Wednesday, December 31, 2008
I hate annual events
Well, perhaps “hate” is a bit strong. How about “don’t really understand the fuss about”?
Annual holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and especially New Years’ Eve. I mean, the only actual change is a purely subjective one, with two numbers and a word being the only changes (themselves based solely on a millennial-old observational process, giving us the days of the week and the months of the year, the origins and names of which are based on two different cultural belief systems - Norse and Roman).
Sun’s Day, Moon’s Day, Tiw’s Day, Wodin’s (Odin’s) Day, Thor’s Day, Freya’s Day, and Saturn’s Day, plus the months of the year. I especially like how the Caesars called Julius and Augustus shoved the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th months back two whole months, confusing Latin students for the rest of time. See, the Latin words for ‘seven’, ‘eight’, ‘nine’ and ‘ten’ are ’septem‘, ’octo‘, ’novem‘ and ’decem‘.
Ours isn’t even the only calendar system currently being used on this tired old oblate spheroid, third out from Sol. There are large portions of the planet that use a Lunar calendar, there is the Chinese calendar, the Hebrew calendar (which varies in length from 353 to 385 days), and even our own Gregorian and Julian calendars, and it is all subjectively based on ... well, let’s face it, it’s based on nothing at all. Not astronomical phenomena, not on apogee or perigee (either solar or lunar), not on eclipses (solar or lunar), not on either solstice or equinox, and not even on the progression of zodiacal signs, since even that date can bounce back and forth across the “midnight line”. There are the nonsensical women-only kind of anniversaries, too, such as the “three month anniversary of our first date date”. (Much different than a regular “date”, dontchaknow?)
Which makes celebrations based on that calendar particularly and peculiarly empty. Especially one based on pure guesswork, such as Christmas being on December 25th.
When I was in the Navy, my work schedule kept shifting back and forth based on the holiday schedule, which was odd, because the jobs that needed to be done were identical whether that work occurred on December 25 or December 26th, or between Memorial Day or the Friday (Freya’s Day) before. Because of - or, perhaps, in spite of - that shift in schedule, I was “on duty” for 10 out of 10 Christmas Days, 9 out of 10 Thanksgivings, and 9 out of 10 birthdays.
So all of the nonstop coverage of “end of year” stories baffles me, because from my point of view, the planet rotates, the Sun comes up, the Sun goes down, metabolic processes within our bodies keep metabolizing, babies are born, old people die, and shit still happens. What’s all the hubbub, bub? Celebrations should be things like family reunions, concert tours of really good bands, the birth of children (the actual birth, not the annual echo), solar eclipses, etc.
What am I missing?
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Hamas Attacks Israel, Part 1,675,461,235,353,456,454,574,296
Blow them to smithereens.
Maybe now that Obama is president and his choices are nothing other than perfect, our ability to back Israel and send every member of Hamas to meet their 72 unshaven virgins will happen a little faster. Especially since they’re taking potshots at Israel.
Israel pounded Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip from the air on Sunday and prepared for a possible invasion after killing at least 296 Palestinians in two days of attacks.
Israel said the campaign that began on Saturday was a response to almost daily rocket and mortar fire that intensified after Hamas, the Islamist group in charge of the enclave that Israel quit in 2005, ended a six-month ceasefire a week ago.
During the first two days of the assault, militants fired some 80 rockets at Israel, emergency services said, less than some analysts had expected. Two rockets struck near the port of Ashdod, 30 km (18 miles) from Gaza, causing no casualties.
Israeli tanks deployed on the edge of the Gaza Strip, poised to enter the densely populated enclave of 1.5 million Palestinians. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s cabinet approved a call-up of 6,500 reservists, a government official said.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who hopes to become prime minister after a February 10 election, appeared to rule out a large-scale invasion to restore Israeli control of the blockaded territory, once dotted with Jewish settlements.
“Our goal is not to reoccupy Gaza Strip,” she said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. Asked on Fox News if Israel was out to topple Gaza’s Hamas rulers, Livni replied: “Not now.”
Note to Israel: put some earplugs in and ignore the left wings and liberal weenies. Hamas needs to be destroyed and the entire Arab middle east needs to be turned into a parking lot.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Ya know what? Fuckit!
Look, it is now a very real possibility that there will not BE a decision in the Minnesota Senate race before Congress officially convenes on January 3rd. I’m going to send off the prizes for the other two contests first thing Monday, so watch your mail, John.
