Saturday, February 27, 2010
So you’re saying that…
... the Democrat’s entire objection to the PATRIOT Act was that a Democrat didn’t think of it first?
Otherwise, the House voting 315-97 in favor and the Senate also voting to pass it wouldn’t make any sense in the new Era Of HopeyChangefulness. Especially how it was explicitly asserted that Bush wanted nothing more than to turn the US into a ”facist state” [sic] by using it…
Friday, February 26, 2010
Prayer From The Living World
I, too, grew up watching Pavel Chekov being the 24th century’s response to the Beatles. I, too, weep for the anguish of a father who has lost a son.
And I, too, wish to share the message lovingly crafted by Doc Zero.
I will link the original post here, but it deserves the maximum exposure, so I hope they will forgive my tribute…
The body of actor Andrew Koenig was found in Vancouver’s Stanley Park yesterday. His father, Walter Koenig, said that his son “took his own life, and was in a lot of pain.” Like most of my generation, I grew up with Walter Koenig as Chekhov on Star Trek, and he played a superb villain much later, on Babylon 5. Until his press conference yesterday, I didn’t realize he was a man of such incredible strength and dignity. He asked for his family to be left in peace to mourn their loss. I hope he won’t mind if I take this sad occasion to address others who might be following the road that ended in Stanley Park for Andrew. No matter how far you have gone down that road, there is always a path that leads away. I could offer no greater tribute to Andrew and his family than trying to help you take it, or at least see it.
You won’t find the beginning of that path in your house, or your room, or any other private place where you torment yourself, and wonder why a world you’re hiding from can no longer see you. You’ll have to step outside, and take a walk through your town. You’ll pass hospitals where the gift of life is unwrapped and presented to the universe. In another wing, life is held as precious treasure by families gathered around quiet beds, surrounded by tireless machines and their tired, but determined, keepers. Perhaps you’ll find a hospice, where the dying embrace their last opportunity to share their lives with all who receive the blessing of a seat beside them. You’ll pass churches and temples, filled with the sworn enemies of despair.
You may find yourself wishing you could give the unwanted years of your future to the clients of those hospitals and hospices. I did, years ago, when I stood where you are standing now. I was on my knees at the time, offering that trade with all my heart. It doesn’t work that way. Those who tend the hospices can tell you why, and the people in the churches and temples can explain why it shouldn’t.
Stroll past your local police station, where the noble calling to risk your life in the service of others is answered… and the worship of death as a solution to problems meets its humiliating end. Maybe you’ll spot a recruiting station, where men and women who love their friends and families accept a duty that could take them away forever… because they know others love their families too, and there is no safe way to build and protect the future for them.
If your walk takes you past sunset, watch the cars rolling into the driveways of apartments and houses. If you walk from night into morning, watch the people reluctantly leaving their homes, to provide for their families. Those people are not wasting their lives, but fulfilling them. They return home to enjoy their reward, and renew their inspiration. Every day, they write new pages in the human story. None of us will see the end of that tale… but I know you share my appetite to read another chapter, and then one more after that. You may have convinced yourself to ignore it, but it’s still there.
Step into a convenience store for a cup of coffee or chocolate, and take a look at the newspapers. They are filled with pleas for help that you could answer. From the inner cities of America, to the broken streets of Haiti, and around the world, there are places where the clocks are filled with nothing but desperate hours. Another pair of hands, or another few dollars of support, are always needed. The years ahead, which you regard as a painful burden, can be given to them. It will take effort, and courage… but along the way, I can promise that your life would stop feeling like a burden.
You may view suicide as your last chance to shake the pillars of a world that has turned its back on you. The world doesn’t need any more shaking. If you’ve been telling yourself that no one will miss you when you’re gone, you are wrong. Your suicide would tear a hole through the future, and nothing could ever fill the space where you used to be. You might think you’re alone, but you don’t have to walk more than a couple of miles from your house to see a building full of people who would be delighted to meet you. There are places like Suicide Hotlines, staffed by men and women who have spent their entire lives preparing to hear the sound of your voice, and greet every day hoping to learn your name.
You may be afraid to face the years ahead. You’re not the only one, and if you extinguish the light of your faith and wisdom, you consign others to darkness. You might see death by your own hand as the end of unbearable pain… but I ask you to think about Walter Koenig, facing a wall of cameras with quiet grace in the hours after finding his son’s body, and understand that it’s only the beginning of agony.
