Write something nice about someone, and you get a bunch of his readers to come to your site.
I feel like Marcia Brady.
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Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Global Warming Probably Gave Your Dog Fleas, Too...
In response to this post, an Anonymous reader posted a link to a recent New York Times article on Global Warming, which pretty much says that the recent cold snaps that have struck and crippled Europe this past fortnight, and which dumped 2-feet of snow on New York City the last two days, are, alas, caused by Global Warming, too.
The article is unadulterated bullshit, and the author should be ashamed of himself. Assuming, of course, he had any shame to begin with. But this is par for the course when dealing with the true believers in Man-made Global Catastrophe; they are shameless liars, and possessed of a bulletproof stupidity that they themselves would sneeringly attribute to the poor slugs who, snicker-snicker, believe in God.
Of course, these are the same people who believe that Man has the power to halt the cycle of Evolution and Extinction, and return the planet to a supposed Golden Age where atmospheric conditions were "just right". They can't define "just right", but they know it exists,because it must have...once. And they call Conservatives crazy people who want to turn back the clock?
The major problem with the Global Warming types is that they simply don't care about truth, nor do they care about science. For the committed Tree-Hugger, the debate over global Warming is about neither truth nor science, nor about what's good for the Human Race, it's always about a self-appointed elite who hate their fellow human beings and want to control their lives.
This Elite wants to control your actions a) for their personal (mostly mental) comfort, b) for their personal enrichment, c) because they're pretentious assholes who believe they're better than anyone else, and d) because they're committed to the idea that World Socialism is still a viable system, it just needs a new marketing campaign and better World Socialists to run it.
This is, after all, their overall goal; to bring about World Socialism without having to have debates, without having to fight wars, without having to deal with forces that they cannot control. It's best to concoct a fairy tale of mankind destroying his habitat so as to arrest the growth of the developed nations (The West), while allowing the rest of the planet (The Third World, India, China) to "catch up" industrially by removing any such restrictions upon their activity. In this way, the dream of World Socialism will have been achieved (material equality, or rather, equality of misery) in the way that Socialists typically want it to be achieved; by destroying the rights and privileges of the individual, sovereign nations and traditional institutions.
The package of World Socialism has just been wrapped in festive, brightly-colored, and friendlier paper: now, it's no longer about Proletarian struggle, unavoidable historical forces coming into conflict, class warfare, or a war of ideologies that may lead to actual shooting and nuclear exchange. No, the World Socialism crowd now comes to you claiming they want to save Polar Bears and Tropical Fish, starving African villagers and rain forests full of endangered fruit trees. The goal, however, still remains: control of the world economy, either directly (through the U.N.) or indirectly (again, through the U.N.) by means of treaties, or international law that forces some nations to bear the technical and financial burdens of modernizing all the others.
Global Warming advocates are the slipperiest of eels.
Too hot? Heat waves and droughts?
That's Global Warming.
Too cold? Blizzards?
That's Global Warming, too.
Too Many hurricanes?
Global Warming, for sure.
No Hurricanes at all?
Definitely Global Warming.
Cat missed the litter box? Didn't win the Lottery? Got Vanilla when you asked for Chocolate? Barack Obama got elected President?
Global Warming will get you every time...
Eventually, you get to the point where Global Warming is responsible for Icelandic volcanoes erupting, and Haitian Earthquakes, as some of the dumber Global Warming idiots did, indeed argue, at the time those events occurred.
Ask for proof,and you get "science"that is falsified. Point out the science has been doctored, or worse, relies on assumptions that no one can quantify, and the committed Global Warmer simply moves the goal posts; it's still doesn't matter if the science is fake, the threat is still real, or suddenly, there's a new variable that someone tosses into the equation that's never been reported on, but someone has been studying in his basement for the last 20 years.
They are like the Christian Apologists of the 30's and 40's, who told you that it doesn't really matter if Christ existed, or if there's resurrection of the body, or even if the saintsperformed miracles, what matters is not the literal veracity of Gospel, but the perceived intent. Point out that if you argue that Christ really hadn't risen from the dead, and that there is no real promise of a resurrection of the body, then the pillars upon which their faith rests must surely fail, and you get that most condescending and annoying retort "you're not a theologian, so you can't possibly understand..."
Global Warming douchebags do this all the time. They make claims that cannot be proven, and then in their defense say that you, John Smith, are just too stupid to understand the REAL science. And just like the Christian Apologists, who were always able to stay one step ahead of you in any argument that threatened to devolve into a test of logic, the Global Warming Idiot plays the same confidence trick.
Is there Global Warming? Of course there is. The climate of this planet has changed repeatedly in 4 billion years, and will continue to change long after mankind is gone. How do I know? Because there is provable scientific data that says the Earth has gone through several major Ice Ages in the recent geological past, and since there ain't any glaciers here on Staten Island and my diet doesn't consist of Elephant Seal and Whale Blubber, I have to assume that, consequently, there was at least an equal number of warming events, also easily proved by accepted, provable scientific means, just in case the evidence of your own eyes isn't enough.
The Question is how much does Man's activity contribute to this warming phenomenon,and the answer is...no one actually knows... and when true,honest scientific minds try to find out, they find it is beyond their capacity to actually enumerate, because the complexities of weather and climate are, even in the 21st Century, poorly understood.
The Global Warmer foot soldier, however, is convinced, sans evidence, that ALL the warming is the result of human activity, and the only means to arrest it is to bring progress to a screeching halt,no matter how many people it kills, no matter how many landscapes it destroys, no matter how expensive that might be. In the meantime, his Puppet Masters, the World-Socialists-in-Sheep's-Clothing, sit back and enjoy the wealth and power they accumulate by manipulating the brain-dead masses.
Like most Left-wing movements, EnvironMENTALism is a movement of the Ill-informed-but Well-intentioned, led by the Ill-Intentioned-but Well-informed. Truth, science, and logic have nothing to do with any of it, nor does the bloody weather.
Update: I rest my case.
The article is unadulterated bullshit, and the author should be ashamed of himself. Assuming, of course, he had any shame to begin with. But this is par for the course when dealing with the true believers in Man-made Global Catastrophe; they are shameless liars, and possessed of a bulletproof stupidity that they themselves would sneeringly attribute to the poor slugs who, snicker-snicker, believe in God.
Of course, these are the same people who believe that Man has the power to halt the cycle of Evolution and Extinction, and return the planet to a supposed Golden Age where atmospheric conditions were "just right". They can't define "just right", but they know it exists,because it must have...once. And they call Conservatives crazy people who want to turn back the clock?
The major problem with the Global Warming types is that they simply don't care about truth, nor do they care about science. For the committed Tree-Hugger, the debate over global Warming is about neither truth nor science, nor about what's good for the Human Race, it's always about a self-appointed elite who hate their fellow human beings and want to control their lives.
This Elite wants to control your actions a) for their personal (mostly mental) comfort, b) for their personal enrichment, c) because they're pretentious assholes who believe they're better than anyone else, and d) because they're committed to the idea that World Socialism is still a viable system, it just needs a new marketing campaign and better World Socialists to run it.
This is, after all, their overall goal; to bring about World Socialism without having to have debates, without having to fight wars, without having to deal with forces that they cannot control. It's best to concoct a fairy tale of mankind destroying his habitat so as to arrest the growth of the developed nations (The West), while allowing the rest of the planet (The Third World, India, China) to "catch up" industrially by removing any such restrictions upon their activity. In this way, the dream of World Socialism will have been achieved (material equality, or rather, equality of misery) in the way that Socialists typically want it to be achieved; by destroying the rights and privileges of the individual, sovereign nations and traditional institutions.
The package of World Socialism has just been wrapped in festive, brightly-colored, and friendlier paper: now, it's no longer about Proletarian struggle, unavoidable historical forces coming into conflict, class warfare, or a war of ideologies that may lead to actual shooting and nuclear exchange. No, the World Socialism crowd now comes to you claiming they want to save Polar Bears and Tropical Fish, starving African villagers and rain forests full of endangered fruit trees. The goal, however, still remains: control of the world economy, either directly (through the U.N.) or indirectly (again, through the U.N.) by means of treaties, or international law that forces some nations to bear the technical and financial burdens of modernizing all the others.
Global Warming advocates are the slipperiest of eels.
Too hot? Heat waves and droughts?
That's Global Warming.
Too cold? Blizzards?
That's Global Warming, too.
Too Many hurricanes?
Global Warming, for sure.
No Hurricanes at all?
Definitely Global Warming.
Cat missed the litter box? Didn't win the Lottery? Got Vanilla when you asked for Chocolate? Barack Obama got elected President?