Second thing, I need to know which way you remaining contestants (John and oneisnotprime) want me to go with this. I see two options:
1. We wait until we see who eventually gets the seat, no matter how long it takes.
2. We quit waiting and split the prize money ($25 each).
What say the two of you (assuming you’re both still paying attention)?
UPDATE: The final contest is still up in the air. The two options are on the table. John has spoken, and I require the contestant ‘oneisnotprime’ to respond with his choice before Congress convenes, or forfeit. That is 8 days away, on Tuesday, January 6th, and we’ll call it 8am Pacific. If I do not hear from him before that date, John will win by default whatever the decision happens to be.
HOWEVER, if the Minnesota system manages to come to a decision before then and produces a Senator (with no appeals or court arguments - by which I mean we have a winner and the other guy openly concedes), then that is a kettle of fish of a different color.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Merry (belated) Christmas
Ugh… I need coffee...
Allow me to drop a little bit of knowledge for all of the rookie cops out there: never piss off your scheduling unit. Somehow along the way in my career, I pissed off the scheduling guys at my unit. Then again, it’s not hard for me to piss people off. But that’s besides the point. I can’t get a day off to save my life. Literally. I’ve been working double shifts and filling behind people that got the holiday’s off for close to a month straight due to my big mouth.
Sometimes it’s easier to just play the game and go with the flow. Especially if you want to get a day off.
So how was your Christmas?
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Tell us what you got for Christmas
I got a bunch of cool T-shirts (concert tour shirts from Lynyrd Skynyrd and AC-DC) some stuff for my computer, a couple of pairs of cargo shorts (I love all the pockets), and a complete cooking set (pots, pans, baking dishes, etc.).
What did YOU get? 
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Been busting my ass all day today
Meeting with customers (part of the downside of owning a business is working on holidays and weekends), standing in line at the grocery store, baking cookies and cakes (the cakes are busy cooling on the rack even as I type this), wrapping presents, and so much more.
Please have the happiest Christmas you can manage, and I’ll be back on Friday, unless something interesting crops up.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
When in the course of Human Events
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Of the unalienable rights, Jefferson only mentions three - Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness - but he clearly implied several others. At the very least, one of those would be the right to own property, to worship the Almighty - or not - in whatever fashion seems appropriate to one’s conscience, to express an opinion without fearing arrest by authorities (although others have a countervailing right to point and laugh), and the right to be left alone.
We have the government limiting our speech in time, place and topic. We have the government taking our property and giving it to someone else, as long as that new someone promises to pay more in taxes than the original owner did. We have the government taking away our hard-earned sustenance and giving it to people who failed to properly utilize the assets they had, and even to those who have done nothing to be remotely productive themselves. We have the government acting on the order of certain loudmouth special interest groups rather than the best interests of their country and constituents. We have the government strictly limiting any reference to a belief system shared by better than 90% of the population, because a small percentage of those who do not share in that belief are “offended” by the very mention of that system or any of its special occasions.
What will be the new “Shot Heard ‘Round The World”?
I will be mentioning this theme from time to time as contemporaneous events call them to mind. With the Federal Government specifically and systematically violating our rights, it is no longer a matter of “whether”, but “what, when and where”.
In the meantime, we have the Intertubes going absolutely crazy about a picture of a shirtless Messiah, completely ignoring the problems developing in his home turf of sunny Crime Town, oops, sorry “CHI-Town”.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Found on the web, Part the Second
I found this humorous little quiz over at Four Right Wing Wackos. It’s a shame they are still on BlogSpot.
My Conservative Identity:
You are an Anti-government Gunslinger, also known as a libertarian conservative. You believe in smaller government, states’ rights, gun rights, and that, as Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”
Take the quiz at www.FightLiberals.com
Quoth the Puppy-Blender: Heh.
Not looking good for Coleman
Especially when the Canvassing Board is making such obvious mistakes.
Such as this ballot, counted for Franken. (The only way I would be able to come to such a conclusion is to presuppose that the voter wanted to vote the straight party ticket and was so stupid to not know better.)
Isn’t this a bit like a cop saying, “But you wanted to run that stop light, didn’t you?” before writing you a ticket for coming to that full and complete stop?
Fat Lady not yet on stage, but you can hear her warming up backstage, and it’s still too close to call.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
No shit, huh?
