Old Friends

How terribly strange to be seventy.

Bill Maher Should Die a Horrible Death

Painfully and slowly.

In case this makes absolutely no sense to you at all, a little explanation: According to leftists who choose to let Hollywood and MSNBC shape their worldview, our troops aren't out there to defend their freedom or keep terrorists at bay, but to rape women and children. Why anyone would want to believe this is a question for a psychiatrist to answer — or better still, a priest

Yes, a priest indeed. Ummm...for these MORONS and LIARS and TRAITORS, apparently war means, as Obama said just recently, carptebombing villages and murdering civilians. This INFANTILE view of what war IS says that war is going into a foreign country and just throwing bombs at the people we find there, dropping warheads into their villages, setting them on fire (after raping them), and generally RIOTING in their streets. I am deeply ashamed to say that THAT is also what **I** thought war was - just go and kill people at random. Yeah, no, that isn't what war is. That isn't what "undeclared" wars are. That isn't what happens even in the war on terror, which involved a very non-descript enemy. IT. JUST. ISN'T. And if you are so stupid in this time of information to THINK that it is, you are a fucking idiot. And you can die like all other traitors die. Except with more pain.

Don't worry, the Palestinians will go mad cheering your death in the streets because they're fucking animals. H/T to Moonbattery

Woot!

Videogum has taken my suggestion (I didn't see anyone else suggest it, so) and added "Bicentennial Man" to their "Search for the Worst Movie of All Time"! What they do is hilariously recap the movies, the horrible, horrible movies. In an extremely cool twist, not only did Bicentennial Man immediately jump to the TOP FIVE WORST MOVIES OF ALL TIME, it also SPAWNED an entirely new RULE - no more Robin Williams movies! Getting in under the wire WIN! I just couldn't be silent because they panned a movie I actually love, "What Dreams May Come" (did a fine job of it, too) so I said if that's the kind of movie you want to pan, you really need to see BM. While you're there, check out the full list of movies, and the site in general. While there is no shortage of pop culture humor, I think this is a pretty good one. So far I've skipped the ones I've never seen, but I'll get back to them.

S1M0NE is on there, and the utter reaming they deliver to "AI" is positively brilliant. Ok, it's not Cracked or Televisionwithoutpity, but it's good, funny stuff.

On a completely bizarre note, my husband is right now out picking up and adopting a DOG. We have never owned a dog and aside from me, everyone in the house except my daughter has been completely against the idea. Suddenly today I'm faced with a fait accompli and there will be a dog here in half an hour. I have no idea what I'm doing. I hope she provides a leash and some supplies. I did cook the little guy some bacon as a welcome to our house treat. Our cats are going to be furious, but perhaps doggie and bunny will become friends...the bunny was trying his best to befriend and play with the cat, and the cat was having none of it.

In unrelated news, I, who really doesn't care when celebrities die for the most part (OK, Lena Zavaroni upset me, and so did the passing of the old Pepperidge Farms guy, because I not only met him during a local theater production, I recorded him saying "Pepperidge Farms Remembers!" and totally had him sign a copy of a life-sized promo cut out of him that we stole from a local store.) Still, despite my disinterest, I was caught off guard by the death of Natasha Richardson. I hate celebrity news, but I love Vanessa Redgrave, and I love Liam Neeson, and the whole thing was just such a clusterfuck - poor woman was on the bunny trail taking a skiing lesson, took what by all accounts was a very normal and expected fall, in the middle of the trail where there was nothing to hurt her, walked away feeling fine, and hours later was brain dead. Wtf? Couple that with being married to Liam effing Neeson, who I love, and the fact that she was a healthy young woman with two young sons, and I'm sorry, but that's just horribly sad. What a blow to them! RIP, Natasha. Say hello to Boris.

While we're here, I might as well point you to a cool new subdivision of LOLcats that will surely appeal to us middle agers - Nostalgic Wins from our pasts. I just submitted my Wooly Willy post for consideration.

The best new show you aren't watching - Dollhouse with Eliza Dushku. It's a Joss Whedon show, which is supposed to be a good thing, and the concept is a bit complicated, the characters are awesome (Topher, I love you! And Boyd? I want to have your babies), the writing is excellent, and they put Eliza in sexy outfits as she kicks serious ass. There are many various levels to the story, and Whedon has a five year plan, though he's trying to tell a complete story in the first just in case it doesn't get picked up. Go to Hulu to see the first 7 episodes (you still have time to get caught up and catch it from the beginning, which is essential), then mark off Fridays at 9 for the new ones - despite my rule of never watching network television, if they keep doing good things with this show, I'm THERE. For hilarious recaps of the episodes, visit Televisionwithoutpity after you see them, and have some laughs - join the forums if you want to talk to any other fans. Good stuff. Interestingly there was a whole flashback plot involving Dushku trying to bring down an animal testing lab, which of course totally goes back to her role in "Jaye and Silent Bob Strike Back." I am the CLIT commander! Hehe.

Moment of Zen...I guess Obama is about as far from a Lincoln as he can be, though he fancies himself a Lincoln.

Abraham, Martin and John

Withholding Information!

So, I have these co-workers. I try to avoid scenarios like that, but you know - sometimes you have to work with others. Tragic state of being.