Global Warming will get you every time...
Eventually, you get to the point where Global Warming is responsible for Icelandic volcanoes erupting, and Haitian Earthquakes, as some of the dumber Global Warming idiots did, indeed argue, at the time those events occurred.
Ask for proof,and you get "science"that is falsified. Point out the science has been doctored, or worse, relies on assumptions that no one can quantify, and the committed Global Warmer simply moves the goal posts; it's still doesn't matter if the science is fake, the threat is still real, or suddenly, there's a new variable that someone tosses into the equation that's never been reported on, but someone has been studying in his basement for the last 20 years.
They are like the Christian Apologists of the 30's and 40's, who told you that it doesn't really matter if Christ existed, or if there's resurrection of the body, or even if the saintsperformed miracles, what matters is not the literal veracity of Gospel, but the perceived intent. Point out that if you argue that Christ really hadn't risen from the dead, and that there is no real promise of a resurrection of the body, then the pillars upon which their faith rests must surely fail, and you get that most condescending and annoying retort "you're not a theologian, so you can't possibly understand..."
Global Warming douchebags do this all the time. They make claims that cannot be proven, and then in their defense say that you, John Smith, are just too stupid to understand the REAL science. And just like the Christian Apologists, who were always able to stay one step ahead of you in any argument that threatened to devolve into a test of logic, the Global Warming Idiot plays the same confidence trick.
Is there Global Warming? Of course there is. The climate of this planet has changed repeatedly in 4 billion years, and will continue to change long after mankind is gone. How do I know? Because there is provable scientific data that says the Earth has gone through several major Ice Ages in the recent geological past, and since there ain't any glaciers here on Staten Island and my diet doesn't consist of Elephant Seal and Whale Blubber, I have to assume that, consequently, there was at least an equal number of warming events, also easily proved by accepted, provable scientific means, just in case the evidence of your own eyes isn't enough.
The Question is how much does Man's activity contribute to this warming phenomenon,and the answer is...no one actually knows... and when true,honest scientific minds try to find out, they find it is beyond their capacity to actually enumerate, because the complexities of weather and climate are, even in the 21st Century, poorly understood.
The Global Warmer foot soldier, however, is convinced, sans evidence, that ALL the warming is the result of human activity, and the only means to arrest it is to bring progress to a screeching halt,no matter how many people it kills, no matter how many landscapes it destroys, no matter how expensive that might be. In the meantime, his Puppet Masters, the World-Socialists-in-Sheep's-Clothing, sit back and enjoy the wealth and power they accumulate by manipulating the brain-dead masses.
Like most Left-wing movements, EnvironMENTALism is a movement of the Ill-informed-but Well-intentioned, led by the Ill-Intentioned-but Well-informed. Truth, science, and logic have nothing to do with any of it, nor does the bloody weather.
Update: I rest my case.
The Roll Call of the "Famous" Dead...
One of the things to despise about the end of the year is the annual Roll Call of the Famous Dead. What really sucks about this ritual is that usually half, if not more, of the people on such a list are totally unknown to you, and the recitation of their names leaves you scratching your head; just what the fuck did this person ever do to become famous? And if they really were famous, why haven't I ever heard of them?
Well, that's because most of them fall into a category I will call "Parochial Fame", that is, they were considered a luminary within the small confines of specific circle of people that most normal folks wouldn't associate with if you paid them. Most of your dead poets, obscure writers and philosophers, internationally-known-but-otherwise-back-bencher politicians, career journalistic hacks, and people who "revolutionized" a field that only about 17 people world-wide know about fall into this category. Recite those names in your circle of friends and family, and you'd be genuinely shocked if anyone recognized two of them.
Then there's a second category, which I will call "People Who Became Famous for Shit No one Cares About". You'll find amongst that number such "famous" figures as, oh say, a professional surfer, some dude who scaled Everest three times in his underwear, rich playboys who screwed their way through the all supermodels in the finer European resorts while squandering the family fortune and dying of a drug-resistant strain of clap, the Exiled Crown Prince Of Northeast Buttfuckistan. They would be people who went totally unnoticed in life by anyone who wasn't paid to kiss their ass.
Then there's the final category, which is "Those Made Famous By People Dumber Than They Are". You can put just about any self-help guru, maharishi, fire-and-brimstone reverend, Communist Guerrilla leader, flash-in-the-pan artist/musician or Film Director, into this bin. They'd be totally obscure to most of the general public, and if they were remembered at all, it would most likely be in the motif of "I can't believe I wasted $19.95 on that asshole's Book/Album/Movie/T-shirt".
Amongst the "honored" dead this year, there were, in fact some really famous people (and most of them deservedly so).People who are still household names, who after years have seen their careers have an effect upon the culture that will resonate in the future. They were famous because they actually DID something that made people think, or act, or just made them happy.
I ran across one of those "Dead Celebrities of 2010" lists. I really didn't want to look at it, but Lena Horne and Leslie Neilsen were on the top of the list. So, why not? I enjoyed the work of both. And sure enough, I didn't know about 120 of the 164 people listed. Of those I did know, I decided to take issue with some of them, with regards to their achievement of the "famous" imprimatur.
On the List That No One Could Argue With, we have: Lena Horne, Leslie Neilsen, Tony Curtis, Eddie Fisher, Patricia Neal, George Steinbrenner, Jean Simmons and Teddy Pendergrass. You can argue about the nature of their individual accomplishments, but you can't say none of them are "famous" in the sense that if you stopped 10 people on the street and mentioned their names, you'd get 7 who would recognize at least that much. Some of the names on this list had me asking "what drugs was the person compiling this list taking when he/she conferred "fame" upon this loser?". In no particular order:
* Blake Edwards; was nothing without Peter Sellers. At best, Edwards made his name making risque-I-guess-you-could-call-them-comedy films at the height of the Sexual Revolution (when the taboos surrounding sex were being torn down rapidly), and then nothing else. In the world of film directors, Edwards was a one-trick pony.
* Elizabeth Edwards: Give me a fucking break. So far as I'm concerned, the only thing she ever did was to enable a narcissistic douchebag who might have become President of this country, and then milk the sympathy extended by the public over the death of her child, and her cancer, for a shitload of money. I really hate to piss on her grave this way, but I'm quite certain that Hell has a special place reserved for her and her husband, the Breck Girl.
* Teena Marie - No fucking way. In the world of one-hit wonders, she was barely that. Her "gimmick" was to be a white girl singing R&B and soul music. In a day-and-age of American Idol -- where everyone tries to sound like a cross between Whitney and Aretha, even the Men --that is no longer a distinction, let alone a badge of courage.
* Captain Beefheart - if it wasn't for drugs and 1960/70's counter-culture, this man would have been locked away in a mental institution. If extreme eccentricity, deliberately cultivated as an affectation, is enough to make you "famous", then we're fucking doomed as a species.
* James Wall - never heard of him, have you? He was Captain Kangaroo's sidekick. Certainly a cultural icon. I remember thinking as a child that he was probably a child rapist, one of those people your mother told you not to take candy from. Or maybe that was Mr. Greenjeans? I forget. . He probably has a statue dedicated to his memory in some podunk town like Nosepicker, North Dakota...where no one will ever see it. Along with his carefully-concealed criminal history, and predilection for underage hookers. (Ed. Note: I don't know if any of that is true. It just sounded funny).
* Jimmy Dean -I'm torn. I mean, what would the world be without link sausage?
* Dennis Hooper - everyone has heard of Dennis Hopper, but he was a douchebag, and therefore, undeserving of the orgy of fake grief someone was trying to gin up by putting his name on the list. Sorry, but "Easy Rider" and playing Molly Ringwald's alcoholic father don't make you a great actor, because they were almost all exceedingly bad movies. After that, you pushed the idea that Baby Boomers were miniature gods who fundamentally altered the Universe. Which indicates that you not only made very bad movies, but took too many hallucinogenic drugs, Dingbat.
* Gary Coleman - well, if he wasn't a sick midget with a catchphrase, what would you remember Gary Coleman for, exactly?
* Lynn Redgrave - because no Dead Celebrity List is ever complete without at least one terribly bad English actress on it. Technically, Vanessa is/was worse, but she could at least pull off that vacant stare that could scare the fertilizer out of you.
* Corey Haim - an icon of the incredibly plastic and shallow 1980's. After that, he's only remembered for his addictions, which were numerous, and his appetite for self-immolation, which seems to have been boundless.
