By now you've heard the name John Patrick Bedell, the now-dead man accused of shooting two Pentagon Police Officers (who knew the Pentagon had it's own police force, and why?). who was himself killed in the ensuing gunfight.
Naturally, the Homeland Security morons were right there to assure us all that an attack at the Pentagon wasn't related to terrorism, that there was no terrorist plot, and that these were the actions of a lone psychotic.
These were the same words they used to describe the Fort Hood Shooter and the Pantybomber, you'll recall.
Only this time, Homeland Security just happened to get lucky (hey, it happens from time to time), and someone actually came along who managed to fit their pre-generated profile of the White Male Weekend-Warrior Terrorist. But, this post isn't about bashing Homeland Security any more than it needs to be. It's about the shooter.
It turns out that John Patrick Bedell was bi-polar. Mentally ill. It also turns out that his doctor and his parents were quite concerned for his safety, and worried about what he might do. They informed the authorities that their son was out there, somewhere, and possibly dangerous. He was known to have a drug problem (He was smoking pot. Yeah, that always works -- anti-depressants and marijuana. Just what you need to defeat depression; another depressant) on top of his disorder, and was known to law enforcement in his hometown.
Well, now we know what he was capable of doing. How many people have to say "this guy is fucked up..." before someone decides that the current regime of outpatient treatment just isn't enough for some people?
In hindsight, people are now taking his internet pronouncements seriously. They didn't when he was alive, because that would have meant recognizing a problem, and they might have been expected to do something about it. Let's face it; whatever he wrote on the Web was probably the same stuff he repeated, ad nauseum, to his family, doctor and whatever friends he had, it was probably all he ever talked about. No one took him seriously then, and they probably dismissed him as some harmless kook spouting conspiracy theories on everything from 9/11 to the manipulation of the stock market.
Apparently, Mr. Bedell had been under a regime of "treatment" for a very long time. I put that term in quotes for a reason; most psycho-therapeutic treatment nowadays consists of "take this pill..." and endless $400-45-minute-hours of "tell me what your mother was like..." in which the patient gets to ramble on about whatever is on their mind that day, and the therapist simply nods her head and asks often-irrelevant questions. This form of therapy takes it as axiomatic that the patient has his own answers, and that if you let them talk enough, they'll eventually stumble upon them.
For some people, usually the smart ones, this works. They eventually come to some understanding of what their problems are, and they figure out some strategy for straightening their lives out. Then there is the especially dense crowd, for whom all the talking does nothing, and they require direct instructions or advice from a therapist or psychiatrist...and then they don't get it (that violates the underlying premise of talk therapy, you see!), and wind up in therapy forever.
For other people, this routine simply never works. For people like John Patrick Bedell, the combination of feel-good-self-esteem-and-talk-based psychiatry and prescription drugs often doesn't begin to examine, or even identify, the underlying causes of their particular issues. They don't get much benefit from therapy, and the drugs usually just serve the purpose of taking the edge off just enough...something that keeps these folks from slitting their wrists or from driving a semi-trailer into an Arby's, or something. They are either unable to describe what they're feeling, or worse, they can easily recognize what's wrong with them, but they have no ambition whatsoever to change it. The worst of all are the people who consider their "issues" to be virtues: they are in possession of some great truth, or hold some greater distinction which causes the rest of the world to have a problem with them; not the other way around.
Bedell's internet ranting about a certain Colonel James Sabow -- considered a key player in many 9/11 Troofer conspiracy theories -- probably explains why he tried to shoot his way into the Pentagon; he was probably convinced that it was the only way to get at some version of truth. Maybe, he even sought fame and fortune in the attempt -- I don't know. But, I can promise you, that people who think this way don't just wake up one morning and decide to do the deed; it's usually all they can talk about for weeks, maybe months, before they actually do it. The obsession literally consumes their lives. Where was his doctor? Where was law enforcement after his parents reported him? This is a critical stage in the story, and in his treatment.
A doctor who knows that his bi-polar patient -- probably with some form of severe obsessive compulsive disorder on top of it -- is smoking marijuana while under the influence of anti-depressants, and who is probably telling anyone who will listen about his insane conspiracy theories and determination to get to the bottom of it all, if that doctor does not turn his patient into the police for his illegal activity, or better yet, have his patient committed for his own safety, he or she is derelict in his duty as a physician.
Who knows just how long this "physician" was "treating" Mr. Bedell. It perhaps it was too good a cash cow to endanger with something stupid....like helping his patient get better, or getting him off the street.
John Bedell went to the Pentagon to do one, or probably both, of the following:
a. find out the 'truth' about 9/11, and
b. failing that, becoming a martyr to the 'cause' (9/11 Troofer-ism), while simultaneously ending his own, internal conflict.
Then again, maybe there was no help for John Bedell if he had gone that far. The sad fact is that for many folks with mental illnesses there never is any, despite the highest caliber of care and professionalism from his physicians. So, what does a crackpot shooting up the Pentagon have to do with healthcare?
Having been treated for a mental illness or two in my lifetime, I'm far more likely to sympathize with John Bedell. I don't condone anything he's done; Shooting at police officers, or attempting "suicide by cop" is a stupid thing to do. It solves nothing, and is far more likely to inflict pain on innocents, needlessly. That's selfish. I also don't go for the "Rambo" mentality that believes you can shoot your way into a heavily-defended objective just because you saw Bruce Willis or Sly do it a few times; if you think this way, you're delusional and a danger to yourself and everyone else.
The question I'm asking is this: at what point -- after how many John Patrick Bedells and Joseph Andrew Stacks (the I.R.S. Kamikaze in Texas) -- do we begin to realize that there are legions of people out there who are suffering from largely-controllable mental disorders that are ticking time bombs? The care they get is often inadequate, spends too much time on pap sociology and political correctness, instead of on real medicine, and it isn't always geared towards doing much more than putting money in someone else's pocket.
Since everyones all up in the air about Health Care Reform, how about we start somewhere where a difference can be made almost immediately? Most people suffering from depression, bi-polar disorders, stress-and-trauma-related disorders can be treated effectively, and cheaply, and way before they reach a critical mass to play hide-and-seek-with-bullets with a bunch of cops. They also make up a large percentage of people who are typically treated for a range of associated physical problems; heart problems, overeating, alcoholism, drug abuse, child-and-spousal abuse, and those just start the list off. Fix those problems by changing the way the medical profession, and society, views the mentally ill, and you'd go a long way towards fixing many of the underlying issues of our "Health Care Crisis".
Many fewer people would be shot at, or have small airplanes launched at them if you did.
Just don't let Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid do it.
The reason we probably won't overhaul the mental health care business is because it isn't "sexy". It's not a cause du jour like AIDS, Childhood Obesity and Breast Cancer. You'll never see Scarlett Johansson or something wear a ribbon for Mental Health on a red carpet. But, it probably does just as much, if not more, damage to people and society than all three of those other maladies put together. Until someone decides that mental health issues warrant as much ink, publicity and attention than these other things, we'll see a steady stream of John Patrick Bedells on the evening news.
Shame on us.
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Thursday, March 04, 2010
How Hard Could it Be?
If two children could do it?
And apparently do it well with a minimum of direction. That Dad, I'm certain, doesn't sit at home giving his children instruction on the intricacies of air traffic control, so that instruction they got was OTJ training. If a nine-year old can direct a jetliner to a runway, or give instructions on when to take off and land with a minimum of direction, then why are air traffic controllers paid between 49-and 103,000 a year?
I have issues with this story, for obvious reasons.
But the next time I hear an air traffic controller complain about the "stressful, life-and-death responsibility" that comes with their job, I'll point to the hefty salaries and the tapes of a couple of kids directing traffic at a major airport. I'll also point to the helicopter disaster over the Hudson River last year when an air traffic controller was busy chatting with his girlfriend while a joy-riding, weekend-air warrior plowed his richboy's toy into a helicopter full of tourists, an accident that might have been avoided if the controller wasn't busy breathing heavily into his cellphone.
These guys, air traffic controllers, are also on the front lines of our defense against hijacking terrorists. They track the planes, they are in contact with NORAD and air defense authorities. It would be a shame if a repeat of 9/11 couldn't be avoided, or minimized, because Daddy had to take Junior to the sandbox, or Little Sally spilled her juice box, or maybe puked on the console.
If they take the job so seriously as to let their kids do it for them -- as a lark -- or consider a gabfest with the girlfriend take priority over the safety of passengers, then they deserve to be fired. I have no sympathy for this father (himself a former Union president, and therefore one assumes an experienced controller who should have known better. More shame on him: he did it twice on successive days).
The defense that there wasn't an accident, and therefore, this is not a big issue, is a false one. There could have been, and it might have been caused because a confused child with no formal training sitting on Daddy's knee transmitted bad information, just like in a childhood game of Telephone, before Daddy could discover or correct her mistake. I can promise you that had there been an accident, Daddy wouldn't just have been fired, he'd be on the wrong end of a few hundred wrongful death suits.
"Take Your Kid to Work Day" is a nice idea, but there are certain professions where this should be strictly prohibited; operating rooms, aircraft carriers, nuclear power plants, explosives factories, coal mines and for damned sure, airport control towers.
For 103k a year, you'd expect to find people who had some sense.
I'm certain the man's union will fight tooth-and-nail for him, and shame on them, as well. So to for the FAA, which apparently dragged it's collective feet on first investigating the issue, and then lowering the boom on Daddy.
And apparently do it well with a minimum of direction. That Dad, I'm certain, doesn't sit at home giving his children instruction on the intricacies of air traffic control, so that instruction they got was OTJ training. If a nine-year old can direct a jetliner to a runway, or give instructions on when to take off and land with a minimum of direction, then why are air traffic controllers paid between 49-and 103,000 a year?
I have issues with this story, for obvious reasons.
But the next time I hear an air traffic controller complain about the "stressful, life-and-death responsibility" that comes with their job, I'll point to the hefty salaries and the tapes of a couple of kids directing traffic at a major airport. I'll also point to the helicopter disaster over the Hudson River last year when an air traffic controller was busy chatting with his girlfriend while a joy-riding, weekend-air warrior plowed his richboy's toy into a helicopter full of tourists, an accident that might have been avoided if the controller wasn't busy breathing heavily into his cellphone.
These guys, air traffic controllers, are also on the front lines of our defense against hijacking terrorists. They track the planes, they are in contact with NORAD and air defense authorities. It would be a shame if a repeat of 9/11 couldn't be avoided, or minimized, because Daddy had to take Junior to the sandbox, or Little Sally spilled her juice box, or maybe puked on the console.
If they take the job so seriously as to let their kids do it for them -- as a lark -- or consider a gabfest with the girlfriend take priority over the safety of passengers, then they deserve to be fired. I have no sympathy for this father (himself a former Union president, and therefore one assumes an experienced controller who should have known better. More shame on him: he did it twice on successive days).
The defense that there wasn't an accident, and therefore, this is not a big issue, is a false one. There could have been, and it might have been caused because a confused child with no formal training sitting on Daddy's knee transmitted bad information, just like in a childhood game of Telephone, before Daddy could discover or correct her mistake. I can promise you that had there been an accident, Daddy wouldn't just have been fired, he'd be on the wrong end of a few hundred wrongful death suits.
