Free Wi-Fi in the Slums...

Leave it to San Francisco to come up with something this stupid:

Free Wi-Fi to Be Offered in City Housing Projects.

Next week's Headlines in San Francisco:

"Mayor Gavin Newsome Stunned By Rampant Wi-Fi Gear Theft"

"Laptop Theft up 300% in San Francisco; Mayor and Police at a Loss as To Why"

"Childhood Obesity in SF up 500%, Mayor Blames Endless Hours of Websurfing"

"Criminal Probe of City Wi-Fi Contracts Connects Mayor to Campaign Donors"

The Best Idea I've Heard All Year!

Fuck unions. It's time the Labor Union (a contradiction in terms, most of the time) goes the way of the Nehru Jacket, and Teddy Kennedy.

Time to make Public Employee Unions Illegal.

City streets go unplowed, but Sanitation Workers retire quite well.

Update: Queens Baby Left Braindead Because of Unplowed Streets. (Via JammieWearingFool).

I Haven't Bashed Obama, Lately...

Which has made some of you wonder if I've been sick, or something.

It's no fun anymore, because it's just too easy. It's like kicking kittens, because the Obama Way has been so thoroughly rebuked and discredited by events. Why should I have to point out what should be so painfully obvious? Anyways, there should be no complacency about the apparent demise of the Progressives because they'll be back, if only because there will be more"poor" and "downtrodden" to exploit; the supply of those never seems to dry up, if only because large masses of people will continue -- are encouraged -- to be stupid, and ready for exploitation.

In the meantime, expect to hear that the Republican majority in the House next year called all sorts of names. Now that the sting of being called Racists, Philistines and Homophobes has, finally, begun to wear off because those words have become exhausted from sheer overuse, expect the new theme of anti-Conservatism/Libertarianism to be couched in terms of The Smart Set (lefties) against the Morons (the right).

Because the Left has to, always, assume an air of intellectual superiority, otherwise it would be unable to identify any great distinction, at all: it doesn't usually do anything. Action is always for someone else, so that one can demand that "the government do something" about Problem X, so that you, the individual don't have to. If the Left can't pretend that it cares more than you do, or that it is, indeed, smarter than you are, then it very quickly finds itself without a reason to continue to exist, The Left always talks a great game about action, it hardly ever engages in any that has much meaning or effect. Most of it's actions are largely symbolic, and ultimately, useless. On those rare occasions when the Left manages to work up the ambition to take action, the results are always, predictably, the same: the loss of liberty, the confiscation of wealth and property, the removal of moral hazard and consequence -- always results that are in contradiction of the stated aim -- and society in general always becomes coarser and more vulgar, and further alienated. And of course, this result simply justifies the next round of oppressive Progressivism; someone has to "fix" all the New Problems that invariably arise from the last round of smarter, more caring fixes to the Old Ones.

When a Leftest talks about "rights", what he or she really means is not an advancement of personal liberties (Classical Liberalism), but the ability to be ever-more libertine and profligate in it's own behavior, manners and thought. It's always about the personal urge to do whatever one feels like doing, whenever one feels like doing it, and always at someone else's expense; despite protests to the contrary, the Left's "concern" for the poor and downtrodden is really just an excuse to acquire more power, and more money, with which to fund and justify it's own irresponsible desires. So when someone supports ObamaCare, for example, it's really not because they fear that poor people don't have access to quality health care, it's because they themselves already have it...they just don't want to have to continue to pay for it.

The great Virtue of Barack Obama, if he ever had one at all, is that from the point-of-view of the Committed Lefty Libertine, he's the perfect foil to anything or anyone that stands in the way of creating that elusive Utopia wherein one may take their pleasures wherever they find them, be protected from the mostly-negative consequences of such irresponsibility, and have the true costs of that lifestyle absorbed by "the government", i.e. by everyone else.

If the typical Libtard advances socialized medicine, and has his arguments shot down by simple logic and math, the same simply cannot happen to Obama; if you disagree with anything he puts forward, you're a racist.

If the typical Libtard puts forward a "progressive" income tax system that punishes the productive and rewards the slacker class and carefully-selected liberals and liberal causes (the so-called "Targeted Tax Cut"), and is laughed out of the room for being unable to see how this ultimately becomes unsustainable, the same cannot be done to Obama: to disagree with Obama makes you "a hater".

When this demented species of Libertine speaks of "our values", and has it noted that his list of virtues does not contain such quaint notions as productive work, responsibility, patriotism, religion, and respect for the law, and is simply a laundry list of means by which government should be empowered to extract wealth and liberties from the pockets of others, the same argument cannot be used against Obama: he's a "transformative figure", after all.

And when Leftards are defeated in elections, it's not because their ideas were bad, ham-handedly -- if not illegally -- implemented: it's because you're too fucking stupid to understand what Obama is trying to accomplish.

In all arguments, the "rules", real or perceived, do not apply to Barack Obama, and in insisting that they do, his "enemies" are painted as the worst sort of mouthbreathing barbarian, on par with the Mongols or Nazis.

On the other hand, Barack Obama is almost totally devoid of anything redeeming, in a political sense: he's inexperienced, he's committed to an ideology which has been tested and failed, he has no regard for the citizenry he was elected to serve. On the contrary, Obama doesn't serve at all; that's our job.

And speaking of jobs, Obama doesn't seem to want to do the one he has, because he takes far more vacations than I can ever remember any other President taking, and he always seems to be one or two steps behind everyone else on the great arguments of the day, as if he wasn't really paying attention. He can't even give those empty speeches with lofty-but-meaningless rhetoric that made him famous, anymore.

Of course, this makes Obama the perfect Libtard empty vessel; Obama will champion any cause, no matter how misguided -- free plastic surgery for non-taxpayers, amnesty for illegal immigrants, government control of the airwaves and internet, reconciling our enemies instead of fighting them -- and you can't criticize him for it. I'm now convinced, after two years, that while Barack Obama took the Oath of Office, it was really Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid that were the Presidents of the United States. Obama was just the figurehead; he just played basketball and took Michelle out on taxpayer-funded date nights. This new media-created phenomenon of the "newly resurgent" Obama, this new "Comeback Kid" nonsense, is propaganda intended to hide a very dangerous truth: we managed to elect a complete retard to the highest office in the land, and worse, one that was totally unprepared and then totally disinterested once he discovered it meant ACTUAL WORK.

He obviously was either easily manhandled -- and meanly used -- by his political superiors, or completely unequal to the task of governing.

So, if you come here for your daily dose of Obama Bashing, you're likely to be disappointed these days. The man hasn't done anything in the last few months worthy of ridicule --mostly because he hasn't actually attempted to do anything. Which is par for the course; work is not Obama's forte.

To break out a really old, and I'll admit it, offensive joke, and to try to relate it to the sorry tale of Barack Obama:

What are the three things you can't give Barack Obama?

A Black Eye (an electoral victory for the opposition party)

A Fat Lip (12 stitches from a pick-up basketball game), and

A Job (because he certainly does a very good job of avoiding doing his).

Yes, I know; that was cheap, and it was 5th-grade humor. However, if you need a more intellectual and reasoned criticism of Barack Obama, so that you can feel yourself the intellectual-equal of the typically dumb-as-dogshit Lefty, you can try looking here and here. Because I'm soooo fucking bored with it all.

F*ck Feelings...

A new blog (in the sense that I'd never heard of it before), is F*ck Feelings.

Thanks to Conservative in The Closet for turning me on to this. It's not only a laugh riot, but it leads me to believe that if only more so-called Mental Health Professionals were as blunt, direct and honest with their patients, there'd be less mental health issues, and we could take 500 or so ersatz despression "cures" -- the ones that will only merely delay,or perhaps even expedite your eventual suicide -- off the market. It might even reduce healthcare costs.

I'm adding F*ck Feelings to the blogroll.

And speaking of C-in-C, you really should stop by her site, too. Because she's fucking brilliant!

Orwell Never Sleeps...

As anyone who reads this tripe regularly knows, I absolutely adore George Orwell. Not in that "I want to have his babies" sort of way (despite that such a thing would be physically impossible, even if he wasn't already dead) but because Orwell was, in my estimation, the Greatest English Writer Who Ever Lived.

Even when you don't agree with anything he's written (Orwell was a committed Socialist), you can still appreciate it. He was a virtuoso of the English Language, and even the stuff that makes you scratch your head, or want to shoot your cat, still holds your interest because of the flowing quality of the words. Orwell was precise; he used exactly the right words in order to convey his thoughts, making his intent unmistakable. He was the master of the metaphor, too.

But the most remarkable thing about George Orwell is just how relevant he still is, sixty years after his death. The subjects he wrote about, the stories he told, his commentary -- all products the 1930's and 40's -- could very well have been written just last week. Or yesterday. Or more likely, Tomorrow. Moreso than H.G. Wells, or Aldous Huxley, George Orwell wrote about Tomorrow Today, and in such a way as to cause one to come to the realization that just because something has already happened, it doesn't necessarily follow that it won't happen again; only the form and circumstances will be different.

Orwell, of course, did not set out to write in this way; he was not aiming at being the next Nostradamus, nor do I think he was trying to suggest to us, as the great Christian Theologians who almost kept us in the Dark Ages insisted, that "There is nothing new under the Sun...". I think, rather, that he'd figured out something that many of our so-called Learned Men still have not figured out; the world may change, but human nature does not. He was a man who set out to tell the Truth As He Saw It; it just so happens that most Truths are immortal.

