women.” It, in contravention to useful science, belabors the obvious. In contravention to useful science, it views people as two-dimensional creatures, unable to see or incapable of seeing each other as both beautiful and talented. It unscientifically reads these two perceptions as mutually exclusive, when there is no substantiation for such an axiom. In that sense, it is bone-crushingly stupid. It’s also European — and I don’t mean that as a compliment. I’m talking about synapses in your noggin, by being jumped, becoming everybody else’s concern. Everyone’s business is everybody else’s business.

What do you need to do, to get some policies enacted on this…and then enforce them to the extent needed? The mind boggles. Why, I, a straight male, could be interviewing female job candidates, or giving annual reviews to women who work for me. You would have to go through a complete history of all my ex-girlfriends to see if any of them resemble the female professionals I’m appraising. You’d have to do that before you could allow me into the room with them…wouldn’t you? I mean, I don’t think I’m that unusual here, but if you were to go through a history of all the women I considered girlfriends, gee I hate to admit this, but I’ve seen all of them buck-ass naked. And naked is almost as scandalous as wearing a bikini, of course. So who knows what those unsuspecting females could be unleashing in that degenerate male noggin of mine?

No way could you depend on grown-ups to just…y’know…act like professionals or anything.

And here’s some full disclosure for you: In my case, you’d better not stop at girlfriends. You’d have to sound the alarm bells anytime I had to interact with a female subordinate who resembled any of my movie-actress fantasies. You might as well.

I suggest you start off with Natalie Wood. Yummy, yummy, Natalie Wood. Mmmmm…

40 Inspirational Movie Speeches in 2 Minutes

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

Opposite Words

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

With Obama administration officials and feminists running around, half-cocked, saying exactly the opposite of what they mean, the time has come to review my list of opposite words.

 • Everyone;
 • Science;
 • Diversity;
 • Tolerance;
 • Skeptic(ism).

This is going to have to be lengthened, today as well as in the four years ahead.

It’s missing “frank,” “dialogue,” “freedom” and “choice.”

People who want frankness don’t want frankness, people who want freedom aren’t willing to shoulder the associated burdens, people who want dialogues want anything but a dialogue, and people who want “choice” are enchanted with the prospect of controlling what others do.

One more thing, and I’m not sure if it qualifies as a true “opposite”: I’ve long been noticing that people who say if we “all come together we can get this done,” seem to be dedicated to that coming-together and not too much else; they can dole out vast volumes of words across great expanses of time, without ever applying true specificity to what the “this” is.

It is Pro-Abortion, Not Pro-Choice

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

Just getting the reminder out there.

It just serves as yet another example that many feminists, while they claim they are “fighting” for choice, want absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with choice. They want to dictate. Women are supposed to make the choices that feminists say they should make, and that’s all there is to it. Feminists are pro-abortion, and therefore, any single woman (and let’s face it, the married ones, too) who chooses to keep her baby is treated as if she’s somehow a traitor to the cause. Being pro-abortion isn’t good enough; you’ve got to actually have them. It isn’t about letting abortion be legal. Feminists want women to be having abortions, and the mere mention of keeping it is terrible. On top of that, Hollywood suddenly had some kind of aneurysm and made not one, but two pro-life movies, and feminists are shrieking with outrage. No promoting pregnancies positively, right?

Ann at Feministing just loves, in italics, Neko Case, for doling out instructions to pregnant women to “just have the abortion…just have it and get on with your life.”

So let’s just make sure we’re clear on that. I think we can all agree that people who are truly concerned with “choice” and “freedom” aren’t going to be quite so excited or exuberant about making sure everyone does things the same way. We can agree on that with issues that aren’t related to abortion…logic therefore dictates, when the subject is abortion, the same rules apply. You’re either cool with people making their own decisions about things, or you’re not.

And the hardcore feminists seem to agree there’s something horrible and awful about the way these movies turned out.

What Has That To Do With Being the AG?

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

Obama’s new Attorney General Eric Holder says we’re a “nation of cowards” because even though our workplace is integrated, our backyards are not…when we have our barbeques.

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,” said Holder, nation’s first black attorney general.

Race issues continue to be a topic of political discussion, Holder said, but “we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.”

Complete speech is here. I don’t understand what this has to do with heading up the Justice Department. Neal Boortz offers

He’s the first black Attorney General. And apparently he isn’t going to let us forget it.

Ah. Well good, thanks for clearing that up.

But Jonah Goldberg, oh dear, came up with a couple of pesky problems about this:

First, I think this is nonsense as we talk about race a great, great, great deal in this country. Endless courses in colleges and universities, chapters in high school textbooks, movies, documentaries, after-school-specials and so on are devoted to discussing race. We even have something called “Black History Month” — the occasion for Holder’s remarks to begin with — when America is supposed to spend a month talking about the black experience.

Second, to the extent we don’t talk about race in this country the primary reason is that liberals and racial activists have an annoying habit of attacking anyone who doesn’t read from a liberal script “racists” or, if they’re lucky, “insensitive.”

Thus “cowardice” is defined as refusal to do as your told when that would in fact be the cowardly thing to do.

I have another comment to make: Nouns and adjectives are important.

That’s a critique. Against Holder. Because I can’t help noticing, the bits of his speech that have elicited the greatest controversy, are sprinkled with nouns and adjectives that mean the opposite of what they are cosmetically intended to mean. As Goldberg has pointed out, the Attorney General is making the point that we don’t talk about race in this country when the truth is we talk about it to excess. Maybe we don’t do enough about it…that would’ve been a valid point. But to insinuate that we don’t talk about it is just plain silly.

Coward…as Goldberg points out, a coward would be someone who shuts up and does as he’s told because if he doesn’t, he’ll be called a racist. I would further add that it’s rather cowardly to stand ready with that R-word, to brandish it like a club, ready to play whack-a-mole with anyone who doesn’t toe the line.

Holder goes on to say, “…if we are to make progress in this area we must feel comfortable enough with one another, and tolerant enough of each other, to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us.” I doubt like hell Attorney General Holder wants a “frank discussion”; if he does, he’s just playing more of his little opposite-game, using words for the exact opposite of their intended meaning.

Because a frank discussion is like the one Boortz scribbled down:

Allow me a little input here. I’ve been talking for a living for about 40 years … so perhaps I can put a little light on this subject.

Let’s say that I go on the air today to talk about the anti-achievement policy that so permeates urban black communities. What if I resurrect some of those stories from sources such as Time Magazine detailing the anti-learning culture in America’s urban high schools. Learning, you know, is a white thing. Across this country there are young black men and women who won’t study, won’t answer questions in class, won’t do homework, and won’t try to do well on tests because their friends will think they’re trying to “act white.”

What if I were to gather some statistics detailing the fact that blacks commit violent crimes way out of proportion to their percentage of the population? How do you think that is going to go over?

Now just why would I bring these subjects up on my show? I like to illustrate that these problems are not race-based, they’re culture-based. I like to show that some people get outraged when these problems are based on culture rather than race. Why? Because if you’re part of the problem you can change cultural mores – but you can’t change your color. Showing these problems to be culture-based erases black’s claims to victimization.