"Take Your Kid to Work Day" is a nice idea, but there are certain professions where this should be strictly prohibited; operating rooms, aircraft carriers, nuclear power plants, explosives factories, coal mines and for damned sure, airport control towers.
For 103k a year, you'd expect to find people who had some sense.
I'm certain the man's union will fight tooth-and-nail for him, and shame on them, as well. So to for the FAA, which apparently dragged it's collective feet on first investigating the issue, and then lowering the boom on Daddy.
State of Confusion...
Charlie Rangel. David Paterson. And now, you can add Eric Massa to that short and disgusting list.
A tax-cheating Tax Writer, a corrupt governor who followed another corrupt governor, and an alleged homosexual harasser. This is the cream of the New York Democratic Party.
When it was republicans, and it was Duke Cunningham (bribe taker) , Tom DeLay (perennial line-walker), Mark Foley (alleged pedophile) and Larry Craig (Airport Men's Room Lothario), there was no talk of "leave of absences", no stepping aside so as not to "become a distraction to my party" or feeble defenses like "I just used salty language"; the talk was all about resignations. Those men, when caught with their hands in the cookie jar, or in lesser and various states of inflagrante delicto, were hounded out of office. Mostly by their fellow republicans amidst the high-pitched keening of their democratic counterparts who were outraged, outraged I tell you!, at their stunning lack of propriety and inexcusable corruption.
So much so that they became poster children for the 2008 anti-republican Congressional races that created Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who vowed to "drain the swamp" and run the Most Ethical Congress in the History of the Universe.
Unless, of course, that meant she had to prosecute democrats for ethical and legal lapses. Republicans at first covered for Craig and Foley in order to keep their votes in the last days of the Profligate Republican Congress, but eventually the more reasonable and responsible voices within the party talked them out of that shameful convention. With ObamaCare on the block, and Nancy needing every last vote, and every last avenue for back-room deal-making, Charlie Rangel doesn't have to resign; he's granted a "leave of absence".
Robert Packwood was hounded from office over his sexual improprieties, and serial sexual harassment of female staffers. A "victory" that democrats still revel in to this day. They took great delight in exposing Craig's and Foley's alleged homosexual peccadilloes and alleged pedophilia, but they'll eventually circle the wagons for Massa -- there's gay sexual predators and then there's Our Gay Sexual Predators, apparently. The jury is still out on this one, but don't discount Nancy's ability to delay investigation of Massa long enough to get his vote on ObamaCare. Massa will stay for as long as she can possibly manage.
As for David Paterson, well, the mind is just baffled. Siccing the State Police on the ex-girlfriend of your homeboy to keep her from getting restraining order against him is pretty low. Now Paterson is accused of accepting "illict gifts" (i.e. bribes), and there have also been rumors of sexual misconduct on his part. Rod Blagoevich is facing federal prosecutors for simply talking about potential corruption, it seems, and David Paterson isn't for his actual corruption.
These three men are simply the boils. The pustules that arise when the disease begins to manifest itself. They are the indication that something is wrong with the Body Politic in New York State. When you add the most visible signs of these three to the other symptoms, the raging itch (Chuck Schumer), the Dizziness (Kirsten Gillibrand), the nausea (Louise Slaughter), the bad smell (Adolphus Towns), the constipation (Sheldon Silver), the loss of bladder control (Anthony Weiner), and you don't need to be a physician to diagnose the problem; They're all democrats, and democrats infest this state from top to bottom.
Tammany Hall didn't disappear: it simply took a long vacation. The Party that once boasted Daniel Patrick Moynahan, now boasts Spitzer, Rangel, Massa and Paterson.
The usual remedy, a good shot of GOP anti-biotic, could have been the best and least painful treatment, but the New York GOP is in disarray. It's i the position of being unable to choose between execution by firing squad, hanging or being crushed under heavy stones. There is, for all intents and purposes, NO GOP AT ALL in New York State. It's been destroyed from within in pointless battles between fiscal and social conservatives, and the regional cronyism that sees candidates elevated for election based solely on "who they know". It's a party that nominates a Rick Lazio or a Dede Scozzafazza over coffee in which less than a dozen GOP bigwigs were ever assembled.
The last batch of republicans of note in this state included Guiliani, D'Amato, Molinari, and Pataki. Can you begin to realize how long ago it was that those were household names? The current version of a successful republican is Micheal Bloomberg, and I wouldn't follow him into my own house; for him, "republican" was simply the easiest label to buy.
The New York GOP is spent. The new generation of democratic party politicians is like a strain of penicillin-resistant syphilis. The GOP can't mount any sort of a comeback when it's ranks are depleted and what remains behind is a mix of hapless dolts, electoral punching bags, and stock jokes. New York State may be lost, except for one joker in the deck; the Tea Party.
Right now, it looks as if the combination of public outrage (not in New York City, of course. Here, the recipient class will fight for Rangel and Paterson to the last because of the color of their skin), exposure and the need to clean out what is so obviously a filthy pigsty in Albany and Washington, might do half the job of cleaning up New York. The other half will have to be done by responsible citizens who are motivated to kick these assholes to the curb. The GOP can't do it; but the Tea Party might.
I'm almost embarrassed to say "I'm from New York", but I'm holding a slight glimmer of hope that there is a critical mass of corruption and stupidity that has been reached that be transformed into a movement of holding our politicians responsible, and firing the worst of the lot.
A tax-cheating Tax Writer, a corrupt governor who followed another corrupt governor, and an alleged homosexual harasser. This is the cream of the New York Democratic Party.
When it was republicans, and it was Duke Cunningham (bribe taker) , Tom DeLay (perennial line-walker), Mark Foley (alleged pedophile) and Larry Craig (Airport Men's Room Lothario), there was no talk of "leave of absences", no stepping aside so as not to "become a distraction to my party" or feeble defenses like "I just used salty language"; the talk was all about resignations. Those men, when caught with their hands in the cookie jar, or in lesser and various states of inflagrante delicto, were hounded out of office. Mostly by their fellow republicans amidst the high-pitched keening of their democratic counterparts who were outraged, outraged I tell you!, at their stunning lack of propriety and inexcusable corruption.
So much so that they became poster children for the 2008 anti-republican Congressional races that created Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who vowed to "drain the swamp" and run the Most Ethical Congress in the History of the Universe.
Unless, of course, that meant she had to prosecute democrats for ethical and legal lapses. Republicans at first covered for Craig and Foley in order to keep their votes in the last days of the Profligate Republican Congress, but eventually the more reasonable and responsible voices within the party talked them out of that shameful convention. With ObamaCare on the block, and Nancy needing every last vote, and every last avenue for back-room deal-making, Charlie Rangel doesn't have to resign; he's granted a "leave of absence".
Robert Packwood was hounded from office over his sexual improprieties, and serial sexual harassment of female staffers. A "victory" that democrats still revel in to this day. They took great delight in exposing Craig's and Foley's alleged homosexual peccadilloes and alleged pedophilia, but they'll eventually circle the wagons for Massa -- there's gay sexual predators and then there's Our Gay Sexual Predators, apparently. The jury is still out on this one, but don't discount Nancy's ability to delay investigation of Massa long enough to get his vote on ObamaCare. Massa will stay for as long as she can possibly manage.
As for David Paterson, well, the mind is just baffled. Siccing the State Police on the ex-girlfriend of your homeboy to keep her from getting restraining order against him is pretty low. Now Paterson is accused of accepting "illict gifts" (i.e. bribes), and there have also been rumors of sexual misconduct on his part. Rod Blagoevich is facing federal prosecutors for simply talking about potential corruption, it seems, and David Paterson isn't for his actual corruption.
These three men are simply the boils. The pustules that arise when the disease begins to manifest itself. They are the indication that something is wrong with the Body Politic in New York State. When you add the most visible signs of these three to the other symptoms, the raging itch (Chuck Schumer), the Dizziness (Kirsten Gillibrand), the nausea (Louise Slaughter), the bad smell (Adolphus Towns), the constipation (Sheldon Silver), the loss of bladder control (Anthony Weiner), and you don't need to be a physician to diagnose the problem; They're all democrats, and democrats infest this state from top to bottom.
Tammany Hall didn't disappear: it simply took a long vacation. The Party that once boasted Daniel Patrick Moynahan, now boasts Spitzer, Rangel, Massa and Paterson.
The usual remedy, a good shot of GOP anti-biotic, could have been the best and least painful treatment, but the New York GOP is in disarray. It's i the position of being unable to choose between execution by firing squad, hanging or being crushed under heavy stones. There is, for all intents and purposes, NO GOP AT ALL in New York State. It's been destroyed from within in pointless battles between fiscal and social conservatives, and the regional cronyism that sees candidates elevated for election based solely on "who they know". It's a party that nominates a Rick Lazio or a Dede Scozzafazza over coffee in which less than a dozen GOP bigwigs were ever assembled.
The last batch of republicans of note in this state included Guiliani, D'Amato, Molinari, and Pataki. Can you begin to realize how long ago it was that those were household names? The current version of a successful republican is Micheal Bloomberg, and I wouldn't follow him into my own house; for him, "republican" was simply the easiest label to buy.
The New York GOP is spent. The new generation of democratic party politicians is like a strain of penicillin-resistant syphilis. The GOP can't mount any sort of a comeback when it's ranks are depleted and what remains behind is a mix of hapless dolts, electoral punching bags, and stock jokes. New York State may be lost, except for one joker in the deck; the Tea Party.
Right now, it looks as if the combination of public outrage (not in New York City, of course. Here, the recipient class will fight for Rangel and Paterson to the last because of the color of their skin), exposure and the need to clean out what is so obviously a filthy pigsty in Albany and Washington, might do half the job of cleaning up New York. The other half will have to be done by responsible citizens who are motivated to kick these assholes to the curb. The GOP can't do it; but the Tea Party might.
I'm almost embarrassed to say "I'm from New York", but I'm holding a slight glimmer of hope that there is a critical mass of corruption and stupidity that has been reached that be transformed into a movement of holding our politicians responsible, and firing the worst of the lot.
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
No More Post Office?
The U.S. Postal Service may be going out of business, but in the meantime, it'll make certain that it raises prices, curtails service and finds a way to make sure that millions of Federal Employees get to keep their cushy pensions.
Nothing like going out with a bang, is there?
I think the logic for keeping a Postal Service around diminishes by the day. People already communicate much more efficiently with e-mail, cell phones, text messaging and all that rot, so that the Letter Carrier has been reduced to a service which brings me three utility bills and fifty pounds of junk mail every month. The advance of technology is making it unnecessary for people to send paper to each other. For certain things, like legal documents which you might send by registered mail, then a Post Office of some sort makes sense, but for everything else? I mean, is it really necessary to send a post card in this day and age when you can flip open your cell phone, take a snapshot of you on the beach at Montego Bay, and then send it off with whatever personal message you desire in less than a minute? Without having to buy a stamp? Without the danger that you will arrive back in the United States before your postcard reaches it's destination?
