Ambidextrous Wing

GOP Debate

2011-09-08T11:20:00.000-05:00

Just some quick thoughts after the GOP Debate last night. This is the point of the campaign that some horses will pull away from the pack, and others will fall out of the race. And after last night, it's become clear to me who the top two candidates for the Republican nomination will be.

Michele Bachmann brought nothing but the word "Obama" and hatred for his policies. And that's fine, but people want solutions not just blame. Besides, she's wrong. I'm anti-Obamacare, but it's ludicrous to blame it for the economic crisis we're in since said crisis began well before Obama was elected.

Bachmann is a polarizing figure that had rallied extreme conservatives, and became a nice joke for the Left. For a few weeks, she was Jon Stewart's 2nd favorite person in the world (behind himself, of course) She's a clown though. She makes Katherine Harris seem well-balanced, and Sarah Palin seem well-read.

Ron Paul is a psycho. How can you want the private sector to run the FDA or FAA? How can you be against the existence of FEMA and blame the victims of natural disasters by saying that they "build where they shouldn't be building." Tell that to the people of Vermont who are currently dealing with hurricane induced flooding. What morons those Vermonters. Don't they know that it's Hurricane Alley up there?

Newt Gingrich is nothing more than an embedded Fox News pundit, covering the campaign from within. Even the questions he was asked were about the campaign itself, and not about what Newt would do if he were President.

Rick Santorum was personable, but not exciting. He's honest and nice. As Chris Matthews said, Santorum doesn't "play games." And we all know that the nice guy who doesn't play games is the guy that goes home alone on Saturday night.

Jon Huntsman tried to be worldly, and I'll give him credit for being the most aggressive candidate that also retained dignity. He tried to emphasize his relatively small amount of economic experience. Unfortunately, this is just the wrong campaign at the wrong time for Huntsman.

Herman Cain was my personal favorite. He was like Steve Forbes, only instead of being creepy, he was charismatic, incisive, and concise. You could tell that he's been the CEO of a large company. He was like a PowerPoint presentation. He had clear plans to fix problems, and wasn't just spitting rhetoric. Unfortunately, he's not a politician. He can conceive great, sweeping ideas like his 9-9-9 plan, but I don't think he'd have the political savvy to get them passed and implemented, let alone get elected in the first place.

The Presidency is not like being a CEO. CEOs need direction, drive, and decisiveness. President's need to be able to compromise and convince. I don't think Cain will make it that far. But I kind of wish he would.

Then there's the top two: Romney and Perry. One of these guys will be running for President in 2012. The other will be running for Vice President. Texas and Massachusetts together again, like in 1960.

Rick Perry was the target of the debate. He was the only one who seemed to be getting criticized by the moderators more than by his fellow candidates. He was attacked on health insurance coverage in Texas, education, his book, minimum wage jobs, HPV vaccinations, Social Security. It was relentless.

Perry is correct. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. But it's stupid to say so in a political campaign. That being said, Perry has the strongest personality among these candidates. If George W. Bush was the candidate that John Q. Voter wanted to have a beer with, Rick Perry is the candidate I'd want to have with me if we were trapped in the desert, or the Arctic. I'd also like to go drinking with him.

Mitt Romney is more electable in a general election. Rick Perry is more likely to energize and appeal to Conservatives. I think it's clear that the Right is excited about Rick Perry. Their hearts may be behind Rick, but their brains are with Mitt. At least they should be.

One thing I find ironic is that this party has 8+ candidates, and doesn't seem to have a single, clear leader, yet the GOP seem much more unified than the Democrats. The Democrats don't have that single-voice, they don't all stand together and yell at the moderator of a debate. Hell, Obama doesn't even speak with a single-voice.

These Republicans are all for reduced spending, reduced taxation, an end to Obamacare, the securing of our border. This debate was not a rabble of screaming voices. How often did one candidate interrupt another? How much more often did they interrupt the moderators? How many times did individual candidates point out how unified they all were as a group?

The Left will focus on Rick Perry being "anti-science," on him calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme, and nobody in the political Center of the country will care about either issue next November. It's about jobs. It's about the economy. People without jobs want jobs. People with jobs want better jobs. People with good jobs want their kids to get jobs so they move out of their house.

Yet watching MSNBC's post-debate analysis, they focused on how Rick Perry described Social Security. Even going so far as to call it the "key moment" of the debate. Probably because it's their best opportunity to criticize Perry. Then they went on to criticize Ronald Reagan's tax policies, because that's somehow relevant?

In the end, though, America will elect the candidate who they feel will do the best job at getting them jobs. Romney seems to have the brains, Perry seems to engender the confidence. If they could harness and balance those abilities as a team, they'll be a strong challenge to Obama in 2012.

Obama's Afghanistan

2011-08-11T09:30:00.000-05:00

On the 6th of August, 30 Americans fighting in Afghanistan died when their Chinook helicopter was shot down by Taliban insurgents. 17 of them were Navy SEALs. 5 were Navy specialists attached to the SEALs. 3 were Air Force forward air controllers. 5 were the Army crew that flew the helicopter. 8 Afghans (7 soldiers and 1 civilian interpreter) were also killed.

Why? For what purpose? These men trained for years to be the best at what they do. Why were their talents being utilized in eastern Afghanistan? All their hard work, all the expertise of the helicopter crew and the Air Force controllers, all the dedication of the SEALs. It was all blown apart by a rocket propelled grenade. And for what?

These men had meaning, they had purpose. But their lives were lost in an endeavor that no longer has meaning, that has an impossible purpose, and which will soon be abandoned in a gradual withdrawal process. It's been 10 years of toil and death in Afghanistan. We destroyed the Taliban, tried propping up a corrupt government in its place, and allowed the Taliban to be born again.

Who's winning this war? We're certainly not winning. It's hard to say if the Taliban is or isn't. Frankly, it's turned into an Afghan civil war, and it needs to be fought and won/lost by Afghans.

Who's losing? The people doing the dying. The SEALs, the Marines, the Soldiers, the Airmen, they are the ones losing. Obama said that the Chinook crash is a reminder of the "extraordinary sacrifices" of our servicemen. Sacrifices to what end?

It's time to leave Afghanistan. Right fucking now. No gradual withdrawing one unit at a time. Everyone out.

It's hard to blame Obama for a 10 year war, especially since he's only been President for a little over 2 of those years. I can't blame him for strategic failures by Generals, for subpar equipment from the Pentagon's "procurement" people. I can't blame him for some insurgent's lucky shot with an RPG. But I can blame him for our continued presence in this war. I can blame him for being too politically savvy. I can blame him for trying to please and appease everyone at all times.

Obama's policies and philosophy in Afghanistan is a perfect example as to how he's conducted himself as President. He's been bending over backwards to compromise with the very vocal Conservatives, who have in turn been bending him over the barrel. He wants to be everyone's President, not just the Left's. That's commendable, in theory. It's disastrous in practice. And this desire to be loved by all, hated by none, has led to even his base to start criticizing him.

Last summer, Obama announced a surge of troops in Afghanistan. But he also effectively declared an unofficial deadline for operations there to be successful. If not, US troops would be pulled out. It apparently appeased everyone. The Cable News Generals on the Right, and the neo-hippie Lennonite pacifists on the Left. We'd have war for a year, then peace. Even I applauded Obama's shrewdness for putting himself in a seemingly no-lose situation.

But that's been the theme of his Presidency. Compromise, and trying to avoid losing. And it hasn't worked. It hasn't worked in Afghanistan, where Americans are dying because their timetables for withdrawal haven't been finalized on Microsoft Excel. It hasn't worked with the Stimulus Plan, which was compromised down in size thus preventing it from being effective (I don't think it would have been that effective anyway, but it never had a chance once it was reduced). It hasn't worked on taxing the rich and easing taxes on the middle-class. It hasn't worked to create jobs, or reform healthcare, or save the environment, et cetera.

Say what you will about George W. Bush, but when he believed in something, he tried to get it done until he was physically stopped. He stuck to his principles. He bullied Congress to get what he wanted. And now, the Right is bullying Obama for what they want. Even with control of the Senate, Obama is too unwilling to make enemies. A Democratic President, a Democratic Senate, and the Republicans are dictating terms. You can't make compromises with uncompromising people. See: Munich, 1938.

I don't know what Obama's core principles were or are concerning Afghanistan. I know he's compromised his own principles so many times in so many political dogfights that it's hard to call them principles anymore. Principles are strong, and only abandoned as an extreme measure. Obama has platforms and beliefs, not principles.

He's very skilled at not revealing how he truly feels about certain issues. I still have no idea if he smokes cigarettes or not. He's very smooth, very political, and that might be simultaneously his greatest strength and most unfortunate weakness.

Whatever Obama's principles are in Afghanistan, it's time to leave. The argument that a speedy exit would leave that country in chaos suggests that it isn't already a tattered mess over there. The argument that it wouldn't be a dignified exit for our troops makes the absurd suggestion that politicians can do anything to take away dignity from the men and women of our military. Politicians can't steal a Soldier's dignity, only their life.

It is time for that theft of life to stop.

Photo: Reuters

Been Laden

2011-05-03T15:00:00.001-05:00

"We got him." We. That 3rd person plural pronoun that encapsulates 300 million people with two letters. We're typically a we only when something tragic occurs.

In this War on Terror, there are no enemy Divisions to annihilate, no capital cities to take. There's no ground to gain, no head of state to surrender, or kill themselves in a bunker. There are no sunken battleships, no captured tanks, no trophies. Only casualties and confusion.

Until May 1st, 2011.

The War on Terror is not over. Just ask the various agencies now on high alert for a terrorist response. This War will never truly end in the way past wars have ended. There are plenty of terrorist sheep and shepherds from Libya to Saudi Arabia to Pakistan to Chechnya. They all hate us even more now. We've killed one of their idols. They'll try to destroy us even without Bin Laden.

But Bin Laden was important, in sort of a self-fulfilling prophesy kind of way. He was important because we felt he was important. And because his followers felt he was important. He was the charismatic leader of legions of would-be murderers. He was a spokesman, a PR guy, a recruitment tool. He was a standard to rally around. The anti-Uncle Sam, personified. And maybe our enemies won't have as much focus and direction now that he's been erased.

The closest thing I'd compare Bin Laden to, ironically, is an 11th century Crusader. He was one of the Saudi Arabian aristocracy that applied his material wealth to a fanatic cause instead of simply living a life of lavish extravagance. He wanted to wipe out all threats to his beliefs and wanted to forcibly change the world. He was very much like a Norman nobleman, spending his vast fortune on a quest to "save" the Holy Land through violence. He has more in common with the Crusading infidels than with the likes of anti-Crusade Islamic leaders such as Saladin.

And now he's dead. And it was the much maligned US intelligence community that incited his death. The same intelligence apparatus that failed to warn us of 9/11, that failed to find Bin Laden for 10 years, and that was duped into believing Iraq had WMDs.

It was human intelligence, partially gathered from Guantanimo Bay, which Obama had once wanted to shut down. It was a military operation executed to perfection. No US casualties. No civilian casualties. One body recovered, in near mint condition.

A cruise missile or drone strike might have yielded the same ultimate result, but without the tactile, visible proof of a corpse.

It was a ballsy attack. Obama certainly deserves a great deal of credit for having the stones to give the order. Everyone from he to the CIA to the planners of the operation to the guys who carried it out to the people who knew about it and kept their mouths shut. They all deserve credit.

The circumstances around Osama's hiding spot are beyond sketchy. While top levels of Pakistan's government profess to be "with us" in this War on Terror, it's difficult to fully believe that. Bin Laden moves into a neighborhood of Pakistani Generals, in the biggest house for miles, and nobody knows he's there? Come on.

I don't know everyone who lives in my neighborhood, and generally we all keep to ourselves, but I do know that Ernie Boch Jr. lives in the biggest house in the area. Everyone knows that. Just like before he lived there, a weird commune/cult of 20 people occupied the house, and before that there was a rich old lady. Everyone knows when someone moves into the biggest house on the block.

"If you're not with us, you're against us."

GW Bush got criticized for that polarizing statement. But it has a breath of truth to it. We can see by the various reactions around the world, who is with us, and who is against us. It's difficult to classify Pakistan as being "with us." Then again, they've registered no official complaint about violating sovereign territory of theirs. So who knows. I think they're split as to which side to be on.

But they're in the wrong geographic spot at the wrong moment in history to be split.

There's a long, long way to go. The War on Terror won't be won with Divisional level ground operations like those in Iraq or Afghanistan. Those can topple governments that support Terror, but installing new ones is next to impossible, and a needless waste of life and material.

Even house-to-house operations, road blocks, checkpoints, and border patrols are too cumbersome, too ineffective, and too easily circumvented.

More operations like this one are needed. War Party Tactics, I call them. Like the Pequots of 1635, or the Wampanoags of 1675, or the Apaches of the 1800s. Small, ultra-mobile bands of elite warriors, on short-term missions against small but highly valuable targets. Imagine if Geronimo had helicopters, machine guns, grenades, and an effective intelligence apparatus.

Think about it. After 10 years in Afghanistan, after nearly 1,500 US deaths, 2,400 coalition deaths, over 7,500 Afghan Security Force deaths, and tens of thousands of civilian deaths; it was a 40 minute, 0 casualty, 0 collateral damage operation that was the biggest victory of this War since the Taliban was ousted.

The lesson here is that human intelligence is integral. The US intelligence community can't just sift through millions of e-mails and phone calls, hoping to harvest a crop of valuable facts. There needs to be real, actionable information. Texture to add depth and dimension to the data.

And the US military needs to focus its monstrous power on supporting smaller but intensely focused, laser-like operations. No need for Shock and Awe. No need for entire Divisions of infantry to be deployed against villages and huts.

As we incorporate the sharp, bittersweet joy of Osama's death into our lives, and it seems to fade away, we'll start to politicize these events. Already, pundits are looking ahead to the 2012 Presidential campaign, giving Obama a huge edge because of this. And they're right. Although, the biggest GOP threats to him were Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, which might be threatening if Obama were trying to launch a reality TV show, as opposed to winning an election.

There are already judgmental uberpacifists whining about their fellow citizens celebrating the death of a mass murderer. And while I understand why many feel uncomfortable about enjoying death, it's my right to enjoy his demise. After all, we didn't kill Osama because he was Muslim. We didn't kill him because he hated us. We killed him because he killed our fellow citizens. He made us live with fear. He would have killed more of us if he had the chance.

People like Kai Wright are moaning that The Ability to Kill Bin Laden Does Not Make America Great. I'm seeing Martin Luther King Jr. quotes everywhere. "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars." Edmund Burke perfectly expressed my responding thought to that:

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

While even the most ardent of the uberpacifists agrees that Bin Laden should be dead, they still don't understand why the rest of us are celebrating death. I for one am not celebrating out of hatred. I'm celebrating the triumph of good over evil. I think that such a triumph is worth a few frathouse antics in front of the White House, a toast of beer to our troops, I'm even praising Barack Obama.

Evil did not triumph on May 1st, 2011. And I'm happy.

I'm only 26 years old. 9/11 was one of the defining moments of my youth. I was sitting in high school physics class when it happened. I had a free period after and went to a study center to listen to the news on the radio. Hearing descriptions like "the tower just collapsed," and being unable to conjure such a surreal image in my brain.

The whole country changed that day. There was a sense of vulnerability we all realized. We're still vulnerable. But we're also a bit prouder today. It was painful to think that somebody could assault us with impunity. So while the War wages on, while we still take off our shoes at the airport, at least that pain of seeing Osama get away with murder can now dissipate.

May 1st was a great day for Americans, and a great day for America.

State of the Obama

2011-01-26T12:00:00.002-05:00

It's funny how much hype leads up to the State of the Union, then how much discussion shortly follows, then how little we'll remember it in a month. It's not known for rousing oratory, or startling surprises. It's so routine that there's a countless variety of drinking games one can play while watching.

We need to revive the economy. "We do big things." That's a good summary of the speech. We do big things and put them down. We do big things and put them down.

Obama started with the need to improve education. Which I completely agree with. At all levels, our country's education is not competitive. And any quality education costs money, whether it's a private middle school, or a top-flight grad school. So in other words, it's not necessarily the best and brightest students who enjoy the benefits of the best education, its the most affluent ones.

Then Obama loses me, when he starts talking about China building solar energy facilities, and how we need to catch up. Is that why China's economy is growing, and ours isn't? Because of solar technology? I don't think so.

While I love the idea of rebuilding our educational system, emphasizing math and science (and basic writing, just read the comments on any YouTube video), and investing in new technologies, why does it always have to be "clean energy?" Is that the ultimate goal of technology? The pinnacle of mankind's achievements? Solar panels?

I think renewable and sustainable energy is a nice idea, but why don't we invest in education and technology, then let the next generation of smart people tell us what the new big thing is going to be. I can't imagine that in a history book 50 years from now, there'll be a sentence that reads "America's economy was saved by wind turbines."

And here's a hint, Liberals: If you want to sell the country on "clean energy," call it something else. CHEAP ENERGY. That gets the consumer excited. It's amazing how environmentally conscientious people will become when it affects the green in their wallets.

Getting back to education, Obama made some excellent points about how non-affordable it is. And Government can help that. I'd rather the Government give out grants (not loans) so students can go to the school of their choice (not just go to a college, but go to the college they choose), regardless of their economic status. There's responsibility and accountability in a program like that. If grades aren't up to snuff, then goodbye. I'd rather give Government money out in that fashion than via standardized entitlement checks.

But there's also a social and cultural problem undermining the quality of our education. College is for partying and passing. "C's get degrees." The people who have the opportunity to go to school take it for granted. Because there are no apparent consequences for failure. They've been brought up in a spoon-fed, coddled, everything-will-be-alright society. And this attitude needs to change. There's not much Government or Politicians can do about it. It's something that individuals need to do on their own. And I think a lot of people my age (mid-20's) are realizing that life is harder than school.

Most of this speech was recycled from previous remarks. Obama thinks that it's 1933 and that the country can be saved by The New Deal. He calls it "investing in infrastructure." But it can also be called "spending on roads."

While our highways and bridges are in dire need of repair, they should be fixed because they're broken, not because the economy is broken. All these projects don't do much to add jobs, and do little to help the economy. They help construction workers, and the contractors that employ them. That's about it.

Obama promised to "pick projects based on what's best for the economy, not politicians." Which is a very smooth, slick thing to say. What does "best for the economy" mean, though? Those construction workers expanding Route 128 might have one idea of what's best for the economy, and I might have another.

Politicians, even if acting under completely noble ideals, cannot "pick" what's best for an economy. The economy has to pick what's best for itself. It's called the free market. The idea of Politicians selecting who gets what, even with the best of intentions, curdles my blood.

Obama is against the tax-cuts given to the wealthiest 2% of Americans. Well, I'd rather that they pay taxes as opposed to me. But ultimately, I'd rather that neither of us have to pay much at all. Because when that wealthy person has more pocket money, they might invest in promoting a concert at Gillette Stadium, and I might get 10 hours of security work because of that. Or at the very least, they might buy a ticket to an existing concert, and part of that money eventually finds its way to me.

One thing's for sure, I trust that rich person to do something economically beneficial with that money more than I'd trust the Government.

Then there's healthcare. What Obama said about that, ironically, made me sick. "Let's fix what needs fixing and let's move forward." That's unimaginably arrogant and dismissive. There's a reason why Nancy Pelosi isn't sitting behind his left shoulder anymore. Many in this country rallied against Obama's healthcare reform. But I guess we should just move on. What's done is done. After all, it's not as if our Constitution allows for the repeal of undesirable laws.

Obama has seemed to respond to the voices calling for a reduction in government spending. But he and the Liberals will resist every cut. And Politicians from both sides will protect pet projects from their home states. They'll lobby for reduced military spending, except when it affects the Air Force base within their borders.

"I'm willing to eliminate whatever we can honestly afford to do without."

That phrase is an exquisite example of beautifully crafted rhetoric. Persuasion by Agreement. Obama has millions of voices screaming at him to cut the budget. So he agrees with them. But adds the caveat of "whatever we can honestly afford to do without." He wisely omits that it will be he and his Administration that decides what "we" can afford to cut.

It should be against the law for politicians to use the word "honestly."

And I loved his analogy to lightening an airplane by removing one of its engines. Well if the thing is too heavy to sustain flight, what's the point of having 4 engines or 0 engines? Maybe it needs a complete overhaul. Maybe it needs more things removed than "we can honestly afford to do without." Maybe we need a new plane.

We certainly need a new pilot.

What's Happening After What Happened in Arizona

2011-01-13T12:00:00.001-05:00

99.99% of the reaction to the events in Arizona have been understandable, dignified, and entirely appropriate. Politicians have put politics aside. And for the most part, most Americans have been united in shock, as opposed to divided in contention.

When psychos decide to kill people, we clamor for explanations. We're disturbed by the notion that someone can wake up, and decide to end the lives of others, almost at random. 6 people, who were simply at a minor political function, no longer exist. All because some guy named Jared Loughner made a decision. It's unsettling.

We all look for a cause to explain these things. If there is a cause, some sort of underlying reason, or maybe outside influence, then the world remains a sensible and logical place. Cause and effect, right? It even feels a bit safer, as we can convince ourselves that psychos like Loughner can't affect our destinies, not without some separate cause, at least.

After Columbine, for instance, the Right blamed Marilyn Manson, the Left blamed the NRA, and nobody blamed the sentient, self-aware human beings that executed their classmates. They even memorialized the killers alongside their victims! Could you imagine an eternal flame dedicated to Lee Harvey Oswald, sitting alongside the one to JFK?

Now as we examine the shootings in Arizona, we're asking who or what is to blame. And it baffles me that the unanimous choice isn't Jared "I have three names now" Lee Loughner. He bought the gun and ammunition. He concocted the scheme. He even wrote a farewell on his MySpace page. He pulled the trigger. He knew what he was doing and he did it.

He wasn't in a fit of uncontrollable rage, it wasn't spur of the moment. He was even able to get off with a warning after running a red light on his way to the assassination, so he couldn't have been an out of control madman. It seems like Loughner is the cause here. But some people out there believe he and his actions are merely an effect.

The gun control people have begun to chirp, for example.

Which is ironic, since Giffords has been a supporter of gun rights, and owns a Glock handgun (or at least did in 2008, Source).

Guns don't have free will. Human beings do. Guns kill people, but they can't murder. Idealist anti-gun nuts can fantasize about a world without guns, which means that Loughner wouldn't have been able to kill so many, if anyone at all. It also means a world in which everyone who has ever used a gun in self-defense against a physically stronger attacker, would be victims.

Then there's the more abstract cause behind the murders. Can a political atmosphere incite someone to commit murder? According to some, it has.

I can't confirm this, but the word of the day for January 8 on the New York Times desk calendar must have been "vitriolic." I've heard that word more in the last week than I had in the last two decades.

As a writer, I must concede an affinity for that word. It conveys a sense of acidity. It sounds like it means. Even if you've never heard it, you can tell it's not something good.

"The vitriolic political atmosphere" is being held partially responsible for Loughner's actions. You see, Giffords is a Democrat. She fought and won a close election against a Tea Party candidate. And here's a list of all the ties that we've learned Loughner had with the Tea Party:

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That's what pisses me off about the insinuation (and occasional accusation) against the Tea Party in this assassination attempt. This isn't a Tea Party person committing a heinous act. This is a completely random, essentially unaffiliated psycho. This guy's rhetoric can't be described as Liberal or Conservative. It's not Moderate either. If nonsensical gibberish had a political party, Loughner would be their candidate for Senate.

He believes 9/11 was a conspiracy, that the world will end in 2012, and that Christianity was conceived in order to help politicians. He didn't vote in the 2010 midterm elections. Most Tea Party people, and Conservatives in general believe 9/11 has been genuinely portrayed, that the world won't end next year, and most are Christians. The same can be said of most Liberals.

He'd say things like "What is government if words have no meaning?" not "Cap and Trade is Crap and Tax." So it's beyond moronic to blame "vitriolic political atmosphere" for what this guy has done. And certainly the finger pointing against the Right is beyond stupid, as this guy wasn't even Conservative.

I don't think the gun control people, or the vitriol control people are trying to take advantage of this incident. They honestly believe that if handguns were harder to get, then psychos like Loughner would get a job at the cement factory and live productive, nonviolent lives. They honestly believe that Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin control people, and make them do horrible, unspeakable things.

This guy refused to be a participant of a society, where there are multiple people with different views, cooperating yet competing together. But instead of turning into an introverted hermit, he attempted to inflict his twisted ideas on the rest of us. He didn't believe we had the right to disagree with him. He didn't believe we had the right to have a society without him. He didn't believe that other people have the right to live.

And some Conservatives are pulling the same accusative crap, calling Loughner a "left-wing political radical." And if an Hispanic person had shot a Republican politician in Arizona, you can bet your sweet bippy that there'd be Right Wing voices screaming about the need for immigration reform, and how the atmosphere around SB 1070 fueled the violence.

I'll end with a counter argument/question to all these causality theories about Loughner and the Tea Party. If this "vitriolic atmosphere" is partially responsible for this murder, why is this the one incident? This is such a rare act. Some news outlets have tried to portray this as part of a string of violent acts, alluding to threats against politicians, and vandalizing of offices.

But murder is on another level. And if an "atmosphere" is to blame for one assassination attempt, doesn't it follow that there'd be more than one? Historians often blame the social and economic atmosphere of Weimar Germany for the rise of Hitler. But Hitler wasn't the only Nazi. An entire generation of Germans were angry and psychotic.

Nobody blames political atmosphere for John Hinckley or Lee Harvey Oswald. Even John Wilkes Booth, who had a distinct and clear political vendetta against Lincoln, gets the blame for the assassination, not the "vitriolic political atmosphere" surrounding the Civil War.

Hopefully, Loughner's will remain a singular event. Which is one positive to take from this thing, that we live in a country and a time where political violence is exceedingly rare and almost universally abhorred. Despite the abundance of vitriol.

You Want to Build What Where?

2010-08-20T07:00:00.001-05:00

It's the first part of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." A right guaranteed before freedoms of speech, press, and assembly.

So I'll start by saying that from a Constitutional, and patriotically American standpoint, you can build a mosque wherever you want.

But I'll also provide some free advice and say that you might be asking for drama if you're not careful.

Barack recently said: "Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances."

While I agree with Barack, the two words that struck me were "lower Manhattan." The conceivers and proponents of the proposed mosque at 51 Park Place didn't just want to build a community center in "lower Manhattan." They deliberately selected a location only 600 feet from 6 World Trade Center. So for Barack to use words like "lower Manhattan," instead of "2 blocks from Ground Zero," is a slight misnomer. And an intentionally slight misnomer.

The location was chosen specifically to be near the WTC. It wasn't just a lower Manhattan mosque that coincidentally was also close to the WTC.

They chose the location with benevolence. They don't want to make a pro-terrorist statement. They're trying to make a pro-Islam statement. One of the mosque's biggest sponsors is Feisal Abdul Rauf, who seems to think that building the mosque can help strengthen the bond between Islam and the West.

But this is a foolish and stupid way to try to accomplish such a goal.

Unlike Bill Maher, I don't blame religion for what people do with their religious beliefs. Not all Muslims are terrorists. Most aren't. Some people are monstrous on their own, and they use religion, nationalism, anything, in order to psychologically justify their wrongdoing by painting it with a brush of morality. They often use words like "cleansing," and "purifying." When leaders use terms like that, it's time to worry. That's why Billy Mays infomercials always freaked me out.

Some have described the building of this mosque as "arrogant." As a "slap to the face." As "insensitive." I think it's essentially innocent. I'd classify it as misguided.

If guys like Rauf are trying to unite Islam and the West, then this is an incorrect way to go about it. Somebody made the comparison to a German culture center built adjacent to a concentration camp. And that's not too dissimilar. German culture is not inherently bad or good. Germans don't, by definition, hate Jews. But many of them did, and they did something horrible with that hatred, in the name of German culture. To paraphrase the NRA, cultures don't kill people, people kill people.

But I don't this mosque would be, as Newt Gingrich described: "like putting a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum."

It's called a Swastika, Newt, and everyone knows that. And it's not quite that directly provocative. This is merely ignorant hyperbole.

A better way to unite Islam and the West would be to build a memorial to the innocent Muslims killed in the 9/11 attacks. And there were a few dozen, including police cadet and paramedic Mohammed Salman Hamdani, whose remains were found in the rubble of the North Tower, next to his medical bag.

We forget that the 9/11 terrorists indiscriminately murdered Muslims on September 11th. If we remember things like that, "us" and "them" will become "we."

If you want to unite (what you see as) two cultures, you have to treat them as one. And if you want to improve relationships between those two cultures, then you have to consider the perspectives of both. About 2/3 of Americans oppose this idea. More than half of New York City residents oppose it. So far, this mosque has done more dividing than unifying. Even the 1/3 of Americans and slightly less than half of New Yorkers who don't have a problem with the mosque, probably aren't feeling more unified by it.

It's ridiculous that people in Oregon are being polled for their opinions regarding a proposed religious building in Manhattan. Then again, it's ridiculous to want to build a mosque 600 feet from Ground Zero. Or at the very least, it's provocative, in that it's meant to provoke some sort of reaction.

I for one don't particularly care, except that it seems like everyone else cares. I started caring when the President of the United States once again chimed in on an issue that should be handled by city-level government.

All the defenders of this mosque, at least the ones I've heard and read, have been quoting the Constitution and citing precedents of religious freedom. And while that is all true, and is why the mosque can be built. Very few people have discussed why it should be built. What is trying to be achieved, by intentionally selecting such an interesting location? What are the goals of this mosque? We've heard overtures and vague sentiments, but I've yet to hear the explicit reasons for selecting this location.

