Again, don't say I can't laugh at everybody.

Teflon Man flies again (but hopefully not over New York City, this time).

I think I'd've just left the son of a bitch.

A woman in Russia is in the ICU after having had her hymen restored for the sixth time.

Apparently, the first time was a wedding gift for a husband who was upset that he wasn't her first. And he liked it so much that he asked her to do it every year. This time, however, she got an infection that put her in the hospital.

Y'know, there are other games they could play that could give the same effect. In Victorian times, it was common for a young lady to use a small animal bladder filled with animal blood to simulate a maidenhead that she'd already lost, to fool a new husband in the marriage bed. And like the men who fell for that trick in Victorian Britain, I'm pretty sure that the Russian husband would never have known the difference.

I almost want to cut my hands off, but..

...I gotta agree with Barbara Boxer: the general should have been calling her "Senator" from the get-go.

After all, even a REMF is superior to a United States Senator (or Representative) from the United Democratic People's Socialist Republic of California.

(Though it would have been beyond all reasonable expectation to ask Senator Boxer to return the favor, and call the Brigadier-General by his title.)

It's official.

You know how you can tell the difference between a redneck and white trash? You look at their parties. Yeah, both will involve a grill that costs more than their house. Both will involve booze. Both will involve a bonfire. Both will lose control of that bonfire...and that's where the difference comes in. Rednecks will go for the hydrant and hose to put the fire out. White trash will surround it and pee on it.

The Obamas make white trash look classy.

It's more warning than we had in 1941.

Japan has told us that North Korea plans to launch a missile at Hawaii on Independence Day.

Of course, North Korea's only doing missile tests. They won't really hit us. It's only a precaution against their technology failing that we're sending anti-missile technology to Hawaii.

I'll bet anything that their orders will be "do not fire, even if fired upon." This is going to be a lot bloodier than Mogadishu.

True, this.

The bovine excrement is so deep on this that the U.N. enviornmentalists need to impose fines.

Putin says that Russia might abandon its nukes, if other nations (*cough* United States *cough*) do so first.

Of course they will. They'll "abandon" a few in our airspace, a few in Poland's, a few in England's...

You get the picture. They'll "abandon" their nukes, as soon as they're sure they can launch without reprisals.

Let's draft Jon Voight for President, 2012

I like that he speaks his mind, straight out and blunt, and regardless of possible consequences.

I also like that he's capable of writing his own speeches, and delivering them without a teleprompter.

Who's responsible?

The guy who shot two soldiers (killing one) in Arkansas says he doesn't think it's murder. He says that, because they were soldiers, and because the army is over in the Middle East, and because he's Muslim, that it wasn't murder when he shot and killed a young man fresh from boot camp.

Who is responsible for this attitude? Cindy Sheehan and her crowd of twits clinging to their Vietnam-era, lazy, filthy hippie, women-are-communal-property, anti-soldier ideas?

Or maybe the radical Islamofacist Imam that recruited the murderer in prison?

Well, it's not like they're not already trashed, by this point.

The government is planning to sell the FEMA trailers occupied by Katrina "victims" since the actual hurricane 4 1/2 years ago to the people they can't get out of them for $1-5.

I really don't have much objection to this plan. I mean, first of all, it would be a complete public relations nightmare for the new administration (kind of like closing charter schools in DC). Second, what are they going to do, evict people by force? ACORN would just help them break back in. Last, the trailers are probably trashed after four and a half years of occupancy by the professional "victims" that won't even try to stand back up without government assistance. If anything, I object to the price tag of $1-5.

They're probably not worth that much by this point.

So, what makes a Libertarian?

I don't know how they get the grants for stupid stuff like this, but scientists think that those who tend to be squeamish about "gross" stuff, like bugs, blood, gore, and dirt are far more likely to be conservatives. They suggest that conservatives are likely to have clean, well organized workspaces, as opposed to the colorful, stylish, and cluttered workspaces favored by liberals. They suggest that there's a biological element to political makeup.

I sincerely doubt that. I think that, rather than nature, it's a case of nurture forming the politics. I think that children either follow in their parents' footsteps or rebel so hard that they go in the opposite direction.

In any case, how would they explain Libertarianism? Y'know, the people who strongly and sincerely believe that the government should get out of the social safety net business, and stick to the limits set by the Constitution of the United States? The people who truly don't care what their neighbors think or do, so long as they're left alone?

Now this is funny.

Of course Cheney's more popular than Pelosi. She's never shot a lawyer.

A test.

A Democrat and a Republican walk into a bar. The Libertarian saw it, and ducked.

When do we get issued our fuzzy hats and cheap vodka??

I mean, Soviet Russia's national newspaper wrote about us screwing ourselves with our current acceleration down the slippery slope into communism.

The writer even details how it's happened without the purging of hundreds of millions of individual citizens to get to the point where the government owns GM and Chrysler now, and will own Citigroup shortly.

"First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics."

I, as a college composition instructor, can speak to this. I commonly use tons of classical references in everyday speech--alluding to everything from the Bible to Shakespeare to classical mythology (i.e., Greco-Roman), to historical documents, to--well, anything that seems to suit the situation.

Most of the time, no one catches what I'm saying. A telling example of this happened in grad school, when a classmate a year ahead of me dressed as a pimp for Halloween. I didn't recognize him, until he called after me, asking about a reading assignment. I responded, "Oh, I'm sorry. I took thee for a fishmonger(referring to Ophelia's father as a pimp)." Without remembering the next line ("Would thou wert so honest a man"--he didn't do his work, and used a criticism jargon-loaded vocabulary to hide it), said classmate, who was writing his thesis on Shakespeare, took it as a compliment: "Oh, you recognized what I was dressed as."

Statistics say that some three-quarters of students entering college need remediation in math before they can do basic level algebra, and two-thirds need remediation in English before they can write a full paragraph. I don't doubt this. Many of my students can barely read, and remediation does not seem to do those who've had that not-for-credit English class any good in forming sentences or paragraphs.

"Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different 'branches and denominations' were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the 'winning' side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another."

Karl Marx himself said that religion is the opiate of the masses. Communists, those who don't believe in anything but their own power and privilege, and who use those who believe in the ideals, sneer at religion in general, and at Christianity in specific. Why? I believe it is because Christianity in specific calls for moral absolutes set by someone other than the government.

And the highest authority is not the government of the land.

I understand, on an intellectual level what the ten commandments say. I understand, on an intellectual level, that there are gray areas in the continuum of right and wrong, but I also understand (even if only on the same, intellectual level) that there are moral absolutes also on that continuum. That it is absolutely wrong to commit murder. It doesn't matter if you're an individual citizen drunk in a brawl, or a mother-to-be on an abortion doctor's table, or a serial killer stalking your profile victim (your mother, usually, or maybe sometimes your father. It is absolutely wrong to steal. It doesn't matter if you steal through sneaking into someone's house while they're not home, through holding a gun to their head, or through someone who isn't willing to work using the government to take money from someone who is by voting in new social safety net spending.

In any case, there are moral absolutes beyond what the government mandates. Communists don't like there being anyone having authority besides thier own self-appointed elite. Especially not God.

"The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe."

This, quite frankly, is appalling and terrifying--especially in that last clause. I'm sure most of my readers are familiar with the term "Weimar Republic," but may not be able to place it in historical context right off the top of their heads. Let me refresh your memories of relatively recent history:

Germany, 1935.

In other words, I'm pretty sure what we're accellerating toward is not Marxism, but national socialism. The parallels are there: a relatively young, charismatic politician that nobody knows anything about elected by violent hoodlums and ignorant twits that bleat for change? Check. Vicious and accellerating recession, heading straight into depression? Check. Nationalizing key industries? Check. Check. And check. Teaching our children that nothing (especially not core knowledge gathered by dead, white males) is important but social justice? Very much check.