Frankly, the reason why all of your correspondence isn't online is because of the (justifiable) fear of hacking which will leave your personal information, your financial statements, your utility bills and personal letters, open to anyone who makes the effort to get at them. That's a problem that will, eventually, be solved by the application of encryption software that might soon be commercially available. In the meantime, we're in this in-between phase where the written word -- on paper and locked within an envelope -- is still a necessary evil, and so an anachronistic entity like the Postal Service must continue to exist.
I won't even get into the stink Tree-Huggers should be raising about the fact that when I get my electric bill, it's two pages of rundown of how I'm being taxed to death a nickel and a dime at a time, but it's also another 12 pages of printed advertisements. My mailman has to drive thousands of those around his area of delivery, and then lug them all door-to-door. This is one of those situations where an environMENTAList outcry might actually be useful -- the practice is wasteful, and by itself is reason enough to shoot the Post Office like a lame horse.
That analogy is apt: the Post Office is certainly on it's last legs, and the reasons why it isn't disappearing faster are, mostly, political (naturally!). In the meantime, like every other government service, the Post Office costs more to operate that it generates, and so it has it's hand out in perpetuity and will apply the usual government-inspired "solution"; higher prices, fewer services, no reduction in overhead.
Yeah, like that ever works?
Now, don't get me wrong -- at current prices, the Post Office is still a good deal, if you think about it this way; you can send any message you want to, to anyone you want to, and you can be pretty much guaranteed that it will reach it's destination in something like five to ten days for 44 cents. Try getting any service that has that sort of reliability for under half-a-buck anywhere, and you'd be hard-pressed to find one.
But you really have to start to think about WHY you might send a message that way nowadays when technology makes doing so much easier, cheaper, and instantaneous. And this is where the Post Office falls short.
It might also be failing faster because of political stupidity in Washington, I quote:
"...The postmaster general called for many of these changes last year but failed to convince lawmakers. This time he's armed with $4.8 million worth of outside studies that conclude that, without drastic changes, the mail agency will face even more staggering losses.
Three studies -- by Accenture, the Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey and Co. -- reviewed the Postal Service's books and presented 50 options for cuts and new services. The agency's business model is so poor, consultants concluded, that privatizing it is untenable..."
Two things leap out from the quote:
1. Why is it that an agency which is leaking money like a sieve must go out and spend $4.8 million dollars on outside studies to tell it what it already knows? One gets the impression that the expenditure was necessary because the politicians didn't believe in any report that wasn't generated by a private sector auditor (yet, dems swear by the CBO when it suits their purposes on Health Care and Stimulus bills), and because the auditor was probably a campaign contributor who was granted the contract to do the study in return for that contribution.
2. Even the Private Sector, with supposedly the best and brightest business minds available, wouldn't touch the Postal Service with a 10-foot pole...and we're talking about a business which has a monopoly on first-class mail delivery in the United States. The evident reasons: it's a service which is rapidly being superseded by technology, and it's run by powerful unions with too much political clout to bring to heel.
But this really made me sit up and take notice:
"...He (Potter) particularly wants Congress to reverse a 2006 law requiring the Postal Service to prepay its retiree health benefits, to the tune of $5 billion per year. No other federal agency or Fortune 500 company makes such payments, Potter said..."
Five billion in the hole before you even open the doors for business? No wonder they can't make any money! That must be some healthcare plan, indeed. It makes you wonder if the average Postal Worker isn't getting his insides gold-plated as long as he's getting a colonoscopy, anyway. That situation, incidentally, won't be changed in any way by ObamaCare; the Postal Workers are sure to be spared the taxes that come with that, and the ability to keep whatever arrangements they already have since they've been "pre-paid" and you wouldn't want to waste that taxpayer money, would you?
It's about time, maybe, to consign the Post Office to the Dungheap of History, along with the Pony Express, the Telegraph and the rotary, analog telephone.
Nothing like going out with a bang, is there?
I think the logic for keeping a Postal Service around diminishes by the day. People already communicate much more efficiently with e-mail, cell phones, text messaging and all that rot, so that the Letter Carrier has been reduced to a service which brings me three utility bills and fifty pounds of junk mail every month. The advance of technology is making it unnecessary for people to send paper to each other. For certain things, like legal documents which you might send by registered mail, then a Post Office of some sort makes sense, but for everything else? I mean, is it really necessary to send a post card in this day and age when you can flip open your cell phone, take a snapshot of you on the beach at Montego Bay, and then send it off with whatever personal message you desire in less than a minute? Without having to buy a stamp? Without the danger that you will arrive back in the United States before your postcard reaches it's destination?
Frankly, the reason why all of your correspondence isn't online is because of the (justifiable) fear of hacking which will leave your personal information, your financial statements, your utility bills and personal letters, open to anyone who makes the effort to get at them. That's a problem that will, eventually, be solved by the application of encryption software that might soon be commercially available. In the meantime, we're in this in-between phase where the written word -- on paper and locked within an envelope -- is still a necessary evil, and so an anachronistic entity like the Postal Service must continue to exist.
I won't even get into the stink Tree-Huggers should be raising about the fact that when I get my electric bill, it's two pages of rundown of how I'm being taxed to death a nickel and a dime at a time, but it's also another 12 pages of printed advertisements. My mailman has to drive thousands of those around his area of delivery, and then lug them all door-to-door. This is one of those situations where an environMENTAList outcry might actually be useful -- the practice is wasteful, and by itself is reason enough to shoot the Post Office like a lame horse.
That analogy is apt: the Post Office is certainly on it's last legs, and the reasons why it isn't disappearing faster are, mostly, political (naturally!). In the meantime, like every other government service, the Post Office costs more to operate that it generates, and so it has it's hand out in perpetuity and will apply the usual government-inspired "solution"; higher prices, fewer services, no reduction in overhead.
Yeah, like that ever works?
Now, don't get me wrong -- at current prices, the Post Office is still a good deal, if you think about it this way; you can send any message you want to, to anyone you want to, and you can be pretty much guaranteed that it will reach it's destination in something like five to ten days for 44 cents. Try getting any service that has that sort of reliability for under half-a-buck anywhere, and you'd be hard-pressed to find one.
But you really have to start to think about WHY you might send a message that way nowadays when technology makes doing so much easier, cheaper, and instantaneous. And this is where the Post Office falls short.
It might also be failing faster because of political stupidity in Washington, I quote:
"...The postmaster general called for many of these changes last year but failed to convince lawmakers. This time he's armed with $4.8 million worth of outside studies that conclude that, without drastic changes, the mail agency will face even more staggering losses.
Three studies -- by Accenture, the Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey and Co. -- reviewed the Postal Service's books and presented 50 options for cuts and new services. The agency's business model is so poor, consultants concluded, that privatizing it is untenable..."
Two things leap out from the quote:
1. Why is it that an agency which is leaking money like a sieve must go out and spend $4.8 million dollars on outside studies to tell it what it already knows? One gets the impression that the expenditure was necessary because the politicians didn't believe in any report that wasn't generated by a private sector auditor (yet, dems swear by the CBO when it suits their purposes on Health Care and Stimulus bills), and because the auditor was probably a campaign contributor who was granted the contract to do the study in return for that contribution.
2. Even the Private Sector, with supposedly the best and brightest business minds available, wouldn't touch the Postal Service with a 10-foot pole...and we're talking about a business which has a monopoly on first-class mail delivery in the United States. The evident reasons: it's a service which is rapidly being superseded by technology, and it's run by powerful unions with too much political clout to bring to heel.
But this really made me sit up and take notice:
"...He (Potter) particularly wants Congress to reverse a 2006 law requiring the Postal Service to prepay its retiree health benefits, to the tune of $5 billion per year. No other federal agency or Fortune 500 company makes such payments, Potter said..."
Five billion in the hole before you even open the doors for business? No wonder they can't make any money! That must be some healthcare plan, indeed. It makes you wonder if the average Postal Worker isn't getting his insides gold-plated as long as he's getting a colonoscopy, anyway. That situation, incidentally, won't be changed in any way by ObamaCare; the Postal Workers are sure to be spared the taxes that come with that, and the ability to keep whatever arrangements they already have since they've been "pre-paid" and you wouldn't want to waste that taxpayer money, would you?
It's about time, maybe, to consign the Post Office to the Dungheap of History, along with the Pony Express, the Telegraph and the rotary, analog telephone.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Louis Farrakhan is an Idiot...
Yeah, I know: like that's a news flash...
The "Minister" had some very choice words over the weekend at one of those gatherings where the mental patients who make up the Nation of Islam get all dressed up like they're in a Broadway Musical and stew in their racism for a day or two.
You can read about it here.
What the article doesn't mention, because the New York Daily News is run by a bunch of libtards, is that the "Minister" managed to say that (paraphrasing) Whitey is out to Assassinate Barack Obama, and the White Right is determined to make sure Barry is a One-Term President, and naturally, we're determined to do this because we're racists.
Well, the "Minister" is an expert on racism, with just one exception; he can recognize it in everyone but himself.
I don't like Barack Obama, I'll admit. I never did, but I've tried to be fair...and it's really not working for me. Mostly because he's a liar, has already been shown to have been thoroughly unqualified for the job, and he never accepts responsibility for anything...except other people's successes. He's obviously surrounded himself with opportunistic sycophants, who when they aren't telling him how great he is and how he gives Great Speech, are busy running the government in his stead.
King Barack I would rather ride Air Force One to accept Peace Prizes he didn't earn, beg a bunch of Eurotwerps for an Olympic Games for his Chicago Cronies, and make sure Michelle and he can have a Date Night anywhere in the freakin' country at any hour of the day, at taxpayer expense. Barack Obama has spent even less time, I reckon, in the White House actually working than George W. Bush did.
And on some level, I think we might actually be fortunate he's been so reluctant to work. I shudder to think what he might manage to destroy if he was actually trying.
I don't want Obama dead, I just want him gone. If I have to wait until Jan 20, 2013, then that's fine. We've survived LBJ, Carter and Clinton, and we'll survive Barack I. I just hope that in the meantime we can replace as much of the rest of the government as we possibly can by that time through the electoral process so that the damage that Obama manages can be contained.
The reason I don't support Barack Obama has noting to do with him being black (the Minister has conveniently forgotten that Obama is only HALF-black. The rest of him is White. A decade ago, Louis Farrakhan would have said that Barry wasn't "authentically black", but I guess an electoral victory changes everything, huh?). My distaste for Barack Obama has to do with his policies.
When he says "We are the change we've been waiting for..." he's really alluding to a carefully-disguised program of Reparations for black folks.