I've read some defenders argue that two blocks is hardly next door. "do you have any concept of how far two blocks is in a city like New York" asked Joyce Pines of the Kalamazoo Gazette. It's slightly over one tenth of a mile, or 600 feet, or less than a minute walk away. That's close. And the building that will be replaced by the mosque was struck by United 175's landing gear after it plowed through the South Tower. That's close.

In one poll, 68% of Americans opposed this mosque. But 61% also felt as though it had a right to exist. We as Americans have the right to build mosques pretty much wherever we want. And we also have the right to disagree with the building of a mosque. And all these rights, opinions, and freedoms are part of what the 9/11 hijackers hated about us.

I'm afraid as an instrument of unification and connection, this mosque has failed. It'll sadly be the target of vandalism and scorn by an ignorant minority. And that will further deepen the sense of separation. So I think this mosque most certainly has the right to exist and operate. But it will divide what it's trying to unify. Rather, it already has.

Barack's War

2010-08-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

How many American soldiers have "won" Purple Hearts since Barack won his Nobel Peace Prize? How many American soldiers have died serving their "Peaceful" President? About 300 since he won that meaningless award.

How many nuclear weapons have been dismantled since then? How has North Korea behaved? How have things been going in Israel/Palestine/Canaan lately? The only thing Barack has done to foster World Peace is to ensure that China never declares war on the US, for fear that their debts wouldn't get repaid.

The US isn't "losing" in Afghanistan. They're not being pushed back, driven out, and the causalities haven't been atrociously high. Then again, June saw the most US combat deaths than any of the other 106 months of the war. And October of '09, the month that saw Barack awarded the NPP, was the second bloodiest.

But the US isn't winning, either. How can I tell? Don't you think you'd be hearing Barack and the Democrats gloating if we were winning?

There's nothing stronger than a soldier of the United States armed forces. But the War in Afghanistan is more about public relations than strength of arms. It's more about not being offensive, as opposed to taking the offensive. It's more about tact than attacking. One or two more Wars like this one, and the US Army will attach Human Resource representatives to every platoon.

Would the Allies have defeated the Nazis if they were simultaneously trying to win the hearts and minds of the German people?

Barack should understand unwinnable situations by now. That's what his Healthcare Reform campaign turned into. And that's the kind of wall he was up against with Afghanistan.

He couldn't just pull out, and look like a soft President. After all, even Liberals have been supportive of our operations in Afghanistan. And it's much harder than you think to pull out of a war that hasn't yet been clearly won or lost. You get people asking "What did we sacrifice so much for over the last 8 years?" You get mocked for "cutting and running."

He couldn't just leave things as they were, and allow US soldiers to die as our grip on the region slipped away.

He can't stay there forever, either. No President could.

So he implemented a surge, threw out an arbitrary deadline, and turned an unwinnable political situation into one that he could not lose. He'll be lauded for trying, then lauded for either victory or for extracting us from the War.

He also fired a General for making fun of him in Rolling Stone. An interesting move for a Commander in Chief, to remove a theater commander for remarks made in a publication with this as the cover:

God Bless America!

It's much easier to pull out of a war after fully committing your resources to it and coming up short. People will get tired, and only the most sadistic of Hawks will want to "finish the job." But most people will realize that the job cannot be completed. They'll support a withdrawal.

Or he'll win. And won't that stick in the craw of Conservatives? Don't get me wrong, Barack definitely wants to win in Afghanistan. He's not just playing a game of political chess with the lives of American soldiers. But imagine if by some miracle the US wins this War. Come November, the Republicans wouldn't stand a chance in any contested election for any office.

But the US cannot win this particular War. It reminds me of so many other Wars in history, where even strategic triumph wouldn't result in any real victory. The American Revolution, for instance. Even if the lobsterbacks had annihilated the Continental Army, they'd have to govern America as subjugated territories, not amenable colonies. Washington's armies could have been crushed, but the anti-British sentiment in the 13 colonies was unbeatable.

And no, I'm not comparing the Taliban to the Continental Congress. But the situations are similar. To the average person living in the Afghan countryside, the US must seem like just one of many factions vying for dominance in the most geographically fucked up corners of the world. That tribesman doesn't care about 9/11, or his right to vote for some corrupt politicians. He just wants to feed his family. He'll support anyone that helps him do that, fight anyone that prevents him, and ignore anyone that does neither.

If enough of the people of Afghanistan wanted the Taliban out, they'd be out. The Army and Marines might physically be capable of destroying them, but not the ideas that have kept them in power. Nor can any military action CREATE a desirable government. And any obliteration of the Taliban would have to include the obliteration of many Afghan civilians. Warfare is an inexact science, which is why it should only be attempted when the victory is worth the total cost.

Meanwhile, North Korea, an actual threat to our interests and our allies, is getting bolder. Our armed forces and our people have grown weary of war, and I'm concerned that even if it becomes necessary on the Korean peninsula, the Nobel laureate will be either unwilling or unable to commit US forces to their 3rd war in 10 years.

I'll reluctantly defend Barack for his War in Afghanistan. But I'll also ferociously attack anyone who purports him to be a champion of peace.

When Will the Recession Recede?

2010-07-27T02:00:00.003-05:00

I'll concede that Barack was given a full plate when he was elected. A Marlon Brando portion of things to digest. We were deep into two wars, with a crashing economy, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Since his election, he's had to deal with things like one of the worst man-made disasters ever, the immigration issue, healthcare reform (although he started that fight), and the "stupidity" of the Cambridge Police.

That all being said, he made the big promises. He was Change personified. He was Hope incarnate. He'd fix the economy, extract us from wars while keeping our dignity, he'd reform healthcare, he'd save us from the apparent tailspin we've been sent on by George W. Bush.

Maybe it's just me and my gloomy pessimism. But not even Barack could bring our economy back to where it was, or where it's been since World War II. He can, however, make it worse. And that's what he's doing. Inadvertently, of course.

We've had a bubbilicious economy lately. Big ups, big downs, but with a generally upward trend. Like Oprah's weight. But it's all been part of a massive superbubble. The World War II Bubble. The War fueled unprecedented growth and prosperity for America. We built all the planes and tanks. We provided the gasoline. We sold the ships. We lent the money. The US produced 40% of the world's weapons during the War.

Then after the War, we didn't have to rebuild. We sold industrial machinery to Europe and Japan for them to restore their infrastructure. We also sold them the finished products. And again, we lent them the money.

But the world's caught up. And industrially speaking, the US has fallen behind. So now instead of steady growth with the occasional hiccup, our growth is rapid, followed by quick contractions, then fast growth, then fast retractions. Our economy has stretch marks and loose skin. We've morphed from the stable tortoise to the impetuous hare.

We want to get back to where we were. And the Liberals think they know how to do this: Socialism Lite.

The latest push has been to extend unemployment benefits. A lot of people who lost their jobs in the latest economic fracas are seeing their benefits expire. Those benefits had been extended once before. Back then, it was thought by Barack and his cadre of optimists that the unemployment rate would peak at slightly over 8%, then gradually reduce itself. Instead, it's been fairly steady, and over 9%.

This chart is an estimate from late '09.

Barack will publicly pat himself on the back for how many jobs he and his programs have saved. But I don't remember his "Institutional 9.5% Unemployment" speech on the campaign trail. He promised more.

The idea of unemployment benefits is not only to keep people alive, it's to stabilize the system, to keep the bad times from getting really horrid. It keeps people involved as participants in the economy: buying food and clothes, renting apartments, etc. So when things get better and jobs become available, they can rejoin the workforce without missing a beat.

Most of the time, unemployment is paid for by taxing employers, so it functions as insurance. The employees and employers regularly pay a small, manageable amount, and therefore protect themselves in case of disaster.

The only thing I don't like about unemployment benefits is that it's based on income. So a middle manager who made $100k a year will receive a bigger check than the janitor who made $20k when their company goes under. This capitalist-socialist mutant is an abomination, a sin against nature. Unemployment is to subsist people between jobs, and it costs the same for a janitor to feed himself as it does for a middle manager.

And in this current climate, the government is essentially subsidizing some people to NOT get jobs. It's that ex-middle manager with that $100k salary and the bigger unemployment check that will hold out for another $100k job, instead of taking one with a $40k salary. It's basic common sense that those $100k jobs are an endangered species in this contracting economy. So it follows that those $100k types will have to find jobs that pay less. If Mr. Executive were receiving the same meager unemployment benefits as Mr. Janitor, you can bet your ass he'd take a $40k job pushing paper.

But there's a problem. When does a temporary benefit to tide people over between jobs turn into a permanent government dole? And where does the money for extended benefits come from?

Having 9% of the country getting weekly government checks for doing nothing for an extended period of time is a destructive concept. Doesn't the government spend enough money paying its own employees to do nothing? The money has to come from somewhere. And it's coming from debt. "Treasury Bills" is the politically expedient way to phrase it, but "selling" treasury bills is a misleading way of saying "borrowing money."

I have no problem with extending benefits right here and right now. But this has got to be it. And there needs to be reform that forces middle and upper class people to take lower paying jobs when they can. To issue a $500 weekly check to someone who's been offered $900/week to work is utterly disgusting. They can take a step down and work while they try to find another lucrative job.

But we need to adjust here. We are not going to go back to the way things were. Not permanently, at least. Barack and the Liberals can distribute temporary relief. They can borrow from China and give everyone free healthcare. But that bubble will only burst with more explosiveness.

As we add more and more social programs, issue more and more benefits, we're jumping off a burning ship into shark infested waters. We're trading one problem for another. Instead, we should be trying to put the fire out, and limp along in our burnt out vessel. Our economy will never be the same. And the more Barack tries to bring us back to where we were, the more he hastens the ultimate destruction of the American economy.

Then again, I'm morbidly pessimistic. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

Don't Bring a Gun to a Wordfight

2010-06-01T12:00:00.005-05:00

Don't bring knives to a gunfight either. Or better yet, if wielding a knife, don't fight with someone toting a gun.

But the real battle over this flotilla debacle won't be fought with metal batons, or guns, or paintballs, or knives. It'll be fought with words, and the usage of words.

Just a quick summary of events, and I'll try to present the sequence as unbiased and factual as possible, then proceed to my opinions and observations.

1. A group of ships carrying several hundred pro-Palestinian activists, as well as 10,000 tons (I'm doubting this number, it's what the AP is saying, but that's a lot. I'd venture that the ship had a tonnage of 10,000, which is pretty big) of supplies, were headed toward the Gaza Strip.

2. The Gaza Strip has been blockaded by Israeli naval forces for 3 years. The Israelis offered to allow the ships to unload any humanitarian aid cargo, which would then be transported into the Strip after inspection. Keep in mind, simple building materials like concrete are considered contraband by the Israelis. They also warned the ships not to run the blockade.

3. In the middle of the night, and in international waters, Israeli troops attempted to take control of the boats in the flotilla. On the boat ferrying the most activists (about 600 of the total 700), a violent struggle erupted. Israel reports 9 activists killed, dozens wounded, and at least 6 Israelis wounded.

It should be noted that essentially all information regarding this incident has been disseminated by Israel. An example of such information is this very short video clip:

I purposely used the word "activist" because it's an incredibly vague term. An activist is an active supporter. Active with what? Warren Goldstein, the chair of U-Hartford's history department writing for the Huffington Post credits these activists with an active defense of their ship:

"By tomorrow morning you will be hearing the "official" Jewish community parroting the IDF line, complaining about the nerve of those activists defending themselves in international waters from heavily armed soldiers enforcing an illegal blockade."

I'll give credit to any activists who confronted "heavily armed" soldiers. That takes some balls. But the reason it's brave is because the soldier has a gun. And he might use it. This isn't 17th century chivalric France. A soldier with a gun won't cavalierly say to an activist with a knife, "So it's knives then, eh? I accept your choice of weapon," drop his gun, pull out a knife and then yell "On guard!"

Then again, how much bravery is required for a dozen guys to take on one soldier, who is "heavily armed" with a paintball gun?

And I don't know about anyone else, but if I'm on a ship, and a military helicopter hovering overhead is depositing soldiers onto the deck, I might not be so brave. Unless, of course, I already had a metal club with me. Which miraculously, through remarkably uniform foresight, these "activists" all wield.

And can we stop calling these guys "demonstrators" or "protesters?" Those two words connote nonviolent resistance. They conjure images of lunch-counter sit-ins, and marching in the street. "Activist" is extremely vague, but I can't summon a more applicable term. "Defenders" is too heroic. "Combatants" is too vilifying. But they're not demonstrating for/against anything. And once they hit a soldier, they were no longer protesting anything. They were fighting. Even if it were fighting in self-defense, it's still fighting.

I'll concede Israel's blockade of Gaza is entirely illegal. You know what else is illegal? Killing. Gaza is politically controlled by Hamas, which has been deemed by the US and the EU as a terrorist organization, rightfully so. Because, you know, they kill innocent people. Hamas' own charter includes this Pat Buchanenesque tidbit about Zionists:

You may speak as much as you want about regional and world wars. They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it."

That sounds right. The Zionists were behind World War II, which saw how many Jews killed? Makes sense to me. Tell me, why does Hamas need guns and bombs to fight an enemy so blatantly self-destructive?

No matter where you stand on Zionism, to suggest that Zionists fomented World War II to further their cause is certifiably insane.

So Israel enforces a tight blockade of the Gaza Strip. Why? Because it's a good way to keep guns out. Is that so complicated to grasp? But I'll also say that the Israelis need to develop a better blockade. One that allows humanitarian aid in, while keeping the guns and ammo out. Compose a list of accepted foodstuffs that can enter. Keep it simple. No complex chemicals. No fertilizer. Absolutely no metal. But allow Dried rice. Allow Wheat. Water. Penicillin. Aspirin. Et cetera.

Maybe the public attention and international pressure that this incident has brought will convince Israel to allow basic food and medicine to enter the Gaza Strip. I don't think that would be a bad thing at all. Starving people either die or they kill.

You know who else once instituted an illegal blockade? JFK and the US Navy. We call it the Cuban Missile Crisis, and they cleverly dubbed it a "quarantine." But I doubt you'll hear many Liberal eggheads criticize their demigod for that course of action. And rightly so. The US did what was in its best interest for survival, similar to what Israel is doing right now.

Two words that reporters, critics and pundits have incessantly repeated in this whole fiasco:

INTERNATIONAL WATERS

What are international waters? Well, a country's territorial claims extend 12 miles from its coast. This attack occurred 80 miles from Israel's coast. But a country's exclusive economic zone extends 200 miles. So in some respects it's international waters. In other respects, it's Israeli waters. The AP and the peace-at-all-costs media will not bother to discover this grey area.

Then there's a further consideration, a tactical one. If you're trying to takeover a ship of 600 with only a few dozen commandos with as few casualties as possible, do you do so at night or during the day? Had the Israelis waited for the ships to reach their territorial waters, it would have been broad daylight. Unlike the US's military, Israel's doesn't consult their PR Department when planning an operation.

Two more words you'll hear in opinion pieces this week:

EXCESSIVE FORCE

Was it really excessive? Isn't that impossible to know at this point? Warren Goldstein of the University of Hartford again:

"But is there really nothing Israel will not do? Ok, I guess they could have sunk all of the ships. Great. Shall we congratulate the IDF on its restraint...?"

Well if Israel were as EXCESSIVE, relentless, ruthless, aggressive, belligerent, or bellicose as some like Goldstein have suggested, wouldn't they have fired on the ships? Or at the very least, armed their first-wave of commandos with guns that fired bullets instead of paint-pellets?

And what is excessive force? The people who throw these words around tend to have never been in a situation in which their lives were in the balance. They also can't comprehend what it might be like to be in such a circumstance. Rather, they choose not to comprehend what it might be like. They just enjoy critiquing and Monday-morning-quarterbacking the people who find themselves in life/death positions.

The Israeli side of the story, supported by the videotape (they've edited then provided, remember that) suggests that the commandos COULD have been acting in self-defense, and/or in defense of their comrades. You see someone attack your buddy with a knife or a metal club. What do you do? Fret about how much force is excessive? No. You fucking act.

And clearly, the "activists" on the boat weren't demonstrating, or protesting, they were fighting. Again, perhaps fighting in self-defense, but nonetheless fighting.

And I'm not defending the actions of the Israeli commandos either. Because quite frankly, I have no idea how those 9 activists were killed. We don't know. It's impossible to determine if the force used was justified or excessive, or somewhere in between. Of course, the scant facts we do have were quite sufficient for the Turkish government, along with countless other groups and organizations, to denigrate Israel for their actions.

And let's say one, two, even a dozen Israeli soldiers acted inappropriately and used excessive lethal force. Does that mean an entire NATION should be censured?

But how can one assail actions that one can't even accurately describe, let alone understand? All we know is that 9 people died, most likely killed by Israeli bullets. What were the circumstances of these deaths? We don't know yet. In America, unlike certain parts of the world, someone is innocent until proven guilty. Then again, in certain parts of the world, an Israeli is guilty until proven dead.

But all that aside, is it ever justifiable to board and commandeer a civilian ship carrying activists and aid? Even if armed with knives and bats, those are hardly "weapons" in any military or terrorist sense. After all, these vessels were just trying to bring aid to a beleaguered population. Or were they? A spokeswoman for the Free Gaza movement had this to say:

"What we're trying to do is open a sea lane between Gaza and the rest of the world. We're not trying to be a humanitarian mission. We're trying to say to the world, 'You have no right to imprison a million and a half Palestinians.'"

Delivering humanitarian aid was not the mission. This was a stunt, a coup, a stratagem. And for what? To open up the sea lanes to the Gaza Strip. And how many guns, bullets, shells, rockets, and grenades will be funneled through those lanes if opened?

This was a set-up and a trap. This flotilla was "unofficially" backed by a Turkish government, which removed its ambassadors and cancelled joint military exercises so quickly it was as if they'd prepared for this incident a week ago. It was a brilliant way for Turkey's government to appease the anti-Israel elements of its population, without pissing off the US or the EU for doing so. Turkey, Israel's only Muslim ally, has now cut ties. And nobody on either side can really blame them. After all, the lead ship sailed under a Turkish flag.

It's an ingenious piece of political maneuvering, orchestrated with such cunning, guile, and subtlety that it would give Machiavelli a deadly 4+ hour hard-on.

And of course in revisionist America, we think there's a perfect solution to everything. Did we really need to drop the A-Bomb on the Japanese? I mean the war was practically won by that point. And how about the fire bombings of Dresden and Cologne?

The same historians who criticize the framers of the 1938 Appeasement at Munich for not being strong-willed enough, also criticize the strong-willed leaders of 1914 Europe for not appeasing enough. Hindsight is 20/20, and also makes you sound like a pompous ass.

But my point is that in the West, we think we can conjure up the perfect solution to EVERYTHING. And if anything goes wrong, then somebody fouled up. "Botched" seems to be the mot du jour (word of the day). The Israelis captured a boat, and it cost 9 lives. Somebody fouled up. They probably used excessive force.

So now Europe and America will shun Israel for this apparent excessiveness. Couldn't they just not try to stop a 10,000 ton ship headed for a hive of people who consider the very existence of The State of Israel to be an abomination? Or if they did have to stop the ship, couldn't they have done so without killing anyone?

And for the Pro-Palestinian "activists" ranging from Free Gaza to Hamas, this was a resounding victory. Now international pressure will squeeze Israel. In America, Israel's strongest and firmest ally, public support for Israel will wane. Fueled by that hindsight-armed, perfect-solution-seeking media, we'll start to question why we're friends with such reckless and/or ruthless people.

In the end, Israel should also learn from this. Next time, drop cans of tear gas, arm soldiers with tazers. Then again, if an "activist" steals your machine gun, are you supposed to draw your pepper spray? If he stabs your commanding officer, are you supposed to taze him?

And there will be a next time. As two more ships have been sent to try running this blockade.

But this war won't be contested in the Mediterranean. It will be fought within the media. It will be fought with words, not bullets. Words like "activist," and "excessive." Words like "terrorist," and "flotilla."

Immigration Irritation

2010-04-28T10:00:00.000-05:00

Imagine being asked to prove your citizenship. "Identification papers, please." Sounds like something out of Nazi Germany. Deine Papieren!. But that's frighteningly close to what will be happening in Arizona, home to some disturbing developments in the never-ending immigration debate.

I'm as white as a bleached snowflake, I'm bio-luminescent, the Sun puts on SPF 45 keep from being burnt by me. So if I were to vacation in Arizona, I doubt my citizenship would ever be questioned. Then again, I could be British or something. Then again, how many cops in Arizona will be patrolling for illegals from Liverpool?

The new legislation in Arizona "requires police to make a reasonable attempt, when practical, to determine immigration status if there is cause to suspect they are illegal immigrants." Now cops can't just walk up to someone on the street and ask for their license. The person has to be previously engaged with the police for some other reason (e.g. traffic stop). At least that's how it seems to be laid out.

But this law just screws everybody: Citizens, illegals, and cops alike. Citizens will get unnecessarily hassled, particularly those of Latino descent. This widens a gap that should instead be shallowing as our so-called melting pot does its work. Obviously illegals will be punished. And the cops who have to enforce these laws will have every single traffic stop scrutinized. "Why did you ask this guy named Rolando to prove his citizenship? How come you didn't ask his buddy Steve?" And we all know how unhesitant people are to accuse cops of profiling:

You can understand where Arizona lawmakers are coming from. The bloody spill over from Mexico's drug wars, and incidents such as the unsolved murder of rancher Robert Krentz (who lived several miles from the border. Investigators tracked a set of footprints from where he was killed back to the border) have scared people down there.

Some illegal aliens are criminals. Liberals won't want to admit that, but it's true. Unfortunately, many Conservatives fail to realize that the best way to obstruct these criminals from entering the country is to open up the border's proverbial doors, and make it easy for honest, hardworking, non-criminal immigrants to legally become Americans. Build an Ellis Island in the desert. Stop illegal immigration by making it legal immigration.

But wait a minute...

It's funny how the same typically Conservative multitudes who fear Mexicans taking their jobs, also hate Barack for fomenting a socialist "Nanny-State." These jerks love capitalism when it puts them on top, hate it when it threatens to put them asunder. But buy the ticket, take the ride.

An equally skilled new-American truck driver might be willing to drive a rig across country for half of what a born-American driver would demand. If you owned a truck company, who would you hire?

Now it sucks for that born-American truck driver, but capitalism has winners for every loser. The owner of the trucking company could expand and hire more workers. Plus the goods shipped would be cheaper at the store. There's no moral right or wrong with capitalism, just profit and loss.

Does being born inside America's borders mean that we're superior to people born in Mexico, or any other country? What does it even mean to be "American?" It's not genetic, or ethnic, or even cultural. I have much more ethnically and culturally in common with Germans and British than I do with most Americans. What does an American look like or sound like? What religion are they? What do they believe in?

To be American is to be free. And freedom is one of the inalienable rights of a human being (to be human is to deserve to be free, to be American is to be free). Yet we restrict people from coming to this country to be free. Does that sound like freedom? No, it sounds like an exclusive club with admission based solely on location of birth. A country club if you will.

Now some people obviously don't belong in America. True criminals. Drug dealers. Smugglers. Murderers; people who have violated the freedoms and rights of others. But with modern technology, isn't it easier to weed these people out and disallow their entry? Then let them tangle with The Minutemen in the middle of the desert, no holds barred.

But there is a massive stumbling block to the idea of open-but-regulated immigration that I've laid out above: Entitlement programs.

It's one thing to let new-Americans compete with born-Americans for jobs. There's a capitalistic and competitive spirit to that. There's a sense of justice when the better worker gets the job. There's also a sense of fiscal reality that the most favorable market value (cheaper worker) wins out.

But when you have so many cumbersome entitlement programs, as we already have now and as we are acquiring more and more, every new-American would enter the country with a price-tag on their heads. A 60 year old woman with arthritis, for example, would become an American at the potential cost of millions of dollars.

Of course, a 25 year old man who can fix cars and is good with computers enters the country with a negative number for a price-tag (meaning he'll put into the system more than he withdraws). This is a guy who will be productive, make money, participate in the economy, start a family, buy a house, et cetera.

But there's a horrid sort of calculus at work here. Do you allow all non-criminal applicants to enter the country, or do you construct a selection process to allow the productive in, and keep the unproductive out? Or perhaps calculate that X number of productive immigrants can support the entitlements of Y number of unproductives.

After all, you don't want to allow in so many unproductive people that the vast apparatus of the entitlement programs are threatened with bankruptcy. Especially as citizens become more and more dependent on these programs.

This is one of the many unfortunate aspects of entitlement programs. Their viability depends on demographic sizes, specifically the size of the paying group relative to the size of the receiving group.

And this is where the Anti-Immigration people hold an unassailable position on very high ground. This is where the Immigration Argument stops. Because it's one thing to convince Americans to allow outsiders into "their" arena. It's quite another to ask them to pay for the outsiders' tickets.

And to the Liberals, you can't have your cake and stay on a diet too. You simply cannot create a socialized state AND open up immigration. It's politically unfeasible. If you don't have open immigration, then it's illegal for some people to be in this country. If it's illegal for them to be here, and they are here, then they're criminals. If they're criminals, they need to be deported. It's stupid to criminalize something like "existing within a set of lines drawn by the Gadsden Purchase of 1853."

But that's essentially what an illegal immigrant is guilty of doing. And that's one of the stresses with socialism.

But back to Arizona, their programs won't work to curb immigration, let alone crimes committed by illegal immigrants. While it's understandable for people to fight their fear with force, it's often not the wisest thing to do.

Moreover, there's a detestable racialist element to Arizona's new law. We should welcome new citizens and old citizens of Latino descent. This legislation will alienate non-aliens. People need to be ingratiated into American society. Their culture should be mixed with "our" own, becoming a distinct yet integral part of that melting pot, or that tapestry, or whatever figurative image you want to use.

The people hurt and alienated by this legislation are Americans. And they have the right to not fear their police. They have the right to walk around their block without their license or government ID on them without fear of being arrested. Even if 100% of those asked for ID by the police turn out to be illegal immigrants, and even if 100% of those cases have copious amounts of just cause, what's relevant is the feeling this law will create and the divisions it will carve.

ALL Americans have the right to feel American.

Baracktionary

2010-04-26T11:30:00.000-05:00

Jean-Jacques Rousseau once wrote in a letter: "Learn my dictionary, my good friend, if you want to have us understand each other. Believe me, my terms rarely have the ordinary sense."

Throughout history, great thinkers and leaders almost invariably develop their own idiomatic and peculiar ways of conversing. Essentially, they develop their own languages. Words acquire new definitions when these historical giants use them. "Worker" takes on a new meaning when uttered by Karl Marx. "Peace" meant something different to Woodrow Wilson than it did to Kaiser Wilhelm. Thomas Paine's usage of the word "liberty" is stronger than almost anyone else's.

Barack too, has his own definitions for the words he chooses to use. And here I'll humbly attempt to catalog some of them. Although admittedly, I am insufficiently intelligent to truly understand the Barackish language. And so I apologize for my omissions and potential errors. Without further preamble, the meaning of certain terms, according to Barack:

Bipartisanship (noun): when Republicans agree with my policies, and I get to do whatever I want to do

Partisan politics (noun): when Republicans disagree with my policies, and I don't get to do whatever I want to do. I have to debate things :-(

Unity (noun): when everyone in Washington follows my lead

Vitriolic (adj): the manner by which anyone who disagrees with me expresses that disagreement

Look... (verb, used at the beginning of sentences as a command): a warning that I'm about to tell you something you were too stupid to previously know. Example: "Look. You know, what we've done has been successful throughout. I mean, it's not like I've been winning in states that only have either black voters or Chablis-drinking, you know, limousine liberals. I mean, we've been winning in places like Idaho. We've been winning in places like Colorado."

China (noun): an ATM

Town Hall (noun):
1. Before healthcare reform rabble: a forum for the Democrats and I to listen to concerned citizens voice their opinions about healthcare reform.
2. After healthcare reform rabble: an opportunity to paint all conservatives as ignorant and/or racist.

Racist (noun): a Tea Party member

Reform (noun): Always a good thing so long as it's my kind of reform

George W. Bush (noun): The cause of all your problems, and all the debt we're in

This one's my favorite...

Debt (noun): A way to get out of debt

Iraq (noun): A remote corner of the world where we once sent soldiers to fight for obscure, abstract, and wholly unattainable goals. But that was wrong.

Afghanistan (noun): A remote corner of the world where we still send soldiers to fight for obscure, abstract, and wholly unattainable goals. But this is right.

Surge (verb/noun): To increase the amount of US soldiers in a foreign country's war, a good way to seem tough on America's enemies while also winning the Nobel Peace Prize because "surge" sounds better than "escalation"

US soldier's casket (noun): Photo op

Gay rights (noun): The right to file joint tax returns, or visit a partner in a hospital (mention that a lot), but NOT to get married (avoid mentioning that)

Smoking (noun): an activity I may or may not still do

Public support (noun): A nice thing to have, but not necessary when signing massive legislation like healthcare reform

Wall Street (noun): where evil and greed originate, where greedy bankers want to get paid tons of money for their easy, white-collar work

Main Street (noun): where wholesomeness and kindness originate, where non-greedy people want something for nothing, and they deserve it!

Journalist (noun): Someone who works in the media and also agrees with me

Non-journalist (noun): Fox News, or anyone else that dare questions my glory

Franklin D. Roosevelt (noun): God

Hope (noun): something I give everyday to the American people, whether they want it or not

Sanctions (noun): a strategy that almost always works to curb the threat posed by maniacal despotic states

Nuclear Security Summit (noun): what will win me Nobel Prize #2 because we talked a great deal about talking

Economy (noun): something the Government should control

Your life (noun): something people should control, unless they disagree with me, which more and more people seem to be doing. But in the event of disagreement, the Government should control this.