* J.D.Salinger - write one really awful book that Libtards love, and somehow this makes you immortal. Salinger was perhaps the worst American writer of the 20th Century, although it's a close-run thing considering there's Jack Kerouac, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Alan Ginsburg, Maya Angelou, Ernest Hemingway and Kurt Vonnegut to consider. They are all, almost universally, unreadable.
Well, that's because most of them fall into a category I will call "Parochial Fame", that is, they were considered a luminary within the small confines of specific circle of people that most normal folks wouldn't associate with if you paid them. Most of your dead poets, obscure writers and philosophers, internationally-known-but-otherwise-back-bencher politicians, career journalistic hacks, and people who "revolutionized" a field that only about 17 people world-wide know about fall into this category. Recite those names in your circle of friends and family, and you'd be genuinely shocked if anyone recognized two of them.
Then there's a second category, which I will call "People Who Became Famous for Shit No one Cares About". You'll find amongst that number such "famous" figures as, oh say, a professional surfer, some dude who scaled Everest three times in his underwear, rich playboys who screwed their way through the all supermodels in the finer European resorts while squandering the family fortune and dying of a drug-resistant strain of clap, the Exiled Crown Prince Of Northeast Buttfuckistan. They would be people who went totally unnoticed in life by anyone who wasn't paid to kiss their ass.
Then there's the final category, which is "Those Made Famous By People Dumber Than They Are". You can put just about any self-help guru, maharishi, fire-and-brimstone reverend, Communist Guerrilla leader, flash-in-the-pan artist/musician or Film Director, into this bin. They'd be totally obscure to most of the general public, and if they were remembered at all, it would most likely be in the motif of "I can't believe I wasted $19.95 on that asshole's Book/Album/Movie/T-shirt".
Amongst the "honored" dead this year, there were, in fact some really famous people (and most of them deservedly so).People who are still household names, who after years have seen their careers have an effect upon the culture that will resonate in the future. They were famous because they actually DID something that made people think, or act, or just made them happy.
I ran across one of those "Dead Celebrities of 2010" lists. I really didn't want to look at it, but Lena Horne and Leslie Neilsen were on the top of the list. So, why not? I enjoyed the work of both. And sure enough, I didn't know about 120 of the 164 people listed. Of those I did know, I decided to take issue with some of them, with regards to their achievement of the "famous" imprimatur.
On the List That No One Could Argue With, we have: Lena Horne, Leslie Neilsen, Tony Curtis, Eddie Fisher, Patricia Neal, George Steinbrenner, Jean Simmons and Teddy Pendergrass. You can argue about the nature of their individual accomplishments, but you can't say none of them are "famous" in the sense that if you stopped 10 people on the street and mentioned their names, you'd get 7 who would recognize at least that much. Some of the names on this list had me asking "what drugs was the person compiling this list taking when he/she conferred "fame" upon this loser?". In no particular order:
* Blake Edwards; was nothing without Peter Sellers. At best, Edwards made his name making risque-I-guess-you-could-call-them-comedy films at the height of the Sexual Revolution (when the taboos surrounding sex were being torn down rapidly), and then nothing else. In the world of film directors, Edwards was a one-trick pony.
* Elizabeth Edwards: Give me a fucking break. So far as I'm concerned, the only thing she ever did was to enable a narcissistic douchebag who might have become President of this country, and then milk the sympathy extended by the public over the death of her child, and her cancer, for a shitload of money. I really hate to piss on her grave this way, but I'm quite certain that Hell has a special place reserved for her and her husband, the Breck Girl.
* Teena Marie - No fucking way. In the world of one-hit wonders, she was barely that. Her "gimmick" was to be a white girl singing R&B and soul music. In a day-and-age of American Idol -- where everyone tries to sound like a cross between Whitney and Aretha, even the Men --that is no longer a distinction, let alone a badge of courage.
* Captain Beefheart - if it wasn't for drugs and 1960/70's counter-culture, this man would have been locked away in a mental institution. If extreme eccentricity, deliberately cultivated as an affectation, is enough to make you "famous", then we're fucking doomed as a species.
* James Wall - never heard of him, have you? He was Captain Kangaroo's sidekick. Certainly a cultural icon. I remember thinking as a child that he was probably a child rapist, one of those people your mother told you not to take candy from. Or maybe that was Mr. Greenjeans? I forget. . He probably has a statue dedicated to his memory in some podunk town like Nosepicker, North Dakota...where no one will ever see it. Along with his carefully-concealed criminal history, and predilection for underage hookers. (Ed. Note: I don't know if any of that is true. It just sounded funny).
* Jimmy Dean -I'm torn. I mean, what would the world be without link sausage?
* Dennis Hooper - everyone has heard of Dennis Hopper, but he was a douchebag, and therefore, undeserving of the orgy of fake grief someone was trying to gin up by putting his name on the list. Sorry, but "Easy Rider" and playing Molly Ringwald's alcoholic father don't make you a great actor, because they were almost all exceedingly bad movies. After that, you pushed the idea that Baby Boomers were miniature gods who fundamentally altered the Universe. Which indicates that you not only made very bad movies, but took too many hallucinogenic drugs, Dingbat.
* Gary Coleman - well, if he wasn't a sick midget with a catchphrase, what would you remember Gary Coleman for, exactly?
* Lynn Redgrave - because no Dead Celebrity List is ever complete without at least one terribly bad English actress on it. Technically, Vanessa is/was worse, but she could at least pull off that vacant stare that could scare the fertilizer out of you.
* Corey Haim - an icon of the incredibly plastic and shallow 1980's. After that, he's only remembered for his addictions, which were numerous, and his appetite for self-immolation, which seems to have been boundless.
* J.D.Salinger - write one really awful book that Libtards love, and somehow this makes you immortal. Salinger was perhaps the worst American writer of the 20th Century, although it's a close-run thing considering there's Jack Kerouac, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Alan Ginsburg, Maya Angelou, Ernest Hemingway and Kurt Vonnegut to consider. They are all, almost universally, unreadable.
The EU and China Are Doomed...
I was discussing this idea I've had rolling around the empty spaces between my ears the other night with a good friend of mine. I think it was about 12 or 15 years ago, when he had married an English Lady and was therefore honor-bound to remain in Britain, that I told him to make sure that he saved his pennies, and made preparations to run back to the United States if that should become necessary, because at that time the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair was seriously considering joining the European Union. Or at least, trying to prepare British citizens for the possibility of being joined at the hip to the French and Germans.
That Labour government never entered the shotgun marriage of full EU membership (that would have meant abandoning the Pound for the Euro, and giving up much that made Britain British), but did inch it's regulatory system closer and closer to the European model (ex: it is now illegal to sell produce in Britain in any measure but metric). I'm convinced that had Blair had another go at things, he would have turned Britain into Belgium, only with prettier women. That the British people resisted Monetary Union, and unaccountable Continental bureaucratic control, is to their credit.
"The European Union cannot last", I told him. "Any organization which has both the French and the Germans in it, is doomed to fail."
Time has proven me right, in the general theory, just not in the particulars. The European Union is now in financial crisis, as is the United States, only the EU economic crisis is one of it's member states own making, because despite all the talk about free markets, the free movement of labor, and all the rosy economic predictions, the member states can't handle austerity or responsibility, either in times of plenty or in times of dearth.
There are no "free" markets in Europe; if the labor markets aren't controlled by the Trade Unions, then the financial markets are rigged by governments (both the elected officials of the member nations, and the unelected bureaucracy of the EU) to favor European concerns above foreign competition. Granted, we do the same things, just not as badly or as ham-handedly as the Euros do.
Anyways, all that stuff about the European social welfare model is finally coming home to roost in such a way that people are recognizing it's true costs.
An economic crisis arrives, austerity measures are needed: and French workers will have to work two more years into their 60's to keep their Social Security system afloat...and they riot.
Greeks riot in the streets of Athens, home of democracy, because the government is stepping up enforcement of tax collection (apparently, Greeks have become expert tax dodgers over the years), and reducing social benefits to stave off bankruptcy.
British "students" (who knew football, female promiscuity and public drunkenness were legitimate fields of study?) riot in the streets because the government cannot continue to provide a "free" college education (note to all you people who are supposed to be getting educated: nothing is ever "free", you just don't happen to pay for it because someone else does, dispshit!). When Her Majesty's Government makes the suggestion that, perhaps, students might pay some of their own tuition, they take to the streets to set things aflame and otherwise make a nuisance of themselves (over a rate so low that it would make an American college student consider blowing someone for British Citizenship).
It was Germany that began the breakup of the EU. Angela Merkel figured that if any part of the European economic system was going to be saved, it might as well be the German part. Austerity is the new buzzword; Germany will not bail out Ireland, Portugal, Spain, in fact, Germany won't bail out anyone it doesn't absolutely have to. The first crack has appeared in the EU; the dam will surely break, and the lesson (which somehow everyone forgets) is finally re-learned -- everyone is friendly...until money is involved.