Trust me … I try to bring these things up on the air, and I’m a racist. Nation of cowards? Hardly. There are a lot of people who are ready to address these issues – but as soon as they do the “racism” word is pulled out. End of conversation.

In the words of Jack Woltz: “Let me be even MORE frank”: What is a country with a black President doing with an affirmative action program written down, or put into practice, anywhere? That would be “frank.” Is that what Holder had in mind? Somehow I doubt it. Somehow, I think Holder was thinking about something else.

What Holder was thinking about is exactly what Holder was supposed to have been bitching about. Cowardice…used as a tool. Virtual electro-shock therapy. But this is a far bigger issue than just race (although that’s plenty big enough). Everywhere you look nowadays, anytime someone says they want to have an “honest discussion,” “open dialogue,” “frank exchange of ideas,” et al, that’s the exact opposite of what they have in mind.

…this nation has still not come to grips with its racial past nor has it been willing to contemplate, in a truly meaningful way, the diverse future it is fated to have.

Like your boss says, Mr. Holder: Be the change. Get away from the stinking bromides. The delta between what we’ve done, and what we need to do, has something to do with “com[ing] to grips.” What are these grips? How come you’ve veered off into some other critique right before you’re about to tell us what these grips are?

What authority figures like Eric Holder want, is more of this hot-stove, within-the-lines, “don’t do it because I said so,” orbito-frontal cortex thinking. They don’t want free ideas, they want ideas carefully corralled, like cattle, through the synapses we all have that inhibit our actions without comprehending the word “because.” He ends up using the words “frank conversations” to describe things that aren’t conversations…they’re lectures…and are anything but “frank.” Since this is the central thrust of his speech, he ends up meaning the exact opposite of what he’s saying, starting at the top, and continuing all the way down to the bottom. And the bit about insinuating we somehow aren’t talking about it enough, is sky-high absurd. It borders on mental incapacity.

But outside of the connection Boortz made, what does any of this have to do with being the Attorney General?

“This Is America People! There Is No Such Thing As Hate Speech!”

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Some truly righteous, rightful and right outrage from Locutisprime, at Brutally Honest. You might have forgotten what it looks like…

I for one am about sick and damn tired of it. I am sick and tired of these academic plebes waltzing around and getting their fawned and swooning media coverage, for parroting the liberal Marxist outrage of feigned indignation, over perceived slights and the supposed criminality of so called hate speech.

This is America people! There is no such thing as hate speech! The founding fathers saw fit to address that with the very first amendment to our constitution. Therefore, I have to assume that they felt that it was pretty damn important. Otherwise it would have either been farther down in the list of their bill of rights, or absent from it all together. But it wasn’t. It is right there at the top. Number one!

What’s he on about? Could be anything…but today, it’s this.

A student is suing Los Angeles City College over an incident in which a professor refused to let him finish a speech against gay marriage, according to the Los Angeles Times. (LA Times)

Student Jonathan Lopez told the Times that the professor, John Matteson, called him a “fascist bastard” and refused to let him finish his speech during a public speaking class last November, weeks after California voters approved Proposition 8 banning gay marriage.

Lopez also said the teacher threatened to have him expelled when he complained to college authorities.

Lopez is represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization based in Scottsdale, Ariz., and co-founded by evangelical leader James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Alliance staff counsel David J. Hacker told The Times Lopez was a victim of religious discrimination.

“He was expressing his faith during an open-ended assignment, but when the professor disagreed with some minor things he mentioned, the professor shut him down,” Hacker said. “Basically, colleges and universities should give Christian students the same rights to free expression as other students.”

Yup. An institution truly dedicated to the free and open exchange of ideas, would understand that. Freedom…whims and tastes of the majority. Pick one, because you can’t serve two masters.

Is this really a surprise to the ivy-league set?

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

Porkulus Protesters

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Good to see.

Porkulus ProtestersMalkin:

Hundreds of taxpayers took time out of their busy day to protest President Obama’s “stimulus” bill-signing in Denver today. Jim Pfaff of Colorado Americans for Prosperity, Jon Caldara and the Independence Institute, former Rep. Tom Tancredo, and several GOP officials and state legislators spearheaded the event. Count us all among the “chattering classes” appalled at the massive pork and the short-circuited process that paved the way for the trillion-dollar Generational Theft Act.

Why bother? It’s for posterity’s sake. For the historical record. And, hopefully, it will spur others to move from the phones and computers to the streets. Community organizing helped propel Barack Obama to the White House. It could work for fiscal conservatism, too.

Well, there are some Republican senators who don’t agree with that last remark. “Republicans pretending to be democrats” has such a rich, solid history of working out so swell (sarc), that they’d like to give it another go and make a national bank.

Long regarded in the US as a folly of Europeans, nationalisation is gaining rapid acceptance among Washington opinion-formers – and not just with Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chairman. Perhaps stranger still, many of those talking about nationalising banks are Republicans.

Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator for South Carolina, says that many of his colleagues, including John McCain, the defeated presidential candidate, agree with his view that nationalisation of some banks should be “on the table”.

Mr Graham says that people across the US accept his argument that it is untenable to keep throwing good money after bad into institutions such as Citigroup and Bank of America, which now have a lower net value than the amount of public funds they have received.

“You should not get caught up on a word [nationalisation],” he told the Financial Times in an interview. “I would argue that we cannot be ideologically a little bit pregnant. It doesn’t matter what you call it, but we can’t keep on funding these zombie banks [without gaining public control]. That’s what the Japanese did.”

Actually, federal control is what got us into this mess. Federal control from zombie legislators. Sen. Graham, I revert to my age-old question about such things — as yet completely unanswered: What in tarnation is there to make a government regulator un-greedy? Or unzombified, in this case.

Founding Father Jefferson said it better:

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That ” all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.” [XIIth amendment.] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.

The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill, have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United States, by the Constitution.

1. They are not among the powers specially enumerated: for these are: 1st A power to lay taxes for the purpose of paying the debts of the United States; but no debt is paid by this bill, nor any tax laid. Were it a bill to raise money, its origination in the Senate would condemn it by the Constitution.

2. “To borrow money.” But this bill neither borrows money nor ensures the borrowing it. The proprietors of the bank will be just as free as any other money holders, to lend or not to lend their money to the public. The operation proposed in the bill first, to lend them two millions, and then to borrow them back again, cannot change the nature of the latter act, which will still be a payment, and not a loan, call it by what name you please.

Jefferson expounds much, much further. Do go read it all, especially if your last name is McCain or Graham.

I still think we’ll survive this, folks. Capitalism will survive this. Our government has laid a siege upon capitalism before, in the 1930’s. Capitalism survived. But, it should be noted, it was scarred for life and has never been the same since then. This could end up being worse. Victory is not guaranteed.

Let the porkulus protesters be your role model. Your representatives need to hear from you, that you want to exchange goods and services freely, as the Founding Fathers decided God intended for you to do.