Rationalizing Irrationality

2010-03-29T11:00:00.000-05:00

You can look at someone who throws a brick through the windows of a Congrewsswoman's office as deranged, imbecilic, and infantile. The same goes for anyone who makes death threats against their Representatives. Or publishes a website that lists the home address of a lawmaker's brother.

John Boehner (R-Ohio) declared "violence and threats are unacceptable. That's not the American way." Tell that to Sam Adams as he and his cohorts are brewing a cauldron of tar and gathering feathers to forcibly adhere to a tax collector.

I'm not trying to equate (and thereby lionize) today's Tea Party cadres to the Sons of Liberty, but there's an interesting dynamic of rage that's similarly at work in both the 2010s and 1770s.

While most of America - Left, Center, and Right - condemns the irrational acts and threats of violence that have been launched toward certain Democrats, their very existence should alarm everyone that wields power in Washington. America is generally a passive country when it comes to politics. We don't have attacks on polling stations, never have riots or violent protests after elections, and half the nation doesn't vote.

People don't regularly throw bricks into buildings that house offices of those they disagree with. Someone has to have a psychological snap of sorts, allowing them to cross lines and boundaries they'd never normally approach. There's a rage there, and that should not be dismissed, it should be carefully analyzed.

It's difficult, because when one observes some jerk heaving masonry through windows, it's hard to take their cause seriously. Quite the opposite, the "protester" is obviously a fool, and anything they have to say is either ignored, or prejudicially labelled incorrect.

The Democrats are dismissing this rising torrent of political temper tantrums. "Go for it," Barack arrogantly provoked when discussing the possibilities of Republicans running for office under an anti-Healthcare Reform banner.

The Democrats seem to think that having so many loudmouthed, incoherent, silly SOBs against them signifies that they are right, and their opponents are wrong. Even if that were true, it's a dismissive way of ignoring the underlying rage that allows a person to act barbarous.

Why are these people upset? Because they feel unrepresented by their representatives. Disenfranchised. They feel as though Government is attempting to run their lives, that some distant politician is trying to intervene in the fundamental elements of their daily activities.

It's the same kind of rage felt by Bostonians in 1773. And guess what, Barack's Government is dismissing that rage the same way George III's did.

Now, unlike the Lobsterbacks, you're not going to have soldiers quartering in private houses, or blockades of harbors, or any of the other provocations that turned drunken civil unrest in Boston into the Revolutionary War.

It's easy to mock irrationality, and illogic. It's easy to make fun of Carl Everett for dismissing the existence of dinosaurs because they're not mentioned in the Bible. But if you never try to understand how someone could possess such ludicrous beliefs, you'll never be able to defeat them, only outnumber them.

So laugh it up, Jon...

Because while Sarah Palin provides hilarious material, and Glenn Beck's chalkboard should wind up in the Smithsonian as part the TV Comedy wing, next to Archie's chair (for several reasons), there is something not so funny fueling this rage, justified or unjustified. The rage exists. It's very real. It's growing stronger.

Bating the rage will not defeat it. Firefighters don't fight real fires with fire. They use foam and water. Why? Because they understand that foam suffocates fire, depriving it of the oxygen that it needs to survive. The protagonists in zombie movies last 90 minutes because they're able to infer that decapitation kills the zombies (and immortals).

George III's Government didn't understand the angst in colonial Boston. They dismissed it as rabble, irrational and irrelevant. And in a way, it was somewhat irrational. The American colonies were taxed considerably less than every other citizen in the British Empire.

But throughout the history of our planet, political outrage has always been expressed in irrational and unconventional ways. And this can be dangerous. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every piece of Leftist legislation that scurries through Congress while 48% of the country dissents, there will quite a backlash.

The Liberals best be careful, for all our sakes. Because irrational people, fueled by rage, can coalesce into powerful mobs. They're capable of unspeakably crazy things, like toss toss leaves in harbors, hurl bricks, and vote Sarah Palin into the White House.

Such an irrational and self-destructive act might be impossible to understand. But you must strive to at least understand the rage that incites such behavior. And maybe look at your rational self in the mirror and say "We need to slow down."

So belittle, bemoan, make your little jokes. But don't someday claim that nobody warned you.

Liberals Think You're Stupid

2010-03-24T12:00:00.000-05:00

The cartoon omits the part about 48% of the country hating the bill and only 45% supporting it.

We all know Liberals think they're smart. Everyone thinks they're smart. But Liberals specifically believe not only are they smart, they're smarter than you. So much so, that for your own best interest, THEY should run YOUR lives.

After all, Liberals read the New York Times. You read USA Today, or rather, you look at the color pictures and "analyze" the charts. And that's if you read any newspaper at all. You probably just sit in front of Fox News and think whatever Glenn Beck tells you to think. And that, of course, isn't how Liberals relate to the Times. They just happen to agree with the Times, because they and the Times are both so utterly intelligent.

The thing about us Conservatives is that we really all talk with one voice. What Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin say pretty much speaks for us all. When two or three assholes at a Tea Party rally shout racial slurs, they're representing all of us. If one Conservative is racist and/or ignorant, it logically follows that ALL Conservatives are racist and/or ignorant.

And that's sort of why we need Healthcare Reform, even though about half of us didn't want it. Because the 48% of the United States that doesn't want reform, is wrong. We're stupid. This young woman pretty much speaks for me. She's against Healthcare Reform, I'm against Healthcare Reform, it's probably for the same reasons, right?

The 48% of us just don't get it, do we? We don't want something that's so obviously grand and desirable like Healthcare Reform. How could we be so stupid? Reform means "to improve." Healthcare is a good thing, so what's wrong with improving something good? Only an idiot wouldn't want to make a good thing even better.

Those of us that don't want our insurance premiums OR taxes to go up, we simply fail to understand that the legislation will somehow lower premiums and taxes. And we're just paranoid for fearing that Government estimates of costs are always grotesquely underestimated.

Those of us that want to maintain the quality of our own Healthcare, we're either too selfish to spend our money to pay for someone else's lung cancer treatments OR we just don't understand how forcing insurance companies to accept people with preexisting conditions will lower the cost of insurance. We also don't get the crazy notion that a house insurance company should insure houses that are already on fire.

I'll not discuss the merits, shortcomings, faults, and horrors of Barack's Healthcare plan. It's passed, it's going to happen. Honestly, I'm not too sad. Because if the Republicans can find a decent candidate in 2012, well they'll have endless ammunition to fire. There's just something about us Americans, we don't like it when Government tells us what we should want. We tend to do something about it.

I voted for Scott Brown, so did 1,168,106 of my fellow Massicans. He won an election, in the most Liberal enclave of the country, based on being against these Reforms. So what was Barack and Pelosi's response? To ignore us and go ahead anyway.

Who cares what voters in Massachusetts declared? Apparently a Commonwealth with Harvard and MIT is just as stupid and ignorant as Arkansas and Alabama.

And that's what this Healthcare Reform is all about anyway. It's The Government making decisions for us. Because we're too dumb to do things on our own. At least Bill Maher has the stones to admit what Nancy Pelosi and the rest of those lefty elitists in Washington are thinking.

And I can't say that I disagree with him. People can be really stupid. But isn't that their right? If I don't want to learn about history, I don't have to.

I consider myself to be smart. So why should I be forced to take care of the masses of ignorant (48% according to the Gallup poll on Healthcare Reform) drones out there?

We're too dumb to manage our own lives, yet we're somehow smart enough to select someone who is. Why even hold elections if we're so stupid?

Barack is patting himself on the back for this sweeping, groundbreaking, historic legislative concoction of his. Yet there's no mandate for such dramatic change to occur. More people are against it than for it. And even if the polls are in error, there's certainly no clear or decisive majority driving this legislation through Congress at such breakneck speed.

Barack can spout the word "bipartisanship," but when it comes down to it, he and the Democrats are only interested in bipartisanship if the Republicans happen to agree with them.

Abraham Lincoln famously said that this Government is "Of the people, by the people, for the people." Yet it hasn't listened to the people, it's ignored them. It claims to be working for the people, while at the same time dismissing them.

The loudmouth morons at Town Halls and in Tea Party rallies may be morons, but a moron gets 1 vote, a genius gets 1 vote. We're a lower-case "r" republic, which means that we choose people to REPresent us in Government. Not control us.

At least, that's how it's supposed to work.

Undressing the State of the Union Address

2010-01-28T14:00:00.001-05:00

Well, yesterday was Barack's first State of the Union, or as ultracool New York Times readers now call it: SOTU. These are the same people who say "Gitmo." These clowns are obviously too cool for the entire word. Or as they'd put it, TCFTEW.

Anyway, I'd like to quickly address Barack's main points from last night's speech. In a general sense, this was a "Restart Switch" for Barack. The word "healthcare" didn't slip his lips until almost halfway thru (in terms of word count, it was well over 3,000 words in).

This was the life and death issue of the universe the last few weeks. What's changed?

But Barack mostly talked about the economy. I think he's realized that it's what people in the chewy center of this country (politically and geographically) are most concerned about.

"And if we had allowed the meltdown of the financial system, unemployment might be double what it is today."

Thank you, Barack! Finally someone wants to say it. Kind of. For every dumbass that bitches about "a bailout for Wall Street, but not for Main Street," these words should be tattooed to the inside of their eyelids. The banks have mostly repaid their bailout money. Get over it.

Barack spewed a lot of gibberish, mentioning the names of various Anytown, USAs.

Then came the meat of the sandwich. The part of the Address when the President outlined his agenda for the upcoming year.

He mentioned his desire to impose a fee on banks in order to pay for future bailouts.

"I know Wall Street isn't keen on this idea, but if these firms can afford to hand out big bonuses again, they can afford a modest fee to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need."

Just when I'm starting to like Barack, he goes back to the populist rage BS.

This incessant class warfare incitement has gotten old fast. 'Big bonuses to rich Wall Street fatcats.' Might as well call them Shylock (I'm not implying there's Antisemitism, it's just an allusion to the centuries old tradition of despising anyone who lends money) This is a nice sentiment, to force banks to pay for their own protection. But at the same time, who'll shoulder the burden of these fees? Customers.

Make banks pay to insure themselves. It can be presented that way without all the anticapitalist rhetoric.

It's not a bad idea, really, but there are costs. The big banks aren't going to stop paying big bucks to their highly sought after execs. They'll simply charge you more to use an ATM.

"Because of the steps we took, there are about two million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. 200,000 work in construction and clean energy. 300,000 are teachers and other education workers. Tens of thousands are cops, firefighters, correctional officers, and first responders. And we are on track to add another one and a half million jobs to this total by the end of the year."

They saved government jobs. Which is all well and good, but at what cost? He repeated, like a machine gun, how he'd cut taxes. So with taxes down, and spending up, where's the money for these jobs come from? China. Which is where he also doesn't want our jobs to go. But they'll be collecting interest on the ruinous debt we incur to keep those jobs here. So the Chinese won't need to work.

Word of the day: myopia. Definition: nearsightedness, an inability to see things that are far away.

Then Barack talked about generating jobs.

"...you find out that even though banks on Wall Street are lending again, they are mostly lending to bigger companies. But financing remains difficult for small business owners across the country.

So tonight, I'm proposing that we take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat. I am also proposing a new small business tax credit – one that will go to over one million small businesses who hire new workers or raise wages. While we're at it, let's also eliminate all capital gains taxes on small business investment; and provide a tax incentive for all businesses, large and small, to invest in new plants and equipment."

Now I love the taxcuts. I'm almost always for a taxcut on anyone, even if it's not me. Taxcuts never hurt anyone but government bureaucrats.

But Government doesn't know anything about banking. It never has. The proposition of disbursing $30B to small businesses (through "community banks") sounds like a pretty idea, but there are thorns on that rose. Who determines who gets that $30B and under what terms?

If big banks, which are driven by the motive to profit, and are run by people who've spent lifetimes determining what loans are good and what loans are bad. If these guys are staying away from small businesses, doesn't that suggest that it's not a safe bet?

So essentially, the money the Government lent to the big banks, because of their failed risks, will be risked once again in investments that even the big banks find unsavory in this environment.

Makes sense to me.

Barack went on with infrastructure talk.

God, damn all the history teachers in this country to hell! The two weeks each one of them forces students to worship the New Deal are the cause of the Democrats' notion that those programs reinvigorated the US economy, instead of World War II (a war fought by the Allies with American vehicles, American equipment, fueled by American gasoline, transported on American ships, all of which was paid for by borrowing from America). Barack fancies himself the 21st century's FDR.

Unfortunately, he essentially is this century's FDR, who is so utterly overrated. FDR is the Brett Favre of Presidents.

Except Barack has an edge on FDR. Barack is green. All these clean energy programs. Programs which are grotesquely expensive if not for government incentives.

"China's not waiting to revamp its economy. Germany's not waiting. India's not waiting. These nations aren't standing still. These nations aren't playing for second place. They're putting more emphasis on math and science. They're rebuilding their infrastructure. They are making serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs."

Yes, let's be more like China. China's economic growth has been meteoric, but it's come at the cost of thousands of lives, and an atmosphere sodden with pollution. Now I know Barack would love to emulate a pinko country, but even he is against China's human rights and environmental crimes.

"You can see the results of last year's investment in clean energy – in the North Carolina company that will create 1200 jobs nationwide helping to make advanced batteries; or in the California business that will put 1,000 people to work making solar panels."

Government controlled jobs. That's what the Jeffersonian and the cynic in me sees here. If you work in an area favored by the Government, you'll be employed. Results don't matter, profit won't matter. So long as your line of work fits in with the current Government's agenda, you'll be employed.

"But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives."

More of your money. Enjoy Government deciding who gets to be employed and who doesn't.

Although thank you, Barack, for getting behind nuclear power and for drilling offshore.

Then he went on to exports. He wants America to DOUBLE our exports. Talk about optimistic. The US has been in a trade deficit since the 60s. And while I think Barack has a lovely idea here. How the hell does he intend to do it? And do it in 5 years, as he claims. Perhaps a Stalinesque 5 Year Plan?

Or maybe Barack's already got this scheme well underway. As he continues to borrow, the strength of the US Dollar will diminish. As the dollar devalues, it'll be more appealing for foreign industry to employ US workers. American sweatshops.

After all, the basic reason why countries like China and India export so much is that it's cheap to employ Chinese and Indian workers. So when €1,000 is enough to pay a US worker $50,000, German and Swedish industrialists will build factories all over our country.

He then ranted about the need to improve education, which I agree with. He had some weird, semisocialist ideas about student loans. But to be frank, I'm left of him in this area. I think the government should flatout PAY for citizens' college educations if they can get into that college and stay in it (and otherwise couldn't pay for that education). It's a good investment, and one that pays innumerable longterm dividends.

"That's why we're working to lift the value of a family's single largest investment – their home."

Please, keep government the fuck out of capitalist markets!

Even if you do good now, one day that good will be bad. Government exists to regulate markets and protect investors from scams. It doesn't exist to exert positive influence in those markets.

Government can forcibly increase the value of homes, but such an increase would be artificial. And if the value of homes rise, so does their price. Which means fewer people can buy homes, unless they indenture themselves to monstrous mortgages. And isn't this all familiar territory here?

Then Barack discoursed about healthcare.

" I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people."

In predictably typical liberal fashion, Barack explained the lack of support for his reforms due to a lack of understanding. After all, the only reason someone would dare disagree with a liberal is if they didn't understand the liberal's obviously superior intelligence.

"Do not walk away from reform. Not now. Not when we are so close. Let us find a way to come together and finish the job for the American people."

I'm very thankful for the 59 Senator speedlimit he now has to observe.

Then Barack passed the buck (or seval trillion bucks) for the budget deficit...

"By the time I took office, we had a one year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program. On top of that, the effects of the recession put a $3 trillion hole in our budget. That was before I walked in the door."

Imagine if the captain of the Titanic turned over command to his Executive Officer. So the XO, inheriting this huge problem, decides to hit a smaller iceberg. Then when questioned, his first response is "Well Captain Smith hit an even bigger iceberg, and we were already sinking."

"Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years."

This sounds like me when I struggled through quitting cigarettes. "I'll quit after the weekend... after the World Series... after the Super Bowl... at the end of the semester... at the end of summer..."

"...which is why this freeze will not take effect until next year, when the economy is stronger."

And what if the economy isn't stronger? Will we smash into more icebergs in an attempt to fix it? Will we spend more, or stop spending? Will we dig up?

Barack touched on the need for government clarity and transparency. And less pork. All good stuff, but stuff I've heard from previous Presidents. I'll believe it when I see it.

"I never thought the mere fact of my election would usher in peace, harmony, and some post-partisan era."

But the Nobel Committee sure did.

" And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that sixty votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town, then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership"

Well with 41 Senators, how do you push new legislation? How do you show that leadership? And just because Republicans disagree with Barack's particular version of "change," doesn't mean that the GOP has simply tried to slow everything down. They're trying to slowdown Barack's agenda. And I for one am glad they're doing so.

Barack moved on to defense, surprisingly late for a President in a time of war, and surprisingly early for a Democrat. In a stanza filled with reassuring rhetoric about how secure our national security is, he threw this in.

"We have prohibited torture..."

No matter your moral stance on torture of terrorists, does the fact that we don't do it anymore make you feel "safer?" It doesn't make me feel safer.

"That is why North Korea now faces increased isolation, and stronger sanctions – sanctions that are being vigorously enforced."

Because sanctions are typically sufficient to deter hardline maniacs from doing crazy shit.

"And as Iran's leaders continue to ignore their obligations, there should be no doubt: they, too, will face growing consequences."

Such as a stern talking-to, and no dinner before bedtime. Why do we treat murderously psychotic despots like misbehaving 5 year olds?

"We are working with Muslim communities around the world to promote science, education and innovation."

Unless you're a woman, then no science for you.

By this point in Barack's speach, we're well into the random torrent of miscellany. We got X number of people in Haiti. We gave money to AIDs research. Et Cetera.

"We finally strengthened our laws to protect against crimes driven by hate."

This feeble attempt to use logic is why I'll never be liberal. To suggest that prosecuting crimes driven by prejudice more harshly will somehow reduce their likelihood is bananas.

Racists who are crazy/stupid/hateful enough to commit so-called "hate crimes" are insufficiently reasonable to comprehend that they'll now go to jail longer for beating up a black guy. All violent crimes are a form of hatecrime, no matter what color the perpetrator or victim is.

And so i'll summarize Barack's speech with a few bulletpoints:

#1: We need more bipartisanship, especially from the Republicans (which was, in and of itself, a partisan attack)

#2: I'll pretend to still care about healthcare reform, but I'll not talk much about it anymore

#3: I think taxing rich people and greedy corporations and borrowing from China is a good way to create jobs.

#3A: Those new jobs, of course, will all fall in line with MY agenda, so things like green jobs, government jobs, and anything Al Gore would approve of. Those kinds of jobs.

#4: It's time for an end to divisive tactics and rhetoric. Did you hear that you rightwing nutjobs?

#5: All your problems are W's fault. Yeah, my campaign duped you into believing I'd fix them with a snap of a finger and yet they remain. Whoops.

The Scott Heard Brown the World

2010-01-20T13:00:00.001-05:00

Rejected but still quality potential headlines for this post:
Brown Out
What Will Brown Do For Us?
Great Scott!
The World Turned Upsidebrown
Warp Speed Ahead, Scotty
Scott DOES Know

And the grotesquiest:
Dems Can't Wipe the Brown

"(R-MA)"

That combination of characters is simply foreign to me. Republican from Massachusetts. I never thought it possible. My entire 25 year life, I've had two Democrats representing me in the Senate. And I'd always presumed that it would always be the case. I never dreamed that this FACT would ever be challenged, let alone changed. The sky is now red (blue to red, get it?), water is now dry, fire is now cool.

One more sentimental paragraph before we break into sterile political reality. I was so thrilled to vote yesterday. Because it mattered. It mattered here in The Commonwealth, and it mattered across the country. It was a first for a young Massachusetter, who's accustomed to his deep blue state. Win or lose, the vote that I recorded in the 3rd cubicle on the left at the Balch School Gym in Norwood was enabled, virile, powerful. The country felt my vote today, and not simply because my man won (another first).

Scott Brown vs. Martha Coakley was a bit of a Perfect Storm scenario. Coakley was a forgettable candidate. Her campaign was presuming, dissociative, unnoticeable and then exceedingly desperate. I'll summarize her campaign strategy. "I'm Martha Coakley, I'm a Democrat, I'm running for Senator." The campaign didn't even ask you to vote for her. It just assumed you would because of the D next to her name.

I mean, this woman was just on another planet from the average voter.

Compared to:

Magnificently quaint. Even the echoing, homemade acoustics of the commercial make you FEEL like you're in the livingroom with them. It can be dismissed as political BS, but BS works!

Scott Brown was relatable, likable, slick yet simple. It was a good incumbent's campaign. They used his obscurity to his advantage, turning him into a newcomer, the outsider, the reformer. You do an image search for "Scott Brown" on Google, and in the first 3 pages, there's 1 picture of him. The rest are of a Scottish soccer player.

Coakley's poor campaign, Scott Brown's smoothness are what pushed Brown over the top in a close race. But what made it close was the backlash against the Democrats in Washington.

Some conservative pundits on Fox News were thrilled last night. They saw this as a booming anti-Barack voice from the heart of the leftwing's motherland. And it should be mentioned that Massachusetts hasn't had a Republican Senator since the 70's. Barack won Massachusetts by a whopping 25.8%. 61.8% of Massachusetters voted for Barack little more than a year ago. Democrats outnumber Republicans 3.5:1 here.

Massachusetts doesn't hate Barack. And I think it's too early to suggest that America wants somebody besides Barack in the driver's seat. And they seem to be fine with Pelosi n' pals being the backseat drivers. But Americans want to put a speed limit on this car. And that's what this election effectively does.

If you laughed at this shirt, you're a major nerd

The Democrats have railroaded about 3 years worth of ultraliberal legislation through Congress. But the US Government wasn't built for speed. Or comfort. Or motorboating. It was built to be slow, cautious, difficult to change. The Founders studied the descent of the Roman Republic into tyranny, and learned from those mistakes. They therefore constructed a system with checks and balances.

Change is good, but our system is meant to keep change at a snail's pace. New bills need to be examined, for longer than 10 minutes.

Slow and steady wins the race. Didn't the Democrats read the tortoise and the hare?

When you start messing around with healthcare, the people get nervous. They want to know what's going on. The Democrats failed to let us in on their designs. They just wanted it passed, and passed ASAP, whatever 'it' was. Just like they shoved their stimulus packages through.

The election of Scott Brown is an indictment on the Democrats' stranglehold in Washington, but not nearly a conviction. And this is Massachusetts we're talking about here. The home of MIT, Harvard, BC, BU, Northeastern, etc. These are smart people who have college+ education and put their kids in private high schools. These people have white collar jobs, drive hybrids, wear suits, and vote for Barack Obama. These are smart, educated people. These aren't the "Tea-Baggers" that Democrats prefer to demean and dismiss as ignorant instead of addressing their questions.

If Massachusetts wants Barack to slow down, what speed limit might the rest of the country want to implement?

"Wake Up Call" will be the buzzphrase of the cable news pundit from now until November. And this is clearly a call for Democrats to rise and shine. But is that a good thing for conservatives?

Of course I'm happy that it's 59 to 41 in the Senate. I'm happy that the Democrats might move back toward the middle. And that's great for the here and now. But a parable:

A boy is given a horse on his 14th birthday. Everyone in the village says, "Oh how wonderful." But a Zen master who lives in the village says, "We shall see." The boy falls off the horse and breaks his foot. Everyone in the village says, "Oh how awful." The Zen master says, "We shall see." The village is thrown into war and all the young men have to go fight. But, because of the broken foot, the boy stays behind. Everyone says, "Oh, how wonderful."
The Zen master says, "We shall see."

What if we've woken up the Democrats, so they slow down their socialisms, and they maintain their solid majority in the 2010 elections? I guess so long as they're closer to the middle with their policies, it isn't so bad.

For conservatives out there, celebrate but don't rejoice. This isn't the "beginning of the end" for Barack or his disciples. It's certainly the end of the beginning, but we shouldn't revel much in having only 41 Senators in Washington.

For liberals out there, get over it. You guys are still driving, and still have the map. Is it really so much to ask that you consult us when deciding when to stop to use the bathroom? Some anonymous liberal reactions I've observed so far:

"Voting for Scott Brown is something I cannot understand when so much for the common man is riding on him losing this election."

The fact that liberals fail to grasp why we voted for Brown is precisely why we voted for Brown. Liberals just don't get us, they get the New York Times.

"That seat, held for nearly half a century by Mr. Kennedy, the liberal lion of the Senate, will now be held by a Republican who has said he supports waterboarding as an interrogation technique for terrorism suspects; opposes a federal cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon emissions; and opposes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants unless they leave the country."

So maybe the same population that voted for Kennedy 8 times, doesn't much mind water-boarding terrorists, don't give two shits about carbon emissions (who has ever won or lost an election on carbon emissions?), and are fine with illegal immigrants remaining illegal immigrants. Maybe the People of the Commonwealth care more about their taxes, their jobs, and their healthcare.

"Yup, I am moving to Brazil."

Really? Because you can no longer ram bills through the Senate no questions asked, you're going to move out? WOW! Spoiled!

"Goddamn it, Massachusettes. Thanks a frigging lot."

Hasn't Massachusetts done enough for the left? Certainly disproportionate to its population it has. Ted Kennedy, JFK, RFK, John Kerry, Mike Dukakis, Barney Frank, et cetera, et cetera.

"I think the dems need to make sure they're organized, more than they need to change course."

Now this is music to my ears. Don't change policies, try to change campaign strategies. Please, please, please, pretty please with sugar on top!

While Coakley's pitiful campaign was ultimately why she lost the close race, it wouldn't have been close if not for thousands of disgruntled moderates. Barack's liberal agenda makes them anxious. We don't know what the liberals are actually doing, but it's coming at us at 400 MPH. That's alarming.

I'll compare this race to baseball. Coakley's bullpen ultimately cost her the game, but a better offense and starting pitching performance wouldn't have given a bad bullpen the chance to blow a 30 point lead.

I'll compare it to the 4th & 2 play the Patriots had against the Colts. While Belichick's decision to go for it on 4th & 2 arguably decided the game, the Patriots' poor performance in the Red Zone on previous drives would have never let this one play affect the outcome.

I'll end this post with a short bit about Scott Brown's future role in the Republican Party. Kid's got potential. If politics were baseball, he's just been called up to the Majors, has a 96 MPH fastball, and a wicked slider. He's still just a prospect though. But he has done something no Republican has done since 1972. And he's gonna get lots of national publicity for it.

He's got an American Dream kind of family, one daughter is pre-med, the other a rising star in the singing world who also plays basketball in the ACC.

Thus far, he has the raw materials to be much more than a Senator. Now plenty of politicians with the same talents have come and gone in the past for both parties. But it's worth watching what Scott Brown does in the Senate.

There's a vacuum in the GOP. There's a groundswell of anti-liberal sentiment, but there's no heroes to get behind and vote for. There are loudmouthed figureheads (Palin, Beck, Limbaugh). Wise, respected statesmen (McCain). But there are no clear leaders. Not yet. Brown might someday be one of those leaders.

Brown for President in 2016?

I Don't Want to Pay for Your Abortion

2009-12-28T15:00:00.000-05:00

I don't want to pay for your abortion. I don't want to pay for your operations. I don't want to pay for your medicines. I don't care if your life is on the line. Call me an asshole, but if I wanted to pay your medical bills, I'd write you a personal check.

I'm employed part-time, so my measly crumbs of tax payments will only pay for a infinitesimal, negligible, invisible morsel of your medical procedures. But then there's also that phantom I call "indirect taxation." Somewhere, some wealthy person cannot afford to expand their security company and hire new help (me), because they're paying for your abortion. Several hundred upper middle-class folks can't afford to go to a BC hockey game, and my company has to reduce its staffing for the event (me). All so some alcoholic in Des Moines can get a new liver to tear up.

Now, I'm not exactly pro-life. I'm not exactly pro-choice. I'm pro-apathy when it comes to abortion. I don't denounce those who have abortions. It doesn't affect me, so I don't much care. I just don't want to pay for it. And that's not a moral stance, it's a fiscal one. Quite simply, my fucking money should stay my fucking money. It shouldn't be used to undo your fucking.

Abortion is elective, it's not healthcare. Unless, of course, the mother's life is at stake. And don't try the old "Well, if the mother can't afford the baby, their life actually is at stake." I'm afraid that argument is preposterous. Doctors are not supposed to be financial planners.

Let's just reduce that lame-brain argument to absurdity, for fun. Should the government pay for an aging, fattening supermodel, with no education and no ability to do anything else; to get a tummy tuck? After all, if she doesn't get it, she'll be unemployed and poor and unable to support herself.

Barack and his cronies want us to pay for abortions. Even if we're zealous pro-lifers, or even if we're sterile/barren, or even if we're abstinent, or even if we use protection. Where in the Constitution does it give people the right to free abortions? Was the Revolutionary War fought over a lack of social benefits from the British Government. Did Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, plead for a government that took care of its citizens' doctor bills?

I have no problems with a charitable trust to pay for abortions for women who can't afford them. A PRIVATE charitable trust. I don't mind giving it tax-exempt status, and giving tax deductions or even credits to those who donate.

But elective abortions are not expenditures for which I'm willing to foot the bill.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are dozens of good reasons to be against socialized medicine. Not the least of which is the confusion of who gets control over things like this abortion issue.