Let's face it, ever since Bill Clinton, the word "Orwellian" has pretty much entered the lexicon of anyone capable of breathing without mechanical assistance, so even if you've never heard of him, you've heard of him!

If you're not familiar with Orwell's works, then I suggest you get yourself so as quickly as possible. Not so much because of what it may tell you about the world you live in, but mostly because it's just damned good reading, learning a thing or two, or just having something to think about on the side is just an added benefit.

Where most people usually become familiar with his works, it's because they were "forced" to read his classics -- Animal Farm, 1984, The Road to Wiggan Pier -- in school. It was an assignment, something they couldn't avoid, and I'll wager, because it had that quality it was something they never enjoyed. Because of that mindset, they probably never picked up anything with his name on it again, or ever imagined that there was more to the man than those three books.

Not true! I would suggest, if you can, that you get yourself a copy of George Orwell: Essays, from the Everyman's Library series of books. It is a collection of Orwell's short stories, essays, newspaper reportage, and book reviews, in which he discusses everything from how to make the perfect cup of tea, to the future of democracy in a world in which it would soon be easy to regulate thought, repress dissent, and co-ordinate every human activity through the power of government. I have to say, it's my all-time favorite thing to read, and I never tire of it.

Every so often, I break out my Orwell collection, turn to a random page, and then just read. Today, that random page happened to be an essay, written in 1946, about the possibility that Man would learn to control the Earth's climate, and what that would mean to him, personally. Naturally, he entitled it "A Bad Climate is Best" (Take THAT Al Gore!), because to Orwell, perfection was always a pipe dream, and it's pursuit a waste of time and energy, so why not learn to see the virtue even in those things that make us uncomfortable?

Unfortunately, I could not find this particular essay posted on the Internet, so I can't reproduce it easily here, which is a pity; Orwell even made the sad sight of a elm tree covered in a shaggy canopy of dead leaves sound somewhat romantic.

Observations on A Blizzard...

We got 24" of snow dumped on us here in New York in the last few days, and there has been some uproar and consternation from many quarters over it.

The City seemed dreadfully unprepared for this kind of snowfall, which is unusual, as the Sanitation Department typically is out in force clearing streets just as soon as the first flakes begin to fall. Not this year, however. I happen to know -- because I was there -- that the snowplows and salt-spreaders were on the streets of the Upper East Side of Manhattan when the storm began in earnest; my friends from Britain were remarking about the incredibly rapid response to the storm, and wondering why it is that such a thing doesn't happen in England, where a dusting of snow quickly paralyzes the entire country, and they were rather impressed.

Apparently that sort of response wasn't in the offing for the Outer Boroughs because as of this morning, many of the secondary streets in my area have only been perfunctorily plowed, and it's not uncommon to see the snowplows, fire trucks, and ambulances getting stuck in huge snowbanks three days after the storm because the Sanitation Department let the snow accumulate with little action, and now it cannot catch up with the demand to plow streets that as little as year or two ago, would have been cleared on Day One.

People have died because emergency vehicles could not get to where they were needed. Public transportation has been disrupted for three days, meaning getting to work -- or anyplace else -- has been next to impossible. Emperor Bloomberg is being burned in effigy all over the City, and his excuse for this uncharacteristically flaccid response by a normally-competent snow-removal effort (say whatever else you will about the Sanitation Guys; when it comes to snow, no one, usually, does it better), is that it's Albany's fault (no state aid, you see), or that the city faces a deficit and budget cuts are in effect (no private snow-removal contractors this year), or that Mother Nature doesn't always cooperate, or best off all, "you people" -- the citizens of New York City, that is -- should have stayed off the streets and made the process a whole lot easier.

As if a complete cluster-fuck could have somehow been made easier?

Putting aside the well-known fact that Bloomberg is a mentally-challenged douche, it seems the real problems with snow removal this year are political; the plows most certainly hit the neighborhoods where the wealthy and "important" folks live, and then did little else on the two days after the storm. Some have suggested that the Sanitmen did this on purpose; there is a dispute between the Union that represents them and City Hall, over the "firing" of 400 Sanitation men (it depends on who you talk to: the Union says "Fired", the Mayor insists on the phrase "lost through attrition" or alternately "took an early retirement"), and so, to make their point, as well as to make the Mayor look bad (he needs no help in that department), the Sanitmen staged a deliberate work slowdown, and then made sure they only plowed the tony nabes to piss people off and produce bad publicity.

I don't know enough about such thing to comment further, and so I won't. That's just the stuff floating about the local newspapers and newscasts, but in this City, the truth usually doesn't lie somewhere in between two or more extremes; it's probably all true.

Suggest to the typical Municipal Worker around here (excluding the Cops and Firemen, who are tops!) that they might be overcompensated for what they actually do, and they get uppity, nasty and steam shoots from their ears and nostrils. They'll shoot back "Hey, Asshole! I hadda take a test fer dis job!", and one must resist the urge to ask "Was that blood or urine?" to avoid a fistfight. But I digress...

Now, as to the snow itself:

In my youth, 2-feet of snow was a miracle. It was, perhaps, the best thing that could ever happen to a kid, short of finding a $10 bill in the street. It was even better if it happened on a school day, but alas, all the school kids are on Christmas...excuse me...HOLIDAY vacation. Still, two feet of snow should be enough to bring the children out in force, throwing snowballs, building snow forts, sledding, playing football in the streets, all sorts of winter revelry. Not anymore.

I have seen relatively few children out playing in the snow. In the last two days, I could count the number of kids on both hands, and four of them would be my own nephews. Even that much snow can't pry the little bastards away from the X-box or television, I guess. More likely, their parents are keeping them inside because they don't want them to get sick, or maybe the blizzard was the first indication of the Global Warming Apocalypse, but you don't see many kids out there playing. This is a sad commentary on the future of this Country, and probably their parents, as well.

Then again, you don't see the masses of Central American welfare thieves...err...immigrants...on the streets, either. Oh, they were out the morning after the storm, shovels in hand, knocking on doors to "a-shovel you drive-a-way", but I've seen nary a one, since. There is a lesson here: if you want to discourage illegal immigration, pray for a constant stream of blizzards.

However, the most notable thing about this snowstorm is that it has re-lit the fuse on the biggest powder keg in New York; the fight over parking spaces.

Around here, one treats a regular parking space like a birthright. Families pass down parking spots from father-to-son by unwritten rules of Parking Etiquette. It is assumed, almost automatically, that if you own a house in this city, then the space directly in front of it is your's by Divine Right (why should one be expected to walk more than 20' to his own front door?) , and woe to the hapless prick who violates your rights! Parking around here is tricky in the best of times; in a day and age where every family in the neighborhood has at least two vehicles, one always being the ostentatious, over-sized SUV that Mom used to shuttle the kids around and run her errands. Driveways and garages, when they are available, are almost never used to park the family vehicles. No, one does not park one's car in the driveway...that's where one keeps his 28' Chris-Craft cabin cruiser to avoid paying Marina fees, or the Winnebago that you bought for family vacations and which no longer gets used thanks to near-$4-a-gallon gasoline. Some aren't given to such extravagance, opting for the simpler and more Norman Rockwell- homespun option of matching His-and-Hers Yamaha rice burners (actually, it's more like Hers-and-Hers) which are kept on the driveway under wraps, barely used except on the most-perfect of summer weekends.

Garages are not for cars; they are for storing all the useless crap your wife bought because you gave her a credit card and no responsibility, that you have no use for and which would otherwise clutter up the house.

You see it all the time: perfectly-manicured lawn, perfectly clean -and-detailed cars out front, a garage full of chaos that looks as if an earthquake struck in the middle of the night.
Unless you're my neighbor directly across the street, who subjects his precious BMW's to a nightly ballet, wherein one is removed from the garage for the next morning's use, while the other is parked within, safe from the elements and thieves for at least one more night. You can set your watch by it. The man is the very definition of anal-retentive.

So everyone parks on the street, usually in such a fashion as to place their over sized King Cab or Suburban in a particular spot which precludes the possibility of anyone parking either ahead or behind you. This results in others "squeezing" their vehicle in behind your's, if they can, garbage cans that are routinely run over by someone who can't get the Queen Mary out of the spot they stuffed it in originally, and numerous arguments about who's boxed who in. It's not uncommon for people to be beaten senseless over parking spots around here. It gets worse with 24" inches of snow on the ground.

That's because every asshole and his mother comes out to dig a revetment for his car,and gets mightily pissed when he returns that evening to find someone else parked in it. The solution, of course, is to break out the snowblower, and dig another revetment, being perfectly mindless about either a) throwing all this snow into the street (a street you're complaining hasn't been plowed adequately), or b) deliberately burying the douchebag that so thoughtlessly took "your" spot. Whereupon the other nosepicker sneaks out in the middle of the night with his snow shovel, and returns the favor, and so the next morning the two rivals for a piece of city street neither has a legal claim to meet eyeball-to-eyeball and curse each other out for.