We're fucked, people. The common populace has realized that it can vote itself bread and circuses.

Don't ever say I can't laugh at everybody.

I don't care who you voted for, this is funny.

About damn time.

Moderate Muslims everywhere should follow the example set for them in England, where they pushed the extremist protest against British soldiers off the street.

I still stand by my assertion that until the moderate Muslims get radically intolerant of the radically intolerant, but at least the process has begun.

Next step: ban radical fundamentalist recruitment--Christian, Muslim, or otherwise--in prisons.

I've never thought it was a good idea.

The vow of celibacy, that is. It only causes good men to ignore a call to the priesthood because they want a family, break their vows once they're there because God places their soul mate in their path, or enables a monster who wants to use the reputation of a man of God to put them beyond accusation when they rape children.

Not to mention, a priest who isn't married doesn't have the tools provided by personal experience to be a marriage counselor. It's like asking your maiden aunt about sex.

Gah.

Global warming activists can't make up their damned minds. First, they say that humans and human activities are killing Mother Gaia (funny, the only problem they seem to have with Christianity is that, in the words of one of my friends, the Jew came back [though, not the very next day]). Then, they bewail and bemoan that global warming kills 315,000 per year (mostly in France, where people leave their elderly relatives at home while they go on vacation to cooler climes).

What they don't seem to think about is what's bound to happen when the pendulum swings the other way. I somehow get the feeling that they'll stop congratulating themselves for averting catastrophically high sea levels once they realize that the cycle of climate change dictates that it's time for another ice age, and the death rate quintuples.

It's not paranoia when car dealerships' franchises are being revoked for partisan reasons.

Vilmar at Kickin' and Screamin' mentioned the possibility that Chrysler was revoking dealer franchises based on who the dealerships' owners donated money to in the last political season. The blog post I read on 22 May mentioned six or seven specific cases in which a profitable dealership was losing its manufacturer's franchise with Chrysler because the owner had donated to a Republican rather than to the curent POTUS.

Despite the ring of truth, I thought Vilmar was just being paranoid. I wanted to think that Vilmar was just being paranoid. There was more about it posted over there today. With a whole lot more documentation. Drudge picked up on it, too.

It's not paranoia when there actually is someone out to get you. In other words, Vilmar's not the only one that's noticed what's being done.

I won't speculate about who's behind the orders. I have my suspicions, but will not make accusations that I cannot back up with proof--especially since I don't have the time to go looking for that proof.

Still. I wonder how long it'll be before every new car sold in the United States is required by law to be made by Government Motors. It worked so well for the Soviets with the Lada, after all.

And yet another reason to oppose Sotamayor's nomination.

She does not favor freedom of speech when it's a high school student versus government officials, specifically her school's superintendent and other school officials.

I understand that most school administrators would rather cut off possible problems at the pass, but I do not believe that referring to the school officials as "douche bags" on an off-campus, non-school-related personally owned and written blog should be grounds for barring a senior in high school from running for student body president. Like as not, the senior in question was being honest and accurate.

In any case, it not only seems as if this judge ruled in violation of a young adult's constitutionally protected rights, but that the ruling implied that she might well apply similar politically correct (i.e., you can't offend anybody with your words) reasoning in other first amendment cases.

And that, as much as her "empathy," scares me.

Only in California.

A pastor and his wife have been ordered, in direct violations of their first amendment rights (specifically, freedoms of assembly and religion) to cease and desist holding bible study classes in their home, or else prepare to pay "escalating fines."

California's reasons for believing that they're permitted to abridge this couple's God granted first amendment rights? "[U]nlawful use of land." Inviting family and friends to THEIR OWN PRIVATE RESIDENCE for private worship is an "unlawful use of land."

Of course, they could shell out mere tens of thousands of dollars for usage fees, environmental impact studies, etc. ad naseum, to be permitted by the government of the People's Democratic Republic of California to practice rights enumerated as BEYOND GOVERNMENT REACH.

Bottom line? California's bankrupt. Financially, politically, and morally. That means they're looking for any possible way to screw its (few remaining financially solvent) citizens out of funds to try to prop themselves up for long enough to find the next sucker.

Oh, and fuck over Christians while they're at it.

Oh. My. Lord.

Even the Vice President makes fun of the President's reliance on teleprompters.

God have mercy on us--we elected two of the biggest idiots we've ever elected.

Too late now, idiots.

Russia now fears that North Korea will start a nuclear war. Given that the whole North Korea/South Korea thing was a direct offshoot of the First Cold War, and that if not for Russian Communisim and their brothers in China, North Korea wouldn't be an issue right now, it serves them right to have to fear what they have wrought.

Especially since it's very likely that Japan will probably also go nuclear, out of self defense.

No one trusts the new POTUS, with his bowing, scraping, and ass kissing to vicious dictators the world over, and his scramble to re-label everything from terrorism to the conflict in the Middle East. Everyone believes that he'll duck and dodge, verbally bobbing and weaving, and refuse to deal with a nuclear attack.

I don't trust him not to adequately respond to a nuclear attack (i.e., declare war, with nothing but unconditional surrender and regime replacement, if not total annihilation). Not on South Korea. Not on Japan. Not on Israel. Nor even upon us.

This should have put her out of the running.

Our Dear Leader's pick for the SCOTUS has had 60% of her decisions reversed by a higher court.

This tells me a couple of things: one, that she ignores constitutional law; and two, that she is unjust in her decisions.

President Obama made much of his pick: she's Latina, she has diabetes, and most importantly, she is a woman. He said that she would rule with empathy, once confirmed to the highest court of the land.

Were I in a position to oppose her nomination, I would do it. I do not give a damn what race she is, or that she's a fellow female. I care that she's shown herself to be willing to legislate from the bench, and that she's shown herself to rule against some parties because of their race.

Put together, this woman looks like another grave threat to the rule of constitutional law.

Nooo...really??

"An elephant: a mouse built to government specifications."--Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

Our Dear Leader has told us that we've run out of money.

Given that both Obama and Bush spent like drunken sailors without regard for whether or not we had it in the treasury, and given that spending on credit and living above one's means (whether as an individual or a nation) has been what's been pushed by all of the financial industry for pretty much my entire lifetime, it's absolutely not surprising.

I think, however, what the government will find surprising is that increasing taxes on individuals and small businesses will do nothing but slow the inflow of money.

Why?

Simple. If, say, I wanted to open a small business, I'd probably do my best to avoid the top tax brackets. Which means that, were I honest, I'd simply not try to be as successful as I could be, because, in my perception, success is punished by the government (unless it's the upper echelons of union management). Therefore, I wouldn't be paying the government more than I absolutely had to, and I'd be spending a good chunk on accountants to minimize that as much as possible. After all, it's my money, I earned it, and I want to manage where it goes--including which charity it goes to (in other words, as an ant, I don't want to subsidize grasshoppers' song and dance).

Were I dishonest, I'd be taking a lot of payment for my goods and/or services in cash. I'd be taking payment in kind, if cash weren't available. I'd likely keep records on about a third of the business I actually did. And I would not report more than I had records on as income. Again, my money, my charitable contribution choices.

Obama says he's going to raise taxes on the "rich." The "rich" will cut back their businesses because they can't afford to keep them going at the same rate with the same number of employees (who, incidentally, pay income taxes on their paychecks). They fire employees (who quit paying income tax and start drawing unemployment), and slow production. Their prices go up, but at the same time, their income drops because they won't be doing as much business. That means they also pay less in taxes.