I had always believed that when (not IF) the EU dissolved, it would be because France and Germany would get into another of their cyclical Fascist phases and then go to war over who had the God-given right to shit all over the Danes, Czechs and Luxembourgers, plunging Europe into another war (the French and Germans have fought three of them in the last 150 years, five in the last 200, if you count Napoleon, and who the hell-knows-how-many since the days of Charlemagne). Instead, the collapse of the EU is because the potential Shitters are afraid of bearing the cost of preserving the Shittees, upon whom they depended to slough off their own social welfare costs in the first place.
How that all sorts itself out is open to debate, and the vagaries of time. However,there's a bigger threat to international security and recovery than a pissing match within the Eurozone, and that threat is China.
China, at present, has three major economic advantages over the West; first, it contains tens of millions of people willing (and happy) to work for low wages. Even the pittance the average Chinese worker makes compared to his Western counterparts represents a great leap forward (no pun intended) for the average Chinese. Secondly, China is a place where speculators can run wild, making a killing -- on paper -- with little real investment. Some places in China are so remote and economically-depressed that the installation of a gumball machine or a pay phone represents 1000% economic growth. A skillful speculator can take those paper gains, and turn them into real cash. The Communist government certainly has, mostly because it's the body which produces the inflated economic figures in the first place.
All that Wall Street talk of China being "the biggest potential market in the world" is just that; talk. We've heard it for 30 years, and the Chinese trade imbalance with America grows worse with every goddamned day. Those who brag about opening Chinese markets and cheerleading the growth of Chinese capitalism are blowing smoke up your ass: they're simply trying to keep the investment pipeline open to prevent yet another bubble from breaking.
The third advantage which China enjoys is a corrupt government willing to do anything in order to maintain the power to slaughter millions if it feels itself threatened. It's why the Commies "liberalized" the economic system in the first place. This seeming-abandonment of Communism for unbridled Capitalism is merely a shield intended to buy the Chinese Communist apparatus the time and money necessary to save it's own skin when the time comes. China has learned the true lessons that Mikhail Gorbachev taught totalitarian regimes with his programs of glasnost and perestroika:
It's okay for The People to have the illusion of wealth, for as long as they believe their standard of living is rising, political unrest can be kept at bay. Let the people get rich, just don't let them demand -- or get -- political rights. And herein lay the problem.
Within a generation, perhaps two, China will be rent by political discord. The sources of this unrest will be a rising Middle Class, and a generation of unmarried and childless Men. This Middle Class, the first generation of accumulators of real wealth in Chinese history, will very soon demand that their modest fortunes be preserved for future generations -- and the first threat they'll want their money protected from is their own government. There will be calls, and possibly bloody riots, for political, economic, and legal freedoms/protections that the Communists will be unable to contain, deflect or ignore without great bloodshed.
At the same time, there will arise a peculiar class of Men denied the right to a wife and family by draconian birth control policies that have made marriageable females scarce, and which will have given what women there are a power they have never had before in China; the right to pick and choose the "best" husbands from the nuveau-riche parvenus, perhaps to even command huge payments and advantageous pre-nuptual agreements that the average man simply cannot provide.
There will be tens of millions of Chinese men who will have no, or limited, prospects for wives and children...and they won't be getting laid. Societies in which men can't engage in regular sexual activity, attain wives, or produce families to pass on both their genes and their property have far too much energy and time for other things...like violence. The sort of violence which one normally associates with the Middle East -- another sexually-deprived culture where wives are hard to come by once one runs out of first-cousins, and where inbreeding, closet homosexuality and bestiality are rampant, and grave threats to anything that can be considered civilized society.
There can never be enough Japanese sex robots to keep these guys in check.
The combination of a new Middle Class and the Man-with-no-marital-prospects will, eventually, mean the end of Chinese "Communism", and destroy much of the gains China has made economically in the last 30 years through some sort of Civil War. Whether it's a Peaceful Revolution, or one of those historically-cyclical-and-violent episodes of Chinese history is yet to be seen, but I'm betting on it being one hell of a holy mess, because let's face it; everyone is friendly...until there's money...or pussy...involved.
UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal reports an agreement between France and Germany that might save Ireland from insolvency, but undermine the Euro in the process. The article suggests the belief that this plan will bring the Eurozone members closer together, but let's get real; that's propaganda. The real story here is that the failings of the Irish (and Spanish, Portugese, etc) banks will fall squarely where they belong; on the shoulders of the investors who hold the bad debt.
Also, Tea Parties rising in Germany? We all know how well German Nationalist parties meeting in Munich beerhouses have worked in the past, don't we?
That Labour government never entered the shotgun marriage of full EU membership (that would have meant abandoning the Pound for the Euro, and giving up much that made Britain British), but did inch it's regulatory system closer and closer to the European model (ex: it is now illegal to sell produce in Britain in any measure but metric). I'm convinced that had Blair had another go at things, he would have turned Britain into Belgium, only with prettier women. That the British people resisted Monetary Union, and unaccountable Continental bureaucratic control, is to their credit.
"The European Union cannot last", I told him. "Any organization which has both the French and the Germans in it, is doomed to fail."
Time has proven me right, in the general theory, just not in the particulars. The European Union is now in financial crisis, as is the United States, only the EU economic crisis is one of it's member states own making, because despite all the talk about free markets, the free movement of labor, and all the rosy economic predictions, the member states can't handle austerity or responsibility, either in times of plenty or in times of dearth.
There are no "free" markets in Europe; if the labor markets aren't controlled by the Trade Unions, then the financial markets are rigged by governments (both the elected officials of the member nations, and the unelected bureaucracy of the EU) to favor European concerns above foreign competition. Granted, we do the same things, just not as badly or as ham-handedly as the Euros do.
Anyways, all that stuff about the European social welfare model is finally coming home to roost in such a way that people are recognizing it's true costs.
An economic crisis arrives, austerity measures are needed: and French workers will have to work two more years into their 60's to keep their Social Security system afloat...and they riot.
Greeks riot in the streets of Athens, home of democracy, because the government is stepping up enforcement of tax collection (apparently, Greeks have become expert tax dodgers over the years), and reducing social benefits to stave off bankruptcy.
British "students" (who knew football, female promiscuity and public drunkenness were legitimate fields of study?) riot in the streets because the government cannot continue to provide a "free" college education (note to all you people who are supposed to be getting educated: nothing is ever "free", you just don't happen to pay for it because someone else does, dispshit!). When Her Majesty's Government makes the suggestion that, perhaps, students might pay some of their own tuition, they take to the streets to set things aflame and otherwise make a nuisance of themselves (over a rate so low that it would make an American college student consider blowing someone for British Citizenship).
It was Germany that began the breakup of the EU. Angela Merkel figured that if any part of the European economic system was going to be saved, it might as well be the German part. Austerity is the new buzzword; Germany will not bail out Ireland, Portugal, Spain, in fact, Germany won't bail out anyone it doesn't absolutely have to. The first crack has appeared in the EU; the dam will surely break, and the lesson (which somehow everyone forgets) is finally re-learned -- everyone is friendly...until money is involved.
I had always believed that when (not IF) the EU dissolved, it would be because France and Germany would get into another of their cyclical Fascist phases and then go to war over who had the God-given right to shit all over the Danes, Czechs and Luxembourgers, plunging Europe into another war (the French and Germans have fought three of them in the last 150 years, five in the last 200, if you count Napoleon, and who the hell-knows-how-many since the days of Charlemagne). Instead, the collapse of the EU is because the potential Shitters are afraid of bearing the cost of preserving the Shittees, upon whom they depended to slough off their own social welfare costs in the first place.
How that all sorts itself out is open to debate, and the vagaries of time. However,there's a bigger threat to international security and recovery than a pissing match within the Eurozone, and that threat is China.
China, at present, has three major economic advantages over the West; first, it contains tens of millions of people willing (and happy) to work for low wages. Even the pittance the average Chinese worker makes compared to his Western counterparts represents a great leap forward (no pun intended) for the average Chinese. Secondly, China is a place where speculators can run wild, making a killing -- on paper -- with little real investment. Some places in China are so remote and economically-depressed that the installation of a gumball machine or a pay phone represents 1000% economic growth. A skillful speculator can take those paper gains, and turn them into real cash. The Communist government certainly has, mostly because it's the body which produces the inflated economic figures in the first place.