This one guy just LOVED rubbing it in during the election - he hated Bush, and he's this blue collar type of guy, ergo Obama = Salvation!

Unfortunately, he didn't think it through very closely. He came to me yesterday and said, "I thought...I mean, we were supposed to get MORE money in our paychecks every week, isn't that what the president SAID?"

I was like no, no, I'm pretty sure that isn't what he said, but...?

Well, because, you see, here's my paycheck, and it says "New federal withholding tables in place" but I got hit really hard! I NEVER had that much taken out before! Wasn't the stimulus supposed to pay for that?"

Well...no, no it wasn't, but what is your complaint exactly?

I got a LOT more taxes taken out this week than last week or any other week...I thought we were supposed to get MORE money in our checks!

I see...were you supposed to get your mortgage paid for and gas in your tank too? Let me see.

Oh, wait. I see the problem - you WORK, right?

Yes.

You EARN money, right?

Yes.

Well, there you go, rich white man! YOU aren't getting any money, you are going to PAY for other people to sit on their asses and collect. YOU are the PAYOR, not the PAYEE. You getting it yet? YOU PAY FOR IT.

Wait, what?

Dreams from My Communist Father

So THAT'S where he gets it from.

"What is more important is to find means by which we can redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all," said the senior Obama, a Harvard-educated economist. "This is the government's obligation." The "means" he had in mind were confiscatory taxes on a scale that redefines the term "progressive taxation."

"Theoretically," he wrote, "there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed."

Therefore, he added, "I do not see why the government cannot tax those who have more and syphon some of these revenues into savings which can be utilized in investment for future development."

Hat Tip to The Jawa Report.

Good Stuff

My Old Friend Fred...and Meghan's Still Stupid

I still miss Fred. I always will. I will never be quite happy unless he is ever president. There will always be something missing from my life, a nagging, unfulfilled spot. Sigh.

Meghan McCain is still a dipshit, not that that's anything new, but what got me was that I've seen and read maybe 5 or 6 different things with this space cadet dipshit of late, and I have yet to see a single time when she DOESN'T harp on (and on) her "generation." Meghan, if you insist on going on television and making an asshole out of yourself, try to make it a LITTLE bit cool, will you? How about playing The Who (My Generation, of course) in the background...what do you mean, you've never heard of that song before? Because you're from a different generation, you say? Here, little girl, take a listen, will you? That's it. You look a little bummed out, what's wrong? Oh. You thought that was a hip, cool, original new thing to talk about? Even after you ran it into the ground, you thought it was still all yours? No idea that you think like every generation to ever come before you?

Well, I'm sorry to burst y...oh hell - good. Now shut the f*ck up already.

No Respect for Numbers

I have to admit, I was fooled by the coverage as well. The intertwining of millions and billions was done so deftly that I actually bought the lie that these bonuses were eating up the lion's share of the bailout money. But not even close. Now, it didn't matter - contractual obligations are what they are, and that's the bottom line - not to mention that the Dems **drafted** and **pushed** and **signed** the legislation agreeing to leave them alone (in fact it's named after that Dodd character) so I wasn't going to scream about it anyway. But when I realized that I, of all people, had been bamboozled by the "million/billion" shit? I was pissed. Now let's get a little grip on what a trillion dollars REALLY IS, shall we?

There is one million dollars in $100 bills. Now it would be preferable to have this in dollar bills, because frankly, we're trying to get a handle on what a trillion DOLLARS is, not what 1/100 of a trillion dollars is. But I'll go with it, since I don't know how to do the drawings.

There is 100 million dollars, in $100 bills, Benjamins, on a standard pallet. Sweet. AIG bonuses were 1 1/2 of the above.

One. billllion. dollars. The money AIG received was 175 times that amount. Not that I'm in favor of bailouts, but have some fucking perspective - those bonuses don't mean jack shit in the broad scheme of things.

One TRILLION dollars. Nearly the base rate of the "stimulus" package, while the left tries to distract us with the bonus bullshit. Notice they are double stacked AND the image had to be rescaled.

If you want to be pissed about something, be pissed that we're being taxed now at the mammoth rate of the last picture (just to start with - we're not counting the budget or any of the other abortions we're being asked to swallow) and stop bitching about contractual bonuses that were written into the bill in the first place and that all the people that are angry now that supported it when they wrote and passed it. Obama Received a $101332 Bonus from AIG. He's also the second largest recipient of Freddie/Fannie largesse, and no one's talking about their bonuses, eh? These guys are in bed with these businesses and then stir up faux outrage to pull the wool over our eyes so we won't notice they're stealing thousands of times the amount from all of us. Nice going, way to buy into the bullshit, folks.

Your moment of zen:

The OFA - Mapping Dissent

Humor and New Blogs

That was The Teleprompter Jesus without his favorite piece of electronic equipment. Yikes! For that, other footage, and some funny commentary, I'd like to encourage you to give Barack's Teleprompter a try.** For now, it's going on my blogroll. If you people "Twitter" or "Tweet" it's there, too, but I have never bothered with that service.

Also, a hearty welcome to HoosierArmyMom and her band of merry pirates. Everyone knows how awesome pirates are anyway (though this article reveals some unsettling truths about Somali pirates - including why they wear support hose) so I'm really looking forward to the sea journeys!