That doesn't mean that government spending slows, though. It's an example of the same lack of common sense as the farmer had when he killed the goose.

In any case, that's all a moot point. Obama has openly stated that it doesn't matter that cutting taxes has shown to bring in more money, because cutting taxes for the "rich" isn't "fair."

To be perfectly honest, "fair" is a bad idea. "Fair" would be presenting each individual over the age of 18 as of January 20 with a bill for their share of the national debt, and telling them that they have a limited amount of time to pay their share.

Israel?

Syria's delusional, as always. Assad says Israel is the "greatest obstacle" to peace in the Middle East.

In all honesty, it's probable that the outside enemy that Israel provides for the various governments in the region is all that keeps the rival tribes from killing each other. In other words, had Israel not ever been reborn, or if Iran is successful in wiping it off the map, the tribes in the Muslim nations would be busy killing each other.

Seen that way, Israel's existence has preserved the lives of tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of Muslim terrorists.

Pity.

Well, duh.

I fully agree with the blogger/photographer at A Human Right.

Glad I'm not a literalist.

This proves that the first chapters of Genesis are metaphor.

Of course the Bible has important messages in it. Of course it contains the word of God.

However.

Since it was filtered through generations of fallible humans in an oral tradition, and filtered through more as it was written down, and still more when it was translated, we Christians cannot take it literally when we read. What we're reading for is a focus through which the present-day voice of God can make itself heard through the rebellious children sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming "I can't hear you, God! Are you trying to talk to me? Oh, well, guess I'll do what I want, since He's not telling me I can't."

And still, most of us don't listen. And that's the gift He's given us: the choice of whether or not to listen

Absolute coolness.

I'm a huge fan of Star Trek. The original series and Deep Space Nine, mostly--The Next Generation, was a bit too idealistic and blindly optimistic about human nature and the nature of peace, and Voyager had a great premise with lousy execution. Like any fan, I've got my favorite characters and episodes.

What made it all possible was Roddenberry's imagination, and his imagination included a new type of faster-than-light travel, called warp travel. This, in the imaginary world of Star Trek, worked by taking a chunk of the space-time coninuum, and warping it to where it was in a different dimension--subspace.

Apparently, this isn't quite so far-fetched as we all thought. Scientists are now saying that making such a breakthrough--the warp engine--is merely difficult, not impossible.

I have two words for that:

Fucking.

AWESOME.

Huh. Interesting.

Astrophysicists have noted that the sun is dimmer and less active than at any time during the past hundred years. I guess that would explain the unusual weather.

Although, I wish they'd keep their agenda and predictions out of it, and just put the facts out there--they're careful to state that this won't make a difference to global warming, and that carbon dioxide, which we all exhale every time we breathe, is still increasing.

Umm. Duh. So's the earth's population. Get over it.

I mean, either the earth will get warmer, or it will get cooler. It's a normal cycle, and we can't do as much about it as we think we can.

That's not to say I think we should damn the pollution, full speed ahead on industry. Nor do I think that the "carbon offset credits" are anything other than the modern version of the Medieval Catholic Church's buyable absolution for sin (given that simply breathing seems to be a sin for some environmentalists--see what I said about carbon dioxide), or the "cap and trade" legislation is anything other than a new tax in disguise.

Shut up, guys, and let the actual weather tell us what the results of lower solar activity will be.

This is sad.

Police had to rescue a man from a rooftop in Sydney, Austrailia. They immediately arrested him, because the idiot had had to call for help while attempting to rob the factory under the roof he was trapped on.

Apparently, rainy weather and a steep angled roof is far more effective than a burglar alarm at preventing crime.

I guess the question would be "Who would you rather be screwed by?"

A rather attractive young woman is considering a run against an incumbent United States Senator from Louisiana. The kicker is that Stormy Daniels is not only no politician, but is a part of the industry that has damaged Senator David Vitter's credibility with voters.

She's a porn star.

So, since all politicians will screw you in one way or another, the question is who would you rather be screwed by? A goofy looking politician who frequents the professionals? Or a gorgeous example of one of those professionals, who could probably make sure almost anyone enjoyed it?

Just when I thought that our Senate was self-parodying...I was proved right.

Futility of acting on a miscalculation

Recently, the GOP leadership realized just how bad of a mess they're in. They've realized that the people they're supposed to represent are becoming angrier and angrier that they aren't doing the job they were hired to do. They're "launching an outreach initiative" to try to hide the chasm they've dug between themselves and their voters.

They'll fail. They'll fail because they're operating under a whole host of wrong assumptions.

The Democrats are, if anything, worse, depending on the issue. In my opinion, what they've done with and to their voters--i.e., removing the option of choosing schools from families that cannot afford private school tuition, encouraging dependency upon government programs, and telling one of the key blocs of their voters (the blacks) that they cannot get ahead without government assistance because of racism--is far worse, because the majority of their voters don't even see the chasm.

Frankly, I'm unhappy with both sets of congresscritters. I don't appreciate half of the elected Republicans assuming that the nation is swinging left on all issues. I don't appreciate the other half of the elected Republicans (and many Democrats) assuming that the majority of the nation are narrow-minded bigots.

I think many Americans think the way I do: that smaller government is the way to go.

The Republican party assumes that the majority of Americans are socially conservative. If, by that, they mean that most Americans believe in family, and believe in parents loving and teaching their children, they're right. Honestly, I don't think there's a politician out there that doesn't understand that family, however each voter defines it, drives voting. Where I think the Republicans get it wrong is the values they think Americans ascribe to.

Most American voters don't give as much of a damn about the social issues as the Republicans think they do. We aren't so much against civil unions as we are against loud, obnoxious activists that want not equality but special treatment, and as we are against judges usurping the powers of the legislature with their rulings.

The thing is, no one can tell you that you're not married if you feel you are, and no piece of paper can make you feel that way if you don't in the first place. Hence, the rates of infidelity and divorce amongst straight couples.

All that piece of paper does is get your name change filed in records, and permit you to claim certain privileges. Privileges, not rights. A right is something you're born with, and gays have exactly the same rights as straight people do. They have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They have the rights the government is forbidden to mess with by the first ten amendments. They have the right to be offended, or to choose not to be offended, by small-minded creeps--just the same as I have, or as my husband has.

They don't have some government granted privileges, true. And I have no objection to them being granted the same privileges I have, as a married woman. (God knows if they're allowed the government recognition the rest of us have, the marriage penalty in filing taxes would never be an issue again, no matter who's in charge at the federal level.) And I don't think that most Americans feel that differently. It's the word "marriage" that seems to get so many up in arms--on both sides--yet no one realizes that the government doesn't do "marriage," and hasn't since the advent of the easy divorce on a whim laws.

So, no, going farther right into bigotry or farther left into wishy-washy isn't going to fill the chasm. America doesn't care as much about the social issues as the Republicans think it does.

What most of us care about is our individual rights, about fiscal policy (specifically, our taxes and the way the money's spent, about the national debt and ginormous budget deficit) and about foreign policy. Most of us who feel as if we have no representation in Congress believe that the Federal government has taken too much power from both the state and especially from the individual with the laws passed criminalizing everything from driving without a seatbelt to smoking in your own car with the windows cracked if your kids happen to be with you.

I think that what the Republican party forgets is that we hired them to work for us, to represent us in the composition of new laws and the imposition of new taxes. The Republican party forgets that most of us that vote for them are voting for them to prevent the levying of new taxes, or the increase of taxes we already pay (the huge cigarette tax hike is a good example of where they failed to represent us). They forget that we hired them to make sure the federal government doesn't trample our rights as stated in the first ten amendments any further than it already has.