You might have decided your fellow men are rotten to the core, and you’re weary of their company. Listen to the music of Mozart, or look upon the work of Michelangelo, and consider the argument of those who profoundly disagree. Maybe part of your problem is that you’ve been listening to the wrong music, or looking at the wrong pictures. Dark waters are easy to drown in. The judgment of the human race will not lack witnesses for the defense, and they will make their case to you, if you give them a chance.
Now, take the last few steps back to your home, and set aside one sorrow or terror with every footfall, until your mind is clear. If you’re thinking of incinerating the remaining years of your life, surely you can spare a few minutes for quiet reflection, and hear this prayer from the living world:
Please don’t leave us. We need you.
It is a quiet prayer, spoken in a soft voice, but it’s never too late to listen.
Amen. And our prayers go out for the Koenig family, that their grief be eased.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
We don’t NEED another “Contract With America”
In case those politicians looking to continue looting the public treasury have forgotten, we already HAVE a contract with our government.
Maybe I should have said “We The People” have a Contract.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
We chose to define the government in terms of the very few things it was supposed to do
- defend against foreign invasion and domestic insurrection
- maintain the means for public travel, trade and communications
- print and protect the public currency
- control communication and trade with other nations, including diplomatic interaction
- to establish the inferior court systems
I’ve lumped a few together, for ease of understanding, but that’s pretty much it
They had many things that the Federal Government was NOT allowed to do:
- interfere with trade between the States (including being forbidden to tax interstate transactions)
- interfere with Habeus Corpus except in extreme emergencies
- pass a law to punish a previously legal act, after the fact (ex post facto)
- pass a Title of Nobility for any American citizen
The rest of it is designed to reinforce the message that the Federal Government needs to leave the common person ALONE. There are several levels of government below the Federal that can pass laws against harming your fellow man and setting the penalties for doing so - State, county and city level. The Founders knew that there would be differing opinions on many major issues that would arise from time to time, and they wanted to give the lower levels of Government the right to decide such measures at the lowest levels possible.
In essence, they turned the 13 colonies into separate laboratories to try different conditions and see what happened. If one set of conditions worked better and more efficiently than the others, the citizens could choose to “vote with their feet”, if seeking to make local changes to match the more efficient conditions don’t work, for whatever reason.
But, as P.J. O’Rourke once said, “The U.S. Constitution is less than a quarter the length of the owner’s manual for a 1998 Toyota Camry, and yet it has managed to keep 300 million of the world’s most unruly, passionate and energetic people safe, prosperous and free.”
We don’t need another one. Let’s try using the one we have…
I’m not Canadian….
NOTE: You might have to download the player to see it, but I did so and had no problems, even with using Firefox.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Sorry so seldom seen
I’m working on my Master’s Degree in Business Administration. Lots of papers and studying, and with everything else, blogging has suffered. So, I apologize for not being around, but I have a pretty good reason.
Don’t I?
Lest We Forget
In case you (or your liberal friends and neighbors) need the reminder, and taken from a link at Ace’s site, I bring you the confession of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect and plotter of the 9-11-01 attacks on New York City and Washington, DC.
That link also has the redacted report of the hearing on KSM.
Listen to his confessions and then Never Forget.
I think…
... that serving in an elected office should serve as an aggravating factor when the time comes for sentencing after criminal conviction.
Being elected to public office is supposed to be a sacrifice, and being able to control either the public finances or power over one’s fellow citizens should be required to hold to a higher standard than us working grunts. Look, if I fail at my job, I will be responsible for repairing the damage that have done, either through actual labor, my required bond, or through our seven-figure liability policy.
But my screwups only affect me, the unlucky customer and maybe one or two workers. If a public official screws up, it affects everyone under his jurisdiction (Middle English jurisdiccioun, from Old French juridicion, from Latin iūrisdictiō, iūrisdictiōn- : iūris, genitive of iūs, law + dictiō, dictiōn-, declaration = law speaker), which means potentially hundreds of millions of people. Therefore, they are, and should be, held to a higher ethical and legal standard.
So as an additional disincentive against bad behavior and an increased punishment for those who commit such behavior, the fact of having been elected to a position of public trust should be sufficient cause to serve as an aggravating factor during sentencing.
What do you think?