Will elective abortions be paid for by the government? That's up to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. This is a Cabinet position, appointed by the President, and approved by Congress. In other words, abortions will be paid for by the government, when the government wants them to be.

This kind of confusion and potential alteration is a red flag. Isn't one of the goals in socialized medicine to keep costs stable, and predictable? Doesn't it seem weird that when Barack is in the White House, elective abortions will be covered by the government. But when/if Sarah Palin comes to town, they probably won't be?

Doesn't this incongruity suggest that elective abortions are not a healthcare necessity? When Palin, or another adamant pro-lifer is in the White House, will anyone die because they weren't granted a free elective abortion?

Doubtful.

But the government will control healthcare. They'll control the definitions of healthcare. They'll eventually control health. What is healthy, what is unhealthy.

I admit that right now, the insurance companies wield this power. BUT, at least we as consumers still maintain the control of selection. Premiums are contained thanks to capitalistic competition, as is quality of product. Health insurance isn't so expensive because the healthcare companies are run by Ebeneser Scrooge and Henry F. Potter.

It's expensive because drugs need to be researched for years, and MRI machines aren't constructed from duct tape and aluminum foil.

Instead of consumers controlling the cost and quality of healthcare, it will be up to the government. Which succeeds so often in maintaining low costs and high quality. Remember the Big Dig? $22 billion for leaking tunnels.

Low cost, high quality.

Barack wants his healthcare reform passed because he'd rather have government workers (and their friends, relatives, neighbors) running your healthcare. After all, we can't trust DOCTORS to make proper healthcare decisions.

We've got to take medical decision-making away from doctors, and give it to bureaucrats who have no background in medicine!

The less control the government has on its citizens, the better. That's a simple axiom, espoused by many people who now adorn U.S. currency. Citizens should control the government, not vice versa.

Why are the Democrats so rushed in their healthcare push? Because November 2010 isn't far away. Despite what the media wanted you to think, Barack's Democratic cronies in Congress aren't exactly safe and secure. A few months ago, the media asked if the GOP was dead. (I answered)

As is natural in American politics, there's been a considerable backlash focused on those in power. And there are more than a few Senatorial and Representative seats up for grabs in 2010 that could affect the balance of that power in both Houses.

The Democrats, for all intents and purposes, currently have a filibuster-proof majority. This means that legislation cannot be held up by purposefully long-winded speeches, which are meant to indefinitely delay voting on an undesired bill.

The Democrats have this power because of 312 people in Minnesota. That's how many votes Al Franken won the 2008 Senatorial election by. 312. That's about one millionth of the US population, and this microscopic sliver of citizens have helped assure that we'll have socialized healthcare.

And because of those 312 Minnesotans, one of the most expensive, and most important pieces of domestic legislation this side of the New Deal (both sides can agree on its importance), doesn't even deserve more than 10 minutes of debate.

The Democrats are smart to hurry. They'll see their legislation passed before they lose their 60/40 edge in the Senate. I just hope I don't get sick until January of 2011, when a new Congress, infused with the anti-Democrat, Tea-Party rage growing across the country, is sworn in. And at the very least, this monumental crapload of crap-legislation can be inspected properly and thoroughly.

Barack the Conqueror

2009-12-16T09:30:00.000-05:00

Only Barack could get away with extending a war and receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in a 10 day span. The deification of Barack the Conqueror/Peacemaker continues unabated.

It was a funny reaction after Barack declared a Surge in Afghanistan on December 1st. "Surge" seems to be the new favorite word for TV pundits to sound like military strategists. I don't remember there being a "When to Surge, When Not to" chapter in The Art of War. Maybe the Chinese don't have a word for Surge.

The basics of the plan outlined by Barack is that the US fighting strength in Afghanistan will increase by 30,000 troops within the next 3 months. And in 18 months, we would begin to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.

Remember when Dwight D. Eisenhower set a timetable for US withdrawal from Germany? Wait, that never happened.

But I actually don't think Barack's plan is that bad. Essentially, he's giving a deadline to the Afghan people to put up or shut up. If they can't handle their own shit in 18 months, then they're on their own.

What's funny was how unhappy EVERYONE was with Barack's decision here. Of course most people on the left were pissed that we'll still be in Afghanistan for years to come. But the conservatives who agreed with him were pissed that his speech wasn't zealous and zestful enough to inspire his soldiers. They unfavorably compared it to George Patton, Winston Churchill, even Henry V.

Except, Patton didn't roll through North Africa, Sicily, France and Germany because he gave good speeches. He did it because he was a ruthlessly aggressive expert in armored warfare.

The British didn't fend of Nazi Germany's Blitz because Churchill was a fantastic orator. They did so because of radar, an efficient organization of their fighter command structure, and outright blundering on the part of Germany's Luftwaffe.

The British didn't win at Agincourt because Henry V gave an inspiring speech. They won because it rained, and the heavily armoured French were immobilized and even drowned by a deluge of mud.

In the movie Braveheart, William Wallace gives this rousing speech before the Battle of Stirling Bridge.

You may remember that in the ensuing combat scenes, there's no bridge present. The REAL Battle of Stirling Bridge took place on a bridge. The Scottish allowed some of the English/Welsh to cross, then slaughtered them piecemeal, before the entire English army could come over. But that's not very cinematic, is it?

You don't have to know much about history to know this: no war has ever been won by a speech. No war has ever been lost by a speech. Wars are won or lost by men (and sometimes women), equipment, and decisions.

In an effort to please everyone, by extending the war in Afghanistan but also establishing a deadline, Barack has pleased almost no-one. There's a good lesson there. Yet he'll still have that Peace Prize. If by some miracle the Afghans figure out how to run a country (something they've never even tried to do, ever), I'm sure Barack will be given the credit, not the soldiers, not the Afghans.

If in 18 months, things are no better in Afghanistan, we'll begin the withdrawal, and Barack will still get credit for keeping the war "short." Even though it will be over 10 years old at that point. So Barack's taking a hit right now, but eventually he can claim credit for a victory, or for minimizing a loss. It's political genius, not military genius.

This whole war on terror is still fucked up and unwinnable in any traditional sense. Imagine playing chess against someone who moved his rook diagonally, or moved pawns 3 spaces at a time, or shifted his white bishop to black squares?

When countries like Iran and Pakistan willingly or unwillingly harbor terrorists, and yet no American soldier sets foot in them, you simply can't hope to win. In fact, these countries are the more dangerous in this War on Terror. When the Taliban and al-Quada were buddies, it was easy to go into Afghanistan and obliterate the Taliban. But when the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia simply look the other way, it's a lot harder to go into there and crack some skulls.

So what strategy should we implement for the War on Terror? An old one, but an effective one. The War Party. Kill your enemy, then leave. Simple, brutal, cheap, and safe. In Iraq, for instance, we could have left once Saddam had been captured, and the countryside scoured for those nonexistent WMDs.

But then you get the bleeding hearts worried about rebuilding countries after we destroy them, worried about military strongmen filling in the power vacuums. So be it. Who cares who runs Iraq so long as they stay in Iraq?

I don't care who the Governor of Rhode Island is, a state only 17 miles from my house. Why should I care who runs Afghanistan?

So here's the Zeitz Doctrine:

1. Establish a set of Commandments for foreign leaders to follow. Things like "Thou Shalt Not Train Terrorists to Attack the US or its Allies."
2. Forcibly remove any foreign government that breaks a Commandment.
3. Abrupt exit.

It'd be a whole lot more effective, and a whole lot less deadly (for everyone really), than trying to police the world.

Time to Take an Afghanistand

2009-11-19T17:20:00.001-05:00

Want to know what's funny. And I don't mean laugh out loud funny, but like "hmm, that is funny." I've been mulling with the idea of writing this post about Afghanistan for a few weeks now. I'm usually a few days, or even weeks behind current events when I finally write about them here. But my snail's pace is miles ahead of Barack's sloth-on-valium pace.

To be fair, it's a mighty large decision he's faced with in Afghanistan. But at the same time, it doesn't seem, at least on the surface, that he's spending all of his time working on this decision. I understand that it's difficult to weigh all the different factors involved in combat strategy, but it's impossible to weigh them if you spend little time near a scale.

Barack cares more about healthcare reform than Afghanistan. There, I said it.

And what has he done to demonstrate otherwise? He and his Democratic disciples spend more time talking about healthcare, debating healthcare, promoting reform, and writing lengthy bills. How many trees have been killed over healthcare reform.

It's time to review a little history. Like General Patton, I think studying the history of warfare is vital to mastering it in the present. But don't worry, this won't be a long-winded lesson.

Afghanistan has never been a nation-state.

It's been conquered by foreigners, although not lately. It's been a kingdom, but it's never been a true nation. What does that mean? Well, when you leave Boston and go into the sticks of Western Mass. or the rolling hills of Vermont, or the rocky expanses of the Crown of Maine, you don't fear for your life do you? Some tribe of New Hampshirians aren't going to steal your clothes. There's law and order outside of the heavily populated areas. That law and order spreads to and is contained by our national borders.

There's an idea of being an American, and it supersedes ethnic background or accent (usually). But the only thing that has unites people in Afghanistan as "Afghanis" is their hatred of American involvement. Other than that, they're a very loose collection of tribes. And that's what works there.

In the US, different municipalities have different governments. In the square states, county government is a big deal. They don't have towns. In suburban Boston, we have towns, and town meetings. In the cities we have mayors and city councils. People tend to develop ruling systems that can efficiently rule. Afghanis utilize a more tribelike system of government because it works there.

This situation is worse than Iraq. At least down there, there existed a slight framework of nationhood. But to be honest, the only kinds of government that can succeed in these shitty places is your token military strongman.

And should we be surprised by that? We think we're so clever with our Democracy. Yet look at our own history. It took this country about 140 years to have universal suffrage. And then 50 more years to really have civil rights for all. Do you want to spend 190 years helping Afghanistan figure things out?

What is victory in Afghanistan? I hear Bill O'Reilly and other conservative mouths proclaim that withdrawal from Afghanistan now would be defeat. We'd be letting the terrorists win. But don't these people also consider dying to be victory? What the fuck do we care what a bunch of crazy assholes think. If they want to think they're winning, let them.

We can't let Afghanistan be run by the Taliban because the Taliban supports terrorists. If we were to take this logic and apply it to other countries, we'd be involved in many more theatres of war. Iran and North Korea come to mind first and foremost, but also more than half of Africa, and even some of our allies. Are we going to try to install democracy in all of these countries?

To me, Barack's decision seems obvious. Victory remains undefined. It's impossible to fight for a victory when you don't know what it is you're trying to accomplish. Just imagine playing football or baseball if you didn't know the rules. Imagine playing chess without a King to checkmate. You'd just have pieces knocking each other off.

Pull out and monitor. Let the Taliban play in their own backyard. Just make sure they don't have too much fun. Support uprisings against them. But if Afghanis want democracy, we can only give them the tools and the wood, they have to build their own house.

But what the fuck is taking Barack so long? And how come he hasn't asked this one pivitol question: "Why is it taking me so long to figure out how to win this war?" Because you can't figure out what "winning" actually means. And therefore should seriously consider withdrawal.

Every day he mulls, ponders, and spends time talking about healthcare reform; the WRONG STRATEGY is still being used in Afghanistan. Whatever the right strategy is, it isn't being used right now. That much is certain. So every day spent thinking is a day spent fighting a war the wrong way. There are the most serious consequences for such hesitation. You made sure you brought cameras with you so we'd know that you know this.

I know Barack doesn't want to fuck this up. But by spending so much time trying not to fuck up, he is indeed fucking up.

And sadly, all America, liberal, conservative, and inbetween, cares much more about their own health plans than they do about the war.

WTF, Maine?

2009-11-11T11:00:00.002-05:00

52.8% of voting Mainers voted "Yes" on Question 1 in the recent election. Question 1 was a binding referendum to reject Maine's recent gay marriage law. In other words, "Yes on 1" meant "No on Gay Marriage." So by public acclaim, Maine is now removed from the ranks of states that allow consenting, unrelated adults to marry whomever they want to.

Shame. But at least it was a close race, close enough to keep the issue on the proverbial front-burner, close enough that if only 3% of the voters change their minds, it will go the other way.

Those of you who've been loyal readers of this political blog might be surprised to hear that somebody (me) who thinks Ronald Reagan should be beatified as a Saint, would be for gay marriage (or as I prefer to phrase it "I don't care about other people and what they do with themselves"). But the truly dedicated, hardcore Ambi-Winger already knows how I feel on this issue:

Miss California vs. Barack Obama vs. Dick Cheney

Iowa Is More Progressive Than California?

Lone Star Tyranny

I have a question for the typical Anti-Gay Marriage conservative. And to liberals out there, or anyone who is Anti-Government-Sexual-Legislation, feel free to utilize this argument, because it's so juicy, it's so relevant, it's so contemporary, but like a ripe apple it'll spoil if you don't use it right now. Just pretend the next line is addressing the person you're debating against:

How come you're against government interference in health care, but you're for government interference in marriage laws?

Here's the anticipated comeback, it's a scare-tactic, actually it's a scare-diversion, even a deflection of the issue. Instead of talking about human rights vs. government rights to legislate human rights (e.g. murder laws=good, anti-gun laws=bad), the Anti-Gay Marriage advocate that isn't a religious nutjob will counter with an argument that scares the shit out of parents. It was the spearhead of the "Yes on 1" campaign.

I love the simplicity, and outright ignorance of a viewpoint like "I don't want gay marriage taught in schools." But I do see that in certain anecdotal cases, like the ones in the commercial, how irritating it could be to a parent. There's a simple solution, and I'll phrase it in question form:

Why the fuck is any marriage taught in school at all? It should be math, science, social studies, reading/writing, gym. I am against sex-ed in school, in all schools, because it's just a way for lazy parents to pay someone else to teach morals and values to their children. Sex-ed should be limited to biology class and should be called Procreation-Ed, or Reproduction-Ed. It should be taught in 6th grade bio class. Penis goes in vagina, ejaculation, fertilization, pregnancy, birth. Keep it clinical, keep it scientific, make kids memorize big words, use disgusting cross-sections, make sex as unfun as the rest of school is.

It seems like year after year, we as a society beg the government to take care of more and more of our problems. Then we bitch about how bad a job the government does. If you want your children to learn abstinence, teach them that. If you want them to learn about condoms, teach them yourselves. It might be awkward for you, but imagine being a junior high teacher having to tell 30 semi-pubescent tweenagers about fellatio and cunnilingus.

And you know what the "No on 1" people should have done? You know what Gay Marriage activists should do? They should be the biggest advocates of keeping gay marriage out of public schools. They should spend more money doing that than anything else. It's a road block and it's not going away.

Sun Tzu's Art of War can be summed up nicely in 3 words: "Make winning easy." If you eliminate this whole school crap, then people apathetic to BS like "sanctity of marriage" will come over to your side, or at least abstain from voting against gay marriage. Furthermore, your remaining opponents are more likely to expose themselves as bigots.

Maine disappointed me last week. I like Maine, I like Mainers. There's a down-to-earth hickness to them. They don't have the cosmopolitan fakeness or smugness of a typical Northeast liberal. They've got more common sense, but they're not book-stupid either. They allow individual Congressional districts to cast electoral college ballots individually (so if a district votes Republican, while the rest of the state votes Democrat, that Republican district can cast its vote for the Republican candidate. 48 of the 50 states don't allow this. For instance, all 54 of California's votes go to one candidate, even if 20 districts voted for his/her opponent).

There's hope for Maine, and there's certainly hope for most logical states. And gay marriage needs to be passed by votes and referendia, not just State Supreme Courts. Otherwise it'll be as illegitimate and scoffed as the BCS.

For non-sports fans:

The BCS is a combination of polls and math equations that select which 2 college football teams (out of 120) will play each other for the national championship. Big time college football is the only NCAA sport that doesn't determine a champion with a playoff system. The BCS has often been questioned, occasionally leaving undefeated teams out of the title game.

The people who want to see rights given to all need to play hard, get dirty, and even play dirty. They need to write ironclad laws AGAINST gay marriage being taught in schools. They need to make people FEAR government intervention in marriage by using history's facts (anti-miscegenation laws) and future's potential. That racist justice of the peace in Louisiana should be the posterboy of the gay marriage movement.

Compare your opponents to Hitler, confuse the issue, scare the hell out of reasonable people into thinking that they absolutely have to be on your side or something terrible will happen to their children.

And the Barack loving liberals out there need to put pressure on their man in the White House and their people in the Congress. There's little to no reason for Barack or any other centrist Democrat to support gay marriage, because there's no pressure. There's no criticism from the Left on this issue.

But it doesn't have to be that extreme in Maine, thankfully. 47.2% of people voted No on 1. If only 1/10 of these people ask their disagreeing friends "Why are you against government run healthcare but for government run marriage?" Then maybe Maine can be turned back. Or maybe Massachusetts should reacquire it, make it part of The Commonwealth like it was before 1820.

The Health of Capitalism

2009-10-22T13:03:00.005-05:00

Capitalism, like Julius Caesar, is slowly being murdered by a well-intentioned yet conniving coven of conspirators, each holding a knife, each plunging their blade into capitalism's torso, each thrust drawing more and more blood. With each angry stab, what was once a healthy body is deteriorating into a corpse.

Who mourns for capitalism? After all, it's the system that allowed slavery. It's the system that turned peaceful nations into warlike empires. It's the system that denied you a mortgage. It's the system that repossessed your engagement ring. It's the system that made your health care and your health insurance more expensive than gold-laced cocaine.

Capitalism breeds materialism. He with the most toys win. Consumption, consumption, consumption. It leads to sweat shops making sweatshirts, Wal-Mart forcing small businesses out of business, brand new brand labels that label us as shallow and materialistic.

In a recent TV interview, Michael Moore described capitalism as a system in which "The people have very little to say as to what's going on." And he's right. When a person chooses between Pepsi and Coke, neither company asks the customer what to use for ingredients. Neither company asks him how much a can of soda should cost.

When a man takes his family out to eat, he can't decide what's on the menu. Whatever's printed there is what's there.

When a healthy woman goes to her physician, she can't tell her doctor whether or not she needs to see him again in a week for yet another check-up.

When a family is looking to buy a new car, they can't call the factory and request that they make a more fuel efficient vehicle. The cars are already on the lot!

In 1985, when Coca-Cola decided to change the flavor of their soda, it wasn't the people's collective disdain for the taste of New Coke that removed the drink from the market. Didn't you know that it was all part of Coke's grand scheme to make people fall in love with their classic soda: eventually re-released and renamed Coca-Cola Classic?

The people had nothing to do with New Coke's death! How could people BUYING a product tell the company MAKING the product how to make it? And certainly people aren't more powerful than a multi-billion, multi-national goliath like Coca-Cola. It was all a classic Capitalist conspiracy.

Socialism is where you get choice. Just ask Barack, an intelligent man. The people have control in socialism. They control what everyone eats, what everyone drinks, what everyone buys. Socialism will give us free electric cars, and free health care, and free time. We won't need jobs because the government will take care of everything for us.

The great thing about socialism is that it has momentum. Once you get it started, it's almost difficult to stop it (as if you'd want to). You start off by taxing those greedy, cossack, rich swine who make $100,000+ a year. Then you spread that money around through necessary things like health insurance and car companies. Just like Barack has done and plans to do. And he is an intelligent man.

But why stop there? Once those rich people get taxed down to the level of the working class, there'll be no upper class to start businesses and employ the middle classes and lower classes. But what's fantastic about socialism is that we won't need employers! The government will employ people. In factories, and farms, and camps, and of course we need beefed up police departments to ensure nobody is hording personal possessions.

What's great about government involvement is that it usually makes things more streamlined, efficient, and cheaper. History books don't agree with this statement, but books can simply be altered to say that it's worked in the past. And so long as people believe in it, it will be true. Just like Tinkerbell can live so long as people believe in fairies.

What's even more phenomenal about government involvement in healthcare is that it will put a halt to ever-escalating costs. After all, health insurance grows more expensive as the quality of healthcare increases. Once the government steps in, the profit motivation will be removed, the quality will remain level, and therefore the price will remain level. So that's good. And if we're super lucky, the quality will drop, thus lowering the cost. Barack wants to lower the cost of health care. And he's an intelligent man.

Those big drug companies are the perfect examples of Capitalistic Monsters. Pfizer, the largest drug company in the world, had revenues in excess of $70 billion in 2008. And they only spent $11 billion of that to research new drugs!!! Companies like Pfizer should WANT government control. If that happened, they wouldn't have to spend a dime researching new drugs. Nobody would. And researching new drugs makes new drugs expensive. And nobody likes expensive drugs. Especially not Barack, an intelligent man.

What did capitalism do for you? It made you PAY for the computer you're reading this blog on. It makes you pay for the electricity that's powering the computer. It makes you work for the paycheck that you use to pay for that electricity. It makes you pay for the car to take you to that work. It makes you pay for the gas that takes that car to your work and to your vacation house down Cape Cod. It makes you pay for the beers you drink at the vacation house.

Worst of all, it makes you choose things. You have to go into the store and labor over which brand of chips to buy, or if you want 1% milk or skim. Then the prices. You never get to haggle over price.

You have to determine the price of that milk along with your fellow milk consumers. What a pain in the ass that is. That's no control! That's sharing control with other consumers. And who wants that?

And health insurance, that's the worst idea Capitalists ever came up with. The idea of spreading risk over a large group, thereby avoiding the potential of crippling costs that come along with unforeseeable and unanticipated medical catastrophes is just pure greed. It's people wanting to hang onto what's theirs. That's avarice in its purest form.

I mean what kind of system wouldn't give insurance to someone who is sick? A capitalist system. It's just like those diabolical greedsters at the auto insurance companies who won't insure a car that's about to go off a cliff.

I for one am glad that Barack is going to allow people with preexisting conditions to receive health insurance. It's polite. And it will surely reduce costs.

And I'm glad that Capitalism will be gone. Sure, I'll miss my computer, my car, Sam Adams Octoberfest, professional sports, quality movies, television, new medicines, new medical technologies, and my blog.

But I won't miss the lack of control I feel when I have to buy gas to take my car wherever I want to go. I won't miss my evil health insurance company making me pay premiums so that in the off-chance I contract H1N1 I'll only have to pay a $15 co-pay for my treatment. I won't miss MetLife doing all the legal legwork for me when I got into a hit & run accident a few months ago.

I'm glad we have a President who cares so much about us, and is so smart and wise. I'm glad he's supported by people similarly wise as he is. Hopefully the people of this country listen to him and his designs. Hopefully they give him license to cut his dagger of wisdom across Capitalism's throat. Because he is, of course, an intelligent man.

Here's to inspiration...

Et tu, Barack?

National Socialism and You

2009-09-28T12:53:00.002-05:00

It's become a habit of some conservatives to compare Barack to Adolf Hitler, and equate his economic and social policies to that of Hitler's Nazi regime. These conservatives do a great disservice to the conservative cause. Then again, equally ignorant people on the left of the US political spectrum called George W. Bush a Nazi. Everyone calls everyone a Nazi when they want to win a debate.

Godwin's Law states: "As a [debate] grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

As a conservative, these right wing ignoratti comparing Barack to Hitler aggravate me. They make the right look bad. But as an amateur historian, anyone comparing anybody to the left of Mussolini to Adolf Hitler pisses me off to no end.

Some really ignorant people are comparing Barack's economic agenda with Nazism. They point out that Nazi is short for National Socialist. When in fact, it isn't. It's short for Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. This phrase means "National Socialist German Workers' Party."

What is National Socialism? Well much like capitalism, there are different forms of socialism. The socialism of Germany from 1933 to 1945 is different from that of Communist Russia, and from the modern forms of socialism practiced today in the UK, Canada, Scandinavia, and elsewhere. The socialism practiced by Germans, unlike that practiced by Soviet Russia, allowed for individuals to own their own property and goods. So one could own a house, unlike in the USSR where the State owned the house.

The Nazis believed that capitalism was wrong. They believed a government should control the direction of an economy, instead of letting it go wherever the marketplace determined. At the same time, there wasn't nearly the amount of force exerted on the economy as there was in the USSR.

While the Germans' socialism wasn't as hardcore as the Russians', it was more extreme than the socialisms of the 21st century. Canada is a socialist country (relative to the US), but it is also a capitalist country. There's a free market in Canada, with prices set by supply/demand and not the government. People pay higher taxes, receive higher benefits from the government.

Let's say an economy is a road. The amount of government control is the speed limit. Here are some examples of how this analogical road would be under various economic climates:

Pure Capitalism: no speed limit
American Capitalism: 65 MPH limit for safety
Canadian style Cap/Soc: 65 MPH limit for safety, 40 MPH minimum for traffic flow
USSR style socialism: every car must travel at 50 MPH and split gas costs equally no matter how far they have to travel
Nazi-type Socialism: every car must travel between 50 and 60 MPH and drive the same brand of car made in Germany so all Germans are employed

The type of socialism Barack seems to support (socialized health care, billions of dollars to house people in danger of defaulting on their mortgage, buying General Motors) is more of a safety net socialism. And while I vehemently disagree with the ideals of this brand of socialism, it's not as extreme as the USSR's or Nazi Germany's.

And even if Barack's socialism is similar to Hitler's socialism, does that make it or him evil? Do we hate Hitler because he was a lousy economist? No! We hate him because he killed a few million people. The fundamental strength of the Nazis was their belief that Germans were superior to all races. All those rallies, all those concentration camps, all those tanks were built around that belief. Socialism was merely a side dish.

People have been comparing how similar Barack is to Hitler. How much people worship him. How children are literally singing his praises.

And all the "Hope," "Change," and "Yes We Can," is all bullshit, if you ask me. Barack's spread fear of an economic collapse, and is now spreading fear of a healthcare collapse. He hasn't changed the laws regarding same-sex marriage. And he cannot get his healthcare policies passed. He isn't Hope. He isn't Change. But he's also not a fucking Nazi.

Comparing people to Hitler seems like a good way to win an argument. It's half jokingly called reductio ad Hitlerum, or reducing an opposing viewpoint so it can be compared to Hitler/Nazism. Example: Barack wants socialism, Hitler wanted socialism; therefore Barack and Hitler want the same thing and are alike.

But this is such a stupid argument that only stupid people use, and it only works to win arguments against other stupid people. Once this country gets a Zeitzist regime, it will be against the law to use Hitler in arguments.

Albert Einstein spoke German. Adolf Hitler spoke German. Einstein=Nazi

Natalie Portman is a vegetarian. Adolf Hitler is a vegetarian. Natalie Portman=Sexy Nazi

Picasso was an artist. Adolf Hitler painted. Picasso is a fascist.

Hitler wrote a book in jail. Gandhi also wrote while imprisoned. So I guess Gandhi's writings are in the same category as Mein Kampf.

Hitler was German, and so was Albert Schweitzer. So I guess that hospital he built in west Africa was a Nazi hospital.

Hitler had a German shepherd named Blondie. So I suppose all owners of German shepherds hate Jews.

And that was me using reductio ad absurdum on reductio ad Hitlerum. Ship it.

I hate Barack Obama. I hate him and his policies with an unrelenting anger. I would rather a bunny rabbit be President than him. I believe he and his party are ruining our economic future. I think he's indecisive about Afghanistan and people are dying while he struggles to make a decision. I think he's a neo-socialist. I think if George W. Bush spent time trying to get the Olympics in Dallas, liberals would crucify him for it. But it's OK for Barack to go to Denmark to try to get them for Chicago (although Hitler had the Olympics in Germany in '36, hmmmmmmmm).

But he's not a Nazi. He's nothing near a Nazi. There's no Obama Youth movement. There's no propaganda on the scale of the Nazi's. I just said all that stuff about him in the paragraph above, and I won't be visited by the DNC in the middle of the night with a truncheon. He hasn't built concentration camps or invaded any countries. So until he does, let's keep things in context. And let's slap anyone you hear utter comparisons between Barack and Hitler.

The Health of the Health Care "Debate"

2009-09-17T15:34:00.000-05:00

The health of the debate itself is not good. In fact, it's dead. There is no debate over health care. You may think there is, but look closer. Is Jimmy Carter talking about health care?

No, he's talking about the liberal belief that conservatives are conservatives because they're racists.

Is Joe Wilson talking about health care?

No, he's talking about the Republican fear that Democrats want to give illegal immigrants the keys to their houses (Las llaves a sus casas). But Pelosi's reaction is priceless.

Is the artist who made this depiction thinking about health care?

No, he/she was thinking about how badly they failed history class. Comparing Obama to Hitler is like comparing W. Bush to Castro. It doesn't make sense.

I guess my whole point is that neither the liberals or the conservatives are making any points that are actually about health care. It's the same old political poop tossing.

But isn't the onus to make points on Barack and his party? They're the ones in power. They and New York Times pundits have had a field day making fun of jackass conservatives at town hall meetings.

The women is an idiot. But what the hell do Barack and the Democrats want in this "reform?" Do they want universal health care? A public "option?" They haven't figured out what they, as a party, want. They have sufficient votes in both houses to pass whatever plan they concot if they could only FIGURE OUT WHAT THEY WANT.

But what does Barack want? We know his goals: cheaper, more accessible health care. But we don't know his plans to reach these goals. Does he even know? Or is he like the Underpants Gnomes from South Park?

And remember back in January? Wasn't it the Republican Party and its conservative base that were in trouble? They said the Party was dead, and that conservatism was a dwindling minority in this country. The Republicans had no leaders except Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. Yet this leaderless rabble of hicks, racists, "tea-baggers" and ignorant fools have somehow scared enough swing-state-Democrats to ease up on the socialization of America.

And now we'll get the Barack-Attack. An all out multimedia blitz, utilizing tried and true rhetorical techniques delivered via modern vehicles of media. And the spearhead of this attack is fear. If we don't pass health care reform in the next 24 hours, everyone will explode!