When he says "Yes We Can!" he really means that he can find ways to throw cash at African Americans in the form of Cash-for-Clunkers, Mortgage Renegotiation schemes that are designed to give houses to people who could never have afforded them in the first place. "Health Care Reform" is designed to give even MORE free health care to people who already get it at someone else's expense. Do you really suppose the single mother who takes her seven children by eight fathers into the Emergency Room for the sniffles pays anything for that visit -- ever -- do you? You don't think the chronically-unemployed 350-pound man who lives on a diet of fatback-ripple -and-two-packs-of-Kools a day who shows up in the cardiac ward twice a year for another double-bypass ever pays for his time in the hospital? You don't imagine that the welfare-and-food-stamp crackhead who finds himself shot on a street corner because the brothers who did the drive-by can't aim straight, and missed the guy sitting 50-yards to his right, ever pays for the massive trauma treatment and surgical bills he's incurred, do you?
When Barack Obama says "Hope and Change..." he means "we hope White folks are either stupid enough, or we can manipulate the irrational guilt of White Liberals enough, to not realize they will be taxed to death in order to "hook a brother up"... and the Change is what'll be left in Whitey's pocket after it's been picked.
When Barack Obama talks about "putting America to work" he truly means make-work government union jobs, which will be given to African Americans disproportionately, so that even the dumbest, laziest bastard in America can earn $60 an hour and not have any result at all expected in return.
That's why I dislike Barack Obama, "Minister". But I certainly don't want him dead. We already have a holiday for a dead black man (who actually deserved the honor), and an entire month in which I have to be assaulted (once again) with the story of how George Washington Carver invented peanut butter and Whitey got rich on it. Get some new propaganda already, will ya?
But this is what the "Minister" does; he spouts complete bullshit knowing that no one is going to call him on it, and that even if they do, the acute psychosis and pathological distrust which affects a certain segment of Black America is so deep that no measure of common sense or logic will ever penetrate it. They believe that racism is so endemic that there's not a single conspiracy theory, any lie, any misrepresentation that they won't swallow whole and take with them to the grave. It's why he can stand up there and tell the tale of having been taken aboard an alien spacecraft and still have people take him seriously, if not regard him as their savior.
It's apparent the aliens didn't anal probe him, as is their wont, because the "Minister" is still full of shit.
Barack Obama will, indeed, be a "one term President", but his race will have nothing to do with it. It will be because he was man totally unprepared for the job, and possessed of the most outrageous, and unconstitutional, theories of how government should work. He'll fail because there isn't a promise he's ever made that he has ever kept; transparency on C-Span, no tax increases for 250k and under, cutting the deficit, tax cut for 95% of Americans, keeping unemployment low as justification for a Stimulus monstrosity, you can keep your own physician, so on and so forth. The economic future of this country looks exceedingly bleak, and the President is spending money that doesn't even exist faster than anyone can even imagine it, let alone print it. This country is rapidly headed for the Zimbabwe Zone. When Barack Obama finally leaves office, it will not be because of some vast "White"-wing conspiracy -- it'll be because he was a rotten President. So bad, in fact, that he almost makes me nostalgic for Jimmy Carter.
What the Black Comm-uuun-itaaay (as Rev. Al calls it) should be worried about, "Minister", is that Barack Obama turns out to be such a rotten President that we never see another Black Person take that Oath of Office ever again -- and not because of race -- but because of the belief that Obama represents the mindset of the average black person. That mindset fairly screams "I'm entitled" without ever mentioning a damned thing about responsibility.
Black are not responsible for high crime rates and prison recidivism, because that's a legacy of slavery. Blacks are not responsible for illiteracy and the destruction of the Public School Systems in their communities because that's a legacy of slavery. Blacks are not responsible for out-of-control rates of bastardy because that's a legacy of slavery. Blacks are not responsible for having a work ethic, because that's a legacy of slavery, therefore, Whitey owes them all a free house, a free car, free health insurance, and a high-paying job where nothing is expected of them, and they shouldn't have to work or pay for any of it --because that's a legacy of slavery, too.
He stands as an example of what is possible in America if people apply their talents and intelligence, and then defeats that positive message by infantilizing his own people. Obama sends out the signal that Blacks don't have to, nor should they, put their talents to work for their own improvement. They should be mindless wards of the State, and someone else should pay for it. And what really rankles, what really chaps our asses, is that we who will write the checks for it all don't get ever the full poop on what he proposes, or even the chance to speak our peace on it. It's just shoved up our asses, sideways, and we're expected to just shut up about it.
That's why Barack Obama will fail, "Minister". That's why we want him gone. That's why he'll be a one-term President.
Maybe the next time you see those aliens, you could ask them to take you with them when they leave?
The "Minister" had some very choice words over the weekend at one of those gatherings where the mental patients who make up the Nation of Islam get all dressed up like they're in a Broadway Musical and stew in their racism for a day or two.
You can read about it here.
What the article doesn't mention, because the New York Daily News is run by a bunch of libtards, is that the "Minister" managed to say that (paraphrasing) Whitey is out to Assassinate Barack Obama, and the White Right is determined to make sure Barry is a One-Term President, and naturally, we're determined to do this because we're racists.
Well, the "Minister" is an expert on racism, with just one exception; he can recognize it in everyone but himself.
I don't like Barack Obama, I'll admit. I never did, but I've tried to be fair...and it's really not working for me. Mostly because he's a liar, has already been shown to have been thoroughly unqualified for the job, and he never accepts responsibility for anything...except other people's successes. He's obviously surrounded himself with opportunistic sycophants, who when they aren't telling him how great he is and how he gives Great Speech, are busy running the government in his stead.
King Barack I would rather ride Air Force One to accept Peace Prizes he didn't earn, beg a bunch of Eurotwerps for an Olympic Games for his Chicago Cronies, and make sure Michelle and he can have a Date Night anywhere in the freakin' country at any hour of the day, at taxpayer expense. Barack Obama has spent even less time, I reckon, in the White House actually working than George W. Bush did.
And on some level, I think we might actually be fortunate he's been so reluctant to work. I shudder to think what he might manage to destroy if he was actually trying.
I don't want Obama dead, I just want him gone. If I have to wait until Jan 20, 2013, then that's fine. We've survived LBJ, Carter and Clinton, and we'll survive Barack I. I just hope that in the meantime we can replace as much of the rest of the government as we possibly can by that time through the electoral process so that the damage that Obama manages can be contained.
The reason I don't support Barack Obama has noting to do with him being black (the Minister has conveniently forgotten that Obama is only HALF-black. The rest of him is White. A decade ago, Louis Farrakhan would have said that Barry wasn't "authentically black", but I guess an electoral victory changes everything, huh?). My distaste for Barack Obama has to do with his policies.
When he says "We are the change we've been waiting for..." he's really alluding to a carefully-disguised program of Reparations for black folks.
When he says "Yes We Can!" he really means that he can find ways to throw cash at African Americans in the form of Cash-for-Clunkers, Mortgage Renegotiation schemes that are designed to give houses to people who could never have afforded them in the first place. "Health Care Reform" is designed to give even MORE free health care to people who already get it at someone else's expense. Do you really suppose the single mother who takes her seven children by eight fathers into the Emergency Room for the sniffles pays anything for that visit -- ever -- do you? You don't think the chronically-unemployed 350-pound man who lives on a diet of fatback-ripple -and-two-packs-of-Kools a day who shows up in the cardiac ward twice a year for another double-bypass ever pays for his time in the hospital? You don't imagine that the welfare-and-food-stamp crackhead who finds himself shot on a street corner because the brothers who did the drive-by can't aim straight, and missed the guy sitting 50-yards to his right, ever pays for the massive trauma treatment and surgical bills he's incurred, do you?
When Barack Obama says "Hope and Change..." he means "we hope White folks are either stupid enough, or we can manipulate the irrational guilt of White Liberals enough, to not realize they will be taxed to death in order to "hook a brother up"... and the Change is what'll be left in Whitey's pocket after it's been picked.
When Barack Obama talks about "putting America to work" he truly means make-work government union jobs, which will be given to African Americans disproportionately, so that even the dumbest, laziest bastard in America can earn $60 an hour and not have any result at all expected in return.
That's why I dislike Barack Obama, "Minister". But I certainly don't want him dead. We already have a holiday for a dead black man (who actually deserved the honor), and an entire month in which I have to be assaulted (once again) with the story of how George Washington Carver invented peanut butter and Whitey got rich on it. Get some new propaganda already, will ya?
But this is what the "Minister" does; he spouts complete bullshit knowing that no one is going to call him on it, and that even if they do, the acute psychosis and pathological distrust which affects a certain segment of Black America is so deep that no measure of common sense or logic will ever penetrate it. They believe that racism is so endemic that there's not a single conspiracy theory, any lie, any misrepresentation that they won't swallow whole and take with them to the grave. It's why he can stand up there and tell the tale of having been taken aboard an alien spacecraft and still have people take him seriously, if not regard him as their savior.
It's apparent the aliens didn't anal probe him, as is their wont, because the "Minister" is still full of shit.
Barack Obama will, indeed, be a "one term President", but his race will have nothing to do with it. It will be because he was man totally unprepared for the job, and possessed of the most outrageous, and unconstitutional, theories of how government should work. He'll fail because there isn't a promise he's ever made that he has ever kept; transparency on C-Span, no tax increases for 250k and under, cutting the deficit, tax cut for 95% of Americans, keeping unemployment low as justification for a Stimulus monstrosity, you can keep your own physician, so on and so forth. The economic future of this country looks exceedingly bleak, and the President is spending money that doesn't even exist faster than anyone can even imagine it, let alone print it. This country is rapidly headed for the Zimbabwe Zone. When Barack Obama finally leaves office, it will not be because of some vast "White"-wing conspiracy -- it'll be because he was a rotten President. So bad, in fact, that he almost makes me nostalgic for Jimmy Carter.
What the Black Comm-uuun-itaaay (as Rev. Al calls it) should be worried about, "Minister", is that Barack Obama turns out to be such a rotten President that we never see another Black Person take that Oath of Office ever again -- and not because of race -- but because of the belief that Obama represents the mindset of the average black person. That mindset fairly screams "I'm entitled" without ever mentioning a damned thing about responsibility.
Black are not responsible for high crime rates and prison recidivism, because that's a legacy of slavery. Blacks are not responsible for illiteracy and the destruction of the Public School Systems in their communities because that's a legacy of slavery. Blacks are not responsible for out-of-control rates of bastardy because that's a legacy of slavery. Blacks are not responsible for having a work ethic, because that's a legacy of slavery, therefore, Whitey owes them all a free house, a free car, free health insurance, and a high-paying job where nothing is expected of them, and they shouldn't have to work or pay for any of it --because that's a legacy of slavery, too.
He stands as an example of what is possible in America if people apply their talents and intelligence, and then defeats that positive message by infantilizing his own people. Obama sends out the signal that Blacks don't have to, nor should they, put their talents to work for their own improvement. They should be mindless wards of the State, and someone else should pay for it. And what really rankles, what really chaps our asses, is that we who will write the checks for it all don't get ever the full poop on what he proposes, or even the chance to speak our peace on it. It's just shoved up our asses, sideways, and we're expected to just shut up about it.
That's why Barack Obama will fail, "Minister". That's why we want him gone. That's why he'll be a one-term President.
Maybe the next time you see those aliens, you could ask them to take you with them when they leave?
No Carpetbaggers Need Apply...