Of course, the absolute worst are those who dig their vehicle out, but insist on piling the snow ahead and behind it, creating huge mounds of snow that take up what would be another two parking spaces. They do this, because heaven forbid one should ever toss shovelled snow upon his own front lawn, where it might be conveniently out of the way, You want to talk about fights? Listen in as Joe Do-Gooder-First-Citizen chastises Joe Asswipe for being inconsiderate as to, in effect, take up three parking spaces just so that he can have one.

If there is ever another American Civil War, it will not start over such petty concerns as state's rights, or the overlord Leviathan crushing the privileges of the individual, nor even over racial or political differences. Oh, no: it will start here, on Staten Island, with thousands of petty arguments about who "owns" which parking space, and it will be started by a bunch of Jersey-Shore Italians and Shanty Irish, the Middle-Class-With-No-Class, over where one may park a car on a public street, just so that no oil stains ever accumulate on the pristine white concrete of his driveway (that drives down real estate values, you see). You think I'm kidding? Come here about 7 tonight, when everyone gets home from work and needs a space.

Bring popcorn and a six-pack, because we're close to shots being exchanged in these parts.

I swear, I love this place, I really do. It's just too bad that the typical inhabitant is a knuckle-dragging orangutan.

Vengeance is MINE!

A couple of weeks back, I was assaulted by three pubescent miscreants who thought it would be a good idea to throw food out the windows of a moving vehicle at an innocent pedestrian. I told you in this space that I would, indeed, track down the motherless bastards who had badly stained a near-new London Fog winter coat with a chocolate milkshake, and by whatever-you-hold-holy, I have succeeded!

In a secret process that involved sacrificing a goat to Thor, God of Thunder, and the expenditure of about 25 minutes of stone-cold PC time, I was able to determine the address of the owner of the vehicle in question and made the arduous journey across Narnia...errr...Staten Island (it only looks like the White Witch is in charge around here) to the house in question.

I pretty much found what I expected to find; the typical, middle-class home of a mated pair of douchebags that barely graduated high school, and who would probably starve to death if left to their own devices without their high-pay/low-expectation "City" jobs, and their brain-damaged offspring; a girl and a boy, both apparently in need of a brain transplant...if only one could find an Irish Setter willing to part with one. I was prepared for this eventuality; I knew now that the most difficult part of my quest -- the repeated protestation that their kid was a fucking angel who would NEVER do such a nasty thing -- was ahead of me. The argument is merely a stall tactic to keep Daddy from having to reach into his wallet to part with the $18.50 for the dry cleaning bill. It always is; with any luck, he thinks, I'll get frustrated and just go away.

The doorbell is engaged. Norm from Cheers (only with garlic on his breath, a Guinea Tee, and a considerably-smaller vocabulary) answers the door. Battle is about to be joined; this is how you engage in the fine art of gentle persuasion on Staten Island.

"Can I help you?"

" I sure hope so. Are you (Name Withheld)? And do you own a 1998 Chevrolet Malibu, a blue one, (license plate number)?

"Yeah, I do. What's it to you?"

"Do you also have a son, about 17 or 18?"

"Who the fuck are you?"

I'm the guy your son threw food at two weeks ago. You owe me $18.50.

What the fuck! I don't owe you shit! Get off my stoop!

Hey, Asshole! Your kid was driving that car, and him and his scumbag friends thought it would be funny to throw food at me, and stain my coat. You owe me $18.50, and if I don't get it, I'm calling the cops.

Norm's wife, who looks as if she once walked the streets for money...or maybe just bus fare, subway tokens, leftover food, pocket lint, whatever she could get from men with no standards or scruples...now arrives. She wants to know "Who the fuck are you talking to, Honey?" I introduce myself to her, repeating my complaint, and make a definite attempt to avoid eye contact, because it might turn me to stone. I now know just who the fuck it is that's keeping Jersey Shore on the air.

You must have made a mistake, Honey. Our Johnny would never do something like that. He's a good kid, and doesn't do that kind of stupid shit. He goes to Catholic School.

I explain that I didn't arrive on their doorstep accidentally. That I had tracked the license plate number. The daughter, who looks a prime candidate for both dropping out of high school and becoming a single mother at least 4 times before her 25th birthday, now watches from the window. She turns her head, obviously speaking to someone inside the house. My guess; it's my attacker, and she's probably asking him if he really did what I say he did.

Norm begins to beat his chest. This is where it starts to get good; he knows he's caught, and the thought of parting with $18.50, probably more than he makes in a hour, frightens him. This is where the false bravado kicks in.

Listen, Jerkoff, my kid is a good boy, and he don't do shit like this. Now you can get the fuck off my stoop, and shove your $18, and your coat, up your ass. Get outta here before I kick your ass.

Predictable.

Douchebag, I didn't come here by accident, and if I wanted to steal from you, I would have asked for more than $18.50. I'm telling you, your fucking kid and his friends threw food at me at a stop light, and then peeled off. Your kid was the driver.

He's supposed to drive and throw shit at the same time? Fuck you.

Somehow, Norm starts to believe that he's Isaac Newton trying to explain the basic premises of physics to the Village Idiot. He probably learned that bit of Forensics on CSI: Miami.

Fuck me? Right, I'll be back here with a cop. Don't go anywhere, Fuckface!

The Police are called. Due to the snow-blocked streets, it takes them 45 minutes to drive the seven blocks from the Precinct house. I begin to file a criminal complaint. Deputy Dog knocks on Norm's door, there's a heated exchange; I can tell it's heated because while I can't exactly hear what's being said, Norm is animated, and relapses into the Italian habit of talking with his hands. He bellows into the house, and Johnny presents himself for questioning.

And pussy that I knew he was, immediately cries like a bitch and rats his friends out under the first barrage of questions from the cop.

I could press charges, but I'll settle for the $18.50 in dry cleaning and an apology. I get both, and Sheriff Ricochet is visibly relieved that he will not have to be stuck at his word processor doing paperwork while the rest of the Precinct gets to Dunkin' Donuts on time for the last batch of Bavarian Cremes to come out of the oven over stupid shit like this.

Norm, who was a belligerent prick from the get-go, now suddenly wants to apologize and be best buddies. He's sorry, he says. He didn't know. How would you react if someone showed up on your doorstep and accused your kid of something, he asks. I know Norm well; I grew up with his kind, and have lived with them for the last 43 years; he's a fucking gasbag who knows just how good he has it in life, and how undeserving of it he is. He guards the trappings of this good life, in every aspect, like a rabid doberman. His first reaction to anything that threatens to pop his balloon, to hint that not all is hunky-fucking-dory in his little world, turns him into Joe Pesci in "Goodfellas".

I refused to shake his hand -- and then I told him to go fuck himself.

And left.

Reading Professor Hanson Is Like Taking An Instant Smart Pill...

I wouldn't doubt if someone did a study that proves that reading The Professor just before testing raises your mean SAT score by 200 points. Minimum.

How Did All That Happen?

Still Think Communism Is a Good Idea, Only Poorly Executed?

One would think that if there was anything a Communist wouldn't be short of, it would be a healthy supply of bullshit.

Acute fertilizer shortage in North Korea.

You know you live in a...ahem...shithole...when the trade in human excrement becomes the next "get-rich-quick" scheme, and a positive economic boon.

Why, it appears that North Korean Scientific Socialism worked so gosh-darn well, that it couldn't even produce enough bullshit for it's own needs, and so had to import the stuff.

"The lack of fertiliser has become acute since South Korea stopped annual shipments of rice and fertiliser to North Korea in 2008, amid worsening relations."

I see an opportunity for President Obama to erase the deficit here. Get him and his teleprompter on Air Force One right now, destination: Pyongyang. One Obama Tour-de-Force-of-Bullshit speech ought to have North Koreans bogged down in all the fertilizer their black little hearts could desire. Send Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid over, as well, and we'd corner the market.

On the list of things North Korea is Also Short Of (after Democracy, Human Rights, Medicine, Food, Toilet Paper, Clean Water), we find some rather strange commodities: skinny jeans, porn, and who woulda thunk it; fucking Ramen Noodles. I smell economic opportunities a-plenty here! Or was that just the aroma of the first shipment from my brand-new North Korean fertilizer factory...the place we used to call "the Bathroom"?

Here's an idea: as an exercise in goodwill this Holiday Season, I would like every American to take a copious dump in an envelope, and mail it to your nearest North Korean Embassy. No diarrhea, please, just solid waste. Consider it your contribution to World Peace. Perhaps we could even tie this voluntary donation of Good Ol' American Scatological Matter to North Korea's quest for nuclear weapons? A Turds for Nukes Program?

We could send Jimmy Carter over there to work out the details. With any luck, he'll stay.

Thanks, IowaHawk...

Write something nice about someone, and you get a bunch of his readers to come to your site.


I feel like Marcia Brady.

Welcome IowaHawk readers! And remember: the USDA recommends at least one, 8-oz. serving of IowaHawk per day.

Global Warming Probably Gave Your Dog Fleas, Too...

In response to this post, an Anonymous reader posted a link to a recent New York Times article on Global Warming, which pretty much says that the recent cold snaps that have struck and crippled Europe this past fortnight, and which dumped 2-feet of snow on New York City the last two days, are, alas, caused by Global Warming, too.