Maybe it’s time to storm a ship and throw some crates of tea into a harbor.

“President Obama Has Turned Fearmongering Into an Art Form”

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

Bradley Schiller, writing in WSJ Friday:

President Barack Obama has turned fearmongering into an art form. He has repeatedly raised the specter of another Great Depression. First, he did so to win votes in the November election. He has done so again recently to sway congressional votes for his stimulus package.

In his remarks, every gloomy statistic on the economy becomes a harbinger of doom. As he tells it, today’s economy is the worst since the Great Depression. Without his Recovery and Reinvestment Act, he says, the economy will fall back into that abyss and may never recover.

This fearmongering may be good politics, but it is bad history and bad economics. It is bad history because our current economic woes don’t come close to those of the 1930s. At worst, a comparison to the 1981-82 recession might be appropriate. Consider the job losses that Mr. Obama always cites. In the last year, the U.S. economy shed 3.4 million jobs. That’s a grim statistic for sure, but represents just 2.2% of the labor force. From November 1981 to October 1982, 2.4 million jobs were lost — fewer in number than today, but the labor force was smaller. So 1981-82 job losses totaled 2.2% of the labor force, the same as now.
:
Mr. Obama’s analogies to the Great Depression are not only historically inaccurate, they’re also dangerous. Repeated warnings from the White House about a coming economic apocalypse aren’t likely to raise consumer and investor expectations for the future. In fact, they have contributed to the continuing decline in consumer confidence that is restraining a spending pickup. Beyond that, fearmongering can trigger a political stampede to embrace a “recovery” package that delivers a lot less than it promises. A more cool-headed assessment of the economy’s woes might produce better policies.

I wonder if the spirit of pessimism that enshrouds us after a typical “Hope and Change” Obama speech, isn’t quite so much pure emotional depression, or pure economic analysis, but more a reasoned pondering of the history of executives taking charge of things.

After all, bosses typically pull victory from the jaws of defeat when they take ownership of a given situation. If they spend all their time blaming their predecessors for every little hiccup, they usually preside over disaster.

In the pantheon of hopeful guys, this new President doesn’t seem to have an awful lot to do with hope. And when I hear this new President speak, what I usually hear is a lot of blame. It’s not the rhetoric that comes from a boss who is about to preside over victory. It’s the kind of stuff you hear from a ship’s captain who has made damn sure his name is on the safest lifeboat.

Hat tip to Dr. Helen.

Who’s Smarter?

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

A Congressman who would like to see some more information about so-called “global warming” before he decides humans might be the cause, or supports any restrictions on “carbon emissions”…

…or a Congressman who supports a bill to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on bullshit social programs to “stimulate the economy” — without reading it?

Just askin’.

Potential

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

Are you living up to it?

Deacon’s Bench, via Rick.

WSPISFA

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

That stands for Why Sarah Palin Is So Freakin’ Awesome.

Batman Getting Pwn3d

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

Adkisson

Monday, February 16th, 2009

Some context.

It’ll be interesting watching the talking points emerge on this one, now that any speculation on Mr. Adkisson’s motives has been effectively removed from dispute or doubt. If memory serves, the talking points for OK City were “Right-Wing Talk Radio Is Fueling Hatred And It Has To Stop”…and for September 11 it was “We Need To Stop These Policies That Are Making People Mad At Us Around the World.” Complete 180-degree opposite reactions.

I’m reasonably sure how this one’s gonna shake out. Atkisson’s letter makes it clear he got all ticked off at “liberals.” Any call for liberals to cease and desist in these things that make people angry, for their own protection? Don’t be a silly-willy; you only engage in that kind of propaganda to get those hated, zionist, Israel-sympathetic “neocons” out of power. This is gonna be more like…oh dear, the liberals are under attack, their ideas must be absolutely right, we’d better do everything they say.

Even though we’re already doing just that.

And stop those damnable right-wing bloggers from their blogging. They’re getting people hurt! And more gun control please. Anyway, that’s how I’m calling it. We’ll see.

Don’t Bother with These IT Certifications

Monday, February 16th, 2009

I’ve been very close to this whole subject for about a decade now, so much of this list came as very little surprise.

I did not have any expectations of seeing #2 or #3 on a list like this though. And I was somewhat shocked at #9, but that has to do with not staying up-to-date on what’s going on with that particular specialty.

“Change is the only constant.” — Heraclitus

“Am Farking From Bar With Blackberry”

Monday, February 16th, 2009

“What is a good line I can use on the girl sitting next to me?”

Linked without further comment.

Aerodynamically Impossible

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

We’re watching Blue Thunder. Kind of a long story…my son and I were looking at what Buck’s kid is doing to revive the economy, and we got to talking about motorcycles. So he asked me if I ever jumped over something, and I had to explain the concept of having once done something that was really stupid, and in one’s wiser years, being unwilling to ever, ever do it again, in any circumstances. Even if it wasn’t filmed.

Which is not a simple possible concept to understand, when you’re male, unbreakable and eleven.

So we got onto the subject of what the late Roy Scheider’s character said about looping a helicopter, and we decided to pop it in.

By the way, it is possible…as I learned here. And here’s your YouTube clip.

As for the dumb thing I did on a two-wheeler, aw, don’t ask. You know how all that stuff works…twenty-one years ago…a million things could’ve gone wrong and I didn’t think of a single one of ’em…et cetera. All the pieces fell into place, no one got hurt, nothing broken, and it’s nothing but a great story to tell. Which I’m not telling. Watch the damn helicopter.

Obamateur Hour

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

Steyn:

Few pieces of political “wisdom” are more tediously recycled than a well-retailed bon mot of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. Asked what he feared most in the months ahead, he gave an amused Edwardian response: “Events, dear boy, events.” In other words, you can plan all you want, but next month, next year some guy off the radar screen will launch a war, or there’ll be an earthquake, or … something. Governments get thrown off course by “events.”

It requires a perverse kind of genius for the 44th president not to have waited for a single “event” to throw him off course. Instead, he threw himself off…the monthly magazines still gazing out from their newsstands with their glossy inaugural covers of a smiling Barack and Michelle waltzing on the audacity of hope seem like musty historical artifacts from a lost age. The ship didn’t need to hit an iceberg; it stalled halfway down the slipway. This is still the phase before “events” come into play, when an incoming president has nothing to get in the way of his judgment and executive competence.

Hat tip to Maggie’s Farm for the article, link, more links not shown here, and image from The People’s Cube (via Moonbattery).

Get help, Obamatons. Get help now.

Update: You know, I think what follows just about sums it up in a way even the “Obama’s gonna put gas in my car” lady could get it. If I can grind away at it, reduce it to bumper-sticker size while still keeping the analogy intact, maybe I’ll put it on something.

Sheriff #43 took down a bad guy. He shot ‘im dead, and when they picked up the bad guy’s gun we found out there weren’t any bullets in it.