All that Wall Street talk of China being "the biggest potential market in the world" is just that; talk. We've heard it for 30 years, and the Chinese trade imbalance with America grows worse with every goddamned day. Those who brag about opening Chinese markets and cheerleading the growth of Chinese capitalism are blowing smoke up your ass: they're simply trying to keep the investment pipeline open to prevent yet another bubble from breaking.
The third advantage which China enjoys is a corrupt government willing to do anything in order to maintain the power to slaughter millions if it feels itself threatened. It's why the Commies "liberalized" the economic system in the first place. This seeming-abandonment of Communism for unbridled Capitalism is merely a shield intended to buy the Chinese Communist apparatus the time and money necessary to save it's own skin when the time comes. China has learned the true lessons that Mikhail Gorbachev taught totalitarian regimes with his programs of glasnost and perestroika:
It's okay for The People to have the illusion of wealth, for as long as they believe their standard of living is rising, political unrest can be kept at bay. Let the people get rich, just don't let them demand -- or get -- political rights. And herein lay the problem.
Within a generation, perhaps two, China will be rent by political discord. The sources of this unrest will be a rising Middle Class, and a generation of unmarried and childless Men. This Middle Class, the first generation of accumulators of real wealth in Chinese history, will very soon demand that their modest fortunes be preserved for future generations -- and the first threat they'll want their money protected from is their own government. There will be calls, and possibly bloody riots, for political, economic, and legal freedoms/protections that the Communists will be unable to contain, deflect or ignore without great bloodshed.
At the same time, there will arise a peculiar class of Men denied the right to a wife and family by draconian birth control policies that have made marriageable females scarce, and which will have given what women there are a power they have never had before in China; the right to pick and choose the "best" husbands from the nuveau-riche parvenus, perhaps to even command huge payments and advantageous pre-nuptual agreements that the average man simply cannot provide.
There will be tens of millions of Chinese men who will have no, or limited, prospects for wives and children...and they won't be getting laid. Societies in which men can't engage in regular sexual activity, attain wives, or produce families to pass on both their genes and their property have far too much energy and time for other things...like violence. The sort of violence which one normally associates with the Middle East -- another sexually-deprived culture where wives are hard to come by once one runs out of first-cousins, and where inbreeding, closet homosexuality and bestiality are rampant, and grave threats to anything that can be considered civilized society.
There can never be enough Japanese sex robots to keep these guys in check.
The combination of a new Middle Class and the Man-with-no-marital-prospects will, eventually, mean the end of Chinese "Communism", and destroy much of the gains China has made economically in the last 30 years through some sort of Civil War. Whether it's a Peaceful Revolution, or one of those historically-cyclical-and-violent episodes of Chinese history is yet to be seen, but I'm betting on it being one hell of a holy mess, because let's face it; everyone is friendly...until there's money...or pussy...involved.
UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal reports an agreement between France and Germany that might save Ireland from insolvency, but undermine the Euro in the process. The article suggests the belief that this plan will bring the Eurozone members closer together, but let's get real; that's propaganda. The real story here is that the failings of the Irish (and Spanish, Portugese, etc) banks will fall squarely where they belong; on the shoulders of the investors who hold the bad debt.
Also, Tea Parties rising in Germany? We all know how well German Nationalist parties meeting in Munich beerhouses have worked in the past, don't we?
IowaHawk is God...
If you're STILL not reading IowaHawk regularly, then you, Sir or Madame, are a dipshit. One that should be taken out and sterilized with the rustiest of farm implements, so that you may not pollute the gene pool with future generations of little dipshits. Who will grow up into big dipshits, who will vote democratic and believe in Global Warming, and all that rot, and continue the cycle of dipshits who don't read IowaHawk.
Just read the damned thing!
So, you've lost your election...
Just read the damned thing!
So, you've lost your election...
Unions: Guaranteeing Stupid People Jobs at Salaries They Could Never Earn in The Free Marketplace...
How Union members Christmas Carol.
Harken back to the heath care debates, the Town Hall meetings, the fight over GM and Chrysler Bailouts. Remember how the Unions tried to "fight for their rights" to keep cushy jobs at inflated salaries that bankrupted their employers back then? Usually by beating their opponents up (typically elderly Tea Party folks and Conservatives).
(Ed. Note: Forgot to mention this: the Obama Stimulus Bill was largely a pay-off to Public-Sector Unions for their political support, which is why it has so little positive economic effect).
The truth is that Unions exist to protect the following categories of people:
a. The Stupid
b. The Lazy
c. Thugs
d. All of the above.
Without a Union job, these categories of people would be limited in their career choices. Their choices would be:
a) Orange jumpsuits
b) Any job that required them to ask a customer if they wanted fries with that.
Now, mind you, that's a broad-brush description of the Unions, I'll admit. I do happen to know plenty of people who aren't stupid, lazy, or thuggish, and who belong to a Union. I also probably know twice as many who are, and the good Union folks are outnumbered by the bad ones by, in my estimation, a 3-to-1 margin.
If the Union doesn't exist to ensure the drooling knuckle-draggers in society have (arguably-)gainful employment, then it exists to extort the best possible kickbacks for itself under the guise of Worker's Rights. In a day and age of the EEOC, Civil Rights legislation up the wazoo, an overly-litigious society, and Diversity-for-the-fucking-sake-of-it, exactly what rights is the Union guaranteeing, besides inflated wages from which it takes a healthy cut?
And what does the Union do with that money? Well, after it pays it's executives handsomely for being a bunch of douchebags spouting communist boilerplate, it buys politicians. Democratic ones, because they're the closest in terms of commie sympathies to the Union executives, so they can keep the scam going. But when the executives aren't busy doing that, they're organizing a bunch of Neanderthals to trespass on private property on Christmas for the sake of yelling "Fuck You!"at the people who employ them, the ungrateful bastards.
Money quote from the article:
"Yes, those evil business owners who are trying to cut costs because a president who the unions supported and donated money to is forcing business to trim costs so they can afford his massive health control law and other regulations thrown on them. If the unions are unhappy with this then perhaps then need to look at the economic situation this president has created instead of blaming skittish business owners simply trying to stay afloat in a dismal economic period."
The Unions supported Obama, they can now think about just what that support has cost them. Right after they start thinking about what their members are costing America; right now, New York, California and several other states are on the verge of insolvency, if not outright bankruptcy, because they will not be able to bear the costs of their Public Union pension obligations.
I can promise you that if these states go into default, the first thing the Federal bankruptcy judges will do, with the connivance of democrats in Congress and Obama, will be to allow states to abrogate those pension promises, and give the Big Purple Shaft to all those Union people. Will they then bus themselves to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to shout "Fuck You!" at the Savior of the Universe?
Or will they just start beating up elderly folks engaged in the exercise of their Civil Rights again?
I await the answers to these questions eagerly.
The next time someone tells you that a labor union exists to ensure the rights of the working man, and to advance concepts of fundamental fairness and brotherhood, make sure you ask them if busing people in to beat up Tea Partiers, or to intimidate a man's family by shouting obscenities on his front lawn on Christmas Eve is really the best way of doing those things.
Here's an example of what happens when the Unions collude with politicians:
Teacher accused of sexual assault spends 13 years in Rubber Room...With full Pay and Benefits.
Totally-related true story: All this stuff about the rights and needs of the Working Man reminded me of the ultimate fate of a friend of my father's, who was a member of UAW. This man had begun working for GM sometime in the late-1950's/early 60's as a Leader (that's the metal, Lead, and not as some sort of General) back in the days when auto chasis were slathered in layers of lead as an anti-rusting measure.
Sometime in the 1970's -- I believe after Nixon had created the EPA in any case -- the use of lead in car bodies came to an abrupt end. Too dangerous, too polluting. However, this would have meant the forced unemployment of thousands of UAW members,and so the Unions fought to keep leaders on the job. Only they weren't always on the assembly line or reassigned to other jobs. So, "Frank" basically had a job that he showed up to where his only obligation was to punch a time clock, and where he had the access to tools and materials to make little lead figurines all day.
In fact, I was given some of the lead soldiers "Frank" used to make as playthings when I was a child.
Anyways, sometime in the (I think) mid-1980's, "Frank" dropped dead of a massive heart attack, just a few years shy of full retirement. I remember people saying at the time that "Frank" was, indeed, fortunate to have perished so quickly, for had he lingered much longer, he would have suffered a much worse fate because he was beginning to show the effects of prolonged expsure to lead. Had he actually lived longer, his life would have been one of incredible pain and discomfort, shuffling between one hospital and another waiting for transplants, because many of his major organs were damaged beyond repair by lead poisoning.