The article is unadulterated bullshit, and the author should be ashamed of himself. Assuming, of course, he had any shame to begin with. But this is par for the course when dealing with the true believers in Man-made Global Catastrophe; they are shameless liars, and possessed of a bulletproof stupidity that they themselves would sneeringly attribute to the poor slugs who, snicker-snicker, believe in God.

Of course, these are the same people who believe that Man has the power to halt the cycle of Evolution and Extinction, and return the planet to a supposed Golden Age where atmospheric conditions were "just right". They can't define "just right", but they know it exists,because it must have...once. And they call Conservatives crazy people who want to turn back the clock?

The major problem with the Global Warming types is that they simply don't care about truth, nor do they care about science. For the committed Tree-Hugger, the debate over global Warming is about neither truth nor science, nor about what's good for the Human Race, it's always about a self-appointed elite who hate their fellow human beings and want to control their lives.

This Elite wants to control your actions a) for their personal (mostly mental) comfort, b) for their personal enrichment, c) because they're pretentious assholes who believe they're better than anyone else, and d) because they're committed to the idea that World Socialism is still a viable system, it just needs a new marketing campaign and better World Socialists to run it.

This is, after all, their overall goal; to bring about World Socialism without having to have debates, without having to fight wars, without having to deal with forces that they cannot control. It's best to concoct a fairy tale of mankind destroying his habitat so as to arrest the growth of the developed nations (The West), while allowing the rest of the planet (The Third World, India, China) to "catch up" industrially by removing any such restrictions upon their activity. In this way, the dream of World Socialism will have been achieved (material equality, or rather, equality of misery) in the way that Socialists typically want it to be achieved; by destroying the rights and privileges of the individual, sovereign nations and traditional institutions.

The package of World Socialism has just been wrapped in festive, brightly-colored, and friendlier paper: now, it's no longer about Proletarian struggle, unavoidable historical forces coming into conflict, class warfare, or a war of ideologies that may lead to actual shooting and nuclear exchange. No, the World Socialism crowd now comes to you claiming they want to save Polar Bears and Tropical Fish, starving African villagers and rain forests full of endangered fruit trees. The goal, however, still remains: control of the world economy, either directly (through the U.N.) or indirectly (again, through the U.N.) by means of treaties, or international law that forces some nations to bear the technical and financial burdens of modernizing all the others.

Global Warming advocates are the slipperiest of eels.

Too hot? Heat waves and droughts?

That's Global Warming.

Too cold? Blizzards?

That's Global Warming, too.

Too Many hurricanes?

Global Warming, for sure.

No Hurricanes at all?

Definitely Global Warming.

Cat missed the litter box? Didn't win the Lottery? Got Vanilla when you asked for Chocolate? Barack Obama got elected President?

Global Warming will get you every time...

Eventually, you get to the point where Global Warming is responsible for Icelandic volcanoes erupting, and Haitian Earthquakes, as some of the dumber Global Warming idiots did, indeed argue, at the time those events occurred.

Ask for proof,and you get "science"that is falsified. Point out the science has been doctored, or worse, relies on assumptions that no one can quantify, and the committed Global Warmer simply moves the goal posts; it's still doesn't matter if the science is fake, the threat is still real, or suddenly, there's a new variable that someone tosses into the equation that's never been reported on, but someone has been studying in his basement for the last 20 years.

They are like the Christian Apologists of the 30's and 40's, who told you that it doesn't really matter if Christ existed, or if there's resurrection of the body, or even if the saintsperformed miracles, what matters is not the literal veracity of Gospel, but the perceived intent. Point out that if you argue that Christ really hadn't risen from the dead, and that there is no real promise of a resurrection of the body, then the pillars upon which their faith rests must surely fail, and you get that most condescending and annoying retort "you're not a theologian, so you can't possibly understand..."

Global Warming douchebags do this all the time. They make claims that cannot be proven, and then in their defense say that you, John Smith, are just too stupid to understand the REAL science. And just like the Christian Apologists, who were always able to stay one step ahead of you in any argument that threatened to devolve into a test of logic, the Global Warming Idiot plays the same confidence trick.

Is there Global Warming? Of course there is. The climate of this planet has changed repeatedly in 4 billion years, and will continue to change long after mankind is gone. How do I know? Because there is provable scientific data that says the Earth has gone through several major Ice Ages in the recent geological past, and since there ain't any glaciers here on Staten Island and my diet doesn't consist of Elephant Seal and Whale Blubber, I have to assume that, consequently, there was at least an equal number of warming events, also easily proved by accepted, provable scientific means, just in case the evidence of your own eyes isn't enough.

The Question is how much does Man's activity contribute to this warming phenomenon,and the answer is...no one actually knows... and when true,honest scientific minds try to find out, they find it is beyond their capacity to actually enumerate, because the complexities of weather and climate are, even in the 21st Century, poorly understood.

The Global Warmer foot soldier, however, is convinced, sans evidence, that ALL the warming is the result of human activity, and the only means to arrest it is to bring progress to a screeching halt,no matter how many people it kills, no matter how many landscapes it destroys, no matter how expensive that might be. In the meantime, his Puppet Masters, the World-Socialists-in-Sheep's-Clothing, sit back and enjoy the wealth and power they accumulate by manipulating the brain-dead masses.

Like most Left-wing movements, EnvironMENTALism is a movement of the Ill-informed-but Well-intentioned, led by the Ill-Intentioned-but Well-informed. Truth, science, and logic have nothing to do with any of it, nor does the bloody weather.

Update: I rest my case.

The Roll Call of the "Famous" Dead...

One of the things to despise about the end of the year is the annual Roll Call of the Famous Dead. What really sucks about this ritual is that usually half, if not more, of the people on such a list are totally unknown to you, and the recitation of their names leaves you scratching your head; just what the fuck did this person ever do to become famous? And if they really were famous, why haven't I ever heard of them?

Well, that's because most of them fall into a category I will call "Parochial Fame", that is, they were considered a luminary within the small confines of specific circle of people that most normal folks wouldn't associate with if you paid them. Most of your dead poets, obscure writers and philosophers, internationally-known-but-otherwise-back-bencher politicians, career journalistic hacks, and people who "revolutionized" a field that only about 17 people world-wide know about fall into this category. Recite those names in your circle of friends and family, and you'd be genuinely shocked if anyone recognized two of them.

Then there's a second category, which I will call "People Who Became Famous for Shit No one Cares About". You'll find amongst that number such "famous" figures as, oh say, a professional surfer, some dude who scaled Everest three times in his underwear, rich playboys who screwed their way through the all supermodels in the finer European resorts while squandering the family fortune and dying of a drug-resistant strain of clap, the Exiled Crown Prince Of Northeast Buttfuckistan. They would be people who went totally unnoticed in life by anyone who wasn't paid to kiss their ass.

Then there's the final category, which is "Those Made Famous By People Dumber Than They Are". You can put just about any self-help guru, maharishi, fire-and-brimstone reverend, Communist Guerrilla leader, flash-in-the-pan artist/musician or Film Director, into this bin. They'd be totally obscure to most of the general public, and if they were remembered at all, it would most likely be in the motif of "I can't believe I wasted $19.95 on that asshole's Book/Album/Movie/T-shirt".

Amongst the "honored" dead this year, there were, in fact some really famous people (and most of them deservedly so).People who are still household names, who after years have seen their careers have an effect upon the culture that will resonate in the future. They were famous because they actually DID something that made people think, or act, or just made them happy.

I ran across one of those "Dead Celebrities of 2010" lists. I really didn't want to look at it, but Lena Horne and Leslie Neilsen were on the top of the list. So, why not? I enjoyed the work of both. And sure enough, I didn't know about 120 of the 164 people listed. Of those I did know, I decided to take issue with some of them, with regards to their achievement of the "famous" imprimatur.

On the List That No One Could Argue With, we have: Lena Horne, Leslie Neilsen, Tony Curtis, Eddie Fisher, Patricia Neal, George Steinbrenner, Jean Simmons and Teddy Pendergrass. You can argue about the nature of their individual accomplishments, but you can't say none of them are "famous" in the sense that if you stopped 10 people on the street and mentioned their names, you'd get 7 who would recognize at least that much. Some of the names on this list had me asking "what drugs was the person compiling this list taking when he/she conferred "fame" upon this loser?". In no particular order:

* Blake Edwards; was nothing without Peter Sellers. At best, Edwards made his name making risque-I-guess-you-could-call-them-comedy films at the height of the Sexual Revolution (when the taboos surrounding sex were being torn down rapidly), and then nothing else. In the world of film directors, Edwards was a one-trick pony.

* Elizabeth Edwards: Give me a fucking break. So far as I'm concerned, the only thing she ever did was to enable a narcissistic douchebag who might have become President of this country, and then milk the sympathy extended by the public over the death of her child, and her cancer, for a shitload of money. I really hate to piss on her grave this way, but I'm quite certain that Hell has a special place reserved for her and her husband, the Breck Girl.

* Teena Marie - No fucking way. In the world of one-hit wonders, she was barely that. Her "gimmick" was to be a white girl singing R&B and soul music. In a day-and-age of American Idol -- where everyone tries to sound like a cross between Whitney and Aretha, even the Men --that is no longer a distinction, let alone a badge of courage.

* Captain Beefheart - if it wasn't for drugs and 1960/70's counter-culture, this man would have been locked away in a mental institution. If extreme eccentricity, deliberately cultivated as an affectation, is enough to make you "famous", then we're fucking doomed as a species.