Sheriff #44 says he can’t do any sheriff-ing until we move the bank to the sheriff’s office…but it seems he doesn’t know how to ride a horse.

Seems a peculiar brand of change to be requesting, let alone demanding; but what do I know, I got outvoted.

Update: Perhaps a certain green Jedi Master of advanced age and diminutive size can provide the elegance, brevity and wit that eludes me…

Told you I did. Reckless is he. Now, matters are worse.

Things went bad under Hoover, then FDR took over and made them much worse, while blaming things on his predecessor…

Things went bad under Nixon/Ford, then Carter took over and made them much worse, while blaming things on his predecessor…

Things went bad under George W. Bush, then Obama took over. He’s blaming anything & everything bad, on FaPoBuAd, the Failed Policies of the Bush Administration.

The collection of outspoken folks who think things are about to get better — or will simply stay the same, not getting any worse — is limited to paid spokesmen, punch-drunk newspaper editors, democrat-party hucksters, drunks and druggies who haven’t woken up from January 20 just yet, and nameless-faceless speechwriters. Everyone else is in agreement with Yoda…including history herself.

Not always so difficult to see, the future is.

Neo-Neocon on Alan Greenspan

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

She says his ignorance is rather shocking, and I’m going to have to go ahead and agree.

For years, Alan Greenspan was thought to be a genius, responsible for keeping inflation at bay and encouraging our booming economy. He fine-tuned interest rates to make sure all this was going smoothly, and to the best of my recollection he earned resounding praise from almost everyone.

Well, it turns out this emperor had no clothes after all. But when he finally realized something was fishy, somewhere around late 2005, he says there was nothing he could do about it:

“If we [had] tried to suppress the expansion of the subprime market, do you think that would have gone over very well with the Congress?” Mr. Greenspan said. “When it looked as though we were dealing with a major increase in home ownership, which is of unquestioned value to this society—would we have been able to do that? I doubt it.”

Funny thing, I happen to agree with him. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have tried, though. Nor does it excuse the rather shocking disclosure of the limits of his understanding of derivatives and the mortgage market and what it all meant.

One of the most interesting quotes from Greenspan is this:

We could have basically clamped down on the American economy, generated a 10 percent unemployment rate,” he said. “And I will guarantee we would not have had a housing boom, a stock market boom or indeed a particularly good economy either.”

In other words, we could have suffered then instead of suffering now. There is no free lunch; ever hear of it? I wonder if Greenspan has.

When a bubble is created, it must burst at some point, because bubbles are inherently fragile things. But just try telling it to Congress, then or now.

Here, let’s take some different excerpts from the story and then I’ll offer my thoughts:

Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, told CNBC in a documentary to be shown Thursday night that he did not fully understand the scope of the subprime mortgage market until well into 2005 and could not make sense of the complex derivative products created out of mortgages.

“So everybody in retrospect now knows that that boom was developing under the markets for quite a period of time, but nobody knew it,” Mr. Greenspan told CNBC’s David Faber. “In 2004, there was just no credible information on that. It wasn’t until we got well into 2005 that the first inklings that that was developing was emerging,” he said.
:
The Fed’s “easy money” policy created an excess of cash that inflated equity and asset prices, leading to both the technology bubble of the late 1990s and the housing bubble in this decade.

While Mr. Greenspan acknowledges that he could have done something to avert the housing crisis, he contends his hands were tied.

“If we tried to suppress the expansion of the subprime market, do you think that would have gone over very well with the Congress?” Mr. Greenspan said. “When it looked as though we were dealing with a major increase in home ownership, which is of unquestioned value to this society — would we have been able to do that? I doubt it.” [emphasis mine]

NN’s analogy about the Emperor and clothes just seems more and more apt, the more you find out about it, huh? Bubble this, bubble that…bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble.

It is the price we pay for fiat currency: The value of money is based on the emotional state of some construct, which in turn consists of millions of strangers who will never be personally met.

And so, since we went off the gold standard, and for many years before that, every single universal financial difficulty has been a direct result of a bubble bursting. What happens when a bubble bursts? An exuberant perception of an asset’s worth, is suddenly realigned with the more modest reality of it. It was true in the case of these homes, and the loans attached to them; it was true of the dot-coms, and the practical value of an hour of labor from the geeks who staffed them; it was true of the stocks, the bonds, the petroleum — everything. It’s all evaluated by the emotional state of strangers.

Which means we’ve Yang-ified money. That means, rejecting a more methodical arrival at reasoned inferences based on established facts, in favor of group-think. Nothing is carved in stone because it all depends on what the other fellow thinks. Greenie came out and admitted it word-for-word up there, didn’t he: “If we tried to suppress the expansion of the subprime market, do you think that would have gone over very well with the Congress?” This is why committees make bad decisions. Cause-and-effect takes a back seat to what-does-someone-else-think.

Our twenty-first century economy is one that is prone to bubbling up, because bubbling is what it is. Our money is bubbles, our investments are bubbles, our houses are bubbles. All our property is bubbles. We chose to make it that way — everything is valued according to the way it is perceived, and so this painful alignment of perception-with-reality has become a way of life. Crashy, crashy. Get used to it. We don’t have the proper mindset to confront unpleasantness early — we have rejected that option every time it has arisen — so we have to do our confronting late, when it’s more expensive for us to do it.

The mystery, though, is that I can figure it out and I’m just a guy in his underwear typing on a laptop, enjoying the benefits of a rather lackluster high school education.

This was a surprise to Greenspan?

Addicted to Success?

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

Dr. Helen, noting that some 82% of the job losses in this recession are happening to men, summarizes the situation thusly:

Men are constantly being told that they are providers for women. Even so-called “feminists” who pretend that they are for equality expect men to pick up most of the burden of child support and pay women off in a divorce. They even think women should be paid for their services at home — apparently by men who go to work all day to support their families so the wife can stay home. And now that many men are out of a job, we’re told that they are just getting the punishment they deserve for chasing the money they need to provide for these women and their families. Does anyone see the hypocrisy here?

Here’s the plain truth of it, straight from The Blog That Nobody Reads:

An engine that provides power has some precision to it; it has to be tuned. The ignition has to happen just as the piston is at the right location in the cylinder, for example. If things aren’t exactly as they should be, performance will suffer, and if they’re further out of whack then it will stop running altogether.

And this is how our society runs. Shun men completely, and you reject access to the wonderful things men are counted on to provide; offer men the sense of security that is routinely provided to women and that most women so regularly crave, and you reject that access again. So you threaten to throw them away, to get what you want. Men aren’t quite completely rejected, and they aren’t quite completely accepted either. Our society needs men to be teetering right on the rim of the trash can. That is how we get everything we want or need, by threatening to discard them, but not quite doing it, or at least, not doing it until such time as a superior replacement is immediately available.