The UAW, far from protecting his rights and seeing to his needs, would probably have killed him via lead poisoning in the process of "saving" his redundant and unecessary job, just so that the UAW could continue to collect his union dues with which to bribe politicians and enrich the Union Execs.
Harken back to the heath care debates, the Town Hall meetings, the fight over GM and Chrysler Bailouts. Remember how the Unions tried to "fight for their rights" to keep cushy jobs at inflated salaries that bankrupted their employers back then? Usually by beating their opponents up (typically elderly Tea Party folks and Conservatives).
(Ed. Note: Forgot to mention this: the Obama Stimulus Bill was largely a pay-off to Public-Sector Unions for their political support, which is why it has so little positive economic effect).
The truth is that Unions exist to protect the following categories of people:
a. The Stupid
b. The Lazy
c. Thugs
d. All of the above.
Without a Union job, these categories of people would be limited in their career choices. Their choices would be:
a) Orange jumpsuits
b) Any job that required them to ask a customer if they wanted fries with that.
Now, mind you, that's a broad-brush description of the Unions, I'll admit. I do happen to know plenty of people who aren't stupid, lazy, or thuggish, and who belong to a Union. I also probably know twice as many who are, and the good Union folks are outnumbered by the bad ones by, in my estimation, a 3-to-1 margin.
If the Union doesn't exist to ensure the drooling knuckle-draggers in society have (arguably-)gainful employment, then it exists to extort the best possible kickbacks for itself under the guise of Worker's Rights. In a day and age of the EEOC, Civil Rights legislation up the wazoo, an overly-litigious society, and Diversity-for-the-fucking-sake-of-it, exactly what rights is the Union guaranteeing, besides inflated wages from which it takes a healthy cut?
And what does the Union do with that money? Well, after it pays it's executives handsomely for being a bunch of douchebags spouting communist boilerplate, it buys politicians. Democratic ones, because they're the closest in terms of commie sympathies to the Union executives, so they can keep the scam going. But when the executives aren't busy doing that, they're organizing a bunch of Neanderthals to trespass on private property on Christmas for the sake of yelling "Fuck You!"at the people who employ them, the ungrateful bastards.
Money quote from the article:
"Yes, those evil business owners who are trying to cut costs because a president who the unions supported and donated money to is forcing business to trim costs so they can afford his massive health control law and other regulations thrown on them. If the unions are unhappy with this then perhaps then need to look at the economic situation this president has created instead of blaming skittish business owners simply trying to stay afloat in a dismal economic period."
The Unions supported Obama, they can now think about just what that support has cost them. Right after they start thinking about what their members are costing America; right now, New York, California and several other states are on the verge of insolvency, if not outright bankruptcy, because they will not be able to bear the costs of their Public Union pension obligations.
I can promise you that if these states go into default, the first thing the Federal bankruptcy judges will do, with the connivance of democrats in Congress and Obama, will be to allow states to abrogate those pension promises, and give the Big Purple Shaft to all those Union people. Will they then bus themselves to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to shout "Fuck You!" at the Savior of the Universe?
Or will they just start beating up elderly folks engaged in the exercise of their Civil Rights again?
I await the answers to these questions eagerly.
The next time someone tells you that a labor union exists to ensure the rights of the working man, and to advance concepts of fundamental fairness and brotherhood, make sure you ask them if busing people in to beat up Tea Partiers, or to intimidate a man's family by shouting obscenities on his front lawn on Christmas Eve is really the best way of doing those things.
Here's an example of what happens when the Unions collude with politicians:
Teacher accused of sexual assault spends 13 years in Rubber Room...With full Pay and Benefits.
Totally-related true story: All this stuff about the rights and needs of the Working Man reminded me of the ultimate fate of a friend of my father's, who was a member of UAW. This man had begun working for GM sometime in the late-1950's/early 60's as a Leader (that's the metal, Lead, and not as some sort of General) back in the days when auto chasis were slathered in layers of lead as an anti-rusting measure.
Sometime in the 1970's -- I believe after Nixon had created the EPA in any case -- the use of lead in car bodies came to an abrupt end. Too dangerous, too polluting. However, this would have meant the forced unemployment of thousands of UAW members,and so the Unions fought to keep leaders on the job. Only they weren't always on the assembly line or reassigned to other jobs. So, "Frank" basically had a job that he showed up to where his only obligation was to punch a time clock, and where he had the access to tools and materials to make little lead figurines all day.
In fact, I was given some of the lead soldiers "Frank" used to make as playthings when I was a child.
Anyways, sometime in the (I think) mid-1980's, "Frank" dropped dead of a massive heart attack, just a few years shy of full retirement. I remember people saying at the time that "Frank" was, indeed, fortunate to have perished so quickly, for had he lingered much longer, he would have suffered a much worse fate because he was beginning to show the effects of prolonged expsure to lead. Had he actually lived longer, his life would have been one of incredible pain and discomfort, shuffling between one hospital and another waiting for transplants, because many of his major organs were damaged beyond repair by lead poisoning.
The UAW, far from protecting his rights and seeing to his needs, would probably have killed him via lead poisoning in the process of "saving" his redundant and unecessary job, just so that the UAW could continue to collect his union dues with which to bribe politicians and enrich the Union Execs.
The Athenian Legacy...
A very good article on the nature of Freedom, which I found quite interesting. It's a bit thick to read, but well worth the effort. If more people in this country were aware of this sort of thing, we'd all be in much better shape, and would probably have never elected the string of incompetent-but-well-meaning doofuses from Bush I to the Present (very-temporary) Inhabitant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Emperor Barack Hussein Obama I.
I don't agree with everything the author had to say, but he made enough interesting points for me to recommend that you invest your time in reading it.
If you don't, I will hunt you down and kill you in your sleep.
I don't agree with everything the author had to say, but he made enough interesting points for me to recommend that you invest your time in reading it.
If you don't, I will hunt you down and kill you in your sleep.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Snowbound!
There is approximately 3 feet of snow outside the front door this morning. I don't think it actually snowed that much, but the wind has piled drifts that high just about everywhere. I can see no cars on the street;the streets are unplowed, and the parked cars are buried except for little bits of color, or perhaps a side-view mirror sticking out of the drifts.
I was just saying to my nephews on Christmas Day, that it would be a good idea to rent a snow-blower from the local tool rental in anticipation of this storm, so that we could spend the first day afterwards making a killing on driveways and walkways, but they had no enthusiasm for the project, and then I didn't get the chance to actually put the plan into action. Now I'm kicking myself: the opportunity to make several hundred dollars (cash!) this day has gone right out the window.
I wish Al Gore were here right now so that I could push his face into the snow. I'd grab him by the back of his toupee, and hold his head inside a drift, and yell "What was that about global warming, Fuckface!? Huh? What was that about fucking polar bears?" Then I'd bitchslap him a few times and send him home crying to his mother. After I took his lunch money.
Oh, and speaking of mothers...
Mine was in rare form last night. She's one of those people upon whom television actually works. Let me explain that; if there's an announcement of impending holocaust transmitted over the airwaves, she'll buy it, hook, line and sinker. There will be no personal analysis of the information, no thought given to it's veracity, no attempt to put the announcement in context, no need to go to a different source to verify this or that stated "fact", no critical thinking skills involved, whatsoever. If it was on television, it must be true, and cannot be argued against.
And so it was that last night's overwrought, overdone wall-to-wall weather reporting which would have had you believing the Earth was entering a new Ice Age, worked it's fear-mongering magic upon her. (Just why is it that every local TV station must do this? They interrupt normal programming to give you an over-the-top, fear-injected five-hour weather report -- with other assholes in parkas and microphones standing at strategic locations to tell you how the bread lines are at the supermarkets -- to tell you what you already know: It's snowing outside...a lot).
I happened to be out last night. My friends are in New York from Britain for the holidays, and I haven't seen them for over a year. In fact, I barely get to see any of my friends, at all. They all live in different cities, states, and even countries. A little thing like a snowstorm wasn't keeping me home. Besides, this is New York; unlike most other places that either completely shut down in a snowstorm, or where complete pandemonium breaks out after a light dusting, we New Yorkers can deal with snow. Even two feet of it with 60-mph winds. If you can't, you're a pussy.
Get yourself some boots, dammit.
So, there I am, getting ready to enjoy a lovely evening, with lovely people, and...mother keeps calling their hotel room. She managed to get through twice, but that's only because the first three times she tried she had the wrong number. The Television Weather Report had achieved it's goal of making a winter snowstorm (like they never happen?) seem like the Apocalypse. Mom is now worried that I won't be able to get home, and every minute that goes by brings more dire and dreadful predictions and pronouncements from the Weather Chick on Channel 4 Whom I'd Like to Fucking Strangle Now.