* James Wall - never heard of him, have you? He was Captain Kangaroo's sidekick. Certainly a cultural icon. I remember thinking as a child that he was probably a child rapist, one of those people your mother told you not to take candy from. Or maybe that was Mr. Greenjeans? I forget. . He probably has a statue dedicated to his memory in some podunk town like Nosepicker, North Dakota...where no one will ever see it. Along with his carefully-concealed criminal history, and predilection for underage hookers. (Ed. Note: I don't know if any of that is true. It just sounded funny).

* Jimmy Dean -I'm torn. I mean, what would the world be without link sausage?

* Dennis Hooper - everyone has heard of Dennis Hopper, but he was a douchebag, and therefore, undeserving of the orgy of fake grief someone was trying to gin up by putting his name on the list. Sorry, but "Easy Rider" and playing Molly Ringwald's alcoholic father don't make you a great actor, because they were almost all exceedingly bad movies. After that, you pushed the idea that Baby Boomers were miniature gods who fundamentally altered the Universe. Which indicates that you not only made very bad movies, but took too many hallucinogenic drugs, Dingbat.

* Gary Coleman - well, if he wasn't a sick midget with a catchphrase, what would you remember Gary Coleman for, exactly?

* Lynn Redgrave - because no Dead Celebrity List is ever complete without at least one terribly bad English actress on it. Technically, Vanessa is/was worse, but she could at least pull off that vacant stare that could scare the fertilizer out of you.

* Corey Haim - an icon of the incredibly plastic and shallow 1980's. After that, he's only remembered for his addictions, which were numerous, and his appetite for self-immolation, which seems to have been boundless.


* J.D.Salinger - write one really awful book that Libtards love, and somehow this makes you immortal. Salinger was perhaps the worst American writer of the 20th Century, although it's a close-run thing considering there's Jack Kerouac, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Alan Ginsburg, Maya Angelou, Ernest Hemingway and Kurt Vonnegut to consider. They are all, almost universally, unreadable.

The EU and China Are Doomed...

I was discussing this idea I've had rolling around the empty spaces between my ears the other night with a good friend of mine. I think it was about 12 or 15 years ago, when he had married an English Lady and was therefore honor-bound to remain in Britain, that I told him to make sure that he saved his pennies, and made preparations to run back to the United States if that should become necessary, because at that time the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair was seriously considering joining the European Union. Or at least, trying to prepare British citizens for the possibility of being joined at the hip to the French and Germans.

That Labour government never entered the shotgun marriage of full EU membership (that would have meant abandoning the Pound for the Euro, and giving up much that made Britain British), but did inch it's regulatory system closer and closer to the European model (ex: it is now illegal to sell produce in Britain in any measure but metric). I'm convinced that had Blair had another go at things, he would have turned Britain into Belgium, only with prettier women. That the British people resisted Monetary Union, and unaccountable Continental bureaucratic control, is to their credit.

"The European Union cannot last", I told him. "Any organization which has both the French and the Germans in it, is doomed to fail."

Time has proven me right, in the general theory, just not in the particulars. The European Union is now in financial crisis, as is the United States, only the EU economic crisis is one of it's member states own making, because despite all the talk about free markets, the free movement of labor, and all the rosy economic predictions, the member states can't handle austerity or responsibility, either in times of plenty or in times of dearth.

There are no "free" markets in Europe; if the labor markets aren't controlled by the Trade Unions, then the financial markets are rigged by governments (both the elected officials of the member nations, and the unelected bureaucracy of the EU) to favor European concerns above foreign competition. Granted, we do the same things, just not as badly or as ham-handedly as the Euros do.

Anyways, all that stuff about the European social welfare model is finally coming home to roost in such a way that people are recognizing it's true costs.

An economic crisis arrives, austerity measures are needed: and French workers will have to work two more years into their 60's to keep their Social Security system afloat...and they riot.

Greeks riot in the streets of Athens, home of democracy, because the government is stepping up enforcement of tax collection (apparently, Greeks have become expert tax dodgers over the years), and reducing social benefits to stave off bankruptcy.

British "students" (who knew football, female promiscuity and public drunkenness were legitimate fields of study?) riot in the streets because the government cannot continue to provide a "free" college education (note to all you people who are supposed to be getting educated: nothing is ever "free", you just don't happen to pay for it because someone else does, dispshit!). When Her Majesty's Government makes the suggestion that, perhaps, students might pay some of their own tuition, they take to the streets to set things aflame and otherwise make a nuisance of themselves (over a rate so low that it would make an American college student consider blowing someone for British Citizenship).

It was Germany that began the breakup of the EU. Angela Merkel figured that if any part of the European economic system was going to be saved, it might as well be the German part. Austerity is the new buzzword; Germany will not bail out Ireland, Portugal, Spain, in fact, Germany won't bail out anyone it doesn't absolutely have to. The first crack has appeared in the EU; the dam will surely break, and the lesson (which somehow everyone forgets) is finally re-learned -- everyone is friendly...until money is involved.

I had always believed that when (not IF) the EU dissolved, it would be because France and Germany would get into another of their cyclical Fascist phases and then go to war over who had the God-given right to shit all over the Danes, Czechs and Luxembourgers, plunging Europe into another war (the French and Germans have fought three of them in the last 150 years, five in the last 200, if you count Napoleon, and who the hell-knows-how-many since the days of Charlemagne). Instead, the collapse of the EU is because the potential Shitters are afraid of bearing the cost of preserving the Shittees, upon whom they depended to slough off their own social welfare costs in the first place.

How that all sorts itself out is open to debate, and the vagaries of time. However,there's a bigger threat to international security and recovery than a pissing match within the Eurozone, and that threat is China.

China, at present, has three major economic advantages over the West; first, it contains tens of millions of people willing (and happy) to work for low wages. Even the pittance the average Chinese worker makes compared to his Western counterparts represents a great leap forward (no pun intended) for the average Chinese. Secondly, China is a place where speculators can run wild, making a killing -- on paper -- with little real investment. Some places in China are so remote and economically-depressed that the installation of a gumball machine or a pay phone represents 1000% economic growth. A skillful speculator can take those paper gains, and turn them into real cash. The Communist government certainly has, mostly because it's the body which produces the inflated economic figures in the first place.

All that Wall Street talk of China being "the biggest potential market in the world" is just that; talk. We've heard it for 30 years, and the Chinese trade imbalance with America grows worse with every goddamned day. Those who brag about opening Chinese markets and cheerleading the growth of Chinese capitalism are blowing smoke up your ass: they're simply trying to keep the investment pipeline open to prevent yet another bubble from breaking.

The third advantage which China enjoys is a corrupt government willing to do anything in order to maintain the power to slaughter millions if it feels itself threatened. It's why the Commies "liberalized" the economic system in the first place. This seeming-abandonment of Communism for unbridled Capitalism is merely a shield intended to buy the Chinese Communist apparatus the time and money necessary to save it's own skin when the time comes. China has learned the true lessons that Mikhail Gorbachev taught totalitarian regimes with his programs of glasnost and perestroika:

It's okay for The People to have the illusion of wealth, for as long as they believe their standard of living is rising, political unrest can be kept at bay. Let the people get rich, just don't let them demand -- or get -- political rights. And herein lay the problem.

Within a generation, perhaps two, China will be rent by political discord. The sources of this unrest will be a rising Middle Class, and a generation of unmarried and childless Men. This Middle Class, the first generation of accumulators of real wealth in Chinese history, will very soon demand that their modest fortunes be preserved for future generations -- and the first threat they'll want their money protected from is their own government. There will be calls, and possibly bloody riots, for political, economic, and legal freedoms/protections that the Communists will be unable to contain, deflect or ignore without great bloodshed.

At the same time, there will arise a peculiar class of Men denied the right to a wife and family by draconian birth control policies that have made marriageable females scarce, and which will have given what women there are a power they have never had before in China; the right to pick and choose the "best" husbands from the nuveau-riche parvenus, perhaps to even command huge payments and advantageous pre-nuptual agreements that the average man simply cannot provide.

There will be tens of millions of Chinese men who will have no, or limited, prospects for wives and children...and they won't be getting laid. Societies in which men can't engage in regular sexual activity, attain wives, or produce families to pass on both their genes and their property have far too much energy and time for other things...like violence. The sort of violence which one normally associates with the Middle East -- another sexually-deprived culture where wives are hard to come by once one runs out of first-cousins, and where inbreeding, closet homosexuality and bestiality are rampant, and grave threats to anything that can be considered civilized society.

There can never be enough Japanese sex robots to keep these guys in check.

The combination of a new Middle Class and the Man-with-no-marital-prospects will, eventually, mean the end of Chinese "Communism", and destroy much of the gains China has made economically in the last 30 years through some sort of Civil War. Whether it's a Peaceful Revolution, or one of those historically-cyclical-and-violent episodes of Chinese history is yet to be seen, but I'm betting on it being one hell of a holy mess, because let's face it; everyone is friendly...until there's money...or pussy...involved.

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal reports an agreement between France and Germany that might save Ireland from insolvency, but undermine the Euro in the process. The article suggests the belief that this plan will bring the Eurozone members closer together, but let's get real; that's propaganda. The real story here is that the failings of the Irish (and Spanish, Portugese, etc) banks will fall squarely where they belong; on the shoulders of the investors who hold the bad debt.