Black men, white men, red men, yellow men. But not women and not kids; men. “Do this, or you might not have a job.” “Do this, or you might not have a wife.” “Do this, or you might not be able to see your kids again.” Do this or you’ll lose your house. Your good-standing with the IRS. Your dog. Your 401k. Your car. It is the precision-tuned engine that keeps our world turning. It is how we get everything of value that we want. If you’re a stay-at-home wife, look around the room and look at everything you have; if you work, think of everything your company did for the past year. Eighty percent of it, or more, happened because a man got threatened. That’s the world’s fuel.

Why is that? Because our sons are raised with the idea that when someone tells you your effort wasn’t good enough, and you are about to be defrocked of your status, maybe they’re your friend. Maybe they’re holding you to a “higher standard.” Maybe they “see something in you.” We teach our sons that…we don’t teach that to our daughters. And so, you’re engaged in a duel to the death if you threaten a man’s kids or a woman’s kids. But threaten a man’s status, and he’ll try to figure out a compromise with you; threaten a woman’s status, that’s pretty much the same as threatening her children. Not a winning proposition. So we don’t threaten women to get what we want. We threaten men to get what we want.

There is another plain truth. Disregarding the few lucky gentlemen who fall in love in high school and manage to keep it going over a lifetime — which used to be the norm — adulthood, for men, is a rather comical and dreary in-and-out hokey-pokey. Nice house full of frilly knick knacks I would never have bought if I was still a bachelor…shitty apartment…nice house…shitty apartment. What’s happening is that the man is being accepted and rejected, just as the piston rises and descends in the cylinder, so that the engine can produce power and the world can go. That’s the way it works. You threaten the status men have acquired, to get the things you need or want.

Not a rant, just a statement of fact.

Update: Don’t know exactly what came over us, but we probably owe everyone skimming through this some kind of apology. The notion that eighty percent of the things we have, we acquired by threatening men…it is politically incorrect to the point of offending the sensibilities of any civilized creature there ever was. Naturally, an apology is immediately forthcoming. We’re big enough to admit when we were wrong.

We will NOT be standing behind the idea that eighty percent of our staple items are provisioned by threatening men.

It is, as we wrote over at Dr. Helen’s site, as we groveled in our mea culpa…more like something in the low nineties. We regret the error.

Carry on.

My Thin Books

Saturday, February 14th, 2009

We were glad to see Bendreth appreciated our thin-book collection, so we decided to take an inventory of everything on that part of the shelf. Fortunately, they’re all together. We have to keep these that way, because if they’re scattered among the thicker ones, it can be really hard to find them again.

1. Movies made from video games that don’t suck
2. Republicans who survived scandals
3. democrats who didn’t
4. Television commercials, wherein the man is using the right product, and the woman is using the wrong one
5. People who demand higher taxes, and give extra money to the Treasury to show they really mean it
6. Tax increases that resulted in more revenue
Pelosi7. The Pelosi Congress’ record of achievement
8. Useful discoveries and inventions from charismatic, fun people
9. Government plans to meddle in the economy, that worked
10. Painting, lawncare, repairs, polishing, and other labors of love: How people maintain assets that they didn’t work for
11. Cultures around the world that are truly devoted to both free speech, and “tolerance”
12. What men have figured out about women
13. The democrat party’s commitment to victory, outside of elections
14. Wisdom from kids with their baseball caps on backwards
15. American cities with strict gun control laws, and consequentially, really low crime rates
16. Stories I have to tell about my vanishing civil liberties after 9/11/01
17. The world in which burglars can sue you for hurting themselves while breaking into your house: The Who’s Who of people who like it this way
18. People who believe in man-made global warming, and the smaller cars they drive
19. Socialist countries I’d like to visit
20. Television cartoons I like, that don’t have a coyote and a roadrunner
21. A complete history of ADHD-like symptoms shown by kids, Vol. I: Before we decided not to spank them anymore
22. How Christianity is just as bad, or What Rosie Meant
23. People around the world who despised the USA before but love it now, with Barack Obama in charge
GQ24. Looking back: A photo album of pleasant- and blissful-looking GQ models
25. Take that, Thomas Jefferson! Nations that were both ignorant and free
26. Jobs I got from poor people having more money to spend
27. Positive comments from the dedicated liberal about the things America has done
28. People who told other people “We’ve Come A Long Way, We’re Not There Yet” — and eventually got “There.”
29. Hollywood Told You So: A complete list of when it turned out they had the right idea
30. Temporary tax hikes that really were
31. Soothing the savage beast: When displays of compassion changed the viewpoint of people who were willing to kill on a whim
32. Real men who weren’t afraid to show their emotions, the women who loved them for it, and their meaningful accomplishments
33. Well-known liberal women I wish I could date
34. Wars and conflicts that ended with justice, finality, and lasting peace, thanks to the United Nations
35. Poverty in the United States: Poor people who are skinny and have no, or very small, TV sets
36. The skills I learned in my “Womens’ Studies” class, and how they helped me to help others
37. Politicians most universally esteemed for their “ethics” — whom you’d allow to watch your kids over the weekend
38. A complete history of angry people who stopped being angry when they were given the things they angrily demanded
39. Effective and respected appointments in the Obama Administration
40. How political correctness has made our lives better

It is the Sun That Does it, Not Man

Saturday, February 14th, 2009

Hat tip: XtnYoda, via Rick, via Gerard.

Get ready to start paying your Sun-That-Does-It tax. You said it was change you could believe in…

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu has floated the idea of a carbon emissions tax to fight global warming, in an interview with The New York Times Thursday.

During the US presidential campaign, the notion was kept largely on the back burner as candidates were reluctant to promote the idea of costlier energy at a time when gasoline prices were soaring.

But since President Barack Obama’s administration took office in January, Congress has been working on setting up a system for swapping greenhouse gas emissions quotas similar to the one used in the European Union.

And Chu said “alternatives could emerge, including a tax on carbon emissions,” the Times reported.

Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics, long concerned about global warming, acknowledged it would be a tough sell to get a law passed in the United States that could lead to higher energy prices.

But he said he “supports putting a price on carbon emissions to begin to address climate change” the daily said.

The guy’s a Nobel laureate, who am I to challenge him? He’s a college professor, works a lot with laser cooling, he’s published stuff, gotten his Nobel prize — his confirmation by the Senate was unanimous. He seems to have what it takes to do stuff…that has to do with earning praise from others…who, in turn, are trying to impress yet others. His family is buried in Ph.D.’s and other stellar credentials.

Arguments that we should be listening to people like Steven Chu, are not the same as the arguments that we should be listening to people like Jay Lehr and Chad Myers. The latter has to do with what we know, and what common sense tells us about what we know. The former has to do with building a sort of high-priesthood of such interpretations; if you’re beneath a certain authoritarian level, your role is to shut your mouth and wait to see what someone else tells you to do. That isn’t what I have in mind when I hear the word “scientific.”

Eratosthenes himself figured out the size of the earth by peeking in wells. He wasn’t a geologist or an astronomer, he was a library administrator. The Nobel laureates of that time said the earth didn’t have a diameter or a radius because it was flat. But the library guy was the one that got it right. He paid attention to the evidence before his own eyes, and figured out for himself what it meant.