I just want the government to stop spending, and stop spending now. That's the only thing I want the government to do as quickly as Barack wants it to reform health care. Complex things take time. Lots of time.

So just take a day off from spending. I'd like to have kids someday, and would like them to inherit the same opportunities I did, instead of a mountain of debt to China, a Dollar worth one tenth of a Euro, and the entire country babysat by the government.

And I want to talk about the actual legislation. I want Barack to just admit that he wants government run health care. He's done it before.

Just do it again. Just tell the truth, please. Barack, I thought you were hope, and change personified. A lying politician doesn't seem very changeful to me.

Curing Health Care Ignorance

2009-09-01T14:48:00.006-05:00

The greatest strength and greatest weakness of the Modern Liberal is optimism. This optimism is expressed as an undying faith in government (so long as it is a liberally run government) to solve all the problems of the world.

Take, for instance, the detainees at Guantanamo Bay (Miss Gitmo, if you're nasty). Here you have a bunch of guys who have been detained. Not arrested, not tried, not indicted by a grand jury. They're simply detained indefinitely. The liberals wanted these guys released because it's unconstitutional to hold someone without charging them with a crime.

But these dudes are terrorists, and nobody wanted them released. So the optimism of the Modern Liberal meets its ancient opponent: Reality. Barack then decides that instead of detaining them indefinitely, they'll be given "prolonged detention." It sounds nicer, and he even promises to create a legal mechanism to make it all legit.

So instead of doing what they set out to do (free the illegally detained), they're simply going to change the law to legalize their indefinite detentions. That's the kind of clever angleshooting (poker slang for circumventing the rules) that George W. Bush lacked.

And now to health care. does Barack want universal health care? No! At least, not tomorrow he doesn't. He does by the end of his first term, or at least that's what he said in 2007.

So what does he want? Why is it that I don't know what he wants? Why is it so hard to know things about this guy and where he stands on issues? Does he still smoke?

Barack's campaign wrote checks that his policies can't cash. HEALTHCARE IS EXPENSIVE. People live for 80 years now. They spend the last 30 of those years going to the doctor once a month. They spend the last 20 of those years taking 5 pills a day. They spend the last 10 of those years in nursing homes, taking 15 pills a day. They spend the last 5 of those years in intensive care wards.

That shit costs money.

We're able to do things with cancer that we couldn't do 10 years ago. So now a patient that would have died at age 40 in 1990, lives to age 60 in 2009. But that's 20 more years of kemo, pills, and doctor visits.

That shit costs money.

We're able to give EKGs at physicals, have an MRI machine at every hospital, and give people face transplants.

That shit costs money.

So as the cost of health care increase, the costs of health insurance also increase. That's how insurance works.

So I simply don't see how the government is going to reduce costs. Maybe Barack can explain it to me...

So he wants:

1. Cheaper healthcare
2. Choice in healthcare
3. Healthcare for all

Well that's great, but HOW? How do you make an X-Ray machine cheaper?

One proposal makes sense until it's scrutinized a bit (like most liberal policies). 46 million Americans are uninsured, and can't afford to pay their hospital bills when they get sick/injured. So the hospital has to eat the cost, which increases what they charge insurance companies, which increases the premiums insurance companies charge their customers.

Makes sense. If you insured these 46 million people, then this expensive conga-line of charges wouldn't have to take place.

But remember, insurance is based on that whole group principle. It's more expensive to properly insure 46 million people then to give 46 million people medical coverage. Or if insured by the government, it costs the same (that's if the government gets its numbers right, which it usually does, right?)

So including 46 million people among the insured DOESN'T reduce the costs of giving them care. Health insurance is based on the principle that it costs $100/year to care for 10 people, so each person pays $10, even though some people might need $15, or $20 worth of care, and others only $5.

It costs $X to give 46 million people health care. It will cost $X (and possibly more) if they're insured, and it will cost $X if they're not.

Then there's the argument that doctors give unneeded tests in order to fatten their wallets. I talked to my physician about health care reform and he was really offended by this notion.

I remember one time, I had blood in my urine. I drove from Ithaca to Boston to see MY doctor, in MY hospital, because the facilities in Boston are 1,000 times better than some farmer's hospital in Central New York.

I spent the day in Faulkner Hospital, getting bloodwork, peeing into cups, getting X-Rays. The tentative diagnosis was a kidney stone, but my physician wanted to make sure I didn't have bladder cancer. So I went to a urologist, and my bladder was "checked" in one of the most traumatic medical procedures imaginable. And if you're guessing where they put the tube-camera, all I can say is "I wish."

I guess that test was "unnecessary" according to some Super Liberal health care reformist, because I didn't have cancer. And I'm sure that Harvard/Pilgrim (my insurer) called up my physician and asked him why some 20 year old was getting a day of treatments and tests meant for a 50 year old.

But that's what's so great about my private sector capitalist health insurance. MY DOCTOR determines what tests are necessary and unnecessary. But he's watched by the bean-counters at my insurance company. Harvard/Pilgrim doesn't want things getting too expensive because there's COMPETITION out there. And I keep tabs on my insurance company, because if there's something cheaper out there, I'm switching.

The liberals also want to cover people with preexisting conditions, and somehow that will make things cheaper? It's just a fact that an 80 year old diabetic man with three kinds of cancer is more expensive to care for than a 25 year old woman who's at her ideal weight and exercises everyday. So how is insuring the expensive-to-insure, going to reduce costs?

One mantra of the liberals is to pay doctors/hospitals for "Quality" of their care, and not "Quantity." How the fuck do you do that? How do you measure the quality of a doctor's care?

I guess you could go by how healthy his/her patients are. But wait a minute, wouldn't that encourage doctors to fill their patient rosters with fit young people instead of the old and sick? My physician's patients are mostly 50+ (he was my mother's doctor, so I'm one of the few people under 30 that are under his care). How do you measure the quality of care for a physician like him? All his patients are getting progressively sicker, so I guess he's a bad doctor. Meanwhile, Dr. Greedy has the US Gymnastics team for his patients. They're all in perfect shape, so he must be a great doctor. GIVE HIM A RAISE!!!

Health care is not perfect. It's expensive, and people still die. But there's nothing any government can do about it without resorting to socialism. I guess you could make the richest 1% of the country pay for health care. And that sounds nice. But that means less people EMPLOYED by the richest 1%.

But what's another 5% unemployed in a consumer-based economy? At least they'll still have health care. They won't have anything else, like the freedom to go out and make a living for themselves, or the ability to positively contribute to society. But they'll have health care. It will be a long-line, inefficient, the-mayor's-brother-in-law-is-the-nurse kind of health care, but they'll have it.

Liberal Editing of History

2009-08-13T16:18:00.004-05:00

What are some words that pop into your head when you think about Richard Nixon? Scandal, cheat, Watergate, corruption, impeachment, resignation, dick, prick, asshole, and so on.

We all know about Nixon getting caught in the Watergate scandal, which has lead to the unfortunate tendency to add "-Gate" at the end of every scandal or potential scandal since then. See: SpyGate.

Did you know he pulled US ground troops out of Vietnam? Liberal leaning people will talk about his secret bombings of Laos and Cambodia, but they gloss over the fact that Nixon shifted Vietnam from a ground war to an air war. And Nixon negotiated the ceasefire with North Vietnam.

Oh yeah, he also opened relations with China, and tried to end the Cold War (or at least thaw it out a bit) diplomatically with Russia.

But he has an (R) next to his name, so he was not only a bad man, but a bad President. All that matters is Watergate. Anything he did before that has been ignored by the amateur liberal historian.

We're all amateur historians. We all formulate opinions on past events. Most of us think, for instance, that Hitler sucked. But the liberals among us don't just form opinions. They form facts. They edit history to glorify their own beliefs, and belittle opposing beliefs.

Real facts: 95% of Indians were whiped out by disease and not white men with guns. Most black slaves were sold by other Africans to white slave traders. Sam Colt was from Connecticut, and didn't invent the revolver to suppress slave rebellions. In fact, there were almost no slave rebellions. The NRA was founded by ex-Union Civil War officers in New York, and hardly had anything to do with the KKK, which was founded by ex-Confederates in Tennessee. The 8th President of the NRA was Ulysses S. Grant. Y'know, the guy who was in charge of the Union Army that freed the slaves.

And perhaps we all do it, but I just tend to notice liberals' skewings more. In my honest opinion, I think most people hold liberal beliefs in order to feel better about themselves. It's almost a psychological condition. They need to feel concerned about the environment, or health care for the poor, or people who can't afford to buy a house, all so they can look in the mirror and see a Saint.

So let's just take a stroll back through history with liberal lenses.

George W. Bush is responsible for our current economic crisis. Yes, because he was in charge when the bubble was growing. But Bill Clinton was NOT responsible for the collapse of the .com bubble. Even though he was in charge when the bubble was growing. In fact, under Clinton the economy was stupendous! Everybody had lots of money, and jobs, and bloated portfolios with Pets.com and $150 a share Amazon.com stock.

Even though all that money, all those jobs, and all those stocks were built on a foundation of imagination and not reality, the economy under Clintion was fantastic. Riiiiiiiiight.

Then there's Ronald Reagan. Liberals utterly refuse to give Reagan credit for anything. And every year, they belittle him more and more. They used to just say he was overrated as a President. Now they'll argue that he was a bad President. Eventually, they'll suggest he was the Antichrist, and was the harbinger of the Apocalypse (in 2012, right?). Liberals refuse to admit that supply side economics can work. They refuse to give an ounce of credit to Reagan for helping to end the Cold War.

Then there's JFK. Excuse me, to liberals he's St. John of Brookline. Maybe it's just because I'm in the epicenter of Kennedy love here in Massachusetts, but to me, JFK is the most overrated President in history. People equate him to Lincoln, which is like equating Carter to Washington.

The Cuban Missile Crisis (CMC). Listen to a Kennedy lover gush on and on about the CMC. How JFK was so calm, so collected, played a game of chicken and made the other guy blink.

Ever hear of the Bay of Pigs? 1,500 Cubans who had been exiled from their home by Castro's revolution, armed and trained by the CIA, invade Cuba. But without suppressing fire from the Navy, or air support, the invasion is a colossal failure. Who ordered this farce? JFK. Who ordered that there be no air support? JFK. So not only did he send these guys in, he sent them in with next to no chance of achieving their objectives.

In response to this 1961 invasion, Cuba runs to the open arms of the Soviet Union. The USSR places nuclear missiles in Cuba, which function as a deterrent to any further invasions.

But JFK never gets blamed for the Bay of Pigs, or for his part in CAUSING the Cuban Missile Crisis. He always gets credit for ENDING it. That's like training a dog to eat children's faces, then getting applauded when you stop him from biting some kid's face off.

Oh, and who increased the US military's presence in Vietnam from 800 men to 16,300 (that's a 2000% increase, BTW)? It was JFK. And liberals can't even fathom this. They point out that he was planning to scale down US involvement there before he was killed. That seems likely, but liberals go one step farther than this. They GLORIFY him for wanting to pull troops out. The same troops he sent there! Again, it's the face-eating dog all over again. He's praised for cleaning up the messes he makes. But in this case, he's praised for POSSIBLY INTENDING TO SOMEDAY MAYBE CLEAN UP HIS MESS!!!

Then there's FDR. And here's where we get to something dangerous. I remember in my junior high and high school history books, reading about the Great Depression. Junior year in HS we spent 2 weeks on the Depression (and only two days on World War II). We learned about the New Deal, and how great FDR's policies were. The alphabet soup of TVA, the AAA, CCC, WPA, CWA, FSA, FHA, the PWA, and the SSA. We were taught that all these programs got America out of the Depression.

But that's not the whole truth, is it? Government programs helped slow down the economy's decline, but they didn't stimulate it's regrowth. World War II stimulated the growth of the US economy, like snorting 15 lines of cocaine laced with Viagra and ecstasy.

We sold scrap metal and oil to Japan, tanks and planes to Britain, radios and jeeps to Russia, and we lent money. We lent money to countries so that they could buy stuff from us. Is there any better way to make money? Then after the war, we lend more money to all these war torn countries. We sell them our stuff so they can rebuild. Meanwhile, the only products they can buy are American, because we're the only country in the world with any industry left. That's how GM, Chrysler, and Ford got so big, they were the only game in town. Then Germany, Japan, and Korea rebuild their factories, figure out ways to make better cars, and so GM goes bankrupt.

I can go on and on about how much World War II boosted our economy, but most basic history books won't. They'll talk about how great the New Deal was.

And this is dangerous. Because right now, in power, are people who read the same kind of liberalized histories. These are people who think quasi-socialist programs can help turn an economy around. They think there's an historical precedent for this, and they're quite wrong.

Government spending and socialist style programs do have a place, even in a conservative capitalist's dream economy. Here's an interesting NY Times editorial. Also, note how the writer can't resist insulting Ronald Reagan. And my favorite liberal line was:

"Nonetheless, reasonable estimates suggest that around a million more Americans are working now than would have been employed without that plan — a number that will grow over time — and that the stimulus has played a significant role in pulling the economy out of its free fall."

So liberals estimate that liberal policies have worked, and they also estimate that their own policies will continue to work. Where people are getting these numbers of jobs saved is beyond me. Couldn't you use the same logic to suggest that Barack's helped 100 million people remain employed? Wow, isn't he AMAZING. Siiiiiiiigh.

But this guys broader points are dead-on. Big Government has helped keep our economy from tumbling down a cliff.

But, if the US economy is a freight train, then government spending is only the braking system. Every train needs a good braking system. Brakes help you slow down when you're going down a steep hill, as the economy has been doing. But brakes don't help you move forward. They don't help you get OVER the next hill.

When you reach the bottom of a dangerous hill, and slow to a safe speed, you get off the brakes and let the train's engines (the private sector) do their thing. You don't ride the brakes when you're trying to go uphill.

The lessons of the Great Depression were vital to preventing Depression 2.0 in 2008 and 2009. But I'm afraid that liberals didn't learn the entire lesson. They took the junior high history of the New Deal saving America's economy. They didn't realize that it stopped the decline, but was actually detrimental to future growth.

History is a great thing to learn from. Unfortunately, liberals don't want to learn from history. They seek only to glorify themselves through it.

"A Teachable Moment"

2009-07-27T11:30:00.000-05:00

That's how Cambridge Mayor E. Denise Simmons described the arrest of Henry Louis Gates. Only the Mayor of Cambridge could get away with not having a first name.

But she's right. The arrest of Professor Gates by Sergeant Crowley is an opportunity to learn many lessons. Lessons about people. Lessons about the media. Lessons about our society.

Imagine being pulled over by the police, for apparently no reason. You're driving the speed limit, using your turn signals, all that good stuff. You get pulled over, the officer walks up to your window, and requests "License and registration."

And you say "No." What do you think the officer's reaction would be? Even if you gave him/her your ID after that, do you think this officer would be happy with you? Do you think they'd let you go with that broken tail light you didn't know about?

Now let's say the cop misread your license plate and thought you were someone else. So you start yelling at the officer. Do you think the cop would just apologize and walk away?

Notice how in all of these hypotheticals, I never said what color you or the officer were? Because that doesn't matter.

Cops, as part of their job description, are jerks. Not all the time. But just like they carry a gun but don't always use it, they all have chips on their shoulders that they don't always use. Cops EXPECT to be treated with respect. Especially veteran cops. They expect to see a license when they ask for one. They expect you to pull over when they flash their lights. And even when they make mistakes, they still expect to be treated with deference.

That's just the way of things.

Here's what WE KNOW happened in Cambridge on July 16:

1. Gates got home, his door was stuck due to a previous break-in, he and his driver attempted to pry it open

2. Lucia Whalen, who works at nearby Harvard Magazine, walked by and saw this. She then called the police and reported a possible break-in.

3. Sargeant Crowley arrived at the scene. An argument ensued. Not surprisingly, there are two sides to this part of the story.

4. Once asked to bring the discussion outside, Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct

5. The charges were dropped upon the recommendation of the city of Cambridge and the Cambridge Police Department.

6. Barack began practicing yoga so he could properly jam his foot into his mouth.

Plenty of people have commented on this event. And I think most out there realize that this wasn't racial profiling, or racially motivated. Some still think it was, but these clowns also think that the criticism around Barry Bonds was racially motivated, or that everyone who voted for McCain is a racist, or that a term like "Africanized killer bees" is a racially based way to describe overly aggressive bees that come from Africa.

I'm more interested in the aftermath of this fiasco. I think the media's overreaction was a priceless example of how crappy news coverage truly is. I think watching a hyperactive overly sensitive nut like Al Sharpton jump to conclusions further discredits him, if that were possible. And then there was Barack's conclusion jumping, and his inability to apologize for doing so.

Barack assumed this was a racial profiling case. He saw what a lot of people saw: a man being arrested, apparently for breaking into his own home. Normally this would be a cop gone mad with power, unless the guy arrested was black, and the cop was white. Then it's racism. And this is my favorite assumption of all. There was no room for doubt that this was racially motivated. It couldn't just be a dickhead cop on a power trip, it HAD to be racially motivated.

Then Barack was asked some questions, admitted to not knowing the facts, then opined anyway. Imagine not watching a baseball game, not even looking at the boxscore, then answering a question about how the pitcher did.

Well, I should say at the outset that Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here... The police are doing what they should ...There’s a call. They go investigate. What happens? My understanding is that Professor Gates then shows his I.D. to show that this is his house, and at that point he gets arrested for disorderly conduct. I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that...But I think it’s fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry; No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and No. 3, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by police disproportionately. That’s just a fact

Two things piss me off the most. #1, calling the police "stupid." That word is completely demeaning. Even if you think the arrest was wrong or a mistake, that doesn't mean that the entire Department is stupid, nor does it mean that Crowley is stupid. Smart people make mistakes too.

#2, that thing at the end about cops. Yes, there are countless incidents of racial profiling, and other racist practices by cops, both in the past and in the present. BUT, it's an unfortunate generalization that Barack is participating in. He's criticizing cops for judging people based on color, and in doing so is a hypocrite because he's discriminating based on a group. Racial profiling is abhorrent, but so is being prejudiced against the color Blue.

Here's Michael Moore criticizing the entire NYPD, which boasts over 37,000 officers, for what 4 dumb, trigger happy, scared shitless morons did. Could you imagine judging 37,000 people (about the size of Norwood, MA or a full Fenway Park) for what 4 people did? Hmmmmm, judging people by the group. What's the word for that? Oh yeah, PREJUDICE!

And Barack did a similar thing. He mentions racial profiling and its unfortunate place in our history. But what does that have to do with anything in this matter? Because racial profiling HAS HAPPENED, it means that when a white officer arrests a black man, it's probably because of racial profiling? Isn't coming to such a conclusion a form of profiling? Because cops have done it in the past, they'll probably do it again. Those cops can't help themselves. It's in their nature to profile.

There are around 700,000 police officers in the US. Not all of them are profilers. I'd venture to say that an overwhelming majority are not.

Then there was Barack's non-apologetic apology:

Because this has been ratcheting up -- and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up -- I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think, I unfortunately... gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge police department or Sergeant Crowley specifically. And I could have calibrated those words differently. And I told this to Sergeant Crowley. I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station. I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Professor Gates probably overreacted as well. My sense is you've got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in the way that it should have been resolved and the way they would have liked it to be resolved [...] There are some who say that as President I shouldn’t have stepped into this at all because it’s a local issue. I have to tell you that that part of it I disagree with. The fact that this has become such a big issue I think is indicative of the fact that race is still a troubling aspect of our society. Whether I were black or white, I think that me commenting on this and hopefully contributing to constructive — as opposed to negative — understandings about the issue, is part of my portfolio

He can't just say that he was wrong? He makes it seem like by calling the Cambridge PD "stupid" he didn't intend to say anything bad about them. He could have "calibrated those words differently?" How the fuck do you calibrate words? What the fuck does that even mean? He can't even say that he used the wrong word, it was just improperly calibrated.

A politician refusing to admit he was wrong, dodging mistakes, not taking responsibility, falling on his face and pretending to have done it on purpose. Does that sound familiar?

And for all you change loving, hope mongering Obamanauts out there, this is your so-called different kind of President. He's a flim-flam man, a con artist, a politician just like every other politician. You may still think he's the best in breed among politicians, but his breed is the same as everyone else in Washington.

Health Care Reform on Life Support

2009-07-23T01:00:00.002-05:00

Barack's latest Hope Crusade: Healthcare Reform. Funny how we call things like this Crusades. The original Crusades started with seemingly good intentions of a pious and religious nature. But when the Crusaders actually went Crusading, they raped, pillaged, killed just about anyone they could. And in the end, only the First Crusade succeeded, with the following 7 failing (and as its supporting Crusades failed, the First one was also essentially a failure). And that's what Barack's Healthcare Crusade will be. Even if it "succeeds" it will only fail in the long run.

Healthcare's expensive, and the Uberliberals hate that. Who doesn't hate that? And being liberals, they think that Government can and should solve every problem in the world.

Healthcare is costly for many reasons. But here are the main ones:

1. It's very good, and very high tech.
MRIs, EKGs, blood work, and that's just the basics you'd get at a routine physical. Microsurgery and all the not-so-regular stuff is even more expensive. Then there are drugs, which take billions of dollars to research and develop. And no, you shouldn't make all drugs generic, because then drug companies would stop making them (no profit potential=no research)

2. We live longer
A 60 year old man needs healthcare much more than a 40 year old man. And a 20 year old man needs the least care of all. As the Baby Boomer generation grows old, they need more care. Which costs more money.

3. We're not healthy
Obesity overtook cigarette smoking as the #1 cause of death in this country a few years ago. Obesity leads to countless heart problems, diabetes, nutritionists, muscle problems, back problems, and so on. All these are extremely expensive to care for.

4. Insurance is no longer a form of risk management
Why have health insurance? In case you fall down the stairs, break all your ribs, you don't want the hospital to break your bank account to pay for the treatment. So you pay small monthly premiums, so just in case the worst happens, you don't have to pay crippling medical bills. In fact, you HOPE to lose money on insurance in the long run. You hope to pay more into your insurance than your medical expenses warrant. But these days, routine and regular visits to the doctor, as well as tests and prescription pills, are very expensive. Yet they're paid for by health insurance. That's not risk management, it's a payment plan.

So how does the government solve problems like our healthcare being so high tech and so good? By making it worse? Lower tech? Leeches were cheap, MRIs are expensive.

How does the government fix the problem of people living so long? Put little diamonds in their palms and kill them when they turn 30?

And what about the problem with the general health of Americans? You can't FORCE people to lose weight, quit smoking, and exercise. You can't make it illegal to be fat. I wouldn't have a problem with the government funding free public gyms and stuff like that, but it's unconstitutional to force people to be healthy.

Then there's that whole insurance/risk management thing. Now there's something the government could solve. You wouldn't expect an auto insurance policy to pay for your oil change, so why should health insurance cover physicals and other routine appointments? Perhaps this area of healthcare should be reexamined.

Is having health insurance an inalienable right? No. Absolutely not. Americans have the right TO BUY health insurance, but it's not something that should be given out by the government. It's not a necessity of life. Before the 1860s, no American had ever had health insurance. Modern health insurance didn't come about until the 1920s.

How did mankind survive before health insurance? Who knows? Scholars maintain the explanation was lost hundreds of years ago.

I do think healthcare could use some reform. But it's important to stay true to that word "reform." An overhaul is not reform. A complete 180° is not reform.

Malpractice law needs to be adjusted so doctors and hospitals are not overly targeted. Doctors should only be held responsible for death or injury if it can be proven that they were negligent or grossly incompetent. They shouldn't get sued for simply making a mistake, which is what humans tend to do. Malpractice insurance is a massive expense built in to health care. But of course, Nanny Liberals think that if someone goes to a hospital, but dies, then it's governments job to somehow fix the problem. And that's where you get frivolous malpractice lawsuits, which are very costly even when won.

There are too many lawsuits in this country as is.

Universal health insurance is not the answer. And I'll give an anecdotal reason why. Currently, government provides us with a free education through high school. Let's say a high school senior, who doesn't legally have to attend school, isn't trying, and fails all his classes. He's kicked out of school.

Now let's say we had universal health insurance. Some person isn't trying to stay healthy, weighs 400 pounds, has diabetes, heart disease, smokes 4 packs a day, and drinks a gallon of Jack Daniels every night. Shouldn't this person be ejected from a universal health care system? Does this person deserve public funds to be spent on their hugely expensive medical costs?

And if you think this grotesque kind of person is a rarity, then you've never been to Alabama.

Alabama Man - Watch more Funny Videos

Universal health care is a nice, pretty, happy idea. But like having a tea party on railroad tracks, it's a pleasant thought that inevitably will be destroyed by the harsh realities of life.

Government organizations are inefficient. This is because the best employees are snatched up by the private sector, and because most politicians are where they are because of who they know and/or how much money they have, not for any real merit.

Furthermore, our government IS DESIGNED to be inefficient. It's called checks and balances. It's an intentional obstacle to quick change. The people have to really want something in order for it to happen.

Adding government bureaucracy to healthcare will make it slower, more expensive, and of lesser quality.

I'm selfish, so I don't want to pay for people I don't know and don't care about to see their doctor. But maybe I'm in the minority. If so, why not put a checkbox on tax returns. Ask the taxpayer "Would you like to donate $x,xxx into the National Health Insurance Program?" See how many people check "Yes!"

Or we could just get the rich to pay for it. Tax from the rich, redistribute to the poor. I thought Barack was from Chicago, not Sherwood Forest.

Taxing the rich is great! And fun! They probably inherited their money anyway. Or if they didn't they schemed it away from people some other way. Then again, these are the people who invest in small businesses. These are the people who buy cars, giving the car salesman a job. These are the people who add guest rooms to their mansions, giving the contractor and painter and plumber and electrician a job. These are the people who hire accountants, lawyers, nannies, maids, butlers, and so on. These are the people who go out to dinner, give their kids $100 to go to the mall, and so on.

Rich people, unlike what liberals think, are not like Scrooge McDuck. They don't keep their money in vaults to swim around in. They do two things with money: spend and invest.

I have no qualms about taxing the rich to improve the public school system, or even heavily taxing inheritance to encourage people to spend more while they're alive. But it's very stupid to view the rich as a neverending pool of potential revenue for endless amounts of entitlement programs.

Social security is faltering, so tax the rich!

Healthcare is expensive, so tax the rich!

Red Sox tickets are too hard to get, so tax the rich!

So be careful what you tax the rich for. Rich people create jobs, just like Ted DiBiase created a job for Virgil.

Imminent Immigration and Entitlement Entanglement

2009-07-13T12:00:00.000-05:00

I can trace my paternal family lines from where I live in Massachusetts back through western New York, then back to Germany, then to the Ukraine and Russian steppe, eventually back to Africa. And on my mother's side, through Boston to Ireland, Scotland, and England, then back to Normandy, then Scandinavia as a Viking, and then back to Africa. We can all go back to Africa. Funnily enough, the 2 conquest obsessed sides of my family have frequently fought with each other for domination of northern Europe.

I'm a descendant of immigrants. Everyone in this country is, even Native Americans. The inscription on the State of Liberty reads:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

I don't see where it says "first come, first served."

Why were my ancestors the Zeitlers easily allowed into this country circa 1830? And how about the Kierans about 100 years ago? Why so much hassle about immigrants these days?

I believe America should be open to just about everyone except criminals (unless their crime was something like protesting an election in Cuba). Yet I can tell you precisely why I currently believe in tight immigration restriction. And it's the only problem i have with immigration. It also illustrates many of the difficulties of a socialist/welfare/nanny state.

I remember after a long, sleepless overnight flight from Washington to London; being grilled by the British immigration people. Before allowing me entry to England, they asked me to "prove that I would leave the country." They didn't want me staying there, benefiting from their universal health care and other social services. They eventually stamped my passport, leaving a mark that read "Employment and Recourse to Public Funds Prohibited."

Liberals hate illegal immigration laws. They want to give illegal immigrants amnesty to stay in the country. They fight against any drive to remove/punish illegal immigrants. And you may or may not have noticed that the stimulus packages contain no funds for improving border facilities in Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Coincidence?

And I'm actually with them. I think instead of barb-wire fences and border patrols, there should be Ellis Island type facilities, registering new Americans, and welcoming them to the country. But if and ONLY IF the United States is not a socialist welfare state.

If people are given free health care (actually, we should call it health care paid by others) at the border, it costs everyone money. I don't mind welcoming the tired, poor, and huddled masses of the world. But I'm selfish. I do mind paying for them.

And that's the dilemma of the Uberliberals and what they want. They want there to be no barriers to immigration. But they also want everyone to be given things like health care, welfare, medicaid, social security. That means that the arrival of every new American, typically without a job and with very little in their pockets, will quite literally cost other Americans money.

But of course the liberals don't care. They believe government can and should solve all the problems of the universe. They think everyone should be allowed into this country, and completely cared for by the government.

The liberals will point to semi-socialist states like Britain and Canada as brilliant examples of socialist successes. But do you know how hard it is to get Canadian citizenship? My cousin's been trying for years. He's got no record, works, has family in Canada, impeccable references, but it's easier to get into MIT than to become a Canuck.

It's one or the other. You can't give every American all these wonderful benefits while simultaneously allowing anyone in the world to become an American. That would be ruinous.

And once the entitlements stop. Once social security is either abolished or finally collapses under the weight of its own stupidity, once people decide that people need to take care of themselves, then I'll be one of the first to go down to Texas and process all the new Americans. Unfortunately, liberals tend to fight against reality. A battle they've always lost in the end.