Also, Tea Parties rising in Germany? We all know how well German Nationalist parties meeting in Munich beerhouses have worked in the past, don't we?

IowaHawk is God...

If you're STILL not reading IowaHawk regularly, then you, Sir or Madame, are a dipshit. One that should be taken out and sterilized with the rustiest of farm implements, so that you may not pollute the gene pool with future generations of little dipshits. Who will grow up into big dipshits, who will vote democratic and believe in Global Warming, and all that rot, and continue the cycle of dipshits who don't read IowaHawk.

Just read the damned thing!

So, you've lost your election...

Unions: Guaranteeing Stupid People Jobs at Salaries They Could Never Earn in The Free Marketplace...

How Union members Christmas Carol.

Harken back to the heath care debates, the Town Hall meetings, the fight over GM and Chrysler Bailouts. Remember how the Unions tried to "fight for their rights" to keep cushy jobs at inflated salaries that bankrupted their employers back then? Usually by beating their opponents up (typically elderly Tea Party folks and Conservatives).

(Ed. Note: Forgot to mention this: the Obama Stimulus Bill was largely a pay-off to Public-Sector Unions for their political support, which is why it has so little positive economic effect).

The truth is that Unions exist to protect the following categories of people:

a. The Stupid
b. The Lazy
c. Thugs
d. All of the above.

Without a Union job, these categories of people would be limited in their career choices. Their choices would be:

a) Orange jumpsuits
b) Any job that required them to ask a customer if they wanted fries with that.

Now, mind you, that's a broad-brush description of the Unions, I'll admit. I do happen to know plenty of people who aren't stupid, lazy, or thuggish, and who belong to a Union. I also probably know twice as many who are, and the good Union folks are outnumbered by the bad ones by, in my estimation, a 3-to-1 margin.

If the Union doesn't exist to ensure the drooling knuckle-draggers in society have (arguably-)gainful employment, then it exists to extort the best possible kickbacks for itself under the guise of Worker's Rights. In a day and age of the EEOC, Civil Rights legislation up the wazoo, an overly-litigious society, and Diversity-for-the-fucking-sake-of-it, exactly what rights is the Union guaranteeing, besides inflated wages from which it takes a healthy cut?

And what does the Union do with that money? Well, after it pays it's executives handsomely for being a bunch of douchebags spouting communist boilerplate, it buys politicians. Democratic ones, because they're the closest in terms of commie sympathies to the Union executives, so they can keep the scam going. But when the executives aren't busy doing that, they're organizing a bunch of Neanderthals to trespass on private property on Christmas for the sake of yelling "Fuck You!"at the people who employ them, the ungrateful bastards.

Money quote from the article:

"Yes, those evil business owners who are trying to cut costs because a president who the unions supported and donated money to is forcing business to trim costs so they can afford his massive health control law and other regulations thrown on them. If the unions are unhappy with this then perhaps then need to look at the economic situation this president has created instead of blaming skittish business owners simply trying to stay afloat in a dismal economic period."

The Unions supported Obama, they can now think about just what that support has cost them. Right after they start thinking about what their members are costing America; right now, New York, California and several other states are on the verge of insolvency, if not outright bankruptcy, because they will not be able to bear the costs of their Public Union pension obligations.

I can promise you that if these states go into default, the first thing the Federal bankruptcy judges will do, with the connivance of democrats in Congress and Obama, will be to allow states to abrogate those pension promises, and give the Big Purple Shaft to all those Union people. Will they then bus themselves to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to shout "Fuck You!" at the Savior of the Universe?

Or will they just start beating up elderly folks engaged in the exercise of their Civil Rights again?

I await the answers to these questions eagerly.

The next time someone tells you that a labor union exists to ensure the rights of the working man, and to advance concepts of fundamental fairness and brotherhood, make sure you ask them if busing people in to beat up Tea Partiers, or to intimidate a man's family by shouting obscenities on his front lawn on Christmas Eve is really the best way of doing those things.

Here's an example of what happens when the Unions collude with politicians:

Teacher accused of sexual assault spends 13 years in Rubber Room...With full Pay and Benefits.

Totally-related true story: All this stuff about the rights and needs of the Working Man reminded me of the ultimate fate of a friend of my father's, who was a member of UAW. This man had begun working for GM sometime in the late-1950's/early 60's as a Leader (that's the metal, Lead, and not as some sort of General) back in the days when auto chasis were slathered in layers of lead as an anti-rusting measure.

Sometime in the 1970's -- I believe after Nixon had created the EPA in any case -- the use of lead in car bodies came to an abrupt end. Too dangerous, too polluting. However, this would have meant the forced unemployment of thousands of UAW members,and so the Unions fought to keep leaders on the job. Only they weren't always on the assembly line or reassigned to other jobs. So, "Frank" basically had a job that he showed up to where his only obligation was to punch a time clock, and where he had the access to tools and materials to make little lead figurines all day.

In fact, I was given some of the lead soldiers "Frank" used to make as playthings when I was a child.

Anyways, sometime in the (I think) mid-1980's, "Frank" dropped dead of a massive heart attack, just a few years shy of full retirement. I remember people saying at the time that "Frank" was, indeed, fortunate to have perished so quickly, for had he lingered much longer, he would have suffered a much worse fate because he was beginning to show the effects of prolonged expsure to lead. Had he actually lived longer, his life would have been one of incredible pain and discomfort, shuffling between one hospital and another waiting for transplants, because many of his major organs were damaged beyond repair by lead poisoning.

The UAW, far from protecting his rights and seeing to his needs, would probably have killed him via lead poisoning in the process of "saving" his redundant and unecessary job, just so that the UAW could continue to collect his union dues with which to bribe politicians and enrich the Union Execs.

The Athenian Legacy...

A very good article on the nature of Freedom, which I found quite interesting. It's a bit thick to read, but well worth the effort. If more people in this country were aware of this sort of thing, we'd all be in much better shape, and would probably have never elected the string of incompetent-but-well-meaning doofuses from Bush I to the Present (very-temporary) Inhabitant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Emperor Barack Hussein Obama I.

I don't agree with everything the author had to say, but he made enough interesting points for me to recommend that you invest your time in reading it.

If you don't, I will hunt you down and kill you in your sleep.

Snowbound!

There is approximately 3 feet of snow outside the front door this morning. I don't think it actually snowed that much, but the wind has piled drifts that high just about everywhere. I can see no cars on the street;the streets are unplowed, and the parked cars are buried except for little bits of color, or perhaps a side-view mirror sticking out of the drifts.

I was just saying to my nephews on Christmas Day, that it would be a good idea to rent a snow-blower from the local tool rental in anticipation of this storm, so that we could spend the first day afterwards making a killing on driveways and walkways, but they had no enthusiasm for the project, and then I didn't get the chance to actually put the plan into action. Now I'm kicking myself: the opportunity to make several hundred dollars (cash!) this day has gone right out the window.

I wish Al Gore were here right now so that I could push his face into the snow. I'd grab him by the back of his toupee, and hold his head inside a drift, and yell "What was that about global warming, Fuckface!? Huh? What was that about fucking polar bears?" Then I'd bitchslap him a few times and send him home crying to his mother. After I took his lunch money.

Oh, and speaking of mothers...

Mine was in rare form last night. She's one of those people upon whom television actually works. Let me explain that; if there's an announcement of impending holocaust transmitted over the airwaves, she'll buy it, hook, line and sinker. There will be no personal analysis of the information, no thought given to it's veracity, no attempt to put the announcement in context, no need to go to a different source to verify this or that stated "fact", no critical thinking skills involved, whatsoever. If it was on television, it must be true, and cannot be argued against.

And so it was that last night's overwrought, overdone wall-to-wall weather reporting which would have had you believing the Earth was entering a new Ice Age, worked it's fear-mongering magic upon her. (Just why is it that every local TV station must do this? They interrupt normal programming to give you an over-the-top, fear-injected five-hour weather report -- with other assholes in parkas and microphones standing at strategic locations to tell you how the bread lines are at the supermarkets -- to tell you what you already know: It's snowing outside...a lot).

I happened to be out last night. My friends are in New York from Britain for the holidays, and I haven't seen them for over a year. In fact, I barely get to see any of my friends, at all. They all live in different cities, states, and even countries. A little thing like a snowstorm wasn't keeping me home. Besides, this is New York; unlike most other places that either completely shut down in a snowstorm, or where complete pandemonium breaks out after a light dusting, we New Yorkers can deal with snow. Even two feet of it with 60-mph winds. If you can't, you're a pussy.

Get yourself some boots, dammit.

So, there I am, getting ready to enjoy a lovely evening, with lovely people, and...mother keeps calling their hotel room. She managed to get through twice, but that's only because the first three times she tried she had the wrong number. The Television Weather Report had achieved it's goal of making a winter snowstorm (like they never happen?) seem like the Apocalypse. Mom is now worried that I won't be able to get home, and every minute that goes by brings more dire and dreadful predictions and pronouncements from the Weather Chick on Channel 4 Whom I'd Like to Fucking Strangle Now.