**I'll note that so far there's no footage of the St. Patrick's day teleprompter SNAFU, which was so extreme (culminating in Barry thanking *himself* for inviting himself) that I'm expecting Tele to break out into "Bicycle Built for Two" anytime now. Then again I haven't really looked for it after reading the account. Has anyone else seen it? And is anyone else a little worried about Tele?

AIG - Bonuses??! And Then Some

Yeah, that.

Update - Collective Bargaining

Only 9% of non-union workers want to join a union.

Union members tend to believe that most workers want to join a labor union. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 47% of union members hold that view while only 18% disagree.

But those who don’t belong to a union hold a different perspective. By a 56% to 14% margin, they believe that most workers do not want to belong to a union.

As for personal preference, only nine percent (9%) of non-union workers would like to join a union. Eighty-one percent (81%) would not.

Huh. Hat tip to FulloseousFlap.

And your moment of Zen:

Ok, no fertilized embryos. Check. Check, please! At the same time, even when he screws up that royally, you have to hand it to Billy-boy; he makes some effort, however dumb, to connect to the regular people. He had little to no choice but to at least *sound* like less of a leftist extremist while in office if he wanted a chance to pass anything at all, so...I guess that makes sense. He makes a token effort to sound somewhat moderate. Obama hasn't got that particular cluebat yet, and chances are he won't unless there's a similar upset in '10 like there was in '94.

Collective Bargaining

I'm crossposting this; it was a comment on a pro-union article on a libertarian site.

I respectfully do disagree about the real world effect of collective bargaining, and I have been directly negatively impacted by the power of it for most of my adult life in exactly the manner described in this article. Please do read it as it is unbelievably accurate as to what really occurs. My husband is a blue collar independent serviceman who is constantly threatened by unions and their workers (not every single time; occasionally there are out of state union workers that don't do it - and I shouldn't need to say this but he has not done anything even close to wrong to warrant it), but that pales in comparison to the negative economic effect it has had on us and continues to have to this day.

I couldn't think of the proper way to explain it in depth, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that that work had already been done for me in the above linked article. As I say, this is *exactly* how our personal and local economy has been affected over the years, in all ways.

Things outside the scope of the article - In our earlier years, he worked for an excellent company that supplied health care products and did medical research. If you've ever been in a hospital or a doctor's office, you've seen their name plastered on most of the supplies. They were not a union company and they had to fight to resist unionization (they would have left the state if it came to it.) That includes bullying Teamsters who would come out occasionally and try to shout the workers into unionizing the place, but as I say it didn't work. As a result, even the lowest workers were paid *double* the going rate for identical positions in even the next-door companies, with far better hours, with top-notch benefits and countless perks and free or low cost medical products ranging from diapers to high-quality bandages and cafeteria type supplies, the list was endless. (Our grocery and incidental bills were unbelievably low during those years.) As a result, we were able to be a one-income family and all the benefits that go along with that. When their tax burden in the area was increased drastically, they were faced with the decision to move out of state - otherwise scale back either employment or quality, neither of which they were willing to do. They moved. We chose not to move with them, though the option was available.

Thus he entered a different line of work which is not easy to describe but had both union and non-union jobs, and he worked as a non-union worker in a small company that employed both for various jobs. The only way it was able to work effectively there was that the union workers in this small company would have their dues paid by the boss, adhere to the letter of the union "law", but not to make any of the attendant trouble, and keep their union cards as tokens to appease the various contractors.

What happened was expected and actually is within the scope of the article - the field itself is full of men who make 3 times what the market will bear, so they work possibly 5 or 6 months out of the year, and those independent companies could no longer to afford to continue. If you want to do that kind of work you have to be willing to work only half the time and adhere to everything the union demands, but the fact is there are very few of them now - no one can afford to hire them and they are now basically a rubber stamp type of profession as opposed to a vibrant, viable industry.

He had to switch to a semi-related field of work, but it does entail going to many places that are filled with other workers from other types of contracts unrelated to him, who nonetheless do various kinds of threatening if they catch wind of the fact that he doesn't belong to a union (not that there is one for what he's doing.) Which is of course horribly unfair (and of course I don't blame the author here for that.) But it happens all the time. It does not have to involve any kind of violence, though sometimes it does - most of the time it is the threat of being thrown off that job but it almost always involves the threat of bringing economic ruin to him as well - they literally get very angry that he does not want to be in a union and is not in fact in one. Even though as I said, there isn't a union for what he does and he's just there for a little while to do a specific one or two man job and leave. They threaten as well to pressure the businesses into never hiring anyone but union laborers for *any* job and thus he will be left with no livelihood. Yes, they forget about him after he leaves, but what kind of thing is that? If it were just occasionally that would be one thing, but this is on every job that happens to have any construction going on or other type of work being done. Even though he is not threatening THEIR livelihood in ANY WAY. Yes, he tries to explain that he is not a competitor for what they are doing but they can't keep to themselves. I explain this because the author is against union violence, but a *realistic and very possible* economic threat is just as violent as beating someone up.