Pulling Out of Iraq, Double Stuffing Afghanistan, and Ignoring Iran

2009-06-29T13:27:00.002-05:00

In a letter to the editor thingy I found on Boston.com, Ken from Arlington said:

"Obama was absolutely correct not to give Iran’s theocracy the benefit of appearing to meddle in its obviously rigged election process - a process to elect what is essentially the country’s number two leader.

"Condemning the violence that is occurring in Iran’s streets, rather than bringing that violence, as in Iraq, is a smart first step toward redefining democracy in the Middle East."

In other words, whatever Barack does, Barackis will adore him for it. This guy is praising Barack for ignoring an illegitimate election in Iran. This guy was probably one of the many liberals who protested the 2000 US election. There was a very well written comment in support of this letter. In parenthesis are my thoughts:

"Brilliant letter! (it agrees with me, it must be brilliant) Jeff Jacoby is consistently blinded to facts on the ground by his own right wing ideology (conservatives are always wrong because they're conservative). He seems incapable of an evolution in thought and political analysis, still clinging to 'evil-doer' dualism and American triumphalism (I support ismism). You might think he would recognize that Bush's belligerent rhetoric on 'Democracy' gave us Hamas, the empowerment of Iran following our invasion of Iraq, and global enmity for torture (He also started the IRA and he's responsible for the Oklahoma City bombings). Jacoby in effect justifies all of this philosophically. It's ugly stuff. And of course he completely misses the new paradigm President Obama has initiated in the mid-east. Under Bush there was no dissent in Iran, they were united against the U.S (before Twitter we had no clue what was going on inside Iran). Under Obama, we see new expressions of people power, including the election in Lebanon two weeks ago. (Obama gave us Twitter)"

All this eloquence and high diction came from someone called "Tomato76." And is even more deification of Barack. Every sunny day this summer will be because of Barack. Every rainy day is still because of W. IT'S A GLOBAL REOVLUTION!

Today is an historically ambivalent day. The US military is leaving the cities of Iraq to be policed by Iraqis, and terrorized by Iranians. Americans will now police only the countryside. It's Iraq's turn to walk a bit on its own, albeit with an American cane.

The liberals must love this. No more blood for oil, just blood for sand. Frankly, I think complete withdrawal from Iraq is long overdue. We accomplished/failed with what we wanted to do. Everything since the ousting and capture of Saddam has been a waste of life and material.

And remember, these soldiers aren't coming home. They're going to Afghanistan. No more blood for oil, now it's blood for opium. The media will mention this as rarely as possible. But hey, that's where the war against terror "began." And we have to get Osama bin Laden. Because he's the only terrorist in the world, and there's only terrorism in Afghanistan. Nobody from Saudi Arabia was on any of those hijacked planes.

And there's absolutely no terrorism spawning from Iran. There's no reason to even acknowledge Iran's existence. We can reason with Iran. We can reason with a government that's not only illegitimate, but is nothing more than a puppet of the religious power holders. We're dealing with the 21st century's Holy Roman Empire here.

But I'm sure Barack's policy of doing nothing will work. After all, he's already responsible for all the protests in Iran, right?

There is something to be said for a policy of ignoring Iran. Most of the "countries" in the Mid-East are fractured and fragmented, but can easily be united by a common hatred for America. So if America stays out of the picture, it allows for dissent and possible change in the region. Hope. Yes we can.

But won't the new leaders still have that hatred for America? And since when do we care about what Iran thinks of us? America didn't become America by tiptoeing around the world in hopes of being the most popular kid in the UN cafeteria.

And all the liberals that protested the 2000 election in Florida, where are you in all this? Why don't you fly to Tehran to protest for fair elections, just like you flew to Tallahassee? Or are you still working on your conspiracy theories regarding the 2004 election in Ohio?

I love how if there are irregularities, and a Republican wins, then the election is rigged. And the air-quote dude who deemed towing to be voter intimidation should rent a time machine and travel to 1932 Germany.

And where the fuck is that impotent group called the UN in all this Iranity? How useless is that organization?

Barack's liberals and Bush's conservatives have two conflicting philosophies on terrorism. Bush thinks terrorism ends with US involvement. Barack thinks terrorism begins with US involvement. Both are wrong. Terrorism never starts and never ends. Terrorism thrives when it works and dies when it fails. You leave Iraq because you want to leave Iraq, not because you're afraid of upsetting the terrorists.

But Barack and the liberals want America to win popularity contests. They'd rather have the people of Iran suffering under a fake government but loving America. And we all know that the world loves America the most when we stay out of foreign affairs...

Negative Action

2009-06-16T10:41:00.002-05:00

God, can't she just say she had great grades and fucked up the SAT? Hell, I had a great SAT (1400 back in the 1600 days), and mediocre GPA with no activities. I could bitch and moan about grades and activities being culturally biased, or I could just say "I didn't try that hard."

And I'm not attacking Sotomayor here. I'm not proclaiming her to be an affirmative action appointment (like Pat Buchanan has). She seems like a decent judge with experience, credibility, et cetera. I have no problem with her being on the Supreme Court.

No, my problem is with affirmative action itself, perhaps the most vile government policy in modern times. Little to me is more abhorrent as selecting someone for a job, or for a school based on their race.

Affirmative action is not racism. But it is discrimination. Look it up. Discrimination = "treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit." And discrimination is wrong, right?

That's the argument for affirmative action, correct? Discrimination in the past was wrong, so we'll fix it with discrimination in the present. Let's call it counter-discrimination, which is what it is. And it's not "reverse racism," that term sucks. A FoxNewsism if there ever was one.

I think "counter-discrimination" is a fair term. And it isn't discrimination AGAINST whites, it's discrimination FOR non-whites. But imagine how hard it would be to get something called "counter-discrimination" into law?

Why does affirmative action exist? Because racial discrimination has been part of American law, policy, and life for centuries. Not just slavery, but Jim Crow laws, segregation, and so on. This longstanding institutional racism has put minorities in poor position to compete in this country. And I'm not arguing against this FACT at all.

But that's history, folks. Someone once asked me why I'm so interested in history. After all, everything in history books has already happened. Who cares? But history is WHY and HOW the present is the way it is, for better or worse.

But undoing centuries of discrimination is like trying to put a broken egg back together again. You might glue it, use some duct tape, and maybe paint over the cracks. But it's still broken. I advise that you get on with your life, use the broken egg to make some French Toast, and have a nice day.

Undoing centuries of discrimination via counter-discrimination is like breaking the egg, then breaking all the other foods in the kitchen so EVERYTHING is broken, therefore making the egg the same as everything else.

Affirmative action's supporters' first line of defense is very telling. This is actually a well-written and well thought out defense of affirmative action right here. I'll quote from it:

The claim is that these programs distort what is now a level playing field and bestow preferential treatment on undeserving minorities because of the color of their skin. While this view seems very logical on the surface, I contend that it lacks any historical support and is aimed more at preserving existing white privilege than establishing equality of opportunity for all.

So basically, those who argue against affirmative action are doing so because they want to preserve their "existing white privilege." So since I'm white, and upper-middle class, I can't argue against affirmative action as a policy, I can only defend my precious "white male hegemony." With such a fallacious and dismissive first defense, how could such a policy be amoral?

Just imagine this. I get married, have two kids (boy and girl), get divorced, get married to another woman, have two more kids (boy and girl). Both my wives die of swine flu, so all four kids come to live with me. But let's say my first wife was white and my second wife was black. Now I have four children, with the same father, same economic status, and even sharing some similar Irish and German roots. Yet with affirmative action, the children from my second wife are able to get into better schools than the children from my first wife. They're able to get better jobs, get promoted faster, et cetera.

Does this seem American to you? Does it even seem fair?

I'll not lie, the playing field IS NOT fair and even. I got a $130,000 education from Ithaca College, paid for by my parents' hard work. I got a free car, free health insurance, and I'm debt free, all thanks to my parents. That's not fair. I know people who had to pay for their own college. I know people who couldn't afford to pay and had to transfer or leave school altogether. That's not fair. I knew people who had to bust their ass working two jobs while they were at school. Meanwhile, I got free time to study and play Madden. Not fair.

Life's not fucking fair. Sorry folks, but that's the truth. And it isn't the government's job to make it fair. It's the government's job to remove barriers to fairness and potential upward mobility, like segregation and voting restrictions. But leveling hills and mountains on that playing field is both impossible, and unethical.

There is a natural force that allows, and even drives playing fields to be even. It's called competition. When and where there is discrimination, there will be weakness. If only whites or blacks are allowed to work for a company, that company will be weaker, especially if a competitor is hiring people based on QUALITY and not ETHNICITY.

Look at baseball in 1947. Before then, there were barriers to black players. Baseball desegregated itself, thanks to Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey, and the desire to win. That same desire to win turned owners who once barred black players into owners who craved them.

But what happened to teams that failed to select players based on quality? The Red Sox were the last team to integrate. They passed up on Jackie Robinson in 1945. Which is, in a way, understandable, because being the first integrated team would have been difficult. But in 1949, there were multiple black players in MLB, and the Red Sox passed up a chance to acquire Willie Mays for a song. Willie fucking Mays.

Imagine an outfield with Willie Mays and Ted Williams. Nearly 1200 homeruns hit between those two.

The Red Sox didn't integrate until 1959, 5 years after Brown v. Board, and two years after Jackie Robinson's Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. Hell it was a year after Willie O'Ree took the ice for the Bruins as the first black NHL player.

And while other teams benefited from wider pools of talent to draw from (the Indians won the World Series in 1948 with an integrated team, the Dodgers won 6 pennants with Jackie Robinson), the Red Sox limited their own success by limiting their hiring.

But sticking with baseball, could you imagine a rule that required all teams to have at least one black player? How about in football, imagine a rule that required at least 1 QB to be black, at least 1 WR to be white, at least 1 O-lineman to be black, at least 1 CB to be white, and at least 1 coach/coordinator to be black?

Sports are the ultimate meritocracy. Race doesn't matter. If you're good, you can get away with murder.

But if there are no quotas, and no affirmative action in sports, why is there affirmative action in fire departments and police forces? In law schools and teaching schools? In the military?

Here's an interesting hypothetical metaphor from the same site I sited above:

Suppose that [there] is a track officials judging two athletes running a hundred yard dash. Before the official shoots off the starting pistol, one runner kicks the other in the shin, stomps on his toes, and then runs ahead fifty yards. Now because our official is observant, he sees this dirty play and immediately halts the race. So, he walks over to the runner, who is fifty yards ahead and tells him that what he did was unfair and wrong and he is forbidden from doing it again. Then he goes back to check on the runner at the starting line. The runner is a little bruised up. The official tells him "Don't worry I saw everything that happened. I told the other runner that what he did was wrong and that he shouldn't have done it. As I speak the rules are being changed to outlaw such actions from ever happening again." Then the official strolls back to his position and fires the starting pistol to begin the race, where the runners left off...

The race has already been tainted. It is our duty to somehow reconstruct the situation so that fairness can again pervade the event. At the very least we must allow the injured runner time to heal and then advance him fifty yards to be even with his competition. We must actively deconstruct the advantages. If we do not, we violate our own rules of fairness, preserving the advantages of one runner over the other.

Just to expand on this metaphor, suppose the cheating runner has kids, and the cheated runner has kids. Is it right to actively punish the children of the cheater and give a head-start to the children of the cheated?

Or is it right to punish the ENTIRE ETHNICITY of the cheating runner for what he did?

And how can one reconstruct the 100 yard dash IMMEDIATELY, which is what affirmative action is supposed to do: quickly remedy the problems created by historical racial discrimination. The cheated runner needs TIME to heal. In fact, the worse the injury, the more TIME it will take to heal. So the worse the historical discrimination, the more TIME it will take to be remedied.

If the cheated runner has a broken foot, it's impossible to give him a proper head start, or give the cheating runner a proper punishment that will result in a fair race. What's done is done.

Remember my analogy about putting a broken egg back together? And do you recall the story of Humpty Dumpty? All the King's horses, all the King's men not being able to put him back together? It's a common liberal trait to believe that government intervention can solve everything, even the unsolvable.

Affirmative action is an overly optimistic liberal notion that the past can be undone. That millions of injustices committed by long-dead people against other long-dead people can be rectified by government policy.

It'd be nice if that were possible. But it's not.

And then there's the victims of affirmative action. Liberals are ever so quick to point out the beneficiaries. Judge Sotomayor even claimed to be one. But for every person helped by affirmative action, doesn't there have to be someone hurt? If Sotomayor got into Yale because of her ethnicity, doesn't that mean someone was rejected based on theirs? Is THAT fair? Is it American?

It's a form of racial socialism.

Until 1954, when the Supreme Court handed down Brown v. Board, Blacks were legally pushed to the margin of society where many were left to dwell in poverty and powerlessness. The Brown decision removed the legal impediments that had so long kept Blacks in the impoverished peripheral. Despite this long awaited victory for Black Americans, the historic decision failed to provide adequate means for the deconstruction of white dominance and privilege. It merely allowed Blacks to enter the arena of competition. This recognized and established the status quo (white wealth and Black indigence, white employment and Black unemployment, white opportunity and Black disenfranchisement) as an acceptable and neutral baseline. Without the deconstruction of white power and privilege how can we legitimately claim that the playing field is level? Does it not seem more logical, and indeed fairer and more just, to actively deconstruct white privilege, rather than let it exist through hegemony?

"Actively deconstruct white privilege?" That's a lofty and frightening goal. To belittle my personal accomplishments based on my whiteness and my privilege offends me. Certainly both helped, but I graduated from college, not my race. I got a 1400 on my SAT, not my economic status.

Is there anyone or any group in the universe wise enough to determine which of my accomplishments are due to my "white privilege" and which are due to just myself?

How do we separate those whites who "deserve" to be rich and powerful, from those who simply inherited theirs from centuries of discrimination and hatred? Again, more lofty liberal uberoptimism. Such a task is impossible. Moreover, it's not even worth attempting to carry out. Failure in this task is inevitable due to its impossibility. And any failure simply results in more harm and misleveling of that proverbial playing field.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Two discriminations don't lead to equality.

Miss California vs. Barack Obama vs. Dick Cheney

2009-06-11T10:23:00.000-05:00

Miss California will be stripped of her crown, title, and duties. (Duties?) I don't care and neither should you.

But do you remember the whole Miss California debacle? She answered a question as part of the Miss USA pageant about gay marriage and became public enemy #1 for people like Perez Hilton and others.

I've gotten so good at tuning out meaningless media drivel that I never even heard what she actually said until my curiosity peaked a few minutes ago.

Kind of reminded me when some guy defined marriage in another superficial competition:

Eerie how similar their views on gay marriage are. Scary how differently they were treated. One was asked a political question in a beauty pageant, told the truth, and was vilified. One was asked a political question in a political pageant, told the truth, and it was ignored.

Loyal readers of this blog know how I feel about gay marriage:

Lone Star Tyranny
Iowa is More Progressive than California?

To sum up, I think two consenting, unrelated, and unmarried adults have the right to marry each other, regardless of gender. Marriage is a familial acquisition (in other words, a legal contract that makes two unrelated people part of each other's family). If a man wants to add a man to his family, then that's his right.

But lots of people don't like that idea. And as much as I disagree with them, I'm not going to HATE someone just for that.

But if I did hate someone just for disagreeing with me on one issue, I'd hate EVERYONE who disagreed with me on that issue. I wouldn't go after Miss California, then give Barack a pass just cuz he's so gosh darn loveable.

And where is the liberal criticism of Barack on this issue? Why can't they try to cajole him on this one issue if it's so important to them? Because for many liberals, it is an ancillary issue. They use the gay marriage issue to vilify conservatives as bigots. Hell, how much flak did Sarah Palin take for her quotes on gay marriage?

Then after they use the old "conservative=bigot" tactic, they shelve the issue until the next election. So Barack gets a free pass.

And Dick Cheney's stance on gay marriage gets swept under the rug:

Wow, this is friggin Darth Cheney here. And in this one issue, he's LEFT of Barack. Wow!

The 800 Billion Pound Elephant in the Room

2009-06-02T11:16:00.004-05:00

There's a hidden tax you've been paying. Barack and his cronies will go on CNN and claim that they've lowered taxes for most Americans. And technically they're correct. But you're still paying for all this government spending, just in a roundabout way.

You feel it at the gas station. Gasoline prices have soared in 2008. Why? Because oil prices have soared.

But why have oil prices soared? Demand is stable. Supply hasn't changed. So why is the price going up?

THE DOLLAR.

Oil is traded in dollars. Everyone in the world buys and sells oil with dollars. And the value of the dollar has steadily decreased the past few months, as more and more dollars are printed by the US government in an effort to pay for all the spending.

So for other countries, buying oil costs about the same in their own currency, as they get more dollars for their Pounds, Euros, Yen, and Yuan.

This is a bit simplistic: $1 is worth a percentage of the US economy. It's almost like a share of stock. So the more dollars out there, the smaller percentage each one represents, and the less it's worth. Furthermore, the US economy has shrunk at a pretty steady clip, and will likely continue to shrink slowly but surely.

Demand for US dollars is going down. Supply of them is going up. So the $500 in my bank account today will be able to buy $499.999999 worth of stuff tomorrow. It's slow, but it can get faster. In Zimbabwe, their hyperinflation reached an annual rate of 231 million percent.

CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli concocted a great metaphor for inflation. I semi-quote: "If I stick a hose into your basement window and turn it on, and you sit in your living room, just because you don't feel the water yet, doesn't mean your house isn't flooding."

Inflation is the worst thing in the world. And this unrestrained spendfest is a potential cause of inflation. Inflation can cripple an economy, and tends to lead to civil unrest and even revolution (See: Germany, 1920s and 30s).

Now every time the subject is broached to one of Barack's talking heads, or the man himself, the first part of their answer is invariably "We inherited this problem."

Whoever is elected President or Führer in 2016 should learn from Barack. Not learn about his economic policies, or his defense policies. But he should learn how to start every answer with "We inherited so many problems from the previous regime." Because it will be the truth.

Government Motors

2009-06-01T12:24:00.000-05:00

The free market is a wondrous thing. A market has no morals. It's blind and brutal, but it's not debatable. If a restaurant doesn't make money, it goes out of business. If a person has no skills, they lose their job. There are winners, there are losers, but when the market is allowed to divide the two, there's not much that can be said.

A free market is like a sporting event. And the new brand of quasi-socialism the government is now practicing is like the Oscars. The Steelers won the Super Bowl because they scored more points than the Cardinals. On the other hand, Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture because some nontransparent committee decided it was the best. Who decided that? What criteria was used?

See the difference? There's no debating the Steelers are the champs. But Slumdog Millionaire being the best? That debate is quite literally endless.

I own General Motors now. I don't want to. But We The People are now owners of General Motors. And we'll have to "invest" AT LEAST $50 billion of our tax dollars in order to resuscitate it.

If the free market were allowed to do its dirty work, General Motors would be wiped off the face of the planet. All those auto workers in Michigan and Ohio would lose their jobs. As would those auto workers in Mexico and Canada who do a hefty portion of GM's manufacturing. And then GM's parts suppliers would go bust. So industry in the Midwest takes a big hit, unemployment dramatically increases, and shit hits the fan.

But hang on a minute. The government seems to think that GM can be resurrected and in 4 or 5 years, it can become profitable. And that's why we're putting tons of money into it, so it can be reborn and eventually pay us back.

If this is true, that GM can make a comeback, then why do anything at all? Instead of forcing the comeback, why not let it die and be reborn naturally via private sector investment? Or let another car company, like Ford or Toyota, take over GM's territory in the market?

If GM, or another entity, can regenerate Midwestern industry in 4 or 5 years, it will be able to do it ON ITS OWN. If no entity or entities can do this, then a GM supported by the government will also be destined to fail.

To simplify: you own a bar. The bar goes out of business. If a bar or some other business can be profitable in that location, it will be. Someone with money to invest will open a bar, or a restaurant, and will either succeed or fail.

The other alternative is that the government invests in the bar. If the bar succeeds, then it would have succeeded with private investment anyway, so government intervention was meaningless. If the bar fails, the government loses money.

How come the government didn't save Boston Billiard Club? They had some fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine bartenders.

It's a no-win scenario when government invests in private businesses or industry in an effort to save them. Because if the government does win, the private business (or some form of it) would have won anyway.

And before you counterargue by citing the bank bailouts, banks are banks because they have cashflow. The credit crunch occurred and they couldn't get cash. Without cash, banks freeze and can't do business. The bailouts weren't a loan to failing companies, they were fiscal lubricants applied to a grinding part in order to allow the larger machine to move with ease.

Then you get to the United Auto Workers. It's funny. The tone of the conversation might change if instead of calling them workers, we called them voters. Instead of saying "3 million workers' jobs were saved" let's say "3 million voters' jobs were saved." Barack won Ohio by less than 300,000 votes. How many auto worker/voters are in Ohio? Curious.

The UAW took some concessions in the GM bankruptcy. Like they can;t get Viagra or Cialis from the corporate health plan. They maintain their base pay, and there's been a minimal reduction in benefits. They won't get tuition assistance for their kids' schooling for 1 year. Cue a violin.

WHAT THE FUCK? No reduction in base pay???

I wouldn't care, except I OWN GENERAL MOTORS NOW!!! Why do these people get paid the same when a replacement could be hired (especially in this dry jobs market) for half the fucking pay???

Again, I wouldn't care if it weren't my money. If some company wants to pay a worker $60,000 when they could pay them $30,000, go right ahead. But when that worker is getting paychecks that come out of my pocket, I'm going to stand up for myself.

And how come successful car dealerships, like Westminster Dodge in Westminster, MA are getting forced to close their doors, yet these UAW fuckos are getting to keep the same base pay?

This is anti-market-morality. Successes are losing their jobs, failures are keeping theirs. Thanks, Barack. Could you imagine being in a school where the A students were held back and the F students skipped a grade?

And where does this $50 billion come from? Obviously from us. Well, kind of. Most of it will probably come from the upper class and business tax hikes the Democrats are pushing. Sounds great, right? Steal from the rich, give to the poor.

Nothing wrong with that, right? Except, the money taxed from those rich fat cats would have been invested in some other business. You know, a business that had a track record of success. Or the money would go to pay a maid, or buy a yacht, or import caviar. But importing caviar gives a job to the caviar importer. Buying a yacht gives a job to the yacht crew, as well as the dock workers where the yacht is anchored, as well as the people who made the yacht. And hiring a maid is pretty explanatory as a job creation.

Even if a rich guy just puts their money in the bank, that money gets loaned out to others.

So instead of letting people WHO KNOW THE RIGHT THINGS TO DO WITH MONEY spend and invest their money, the government (WHICH DOESN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MONEY) takes it, throws it into a company that's already gone bankrupt, and is paying workers more than what they're worth.

That's great, that's super. So instead of moving on with our economic lives, acknowledging the mistakes of companies like General Motors, we're trying to raise the dead. Instead of letting people spend and invest their own money, we're taking it from them and throwing it into a welfare company just so voters in swing states keep their jobs and vote Democratic in 2010 and 2012.

I think I'm going to move to China in order to live in a capitalist country.

Bling bling.

The Battle of Guantanamo Bay

2009-05-21T18:00:00.001-05:00

101 years ago, the US invaded Guantanamo Bay. It was a battle in one of the lesser examined wars in US history: The Spanish American War. In 1898, it was some Marines fighting some Spainards. Now the Second Battle of Guantanamo Bay is between Democrats and their old arch nemesis: Reality.

The Democrats are always the sentimental favorites, but they always lose to Reality. Democrats think you can just throw money at problems and they'll go away. Reality disagrees. Democrats think you can negotiate with the lunatics that run countries like Iran. Reality really crushes them in that battle.

During Barack's campaign, Guantanamo was a rallying cry of the New York Times Liberal (NYTL). They even used a cool, slick nickname for the base: "Gitmo." After all, Guantanamo Bay sounds like a Spring Break hotspot. Gitmo sounds like a futuristic concentration camp.

Shut down Guantanamo! That's what Barack promised he would do back in January. Not IMPROVE Guantanamo. Not IMPROVE the conditions of prisoners in Guantanamo. Flat-out, shut it the fuck down!

Now just a sidenote, I don't think water boarding is torture, but I'm not the Geneva Convention. The US never signed "The Rob Zeitz Treaty" to define torture and all that cool stuff. You have to play by the rules you agree to play by. So I'd be fine with restructuring and improving the conditions at Guantanamo. But "shutting it down?" Why?

Apparently, people can only be tortured in Guantanamo Bay. They can't be tortured anywhere else.

But now Reality wields its formidable arsenal of truths and "face-its." Logistics, an ally of Reality since time began, is the spearhead of the counterattack on liberal idealism. Where do these detainees go? Leavenworth? I don't think Kansas would like that. Colorado? i don't think John Denver would like that.

Face it, no state wants these guys. To me, it's not a big deal if they're here or there. Hell, put them in Walpole. There are murderers and psychos everywhere. But I think people prefer to have them in Cuba, and not their own state. It's part of that whole peace-of-mind thing. Remember, this is the American public, the same people who rushed out to buy duct tape to seal up their houses for fear of massive chemical attacks. They scare real easy.

I have arachnaphobia. There are about 70,000 spiders per suburban acre, and my house sits on about 1/3 of an acre, so that's about 20,000 spiders that I live with. How do i deal with that? I don't see them. I know they're there, but they're not right in my face. It's the same thing with these detainees. People don't want them on the same landmass, let alone the same state.

Of course, the primary feature of the afore-mentioned New York Times Liberal, is an inability to recognize that there are people who don't think like them. The NYTLs (pronounced nittles) just wanted "Gitmo" to go away. They didn't think of the logistics. And now Barack's flip-flopping like John Kerry on a 2 day cocaine bender. He's got his superleft base, and the larger but less vociferous moderates. The superlefts want Guantanamo destroyed and the word erased from history books. The moderates want to keep terrorists in Cuba.

Decisions, decisions...

And say what you want about George W. Bush, but that motherfucker either didn't know or didn't care what would make everyone happy. He did what he thought was right.

Is the Republican Party Dead?

2009-05-20T17:49:00.002-05:00

This has been a popular topic of discussion on those 24 hour PowerPoints known as cable news networks. The President is a Democrat. 60 of 100 Senators are Democrats. 257 of 435 (59%) Representatives are Democrats. 29 of 50 Governors are Democrats. And there's really no big name Republicans out there. Who will run against Barack in 2012? Who will save the Republicans, or is it too late?

That's pretty much the gist of what's going on. Reminds me of 2004, when Bush was clearly President, the Republicans were in control of Congress, and it seemed like the 21st century would be the Century of Christian Conservatitude. Everyone was wondering if the Democrats were dead.

Here's what happens in this cycle: Both parties suck. They get power for 4 to 10 years. Then people get sick of them and go to their only alternative. Then the alternative is in power for 4 to 10 years. Then people get sick of them. So they return to the first party, which is their only alternative.

Just look at recent history. Nixon+Ford (R) for 8 years. Then Carter (D) for 4 years. Then Reagan and Bush I (R) for 12 years. Then Clinton (D) for 8. Then Bush II (R) for 8.

Enjoy it while it lasts liberals, because it won't. And neither will the conservative reign of terror to follow, so don't fret.

But I do love how the struggles of the GOP are being covered by the media. Rush Limbaugh's name has been dropped so much that he's challenged MSNBC to not mention him for 30 days.

Sarah Palin. Why is it that only liberals go so far as to characterize Palin as a Republican leader? Many Republicans feel as though she was a hindrance to McCain's hopes, so why would they think she could be electable running at the top of a ticket. (I'd like her on top of my ticket)

But seriously, Palin was the VP candidate because she was young, vibrant, charismatic, a woman, and an old school conservative. Best choice? Perhaps not, but McCain's campaign wanted someone shocking. High risk move that probably didn't pay off, but that's politics. In my opinion, even with a more dignified VP candidate, the Credit Crisis still sinks McCain, just like the iceberg still sinks the Titanic even if those two perverted watchmen aren't preoccupied with ogling Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet making out.

Subtitles remind me of Holy Grail's opening credits.

There really aren't any marquee names in the Republican Party these days. So liberals get to delude themselves into thinking Sarah Palin = GOP.

But wait just a minute. Let's take Barack out of the picture, and what do the Democrats have? It's like taking the Ace of diamonds out of a Royal Flush, it turns into a pretty shitty hand.

Joe Biden?

Nancy Pelosi?

Hillary Clinton?

Misremembered? Apparently Hillary and Roger Clemens have the same set of advisors.

How about John Kerry?

You can still hear that ball bouncing.

So what are the Democrats without Barack? They're not in much better shape than the Republicans. And guess what, there's something called the 22nd Amendment, which limits a President to 2 terms, or 8 years in office.

So instead of everyone wondering who the Republicans will get behind in 2012, they might want to start wondering about the Democrats in 2016. Or 2525, if man is still alive.

How Come Every Time...?

2009-05-18T14:30:00.000-05:00

How come every time anybody asks a member of Barack's Administration about increased spending and/or budget gaps, and/or deficits, they always start their answer the same kind of way.

"Well the previous administration increased spending."

"We inherited a record deficit."

"It's all W's fault!"

I haven't heard the third sentence verbatim from the Administration, but that's the basic idea they're trying to convey. The Bush Administration spent a great deal, and Barack's not afraid to remind you whenever anyone questions their catastrophic spendfest.

But I'm a bit perplexed at the logic here. If Bush overspent, and dug the country into a fiscal hole, why are we spending to get out of it?

Imagine going to a quack dietitian, who advised you to eat lots of sugar and salt. You inevitably gain weight, so you go to a new dietitian. This new guy tells you how awful the previous dietitian was, and how much extra work you have to do to fix all the problems he's helped create.

