Pay no attention to that pollster behind the ribbon, for I am the mighty Oz, comming atcha

It's one disaster followed by another, to the point where there is hardly any effect at all.  None of the following disasters matter, if you monitor media reporting.  What disasters?

The economy keeps getting worse, not better.  They are talking about another round of "quantitative easing" of our money.  This would be like the third dose of a big-ass shot of adrenalin directly into the heart of the patient. "Quantitative easing," is an extreme last-chance operation intended to blast a heart back to life.  Or else.  Note well, it didn't work the first two times. 

By the way, "quantitative easing"  is really some fancy-pants politician's deceptive use of language because he doesn't want us to know that what they are really doing is inflating the money supply radically, but just making it all up as they go along, printing notes and contracts and calling it money.

It isn't real value, folks.  Oh, and by the way, if the price of goods goes up with inflation, and it does, if your income doesn't go up to match the inflation, and it doesn't, well, that's basically the government way of raising money at your expense.  Another name for that is taxation. 

More and more people are out of work, or working at some sort of survival job because that's all that's left, and the unemployment insurance ran out some time ago.  The housing market sucks, despite experts saying it's getting better.  Very many businessmen, you know, the ones who pay money to people for working, are just hanging on, if at all, to the point where half the businessmen say that they wouldn't even start the business they are presently in, if they had to start it fresh today -- not worth it.

The middle east, what can I say?  It's kind of like the notion of voting took hold, there, but the majority invariably votes in favor of barbarism and bloodshed. 

And there's a war on young women.  The country is sticking young women with impossibly huge student loan debt to fund degrees in sociology, and dance movement, and women's studies, and journalism and communications, and aroma therapy, for shit's sake, with the promise that some crude and abusive businessman, somewhere, will be unable to prevent himself from hiring such independent and capable young women and paying them $85,000, plus benefits, a year, in return for their showing up and wearing suits and heels.  (That's the businessman who, as a sole proprietor, must be rich, and so must be taxed.  Eat the rich.)

And not only that, but the nation cruelly denies such women free birth control, a necessity in a society that highly values hooking up before names are exchanged, or perhaps only moments thereafter.  It's an option.  Or if women choose not to use birth control, it is only their natural function and right to be mothers, with or mostly without the committment of a father.  Not only that, but there seems to be a grave shortage of drone-men who are so in awe of unmarried motherhood that they welcome the chance to support any women who bravely has another man's child without bothering to have the other man.  Oh, the humanity!

But as I say, none of that matters.  In place of things that make a difference, we have polls.  We have local polls, phony polls, national polls, push polls, private polls, secret polls, and polls about polls.  They call you at home, at work, they e-mail you.  They will give you free stuff at the restaurant if you will just answer a few questions about the quality of your dining experience with them.

And the results of the polls are reported as if it is news.  It isn't.  Poll results are what lazy journalists do when they have to fill up broadcast time, or journalistic white space, and they don't actually have anything. 

It's like, "Nothing happened today, as far as I know, but some guy telephoned some poll results, so here ya go.  Based on a recent poll of some people in a park right here in Estacada, Oregon, 14% of all Americans ever born deny masturbating in the shower.  Oh, and 12% of them who didn't indulge in such conduct volunteered to start if there was any money it in, and the rest of them were Republicans.  Back to you in the studio."

I don't think you can trust polls.  I think people tell lies to poll interrogation.  And I know people mess with pollsters -- 'cause I!m pretty sure I'm not the only one. 

And I'll do it again and I recommend you do the same.  You already know the language of the interrogated man in the street.  Use phrases and expressions like, "rich and robust," "sustainable,"  "naturally sweet," "people who care," "people like us," "dependable," "improved," "margin of error," etc. 

It's just a poll.

How can it be that intelligent women . . .

can ever be found crying their lonely selves to sleep?  Maybe it's because . . . 

It's a good thing the Democrats are united because . . .Well, just because.

So here's what happened.  Always before, as far as I know, the Democratic Presidential Election platform has had some language in it saying something nice about God and Israel.  Not this time.

People noticed and started yelping about the platform never even mentioning God.  I suspect God is neither surprised nor hurt, because, as far as I know once again, He or She is not a clingy, needy sort of a deity.  But still, even if any particular Democrat remained unaffected by notions of piety, would it have killed them to pander to those who believed?

The big problem was Israel, because the Democrats get a lot of campaign contributions and support from American Jews who by necessity feel kinship with Israel.  And if we don't support Israel, there's a good chance Israel would be erased as a necessary first step to the establishment of the Caliphate.  Not a good thing in my opinion.