As to myself, I've been a member of the AFL-whatever alphabet soup, and it sucked. I had medical coverage, but there was one doctor in the state who would accept it by that point, since they never got paid. If an executive wanted to clean the place out, he would tell the shop steward to make up phony reports and force us all to sign them and be "warned" so it would be on record. I was better off when I was a temp for them prior to that. My current place has a union for the physical laborers but not for the office workers, and there is some weird kind of hostility that I can't understand between the two when they have to interact on any level beyond the bottom. "It's not my job" and "It's for the company" and other things that don't make sense to me are de rigeur. The union guys make decent money - at least those on the old contract, which is why the old guys who would normally retire instead work 7 days a week - and none of it is negotiable between the workers and the company - it's all done for you before that.

Very disturbingly, they call these guys into meetings and make them sign political documents (always either Democrat or otherwise leftist) en masse in order to drive policy in the state. For example, they drove policy to stop any competing businesses from opening in X area from them (a big area, not like across the street, but miles) in order to keep prices falsely inflated. Then they drill it into them that they're being disloyal if they shop someplace else, so they don't. Thus I have to go a lot farther to find good prices for some very basic things - thus I have to buy less of what I want when I want it because I can't afford it. (Actually that part was also covered in the article.) They need to move to a new facility but are badly hampered by the fact that no town wants to lose an inflated business because now they're dependent upon it. So we have to stay in buildings that are not sufficient to our needs anymore because moving is nearly impossible with all these entanglements. They are constantly pressured to vote for leftist candidates, but pressure isn't necessary after a while.

This is one reason why various production is moving out of northern states and into southern ones where they aren't unionized as well - it's a natural economic consequence.

Lastly, my father in law was a serviceman and a postman after that until he retired. I used to read the material his union would send him, and it was like bad comedy - not funny and pretty horrifying. Caricature depictions of any conservative or libertarian leaning politicians and smear articles against all of them, an endless parade of it, with constant admonitions to support only the most hard-left and egregious candidates and policies imaginable, year after year. Not surprisingly, that's what they often did - support the left politically and demonstrate extremely skewed thinking.

So...in the end, all things considered, I can't support unionization as a supporter of free markets. It's one of those things that sounds good in theory but in practice does too much harm and distorts the market in every conceivable way, and not to the benefit of the common man like myself and my family. It drives up prices, unemployment, hampers negotiations between any individuals, keeps other willing people from becoming employed, and so on and so forth. It is one thing for a small group of people to stand together voluntarily and bargain with their boss as a united front; as an institution it's an entirely different thing.

I think I'll crosspost this at my blog - now Eric, I know this was long, but you can see that it needed a thorough explanation as opposed to just "I disagree" and then coming out in bits and pieces, right? I felt a proper case ought to be made since the author made his case as well, and it wasn't a personal attack.

Right Guy, I hope this helped clarify your position as well :)

"My post was meant to put forward the notion that people in groups tend to seek power over those groups and with the power comes corruption to some extent."

Ha! I thought that was meant to apply to unions because it fits, except it was meant to apply to productive businesses like WalMart, that grew a great deal from the time that we here in the East had never heard of them into what they are now. Penn and Teller did a very good piece on Bullshit! about WalMart hating. If a business has to be "protected" by coercion and market distortion, it shouldn't exist. If they can't compete, they can't compete. Same thing with government bailouts, only in the other direction. The only acceptable force in businesses is the market force and the protection of individuals against fraud or encroachment; that is what drives prosperity and always has. That is why third world countries always looked to the US for aid and not planned and controlled economies like the Soviet Union or China.

Added: The reason that this was so exciting to me, finding that article, is because the theory is entirely validated. If a school of thought can not only analyze data as to what has happened, but can *reliably tell you what will happen as a result of a given action*, that validates the theory. How cool is it to have a theory that you know is good validated demonstrably by objective reality? The Austrians win again, and economics with predictive power? That's what it's all about. Even if in this case it's something that has been personally harmful to me.

Still Timely After All These Years

"From Planning for Freedom. Originally published in Farmand, February 17, 1951, Oslo, Norway." It could have been written yesterday. Behold.

The outlook of many eminent champions of genuine liberalism is rather pessimistic today. As they see it, the vitriolic slogans of the socialists and interventionists call forth a better response from the masses than the cool reasoning of judicious men.

The majority of the voters are just dull and mentally inert people who dislike thinking and are easily deceived by the enticing promises of irresponsible pied pipers. Subconscious inferiority complexes and envy push people toward the parties of the Left. They rejoice in the policies of confiscating the greater part of the income and wealth of successful businessmen without grasping the fact that these policies harm their own material interests. Disregarding all the objections raised by economists, they firmly believe that they can get many good things for nothing.

Even in the United States, people — although enjoying the highest standard of living ever attained in history — are prepared to condemn capitalism as a vile economy of scarcity and to indulge in daydreams about an economy of abundance in which everybody will get everything "according to his needs." The case for freedom and material prosperity is hopeless. The future belongs to the demagogues who know nothing else than to dissipate the capital accumulated by previous generations. Mankind is plunging into a return to the Dark Ages. Western civilization is doomed.

The main error of this widespread pessimism is the belief that the destructionist ideas and policies of our age sprang from the proletarians and are a "revolt of the masses." In fact, the masses — precisely because they are not creative and do not develop philosophies of their own — follow the leaders. The ideologies which produced all the mischief and catastrophes of our century are not an achievement of the mob. They are the feat of pseudoscholars and pseudointellectuals. They were propagated from the chairs of universities and from the pulpit, they were disseminated by the press, by novels and plays and by the movies and the radio. The intellectuals converted the masses to socialism and interventionism. These ideologies owe the power they have today to the fact that all means of communication have been turned over to their supporters and almost all dissenters have been virtually silenced.