Enjoy a short dialog...

New Dietitian: Well the last guy has put you in an awful mess. We're going to have to work extra hard to get you out. I want you to eat even more sugary and salty foods. Ice cream and French fries!

Patient: But wait a minute, isn't that the problem? I think the sugar and salt might be bad for me.

New Dietitian: Well your last doctor was the problem, you over indulged in the sugar and salt departments. Without him, you wouldn't be in this situation.

Patient: Exactly, so why should I eat even more...?

New Dietitian: Look, we inherited this problem from your last doctor. He made you gain weight at an astronomical pace.

Patient: Yeah so why...?

New Dietitian: Listen, it's not my fault you weight 400 pounds and have diabetes. That was Dr. Bush's doing. Now let's go to Burger King. Whoppers on me.

If you think spending is the way to fix problems, then simply admit it. And most liberals do admit it, just not the elected ones. I tend to disagree, and I find fiscal responsibility in government spending sexually arousing, but I at least understand why people like government spending.

So just give us a straight fucking answer. I'm fine with attributing a part of the budget problem to programs started by Bush's White House, but don't criticize him for spending what you're spending twice as fast. And if he dug us into a hole, digging down even further is only making a bad problem worse.

And we conservatives dropped the ball, as well. Bush had no accountability toward us, and we let him get away with Dukakisesque spending. It's time to get back to basics when it comes to conservatism. All this pro-life, anti-evolution, pro-censorship, moral majority crap needs to go. It's lame.

The government needs to stop spending. No economic recovery EVER has been because of government spending. The history books in school may have told you about the New Deal, but it didn't fucking work. World War II ended the Great Depression, not Franklin Ilyich Roosevelt.

The Leftist Mouthpiece

2009-05-13T18:26:00.002-05:00

If you know anyone who reads the New York Times, you already know they read it. They've told you about it a thousand times. And if you ever dared to read something else (even if it was another paper owned by the Times), then the Times reader will explain to you how you've failed at newspaper reading.

Nothing to me better symbolizes liberal know-nothing-know-it-all-ism better than the New York Times. And I couldn't be happier at its recent financial struggles.

I'm fluent in three sections, actually.

And yeah, they certainly have the best, hardest hitting, reporters:

Look at all those smiling journalists, basking in the glory of their demagogue, laughing at the New York Times reporter asking about enchantment when people were panicking about swine flu.

Question for Uberliberals: why is the NY Times so good? If news is news, does it really matter what the disseminating source is? The USA today may be a jumble of graphs, charts, and color photos; but is it not the same news?

Could it be that y'all think the Times is so spectacular and intelligent because it AGREES WITH YOU? Furthermore, you agree with the Times, so you must be smart too!

It's a vicious circle of liberal smugness.

All media has a bias, and anyone that doesn't think so is retarded. Political reporters don't get into politics unless they're interested in politics. And people interested in politics tend to have OPINIONS about politics. And no matter what, these opinions will affect how people see events, and consequently affect how they're reported.

But just admit that, for the most part, the media is liberally biased. The Times, CNN, MSNBC, and so on. And please, stop criticizing FoxNews for being conservative. That's like a lesbian making fun of a gay man for not being straight.

But you know what, I am tired of the liberal and conservative media outlets arguing about who is more biased. How much time does Bill O'Reilly spend railing MSNBC? How much time does MSNBC spend railing Bill O'Reilly? Who even takes Bill O'Reilly seriously?

Why can't we have full disclosure in media? I know on CNBC that guests have to disclose if they own the stock they're discussing, and whenever General Electric is mentioned, they must add "GE is the parent company of this network."

Let's say during election coverage every 4 years, we get to see who Wolf Blitzer voted for? Is the media afraid that disclosing facts like this would reduce their credibility? If we find out that Blitzer is a Democrat, and he's voted Democratically in the last 4 Presidential elections, would we find him less believable when he discusses politics?

Maybe we should give it a shot.

Socialism Security

2009-05-06T13:00:00.000-05:00

The grandest Ponzi scheme of them all (in my day we called them pyramid schemes): Social Security. Millions of Americans paying the government, to pay people, because they're old. What the fuck? Why doesn't this piss people off?

It's guilt. Liberal guilt. And it's greed. Conservative greed. Social security is the perfect political clusterfuck. The guilty liberal inside all of us reluctantly, yet willingly pays social security taxes so we can feel like we take care of our old people. The greedy conservative in us loves getting a government check in the mail.

But why did it begin? There was no social security in 1776, nor in 1850, nor in 1920. Franklin D. Roosevelt, a.k.a. Franklin The Overrated, a.k.a. Comrade Franky, a.k.a. the Derek Jeter of Presidents. Roosevelt used his leverage, and his nearly omnipotent political mandate to railroad through social security and loads of other goofy socialist legislation. Sound like someone we know?

$500 billion. That's how much social security was paid out in 2004. Why?

I'm going to seem like a greedy, money grubbing bastard (which is why no politician speaks out against social security), but just being old doesn't mean you deserve money from the government. In fact, you don't deserve any money from the government. The government is not in the business of providing retirement plans for people. At least it shouldn't be. My money is my money, so go fuck yourself.

If you want old folks to get money, then get together AS INDIVIDUALS, and start DONATING money from your paychecks toward your own social security programs. It's called a pension, and it's great.

I should have the right to retain the money that I earn. Selfish? You bet your guilty liberal bleeding heart I'm selfish. The only thing I like more than my money is my right to do what I want with my money.

And the well is running dry. Like all pyramid schemes, when the pyramid stops growing, the scheme collapses. Refresher course on what a pyramid scheme is:

Con artist gets 10 people to invest $100 in a fake company ($1,000 total), promising they'll get $150 in return ($50 profit). Con artist gets 100 more people to invest $100 in same fake company ($10,000 total), promising the same $50 profit. Con artist pays first group of investors with the money from the second group, and pockets the rest. Con artist gets 1000 more people to invest $100 in the fake company ($100,000), promising same $50 profit. Con artist pays the second group, with the money from the third group. And so on, until the con artist stops, or is caught.

It's a good deal so long as you're not in the last group of investors. If you are, you're fucked.

Social security works along similar lines. People working now pay into social security, and that money is distributed to those who payed into it years ago. Eventually, those working now will receive retirement benefits from those working in the future.

Problems: people these days live longer than they used to, and the baby boom generation is retiring.

Solution: Either the pyramid scheme will collapse, with people in my generation (I'm 24) being the last ones to pay, and the first to get fucked by not receiving benefits. OR, we'll take money from other sources (raise taxes) and perpetuate the scheme.

I don't want the government handling my retirement. I don't anticipate living much past the age of 50 anyway, so I want to burn my money now. At the very least, I want to have THE FUCKING RIGHT to burn my money now.

And what's going to happen in 50 years, when people in my generation are 75 years old, and still have 25 to 45 years of life left, and 25 to 45 years of collecting monthy social security checks?

Fun story, the first woman to ever receive a monthly social security check was Ida May Fuller. She paid a total of $24.75 into the system, but lived to be 100 and received nearly $23,000 from the program. so she took 1,000 times more than what she gave. If this doesn't enrage you, you're not a capitalist. The $22,975 that Mrs. Fuller profited from the program means a combined $22,975 loss for others.

That's not right. It's not even left, it's socialist. Give people the right to choose what to do with their money.

Tax Man

2009-05-04T14:14:00.007-05:00

Why is everything this Administration does called "reform?" Health care reform, tax reform, economic reform, torture reform, everything is reform. Conform to reform. Remember when Ross Perot founded the Reform Party and got 8 million votes in the '96 election? Shit, that really happened.

Here's Timmy and Barack talkin' taxes:

I could argue against launching a crusade against corporate tax loopholes during the current economic climate. But hey, I have no problem with "cracking down" (that's a pairing of words designed for and by cable news stations) on companies that pretend do business in the Cayman Islands.

I could point out that this is salvo #25,631 of Barack's Robin Hood war against those evil, greedy, horrible corporations.

But all I'm going to point out is the obvious: A speech about "cracking down" on tax cheating corporations given by tax cheat Timothy Geithner. I thought the whole tax thing with him was overblown a few months ago. But to see him talking about how helpful and necessary it is for corporations to pay their taxes really pissed me off.

I can't wait to watch some cable news tonight and see which networks dwell on this hypocrisy (Fox News, CNBC), which ones barely mention it (CNN), and which ones villify those who point it out (MSNBC).

And Geithner is fortunate that WWF superstar Irwin R. Schyster (I.R.S.) is retired, otherwise he'd be in big trouble...

100 Days Down, 1361 To Go (or 2822 cuz he'll need 2 terms to declare world peace)

2009-04-29T13:04:00.004-05:00

Barack's actually done a lot in his first 100 days, more than most Presidents. Here's a quick list of all of his hope-giving, change-making accomplishments:

He's blamed everything from the economy to terrorism on George W. Bush and his Republican cohorts. Soon, he'll lay responsibility for swine flu and blue balls on the "previous administration."

He's spent trillions of dollars on God knows what. My street still has potholes. I want my infrastructure!

He's used the phrase "line by line" more times in 100 days than anyone has used it in a lifetime.

He got a puppy.

He made a correct championship pick in the NCAA Tournament.

He used his telekinetic abilities to steady the hands of the Navy sharpshooters who rescued Captain What's His Name from pirates.

He's incited class hatred, joining the likes of V.I. Lenin, and Karl Marx. Up next: open class warfare.

He's openly and aggressively attacked anyone and everyone who has criticized or even questioned his policies.

He's let Nancy Pelosi wear the pants in Washington.

He terrified the Congress and the people into passing his stimulus spending... OR ELSE!

Ignoring the advice of Dr. Ian Malcolm, he didn't let nature take its course and extinguish (or extinctify) corporate dinosaurs like General Motors and Chrysler.

Instead, he's spent billions of our dollars to artificially keep their brain dead bodies alive. He's also brought in some of that class vs. class combat, with union members being compensated dramatically more than bondholders.

He blew the first bit of air into the currency bubble.

He referred to tax-day protesters of his policies as "people waving tea-bags around."

He's helped the economy recover. Well, not recover. He's helped the economy collapse more slowly. Then again, a struggling factory's production stops decreasing once it hits 0, so I don't know how much of an accomplishment this is.

He's changed the federal laws on gay marriage. No, wait...

He's given your grandchildren plenty of hobbies and things to do so they stay busy.

Panicdemic

2009-04-28T12:53:00.002-05:00

Somehow Barack's Administration will be able to pin the blame for H1N1 on George W. Bush.

The media is all over it. The world's ending. Just like the Credit Crunch caused people to look up "Great Depression" on Wikipedia, people are now doing diligent semi-research on the 1918 Influenza Pandemic.

Fun with words: the difference between pandemic and epidemic? Pandemics are bigger, and typically worldwide.

Not-so-fun-fact: Human Influenza kills 30,000 people a year. Just in the US.

Side-argument: Doesn't the fact that the flu virus evolves sort of prove evolution, or at least help support it? I mean, if a flu virus can evolve, why can't you or I? If a flu virus can change, and you can change, EVERYBODY CAN CHANGE!

Remember when you got SARS and had to miss school for a week? Oh wait, you never got SARS did you? Neither did I.

Remember when 100 of your pen pals in China got SARS and only 4 of them died?

Remember the avian flu? How much did it suck when you died from that? You didn't? Oh, neither did I! Gosh, we have so much in common, what's your sign?

Remember in 1918 when the world was engulfed in a cataclysmic war, sanitation throughout Europe was crap, and 3/4 of the world were underdeveloped colonies? Kind of different from 2009, isn't it?

I'm not saying people shouldn't be worried about Swine Flu. It is dangerous to humans because it isn't a human flu. Our bodies aren't used to it. So wash your hands, don't makeout with the poles on subway cars, and don't fuck pigs. Oh, and invest in companies that make surgical masks.

But remember, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is also a disease.

But this end of the world panic is doing more damage than Swine Flu might. The global economy is already contracting, FEAR of a pandemic will make it even worse. No tourism, no travel, no production, et cetera.

Media outlets asking "Is This like 1918?" or "Is This the Next Pandemic" aren't helping things. Yes, there's an extremely virulent form of influenza spreading around the world. And it's coming to your neighborhood. So be smart, not scared. Wash your hands before eating. Wash your hands after handling money or touching an ATM.

But also remember what happened to the Native Americans. They weren't exposed to any diseases for centuries, until they were all-but exterminated by the common cold.

The CDC and the governments of the world are as prepared for this as they can be. The US has the best healthcare in the universe (you get what you pay for). It's very late in the cold & flu season.

And remember, if you have to ask "Is this a pandemic?" Then guess what...

IT'S NO FUCKING PANDEMIC!

Air Farce One

2009-04-27T12:58:00.001-05:00

Taken by NY Times reader Jim Brown
Just an absolutely moronic thing happened this morning in New York. The backup of Air Force One flew a few low level laps around Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. The plane was escorted by a fighter. It was all part of a photo-op, taking shots of Air Force One flying near Lady Liberty, that kind of thing. Although the FAA and New York City officials knew about the flight, they were instructed NOT to publicize the event.

That's just insanely smart, isn't it. Why not fly a 747 at extremely low altitude around lower Manhattan. And hey, why not take a B-29 bomber and do a flyover of Hiroshima and Nagasaki while you're at it.

Obviously, this was a decision made by morons. Furthermore, how does flying a 747 around reduce carbon footprints, and all that other green stuff?

I'm not blaming Barack, but if something like this had occurred while Bush was President, Michael Moore would have made 2 documentaries about it, MSNBC would have crucified an effigy of Dick Cheney, and a loudmouth member of the House would have tried to impeach Bush.

To me, it's just another indicator of how DUMB the underlings of those in power truly are. Buildings were evacuated, people panicked, the DJIA dipped 40 points in 2 minutes. I'll give credit to the Administration for being quick on their feet in explaining the flyover, but whoever concocted these plans and made the decision to actively avoid telling the public should be skinned.

Source:
NY Times

Don't Like Barack? Then You're a Racist

2009-04-21T20:16:00.003-05:00

In response to that conservative Tea Party rally stuff on Tax Day, Janeane Garofalo had these well-formulated, and searingly logic counterpoints:

She must've thought she was so clever when she realized "Tea Party" was similar to "Tea Bag." And I love Keith "Got Canned by SportsCenter" Olbermann giggling in the background. What an impotent joke-in-the-box he is.

I just love the dismissive prejudice demonstrated so perfectly by Garofalo.

1. The President is black
2. Conservatives don't like the President
Conclusion: Conservatives don't like the President because he's black

Because like other (German accent) Wunderliberals, it is unfathomable for any reasonable and/or intelligent person to not love Barack. The only "people" who don't like Barack are a subspecies of lowbrow, racist, ignorant, cousin-fucking simians. They're known as Conservatoids.

I don't care that Barack is black. I care that he's pink and gradually growing red. Red as in the Red Menace.

But that's kind of an exaggeration. Unlike the Tea Partiers, I don't think Barack is a socialist... yet. I do have major concerns when the White House terminates the CEO and board of General Motors, though. That just irks me. And I don't like that the few bucks I pay in taxes go to companies that ruined the economy.

So, Janeane, the issue for most of us conservatives isn't a black/white one, it's a white/red one. Or whatever color capitalism is represented by. Green?

And just for fun, Michael Douglas's kickass speech in Wall Street. I wish Congress talked to the execs of these fucked up government funded failure companies like Gordon Gecko talked here:

In summation, the color on the protesters' minds was green, not black. But try convincing Garafolo or other Wunderliberals.

Tea Party Pooper

2009-04-16T11:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, a bunch of people who don't like taxes (who likes taxes?) protested in cities across America. They don't like runaway government spending, bailouts, and all the other things their taxes have been or will eventually be paying for.

This clip of CNN reporter Susan Roesgen "being harassed" by a group of protesters speaks volumes about the liberal bias of CNN, the liberal bias of most of the media, and how many elitist liberals view conservatives: as a lower form of life, some kind of missing link between the chimp and human.

That might be the first time I've seen a reporter for a legitimate news outlet start an argument with her subject. And the guy she's interviewing is a total moron, too. "Lincoln's primary thing was that people have the right to liberty." Huwhat?

But anyway, this elitist CNN reporter starts arguing with this clod. When she's done, she goes back to conversing with the anchor. "I think you get the general tenor of this. It's anti-government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the right-wing, conservative network - Fox... since this is not really family viewing..."

Well, I don't remember any "promoting" on Fox. I remember hearing about this grassroots movement, which grew organically. Fox covered it as it was, y'know, NEWS after all.

Then Susan starts yelling at those conservative Neanderthals again.

Maybe the crowd was anti-CNN because CNN has a tendency to belittle conservative views, to ridicule people like Rick Santelli, and to simultaneously glorify liberal causes. But that's preposterous.

Frankly, I think the "Tea-Party" was pretty stupid. Obama's President, he controls the House and Senate, protest with your votes in November 2010. But people have the right to protest. Could you imagine Susan Roesgen confronting anti-war protesters?

I think not.

But you know what, CNN isn't that biased. They're just a dumbed down 24 hour PowerPoint presentation. These days, the media in general is simply fucked up, and quite frankly, utterly useless.

This is 11 minutes long... COME ON!

Iowa is More Progressive than California?

2009-04-08T09:30:00.003-05:00

What gives, California? To quote Eddie Izzard: "You're supposed to be the crazy state."

Day 2 of Liberal Week is about gay marriage, in case you hadn't already gathered.

I've written about this before, but it's been in the news, so why not again? Gay marriage is not a sexually based moral issue, even though it has become one for both its proponents and opponents. It's a Constitutional issue, one that concerns the government's capacity to legislate the individual citizen. THAT'S why gay marriage shouldn't be banned, and should be legal in all 50 states.

What is marriage? It is the familial joining of two parties. In other words, the two parties involved become family. The slippery-slopists out there who think legalizing gay marriage will lead to men marrying their cousins, or two women, or their pigs; need to realize this contractual and legal definition.

When I marry Natalie Portman, she and I will become family. Furthermore, her family will become part of my family (hence terms like mother-in-law, brother-in-law, etc.). Two people already related to each other cannot be married. It would be like marrying your wife twice, it doesn't make sense. You can't add someone to your family if they're already a part of it.

It's also fair that marriage can only be between two people at a time. Sorry insane rebel Mormons living in the Utah desserts, it's true. That whole "forsaking all others" stipulation sort of wrecks legal polygamy. But only LEGAL polygamy. If you want to live with 8 women, sleep with 8 women, and deal with 96 periods a year, be my guest.

My favorite argument against gay marriage is the "sanctity" strategy. Three words to debunk the myth that marriage is sacred:

Anna Nicole Smith

Speaking of Mormons, I actually found a nice little anti-gay-marriage argument on a Mormom site. And by nice, I mean it wasn't filled with virulent hatred for guys who like guys and girls who like girls.

Many gay marriage supporters ask, “Why shouldn’t there be legalized gay marriage?” That’s the wrong question: there isn’t gay marriage now—never has been. Throughout history, even those civilizations which were more accepting of homosexual relationships did not have a gay ‘marriage’ concept—certainly nothing approaching the equivalence of man/woman marriages in their society. The idea of gay 'marriage' is entirely a modern concept.

The right question then, is “Why should there be legalized gay marriage?” It is important to recognize that the burden of proof is entirely on the ‘pro-‘ side, which needs to provide a positive proof of why society needs to officially recognize same-sex relationships, since human civilization has arguably gotten along well enough without it for thousands of years.

It's a good question. Why should we add to the lawbooks? Interestingly enough, the argument can be turned and used to counter the notion that gay marriage should be explicitly banned. But anyway, here's my answer to this argument:

In 1919, women were not legally allowed to vote. Amendment XIX of the US Constitution CHANGED that. BTW, Iowa beat California to the punch in that instance, too. Why was this change necessary? Societies had certainly gotten along nicely without women voting. There was no crisis averted, no blood in the streets, it's just that women could vote.

Ain't reductio ad absurdum a bitch?

I'll go even further. Why should man be allowed to marry man? Why should woman be allowed to marry woman? Because they're fucking human beings! They deserve the same rights that I as a straight human being inherently possess. The same rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution, supposedly protected by the government. Rights that aren't given to me or anyone else, but are intrinsically mine.

Some more fun from the same site:

Gay marriage is not an equal rights issue. Saying gays have fewer rights than non-gays is like saying marijuana being illegal is an ‘equal rights' issue because people who like smoking tobacco can do so legally, but people who like smoking marijuana can’t. Smoking tobacco is legal for everyone, and smoking marijuana is illegal for everyone across the board—it doesn’t make a difference if you happen to only prefer one or the other.

This is one of the worst comparisons in the history of things being compared to other things. Marijuana is not tobacco. It'd be more appropriate to compare smoking pipe tobacco to smoking cigarette tobacco. Or even chewing tobacco to smoking tobacco.

If I want nicotene, but I hate smoking, don't I have the right to get my fix from snuff?

You know, I used to smoke tobacco. I smoked a pack a day. Then I stopped. And I haven't smoked for a little over 6 months now. I don't know anyone who's quit being gay. Is there a gay patch, or a gay gum that helps you quit? Because smoking cigarettes is an addiction. Homosexuality is... well, I don't know. I don't really know why I like girls. I don't know why I'm into anything that I'm sexually into. Why does my idea of a dream women have to include her willingness to dress up like Lieutenant Saavik from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan?

The word "preference" really bugs me in this arena. I prefer Sam Adams over Coors Light. I don't just prefer women. I'm attracted to them. I want one in my bed right now. And gay men don't just prefer men. It's stronger than that.

In 46 states, gay men and gay women cannot marry people to whom they are sexually attracted. If that's not an infringement of rights, I don't know what the hell is. And you know what, it's an infringement of all our rights. The government has no place in my bedroom. If I want to marry Lt. Saavik, I will. The government can't tell me not to. If I want to marry a 90 year old billionaire, that's my right. And if some guy wants to marry his boyfriend, or some girl wants to marry her girlfriend, that's their fucking right.

The site I quoted from twice

Who Gives a Shit About Barack's Gift-Giving?

2009-04-07T12:42:00.003-05:00

Welcome to Liberal Week on Ambidextrous Wing!

One of the anti-Barack talking points of conservative pundits like Sean Hannity the past few days have been the diplomatic gaffes committed by Barack, and even Michelle Obama at the G20. We all remember when Barack gave British PM Gordon Brown a collection of DVDs. Well, now he's given Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, et cetera; an iPod.

So he gives crappy gifts. Oh, and Michelle Obama gave the Queen a hug, which apparently is a breach of protocol.

Who the fuck cares? Conservative pundits are spending time on this meaningless minutia. This isn't 1372, the Queen isn't going to declare war on us because we gave her a crappy present. She's not going to chop off Michelle Obama's head for hugging her.

If you have an hour-long cable news show, and you find time to criticize the President for his gifts to the British in that hour, then he must not be doing that bad of job. There's so much other BS to criticize Barack on. Gift-giving is #3.6 trillion on that list.

Conservatives are also attacking Barack for bowing to the Saudi King. Ummmmmmmmmmmmm....

Now I don't think Barack did anything amazing at the G20, but who the hell did? Nothing gets done at these big summits. It's just a bunch of photo opps and soap-box standing. But the Special Relationship between the US and the UK has hardly been put into jeopardy by Barack's inability to give good gifts.

After all, it's the thought that counts.

Anarchists Invade London

2009-04-01T12:24:00.002-05:00

Royal Bank of Scotland stole my sleeves!

You have got to love when anarchists organize. People against organization coming together and organizing to protest organization.

The G20 is meeting in London, and thousands of protesters are making a scene, clashing with police, vandalizing property, and generally being a nuisance.

The City of London advised many bankers today to not wear suits in order to avoid being a target. In true British "fuck em" style, they wore their suits.

I just love these losers. They blame banks and governments for all the problems in the world. Their solution: no more banks and no more governments. Also known as curing the headache by cutting off the head.

Because before banks, things were great, and everybody lived happily. They were all subsistence farmers and had to pay tribute to their local bully (also called a knight). But they didn't have credit card debts or mortgages.

Then there was that time before governments. When if you wanted something, you simply killed your neighbor for it. Great deal if you're in shape and/or have access to a big club.

Look at me! My shirt's around my neck and I lost my belt! I'm a rebel!

And what affect do these protesters have? By now, all these global summitts are accustomed to them. Barack doesn't care about the protesters. He and the Queen couldn't give a rat's ass.

We represent the Lollipop Guild...

Neither do the President of France or the Chancellor of Germany. they're having a blast:

Facebook material

All the protesters do is make shit hard for working class people who just want to use the subway. The working class folks have to pay the taxes to pay for all the extra security. The working class folks who can't get to work because a thousand losers in masks are being loud. The working class cop who gets attacked just because he's a cop trying to protect people and property.

And why should we be anarchists? It seems like most of the G20 nations are satisfied with the Democratic and capitalistic systems. We're happy to play the game, make some money, buy a house, raise a family, and retire in Arizona. These anarchists and protesters are so unbelievably selfish. They think that they should decide how the world works, and nobody who disagrees with them has the right to live any other way.

Fuck these clowns.

And where are all the Europe-loving liberal bastards who want the US to join the EU? You know, the men and women who bemoan the incivility of the U-S-of-A and tout the merits of those cosmopolitan continentals across the pond? They're probably wearing a black ski mask and throwing bricks at windows, because it's the cool, European thing to do.

It's hot out

General Disarray

2009-03-31T09:20:00.000-05:00

In response to an inviable viability plan, Barack Obama fired General Motors' CEO Rick Wagoner. That's General Motors, not General Mortars.

National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1... go rent it.

Anyway, the shitty CEO definitely had what was coming to him. And it looks like GM will have to file for bankruptcy, eventually being divided into "Good" and "Bad" parts. The Good would be brands like Chevy and Cadillac. The Bad would be Saturn, Buick, Pontiac, and the other unsuccessful parts of the once massive corporation.

So there's the Good, and the Bad (You know what's coming). So what's the Ugly?

The Ugly is the way liberals have molested this economic crisis as well as their stranglehold on Washington into an opportunity to railroad their various agendaa through the Congress. Chrysler, for instance, is also in trouble and desperately needs a partner. Italian firm Fiat has expressed interest. But at the same time, Barack's liberal assassins in the Congress are concocting legislation to impose mileage minimums on cars made in the US. Fiat doesn't like the sound of that, and I can't blame them.

At a time when car companies are so fucked up that they need taxpayer support, the government wants to restrict their business, threatening their profitability. That does not make sense!

I'm all for mileage minimums, and legislation to reduce the amount of gasoline we consume. But not now. Two years ago, when gas was $4/gallon and the economy was still booming, definitely. Don't hamstring dying businesses that you're also supporting. That's choking the dog with one hand, and feeding him with the other.

I'm all for mileage minimums, but disguising them as economic stimulus, and essentially bribing car companies with the lure of government funding IF you play ball with the environmentalists is flat out BULLSHIT.

One question that needs to be asked, asked repeatedly, and asked until Barack gives a straight answer, none of his "Look, blah blah blah, hope, yadda yadda, the last administration, blah blah blah change" BS. The question is:

Why hadn't General Motors been put into bankruptcy yet? Why wasn't it put into bankruptcy instead of getting $13.4 billion in TARP money? George W. Bush and Barack Obama worked together on this scheme. Why? GM said it needed to survive. Unlike the banks, if GM failed, the financial system would remain intact. It's failure was also quite imminent and predictable. Car sales were rapidly decreasing. The unions had such lucrative deals that even cutting jobs would have barely affected the inevitable outcome of GM's monumental problems.

Part of it is sliding down the slippery slope of government bailouts. If you save the AIGs and Citigroups of the world, why not save the GMs and Chryslers? After all, losing GM and Chrysler would mean losing thousands of jobs, crippling the companies that suppy them with parts and equipment, and practically destroying one of America's proudest industries.

Then again, what kinds of jobs would be lost? Union jobs. Who do unions typically support?

And what states would the loss of GM jobs hurt the most? Michigan, obviously. But also Texas. Indiana. Kentucky. Ohio. Kansas. Virginia. Apart from Michigan, Ohio and Indiana would be the most adversely affected.

Hmmmmm... Ohio? Indiana? Virginia? Aren't these election battleground states? And doesn't Michigan have 8 Democratic Reps, and 7 Republicans? Texas is Bush's home state. Call me cynical, but I think Barack was terrified of losing his overwhelming union support, as well as pissing off the swing voters in states like Ohio, Indiana, and Virginia. Bush also deserves the blame of complicity, and he was the President when the $13.4 billion was given to GM. He helped out his home state, as well as some Republican strongholds. He also didn't allow the Democrats to extend their leads in those swing states. He also avoided going down in history as 'the President who presided over the demise of General Motors.'

GM is dead, and we're all paying for the funeral. Ford still works, and Chrysler has an Italian lifeline dangling in front of it. But a few billion dollars have been paid by the government, in your name, and for what? So Barack can get union voters on his side, and win Ohio in 2012.

The First Daughter: Alexandra Pelosi

2009-03-26T11:30:00.000-05:00

So it's about 3 or 4 AM some weekday morning and as usual, I either haven't gone to bed yet, or I've already woken up. On HBO, there's a documentary, so I give it a shot. I like documentaries. This one's called Friends of God. Here's a pretty good example of what the film is:

Now, I think Creationism is wrong. I think Intelligent Design - the odious disguising of Creationism as science - is horrible. But I think people have the Constitutionally declared and inalienable right to believe in stuff I think is wrong. Alexandra Pelosi - the director/producer/cinematographer/writer of Friends of God, and daughter of House Speaker/Tsar Nancy Pelosi - seems to disagree. Pelosi spends 56 minutes letting Evangelicals make fools of themselves, essentially making fun of them, even belittling and dehumanizing them, because they believe in something they cannot prove.