And they all, Republican and Democrat alike in their zeal to increase the size of government through programs the government was never authorized by the United States Constitution to create, forget that we hired them to prevent the federal government from spending us into international debtors' prison.

The Republican party is killing themselves through not understanding that most of us are closer to classic Liberalism than to either Liberal Progressivism or Social Conservatism.

I'll be writing on classic Liberalism next week, just for clarification of what I mean by that.

I know I said no politics, but...

This requires comment. It's too iconic and irritating for me to be able to ignore.

Four years ago, the Left started kicking up a fuss about an "outed" CIA agent who wasn't covert at the time her maiden name was mentioned in a Novak piece. Scooter Libby was subsequently railroaded over his faulty memory of this non-crime.

Today, ABC published the names and faces of two men who they call the "'architects' of the CIA's interrogation techniques." They go on to inform the public that these two men are retired military men who both have degrees in psychology, and who trained our pilots in resisting such techniques--but also imply that it's somehow wrong to profit by one's knowledge and talent, when they complain that these men were paid a grand a day to oversee the "torture" (which somehow left no lasting physical damage upon the "victims"--captured terrorists).

They also state that they're somehow not really qualified to set up interrogation practices:

"But it turns out neither Mitchell nor Jessen had any experience in conducting actual interrogations before the CIA hired them.

'They went to two individuals who had no interrogation experience,' said Col. Kleinman. 'They are not interrogators.'"

Umm...again, these two trained our pilots in how to resist torture. I don't know how ABC and their associates can possibly think that these two men who they've exposed (which risks their lives, if not national security--just as the Plame exposure did neither) are not qualified to oversee interrogation.

After all, they weren't asking the questions--just making sure procedure was followed to ensure the overall long-term safety of the terrorists interrogated.

Amazing.

I posted some size comparison baby pictures about three months ago, one where he was four days old in the hospital, with a stuffed monkey to illustrate how small he was, and another at three moths old with the same monkey.

To remind you, here's four days old.


Now, here's six months old with the same monkey.


And here's another smiley picture, just because he's cute.

I thank God every day that he's healthy and happy.

Talk about something I'd love to read!

A UC San Diego professor discovered a collection of transcribed letters in the British Library. Not just any letters, either. These were a transcribed correspondence between Benjamin Franklin and a number of different people, written during the French and Indian War. It references an action that Franklin aided the British general in, referred to as "the wagon affair," in his autobiography.

These letters were assumed lost. This is the first time, possibly since they were compiled, that scholars have read them. They're to be published in the April issue of the William and Mary Quarterly.

Wow. I'm so glad I've got access to a university library. I've got to read these.

You know how stoners always say that pot wouldn't be illegal if it had been discovered about the same time as aspirin?

Apparently, they're wrong. According to the Journal of Experimental Botany, a man (probably a shaman, possibly a stoner) was buried with 789 grams (a little less than 28 ounces) of pot. Not recently, either: their best dating guesstimate is that he was buried with the weed about 2,700 years ago.

Determination and the achievable American Dream.

I read stories on the news all the time about how bad the economy is, how horrible single mothers have it, how necessary government intervention is to make sure people keep eating, and keep a roof over their heads. I hear about the inner cities, and how young black men are trapped by poverty. I hear how children are born into poverty and will continue the cycle.

Bullshit.

When I was about six or so, my dad walked out on us. I wish to God he'd walked all the way out, but he didn't, and he and my mother spent the next six years in a vicious custody fight, one made all the worse by the facts that Dad didn't really want us and was only using the fight to hurt Mom, and that he was horribly was abusive to us.

I won't go into that.

What I will say is that, by some miracle, my mother regained physical custody of us, and managed to force Dad to start paying child support. $366 per month for two of us. She never reentered the work force, and still managed to make that tiny amount stretch to cover shelter, utilities, and clothing, while the government pitched in for food. Given that, legally, we were wards of the state, and that the state chose to treat Mom as an unpaid foster parent, that's the absolute least they could do. I've got a grudge, but have already covered it in Tuesday's post.

When I was twelve, Dad lost all rights to anything other than supervised visits for an hour per week. I began to see that there would, eventually, be a light at the end of the tunnel.

So, as a twelve-year-old, I sat down and thought about my situation, and about my future. I looked at my surroundings, and at my peers, and at their parents. I realized two things: one, my surroundings (my hometown and county) were toxic; and two, my peers' parents were living the same way their parents did, and my peers would likely follow suit.

I really didn't want that. I did not want to grow up to become my mother and put my children through the same thing I'd gone through. I did not want to stay in a town and county that knew what was going on, but turned a blind eye because my dad was one of the pillars of the community: a pastor that worked at a factory and a bowling alley, like everyone else, and that volunteered to coach kids in his spare time.

I decided, at twelve, that I was getting out as soon as I could. I assumed that, though I was small for my age (frequently mistaken for nine, or so), I'd grow, and I'd enlist in one of the branches in the armed forces. I was leaning toward the Navy, because I didn't think I'd be physically capable of being a Marine. At fifteen, I stood a whopping inch under five feet, was about 85-90 pounds (which made my dreams of serving my country dubious, but still just barely possible), and I hurt myself really bad in P.E. Blew out my right knee. Found out that none of my joints would have stood up under the abuse I'd have put them through in the military.

One road out turned out to have a bridge out sign square across it. That could have stopped me, gotten me to decide I couldn't get out, and decide that it was best to stick with the dependency I knew. I didn't, though. Determination picked me back up, dusted me back off, and set me back on my feet on the crossroads.

Okay, I thought. I'll just find another way out. Women have done it for centuries--I'll find someone from somewhere else and get married. That plan didn't pan out, either. I'm really glad it didn't. Getting married just to get away from what was never home would have been a very bad idea. It would have really made me no better than a whore--exchanging sex for financial and/or other considerations.

Determination, again, is what kept me going. I took what I thought of as a long shot: I went to college (met my best friend, who I later married, there). I hadn't thought I was smart enough. Turns out I was wrong. Really wrong--I went on for an MA in English, and coasted as much as I had through college. I was expecting both college and grad school to be harder than they were.

I teach college, now. I love the job, even on days I want to smack my head against something unyielding. My husband and I have no debt, and we own a home. No, we don't make a lot of money--in fact, we're considered working poor by the government, and got a unearned income refund--but we don't come up short, either.

In short, I have achieved the American Dream. How? The way it's always been achieved. Thought. Planning. Determination. Hard work. All of the above, along with a healthy dose of get back up and either keep going or change direction.

I'm not that special. I managed to get out of a bad situation mostly intact. I love teaching, so I can't say my sanity stayed intact, but still. I've got everything I ever really wanted.

And if I can do it, anyone can. All they need is to want to get out, to know they can, to plan their way out in workable steps, and to be flexible enough to change their plans. It may not be easy, but is that simple.

Anyone who says that it isn't that simple in the inner cities is racist.

Cool idea, but...

A bunch of scientists in South Dakota have made an interesting discovery: it's possible to embed antimicrobial properties to paint. Interior wall paint.

They say that it'll kill staph, E. coli, and MRSA within minutes of contact.

I have to wonder, though, if this is a good idea. I mean, think about it: where did MRSA come from? Hospitals. Where they use a lot of antibacterial soaps (a lot of the time incorrectly), antibacterial gel hand cleaner, antibacterial cleaning supplies, and lots and lots of antibiotics. It killed of the weak strains to leave the strong to get stronger.

If they develop this new tech to the point that it's really effective, and really cost effective, then everybody's going to want to use it. Which, in turn, will kill 99.9% of airborne bacteria, most of which will never make us sick. It 's immediately eradicated by our immune systems, which learn what to look for.