Harold Ford drops out of NY Senate race.
Fabulous. We've already had enough of libtard Carpetbaggers in this state. New York is where libtards from all over the country eventually settle to work, and so we get everyone else's libs, and then we get blamed for being too liberal for the country's good. Just so you know, it isn't entirely our fault; keep your own liberals at home!
So, this November, we might be one libtard lighter: Kirsten Gillbrand might have to defend her job as Chuck Schumer's Ventriloquist's Dummy With Tits (CSVDWT) against a republican (assuming we can find one who can chew gum and walk at the same time someplace in New York) and if that is the case, she'll probably lose.
I say "probably" because the NY Republican party is a bunch of dunces. They couldn't organize a gang-bang in a prison shower. They find the most unattractive (but politically-well-connected) candidates to run for statewide and federal offices, and they get beaten about the head and face by democrats who are barely capable of counting without removing their shoes and socks (see: New York Congressional delegation). In other words, they get beaten by people just slightly smarter than bread mold.
And since the NY Repub Go-to-Guy -- perennial loser Rick Lazio -- is already in the Governor's race, the NY Repubs are left to find someone just as dull and just as beatable to run against Gillibrand, because that is their modus operandi. Does the name George Pataki ring any bells?
If it does, you'd better scream "HELL NO!".
There are two other possibilities; if she could be persuaded to get into the race, there is former Congresswoman Susan Molinari, who gave the keynote address at the Republican convention back in the days when that actually meant something. Molinari is from my hometown (Staten Island), comes from another NY Political Dynasty (that might be a strike against her -- we've had enough Political Dynasties, thank you), and she's smarter than Gillibrand is. Then again, lobotomized cocker spaniels are smarter than Gillbrand, but that's not to take away from Molinari; She is smart as a whip and realizes that we still have a Constitution, which puts her miles ahead of the Repub Party Apparatchiks.
The other possibility is Rudy Giuliani, America's Mayor. The problem with Rudy is that the national Republican Party would probably bust a blood vessel because of his stances on Gay Rights and Gun Control (it's why he never made it through the 2008 primaries, you know), but the Tea Parties and the non-panty-bunched republicans (the one's not tied directly to, or earning their living from the party) could easily put him over the top. We need to have Rudy somewhere in a position of responsibility in New York State, if only because he's proven to be a responsible person with actual abilities. Having just one person like that puts us head and shoulders above the other 49 states.
The problem is that the NY Republican party will probably not tap either. It has a bigger list of well-connected-but-even-bigger losers to promote. That's where it's true interests lie, because it is not so much A party as much as it is many-smaller parties, and they can never agree on anything or anyone, and this is the main reason why it's so ineffective. It's provincial and it's politics and infighting are, ultimately, local and not state-wide.
For once, the NY State Republican Party should do the right thing, and fuck their friends over. These elections in November are too important to the future of the country for the same stupidity to play out; that system coughed up Dede Scozzafava, after all.
Tap Susan or tap Rudy. You'll get the Tea Partiers on your side, and you'll be able to actually win something for a change. You'll finally succeed in doing something meaningful, NY-GOP.
Fabulous. We've already had enough of libtard Carpetbaggers in this state. New York is where libtards from all over the country eventually settle to work, and so we get everyone else's libs, and then we get blamed for being too liberal for the country's good. Just so you know, it isn't entirely our fault; keep your own liberals at home!
So, this November, we might be one libtard lighter: Kirsten Gillbrand might have to defend her job as Chuck Schumer's Ventriloquist's Dummy With Tits (CSVDWT) against a republican (assuming we can find one who can chew gum and walk at the same time someplace in New York) and if that is the case, she'll probably lose.
I say "probably" because the NY Republican party is a bunch of dunces. They couldn't organize a gang-bang in a prison shower. They find the most unattractive (but politically-well-connected) candidates to run for statewide and federal offices, and they get beaten about the head and face by democrats who are barely capable of counting without removing their shoes and socks (see: New York Congressional delegation). In other words, they get beaten by people just slightly smarter than bread mold.
And since the NY Repub Go-to-Guy -- perennial loser Rick Lazio -- is already in the Governor's race, the NY Repubs are left to find someone just as dull and just as beatable to run against Gillibrand, because that is their modus operandi. Does the name George Pataki ring any bells?
If it does, you'd better scream "HELL NO!".
There are two other possibilities; if she could be persuaded to get into the race, there is former Congresswoman Susan Molinari, who gave the keynote address at the Republican convention back in the days when that actually meant something. Molinari is from my hometown (Staten Island), comes from another NY Political Dynasty (that might be a strike against her -- we've had enough Political Dynasties, thank you), and she's smarter than Gillibrand is. Then again, lobotomized cocker spaniels are smarter than Gillbrand, but that's not to take away from Molinari; She is smart as a whip and realizes that we still have a Constitution, which puts her miles ahead of the Repub Party Apparatchiks.
The other possibility is Rudy Giuliani, America's Mayor. The problem with Rudy is that the national Republican Party would probably bust a blood vessel because of his stances on Gay Rights and Gun Control (it's why he never made it through the 2008 primaries, you know), but the Tea Parties and the non-panty-bunched republicans (the one's not tied directly to, or earning their living from the party) could easily put him over the top. We need to have Rudy somewhere in a position of responsibility in New York State, if only because he's proven to be a responsible person with actual abilities. Having just one person like that puts us head and shoulders above the other 49 states.
The problem is that the NY Republican party will probably not tap either. It has a bigger list of well-connected-but-even-bigger losers to promote. That's where it's true interests lie, because it is not so much A party as much as it is many-smaller parties, and they can never agree on anything or anyone, and this is the main reason why it's so ineffective. It's provincial and it's politics and infighting are, ultimately, local and not state-wide.
For once, the NY State Republican Party should do the right thing, and fuck their friends over. These elections in November are too important to the future of the country for the same stupidity to play out; that system coughed up Dede Scozzafava, after all.
Tap Susan or tap Rudy. You'll get the Tea Partiers on your side, and you'll be able to actually win something for a change. You'll finally succeed in doing something meaningful, NY-GOP.
Al Gore Has Blood on His Hands..
Tree-Huggers Kill Themselves, Do something Al Gore Doesn't Have the Courage to Do Himself.
Give them credit for at least being true to their "code"; if only all the other people who believe that mankind is ruining the planet and that a One-World Socialist State run by the U.N. is the answer to all problems were likewise so committed.
Because, ultimately, this is where EnvironMENTALism leads; to the conclusion that the planet is better off without humans, left to revert to it's pristine and natural state, isn't it? At least for the foot soldiers in the movement. The high-mucky-muck like Al Gore are expected to be thanked and given positions of leadership for advocating policies that will kill millions.
The unfortunate part is that the idiots who believed, the brain-damaged sacks of DNA who were supposed to be parents, decided their children had to die for their stupidity, too. And just like pot-smoking slackers everywhere, they did the job in predictably half-assed fashion; they left one alive. Now, that innocent little girl is an orphan, but frankly, she's a lot better off than if her parents had lived. People who come to the conclusion that murder-suicide is a solution to a problem are truly nuts. This child, at least, will now have a chance to be adopted by normal parents who will give her a normal life, love her, and think of her in terms of a her basic humanity instead of her environMENTAL impact.
Because those so-called parents, I don't believe, ever loved their children. The proof is that they resorted to (attempted) murder in the name of a psuedo-scientific-theory-elevated-into-religion based upon lies. Those weren't children in their minds; those were potential polluters and exploiters of Mother Gaia... they were carbon footprints.
I wonder if Al Gore will sleep soundly tonight knowing that he's promulgating a scam upon people who are mentally weak and in need of psychological help, to the point where murder-suicide seems a reasonable alternative to them? I wonder, if Al Gore now feels like Osama Bin Laden in the sense that his words and deeds on behalf of a crackpot cause, the re-romaticisizing of World Socialism under the guise of a religion, have incited the murder of innocents?
(Note: Yes, that may be a bit hyperbolic, but the analogy holds true. Al Gore would kill millions with his philosophy if it meant he got rich, powerful and could aggrandize himself in the process. Just like Bin Laden, he wants to be seen as the savior of... something, and amply rewarded for his service).
I rather doubt Mr. Gore actually gives a shit. After all, he has a billion dollars, a Nobel Peace Prize, and he gets invited to all the smart parties that he flies in private jets to. In some precincts, he's even taken seriously an dtreated as if he were relevant, almost sage-like. That "legacy" -- the Legacy of Environmental Prophet, even if it will be potentially responsible for the deaths of millions and the economic ruination of millions more -- is a whole lot better than the one he would have had without Global Warming: crybaby, compulsive liar who tried to sue his way into the White House, but who ultimately lost to a man his political compatriots said was a complete and utter dunce.
Selfish bastard.
Give them credit for at least being true to their "code"; if only all the other people who believe that mankind is ruining the planet and that a One-World Socialist State run by the U.N. is the answer to all problems were likewise so committed.
Because, ultimately, this is where EnvironMENTALism leads; to the conclusion that the planet is better off without humans, left to revert to it's pristine and natural state, isn't it? At least for the foot soldiers in the movement. The high-mucky-muck like Al Gore are expected to be thanked and given positions of leadership for advocating policies that will kill millions.
The unfortunate part is that the idiots who believed, the brain-damaged sacks of DNA who were supposed to be parents, decided their children had to die for their stupidity, too. And just like pot-smoking slackers everywhere, they did the job in predictably half-assed fashion; they left one alive. Now, that innocent little girl is an orphan, but frankly, she's a lot better off than if her parents had lived. People who come to the conclusion that murder-suicide is a solution to a problem are truly nuts. This child, at least, will now have a chance to be adopted by normal parents who will give her a normal life, love her, and think of her in terms of a her basic humanity instead of her environMENTAL impact.
Because those so-called parents, I don't believe, ever loved their children. The proof is that they resorted to (attempted) murder in the name of a psuedo-scientific-theory-elevated-into-religion based upon lies. Those weren't children in their minds; those were potential polluters and exploiters of Mother Gaia... they were carbon footprints.
I wonder if Al Gore will sleep soundly tonight knowing that he's promulgating a scam upon people who are mentally weak and in need of psychological help, to the point where murder-suicide seems a reasonable alternative to them? I wonder, if Al Gore now feels like Osama Bin Laden in the sense that his words and deeds on behalf of a crackpot cause, the re-romaticisizing of World Socialism under the guise of a religion, have incited the murder of innocents?
(Note: Yes, that may be a bit hyperbolic, but the analogy holds true. Al Gore would kill millions with his philosophy if it meant he got rich, powerful and could aggrandize himself in the process. Just like Bin Laden, he wants to be seen as the savior of... something, and amply rewarded for his service).
I rather doubt Mr. Gore actually gives a shit. After all, he has a billion dollars, a Nobel Peace Prize, and he gets invited to all the smart parties that he flies in private jets to. In some precincts, he's even taken seriously an dtreated as if he were relevant, almost sage-like. That "legacy" -- the Legacy of Environmental Prophet, even if it will be potentially responsible for the deaths of millions and the economic ruination of millions more -- is a whole lot better than the one he would have had without Global Warming: crybaby, compulsive liar who tried to sue his way into the White House, but who ultimately lost to a man his political compatriots said was a complete and utter dunce.