For the record, I am not a Christian. I'm an agnostic with pagan leanings. If I pray, it's to Mars Gradivus, or Jupiter Optimus Maximus. But in the end, I'm really praying to myself, asking myself to be stronger or better.

The First Daughter made another documentary with the snappy, roll-off-the-tongue title of Right America: Feeling Wronged - Some Voices from the Campaign Trail. Here she is discussing it on WNYC:

To summarize the clip, she talks about conservatives as if they were a strange species of animal to be studied in their natural habitat. Then she vilifies Fox News. Then attacks the McCain campaign for not giving a Pelosi much access. Then she vilifies Fox News some more, because FNC is the ONLY biased news outlet in this country. Then she describes anyone who didn't vote for Barack as believing that he is Hitler and/or The Antichrist.

Everybody knows Christopher Walken is The Antichrist:

This kind of liberal belittlement of conservatives is a very old tactic by the far left. I remember in school reading From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution 1963-1994. This book argued that conservatives are conservative, and support Republican candidates, even if Democratic candidates can help people of their economic status, because conservatives are racists.

Now the en vogue liberal strategy is to belittle conservatives, and explain their strange, inconceivable, unbelievable, inhuman conservativeness with religion. Those 58 million McCain voters didn't vote for Hope and Change because they're blinded by hokey religions and moronic superstition.

Super liberals, who love words like "tolerance," are often the most intolerant, belittling, prejudiced people. More dangerously, they're smart. Wicked smart. And they know they're smart. They hate on Evangelicals for believing in something they think is stupid, then they hate on Evangelicals for not accepting other people's beliefs. They're hypocrites who are too self-assured and smug to self-examine and realize their hypocrisies. They think their farts smell like roses.

I wonder what Pelosi's next HBO documentary will be about? How Creationism caused the Credit Crisis of 2008? Why Jesus is to blame for the massive inflation of 2011? How if the US sold "The Red States" to China, it could pay off its $10 trillion budget gap?

What do Afghanistan and the FCC Have in Common?

2009-03-25T03:41:00.002-05:00

There's little more irritating or dangerous than cultural conservatives. Now I don't care what anyone believes in. If you think evolution is hogwash, that's fine. If you want to teach your kids that evolution is hogwash, that's fine. If you want a private school to teach that evolution is hogwash, that's fine.

It's when people's personal beliefs and morals become the basis for public policy when things go from fine to unfine. Like in Afghanistan the other day. A TV executive was arrested because his station refused to censor images of women dancing in short skirts.

Is this the kind of "Democracy" the US has installed in Afghanistan? Aren't two key ingredients to Democracy: freedom of the press and no religious involvement? Is it worth American military lives to support this pathetic, faux-Democracy? I'm not so sure.

We ousted the terrorist supporting regime, right? So why not, I don't know... leave? If the people there want Democracy, they'll fight for it, and earn it. We've given them the tools to get it. If they want their government to censor women's arms and legs, then they'll let them. Why fight to support a government that IGNORES fundamental keys to freedom?

And honestly, how fucked up is a male controlled society that hates seeing the female body? This picture is illegal for Afghani TV to broadcast:

What kind of society would have leaders that are terrified of the female form?

How eerily similar is this anti-scantily-clad-women crusade in Afghanistan to some movements by cultural conservatives and overly concerned shrill mothers to ban sexuality and violence in American media?

Democracy doesn't exist without the right to be obscene. Afghanistan doesn't realize this, and some very dangerous Americans are in the same bland, spiceless, swear-free boat.

What was that sound? It was John Ashcroft checking Priceline for one-way tickets to Kandahar.

If Barack Fucks Up and Nobody Thinks About It, Does It Make a Sound?

2009-03-23T12:20:00.002-05:00

With all the AIG mess, you may or may not have missed Barack making fun of the Special Olympics. Rather, making fun of himself by comparing his bowling ability to a Special Olympian.

There was some media scrutiny over this, but not much. Could you imagine the firestorm if George W. Bush or Sarah Palin had said something like that?

I'm not offended by Barack's comments. I don't get offended on other people's behalf. But I'm disturbed. I'm disturbed at this iconic civil rights figure who doesn't think homosexuals have the right to get married, and thinks disabled people are a joke.

I'm even more disturbed by a public and a media that can dismiss this as just a mistake, a slip of the tongue, just a joke.

I'm not trying to make too much of it. I don't think this makes Barack a bad President. His socialism makes him that. I don't even think this makes him a bad man. It would just be nice, in this volatile period of history, to have a public that questions its leaders instead of blindly worshiping them.

AIG Rage

2009-03-18T10:12:00.002-05:00

We found out Monday morning that government owned former insurance giant AIG distributed $165 million in bonuses to its financial-products division. After this was released the populist anger, particularly from the Democrats, flowed like raging water through a busted dam.

How could you give bonuses to people in a division that was primarily responsible for the collapse of the company? Really, how stupid can you get?

Apparently, the bonuses were contract obligations. But they're still dumb. AIG management should have sat down with their employees in this division, explained the potential PR situation, then forcefully asked them to waive the bonuses. If they didn't, then fire them, ask the government to pay the legal fees which they'll have to do thanks to populist support, and suddenly AIG goes from Wall Street greedhouse to the Robin Hood of lower Manhattan.

So I'm mad too. This bonus BS is an indicator that the people running AIG are STILL flat out stupid.

But the fucking outrage over $165 million is even dumber. Yeah, that's a lot of money to you and me. But it's less than 1/1,000th of the total AIG received from the government ($170B). And it's 0.0047% of Barack's proposed 2010 budget ($3.5 T-bones).

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) had these eloquent words of wisdom:

"From my standpoint, it’s irresponsible for corporations to give bonuses, at this time, when they are so sucking the tit of the taxpayer."

He then called on AIG executives to "resign or commit suicide."

Okie dokie....

Moving on.

Two Representatives from New York suggested 100% taxes on the bonuses. But hey, why stop there? Why not 120% taxes? Why not 200% taxes and cease their apartments and cars?

Barack and the government have issued trillions (remember, that's a million millions) in money to these banks. People don't like it. So when the banks give $165 million to employees, the politicians come in with the people, who are already so angry at Wall Street. The politicians spout slogans like 'We were on your side all along!' 'We hate these Wall Street assholes as much as you do!' 'Let's tax them until they die!'

A Representative from New York, and one from Ohio suggested 100% taxes on any $100,000+ bonus issued by a company that's received bailout money. To me, that's ridiculously anti-capitalist, anti-American, and fucking stupid. You don't retain intelligent financial minds by legislating a limit on their compensation. The smart money, so to speak, will leave those banks that need them most. If some exec at a bank is doing a fantastic job, helping his/her bank return to profitability, then they deserve compensation. That's justice.

Barack is mixed in all this too. He wants his people to find ways to retract the bonuses. Wait a minute, Mister President. If you didn't want bonuses like this to be issued, why didn't you stipulate that as a restriction when you kept sending AIG billions of dollars?

AIG is dumb. The politicians are dumber. The people about to start a class-war over $165 million when the government has spent TRILLIONS, are dumbest.

With all these stupid people lying about their income on mortgage applications, constructing deceptive CDOs, and concocting gargantuan budgets; it's a wonder we have an economy at all.

Iran, Iran So Far Away

2009-03-16T14:04:00.002-05:00

So about a month ago, an unmanned Iranian aircraft was shot down 60 miles outside Baghdad. The vehicle spent 70 minutes in Iraqi airspace before it was disabled by US fighters, then apprehended. Apparently, it was an unarmed spying vehicle.

Iran has been messing with us in Iraq for years and Barack just wants to turn the other cheek. I can't say I blame him. He's a weather vane, he points whatever way the wind is blowing. Also, what kind of war would be fought against Iran? No longer are we trying to avoid a 2nd Vietnam. We're worried about a 3rd Iraq.

Then again, Iraq's central government was displaced, disabled, and destroyed with amazing ease and speed. It was the agonizingly long time spent attempting to install democracy (odd phrase, eh?) that was the most costly and painful.

So why not remove Iran's central government with some cruise missiles, a concentrated armored thrust from Iraq to Tehran, and an amphibiously launched assault from the Gulf of Oman, slicing across the axis of the country.

You might not even need to send many ground troops in. James Bondesque assassinations might cut off the head of the snake, and with even more speed.

What happens after we leave, and some new strong-armed, likely anti-US government takes power? If they have the balls to mess with us, then they get removed.

But this will never happen. I can't imagine Americans supporting such an audacious and morally ambiguous war. I can't imagine the few allies we have in that region would be happy if we destabilized it even further. And OPEC would be pissed.

When can we invent a new kind of fuel so we don't have to care about what the people in that region think, do, or say?

President Pelosi

2009-03-12T05:35:00.002-05:00

Unprecedented spending. Ludicrous finger-pointing. Partisan politics. Pork. Division. Leftist social engineering. Barack Obama has the mandate and the approval rating to shove his agenda through Congress. But nobody in Massachusetts, or New York, or Pennsylvania, or Minnesota, or North Carolina, or Florida, or Ohio, or Oregon voted for Nancy Pelosi.

The US government is a system of checks and balances. Yet a Representative from San Francisco, and another from Newton, MA hold unbelievable individual power. Power given to them from their Party that controls Washington.

The Democrats, and Republicans for that matter, have been hypercritical of businesses spending money on golf tournaments, and business conventions, and corporate outings. Yet Pelosi flies around the country in a US Air Force G550, a $60 million plane that you and I paid for.

Here's the story. After 9/11, a special plane has been designated for The Speaker of the House. This makes sense. After all, the Speaker is 3rd to the President. But it seems as though Pelosi's turned a security measure into a private airline.

Here's an editorial that goes into more detail. But basically, some in the Pentagon think Pelosi overuses the aircraft. She often cancels prearranged flights, wasting the time and money it takes to prepare the jets. And she complains if her preferred jet isn't available.

In 2007, she wanted an even larger plane, a Boeing 757, which has a base cost of $80 million and can seat 50 people. It can also, unlike the G550, make it from Washington to San Francisco without stopping for fuel. Poor Pelosi has to stop in a red state to refuel her personal jet.

This is an hilarious quote that not so shockingly didn't get much publicity:

"Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package, 500 million Americans lose their jobs."

Firstly, there are 304 million people in America. That's it.

Secondly, let's say she made a mistake and meant to say 500 thousand. What the hell were they basing that on? And what in their economic recovery package stopped those jobs from being lost?

Barack Obama might be changeful, but his friends aren't. Pelosi and her Party have used the economic crisis as an excuse to railroad liberal legislation through the House and Senate, threatening an epic economic collapse if it didn't get passed ASAP, then justifying their decisions by labelling every item on their liberal wish-list as "stimulus."

I'm pretty liberal when it comes to birth control, family planning, STD prevention, all that stuff. I think kids should get taught sex ed. I think they should be taught how to use condoms, not instructed to be abstinent. And I have no problem with government funding these kinds of measures. SO LONG AS IT ISN'T DISGUISED AS SOMETHING ELSE.

Nothing typifies Washington better than the mislabeling of legislation. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was a tack-on of the Safe Port Act. How does stopping online poker make ports safer? And how does STD prevention programs stimulate the economy?

Building and repairing infrastructure stimulates an economy. Cutting taxes stimulates an economy. Helping people pay for college stimulates an economy. Military spending stimulates an economy. Flying in a private jet courtesy of the US Air Force doesn'st stimulate the economy.

The Trouble With Trillions

2009-03-11T05:30:00.002-05:00

Yes, this post's title is the same name of The Simpsons episode when Mr. Burns and Homer flee to Cuba to protect their trillion dollar bill. And that title was a variation of the famous Star Trek episode "Trouble With Tribbles." Big whoop, wanna fight about it?

Pictures from cartoons are funny. They're even funnier when they're out of context. Like so...

Anyway, this is just a discussion of the T word. Maybe instead of saying Barack's 2010 budget is $3.5 trillion, we can say it's 3.5 T-Bones. That'd be more hopeful, and it'd be change.

How big is a trillion? It's a 1 with 12 zeros after it, or 1x10^12 or 1,000,000,000,000. It's a thousand billions. It's a million millions. It's one thousand times a thousand times a thousand times a thousand.

One trillion miles would take someone around the Earth 40 million times. One trillion miles would be the same distance as 135 round trips between Earth and Pluto. The Universe has existed for 14 billion years, or 1.4% of a trillion. 1 trillion days is about 60% the age of the Earth. The Universe is not yet 1 trillion weeks old, and won't be for another 5 billion years.

$1 trillion could pay Alex Rodriguez to play baseball for 40,000 years. With $1 trillion, you could buy EVERY seat in Gillette Stadium as season tickets for 12,000 years. That includes the 2 preseason games a year.

If you played MegaMillions a trillion times, you'd win 5,700 jackpots.

Only 14 countries have GDPs higher than $1 trillion. $1 trillion could buy Indonesia two times over, buy Venezuela 3 times over, Portugal 4 times over, the Ukraine 5 times over, Slovakia 10 times over, and Lithuania 20 times over.

With $1 trillion, you could buy every single share of ExxonMobil... three times... and have $52 billion to spare. You could have a portfolio that owned all of Wal-Mart, all of Microsoft, all of IBM, all of Google, all of Coca-Cola, all of Verizon, all of Apple, all of General Electric, all of Pepsi, and all of Intel.

Here's a trillion pennies next to a football field (not my illustration).

Resistance is futile.

1 trillion MPH is 1,490 times faster than light.

1 trillion inches is 15.8 million miles, or 33 round trips from Earth to the Moon.

1 trillion miles is about 1/6 of a light-year.

The Sun is a little more than 1 trillion millimeters around.

If you spent $100 per second, it would take you 317 years to spend $1 trillion.

It would take Major League Baseball 45.7 million seasons to reach 1 trillion innings played, and 1.4 million seasons to reach 1 trillion pitches (at 300 pitches per game).

If you played 1 trillion hands of 5 card draw, you'd get dealt a Royal Flush 1.5 million times. If you had 1 trillion Queen high straight flushes (in hold em), you'd LOSE THE HAND 120,000 times. If you had 1 trillion straight flushes of any level, you'd lose 1.2 million times.

My point is that one trillion is an extremely large number (duh). It's so large that it's an unfathomable number. And our government is going to spend 3.5 of them next year. 3.5 T-Bones. To quote Homer: "That's a spicy meatball."

Our Vice President

2009-03-10T15:53:00.002-05:00

A tribute to the man (Biden) behind the man (Obama) behind the woman (Pelosi).

Here he is drunk:

And hopefully he's drunk in this one too because if he's sober... it's just sad.

Here he is saying Barack Obama is not ready to be President:

Here he is confusing the internet with telephones:

Website number?

And finally, here he is being a racist:

Could you imagine if a Republican said something of this sort? The media would be on it like flies on shit. Yet Biden says it and only YouTube blinks.

What Kind of Ally is Barack Obama?

2009-03-09T11:43:00.002-05:00

A few days ago, Prime Minister of England Gordon Brown visited Barack Obama in the White House. As is done in these types of meetings between world leaders, there was an exchange of gifts. Gordon Brown gave the President a pen made from the wood of a British ship that patrolled the seas hunting for illegal slave ships. Barack gave Brown 25 DVDs. What? No Best Buy gift card?

But that's a small slap to the face compared to the wholesale selling out Barack attempted through secret channels.

AP Photo

In an attempt to gain Russian cooperation and support in pressuring Iran, Barack was willing to sell out our Eastern European allies by abandoning our missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic.

When the Russians went public with the secret communique (why would a true ally, which is what Barack wants Russia to be, publicize the proposal?), Barack did his best to dodge the issue:

"The missile defence that we have talked about deploying is directed towards not Russia, but Iran."

That's why they're in Poland and the Czech Republic? That's why they were used as bargaining chips with Russia? And how many nuclear missiles does Iran possess? Zero. How many does Russia? 5,200 warheads. It seems to me that missile defense is best employed against people who, you know, HAVE MISSILES.

Go to 1:55 for the missiles. After them, there's just fireworks

Russia doesn't like that Poland and the Czech have missile defenses. Russia doesn't like anything that gets in her way of being the dominant force in the region. They didn't like that Georgia has an oil pipeline.

And our President, instead of being tough with the Russians, was soft. He showed weakness. He showed a willingness to concede protection of our allies just to make his job easier in Iran.

If I were a country's leader, I wouldn't be thrilled about having Barack as a friend. Sure, I'd get some free DVDs, but I wouldn't get protection from geopolitical bullies like Russia.

Hillary's World Peace Tour

2009-03-02T23:19:00.005-05:00

It's difficult to call Secretary of State Hillary Clinton soft on terror. During her campaign, she threatened to "obliterate" Iran if the shit hit the fan. But just a general question to all the sunshine and rainbow hope-o-crats out there...

How the fuck can you talk with Iran about anything sensible?

I don't think I could have a serious discussion with someone who thinks in a population of 66 million, there isn't a single gay guy, or even a girl who got some ideas at the club while listening to Katy Perry.

And I don't think I could trust someone who leads a government supported by the systematic terrorizing its own citizens.

So why the fuck even talk to these guys? Is it just a token appeasement of pussy countries like France? Or is it the same kind of anti-reality superoptimism that made Sean Penn fall in love with Iraq. You know, the type of BS overhope that flowed through the streets of Munich in 1938. And that worked out well.

Then there was her trip to China. For years, people have protested the countless injustices China perpetrates on her own people, as well as those people China CLAIMS as her own. But once again, the regime that promised "Change" has given us nothing but The Same.

Hillary went to China, even acknowledged their human rights problems, and in the same breath, dismissed them:

"[human rights issues] can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis."

Could you imagine what would have happened to her in 1775 Boston if she said, "Hey guys, I know the British are infringing on our rights, but trade with them is good for our economy?"

Three words:

Tar and feather!

Imagine if Bush, or Cheney, or Rice, or McCain, or Palin said what she said. The liberals on the streets would wave their signs around, and the liberals on TV would criticize and chastise.

We're afraid of pissing off China. The United States hasn't been afraid of pissing anyone off since there's been a United States. But we owe China money. We like cheap Chinese products. We like selling cigarettes, beer, and McDonalds to 1.3 billion Chinese.

Read this.

Where's the hope? Where's the fucking change? It sure as shit isn't in China.

The New N-Word: Nationalization

2009-03-02T11:35:00.002-05:00

Former insurance giant AIG officially reported the largest quarterly loss in American corporate history. $62 billion. That's $681 million A DAY. And you own it. 79.9% of AIG is owned by the government.

Citigroup, you own that too. General Motors owes you money. Not a bad portfolio 5 years ago, but an unbelievably shitty one in 2009.

Why do you own these? Because if they failed, the damage done to the economy would be more than the $162.5 billion it's costing you to support AIG, or all the TARP money Citigroup's assumed. But it's all a short-term fix, delaying and amplifying our economic problems.

Remember that whole cable switch? Everybody had to go from analog to digital signals on their TVs. Remember how it still hasn't happened? The people who brought you that cluster-fuck are the ones running the financial foundation of our economy.

Congressman who have NO experience in the business world standing on soap boxes and telling banks what gold tournaments they should sponsor to promote their business. Which stadiums they should pay for naming rights, and how much they should pay. Maybe sports marketing doesn't work, maybe it doesn't. But Senators have no fucking place telling businesses how to promote themselves.

The people who brought you the post office, the DMV, they run the banks now.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm scared. Barack's helped brew that fear. Apparently the world would have stopped spinning on its axis, continents would have toppled over each other, mountains would have flown into space, and the planet would have shriveled to a cinder, and crashed into the sun; had we not done EVERYTHING he said.

What is AIG going to be in 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? What about Citi? General Motors? Barack and his cronies have no idea. Yet we're spending tons and tons of money to keep them alive. For what reason? Who in their right mind will get insurance from AIG in 10 years? Who will deposit money with Citi?

And what exactly is Nationalization? The White House proudly declared they would not nationalize Citi. Yet they own 35%. Rather, WE own 35%. How is that not nationalization? The next largest shareholders own 5%. The government controls Citi. You own it, they control it. They blow it up, you pay for it.

And I thought Democrats and liberals were against keeping dying things alive on life support.

There Are Stupid Questions

2009-02-27T12:30:00.003-05:00

I hate UConn basketball. In fact, I generally dislike the state of Connecticut. It's East New Jersey to me. But their head coach, Jim Calhoun, has become a personal hero of mine...

Backstory: The state of Connecticut, which runs UConn, has a budget deficit of $1.35 billion. So some (German accent) Kinderliberal (child liberal) wanted to ask Coach Calhoun - who makes $1.6 million a year - to consider giving part of his salary back.

Some remedial math for the reporter, and the two CT State Congresswomen who want to punish Calhoun for losing his temper at a stupid question. If Calhoun gave back ALL of his salary, that would represent 0.12% of CT's budget gap. Or, in term's of spending in a year, Calhoun's salary is equivalent to what Connecticut overspends in 0.43 of a day, or 10 hours, 23 minutes.

I'm not going to mention the name of the "reporter" or the names of the two Congresswomen. The reporter is a wannabe Gonzojournalist who thinks it's 1967, or maybe even 1767 and he's in a constant state of struggle against government oppression. And the two Congresswomen seem to be after statewide/national attention, and a piece of the 15 minutes of fame pie.

We seem to have a problem against success in this country, especially in the past few months. Jim Calhoun makes a lot of money, but he's also one of the best basketball coaches in the world. He's one of 7 people in history to have 800 coaching wins. Because of him and their basketball program, UConn is known far and wide. Their program brings in revenue that funds other programs at the University, athletic and academic. They bring prestige and noteriety to the school.

If you don't think Calhoun deserves $1.6 million, then scold the University for paying him as such.

Bob Stoops is an employee of the State of Oklahoma, and he makes $6.5 million. Louisiana pays Les Miles $3.75 million. The State of Florida pays Urban Meyer $3.4 million, and Bobby Bowden $2.5 million. But let's go back to basketball. Tubby Smith draws $2.1 million from Minnesota. Rick Barnes gets $1.8 million from Texas. And Ohio pays $1.75 million to Thad Matta.

Does Jim Calhoun DESERVE $1.6 million? That's not up to me is it? Nor is it up to some snively Hartford punk. That's up to the person who is PAYING HIM $1.6 million! Disagree with it? Take it up with the State, or the University. But asking a successful man to give back money because the people who pay his salary can't balance a checkbook is UN-FUCKING-AMERICAN!!!

SMART VS. STUPID

2009-02-26T06:40:00.003-05:00

Pretty much the entire world has seen the Smart Guy, Rick Santelli and his famous rant...

But this Stupid Guy deserves some air time, because nothing can discredit an argument better than an idiot's support.

Point #1: Santelli wasn't on some "Wall Street floor." He was actually on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, on South Wacker Drive, in Chicago. And those guys behind him aren't the big bonus financial fat-cats we all love to hate, they're the working class traders who work 10 hour days, carrying out the trades of those financial fat-cats.

Point #2: "He [Obama] has political capital, and he's spending it." Barack Obama was NOT elected dictator, czar, or king. Questioning the President and his policies is part of responsible citizenship. And the only thing Obama's been spending is my money and your money.

Point #3: My favorite argument from this genius was that we should pay for people's bad mortgages in order to prevent them from dragging us out of our houses, beating us, and taking our food. Now, I know 99.999% of people who participated in these bad mortgages wouldn't do that, but this clown thinks that they would. And the threat of such robbery is sufficient reason to give people money. Isn't that called a protection racket?

Point #4: "We know you were the bastards that caused this." If anyone ever asks for an example of oversimplification, quote this. This current crisis was caused by EVERYONE. Wall Street, Main Street, the SEC, the Fed, Greenspan, Bush, Clinton, the Democrats, the Republicans, everyone who ever lied on their mortgage application, everyone who ever didn't double-check mortgage applications they approved. But everyone wants to blame somebody else, and it's become all too fashionable to blame the rich and successful.

Point #5: "You pukes in a suit outsourced our jobs and now we lost our houses." Actually, the first 2 years of those adjustable rate mortgages passed, and those small interest payments turned into massive ones. Defaults lowered house prices, preventing refinancing, causing more defaults.

Point #6: "When we run out of hope, we're coming to your house." Doesn't this guy seem like a character from early 1990s WWF wrestling?

WHEN I MEET RICK SANTELLI IN THE RING ON PAY PER VIEW THIS SATURDAY, I'M GONNA RIP HIM A NEW A-HOLE, HIM AND ALL THOSE OTHER PUKES IN SUITS. GOD BLESS AMERICA, AND GOD BLESS HARLEY DAVIDSON!!!

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME

2009-02-26T06:05:00.002-05:00

It's been nearly 40 months since I've used this blog. My original idea for this blog was "Why not start a political blog?" Then running a Boston sports blog, writing for school, and life took up all my time. That's why not.

But I'm so concerned and outraged about the state of America these days. The country is in the hands of economic know-nothing know-it-alls. The economy is shit. Any upcoming recovery is imaginary and only forestalling the inevitable unless the fundamental structure and functioning of the economy completely changes. Barack Obama is a fraud and is Nancy Pelosi's bitch. Civil rights in California (of all places) are being denied. Sean Penn and his Uberliberal wannabe Communistas haven't been removed from their holier-than-thou pulpits.

America isn't dying, and maybe it isn't even sick. But it's developing some bad habits. 20, 30, 50, 100 years from now, we're gonna be behind the 8-ball. Maybe this blog will still exist in the future in some form, and I want to be remembered as "That obscure writer/philosopher known simply as 'Rob' who foresaw the collapse of the American Empire." Either that or "That obscure writer/philosopher whose ideas saved America."

Hope. Change. Yes, We Can.

TIMETABLE FOR WITHDRAWAL

2005-11-16T08:19:00.000-05:00

A move by Senate Democrats to force Bush and the White House to come out with a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal was defeated. Oh the subtlety of media outlets is so beautiful yet so ugly. The GOP "blocked" this move, according to ABC News. They didn't "disagree" or "stop" it. Like a-holes, they "blocked" it.

The Democrats, and a good deal of other people, want a timetable for withdrawal. This seems like a reasonable request on the part of the Dems. It would be nice to know when the war will be over.

There's a problem, however. Wars don't end on schedules. Looking back through history, wars are often underestimated in length. When the war goes over that length, the people start getting aggravated. Although the White House has NEVER come out with any schedule or promises of a quick and easy war, people in this country expected one. In reality, the legitimate war has been over for a long time. A second war in Iraq has been underway since then.

If a timetable were to be made for U.S. troop withdrawal, it should not be made public. Only coalition and Iraqi forces should know when and how our troops will be leaving. This information should be kept from the insurgents. If they knew when we were leaving, they could somehow use it to their advantage. What if they plan massive attacks before we elave Iraq, killing hundreds or even thousands of our troops? What if they plan massive attacks for the day after we leave? This would seriously jeapordize Iraqi security forces ability to maintain stability.

Politically, issuing a timetable would be an unwise move. If the White House published one that was a cautious prediction, people would think that the war would be going on for too long. If the timetable were very aggressive in bringing troops home early, it would probably not be followed. This would cause even more political outrage towards an administration that is suffering from that mallady as it is.

The Democratic Party, in my opinion, often suffers from over-idealism. Yes, it would be terriffic to be able to mark a day on a calendar as "Troops Come Home Day." Then we could plan big parades and celebrate that our part in the war is essentially over. Unfortunately, wars do not operate in such ways. When the Allies invaded Normandy, nobody knew how long it would take for them to liberate France. Their timetables for the Normandy invasion itself were quite mistaken. In an effort to make up for lost time taking Caen, the Allies implemented a plan that was somewhat foolish and resulted in far too many Allied deaths for far too little gain. Timetables can often be dangerous.

To simplify (perhaps overly so), war is like a football game with no clock. The two sides don't stop playing until one is destroyed or one quits. Imagine if the Super Bowl were played in such a manner. You couldn't really come up with any sort of timetable for victory, could you? Even if you were up by 56 points (which we aren't in Iraq), you still couldn't point to a moment when your team could claim victory and leave the field.

What makes the Democrats request somewhat ridiculous, in my eyes, is that they often claim that we are losing the war in Iraq. I'm not going to claim that we are winning it. Wars between terrorists and legitimate armed forces rarely have a side that is "winning." This is because the goal of the terorrists is to destroy the armed forces and the goal of the armed forces is to destroy the terrorists. Until either one accomplishes their goal, neither one is winning or losing.

If the Democrats truly believe that we are losing, then troop withdrawal timetables are not a good idea. If they beleive that we are losing, they should either be pushing for total and outright withdrawal from Iraq to save the lives of out troops, or they should not be expressing any desire to remove troops so that we can win the war. They claim that we're losing, yet they want us to withdraw slowly as if we were winning but the war wasn't over. Which is it?

This is what Harry Reid (D-Nevada) had to say:

"We want to change the course. We can't stay the course."

If that isn't a defeated attitude, I don't know what is. It sounds to me that Harry is assuming that we cannot win in Iraq. If he truly felt this way, however, he would urge for total withdrawal now, not a timetable for eventual gradual withdrawal.

The Republicans of the Senate did not vote for the timetable measure. They proposed a different measure. It passed 79-19.

Bill Frist (R-Tennesse, Majority Leader) stated: "They [the Democrats] want an exit strategy, a cut-and-run exit strategy. What we are for is a successful strategy."

The measure passed by the Senate urges there to be a concerted effort to make Iraq a fully sovereign nation. This would eliminate the need for U.S. troops in Iraq, thus ending our direct involvement in the war. However, the measure included no desire for a specific timetable to be set by the White House for troop withdrawals.