What is needed to turn the flood is to change the mentality of the intellectuals. Then the masses will follow suit.

Furthermore, it is not true that the ideas of genuine liberalism are too complicated to appeal to the untutored mind of the average voter. It is not a hopeless task to explain to the wage earners that the only means to raise wage rates for all those eager to find jobs and to earn wages is to increase the per-head quota of capital invested. The pessimists underrate the mental abilities of the "common man" when they assert that he cannot grasp the disastrous consequences of policies resulting in capital decumulation. Why do all "underdeveloped countries" ask for American aid and American capital? Why do they not rather expect aid from socialist Russia?

The acme of the policies of all self-styled progressive parties and governments is to raise artificially the prices of vital commodities above the height they would have attained on the markets of unhampered laissez-faire capitalism. Only an infinitesimal fraction of the American people is interested in the preservation of a high price for sugar. The immense majority of the American voters are buyers and consumers, not producers and sellers, of sugar. Nonetheless the American government is firmly committed to a policy of high sugar prices by rigorously restricting both the importation of sugar from abroad and domestic production.

Similar policies are adopted with regard to the prices of bread, meat, butter, eggs, potatoes, cotton, and many other agricultural products. It is a serious blunder to call this procedure indiscriminately a profarmers policy. Less than one fifth of the United States' total population is dependent upon agriculture for a living. Yet the interests of these people with regard to the prices of various agricultural products are not identical. The dairyman is not interested in a high, but in a low price for wheat, fodder, sugar and cotton. The owners of chicken farms are hurt by high prices of any agricultural product but chickens and eggs. It is obvious that the growers of cotton, grapes, oranges, apples, grapefruit, and cranberries are prejudiced by a system which raises the prices of staple foods. Most of the items of the so-called profarm policy favor only a minority of the total farming population at the expense of the majority, not only of the nonfarming but also of the farming population.

Things are hardly different in other fields. When the railroadmen or the workers of the building trades, supported by laws and administrative practises which are admittedly loaded against their employers, indulge in feather-bedding and other devices allegedly destined to "create more jobs," they are unfairly fleecing the immense majority of their fellow citizens. The unions of the printers enhance the prices of books and periodicals and thus affect all people eager to read and to learn. The so-called prolabor policies bring about a state of affairs under which each group of wage earners is intent upon improving their own conditions at the expense of the consumers, viz., the enormous majority.

Nobody knows today whether he wins more from those policies which are favoring the group to which he himself belongs than he loses on account of the policies which favor all the other groups. But it is certain that all are adversely affected by the general drop in the productivity of industrial effort and output which these allegedly beneficial policies inevitably bring about.

Until a few years ago, the advocates of these unsuitable policies tried to defend them by pointing out that their incidence reduces only the wealth and income of the rich and benefits the masses at the sole expense of useless parasites. There is no need to explode the fallacies of this reasoning. Even if we admit its conclusiveness for the sake of argument, we must realize that, with the exception of a few countries, this "surplus" fund of the rich has already been exhausted. Even Mr. Hugh Gaitskell, Sir Stafford Cripps's successor as the Fuhrer of Great Britain's economy, could not help declaring that "there is not enough money to take away from England's rich to raise standards of living any further."

In the United States the policy of "soaking the rich" has not yet gone so far as that. But if the trend of American politics is not entirely reversed very soon, this richest of all countries will have to face the same situation in a few years.

$18

Conditions being such, the prospects for a genuinely liberal revival may appear propitious. At least fifty percent of the voters are women, most of them housewives or prospective housewives. To the common sense of these women a program of low prices will make a strong appeal. They will certainly cast their ballot for candidates who proclaim, "Do away peremptorily with all policies and measures destined to enhance prices above the height of the unhampered market! Do away with all this dismal stuff of price supports, parity prices, tariffs and quotas, intergovernmental commodity-control agreements, and so on! Abstain from increasing the quantity of money in circulation and from credit expansion, from all illusory attempts to lower the rate of interest and from deficit spending! What we want is low prices."

In the end these judicious householders will even succeed in convincing their husbands.

In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels asserted, "The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which capitalism batters down all Chinese walls." We may hope that these cheap prices will also batter down the highest of all Chinese walls, viz., those erected by the folly of bad economic policies.

To express such hopes is not merely wishful thinking.

How Will He Die?

Can you fathom showing that to your children? Neither can I. Other? You fucking BET it's OTHER. If YOU are not other than that, stay far far away from me. Here's some sanity.

That's Israeli. Civilized.

Obama chose to go on the television of Al Arabya as opposed to that of our allies, the Israelis. You tell ME what that means. No, don't; I don't care. I know what it means.

Ok, THIS is funny. Why is it funny? Because I found this ridiculous ad on Rush Limbaugh's site as opposed to on a dumbfuck leftist site. He LOVES it. It's hilarious. Here it is: LOL

Shake Your Tailfeathers

Bird Shakes His Tailfeather @ Yahoo! Video

This? Is awesome.

They Have a Winner!

It's pretty bad. As in, not funny or informative. It also DOES NOT say "Paid for by the Democrat National Convention". Assholes. I'm sure Rush is laughing his ass off when he passes it on the way to the bank.