Selfish bastard.
GM Recalls a Million Cars...
For Steering Problems. I wonder when the Congressional Inquiry begins, and whether or not the Obama-administration hack who runs GM, and the overpaid Union jerks who put the things together will be mercilessly grilled for several hours by complete idiots?
Or do we only do that to Japanese auto companies in which the Fed'ral Gub'mint doesn't have a direct stake, and who's unions don't kickback to the democratic (small 'd'; intentional) party?
Guilty secret: I felt sorry for Akio Toyoda last week, if only because after having worked for a Japanese company for seven years I might understand the Japanese mindset a little better than most Americans do. He came here because he had to, but not to answer the questions asked by a panel of five-star douchebags. He had to come to America because Japanese culture demands that he do so, to be seen as both contrite and involved in fixing a problem which is deeply embarrassing to him. His products -- cars with his name on them and the family reputation tied up in them -- are defective. Someone has to be held responsible, and he happens to be the guy in charge.
It's what you do when you're Japanese: you take responsibility, and you apologize, and you promise to try harder. Then you go out and do it. Or else you disembowel yourself. If only some members of Congress held to a similar code, we'd be a much better country for it.
Akio Toyoda did all the right things. He was sincere. He was telling the truth; Toyota will investigate and fix their acceleration and braking problems, and Toyota cars will be even more mechanically-reliable and qualitatively-superior to an American car built by a nosepicking douche with strong communist sympathies.
The dimwits in their rush to bash Toyota may have damaged relations with Japan, one of our best allies, and the second-largest holder of U.S. Debt. That they did so was predictable; it was too good an opportunity for TV time, too good an opportunity to further wound the Union's and GM's competition, and now in the name of fair play, I'm expecting to see GM's President similarly keelhauled and publicly embarrassed, and GM's reputation, such as it is, further tarnished for the purposes of scoring cheap political points.
But I won't hold my breath.
If no one will apologize to Mr. Toyoda, then I will; On behalf of the People of the United States, Toyoda-san, I'm truly sorry that we have elected a political class that is so craven and cowardly.
In the meantime, GM insists that cars with a steering problem are "perfectly safe" and that owners should continue to drive them.... only slower.
You can't make this shit up.
Or do we only do that to Japanese auto companies in which the Fed'ral Gub'mint doesn't have a direct stake, and who's unions don't kickback to the democratic (small 'd'; intentional) party?
Guilty secret: I felt sorry for Akio Toyoda last week, if only because after having worked for a Japanese company for seven years I might understand the Japanese mindset a little better than most Americans do. He came here because he had to, but not to answer the questions asked by a panel of five-star douchebags. He had to come to America because Japanese culture demands that he do so, to be seen as both contrite and involved in fixing a problem which is deeply embarrassing to him. His products -- cars with his name on them and the family reputation tied up in them -- are defective. Someone has to be held responsible, and he happens to be the guy in charge.
It's what you do when you're Japanese: you take responsibility, and you apologize, and you promise to try harder. Then you go out and do it. Or else you disembowel yourself. If only some members of Congress held to a similar code, we'd be a much better country for it.
Akio Toyoda did all the right things. He was sincere. He was telling the truth; Toyota will investigate and fix their acceleration and braking problems, and Toyota cars will be even more mechanically-reliable and qualitatively-superior to an American car built by a nosepicking douche with strong communist sympathies.
The dimwits in their rush to bash Toyota may have damaged relations with Japan, one of our best allies, and the second-largest holder of U.S. Debt. That they did so was predictable; it was too good an opportunity for TV time, too good an opportunity to further wound the Union's and GM's competition, and now in the name of fair play, I'm expecting to see GM's President similarly keelhauled and publicly embarrassed, and GM's reputation, such as it is, further tarnished for the purposes of scoring cheap political points.
But I won't hold my breath.
If no one will apologize to Mr. Toyoda, then I will; On behalf of the People of the United States, Toyoda-san, I'm truly sorry that we have elected a political class that is so craven and cowardly.
In the meantime, GM insists that cars with a steering problem are "perfectly safe" and that owners should continue to drive them.... only slower.
You can't make this shit up.
Monday, March 01, 2010
Finally, The Olympics are Over...
Because another day of watching curling (even if they do have hawt babes) would have set me on a murder spree. Another day of the Lindsey Vonn soap opera might have induced a coma. Watching a bunch of homosexuals leap around on ice skates holds absolutely no interest whatsoever. The constant, relentless display of Canadian Political Correctness, right down to the contrived Inuit-themed symbology, is enough to make you want to pluck out your eyeballs.
These Olympics had but one redeeming quality, as, alas, all Winter Olympic Games do:
The hockey.
Hockey, at least, is a real sport. Not like that collection of slacker games with snowboards and pot-smokers. Not like those batshit-crazy stunts that involve little sleds and, unfortunately, dead Georgians. A sport is defined, by me, as a competition in which there's an opponent, that opponent plays defense, the two competitors are likely to make physical contact in which bones may be broken, there are a set of definite skills that doesn't include the ability to wear sequin-covered spandex, and which doesn't depend upon gravity in order to propel the competitors; they're using their own muscle power.
Now, I have to say this: the hockey in these games was absolutely awesome. Even the Women's Hockey, which I thought was a joke (I still think it is. How can you play hockey without body checking? Children play this way.), but I have to give those ladies thier props; they put in a tremendous effort, they work so hard, and they displayed an awful lot of skill and guts. So much so, that it was almost not-so-weird to watch women playing hockey. I wouldn't go out of my way to find a women's game again, but it was rather entertaining.
As for the Men's hockey, well, how much better does it get than watching Alexander Ovechkin flatten an old and fat Jaromir Jagr at center ice?
(Ed. Note: I tried to upload a video of that open-ice check, but the International Olympic Committee has copyrighted the image. So much for the games being about the spirit of competition, and not money, right?)
The Russian team disappointed me. The Czech Republic intrigued me, and was, if I can admit to a guilty pleasure, my favorite team (I'm a big fan of Patrick Elias), and the combination of Zach Parise/Jamie Langenbrunner for the U.S. Team was everything I love about the sport (Hey, did you notice something? The three players I've named all play for the same team...I wonder, could that be MY favorite team, mayhap?). The Swiss Team was great. The Swedes left me shaking my head. Even watching Germany and Latvia get crushed, there was still some great hockey being played on that ice.
Am I happy that the Canadian swept the Gold Medals in hockey? Hell no. The Canadian Women deserved their medals, I think, and so there's no beef there. The Canadian Men, however, got extremely lucky. Today, all over Canada, newspaper articles are being written about the "greatness" of Roberto Luongo, just as they have been for the last decade (why the Press in Canada continues to beat the drum for a goalie who has always choked in big games is beyond me. Team Canada;s best goalies were on the bench) but the sad truth is this: Roberto Luongo is a loser, always has been, always will be, who was bailed out by one of the top three skill players in the world -- Sidney Crosby.
Sid the Kid...well, I hate him with a passion -- because he's the biggest crybaby on the ice -- but you have to admit that he plays a real pretty game of hockey. That guy has got game. And it's appropos that when the gold medal was on the line, that Canada's greatest player since Gretzky should score the winning goal. Congratulations to Team Canada, Monsieurs and Mademoiselles.
There is the possibility that we won't see professional (at least not NHL-professional) hockey players in the Olympics again. Personally, I can seee why they're here in the first place; I guess with no more Cold War there has to be some sort of draw to make the games interesting and to justify the expense. The current Great World Conflict -- between Civilization and Islam -- can't fill the shoes of the Old U.S.-Soviet ideological conflict, if only because Saudi Arabia doesn't field a hockey team, and you can't do a triple-Lutz in a burhka, hence professional players in what's supposed to be the amateur arena.
I think the league should reconsider that proposition. It's talent, spread across every team in the competition, could get no better showcase. And yes, even if you do have to stop your season for three weeks to accommodate the Olympics, it's worth it because you have no real national television contract in the United States, but people will watch Olympic Hockey, and they'll become fans.
Just like I did in 1980. I grew up in a city that had both the New York Rangers and New York Islanders in their heyday, and as a child played roller hockey in the street, but never watched a hockey game on TV religiously until Al Micheals screamed "Do you believe in miracles?" I've been hooked ever since. Most people who have never watched hockey or followed hockey become fans in much the same way; I can't tell you how many hockey fans I know who weren't until they actually went to a game and saw it close up and personal for the first time.
Anyways, perhaps we could just drop all the bobsledding, cross-country skiing, and 10-year-old, anorexic girls on skates, and 42-pound stones and brooms, and just make the Winter Olympics a three-week-long hockey tournament? Because that was awesome!
These Olympics had but one redeeming quality, as, alas, all Winter Olympic Games do:
The hockey.
Hockey, at least, is a real sport. Not like that collection of slacker games with snowboards and pot-smokers. Not like those batshit-crazy stunts that involve little sleds and, unfortunately, dead Georgians. A sport is defined, by me, as a competition in which there's an opponent, that opponent plays defense, the two competitors are likely to make physical contact in which bones may be broken, there are a set of definite skills that doesn't include the ability to wear sequin-covered spandex, and which doesn't depend upon gravity in order to propel the competitors; they're using their own muscle power.
Now, I have to say this: the hockey in these games was absolutely awesome. Even the Women's Hockey, which I thought was a joke (I still think it is. How can you play hockey without body checking? Children play this way.), but I have to give those ladies thier props; they put in a tremendous effort, they work so hard, and they displayed an awful lot of skill and guts. So much so, that it was almost not-so-weird to watch women playing hockey. I wouldn't go out of my way to find a women's game again, but it was rather entertaining.
As for the Men's hockey, well, how much better does it get than watching Alexander Ovechkin flatten an old and fat Jaromir Jagr at center ice?
(Ed. Note: I tried to upload a video of that open-ice check, but the International Olympic Committee has copyrighted the image. So much for the games being about the spirit of competition, and not money, right?)
The Russian team disappointed me. The Czech Republic intrigued me, and was, if I can admit to a guilty pleasure, my favorite team (I'm a big fan of Patrick Elias), and the combination of Zach Parise/Jamie Langenbrunner for the U.S. Team was everything I love about the sport (Hey, did you notice something? The three players I've named all play for the same team...I wonder, could that be MY favorite team, mayhap?). The Swiss Team was great. The Swedes left me shaking my head. Even watching Germany and Latvia get crushed, there was still some great hockey being played on that ice.
Am I happy that the Canadian swept the Gold Medals in hockey? Hell no. The Canadian Women deserved their medals, I think, and so there's no beef there. The Canadian Men, however, got extremely lucky. Today, all over Canada, newspaper articles are being written about the "greatness" of Roberto Luongo, just as they have been for the last decade (why the Press in Canada continues to beat the drum for a goalie who has always choked in big games is beyond me. Team Canada;s best goalies were on the bench) but the sad truth is this: Roberto Luongo is a loser, always has been, always will be, who was bailed out by one of the top three skill players in the world -- Sidney Crosby.