Current studies are indicating that the emphasis on super-clean homes can actually make people sick by not allowing their immune systems to learn what to attack and what not to attack. Those studies also indicate that this is one possible cause of allergies.

I flat refuse to discuss the political implications. Anyone can imagine the government's reaction should this prove as effective as its inventors claim.

In short, this is a cool idea, but not necessarily a good one.

I'm getting tired of politics.

I'm going to write a bit here, and then I'm going to not write about politics for a good, long while. There's not much I'm willing to do. I don't think that the small amount I can do will make much of a difference either in the short run or the long run. Therefore, I'm going to put forth my opinions and beliefs here, in this post, then ignore politics for a good while.

Fiscal policies

I think the government is rushing us toward the edge of a cliff, fiscally. The democrites have put us into a position where they could force socialism through by engineering a collapse, then trying to cause a panic about it.

The worst part is that they succeeded.

It really started under Johnson, I believe. Or maybe all the way back to FDR. It was he, after all, that opened the door for the government to step in as a social safety net for those who failed in life. And this after he engineered the extension of the Great Depression by his partnership with the major unions resulting in a federal refusal to allow companies to fire workers or freeze wages to save themselves. FDR also set up that major Ponzi scheme called Social Security. To be entirely fair, he did not intend for it to last more than one generation, to replace individuals' need to be saving for their own retirement, or for the money to be used in any way except to be put into a trust fund for those who paid it in.

However, we know which road is paved with good intentions--and that goes double for government good intentions.

Johnson, in his war on poverty, created government welfare: a government check paid to individuals who do not have a job, and do not intend to look for a job. That may not have been what he intended to do, but he obviously forgot about the law of unintended consequences. Or, maybe not--a vast majority of those on the government dole vote Democrat to keep the checks coming.

The community reinvestment act, passed under the Clinton administration, and ignored by the Bush administration, is what set us up for this current economic collapse. It forced banks to make loans to people who obviously weren't suited to them by threatening prosecution for racial discrimination in writing mortgages. It was for noble intentions: the American dream, after all, includes owning a home, and many were flatly unable to. The community reinvestment act was intended to help those who couldn't afford a mortgage to get one anyway, completely ignoring that government intervention would not help them pay a debt they could not afford to take out in the first place. And, because the banks knew that they could not pay the mortgages they took out (which made them a bad risk), and because the banks were required to write them anyway, the sub prime mortgage with the super-high interest rate was created.

Greed factored in, yes, but government intervention started the ball rolling. And nobody really paid attention to the men (and women) behind the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac curtain: former Clinton administration officials who looted the companies by keeping two sets of books--one that held the liabilities, and the other that held the assets--that they could use to fleece their investors and earn bonuses larger than those the government crawfished on with AIG.

The really scary part is that the government has said that they're going to "monetize" the national debt, which has spiraled into a number that, when you take into account all government financial liabilities, exceeds the world GDP. Not even China is buying our debt anymore. Nobody is.

And now, with the economy in the process of complete collapse, and no nation in the world willing or able to lend us money, the government, headed by the Communist in Chief, has bought controlling interest in the biggest national banks, GMC, and AIG, and are trying to set up to grab controlling interest in every other branch of industry, through government spending and through new environmental regulations. And if that isn't enough, he's also pushing through legislation to take even more of our money and pour it into nationalizing health care. Socialized medicine. Medicaid for everyone. Rationed health care. I'll have more to say on that in the section on domestic policies. For now, let me just say that, like everything else he's pushing through, we simply do not have the cash to pay for it.

Foreign policies

Our Communist in Chief is also scaring the shit out of me with his interactions with other nations. Not only has he gravely insulted our real allies in the global war defending against Islam, but he's shoved his tongue so far up our enemies' asses that he's tickling their tonsils. And they're enjoying every moment.

Saudi Arabia: He bowed to their king. Bowed from the waist. Looked, from the video footage, like he kissed the king's hand, as well.

I am an American. I am no nation's subject. My president should bow to no other head of state. At best, the king of Saudi Arabia is my president's equal. In reality, there is no power in the world that can really touch us, militarily--which means that the king of Saudi Arabia should have bowed to the President of the United States.

Iran: Obama has been offering major concessions to a nation that hates us, eagerly awaits the Apocalypse, and is actively working to acquire nuclear weapons in order to kick-start the Apocalypse. And Iran has openly stated that they are unwilling to compromise, but that they'll take our subjugation, thanks bunches.

And they're laughing at us for having elected the spineless Communist weasel now in the White House.

Islam: I'm covering all of the other nations that have a Muslim majority, here, but aren't a threat in any other way but in their major export--Muslim males between the ages of 17 and 45. In other words, terrorists.

Obama gave his first official media interview to Al Jazeera, the Islamofacist cable television station that encourages acts of terrorism against us, and against other Muslims.

Obama has offered to meet with and deal with terrorist regimes besides Iran and Saudi Arabia--for instance, there are no moderates in the Taliban.

He's setting us up for another terrorist attack that will make September 11, 2001, look as mild in comparison as Oklahoma City's terrorist attack looks in comparison with New York City's. Well, Oklahoma City's attack looks mild in comparison to rational people, at least--Janet Napolitano can't seem to tell the difference.

North Korea: Obama ignored their quasi-successful ICBM launch. They're a belligerent on par with Iran, and they have not only nukes, but are about to have the capability to hit us with them. And they still carry a grudge about us protecting South Korea from them.

Russia: Obama has thrown some of our allies under the bus, trying to get Russia to back us with Iran. Russia's response? "Yeah, we'd appreciate you bending over and taking it with regards to the ICBM shield that you're building in Europe. We don't want you to protect them from us, and we don't believe that you're trying to protect them from the Middle East. But no, we're not going to back you with Iran. Pussy."

Russia is a threat. A growing threat. No, they're not on par with terrorism--yet. They're heading that way, and they're escalating the new Cold War behavior, frustrated that we're not taking them seriously. They could attack militarily to try to make us take them seriously.

Somehow, with this administration, I doubt it would work. Obama would roll with the kick, and beg them not to kick us again.

Which would convince them that we're weak enough to beat (and I'm not so sure it's wrong).

Domestic policies

Back to socialism. It's not just the financial aspect of socialism that scares the living bat crap out of me. It's the totalitarianism.

You see, I read Orwell's 1984 when I was fourteen years old. It resonated. Loudly.

When I was 14, my family was under government control. I mean that literally. We got food stamps, and medicaid. The only reason we didn't get welfare as well was because, at that time, my mother miraculously (and by that, I mean it was with the hand of God in our finances) managed to make $366 per month in child support cover everything else.

But my sibling and I were in the state's legal custody, even while our mother had physical custody. And the government, and child welfare (a definite oxymoron, in our case) told us what we could do, and what we couldn't; where we could go, and where we couldn't; how we could be disciplined, and how we couldn't; what we could be taught, and what we couldn't.

We'd landed in the social safety net. Socialism. Totalitarianism. Petty tin-pot dictators with delusions of grandeur told us how we were going to live our lives.

We, as a nation, are almost there. Socialism runs our schools. Socialism runs our banks--now. Socialism runs some of our industry--now. Petty tin-pot self-appointed elites run the elections, and think that, since they're smarter than all of the rest of the nation, put together, that they should be able to tell us how to run our lives.

Totalitarianism.

You see it in the report the Missouri Highway Patrol put together on conservatives being potential terrorists. You see it in the report leaked from the Department of Homeland Security, and the arrogance and disrespect to our soldiers and veterans in the implication that our soldiers and veterans are no better than a Muslim. No better than the September 11th hijackers that killed over 3,000 innocent Americans--the only military target that day was the Pentagon. You see it in the way the FBI was ordered by the White House, in the middle of March, to watch the Tax Day Tea Party protests (though Obama denies knowing that the protest was going to happen). You see it in the ways they keep trying to disarm us, the citizenry.