Saturday, February 13, 2010
The Sun So Hot, I Froze To Death
Yesterday set what may have been a new weather record, where Global Warming Residue was covering fully two-thirds of the nation (67.1%) to an average depth of 8”. (I am just anal enough to do the math and determine that the numbers crunch down to just shy of 132 cubic kilometers of snow, or 31 cubic miles of Al Gore Dust.)
That also put snow on the ground in 49 of the 50 States for the first time on record.
It’s all Global Warming, according to the people who know more than the rest of us, while we just continue to wonder two things:
- What are they on?, and
- Why aren’t they sharing?
And stare out the window at all that white stuff. Suzannah, don’t you cry!
Friday, February 12, 2010
If anyone has been trying to join
and keeps getting rejected, and are not sure why, drop me an e-mail and let me know. I have a few criteria, fairly arbitrarily and capriciously set (whenever I note something unique about a spam address, I will usually just kill anything that is even close, just to be on the safe side) and it might snag one or two who are just caught by bad luck.
So if you are getting bounced and don’t know why, drop me a line, just so that I know you are a real person, and not just a bot trying to mass-spam them there farm-a-suit-tickles.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Just in case you missed it
I will be running a new trivia contest within the next week or three, just so you are all aware.
Standard prizes - $125 for 1st place, $75 for 2nd and $50 for 3rd, but the format may be a little different.
Spread the word.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
A story I remember reading
I read a ultra-short story a while back, and it certainly spurs some thoughts.
An abbot was annoyed at being disturbed during his devotions by the barking of a dog, so he instructed a junior monk to tie the dog up before his prayers.
When the dog died, the monks got another one, and tied it up the same way.
When the abbot died, the dog continued to be tied up before the daily devotions of the newly promoted abbot.
500 years later, learned religious scholars wrote lengthy monographs on the importance of tying up a dog before praying.
Thoughts?
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Neither Snow Nor Rain Nor He… wait, HOW much snow?
"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” is an inscription on the James Farley Post Office in New York City.
Well, apparently snow CAN “stay these couriers”, since the Global Warming blizzard Barry Obama referred to as “Snowmageddon” buried the mid-Atlantic region in several feet of snow, killing power to many tens of thousands of homes throughout the BosNYWash corridor. It was such a storm that the Post Office suspended delivery in the DC area.
Postal delivery was suspended Saturday for Northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., Southern Maryland, and Suburban Maryland.
Patrick Murphy, spokesperson for the Postal Service for Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., made the announcement early Saturday morning as a blizzard continued to batter the Mid-Atlantic region.
Could be worse, I suppose. Al Gore could have visited and frozen the Potomac solid.
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Super Bowl picks
I would have to say that the Colts are generally favored because they have been the the Super Bowl before, and the Saints haven’t ever been. It would truly be a Cinderella story if N’Awlins manages to pull off a Super Bowl win.
That having been said, I still hopes the Saints lose, because they would be unforgivably smug about it. I hope they lose by a field goal, just to rub it in.
They won dirty week before last, and the whole football world watched it happen.
So my prediction is that the Colts will win by at least a touchdown, but my hope is that the Colts win by a narrow victory (3 points or less), mainly due to some close calls that go against the Saints.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Something else Barry will blame on Bush
There is something that I hadn’t thought about before reading this story, so all credit goes to Ace and James Taranto for the original concept.
Remember how Libtards were accusing Bush of “destroying the Constitution” with his War on Terror, since evolved into a “Police Action Against Man-Caused Disasters”?
Well, they got it exactly 180 degrees wrong. As usual. (If they were merely stupid, the laws of Probability state that they would be on the right side of issues more often. Their choices are deliberate.)
I’m just going to tease…
Obama, by refusing to admit any difference between trials of war criminal illegal combatants and citizen criminals, is accomplishing not one but two despicable outcomes.
The outcome he intends is to treat illegal combatants more sweetly and gently.
The outcome he doesn’t intend—but which he is engendering anyhow—is to treat citizen suspects with less constitutional rights than they’ve ever had in history.
Few judges will, say, demand that KSM be released into the public a free man due to the serious constitutional violations the government inflicted on him. Violations, that is, if you postulate from the outset he had full constitutional rights of a citizen criminal. If you don’t postulate that—if you postulate he was owed a lesser standard due to the fact he was an illegal combatant—then there weren’t any violations (or at least far fewer).
Now, if a judge won’t spring KSM for waterboarding—surely a “shock the conscience” bit of coercion if performed in a police station house—then a judge must necessarily bless it as permissible for a run-of-the-mill US citizen suspect, because that is, of course, [how] Obama categorizes KSM.