Sid the Kid...well, I hate him with a passion -- because he's the biggest crybaby on the ice -- but you have to admit that he plays a real pretty game of hockey. That guy has got game. And it's appropos that when the gold medal was on the line, that Canada's greatest player since Gretzky should score the winning goal. Congratulations to Team Canada, Monsieurs and Mademoiselles.
There is the possibility that we won't see professional (at least not NHL-professional) hockey players in the Olympics again. Personally, I can seee why they're here in the first place; I guess with no more Cold War there has to be some sort of draw to make the games interesting and to justify the expense. The current Great World Conflict -- between Civilization and Islam -- can't fill the shoes of the Old U.S.-Soviet ideological conflict, if only because Saudi Arabia doesn't field a hockey team, and you can't do a triple-Lutz in a burhka, hence professional players in what's supposed to be the amateur arena.
I think the league should reconsider that proposition. It's talent, spread across every team in the competition, could get no better showcase. And yes, even if you do have to stop your season for three weeks to accommodate the Olympics, it's worth it because you have no real national television contract in the United States, but people will watch Olympic Hockey, and they'll become fans.
Just like I did in 1980. I grew up in a city that had both the New York Rangers and New York Islanders in their heyday, and as a child played roller hockey in the street, but never watched a hockey game on TV religiously until Al Micheals screamed "Do you believe in miracles?" I've been hooked ever since. Most people who have never watched hockey or followed hockey become fans in much the same way; I can't tell you how many hockey fans I know who weren't until they actually went to a game and saw it close up and personal for the first time.
Anyways, perhaps we could just drop all the bobsledding, cross-country skiing, and 10-year-old, anorexic girls on skates, and 42-pound stones and brooms, and just make the Winter Olympics a three-week-long hockey tournament? Because that was awesome!
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Capitalism LIVES!
The winning combination of silly product and Gilbert Gottfried results in an extremely funny commercial -- and most-assuredly -- financial success.
This commercial, at the very least, should become a Pop-culture phenom. Right up there with "Where's the Beef?" and "I've fallen and I can't get up!"
Do take notice of the physically-challenged, but amazingly-well-preserved Baby-Boomers at whom this commercial is so-obviously aimed.
This commercial, at the very least, should become a Pop-culture phenom. Right up there with "Where's the Beef?" and "I've fallen and I can't get up!"
Do take notice of the physically-challenged, but amazingly-well-preserved Baby-Boomers at whom this commercial is so-obviously aimed.
An Inconvenient Windbag...
Al Gore is back, fighting for his rice bowl.
The issue that Mr. Gore, and many other Tree-Hugging-Hippies miss is this: climate change happens whether or not human beings have a hand in it. I can drag a few hundred scientists into my living room this afternoon who will be all too happy to explain how they know that the very spot I sit on has been covered in ice sheets several miles thick in the recent, geological past. That ice isn't here anymore (although there is an awful lot of snow on the ground right now), and it hasn't been for 20-40,000 years now.
That means the ice disappeared, maybe before this continent was even populated, without the benefit of smokestacks, internal combustion engines and CFCs. That is to say, the ice retreated without the efforts of a single person. The evidence for climate change is everywhere: the Sahara used to be a lush forest, the Southwestern US used to be the site of mangrove swamps. There is evidence of mass-extinctions which may be related to climate change, and evidence of creatures evolving to take advantage of climate change. In fact, some scientists speculate that had it not been for Global Warming, all the oxygen we now breathe would still be encased in glacial ice, meaning we wouldn't be here.
The conclusion: Climate Change is something that occurs naturally, outside the experience and abilities of man to create, predict or control. It has happened many times before and will continue long after mankind has died from Obamacare. The geological and fossil records prove it to be so. The evidence lead some to believe that mankind has very little effect on his environment, or at least not in the way that Mr. Gore and his compatriots would like you to believe we do. The mechanisms -- the science if you will -- of climate change are poorly-understood, and not fully explored, but, Climate Change has become the new Revolutionary chic. All the fashionable people believe in it, and it's really an excuse to exert power over their fellow human beings. It is Communism in newer guise, given the patina of religion by evoking the Noble Savage and Bucolic Nature Worship.
The Cult of the Watermelon (Green on the outside, Red on the Inside) is supported by a series of "official reports" and "scientific papers" which are based upon deliberate falsehoods. The Ten Commandments, if you will, of Global Warming are all predicated on lies; on data that has been fabricated and kept out of the reach of those who might objectively review it, defended by those who have destroyed records and conspired to professionally ruin their intellectual and political adversaries. Some of the men who perpetrated these lies, who are the demigods of the cult, have even confessed to it.
We know the climate will change, Mr. Gore; we just don't believe that adopting Global Communism under the Auspices of the UN will "save" us. We don't believe that arresting the development of the West to fund the development of Everywhere Else is the solution to the problems of poverty or material dearth, and this, at root, is the true purpose of the Global Climate Change crowd; they wish to redistribute the wealth of the West to the Scum of the Earth.
If the Scum want my way of life, then they can do what my forebears and myself have done: go out and build it for themselves. It's not my fault if they live in absolute squalor, steeped in superstition, trapped in cultures which rate child rape, clitorectomy and cannibalism higher than personal rights, technical advancement and freedoms. The forced redistribution of wealth the Tree Huggers scream is the only means to "save" mankind will not help; those societies which suffer in poverty, which live in filth and ignorance, will remain filthy and ignorant, and still poor. They might only be slightly-better dressed.
The issue is not wealth, it is not "redistribution of resources", it isn't boilerplate communism in a new shade of lipstick:
It's culture. Change those cultures where people still crap in their own drinking water and leave their children to die on hillsides, and they'll very quickly become wealthy and self-reliant without an Al Gore or the UN. The Gores and the Watermelons of the world can't change culture; it's too difficult to do by means of persuasion and example. So, force is the only resort. They wish to force the productive to support the unproductive, forever, as a sap to their consciences, and to scratch some mysterious mental itch that they all seem to have which makes them irrationally guilty and overly-emotional. And if they manage to get rich in the process, so much the better.
Never let it be said that communists never appreciate money; they just don't like the people who have it. Al Gore is more concerned these days about his wallet than his scruples.
Al Gore really doesn't give a shit about the planet, because if he did, he wouldn't live in a mansion you could park a 747 in, and which leaks electricity like a sieve. He wouldn't have a houseboat --- with a penthouse on it. He wouldn't fly everywhere he goes on private jets with an entourage of Secret Service Agents and a battalion of sycophants. He wouldn't be writing an article for a newspaper --- which slaughters trees. He wouldn't be concerned about restricting a gas (Carbon dioxide) which is a necessary resource for all life on Earth. He certainly wouldn't be a guy who would be so crass as to make a billion bucks on an invented crisis, would he? I mean, someone this devoted simply couldn't be the same man who happens to run one of the biggest Ponzi-schemes ever devised, the Carbon Credit markets? Don't believe it; Gore, all by himself, is the new Enron.
Al Gore continues to spout his stupidity because Al Gore has a vested interest, a billion-dollar-vested-interest, in doing so. Anything he has to say on the subject of Global Climate Change, Global Warming, a New Ice Age (why is it that the term keeps changing?), or whatever he's selling this week, needs to be taken with a huge dose of scepticism.
The issue that Mr. Gore, and many other Tree-Hugging-Hippies miss is this: climate change happens whether or not human beings have a hand in it. I can drag a few hundred scientists into my living room this afternoon who will be all too happy to explain how they know that the very spot I sit on has been covered in ice sheets several miles thick in the recent, geological past. That ice isn't here anymore (although there is an awful lot of snow on the ground right now), and it hasn't been for 20-40,000 years now.
That means the ice disappeared, maybe before this continent was even populated, without the benefit of smokestacks, internal combustion engines and CFCs. That is to say, the ice retreated without the efforts of a single person. The evidence for climate change is everywhere: the Sahara used to be a lush forest, the Southwestern US used to be the site of mangrove swamps. There is evidence of mass-extinctions which may be related to climate change, and evidence of creatures evolving to take advantage of climate change. In fact, some scientists speculate that had it not been for Global Warming, all the oxygen we now breathe would still be encased in glacial ice, meaning we wouldn't be here.
The conclusion: Climate Change is something that occurs naturally, outside the experience and abilities of man to create, predict or control. It has happened many times before and will continue long after mankind has died from Obamacare. The geological and fossil records prove it to be so. The evidence lead some to believe that mankind has very little effect on his environment, or at least not in the way that Mr. Gore and his compatriots would like you to believe we do. The mechanisms -- the science if you will -- of climate change are poorly-understood, and not fully explored, but, Climate Change has become the new Revolutionary chic. All the fashionable people believe in it, and it's really an excuse to exert power over their fellow human beings. It is Communism in newer guise, given the patina of religion by evoking the Noble Savage and Bucolic Nature Worship.
The Cult of the Watermelon (Green on the outside, Red on the Inside) is supported by a series of "official reports" and "scientific papers" which are based upon deliberate falsehoods. The Ten Commandments, if you will, of Global Warming are all predicated on lies; on data that has been fabricated and kept out of the reach of those who might objectively review it, defended by those who have destroyed records and conspired to professionally ruin their intellectual and political adversaries. Some of the men who perpetrated these lies, who are the demigods of the cult, have even confessed to it.
We know the climate will change, Mr. Gore; we just don't believe that adopting Global Communism under the Auspices of the UN will "save" us. We don't believe that arresting the development of the West to fund the development of Everywhere Else is the solution to the problems of poverty or material dearth, and this, at root, is the true purpose of the Global Climate Change crowd; they wish to redistribute the wealth of the West to the Scum of the Earth.
If the Scum want my way of life, then they can do what my forebears and myself have done: go out and build it for themselves. It's not my fault if they live in absolute squalor, steeped in superstition, trapped in cultures which rate child rape, clitorectomy and cannibalism higher than personal rights, technical advancement and freedoms. The forced redistribution of wealth the Tree Huggers scream is the only means to "save" mankind will not help; those societies which suffer in poverty, which live in filth and ignorance, will remain filthy and ignorant, and still poor. They might only be slightly-better dressed.
The issue is not wealth, it is not "redistribution of resources", it isn't boilerplate communism in a new shade of lipstick:
It's culture. Change those cultures where people still crap in their own drinking water and leave their children to die on hillsides, and they'll very quickly become wealthy and self-reliant without an Al Gore or the UN. The Gores and the Watermelons of the world can't change culture; it's too difficult to do by means of persuasion and example. So, force is the only resort. They wish to force the productive to support the unproductive, forever, as a sap to their consciences, and to scratch some mysterious mental itch that they all seem to have which makes them irrationally guilty and overly-emotional. And if they manage to get rich in the process, so much the better.
Never let it be said that communists never appreciate money; they just don't like the people who have it. Al Gore is more concerned these days about his wallet than his scruples.