The government no longer fears us. We're starting to fear the government. And, as Thomas Jefferson says, that is the mark of tyranny.

Political parties

By the way, I'm not Democrat-bashing, here. Every politician in Washington, D.C.--from the President, the CIA, the FBI, to all 535 members of congress, to the nine supreme court "justices," to all of the lobbyists, to the media to the commenters to everyone that works there for any branch of the government or for anything that reports on government actions--is at fault. Not one of the so-called "Beltway" is blameless. I hate them all: Democrats and Republicans and Independents that caucus with the two major parties.

You have not stood up for the people. You have not stood with us. You have not stood with the constitution. You have stood up against those who elected you. You have not listened to us when we said "No more. No more taxes. No more government programs that don't work. No more socialization/nationalization of health care. No more bailouts. No more of our money taken from us that worked for it and given to those who won't. No more."

And when we try to change things, you ignore us. You ridicule us. You shut us down.

There are no more conservatives in Washington. There are CINOs: Conservatives in Name Only.

Kathleen Parker is a particularly odious example of a CINO: she openly stated in one of her columns that she preferred to see Barack Obama win than see Sarah Palin, a true conservative, as Vice President.

What I believe

I believe in the Declaration of Independence. I believe that, as the government grows more tyrannical, we the people have the right and responsibility to replace it.

I believe in the Constitution of the United States. I believe that the Bill of Rights lists things that the government is prohibited from doing to the people--abridging our rights: our right to speak our minds on politics, race or religion; our right to assemble where we want, with whom we want, to discuss what we want, whenever we want; our right to worship as we please, when we please, and where we please; and our right to own, practice with, and carry guns, knives, or whatever else we choose to carry to defend ourselves with. I have no doubt that they want to abridge, infringe on, and otherwise remove the other rights listed in the first ten amendments.

I believe that we cannot allow it. I believe that unless we stand together against the totalitarian tendencies our government is showing, now, we are kneeling for the boot they will place upon our neck.

I also believe that we are already too late. Which leads me to my last point.

Why I'm not willing to do anything

I've lived under government control before. I remember what they have done to me in the past, and I know what they can, and may well decide to do, to me in the future. And, while I don't mind paying the penalties for standing up for what I believe, it's not just me anymore.

I have a son.

I will not risk him being taken from me to be indoctrinated into the group think of the Communist Elite.

Conclusion

There may well come a time when I feel hope, for a change. There may come a time when I believe I can stand up for my country and my rights without endangering my son.

And there may well come a time when I cannot keep silent any longer.

Until then, I will not discuss politics further. There's nothing to be done but bitch, and I really hate complaining.

WHAT DID SHE JUST SAY???

Warning: Very strong language ahead. Do not read if you are offended by cursing.

Despicable?!? You fucking bitch! How dare you call an American tradition--peaceable assembly to protest taxes--despicable?! You cunt! You should feel lucky we don't perform the other traditional American function when faced with taxation without representation! The last time a petty despot tried that, we threw his entire government out and created our own!

And this time, you treasonous whore, unless you fled to France, where I'd pray for an Imam to stone your nasty ass to death, you'd have nowhere to flee to, since you are a citizen of the land you find so despicable. And you would be hung. Or shot. Because you are a fucking traitor to the Constitution and the United States of America.

Take your head out of Obama's ass, you brainless twat, and look around you. You and your ilk--and by that I mean all politicians, Democrat and Republican alike--are the despicable sacks of shit that caused us to have to protest.

The really ironic part of the story is where she said all of the protesters were radical right-wing GOPers, and the headline at the bottom of the page is about how the Republican party is contemplating embracing the protesters.

In other words, this was not a plot by the Republicans to discredit Obama. First off, there were as many conservatives who vote Democrat, and feel let down by their own party, as there were Republicans or Libertarians.

Second, Obama doesn't need any help. He's discrediting himself fast enough.

Um...no.

Yesterday, amid a whole lot of filthy, tacky jokes by the bright lights of the main stream media, thousands of conservatives came together in a nationwide protest of tax and spend policies. The Republican party thinks that yesterday's protests are a sign that they're going to be able to take control of the government back from the Democrats.

Um...guys? Y'all have done just as much of the tax and spend "compassionate conservative," bigger nanny government bullshit as the Democrats. Yes, many (if not most) of the tea party protesters vote Republican. However. That doesn't necessarily mean that they'll continue to vote GOP if a third-party Reagan appears.

Joe Lieberman identifies as an independent, now, even though he still votes with the Democrats on social and fiscal issues--his position on the war on Islamofacism led the Democrats to kick him out. Reagan himself was a Democrat before, as he said, the party left him.

Now, the majority of Americans feel that both parties have left them. After all, unlike both parties, the majority of we the people still believe in individual rights, and in individual, local, and national soverignty. If we can come together into a new party, one that reasserts the rule of law as written in the Constitution (and not re-interpreted by activist judges), the current two parties who have left us will find out what a mistake that was.

As Missouri goes, so goes the nation.

I called it, nearly a month ago. Missouri published a report that conservative organizations were possible terrorists. Now, Homeland Security has done the same. Further, they've mentioned veterans as a particular danger.

And, of course, the ACORN counter-protests at tomorrow's tea party rallies will do nothing but provide an excuse for the government to attempt to forbid conservative protests of government actions, like tax increases and stimulus spending. That attempt goes directly against the right of assembly articulated by the first amendment. Just as attempts to curtail political speech and journalism does.

The government has attempted to curtail our rights many times during the past four months. Worse, they've implied that the Bill of Rights lists government granted rights.

That is not so. In fact, the Bill of Rights lists rights inherent to being born a human being that the government is prohibited from abridging, infringing upon, curtailing, or otherwise messing with.

The Supreme Court was created by the Constitution to interpret laws as either being in line with the Constitution and Bill of Rights or as being not in line, or unconstitutional. Unfortunately, four (and sometimes a fifth) of the nine justices declare that they interpret the "living document" whose meanings change with the times with disturbing regularity.

The Constitution and its amendments were never meant to be a living document. Its meanings are fixed in the language. The constitution details what the government does. The first ten amendments detail what the federal government is restricted from doing.

In case any of my readers have forgotten, the Constitution and its amendments are linked to the right, under suggested reading. I may or may not write a blog post about the amendments, and the meaning that the Founding Fathers embedded in simple, everyday language to avoid misinterpretation by any except lawyers and congresscritters.

Then again, the Founding Fathers intended the documents to speak to us. The people. The ones who live by the laws of the land rather than flaunting them. It would almost be insulting to you if I were to explain, in plain language, what each means, what it forbids the government from doing, and why.

If you want me to write a post about it anyway, drop me a note in the comments.

And this is why I don't hang with criminals.

Also, why I have a gun.

A nineteen year old girl and her 23 month old son were killed in a home invasion robbery. The gunmen shot her and her son in the head, as well as 9 year old son of the drug dealers she was staying with. They also shot the drug dealers' 11 year old daughter--several times--but she survived, and is in stable condition.

This happened in the still-crime-ridden area around New Orleans.

The story doesn't mention physical descriptions, only what the gunmen were wearing. It has become a trend in the media to leave out physical descriptions when the perps, victims, and drug dealers are all black.

Look, if you don't want people to make assumptions like that, Reverends Jackson and Sharpton, then tell your people to stop living down to the stereotypes. No, not all people of color, whether black, Latino, Asian, or Middle-Eastern are violent criminals. However. A disproportionate number of violent criminals are minorities.