Also, here's a graphic depiction of socialist economics:

Images

The Helter Skelter image came from a google image search, which turned up the unexpected result of this amusement ride, which is available for sale or hire. I find the most interesting things on image searches, and the weirder, the better. I kind of think Helter Skelter doesn't call up the witchy imagery it does for many Americans, who tend to think of the Tate-LaBianca murders and mad-eyed crazy men with swastikas on their heads and shaven young deluded women when they hear the term.

Can We Get This Guy On a Ticket Please?

A cabinet post? Something? Along with Machosauce's Alphonzo? And Fred Thompson? It's way past time all these leftists disguised as "Republicans" and effete David Frum urbanite pansy-asses with Stockholm Syndrome (currying favor with their leftist oppressors) were out the fuck, and people with knowledge and principles were in. If not, it's way past time for a new party.

Ok, About the Bearded Guy

This guy is suing because people laughed at his beard on his job. I'm not going to discuss his issues - here's hoping justice prevails. The point is, that IMAO understandably and hilariously points out that it looks like it was done in MS Paint (which it does), and I'm sure that's very funny if you're under 25 or 30. (So was the rest of the post; read it!) But I'm a little older than that, and before there was MS Paint, there was Wooly Willy. I guarantee you anyone my age or older looking at that picture sees Wooly Willy - what say you my middle-aged friends?

Everyone I knew had a couple of these in their closets. For my younger friends, HERE is what that thing is. We had to do something to entertain ourselves creatively before video games, you know.

Helter Skelter

From the leftist Ben Smith of Politico

The vast new left-wing conspiracy sets its tone every morning at 8:45 a.m., when officials from more than 20 labor, environmental, and other Democratic-leaning groups dial into a private conference call hosted by two left-leaning Washington organizations.

The “8:45 A.M. call,” as it’s referred to by members, began three weeks ago, and it marks a new level in the coordination by the White House’s allies, at a time when the conservative opposition is struggling for a toe-hold and major agenda items like health care reform appear closer than ever to passage.

The call has helped attempts to link the Republican Party to radio host Rush Limbaugh, and has served as the launching ground for attacks on critics of Obama’s policy proposals. It springs from a recognition of what was lacking in the Clinton years, said Jennifer Palmieri, the senior vice president for communications at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, one of the groups hosting the call.

“[CAP President John] Podesta’s and my experience was in the White House during the Clinton years, and we didn’t have a coordinated echo chamber on the outside backing us up,” she said. “There’s a real interest on the progressive side for groups to want to coordinate with each other and leverage each other’s work in a way I haven’t ever seen before.”

Huh. This isn't an apology or written with any kind of ominous tone, the way you'd read about McCarthy's "witchhunts" (most of which were for actually existent witches) or Nixon's "Enemies List". The vast left-wing conspiracy isn't written with an Orwellian tone - it's tongue-in-cheek, mocking. The comments are gleefully victorious and "Nyah nyah, how do YOU like it!?" They're purposefully rubbing our noses in the fact that they are doing shit like this. They WANT us all to know it; they're proud of it. Everything they accused Bush of doing covertly and opaquely, is now being done openly and with overt glee.

This is what was bugging me about the Limbaugh hunt most - it was so obviously a deliberately coordinated effort, and all it took was Obama giving the word in that one legislative meeting. When he handed over the stimulus project to Pelosi, they acknowledge they had a VERY brief conversation - he was about to give her some words of instruction and she held up her hand, saying, "Look, we're on the same page, we both know what needs to be done," and that was it. 1400 pages and no discussion needed; the Cloward-Piven strategy was enacted for the first time. After pushing it through without allowing the congresspeople time to read it, he was free to go on his 3-day weekend before he ever signed it - that which had been so desperate. He didn't read it - they knew one another, they were in harmony. Thus it was with the Limbaugh - Obama wants Limbaugh eliminated or used to enact some mutated new version of the fairness doctrine; all he needs to do is say the word "Limbaugh" to a bunch of senators, and they're all on the horn mounting an offense across the nation in every conceivable manner.

Charles Manson does that - you ever seen one of his interviews? He's making those weird gestures that look like doing the Egyptian or something? Those all mean something to him and to The Family. Whoever among them is left at this point. They're signals, they're orders, they're messages. And Garofalo had the balls to compare conservatives to Squeaky Fromme types? Look, don't bitch at me for making the comparisons - they're coming right out in the OPEN with this shit. (And at least I'm talking about tactics as opposed to looks, like this columnist who calls Michele O a Jackie O movie star and then says Jindal's Manson "eyes" disturb her.) This isn't looks or feelings, it's actions. It's being done in such a way that Obama can say "I didn't tell them to do that"** - that is so Mansonesque it's not even funny.

Leave something witchy.

Well, he could write and perform music, anyway. Something witchy. Good lord.

**Ok, he's not COMPLETELY maintaining deniability. Like his predecessors, he's too arrogant not to take some credit so long as it's working.

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Update Obamessiah Watch:

Ok, just try to keep all these things in your mind at the same time to get the big picture, and then ask yourself what is and isn't paranoid. Three things, and these are just off the top of my head:

Civilian National Security Force - one that is just as powerful and well-funded as the military, who we've got to stop relying on. We've already seen films of some of the militants drilling.