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

Thing I Know #263. The one thing that’s wrong with higher education that nobody ever seems to want to discuss, is that it is valued through something called “prestige.” Get this prestigious diploma. Get that prestigious degree. Attend a prestigious university. My alma mater is more prestigious than yours. Trouble is that genuine learning has very, very little to do with prestige. It is, arguably, the exact opposite.

Thing I Know #276. Why do I give a rat’s ass where your education level is, if your head’s crammed full of things someone else put in there — with or without your conscious consent — and holds nary a speck of anything you’ve figured out for yourself?

Obama-Cultism: Admitting You Have a Problem is the First Step

Saturday, February 14th, 2009

Texas Rainmaker, via Sister Toldjah.

Get help, Obamatons. Get help now.

I Made a New Word XXIV

Saturday, February 14th, 2009

That previous post has me thinking back on my twenty-one years in information technology…which is a long enough time, that when I started, very few people were calling it information technology. They called it “programming.” There was a wall dividing Germany, the President’s name was Reagan, and no one needed more than 640k.

I’m not going to write about the 21 years here. Not now, and probably not ever.

But if I did…I’d have to invent a new word. So I might as well do that anyway:

Un-boss (n.)

As zits might pop up on your face if you don’t wash it often enough, the un-boss pops up in workplaces that don’t pay close enough attention to how they’re organized. Some loudmouth who fancies himself as possessing, or God help you actually works himself into the position of possessing, all of the authority with regard to determining what your job is and how well you’re doing it — with none of the associated responsibility.

Someone who fixates, and not quietly, on the opinion he has about others…and might do very well at paying some closer attention to the opinions others have of him. But won’t.

See Seagull Manager.

Looking back on it, I’ll bet it I added up all the time I had to work around some un-boss who was trying to use his gift-of-gab to become my pretend-boss, it would probably add up to just five percent or less. Feels more like eighty. Just like, a year of being married to a bad wife feels like forty.

Never Trust a Programmer in a Suit

Saturday, February 14th, 2009

And other great programming quotes.

I think, based on my experience, I’d modify the one in the title: If you ARE a programmer whose job it is to wear a suit, think of yourself as unemployed. Except without quite as much spare time.

Other ones I particularly liked:

“An idiot with a computer is a faster, better idiot.”

“Software is like sex: It’s better when it’s free.”

“If we’re supposed to work in Hex, why have we only got A fingers?”

“C++: an octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog.”

“I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.”

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

D’JEver Notice? XXIV

Friday, February 13th, 2009

The print media leans hard-left. If you haven’t noticed this yet, you’ve been living in a cave. If you’ve gone through the motions of inspecting it and you have concluded something different, you are a shill; you have some kind of an agenda, personal or professional, and it has very little to do with the truth.

The talk-radio media leans hard-right. Attempts have been made to launch left-leaning talk-radio vehicles, and they’ve all either run aground or they’re headed there.

The liberal’s solution to the talk-radio-lean-right problem is the Fairness Doctrine. And no, it isn’t just something Sean Hannity screeches about to get people riled up. Fairly regularly, a prominent democrat politician will come out in favor of it, and the frequency of these utterances seems to be increasing under the tutelage of The Holy Administration. Clearly, they’re in a process of dipping their toes in the water and waiting for it to warm up.

The conservative’s solution to the print-media-lean-left problem, on the other hand, is a sigh and an eyeball-roll. This is in my file folder of evidence to offer to the “Dime” people who insist there isn’t a dime’s wortha difference between the parties: The Libertarian spirit is alive and well. At least, there’s a definite overtone of “That’s things the way they are, now do your best” in conservatism, even in what we in 2009 call “conservatism.” A distinction between playing the cards you’re dealt as best you can, and changing the rules of poker in the middle of a hand. It’s good to see.

Getting back to the liberal solution, though. It isn’t just the under-the-capitol-dome liberals who support the Fairness Doctrine. It’s man-in-the-street liberals too. And this is a difference between liberalism and conservatism that often goes undiscussed. Sort of our unofficial, “For Everybody” Fairness Doctrine: We don’t like to notice differences in the ways conservatives think versus the ways liberals think. It makes you look like an extremist. It’s not too hard to be accused of being an extremist, an agitator, someone who thinks about politics ALL THE TIME — for simply noticing these differences, pointing ’em out, and not doing a single other thing. Even if someone else was responsible for bringing up the overall subject on which you were commenting.

There are personal values and there are party values. Liberalism, I see, suffers from an erosion on the barrier that separates those two; they become one and the same.

“People should be required to present ID in a voting booth” is a party value, not a personal one. “No, they shouldn’t,” likewise, is a party value. We feel strongly about these things because obviously they can have an effect on the outcome of an election. That’s the definition: A party value is something that enhances, or diminishes, the likelihood of getting your candidates in charge of things. What’s an example of a personal value? “Abortion is murder”; and “Womens’ right to choose” (not sure if I’m supposed to be capitalizing Right To Choose.) You can win and win and win at those, and it won’t affect the determination of who has authority, and who doesn’t. Abortion has more of an effect on who gets to exist in the first place — not who wins an election. Personal values are things like: Slavery is bad. Things you’d be willing to invade a sovereign nation to enforce. Or, at least, give some serious consideration to doing that.

What we now call liberalism, seems to depend on those two realms melting together, blending in one with another. This is easily demonstrated by placing the liberal in a position in which he’s required to separate them. Try it sometime; so long as you aren’t putting a treasured friendship in jeopardy, it can be great entertainment, not unlike toying with a cat with a bit of yarn, or a laser pen. One of my personal favorites is “If I have an absolute right to vote and to have my vote counted, and women have an absolute right to control their bodies; if, through the unfortunate chaos that governs the cosmos, some mistaken referendum pops up on my ballot that would outlaw abortion forever, do I then have the absolute ‘right’ to vote yes on that?” If liberals made a distinction between party values and personal values, it would be a laughably simple conundrum for them. As it is, it’s like handing the imbecile the card that says “Turn this over and follow the instructions” on both sides. They’ll struggle and struggle, and not do too much to produce anything that could be termed a decisive intellectual triumph. Not even close.

In the case of not proving who you are when you go to vote, that mission masquerades under the sheeps’ clothing of a personal value: Poor people would be unfairly disenfranchised if we required identification. Well, that’s a big crock. The issue is that the democrat party depends on dead and non-existent people to win their elections. Down in Georgia, concession after concession after concession was made to the poor, poor, pitiful poor, so they wouldn’t have an aristocracy of people-with-drivers’-licenses, but the campaigns were organized nevertheless to have the new law voted down, and then slapped down in court. Last I read about it, they were still haggling it out.

When it comes to the Fairness Doctrine, the wall of separation between party values and personal values is chipped down into non-existence — because “The Public Owns The Airwaves.” What this is, is a holdover from the 1960’s, when it was uncool to crusade against communism; and, therefore, cool to defend it, and embrace at least the central underpinnings of it. Chief among those, is the notion of vox populi vox dei, that whatever is good for The People, is cosmically righteous and cannot be enduringly or effectively criticized. And, that whoever is elected to represent The People, is like sort of a statist Pope — one step removed from Heavenly Glory — they’re here to say what’s-what and what-for.