Note to all my readers who may not have known this previously: your local weatherdouche gets his/her information from the National Weather Service. The Weather Service is actually pretty good at collecting information about weather and weather patterns, BUT, despite all of their Accu-weather-this, and Doppler-4000-that, you cannot get a weather report that is accurate to within 4 hours, give or take. This means that the idiot on the television giving you the temperature, and prognosticating over the prospects of rain and snow probably provides information as accurate as you could get by simply sticking your fucking head out the window.

And since his/her information comes from the same Federal Government that pays $400 for toilet paper and considers forced redistribution of wealth to drug addicts, career baby mamas, and people who just plain don't give a shit to be an anti-poverty program, well, you can just imagine how accurate your weather reporting actually is, despite all the super-expensive high-tech whizzbangery involved.

You see, Mom was frightened to death by the doom monger before the green-screen map. However, because she's my mother -- and that means she's a neurotic mess -- what worried her the most was that even if had successfully made the Odyssean journey from Manhattan to Staten Island, I might arrive at a time when the front door would be snowed shut by an accumulation of snow at it's base.

I'll repeat that: my mother was scared out of her fucking skull that I would be snowed out of my own house, and that I just might not be smart or motivated enough to dig through to the front door, if I really needed to. I suppose she thought I would, upon finding the door buried in snow, simply curl up on the doorstep and accept my fate quietly, like a dying Alpha Wolf in those nature documentaries. Or maybe she thought I would stand there for several hours like a nose-picking moron at a complete loss as to what to do, whereupon I would freeze to death. That would be embarrassing...for her. Her friends would all say, "My, how strange...he froze to death just feet from his own front door...The poor boy."

But first, she'd enjoy all the attention she'd get at the funeral.

So there it is; dinner plans shot to hell. My first night out in about a month, wasted. An opportunity to see friends that live 3,000 miles away frittered away; I've been cheated by a conspiracy of foul weather and a mother who lays awake all night in a panic that the front door will never be open ever again.

Maybe I'll bury her in the snow, and let Al Gore off with a Wet-Willie?

A Very Good Holiday...

I'm not really one for holidays, anymore. I would have to say that if given a choice, most of the time I would prefer to stay in with a good book, movie, or a video game rather than get dressed up, take a 2-hour drive to someplace I'd rather not be, and then go through all the saccharine nonsense attendant to a Christmas celebration.

I'm not a religious man, so the idea of commemorating a Savior doesn't do anything for me. I imagine my Saviors to be a cross between George S. Patton and The X-Men, anyways. I'd like to put a pickaxe through the face of a good number of my relatives. Not because they're bad people, mind you, but because I find the company of some rather maddeningly annoying, like an inflamed hemorrhoid that alternates between a dull throb and a stabbing pain, but retains the constant itch. (Ed. note: That wing of the family didn't show this year. Whew!)

Why, if it wasn't for "the kids", and an extravagant meal, Christmas would probably be much like any other day for me, only with fucking Candy Canes. I could very easily just enjoy my Christmas dinner, grunt a thing or two at the guests, and then leave. In fact, I'd prefer to do exactly that.

But this year was different.

Three of my nephews are now old enough where Christmas ceases to be a wondrous event. It has simply become one of the annoyances of being a teenager; your parents dragging you off to places you don't want to be in order to give kisses to ancient relatives who smell like mothballs. You'd rather be hanging out at the Mall (which is, I believe, what teenagers around here do, for lack of anything else), and are engrossed by that stupid text-message thingy which has become the Herald of the Anti-Christ; it absorbs most of your time so that you're rotten company, anyway. You can't buy them toys anymore, and if you try to buy them clothes you'll usually get a sullen and begrudging thank you (more like a"Screw you! You expect me to be seen in public wearing this?"), and that's about it.

Which is I why I gave the three oldest cash. I give everyone cash; no one ever returns it, it's always the right size, and no one complains about the color.

But, the Little Guy...now there's a horse of a different color.

My nephew Mark is five. He still believes in Santa Claus. He still gets excited by the prospect of new toys and wrapping paper. He has enthusiasm for a holiday that long ago ceased being a source of excitement, and became one of pure obligation and forced bonhomie. This year, Mark saved Christmas for me. He made it tolerable, at first, and then, even a little fun.

I have to say, he's become my best friend. We do everything together, you know. So, a few weeks ago, when I was dreading the arrival of Christmas I was sort of shocked to discover that I actually wanted to do the shopping and gift-wrapping routine, if only for him. He's into Lego stuff now, and it's pretty much all he wants nowadays, so I went and got him something on his Lego wishlist (come to think of it, almost his entire Wish List was Lego-related. I don't know whether this indicates an affinity for architecture and a creative mindset, or if it's a sign of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).

Christmas Eve was pretty good. We had our traditional Feast of the Seven Fish (my favorite meal of the year. Take that, Thanksgiving!), the company seemed less boring, dull, and annoying this year than in the past, because only the cool people were there. I only had one drink all weekend (yay!).

And on Christmas Day, I lay on the floor with a five year old with more energy than I can ever remember having had as a child, and built every Lego set under the tree; the Lego Fire Station, the Lego Airport, the Lego Police Boat, Lego Construction Site, and a few I can't remember (in my time, when you got Legos you simply got a bucket of bricks. Nowadays, the things come in complete sets with a theme. One of these days, we'll probably be going to work in the Lego City Dark Satanic Mill and Stock Exchange Building ). And had fun.

I can't recall the last time I've actually had fun on Christmas.

But, he's getting older, too, and I know that one day the entire thing will be just another day for him, too. There will be no more Santa Claus, no more anticipation of unknown treasures under the tree, no more winter afternoons on the carpet playing with his uncle. If we could have wishes granted, I would ask but for one; just give me one more day like yesterday before he outgrows it all.

Unfortunately, We Can't Shoot Him Without a Trial...

Sometimes, you really don't want to read the newspaper because it may contain a story like this (paraphrased):

320-pound Asshole Rapes Ten-Year old Girl.

This just might be one of those times when that presumption of innocence stuff seems like a reward to the worst kinds of people, because true justice is denied. Without it, the Police can't just impose the kind of justice this guy deserves; to be beaten within an inch of his worthless life, and then shot.

"According to one police source, Nieves told detectives that he believed his contact with the girl was consensual."

Congratulations to the cops for exercising the kind of unimaginable restraint it must have taken to keep this guy alive for a trial after hearing that.

Only some sort of diseased waste of gametes could even begin to make that kind of sick formulation, and then have the balls to trot it out as a defense. Why not just use the good ol' "she asked for it" defense? Why not claim that it's your right to rape a 10-year-old under Sharia Law? I'm sure some idiotic judge here in New Yorkistan will buy that as a defense, because after all, some other douchebag judge gave this guy bail. I wouldn't put it past any lawyer who lands this client to try such so-called legal maneuvers, because otherwise this client is already tagged-and-bagged.

We're talking about a ten year old victim.

It's not out of the realm of possibility that a man who claims he had consensual sex with a 10-year old, and wasn't shot as soon as the cops caught him, could even walk because the criminal justice system sees fit to give him the luxury of a trial. Yeah, I know; that's how the system works, but sheesh! For some crimes -- like those against children -- where we have a confession, does it really matter if the lawyers get to play at Perry Mason? Can't some classes of criminals just be killed on the spot?

If it were up to me, I'd be slathering this degenerate in A-1 steak sauce and tossing him into the Shark Tank at the Aquarium. On Pay-per-View.

A Trip Through My Mailbox,Part III...

There are an awful lot of new visitors to the Asylum this week. I welcome you, and hope you enjoy your visit. Feel free to read anything you want and to post anything you like. I usually don't answer my e-mail (unless it's really good), but the Asylum Elves are on strike (they want dental, you see) and so in my capacity as Management, it behooves me to take on the menial tasks that they used to do in the name of good customer service.

Q: Wow! You've been blogging for a long time now! How come I never saw this blog before?

A: Because you weren't looking for it, obviously. Then again, I wasn't sitting here trying to be noticed. I don't advertise, and frankly, when I started this crap seven years ago it was supposed to be therapy. I never really expected anyone to actually read it, so I didn't promote it. Really, I mean, some of the stuff I wrote back then is absolutely awful, but in my defense, if I wasn't drunk, then I was zonked on Xanax or Zoloft , or suffering from severe sleep deprivation. Promoting my blog -- with my mental distress pasted all over it -- wasn't exactly something I was out to achieve.

If you've found this blog in the past, it was completely by accident. If you've found it in the last week or so, it was pretty much under the same circumstances. I didn't expect to find my rantings on Twitter, or for the New York Times to come a'callin' with a request for an interview. Anyways, so long as you're here, you might as well get a drink and fasten your seat belts; it's a wild ride pretty much all the time.

Q: Why are you so angry?
A: This is NOT anger. Believe me, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry -- as it's not even half as funny. What some take for anger is simply me being at a point in my life where I simply do not give a shit about what anyone else thinks of me. Therefore, I pull no punches, and I say exactly what is on my mind. Some people are uncomfortable with this level of frankness, but as I said, I really don't give a shit what you might think about it. This is still America, and I can say whatever I goddamned please.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me, and I certainly expect that most won't. I'm also aware that this sort of blunt expression makes some people shake their heads and tsk-tsk, especially with the language that gets used here, but I'm sorry: I'm a native New Yorker and it's fucking genetic. Deal.