"I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face." Notice that he then proceeds to tell them that if those people say Obama wants to do X, they are to say "No, he's going to do the opposite." Except that the things he's saying they are to say we now know are lies; and he is doing just what he said people would argue that he would do. So not only are followers instructed to argue in a hostile fashion, they are to lie. At least, he lied to them. And still his followers don't care that they were lies. Some of them still believe it even though they're demonstrably lies at this point.

And now the Zombie Army of ACORN freaks. The Weather Underground estimated it would need to "liquidate" 25 million people in order to achieve utopia. Obama hasn't made his estimate yet - they are now in the process of drawing up maps, and calling on ground support (just as he said in the Chicago radio interview) so they can start gauging where the support and non-support in the public lies. Doors will be knocked on once people have pledged their support. They intend to find out who stands with the president and who doesn't on this. If you don't believe me, read it for yourself. I couldn't make shit like this up.

Stuff like this used to scare people. This isn't even Orwellian, because Orwellian implies a degree of secrecy. I don't know what this is. But don't fucking tell me I'm being an alarmist, or a conspiracy theorist, or paranoid or anything else (um, I know you didn't, I'm just saying) for putting this all together and calling, "CHECK, PLEASE!"

V

I'm going to start with this, but I don't want to waste the above picture on just this topic, so I'm going to continue after getting this one out. The AP just reported that Rush Limbaugh said the health care bill would end up being named after Ted Kennedy (I don't even think he said "The Swimmer") and the leader of the DCCC proclaimed the remark outrageous and reprehensible. Why? What in the hell is outrageous or reprehensible about that? And what would they say if they saw my "Ted Kennedy's Car Has Killed More People Than My Handgun" bumper sticker? What if it were called the "Drunken Asstard Who Let Kopechne Die in Chappaquiddick Memorial Health Care Bill"? I mean, if it were me making a slam, I'd make one. What Rush allegedly said isn't even a slam AT ALL.

But it was a lie; he wasn't the one who said it. He was quoting these people who are actually working on the bill, and say that it WILL be named as such...and nothing about it was considered outrageous or reprehensible. These people are genuinely sick. And liars.

On to other things, brought up by the V mask. I had been leery to see that movie - there was an assumption there that it would likely be similar to the Handmaid's Tale - those dystopian future visions of what happens if the conservatives are in charge. Which is kind of odd because we already know what happens if the totalitarian conservatives are in charge - we saw it with Hitler. The difference between that and the leftist totalitarianism is who gets labeled dangerous and who gets favored as good. Other than that, totalitarian is totalitarian, and it doesn't matter fuck-all which brand you get - it destroys individual liberty, it destroys the economy which is so necessary to individual liberty, it causes anguish, starvation, death, camps and gulags wherever it goes.

So I was rather pleasantly surprised that in large part the movie avoided committing to one or the other brand of totalitarian fascism - left or right. They gave a nod to it being rightist of course (the story of Valerie) but overall, it could have been either or, and that was...honest. Now how is it that the swaying throngs of big government sycophants, most of whom love that movie, still don't GET it? That it. doesn't. matter. who's the petty tyrant or the dictator - the results for US are the same!? Why are they so eager to fellate their new dictator overlords instead of moving as far away as possible from these absolutely unprecedented power grabs? The cognitive dissonance - my God how it burns.

NOW They're Sorry...

Odd fact: Rush Limbaugh can not put you in jail, send your son to war, levy a tax against you, or pass a law. True story.

Check out that video - apparently some people are just getting the hint NOW that Obama isn't really a centrist moderate. Wonder what their first clue was? Of course there are plenty of people who simply proclaim endlessly *even now* that he is nothing like a socialist, that he isn't even close to Marxist or socialist, and that he is, if anything, right of center. That anyone who denies this is an idiot. Mention Cloward-Piven and they just about lose their minds, but it's fun to watch. Give it a try sometime. If you can stand the company for even short periods.

The FATwa Continues

This is what the DNC is spending our money on**. A slogan contest. To tell off Rush Limbaugh. On a billboard. In Florida. Then on the billboard itself. You can tell these are very serious people, and these are very serious times. Supposedly this was the time to end petty disputes and band together as Americans to get through this crisis, which is going to get worse. We all had to have some skin in the game.

THAT was the game? Running slogan contests for billboards to attack a civilian? And giving away T-shirts? Are you kidding me? This is how we're going to get through these rough times? LOL - next time you hear Obi-wan Jugears spouting platitudes, you remember this. You remember what they're REALLY doing. Aside from spending us into a new Great Depression, that is.

**To be fair, I'm sure it was earmarked. There are probably billions in earmarks for slogan campaigns against Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity in the new law.

Rachel Maddow - Sooper Genius

It's a real FATWA out there, with Rush in the dock. So far as I can tell, Obi-wan refrained from bringing up the big guy prior to the inauguration, but days later told a bunch of senators they couldn't just "listen to Rush and get things done." He waffled later, saying he didn't know if that was the exact quote. Up until that day he'd stuck with attacking Sean Hannity - guess he was waiting to bring up the big guns. What's up with a president addressing legislature and bringing up a *civilian* who isn't in any elected position and has never even sought same, in order to score political points internally in the White House? That's just...weird.