Assuming the judge does not want immediate calls for his impeachment, he will find some nonsense explanation as to why it’s okay to waterboard run-of-the-mill citizen suspects in some (rare) situations. Now, I don’t know if any judges will actually follow that precedent, but that precedent will be on the books. In some cases—the law is never very precise about what these cases are—it’s permissible for interrogators to strap a citizen suspect to a board and drip water into his mouth until he squeals about his confederates.
and
The point is: Either the government has the power to do something to a suspect or it does not. Either the Constitution forbids a certain practice or it does not.
Bush, the supposed idiot, established a bright-line distinction between citizen suspects and illegal combatants. Bush, the fascist cretin who couldn’t pronounce “nuclear,” set up an analytical structure wherein it was clear that citizen suspects were owed the full panoply of constitutional protections, and only terrorist illegal combatants were to be treated with lesser protections.
But Obama the Genius With the Nicely Creased Trousers has created a system wherein Mad Maxipad is sorta like me, as far as the law goes, and I, unfortunately, am sorta like him.
And instead of there being a bright-line distinction between us, I sort of have to trust that the Obama Administration will be restrained by its own conscience and judgment, because there isn’t any strong paper command about this any longer.
And how are they doing so far?
Well, gee: If Breitbart’s reportage is true, James O’Keefe was denied a lawyer for a full 28 hours.
Boy I sure feel a lot fucking safer knowing that my government is ready to treat me like a terrorist because they are too afraid to treat the actual fucking terrorists like terrorists. And maybe someone should point out to the “Constitutional Law Professor” that the Constitution is a contract, between the Federal Government and “We The People of the United States of America”. Nothing mentions citizens of other nations, nor those who are waging war against the US.
But Barry, in his zeal to let them Get Out Of Jail Free and back to killing Americans and other infidels, wants all of them released from Gitmo, and granted each and every one of the Constitutional protections that the Islamists are trying to take away from us (as a part of the process of converting to Shari’a Law under the Global Caliphate). Well done, Barry, you fucking moron.
Monday, February 01, 2010
Deficit shrinks to a mere $1.6 Trillion
We will be DOUBLING the national debt in the next five years, and tripling it within the next ten.
You want to see a scary sight? Boo!
Pay close attention to the “US Unfunded Liabilities” spot, near the bottom center. Over $107 Trillion dollars promised to be paid for various ongoing programs, such as Social Security, Prescription Drug plans, Medicare, etc., yet without so much as a penny of actual worth set aside to fund those expenses.
That would be like a man who only makes $100,000 per year (yeah… “only” $100K) budgeting out $200,000 in spending (having to borrow the other $100K from his neighbor), and still managing to issue IOUs to his family members in the amount of $750,000 besides.
Where is this money going to come from? The government, having issued the debt, has only three ways to get rid of it.
1. Raise taxes to garner the revenue necessary to pay off the debt.
2. Print enough money of increasingly lesser value to at least pretend to pay off the debt.
3. Simply declare the debt void.
Raising enough taxes is simply out of the question. There isn’t enough money in the entire global economy at any given instant to even make a serious dent in a debt of that size. If every single penny spent buying and selling things, paying off every employee, and every penny of value added to raw materials produced within the United States went to fund those mandates, instead of actually supporting the economy, it would still take more than seven years to pay it off, and the economy would have gone to pieces within a week anyway.
Printing enough currency to pay off the debt would lead to Weimar Republic-style hyperinflation, as the available money supply increases from a few trillion dollars (either the M1, at $1.4 trillion, or M2, at $7.7 billion) to roughly $120 trillion (enough to cover the unfunded liabilities and still maintain a currency flow). How would you like that $100 bill tucked away in your mattress to be insufficient to buy a Big Mac meal? How about not enough to buy a loaf of bread? Not enough to buy a newspaper? You might be able to buy a candy bar, but I wouldn’t count on it.
The third option would sooner or later devolve into a global shooting war as possession of physical assets (such as coal, oil, arable land and fresh water) becomes the basic currency, and the race to beat plowshares into swords begins.
Start learning useful skills…
UPDATE: More fun facts - we spend more than $600 million per day on interest payments on our currently outstanding debts. That’s roughly 2/3 of a billion dollars EVERY DAY. On interest. That does absolutely nothing at all to the principal of the debt, just ongoing interest payments.