Just... stop. You are in a nation where you have a chance to move out of the self-imposed ghetto you live in. You can be anything, do anything you want. The only thing stopping you is your own behavior, and the politicians who tell you it isn't your behavior but your color.

Stop believing in identity politics. You're in America. Be an American first. Take advantage of what capitalism has to offer. Yes, there are a very few up at the top--but they come down. They don't stay there, and you don't have to stay at the bottom, feeding from government handouts that keep you voting against your best interests, and killing each other over territory and drugs. Seventy percent of the Fortune 400 are people who climbed to the top on their own: making their fortunes, not inheriting them.

The government, the NAACP, MEChA, and all those other identity-politics organizations out there tell you that all Americans are racist, that whites are racists, have the power, and will keep you down.

They're lying to you. They're the ones keeping you down. They're keeping you down so that you will believe that you need them.

Truth is, you don't need them. They need you. They need you to believe that you can't make it on your own so that they can keep the power they've grabbed.

Your power.

Take it back. Take back your rights and your abilities to do what's best for you, as individuals, not you as a group.

No shit?

Former Bush Aides Warn Obama to Beware of Russia's Pledge in Iran Nuclear Issue

He'll screw that up, too--the only thing he hasn't screwed up, he hasn't had control over. The media's been pushing socialism for the last twenty years, at least. It's not surprising that 53% believe in capitalism, 20% in socialism, and the rest don't know who to believe.

And with several socialists in Obama's cabinet, and in the House, we really need to be issued that damned fuzzy hat.

Urgent, he says. Idiot.

President Obama has asked for more money. $83.4 billion--that's $83,400,000,000--for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. He says it's urgent.

Urgent it may be, but he's missing a lot more that's just as urgent. For instance, he ignored North Korea's missile--I mean satellite launch. He threw Poland under the bus with the missile shield, and the USSR--sorry, I mean Russia--is now test-firing ICBMs. Iran is edging ever closer to becoming a nuclear power (even France is worried about that, even though Obama doesn't seem to be), and Obama's bowing and scraping to a foreign king (which implies that we are not soverign, and owe fealty to said Islamofacist ruler).

And he says the military request is urgent. More urgent is getting this asshole's majority revoked so that the reach of his idiocy is limited.

Stupid.

We're going into a global cooling event because of lowered solar activity, and The Messiah is contemplating shooting pollution into the atmosphere to block solar radiation and cool the earth's air.

Idiot. Yes, the sea ice is retreating. Yes, the oceans are warming. That does not mean that we are about to have catastrophic, planet-destroying global warming. Look back at the geological evidence around the prehistoric ice ages. Yes, there was a lot of ice--but it was in glaciers. On land.

Evidence suggests that the oceans were warmer then than they are today. Evidence suggests that warmer oceans were the only variable that prevented a mass human die-back: warmer ocean currents kept the coasts livable when continental interiors were ice-locked. Warmer ocean currents allowed for the hunter-gatherer societies to find food enough to keep a breeding population alive and healthy.

Warmer oceans with limited sea ice is not a sign of cataclysmic global warming. It's a sign we're in for a cold, cold time, coming up.

If you'd like to read a good explanation of how that model works, even if it is in a work of fiction, read John Ringo's The Last Centurion. And curse, because rather than the socialist fuck-up Ringo envisioned, we've got a national socialist fuck-up who happens to be stupid as well as malicious.

I have a way to fix Social Security going broke.

Encourage people without children to start smoking in their forties. Since smoking tends to kill people within 20-30 years (if it's going to kill them at all), we'll only be paying out for five to fifteen years, instead of 20-40 years.

Why?

There have been several of what the media calls "massacres*" that have happened since January 20 of this year, where someone has gone on a rampage with a gun, where no law-abiding citizen with a concealed carry permit was nearby to stop the nutjob.

The media has been blowing things way out of proportion, as usual: they hyperventilate about a .22 rifle, for Pete's sake! A frickin' squirrel gun! With a bullet the size of a baby's pinkie!

That particular nutjob tells us something, though, about why these things keep happening.

He said he was afraid Obama was going to take his guns. He was afraid that the cops that answered a domestic disturbance call were there to violate his second amendment rights.

The nutjob that gunned down a bunch of immigrants who were about to take their citizenship test had lost his job because of the Democrat-caused financial meltdown. And he couldn't speak English or find another job because of Democrat-sponsored programs to allow him to get by without English.

Another nutjob lost his job and killed his kids. And then himself.

So, why? Why do these brainless shits keep rampaging?

It's because they're scared. And the Democrats love it when people are scared. It keeps 'em voting Democrat.

*The Holocaust was a massacre. Cambodia was a massacre. The re-education camps in the USSR. Vietnam (after we left). One man shooting a few people is a mass murder, not a massacre. Massacres are nation-level, government-sanctioned, and therefore legal, killing.

Damn.

Mr. Robert Hall of The Old Jarhead is a poet as well as philosopher.

He published a poem on his blog today that reminded me a bit of Kipling in the feel--specifically, "Recessional."

Go read it. It's excellent.

And if one of the teachers had had a CCW...

...this wouldn't have been so bloody.

After all, "SWAT team officers surrounded the building but it took about four hours to secure the scene... ."

Had he not killed himself, that's four hours the shooter could have been hunting victims.

That's the main reason why I think instructors and test proctors should be able to carry with a CCW on college campuses and federal testing stations: when help is just a phone call (and four hours to make sure it's safe for the cops) away, someone with a CCW permit would be right there to stop the shooter.

WTF?!?

"My new comrade"?!? That's plain speaking.

Good news on the Western Front, comrades! (What are you talking about? It's always good news on the Western Front, now, comrades!) The Revolution has won!

Where's my fuzzy hat? I want my government issue fuzzy hat, and cheap vodka.

Colder weather, here we come.

We're heading into what's called a deep solar minimum, where the sun's output is markedly less. With a lower solar output, we're going into a time of cooler temperatures.

In other words, global cooling.

You see, temperature variations are not caused by industries. They're not caused by burning coal mines or natural gas veins. If anything on earth can affect global temperature variations, it's volcanic eruptions, with the gasses and ash they spew into the air--and once again, they cause a small, world-wide temperature drop as ash floats in the upper atmosphere, and blocks part of the solar energy that reaches earth.

Granted, humans have a small effect, but first-world countries with their greater emphasis on clean energy and industry are not as much a part of that as second-world up-and-comers like India and China, who are struggling to build industry, and have less to spend on clean industry. And, again, even that is a small effect. Just as temperature variations following volcanic eruptions is a small effect. Global climate shift is caused by solar variations, not earthly.

That means man-caused global warming is a faith-based tenet that completely ignores actual science.

Illustrative.

Government gun control thugs have repeated many times that 90% of the guns that Mexican drug cartels use in their crimes come from the United States.

Ha. They left a word out of that statement: 90% of traced firearms come from the US. That adds up to about 17% of total guns that the Mexican government seized from violent criminal cartels.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World offers us a probable reason: in that deceptive utopia, children were trained by repetitions at night of "moral truths." Things that the authorities wanted them to believe. And, like the inhabitants of Huxley's dystopia, we are trained with government-sponsored media repetitions to believe certain things without question: that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer (but no one mentions congressional income at all), that guns kill people (uh-huh, they just jump up and shoot people for the fun of it), that 90% of the guns in Mexico came from the US.

"...upwards of sixty-two thousand repetitions in the dark" have made most of us unthinking sheep. We accept, as Huxley's characters did, anything we're told as "axiomatic, self-evident, utterly indisputable."