Well, conservatives have one very good reason to adopt opposition to the Fairness Doctrine as a personal value, not a party one. And that reason is this: It would put the Government in charge of balancing right-rhetoric with left-rhetoric. That means, it would put Government in charge of saying what exactly those are.

Here’s just one example of how that would lead to abuse: We need to ban all guns! Is that left-rhetoric…or central-rhetoric? I think it’s left-rhetoric. But there are folks who disagree with me about that. And the folks who disagree with me about that, seem to have won this little thing called an “election” and are now insisting, rightfully, that they ought now be allowed to make some decisions about things. Who is to say the argument is not “Should we ban all the guns or should we not?”…but rather…”When we ban all the guns, should we wait for people to turn them in voluntarily, or go door-to-door and start grabbing ’em?”

The point is, this blending of personal values and party values, is sort of a “borrowed trait” of communism. What it leads to is a crushing of the minority. You see it in the party schisms that erupt now and then. The Republicans made a decision that Fred Thompson had all the opportunity he should’ve required to showcase something called “charisma” or “fire in the belly” or what-not, something John McCain was somehow never called-upon to display, even once. In so doing, they decided against the wishes of people like me. We bided our time, spoke out, wrote to people…yes, we blogged too…and by the end of August, McCain threw us a bone by picking Sarah Palin. Then he got his ass whipped, and now we have to argue about whether he lost because of Palin, or in spite of her. We can quibble about that, but the point is, all this debating between stalwarts and milquetoasts will remain lively and vigorous, in lean times as well as fat.

The democrat party doesn’t work that way. The dust-up between Obamatons and Hillary supporters was heated, enduring, embarrassing…and desperate. Each faction in that schism was in a battle for its continued survival, because each faction understood, once the other one prevailed, the commandment that would emerge would be “convert or die!” And so it was. Once Obama was the nominee, the call went forth for “party unity.” Very much like, once a labor union votes to strike, the wishes of those who don’t want to strike (or cannot afford to strike) are marginalized. Who cares if you, as an individual, don’t want to strike? Who cares if you need to be working? The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few…or the one. We voted on this, and you don’t count anymore; you’ve been effectively “zombie-fied.” The majority needs your body, but not your mind. Yesterday’s desire is today’s requirement. Party values become personal values.

The whole thing works very much like a religious cult that way.

Red State Update on the Octuplet Mom

Friday, February 13th, 2009

Warning, language is not work-safe.

On Using Talking Points

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

Media Matters was just bursting with pride yesterday. The liberal watchdog group had caught Fox News using “GOP talking points” as their own research.

I scanned the piece from top to bottom, looking for a report about inaccuracy in these GOP talking points. Failing to find that, I looked for an insinuation that any of the facts/figures were subject to discredit, controversy, challenge, contention, dispute…anything. Couldn’t find any of that, either.

Nevertheless, that is a little bit on the slimy side. I’m inclined to give MM the point. Although it would be a much better point, more in keeping with the grandstanding headline, if Fox News recycled Republican talking points as fact in the middle of some kind of argument between the two parties. That would be a clear-cut case of deciding-instead-of-reporting. Not the case here.

But what does that then say about the Sacramento Bee’s headlines tonight. The story underneath carries the byline of “Bee News Services” although it matches word-for-word the first paragraph of a Washington Post story, here. But look how this Sacramento Bee editor chose to present it to the world:

Two logjams broken
Leaders in House, Senate OK blueprint for recovery
MEASURE IS UNPRECEDENTED AND ITS IMPACT UNCERTAIN

Yup, they’re talking about the stimulus plan. The trillion-dollars-worth-of-condoms plan.

Okay, I exaggerate, it isn’t $1 trillion worth of condoms. It’s actually a little less than a trillion, and some of the money goes to things with more of a “stimulative” effect than condoms. There’s lots of good stuff…like…the National Endowment for the Arts…TV conversion…global warming…the Department of Education…

Let’s bottom-line it. You gotta be more than just a little bit left-leaning to think of this as a real “blueprint for recovery.” You gotta be out of yer gourd.

I anxiously await the power, profile and gravitas of Media Matters, showing up to join me in my call for the Sacramento Bee to reverse their cranial-rectal inversion process on this one. This is the front page to the major newspaper of a thriving industrial valley, capital city of one of the nation’s largest and most prosperous states. It’s not a children’s fairy-tale book.

And if it’s wrong to put Republican talking points on the airwaves even when they are not subject to dispute, it’s wrong to put democrat talking points on the front page of such a high-profile newspaper — that are.

Reagan/Obama Debate

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

Thanks to Texas Rainmaker for this one.

This mindset continues to confuse me…

1. Conservatives aren’t good people because we’re greedy.
2. Liberals aren’t like us, they aren’t greedy; that makes them better people.
3. Once elected to positions of power, liberals make the country better by making a bunch of wonderful new rules and “inspiring” people to do wonderful things.
4. And as Joe Biden pointed out, paying more taxes makes you more patriotic.

If these things represent inherent and intrinsic goodness, which liberal-minded people already have, why do they have to wait for that liberal guy to get elected? Why was Tom Daschle in all this trouble for not knowing his car-benefit was taxable — why would that be an issue? Why did Tim Geithner forget about his tax obligations? Why not just go ahead and pay it? Aren’t good people like them sending enormous checks in to the Treasury, on top of the tax liability rightly or wrongly computed for that year, to show what wonderful people they are?

On Hoping The Messiah Fails

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

I was informed nearly a month ago that Rush Limbaugh hopes Barack Obama fails, and instructed to believe that this meant Limbaugh wants the economy to keep on tanking and for lots of people to suffer. I’m a big believer in following instructions, after all, if someone takes the time to give ’em to you, the least you can do is to obey them. So I penciled in my dutiful compliance, and proceeded to think with all my might that Rush Limbaugh wants the economy ruined.

I did jot myself a note to go and look up context, though. I couldn’t help noticing people were leaving it out when they were telling me what to think.

I just got around to looking it up, and I found out the context changed the message quite a bit. I’m not the least bit surprised. But I don’t think Rush Limbaugh wants the economy ruined or for people to suffer.

Why don’t you read the comments in whole, and tell me what you think.

I got a request here from a major American print publication. “Dear Rush: For the Obama [Immaculate] Inauguration we are asking a handful of very prominent politicians, statesmen, scholars, businessmen, commentators, and economists to write 400 words on their hope for the Obama presidency. We would love to include you. If you could send us 400 words on your hope for the Obama presidency, we need it by Monday night, that would be ideal.” Now, we’re caught in this trap again. The premise is, what is your “hope.” My hope, and please understand me when I say this. I disagree fervently with the people on our side of the aisle who have caved and who say, “Well, I hope he succeeds. We’ve got to give him a chance.” Why? They didn’t give Bush a chance in 2000. Before he was inaugurated the search-and-destroy mission had begun. I’m not talking about search-and-destroy, but I’ve been listening to Barack Obama for a year-and-a-half. I know what his politics are. I know what his plans are, as he has stated them. I don’t want them to succeed.