Note to all my readers who may not have known this previously: your local weatherdouche gets his/her information from the National Weather Service. The Weather Service is actually pretty good at collecting information about weather and weather patterns, BUT, despite all of their Accu-weather-this, and Doppler-4000-that, you cannot get a weather report that is accurate to within 4 hours, give or take. This means that the idiot on the television giving you the temperature, and prognosticating over the prospects of rain and snow probably provides information as accurate as you could get by simply sticking your fucking head out the window.
And since his/her information comes from the same Federal Government that pays $400 for toilet paper and considers forced redistribution of wealth to drug addicts, career baby mamas, and people who just plain don't give a shit to be an anti-poverty program, well, you can just imagine how accurate your weather reporting actually is, despite all the super-expensive high-tech whizzbangery involved.
You see, Mom was frightened to death by the doom monger before the green-screen map. However, because she's my mother -- and that means she's a neurotic mess -- what worried her the most was that even if had successfully made the Odyssean journey from Manhattan to Staten Island, I might arrive at a time when the front door would be snowed shut by an accumulation of snow at it's base.
I'll repeat that: my mother was scared out of her fucking skull that I would be snowed out of my own house, and that I just might not be smart or motivated enough to dig through to the front door, if I really needed to. I suppose she thought I would, upon finding the door buried in snow, simply curl up on the doorstep and accept my fate quietly, like a dying Alpha Wolf in those nature documentaries. Or maybe she thought I would stand there for several hours like a nose-picking moron at a complete loss as to what to do, whereupon I would freeze to death. That would be embarrassing...for her. Her friends would all say, "My, how strange...he froze to death just feet from his own front door...The poor boy."
But first, she'd enjoy all the attention she'd get at the funeral.
So there it is; dinner plans shot to hell. My first night out in about a month, wasted. An opportunity to see friends that live 3,000 miles away frittered away; I've been cheated by a conspiracy of foul weather and a mother who lays awake all night in a panic that the front door will never be open ever again.
Maybe I'll bury her in the snow, and let Al Gore off with a Wet-Willie?
I was just saying to my nephews on Christmas Day, that it would be a good idea to rent a snow-blower from the local tool rental in anticipation of this storm, so that we could spend the first day afterwards making a killing on driveways and walkways, but they had no enthusiasm for the project, and then I didn't get the chance to actually put the plan into action. Now I'm kicking myself: the opportunity to make several hundred dollars (cash!) this day has gone right out the window.
I wish Al Gore were here right now so that I could push his face into the snow. I'd grab him by the back of his toupee, and hold his head inside a drift, and yell "What was that about global warming, Fuckface!? Huh? What was that about fucking polar bears?" Then I'd bitchslap him a few times and send him home crying to his mother. After I took his lunch money.
Oh, and speaking of mothers...
Mine was in rare form last night. She's one of those people upon whom television actually works. Let me explain that; if there's an announcement of impending holocaust transmitted over the airwaves, she'll buy it, hook, line and sinker. There will be no personal analysis of the information, no thought given to it's veracity, no attempt to put the announcement in context, no need to go to a different source to verify this or that stated "fact", no critical thinking skills involved, whatsoever. If it was on television, it must be true, and cannot be argued against.
And so it was that last night's overwrought, overdone wall-to-wall weather reporting which would have had you believing the Earth was entering a new Ice Age, worked it's fear-mongering magic upon her. (Just why is it that every local TV station must do this? They interrupt normal programming to give you an over-the-top, fear-injected five-hour weather report -- with other assholes in parkas and microphones standing at strategic locations to tell you how the bread lines are at the supermarkets -- to tell you what you already know: It's snowing outside...a lot).
I happened to be out last night. My friends are in New York from Britain for the holidays, and I haven't seen them for over a year. In fact, I barely get to see any of my friends, at all. They all live in different cities, states, and even countries. A little thing like a snowstorm wasn't keeping me home. Besides, this is New York; unlike most other places that either completely shut down in a snowstorm, or where complete pandemonium breaks out after a light dusting, we New Yorkers can deal with snow. Even two feet of it with 60-mph winds. If you can't, you're a pussy.
Get yourself some boots, dammit.
So, there I am, getting ready to enjoy a lovely evening, with lovely people, and...mother keeps calling their hotel room. She managed to get through twice, but that's only because the first three times she tried she had the wrong number. The Television Weather Report had achieved it's goal of making a winter snowstorm (like they never happen?) seem like the Apocalypse. Mom is now worried that I won't be able to get home, and every minute that goes by brings more dire and dreadful predictions and pronouncements from the Weather Chick on Channel 4 Whom I'd Like to Fucking Strangle Now.
Note to all my readers who may not have known this previously: your local weatherdouche gets his/her information from the National Weather Service. The Weather Service is actually pretty good at collecting information about weather and weather patterns, BUT, despite all of their Accu-weather-this, and Doppler-4000-that, you cannot get a weather report that is accurate to within 4 hours, give or take. This means that the idiot on the television giving you the temperature, and prognosticating over the prospects of rain and snow probably provides information as accurate as you could get by simply sticking your fucking head out the window.
And since his/her information comes from the same Federal Government that pays $400 for toilet paper and considers forced redistribution of wealth to drug addicts, career baby mamas, and people who just plain don't give a shit to be an anti-poverty program, well, you can just imagine how accurate your weather reporting actually is, despite all the super-expensive high-tech whizzbangery involved.
You see, Mom was frightened to death by the doom monger before the green-screen map. However, because she's my mother -- and that means she's a neurotic mess -- what worried her the most was that even if had successfully made the Odyssean journey from Manhattan to Staten Island, I might arrive at a time when the front door would be snowed shut by an accumulation of snow at it's base.
I'll repeat that: my mother was scared out of her fucking skull that I would be snowed out of my own house, and that I just might not be smart or motivated enough to dig through to the front door, if I really needed to. I suppose she thought I would, upon finding the door buried in snow, simply curl up on the doorstep and accept my fate quietly, like a dying Alpha Wolf in those nature documentaries. Or maybe she thought I would stand there for several hours like a nose-picking moron at a complete loss as to what to do, whereupon I would freeze to death. That would be embarrassing...for her. Her friends would all say, "My, how strange...he froze to death just feet from his own front door...The poor boy."
But first, she'd enjoy all the attention she'd get at the funeral.
So there it is; dinner plans shot to hell. My first night out in about a month, wasted. An opportunity to see friends that live 3,000 miles away frittered away; I've been cheated by a conspiracy of foul weather and a mother who lays awake all night in a panic that the front door will never be open ever again.
Maybe I'll bury her in the snow, and let Al Gore off with a Wet-Willie?
Sunday, December 26, 2010
A Very Good Holiday...
I'm not really one for holidays, anymore. I would have to say that if given a choice, most of the time I would prefer to stay in with a good book, movie, or a video game rather than get dressed up, take a 2-hour drive to someplace I'd rather not be, and then go through all the saccharine nonsense attendant to a Christmas celebration.
I'm not a religious man, so the idea of commemorating a Savior doesn't do anything for me. I imagine my Saviors to be a cross between George S. Patton and The X-Men, anyways. I'd like to put a pickaxe through the face of a good number of my relatives. Not because they're bad people, mind you, but because I find the company of some rather maddeningly annoying, like an inflamed hemorrhoid that alternates between a dull throb and a stabbing pain, but retains the constant itch. (Ed. note: That wing of the family didn't show this year. Whew!)
Why, if it wasn't for "the kids", and an extravagant meal, Christmas would probably be much like any other day for me, only with fucking Candy Canes. I could very easily just enjoy my Christmas dinner, grunt a thing or two at the guests, and then leave. In fact, I'd prefer to do exactly that.
But this year was different.
Three of my nephews are now old enough where Christmas ceases to be a wondrous event. It has simply become one of the annoyances of being a teenager; your parents dragging you off to places you don't want to be in order to give kisses to ancient relatives who smell like mothballs. You'd rather be hanging out at the Mall (which is, I believe, what teenagers around here do, for lack of anything else), and are engrossed by that stupid text-message thingy which has become the Herald of the Anti-Christ; it absorbs most of your time so that you're rotten company, anyway. You can't buy them toys anymore, and if you try to buy them clothes you'll usually get a sullen and begrudging thank you (more like a"Screw you! You expect me to be seen in public wearing this?"), and that's about it.
Which is I why I gave the three oldest cash. I give everyone cash; no one ever returns it, it's always the right size, and no one complains about the color.