Al Gore really doesn't give a shit about the planet, because if he did, he wouldn't live in a mansion you could park a 747 in, and which leaks electricity like a sieve. He wouldn't have a houseboat --- with a penthouse on it. He wouldn't fly everywhere he goes on private jets with an entourage of Secret Service Agents and a battalion of sycophants. He wouldn't be writing an article for a newspaper --- which slaughters trees. He wouldn't be concerned about restricting a gas (Carbon dioxide) which is a necessary resource for all life on Earth. He certainly wouldn't be a guy who would be so crass as to make a billion bucks on an invented crisis, would he? I mean, someone this devoted simply couldn't be the same man who happens to run one of the biggest Ponzi-schemes ever devised, the Carbon Credit markets? Don't believe it; Gore, all by himself, is the new Enron.
Al Gore continues to spout his stupidity because Al Gore has a vested interest, a billion-dollar-vested-interest, in doing so. Anything he has to say on the subject of Global Climate Change, Global Warming, a New Ice Age (why is it that the term keeps changing?), or whatever he's selling this week, needs to be taken with a huge dose of scepticism.
Douchebag of the Week (2/28/10): Louise Slaughter...
(Note: This feature is a bit early this week, as I have much to do on Monday, and blogging will be light-to-nonexistant).
Louise Slaughter (Dingbat, NY) is living proof that no matter what the biological experts have told you, a mule most certainly CAN successfully reproduce...and the end result will be some kind of stubborn, butt-ugly, impenetrably-stupid sort of beast with ungainly features, which emits a loud, ungodly-nasal braying sound that sets the nerves on end so badly that it can cause your scrotum to jump back into your chest cavity.
The Beast can bray all day long, but once you get used to it it's like any other background noise -- after it's initial shard-of-broken-glass-like shock -- and you begin to ignore it, to filter it out. Your subconscious mind decides that if you take this seriously, if you continue to listen to the noise, you will be driven insane and so it blocks it all out, and besides, you've wasted enough time wondering how and why this Beast should sounds like this, and decide that you have better things to do. Before you know it, years have passed, and you've forgotten the painful sights and sounds associated with the Beast.
Years later, when you are reminded of the Beast, you find it has had an awful lot to say in the intervening years. But you haven't been listening for a long time, and so you've barely remembered how monumentally-stupid it was back when you first heard it, and think it couldn't possibly have gotten worse with the passage of time. Now, when you've been forced to take notice again the Godawful Noise comes back and it's spouting things that defy the boundaries of simple words like "stupid", "idiotic", "retarded". A new class of adjectives might be required. And somehow, you realize, this Beast that you once ignored has somehow managed to make a successful career out of useless, painful noise and stupefaction.
Such are the qualities of Representative Louise Slaughter. Yet another Carpetbagger (why is it that this state continually looks outside it's own borders for it's liberal Congressional representation?) she's managed to reverse the old formula of Reconstruction -- a period that she's old enough to remember well -- and move from Kentucky to New York to bring her special brand of bullshit. She's been in the Congress for a very long time, alternately vegetating and gathering dust, and now Alzheimer's might be setting in, because she doesn't sound reasonable or very coherent. She's getting worse in her Old Age (it's said that Louise is so old that when she attended school, there was no such thing as history). The only thing more dangerous than letting an elderly and apparently-confused Louise Slaughter at an open microphone on national television, is to let her at an open microphone so that she can tell the outrageous -- and so-obviously-totally-contrived -- tragedy of a woman who had to use second-hand dentures. Worse, she might regale you with some nonsense about how an insurance company now considers domestic violence to be a pre-existing condition. The resulting footage is hardly very pretty.
After a hard day of listening to President Obama fall in love with the sound of his own voice all over again at the Potemkin-Health Care Summit, and having delivered her Dentures and Dignity diatribe, Louise slipped back into her coffin for a quick afternoon nap, taking the opportunity to have her fangs (no second-hand oral prosthetics here!) sent out to be cleaned and sharpened so that she could sink them into something she really and truly cares about even more than fictional women who swipe their dead sisters' upper plates;
Prosecuting CIA agents who interrogate terrorists.
I wonder, would Louise consider it a gross violation of human rights if terrorists were forced to use second-hand dentures? She probably thinks it evil that we have dedicated professionals doing the things that need to be done in order to defend this country against those who would kill us. No dentures for the indigent is a crime in her mind, but defending the country she wants to cough up the free phony ivories is a no-no. Getting taxpayer-subsidized choppers is a human right, being able to walk down the street without having to dodge airliners and falling office towers is not. Because of the activities of our CIA, FBI and Military interrogators, Louise Slaughter and her cohorts of the Criminally Stupid everywhere are able to live in a world where they have time to devote to this sort of nonsense, where they can earn a really good living being an idiot in public, and still remain safe enough to reorder their personal priorities so that the subject of hand-me-down teeth takes precedence over physical security and liberties.
People who are capable of thinking this way are every bit as dangerous a terrorists. Perhaps we should waterboard them, too? People like this drop IQ points with every bathroom visit.
The law which she tried to introduce by underhanded means -- and which the House dems quickly yanked off the floor when it was discovered -- was stuck into an amendment which was itself stuck into another amendment which authorized the extension of certain aspects of the Patriot Act -- you know, that evil piece of Bushitler legislation that dems all screamed was a violation of basic human and civil rights, but have voted to extend four or five times already?
The super-secret-camouflaged-stealthy amendment would have held our intelligence folks at risk of criminal prosecution if they so much as sneezed in the direction of a terrorist in custody. If they made a terrorist physically or mentally uncomfortable, if they ridiculed him, if they demeaned and degraded or tricked him, if they played upon his fears and cultural taboos in order to get information, the interrogators could be prosecuted and sent to prison. She tried to sneak this amendment in, literally, in the dark of night, and in a way which precluded any debate on it. In fact, had someone not been alert enough to question what the Amendment was -- on the House floor and as it was being added -- it would have passed into law without anyone knowing...except the first people to be prosecuted.
A classically-douchey move all around. Nice going, Louise.
Look up "Douchebag" in the dictionary, and you'll probably find a picture of Louise Slaughter somewhere next to the definition. We salute you, Louise Slaughter. Congratulations on being named as the biggest douchebag in America this week.
Louise Slaughter (Dingbat, NY) is living proof that no matter what the biological experts have told you, a mule most certainly CAN successfully reproduce...and the end result will be some kind of stubborn, butt-ugly, impenetrably-stupid sort of beast with ungainly features, which emits a loud, ungodly-nasal braying sound that sets the nerves on end so badly that it can cause your scrotum to jump back into your chest cavity.
The Beast can bray all day long, but once you get used to it it's like any other background noise -- after it's initial shard-of-broken-glass-like shock -- and you begin to ignore it, to filter it out. Your subconscious mind decides that if you take this seriously, if you continue to listen to the noise, you will be driven insane and so it blocks it all out, and besides, you've wasted enough time wondering how and why this Beast should sounds like this, and decide that you have better things to do. Before you know it, years have passed, and you've forgotten the painful sights and sounds associated with the Beast.
Years later, when you are reminded of the Beast, you find it has had an awful lot to say in the intervening years. But you haven't been listening for a long time, and so you've barely remembered how monumentally-stupid it was back when you first heard it, and think it couldn't possibly have gotten worse with the passage of time. Now, when you've been forced to take notice again the Godawful Noise comes back and it's spouting things that defy the boundaries of simple words like "stupid", "idiotic", "retarded". A new class of adjectives might be required. And somehow, you realize, this Beast that you once ignored has somehow managed to make a successful career out of useless, painful noise and stupefaction.
Such are the qualities of Representative Louise Slaughter. Yet another Carpetbagger (why is it that this state continually looks outside it's own borders for it's liberal Congressional representation?) she's managed to reverse the old formula of Reconstruction -- a period that she's old enough to remember well -- and move from Kentucky to New York to bring her special brand of bullshit. She's been in the Congress for a very long time, alternately vegetating and gathering dust, and now Alzheimer's might be setting in, because she doesn't sound reasonable or very coherent. She's getting worse in her Old Age (it's said that Louise is so old that when she attended school, there was no such thing as history). The only thing more dangerous than letting an elderly and apparently-confused Louise Slaughter at an open microphone on national television, is to let her at an open microphone so that she can tell the outrageous -- and so-obviously-totally-contrived -- tragedy of a woman who had to use second-hand dentures. Worse, she might regale you with some nonsense about how an insurance company now considers domestic violence to be a pre-existing condition. The resulting footage is hardly very pretty.
After a hard day of listening to President Obama fall in love with the sound of his own voice all over again at the Potemkin-Health Care Summit, and having delivered her Dentures and Dignity diatribe, Louise slipped back into her coffin for a quick afternoon nap, taking the opportunity to have her fangs (no second-hand oral prosthetics here!) sent out to be cleaned and sharpened so that she could sink them into something she really and truly cares about even more than fictional women who swipe their dead sisters' upper plates;
Prosecuting CIA agents who interrogate terrorists.
I wonder, would Louise consider it a gross violation of human rights if terrorists were forced to use second-hand dentures? She probably thinks it evil that we have dedicated professionals doing the things that need to be done in order to defend this country against those who would kill us. No dentures for the indigent is a crime in her mind, but defending the country she wants to cough up the free phony ivories is a no-no. Getting taxpayer-subsidized choppers is a human right, being able to walk down the street without having to dodge airliners and falling office towers is not. Because of the activities of our CIA, FBI and Military interrogators, Louise Slaughter and her cohorts of the Criminally Stupid everywhere are able to live in a world where they have time to devote to this sort of nonsense, where they can earn a really good living being an idiot in public, and still remain safe enough to reorder their personal priorities so that the subject of hand-me-down teeth takes precedence over physical security and liberties.
People who are capable of thinking this way are every bit as dangerous a terrorists. Perhaps we should waterboard them, too? People like this drop IQ points with every bathroom visit.
The law which she tried to introduce by underhanded means -- and which the House dems quickly yanked off the floor when it was discovered -- was stuck into an amendment which was itself stuck into another amendment which authorized the extension of certain aspects of the Patriot Act -- you know, that evil piece of Bushitler legislation that dems all screamed was a violation of basic human and civil rights, but have voted to extend four or five times already?
The super-secret-camouflaged-stealthy amendment would have held our intelligence folks at risk of criminal prosecution if they so much as sneezed in the direction of a terrorist in custody. If they made a terrorist physically or mentally uncomfortable, if they ridiculed him, if they demeaned and degraded or tricked him, if they played upon his fears and cultural taboos in order to get information, the interrogators could be prosecuted and sent to prison. She tried to sneak this amendment in, literally, in the dark of night, and in a way which precluded any debate on it. In fact, had someone not been alert enough to question what the Amendment was -- on the House floor and as it was being added -- it would have passed into law without anyone knowing...except the first people to be prosecuted.
A classically-douchey move all around. Nice going, Louise.
Look up "Douchebag" in the dictionary, and you'll probably find a picture of Louise Slaughter somewhere next to the definition. We salute you, Louise Slaughter. Congratulations on being named as the biggest douchebag in America this week.
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