That didn't stop the mainstream media from echoing Rahmbo's complaint that Limbaugh was the de facto head of the Republican party. Odd, since they never do anything he suggests. But I have heard that fact trumpeted in the leftist media ever since, every day, in one form or another, declaring Rush the "Leader of the Republican Party." Odd. It almost became a, oh, what do you call those things that mean nothing but are shouted from the rooftops incessantly? - a, uh, oh yeah, TALKING POINT. A FOCAL point in fact. There are petitions, there are pushes for a new Fairness Doctrine (renamed of course) and there is a lot of posturing.

Rush, true to form, did not respond in a way that could have been expected - last time he was served with a Senatorial petition, signed by Hillary, Byrd, Kennedy, and all the rest, sold the thing on ebay to a philanthropist for millions and matched the funds to serve the children of soldiers killed in action. This time, he's decided to make his hay by challenging the president to a debate. He will fly Obi-wan out, put him up in a resort, feed him top notch food (all at his own expense) and debate him over the golden microphone. As he points out, since they claim he's the leader of the party, might as well have the president debate him, right? Makes perfect sense.

No way chicken-shitters are going to do THAT, but it sure would be good. I'd pay to hear that one.

Also, the fat jokes are making the rounds again now - Limbaugh has been described as portly, SWOLLEN and other euphemisms for lolfat in a wide variety of mainstream outlets.

Maddow prefers to just keep lying:

Leno: I mean, it is America, and do you have the right to say, "I don't like his policies, I want them to fail."

MADDOW: He has said that he wants the president to fail. That's the way he put it.

Guess she doesn't do much fact-checking. Because 5 minutes of listening would tell you that indeed EXACTLY what was said was that Limbaugh does not want the man to fail personally (as in, say, do a poor job raising his children, or divorce his wife, be a sexual predator like Clinton was, etc.) but that because his policies are inherently socialist and disastrous, he WOULD like to see him fail at implementing them. Any sane person would.

But once they become the policies of the country, and they are designed to save us from this economic collapse --

LENO: Right.

MADDOW: You ought to hope they succeed, unless you are hoping for your country to suffer worse in an economic collapse. I mean, actually rooting for the failure of your own federal government is pretty creepy.

So I guess once the invasion of Poland succeeded and people were being rounded up into camps, and the purpose was to rebuild Germany's economy, they should have just rooted for them to succeed. I mean, maybe they would have, you know? That makes sense. In lefty-world.

Problem is, Rach, we already KNOW these policies don't work. We have the testimony of SO much history at our backs by now; we know that Clower-Piven strategies only WORK to destroy an economy, not to fix it. But I guess you don't know these things. I guess the lessons of the Great Depression and the near-depression/horrific recession we went through in the late '70s don't scan on your radar. We already know what causes depressions and what ends them. We already know what effect socialist policies have on economies in industrial societies - and what effect slashing taxes and instituting a FREE market have. You are advocating necessitating a great relearning after bashing our heads into the wall repeatedly to see what happens. They DON'T work, Maddow, and we're trying to AVERT their disastrous outcomes. And to preserve our constitutional liberties in the process, which are under grave threat. Duh. Plus, uh, you didn't talk this way when you rooted for the failure of the US in the Iraq conflict, did you? You'd think you would have supported it all once it became the law. I guess you're a hypocrite too.

LENO: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Especially wearing the black shirt and the whole deal. It looks a little creepy. Have you ever met him?

MADDOW: No, no. I don't think he'd want to meet me. I don't know

Nah, he's not picky. He'd love to meet even a fucktard like you, really. While I wouldn't cross the street to meet you, he'd do it and he'd do it with class. That's just how he rolls.

On a happier note, Ari Fleischer STYMIED the Morning Joe people by asking the pertinent question: FLEISCHER: It's gamesmanship, what difference does it make? Are you going after Democrat members of Congress for why they aren't distancing themselves from Keith Olbermann? They really had NO IDEA what to do with that one; one host actually started drinking a coffee and tried to pass the question off LOL.

In Case You Were Wondering

They hate us just as much as I hate them. These people are utter hypocrites, employing rhetoric far nastier than the people they are butchering (Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Steele - ALL FEMALE CONSERVATIVES IN EXISTENCE). When you sit there calling Every Conservative Woman in Existence an Eva Braun/Squeaky Fromme with Stockholm syndrome? You don't get to tell me why women don't like Rush Limbaugh. Women who like you are fucking morons. You don't get to then bitch about Ann Coulter's "tone". When you say that all conservatives who aren't white are self-loathing, mentally ill people? You don't get to bitch to me about fucking racism. Ever. You ARE the racists. You ARE the misogynists. You are sick, nasty, evil people, and I will tell you straight out I hate you as much as you hate me.

Janeane Garofalo, Keith Olbermann? You are not better people than ANYONE. You are lower than flatworms, racist, misogynist, hate-filled morons, and so is anyone who listens to you. And I haven't said a thing here that approaches the nasty in your words - at least Coulter and Rush are usually right, and when they're not right, they're FUNNY. You people don't have a sense of humor anymore and you're always, totally and completely, wrong.

On the other hand, this IS an unintentionally funny video. Because in the end, if you can't laugh at people this stupid? You're really going to have a hard life - stupid people are everywhere. See the above video for example.