From someone who clearly knows his Photoshop, we have this gem:
As an addendum
to yesterday’s post, we have the news that Congress has gone and voted themselves yet another pay raise.
Each Congressman and Senator will receive an additional $90.38 per week. That doesn’t seem like very much, but it adds up to $4,700 per year, which totals just a smidge over $2.5 million every year that has to be paid by taxpayers.
But weren’t these the same lawmakers who were loudly decrying the “greedy CEOs” of the Big 3 automakers? Demanding that they work for no money at all?
Sheerest chutzpah. Hubris of that degree ought to be a disqualifying offense.
Friday, December 19, 2008
What happens when
all three branches of the Federal Government are violating the Constitution?
What mechanisms do we have for correcting the problem?
Elections don’t change anything when it is a systemic problem. Budgets don’t count when a reduction in the rate of increase is called a “cut”, nor when denying that letting a tax cut expire results in an increase. Laws don’t count when the plain English is distorted by lawyers conniving with sympathetic judges.
When increased taxes are reflexively met with increased spending, and monthly budget deficits are measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars per month, the financial system is broken.
We have the ultimate arbiter of our rights limiting our political speech and denying our private property ownership rights.
We have the Chief Executive who is giving taxpayer money to privately owned companies - in his own words, he has “Abandoned Free Market Principles To Save The Free Market System”, which is sort of like “destroying the village in order to save it” - rather than releasing those corporate assets to be better and more efficiently utilized by other companies that are not undergoing financial spasms.
Our President-Elect is not only promising more of the same, he has openly espoused socialist and Marxist practices, such as ”redistribution of wealth” and nationalizing industries, National Health Care, and slashing the military as much as he can manage in a single term.
So what’s next? Who do you turn to when there is nowhere left to turn? What options do we have when there are no options left?
Just remember who has been predicting a Second American Revolution before 2025…
Thursday, December 18, 2008
It really means something special
when I call someone “smart”, but Thomas Sowell qualifies.
He explains why, with actual logic, why we shouldn’t bail out the Big 3 automakers.
It isn’t going to fix anything. It just postpones reality.
We are told that the collapse of the Big Three automakers in Detroit would have repercussions across the country, causing mass layoffs among firms that supply the automobile makers with parts, and shutting down automobile dealerships from coast to coast.
A renowned economist of the past, J.A. Schumpeter, used to refer to progress under capitalism as “creative destruction"-- the replacement of businesses that have outlived their usefulness with businesses that carry technological and organizational creativity forward, raising standards of living in the process.
Indeed, this is very much like what happened a hundred years ago, when that new technological wonder, the automobile, wreaked havoc on all the forms of transportation built up around horses.
For thousands of years, horses had been the way to go, whether in buggies or royal coaches, whether pulling trolleys in the cities or plows on the farms. People had bet their futures on something with a track record of reliable success going back many centuries.
Were all these people to be left high and dry? What about all the other people who supplied the things used with horses-- oats, saddles, horse shoes and buggies? Wouldn’t they all go falling like dominoes when horses were replaced by cars?
Unfortunately for all the good people who had in good faith gone into all the various lines of work revolving around horses, there was no compassionate government to step in with a bailout or a stimulus package.
They had to face reality, right then and right there, without even a postponement.
Well said, Dr. Sowell. Well said indeed.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Global Warming
It’s coming!
Someone better remind me about that earth-changing, life-ending, world-destroying global warming we’re going through, especially since it’s snowing in Las Vegas.
Bankrupt
Lots of definitions, but when applied to large institutions, this condition obtains when one’s outstanding debts exceed one’s available assets, whether it is openly acknowledged or not.
When you owe more than you’re worth, to put it bluntly.
Well, welcome to reality. The United States is bankrupt, owing not only more than the Government is worth, but owing more than the total combined wealth of every American citizen currently drawing breath.
The foundation’s grim calculations are based on Sept. 30 consolidated federal statements, which showed that Americans’ total household net worth, diminished by falling stock prices and home equity, is $56.5 trillion. But rising costs for unfunded social programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security increased to $56.4 trillion – and that was before the more recent stock market crash, $700 billion bank bailout, and monster federal deficits chalked up in October and November.
Me? I’m going to try to figure out how to grow my own vegetables and learn how to can fruit. I might be able to barter my (many) skills for other necessities.