But, the Little Guy...now there's a horse of a different color.
My nephew Mark is five. He still believes in Santa Claus. He still gets excited by the prospect of new toys and wrapping paper. He has enthusiasm for a holiday that long ago ceased being a source of excitement, and became one of pure obligation and forced bonhomie. This year, Mark saved Christmas for me. He made it tolerable, at first, and then, even a little fun.
I have to say, he's become my best friend. We do everything together, you know. So, a few weeks ago, when I was dreading the arrival of Christmas I was sort of shocked to discover that I actually wanted to do the shopping and gift-wrapping routine, if only for him. He's into Lego stuff now, and it's pretty much all he wants nowadays, so I went and got him something on his Lego wishlist (come to think of it, almost his entire Wish List was Lego-related. I don't know whether this indicates an affinity for architecture and a creative mindset, or if it's a sign of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).
Christmas Eve was pretty good. We had our traditional Feast of the Seven Fish (my favorite meal of the year. Take that, Thanksgiving!), the company seemed less boring, dull, and annoying this year than in the past, because only the cool people were there. I only had one drink all weekend (yay!).
And on Christmas Day, I lay on the floor with a five year old with more energy than I can ever remember having had as a child, and built every Lego set under the tree; the Lego Fire Station, the Lego Airport, the Lego Police Boat, Lego Construction Site, and a few I can't remember (in my time, when you got Legos you simply got a bucket of bricks. Nowadays, the things come in complete sets with a theme. One of these days, we'll probably be going to work in the Lego City Dark Satanic Mill and Stock Exchange Building ). And had fun.
I can't recall the last time I've actually had fun on Christmas.
But, he's getting older, too, and I know that one day the entire thing will be just another day for him, too. There will be no more Santa Claus, no more anticipation of unknown treasures under the tree, no more winter afternoons on the carpet playing with his uncle. If we could have wishes granted, I would ask but for one; just give me one more day like yesterday before he outgrows it all.
I'm not a religious man, so the idea of commemorating a Savior doesn't do anything for me. I imagine my Saviors to be a cross between George S. Patton and The X-Men, anyways. I'd like to put a pickaxe through the face of a good number of my relatives. Not because they're bad people, mind you, but because I find the company of some rather maddeningly annoying, like an inflamed hemorrhoid that alternates between a dull throb and a stabbing pain, but retains the constant itch. (Ed. note: That wing of the family didn't show this year. Whew!)
Why, if it wasn't for "the kids", and an extravagant meal, Christmas would probably be much like any other day for me, only with fucking Candy Canes. I could very easily just enjoy my Christmas dinner, grunt a thing or two at the guests, and then leave. In fact, I'd prefer to do exactly that.
But this year was different.
Three of my nephews are now old enough where Christmas ceases to be a wondrous event. It has simply become one of the annoyances of being a teenager; your parents dragging you off to places you don't want to be in order to give kisses to ancient relatives who smell like mothballs. You'd rather be hanging out at the Mall (which is, I believe, what teenagers around here do, for lack of anything else), and are engrossed by that stupid text-message thingy which has become the Herald of the Anti-Christ; it absorbs most of your time so that you're rotten company, anyway. You can't buy them toys anymore, and if you try to buy them clothes you'll usually get a sullen and begrudging thank you (more like a"Screw you! You expect me to be seen in public wearing this?"), and that's about it.
Which is I why I gave the three oldest cash. I give everyone cash; no one ever returns it, it's always the right size, and no one complains about the color.
But, the Little Guy...now there's a horse of a different color.
My nephew Mark is five. He still believes in Santa Claus. He still gets excited by the prospect of new toys and wrapping paper. He has enthusiasm for a holiday that long ago ceased being a source of excitement, and became one of pure obligation and forced bonhomie. This year, Mark saved Christmas for me. He made it tolerable, at first, and then, even a little fun.
I have to say, he's become my best friend. We do everything together, you know. So, a few weeks ago, when I was dreading the arrival of Christmas I was sort of shocked to discover that I actually wanted to do the shopping and gift-wrapping routine, if only for him. He's into Lego stuff now, and it's pretty much all he wants nowadays, so I went and got him something on his Lego wishlist (come to think of it, almost his entire Wish List was Lego-related. I don't know whether this indicates an affinity for architecture and a creative mindset, or if it's a sign of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).
Christmas Eve was pretty good. We had our traditional Feast of the Seven Fish (my favorite meal of the year. Take that, Thanksgiving!), the company seemed less boring, dull, and annoying this year than in the past, because only the cool people were there. I only had one drink all weekend (yay!).
And on Christmas Day, I lay on the floor with a five year old with more energy than I can ever remember having had as a child, and built every Lego set under the tree; the Lego Fire Station, the Lego Airport, the Lego Police Boat, Lego Construction Site, and a few I can't remember (in my time, when you got Legos you simply got a bucket of bricks. Nowadays, the things come in complete sets with a theme. One of these days, we'll probably be going to work in the Lego City Dark Satanic Mill and Stock Exchange Building ). And had fun.
I can't recall the last time I've actually had fun on Christmas.
But, he's getting older, too, and I know that one day the entire thing will be just another day for him, too. There will be no more Santa Claus, no more anticipation of unknown treasures under the tree, no more winter afternoons on the carpet playing with his uncle. If we could have wishes granted, I would ask but for one; just give me one more day like yesterday before he outgrows it all.
Unfortunately, We Can't Shoot Him Without a Trial...
Sometimes, you really don't want to read the newspaper because it may contain a story like this (paraphrased):
320-pound Asshole Rapes Ten-Year old Girl.
This just might be one of those times when that presumption of innocence stuff seems like a reward to the worst kinds of people, because true justice is denied. Without it, the Police can't just impose the kind of justice this guy deserves; to be beaten within an inch of his worthless life, and then shot.
"According to one police source, Nieves told detectives that he believed his contact with the girl was consensual."
Congratulations to the cops for exercising the kind of unimaginable restraint it must have taken to keep this guy alive for a trial after hearing that.
Only some sort of diseased waste of gametes could even begin to make that kind of sick formulation, and then have the balls to trot it out as a defense. Why not just use the good ol' "she asked for it" defense? Why not claim that it's your right to rape a 10-year-old under Sharia Law? I'm sure some idiotic judge here in New Yorkistan will buy that as a defense, because after all, some other douchebag judge gave this guy bail. I wouldn't put it past any lawyer who lands this client to try such so-called legal maneuvers, because otherwise this client is already tagged-and-bagged.
We're talking about a ten year old victim.
It's not out of the realm of possibility that a man who claims he had consensual sex with a 10-year old, and wasn't shot as soon as the cops caught him, could even walk because the criminal justice system sees fit to give him the luxury of a trial. Yeah, I know; that's how the system works, but sheesh! For some crimes -- like those against children -- where we have a confession, does it really matter if the lawyers get to play at Perry Mason? Can't some classes of criminals just be killed on the spot?
If it were up to me, I'd be slathering this degenerate in A-1 steak sauce and tossing him into the Shark Tank at the Aquarium. On Pay-per-View.
320-pound Asshole Rapes Ten-Year old Girl.
This just might be one of those times when that presumption of innocence stuff seems like a reward to the worst kinds of people, because true justice is denied. Without it, the Police can't just impose the kind of justice this guy deserves; to be beaten within an inch of his worthless life, and then shot.
"According to one police source, Nieves told detectives that he believed his contact with the girl was consensual."
Congratulations to the cops for exercising the kind of unimaginable restraint it must have taken to keep this guy alive for a trial after hearing that.
Only some sort of diseased waste of gametes could even begin to make that kind of sick formulation, and then have the balls to trot it out as a defense. Why not just use the good ol' "she asked for it" defense? Why not claim that it's your right to rape a 10-year-old under Sharia Law? I'm sure some idiotic judge here in New Yorkistan will buy that as a defense, because after all, some other douchebag judge gave this guy bail. I wouldn't put it past any lawyer who lands this client to try such so-called legal maneuvers, because otherwise this client is already tagged-and-bagged.
We're talking about a ten year old victim.
It's not out of the realm of possibility that a man who claims he had consensual sex with a 10-year old, and wasn't shot as soon as the cops caught him, could even walk because the criminal justice system sees fit to give him the luxury of a trial. Yeah, I know; that's how the system works, but sheesh! For some crimes -- like those against children -- where we have a confession, does it really matter if the lawyers get to play at Perry Mason? Can't some classes of criminals just be killed on the spot?
If it were up to me, I'd be slathering this degenerate in A-1 steak sauce and tossing him into the Shark Tank at the Aquarium. On Pay-per-View.
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