Repetitions of lies condition us to accept any lie they want to spoon feed us, without thinking for ourselves, "Is this true? Where lie the facts of the situation?" The media, well, they report what's going on, right? (Only what they want you to know, dear.) They report the truth, right? (Slanted until it's lies, dear.) They're giving us the information that we have the right to know, right? (Only if it's what's good for you, dear.)

As Huxley's magnificent novel demonstrates, despite the wishes of the powers that be, no amount of repetition of lies make those lies the truth--only the common view.

And any common view may be challenged and swept aside with fact.

Unfortunately, Japan's downwind.

Otherwise, I'd vote for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on North Korea. They are, after all, a belligerent nuclear power.

An iPod?!?

You do not. Get. The Queen of England. An iPod. Ever.

Good God. We've elected the biggest dumbass in the world POTUS. He's far worse than the media's perception of President Bush. Or Vice President Quayle.

And here's an illustration of why I'm intolerant of Islam.

Robert Hall of The Old Jarhead compiled a list of headlines--from March alone--that proves that Islam is not only not a religion of peace, but an abomination. To call them fellow children of God blasphemes the name of God.

The only way Islam can be considered the "Religion of Peace" is if we redefine peace to mean its opposite: violence. And if the UN declares that telling the truth about Islam is hate speech--well, I do hate them. I would not incite violence against them, but I will advocate self defense.

And if part of that self-defense is another Crusade...well, they started it.

I think Hell just froze over.

I actually agree with the Russians on something that will be (currently) detrimental to the United States' economy: a return to the gold standard.

I do agree that we need to have something backing our currency, and I prefer it not to be oil, as I do not want to be further dependent upon our enemies.

I believe that, though the return to the gold standard will hurt us quite badly in the short run, it will prevent our Dear Leader from printing money to pay off debt (which the early American states discovered simply didn't work) and debasing our currency further.

Same old song and dance?

Israel's new Prime Minister has promised that there will be lasting peace between Arabs and Israelis. He said nothing about an autonomous Palestinian nation, which puts him at odds with suicidal Israeli Liberals; however, he also didn't say he wouldn't deport all of them beyond Israel's borders and wash his hands of them.

And really, there will be no lasting peace between the Islamofacists that currently control all Muslim nations and peoples and Israel, the United States, and the rest of the West this side of the grave.

You see, people consistently forget that, like The Gulf War (where we were asked in by the Kuwaitis after Hussein's Iraq invaded them), like the current, ongoing operations in Afghanistan (where we've shut down al-Quaeda training bases, and driven out the Taliban--for now), and like Operation Iraqi Freedom (where Hussein was paying bounties to the families of homicide bombers), the Crusades were primarily a defensive war. The European nations, yes, took the fight into the Middle East. Yes, they killed Muslims--men, and later women and children, as well--and eventually Jews, as well. However, it started when the Muslims began attacking and killing Christians making pilgrimages (hajj to the Muslims), and encroaching into European lands.
`
Granted, the Christians did end up taking things a bit too far in the atrocities--at least, they have according to current thought, which neglects to point out (or even remember) that the first atrocities were on their side, not ours, and with which I disagree. I do have to admit, though that the Crusades failed in most respects: the Muslims kept the Middle East, kept killing peaceful Christian pilgrims, and eventually invaded and conquered a good chunk of Europe. However, the Crusades failed mostly because the bloody Europeans could not work together, and because they couldn't keep fighting a (then) superior foe.

That doesn't mean that the Christians in the Middle Ages didn't have the right idea in taking the fight to the Muslims. Nor does it mean that it's not the right idea now.

We, the West, has left the Middle Ages. We've moved on in pretty much all respects, from respecting the rights that each human being is born with, to improvements in life expectancy and quality through scientific and medical advancement. If Islam were not centered in the biggest available oil reserves (thank you, Democrats), they would be completely irrelevant because they never left the Middle Ages in any respect.

The current regime--er, administration--fully understands that, by controlling language, they can control thought. That's why they've decided to stop calling the terrorists in Guantanamo Bay "enemy combatants" and Middle Eastern operations "the War on Terror." They haven't fully decided what they do want to call them, haven't figured out how they can pc it out of our minds that these Islamofacist killers are dangerous.

I do agree that the terminology needs to be changed. "Enemy combatant" implies, after all, that they are lawful combatants, which they aren't. And the "War on Terror" implies that it's their actions that we're battling, when it's really their entire ideology.

However, I think we need to call a terrorist a terrorist, a spade a spade...and a Crusade a Crusade. After all, better to engage them in their own territory than allow them to import their own Dark Ages views to more civilized lands...and it's not too late to throw the terrorists out.

We tried it your way, dumbshits. Now can we please go back to what works?

The answer to that is apparently no.

Michael Steele said it: "[Rush Limbaugh is] not. I'm the de facto leader of the Republican party." He apologized for it a day later, but he initially said it. And meant it.

He was wrong. The head of the conservatives, who make up the backbone and musculature of the Republican party, is Rush Limbaugh. Telling Sarah Palin, who happens to be one of the darlings of the talk radio movement is nothing more than another attempt by the Beltway Bandits* to prove that they run the Republican party.

It's because of these twats that we have The Quicker Fucker-Upper** in office. After all, they're the ones who preferred another of the self-chosen elite for the Republican nominee, rather than someone the people identified with.

*Beltway Bandits--the Washington D.C. insiders (i.e., self-chosen elite) who are disgusted by the common man. The real divide between the two Americas lies between those of us who believe in the original vision, and these ignoble nobility that think they know best for us all.

**Again, credit goes to Vilmar of Kickin' and Screamin'.

This is where we actually need "more power."

The United States Constitution clearly states that one of the main responsibilities of the United States federal government is maintaining the physical safety of the people. While it's a stretch to read that as the responsibility to impose a sin tax on things that aren't good for us (like cigarettes), it is not a stretch to read that as meaning that the United States federal government has a responsibility to meet and respond to military threats.

However, the federal government is falling down on that job. Seriously falling down on that job.

North Korea is preparing to launch a "satellite." In reality, the world is aware that that launch is a mask for a test of ICBM technology. That "satellite" could reach Hawaii. And our government is doing nothing about it.

Japan is threatening to shoot down the missile--er, satellite. I hope they do it, even though I hate--hate--that we're being forced to depend upon another government to keep us safe.

What's good for power tools isn't good for government.

I keep seeing these news stories about increasing cigarette tax and CAFE standards, and about mandatory depression screening for all teens, and about nationalizing banks, insurance companies, and auto makers, and I keep flashing on Tim Allen's tag line from Home Improvement.

And I keep thinking about the consequences the quest for "more power!" had for poor Tim and his family and friends.

As bad as those consequences were, they'll be nothing compared to the consequences of the government's quest, consequences that we the people will face. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the possibility of a second civil war to take back our country is not the worst we face. I'd far prefer that to living in The People's Socialist Republic of the United States of America.

May God have mercy on us all for the stupidity of the majority who elected that communist son of a bitch.

About time. Times two.

First, despite all the whinging about "meltdowns" and about "radioactive waste," the Libtards have decided that they're going to allow nuclear energy, and new nuclear plants, for clean, inexpensive electricity.

And, quite honestly, the "meltdowns" danger is a bit of a thing of the past, with continuing advances in safer reactor technology.

About time, I say. France has been using nuclear power for years.

Second, the report labeling pretty much every conservative group out there "potential terrorists" has been rescinded. Jay Nixon claims to have had no knowledge of what was in the report before it came out.

Umm...HIS NAME WAS ACROSS THE TOP OF IT!!! If your NAME is on it, you'd damned well better know what's going to be in it. Seriously, though, if Nixon had no idea what was in the report, then he's incompetent as well as stupid. Wait...that's a tautology isn't it? He is a liberal, after all.