Q. Why do you hate Muslims/Christians/Women/Blacks/Poor People/Democrats so much?
A. If you seriously have to ask why anyone should hate Muslims, then I suggest you have your family sign that Do Not Resuscitate Order right fucking now. But if you must know, the story goes something like this:

I had a freakin' absolutely awesome life before 9/11. I had a bitchin' career. I had a ton of money. I was comfortable, and although I had to work hard, that never really bothered me any. Then 19 idiots who couldn't get the blond girls to chuck' em one decided that it would be a good idea to ram a couple of airliners into the tallest buildings in New York City in the name of their phony-baloney God. I was lucky --no one close to me was hurt or killed that day --but mostly because I had only left 1 WTC a minute or so before the first plane struck. But I did find myself directly underneath the first kamikaze, and if that, plus witnessing the murders of 3,000 other people, doesn't freak you out, there's something wrong with you. The resulting mental disorders cost me everything, and seven years of my life.

As for Christians, well, if one God would force 19 douchebags to kill themselves in order to get it's attention, then any God is likely to do the same. Besides, I get a chuckle out of people who tell me their God is all-powerful, all-knowing, knows what's in my heart, and is watching me 24-hours a day who can then turn around and tell you that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are pagan constructs that will lead the True Believer off the Righteous Path.

I don't know about you, but I can't remember the last time Peter Cottontail or Ol' St. Nick demanded the blood of innocents, flooded the planet because no one would listen to them, sanctioned war and slaughter,and threatened to return to lead the last great battle that will destroy the world. Apart from a little bit of good-natured breaking-and-entering (in which they actually leave stuff behind!), Kris Kringle and Peter Rabbit are actually far more amenable; the worst they ever did was to skip someone's house, or leave a lump of coal as a gentle reminder of the wages of sin; Yahweh tosses people into great big lakes of fire and brimstone to their eternal torment at the hands of a fallen angel that She created, but then couldn't control, either.

I don't hate women. I love women. I just hate the confused-by-feminism little girls hiding in a woman's body. Especially the ones that tell you "I don't need no man!", and then beg you to pay their rent, buy shit for them, and then solve all their problems brought about by their own stupidity for them, and then take out their unrequited revenge fantasies against the Ex Husband/Boyfriend that did them wrong on you. Sorry, but there's plenty of vaginas out there, and I prefer the ones without baggage and some common sense.

I don't hate blacks, either. I just think it's easier to automatically assume that all black people are clueless, insensitive, loudmouthed, selfish. pigheaded, bigoted doofuses, because after a lifetime of ersatz "Reverends", Affirmative Action, and spending what seems like a year of my life in Diversity Training and monthly Diversity Meetings, that's what they seem to think of me, sans evidence. What's good for the goose, and all that. However, if a black person should happen to earn my respect (much like I expect to have to earn theirs), then we're cool.

As for the rest, what's to LIKE about welfare queens and democrats (sorry, that was redundant)?

Hope this answers some of your questions, Newcomers! Oh, and Merry Fuckin' Christmas.

Hey, S.E. Cupp: I Already Wrote This!

Dear S.E. Cupp: if you've lifted one my posts, then you owe me. Since it's Christmas, I'd like you to arrive at my doorstep, in a bikini, with a bottle of something good, and a fistful of $100 bills. We'll find a hot tub later, Sugarshorts.

Now, I'm not accusing anyone of anything, because I have no proof of anything untoward. But when I read Cupp's Opinion piece in the NY Daily News this morning, I had a feeling of deja vu. I wrote the almost exact same post back in January! It's possible that two people might have the same exact idea eleven months apart, but it's kinda spooky, dont'cha think? Then again, great minds thinking alike and all that.

You be the judge. Here's mine.

l'll be waiting for your call, S.E., you sexy beast.

UPDATE: Updated the link.

Helping Mom "Feel Human" Again...

We're into our third week of recovery. The physical therapist says that Mom should get up and exercise some more, and that short walks would be a nice idea -- so long as we don't over-do it. This dovetails nicely with Mom's re-discovered ability to shower on her own (she still needs a little help into and out of the tub, though), which she says gives her a feeling of being a"decent human being, again". She is regaining mobility at a rate which is greater than expected, which means she gets to do things that she hasn't been able to do for the last few weeks: like look in the bathroom mirror, and notice that them stubborn grey roots have returned.

With the pain and anxiety gone, for now, she can turn her attention from harassing me to an inhuman extent to paying attention to her personal appearance.

So, a trip to the Beauty Parlor is in order. The one she normally uses is within walking distance, so why not kill two birds with one stone and get her a little exercise while she engages in the futile battle to hold the ravages of Old Age at bay? I'll accompany her (despite her protests) because I don't want her falling over in the street, and because there are two public high schools in this neighborhood full of bussed-in Urban Aborigines who's only apparent contribution to campus life seems to be to make the white kids look physically un-coordinated by their superhuman ability to break tackles, or dunk a basketball.

When some of these...ahem...students...aren't under the direct supervision of their zookeepers, they're notorious troublemakers and petty criminals. A fat white lady on a cane who moves at a snail's pace with a nice, plump pocketbook is simply too tempting a target. Low-hanging fruit. So, I decide the best thing to do is to ride shotgun, just in case.

The first indication that this is an exercise in futility is that you realize that there is very little correlation between the name of the place (i.e. Beauty Parlor) and the activities going on within; You know you're in trouble when the "beauticians" are all misshapen lumps who seem to have put their make-up on with a spray gun and spackle trowel, and none has a coiffure that can be considered "attractive" if it wasn't on a Shetland Pony. It seems the only purpose of a Beauty Parlor is to give the high-school dropouts within the opportunity to gossip all day and experiment upon each other's hair and faces, mostly unsuccessfully. I could see before we even entered the establishment that this was going to be an interesting ordeal.

The second indication that something is cosmically wrong is that smell. If I had to describe it, it's somewhere between dead skunk and burning muskrat, with just a hint of decomposing possum. This is the odor given off by the myriad of toxic chemicals that will be combined to give my mother that Cesar-Romero-Redhead color that is so popular with the over-60 set in these parts. You can't spit without hitting one of these bottle-redhead seniors, these days.

So, there I was, sitting silently and impatiently in this heady atmosphere: my mother is getting a hairstyle that I would describe as "butch", and having it tinted with some godawful mess of chemistry that will probably ensure that the patch of ground this place sits on will be declared a Superfund site by the EPA any day now. There isn't a thing to read...well, there is, but you'd have to be Gay to find it of much interest, and since I could give a flying fuck at a rolling donut about "Jennifer Anniston and Chelsea Handler: Budding Romance?", or the problems of getting your sexless marriage restarted with 101 new applications for chocolate syrup and Vick's Vapo- Rub, or whatever they're selling this month, I'm bored out of my skull. (It is somewhat funny to note from the covers of the magazines just what the current mental state of the American Housefrau is these days; if the magazine isn't all about selling fantasy to them, it's all about the sexual desires of the Average Man, As Told by Another Chick. Strange).

I go outside to smoke. I go out for coffee. I amuse myself by looking at the puppies in the pet store two doors down (I'm asked to leave, as this store has experienced a rash of attempted puppy-nappings in recent months). Finally, Mom has had her head re-enamelled and her female crewcut trimmed, and it's time to go home.

Except that it ain't. One cannot get a hairdo, and leave things at that. Only a barbarian would do something like that.

Part of this "feeling human again" ritual involves a second stop at the manicurist's. Point out that this place that just wrecked your hair also gives manicures, and you get a look that could curdle maple syrup; One comes here for a really bad, overpriced hairstyle, but for a really good manicure, you need to go some place else. Some place where there's Koreans, you fool. Some place a further two blocks away.

And so we shuffle off at approximately 0.001 miles per hour because now her knee is stiff, to the manicurist. If I was bored to tears before, I'm about to be bored to death. The only consolation was that at least the Korean chicks look better than the ones in the hairstylists. Except that that there's not that many Korean chicks to look at.

Because while the proprietors of the manicurist's shop may be Korean, the workers within are Hispanic. The American Dream in microcosm; the former labor class, Korean immigrants, are now the Industrial Overlords, and the new generation of immigrants, the illegal ones, have taken their place. If you thought the process of a woman getting a hairdo was an ordeal by fire, try sitting around waiting for one to get a mani-and-a-pedi! The truly disgusting part of this hell is that the air is full of fine dust, and it's the particulate matter that has has been scraped, sanded, rubbed, cut, and otherwise stripped from a multitude of feet and fingernails. Every woman in that place wore a surgical mask, and I can see why: I had to wash my coat just as soon as I could, for it was covered in a fine layer of unsanitary dust from some oversized bag of skin's hooves.

Needless to say, I spent the majority of this time outside, in the freezing cold, just to avoid picking up whatever pathogens are in the air in that place.

Eventually, the whole thing is over and we go home. I've had three hours of my day completely wasted. I'm covered in the dead-skin-dust of perhaps 12 strange women's feet. My nosehairs have been burned down to the follicles by the noxious aroma of hair dye. I want to shower and scrub myself thoroughly with a Brillo Pad just to get all that crap off of me. Oh, and it all cost me $75. Don't ask me how.

But Mom feels "human", so I guess that's something.