Tell You What...If I wanted Obama to succeed, I’d be happy the Republicans have laid down. And I would be encouraging Republicans to lay down and support him. Look, what he’s talking about is the absorption of as much of the private sector by the US government as possible, from the banking business, to the mortgage industry, the automobile business, to health care. I do not want the government in charge of all of these things. I don’t want this to work. So I’m thinking of replying to the guy, “Okay, I’ll send you a response, but I don’t need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails.” (interruption) What are you laughing at? See, here’s the point. Everybody thinks it’s outrageous to say. Look, even my staff, “Oh, you can’t do that.” Why not? Why is it any different, what’s new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what’s gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here. Why do I want more of it? I don’t care what the Drive-By story is. I would be honored if the Drive-By Media headlined me all day long: “Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails.” Somebody’s gotta say it.

Were the liberals out there hoping Bush succeeded or were they out there trying to destroy him before he was even inaugurated? Why do we have to play the game by their rules? Why do we have to accept the premise here that because of the historical nature of his presidency, that we want him to succeed? This is affirmative action, if we do that. We want to promote failure, we want to promote incompetence, we want to stand by and not object to what he’s doing simply because of the color of his skin? Sorry. I got past the historical nature of this months ago. He is the president of the United States, he’s my president, he’s a human being, and his ideas and policies are what count for me, not his skin color, not his past, not whatever ties he doesn’t have to being down with the struggle, all of that’s irrelevant to me. We’re talking about my country, the United States of America, my nieces, my nephews, your kids, your grandkids. Why in the world do we want to saddle them with more liberalism and socialism? Why would I want to do that? So I can answer it, four words, “I hope he fails.” And that would be the most outrageous thing anybody in this climate could say. Shows you just how far gone we are. Well, I know, I know. I am the last man standing.

I’m happy to be the last man standing. I’m honored to be the last man standing. Yeah, I’m the true maverick. I can do more than four words. I could say I hope he fails and I could do a brief explanation of why. You know, I want to win. If my party doesn’t, I do. If my party has sacrificed the whole concept of victory, sorry, I’m now the Republican in name only, and they are the sellouts. I’m serious about this. Why in the world, it’s what Ann Coulter was talking about, the tyranny of the majority, all these victims here, we gotta make sure the victims are finally assuaged. Well, the dirty little secret is this isn’t going to assuage anybody’s victim status, and the race industry isn’t going to go away, and the fact that America’s original sin of slavery is going to be absolved, it’s not going to happen. Just isn’t, folks. It’s too big a business for the left to keep all those things alive that divide the people of this country into groups that are against each other. Yes, I’m fired up about this.

That changes things just a bit. At least in my world, it does.

Update 2/12/09: I’ve now reached that awkward age at which it is an everyday occurrence for one to follow certain complex thoughts and research projects through to their bloody conclusions, without having the slightest residual idea what originally brought one past the trailhead. I’m afraid it is now costing more than one good blogger friend some well-deserved credit.

Do go see what Rick had to say about this…he was talking about it before I was talking about it…

The culture today is replete with the notion that voices like mine (who Limbaugh represents, people who are direct, blunt, to the point, etc) should be marginalized and dismissed simply because we’re not politically correct in the methods employed in our communications. The substance of what is being said gets lost in the style.

What do you really need to know about leftist propaganda? It makes simple things needlessly complex, and complex things unrealistically simple. That’s what you have to do to make liberal ideas look good.

And so, Barack Obama is not a lousy judge of character because his pastor was Jeremiah Wright…there are way too many “after alls.” After all, Obama didn’t know Wright talked that way, and after all, it’s high time we had a national dialogue on race. Anytime a liberal politician is revealed to be systematically making potentially disastrous decisions, deliberately or otherwise, there’s a bunch of “truths” that have to be considered. Much of the time, these have to do with “moving on” to “more important” things.

On the other hand, Limbaugh wants the economy to tank, plain & simple. Sarah Palin’s a dumbass because she can see Russia from her house (something she never said) — plain & simple. And Guantanamo? We just gotta close it down. Nevermind the consequences.

Simple things complex, and complex things simple; that’s the formula.

Long-Distance Drive-Through Ordering

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

Call me a luddite if you want, but I don’t like it.

In 2006 we reported that McDonald’s was testing a system in which drive-thru orders were being taken by employees at a remote location, usually in another state altogether. Nearly 2 years later, the system has proven successful in some areas and is being used in over half of the McDonald’s in Hawaii, according to KITV. Apparently, the system enhances the speed and accuracy of orders and most customers don’t even realize the difference.

The article says,

McDonald’s began trying the idea four years ago in Illinois and Missouri. Out-sourcing drive-through order workers began in Hawaii two years ago. Recently it has expanded.

KITV went to one drive-through Wednesday and found the company is still working out the kinks. At the Keeaumoku Street McDonald’s, the people taking drive-through orders were in another time zone. “I am currently talking to you from El Paso, Texas, sir,” the drive-through operator said.

KITV asked the Texas call-takers if they are having a difficult time understanding people from Hawaii. “We’ve been out here for about seven months, so it kind of takes me a while just to understand,” the worker said.

The long-distance call-takers send back the orders to the restaurant via the Internet. There the restaurant employees take the cash and hand over the food.

We suppose that fast food is meant to be fast, so if the system works then why not? Who hasn’t been to a drive-thru that could have benefited from a little more speed and accuracy?

This is not new by any means. The article above is from a year ago, and some of the others on the same topic are from 2006.

It arouses my suspicions mightily to see these little hiccups pertaining to dialect, explored as an afterthought. Just something I can’t prove: The fast food customer with a camera and microphone shoved in his face, doesn’t care a whit about understanding the cashier or having the cashier understand him.

But if you could somehow acquire his opinion in the privacy of a voting booth, things would be turned around right-quick.

I do not, do not, do not like to have an endless-loop conversation about whether my side order is fried rice or chow mein because there’s only phony communication goin’ on. I do not like pretending to communicate with people. I don’t like going through the motions when both sides are just muttering syllables and have lost any hope of exchanging a real idea. I do not like it, Sam I Am.

I am Ashton…

Not a racist thing, either. Race is not the issue. I simply do not tolerate arguing with people to give them my money, or playing lucky-lotto when I place orders for food.

The lack of specificity about things that are supposed to be specific — in all walks of life, not just fast food — really wears on a fella after awhile. I drive up to a fast-food restaurant and I’m talking to some guy in Tallahassee? How does that make the order accurate? What’s that do to the age-old problem of “where are the napkins” and “where’s the sweet-n-sour sauce”?

But what the hell do I know. If I was born 75 years earlier I’d be that grouchy old man who insists he can’t see the difference with color TV.