Anyhow, many Democrats thought once again about the platform, and there was a motion to amend the platform, to restore God and Israel to the platform language.  Evidently it takes a 2/3 vote to amend the platform at this point.  So a voice vote was taken.  All in favor, say aye; all opposed, no.  It sounded evenly spread between the ayes and nos to me and I think it sounded even to the chair as well.  But without blinking an eye or a blush of a cheek, the chair announced that the ayes were 2/3rds of the votes and the motion passed.  (I'm pretty sure the motion didn't pass, even at a simple majority, because I don't think there was a majority.  It sounded 50/50 to me.)  Anyhow, all the no-sayers instantly turned to boo-sayers.  Loudly.

But here's the thing.  If I were wealthy, and Jewish, and believed in big cradle-to-grave government, I still would be disinclined to give the Democrats any money.  Why?  Because about half the assembled convention loudly voted against supporting Israel.  If I were Jewish, I'd uncomfortable with that.

Follow up . . . Social Security Administration, too?

The Social Security Administration wants to buy 174,000 rounds of .357 pistol ammunition.

This bears repeating.  The Social Security Administration wants to buy 174,000 rounds of .357 pistol ammunition. 

What, they want to get prepared for when us geezers, codgers and coots get unruly?

Wonder if it is possible to mount a rifle scabbard on an aluminum walker, kind of like they mount saddle rifles?  Maybe crosswise, like in the back window of pickup trucks?

I don't, myself, own a gun.  Sarcasm has always been my weapon of choice.  But . . .



























































?

Does hollow point ammunition expand upon striking paper targets . . . and other interesting questions.

Here's something interesting, and by interesting, I mean alarmingly peculiar.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wants to buy 46,000 rounds of handgun ammunition, the kind that expands when it hits somebody.  Also, a thousand paper targets. 

Originally, this was published as being for the National Weather Service part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and then people started wondering why those boys would need bullets, so a correction was issued, stating that there was a clerical mistake.  It isn't for the weathermen at all; it's all for Fish and Wildlife. 

Well, okay then.  I guess that means that they plan on missing all the paper targets altogether up to 46 times before actually hitting one of 'em.  And just how many Fish and Wildlife guys do they have, guns blazing away?

But hey.  Aren't handguns all about shooting people?  Nobody goes hunting for deer or elk or bears or just little varmints with handguns; they use rifles.  Right?

And what people?  Certainly the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration isn't contemplating using all those rounds of ammunition just on a thousand paper targets, which would be absurd.  And they certainly aren't going to use them on fellow government employees. 

I think that means that some of us are anticipated to be the targets.

Oh, and relate Fish and Wildlife ammunition purchase to the recent riot control training given to some United States military personnel, and things are looking increasingly spooky.

At this point, leaping to conclusions would be paranoid, recognizing that all that ammunition could be intended either for offense or defense, or maybe just for sale to some fast and furious drug cartel, which, given recent history is not that far fetched.

Nevertheless, can you say Second Amendment, boys and girls?

Tunnels into Israel -- the ones that are underground . . .

Israel is asking Egypt to destroy all of the "underground tunnels" used to circumvent Israeli security. 

I've always believed that pretty much all tunnels are underground.  That's the whole point of tunnels. 

Ah, reporters! 

And their editors, if any.

But I'm sure this little language flaw provides absolutely no insight whatsoever into the mental quality of the writer. 

Just because a person needs to unburden his shriveled soul in a comment to a news report does not create any obligation on anybody else to read the damn thing, and other similar thoughts . . .

I read all over the internet various news and opinion articles, most of which, whatever point of view is espoused, are reasonably articulate and thoughtful even if I find I disagree.

Then I read the readers' commentary that inevitably follows.

Great Glory Be, there's boatloads of stupid out there!

And it's not just stupid, but positively, proudly, assertively, aggressively and ungrammatically stupid.

It's like -- they had teachers and parents who decided that self-esteem was more important than information.

It's like -- they all got trophies for showing up.

It's like -- the jobs they had suited to their skills and intellectual abilities -- you know, picking up an item and placing it in a different location -- got outsourced when their employer got tired of spending $32.00 an hour to pay $12.00 an hour to employees when the same work could be done in West Buttcrackistan for $4.00 an hour, plus $3.00 an hour in "incentives" to government officials, to pay the employee $0.80 an hour. 

So, being otherwise not occupied, they decided to share their stupid with the world.

When a person is like totally under-employed and it's hard to fill up the empty hours of the day, but you're not yet at the point where there's nothing left but to get yourself tatood, a person will naturally turn to expressing one's self on the internet, no matter how pathetic and embarassing that self may be.

And that's why  -- hey, why are you looking at me that way?  What's that look supposed to mean?

Expecting a display of identification to support a claim of the right to vote, is discriminatory and racist, and you should be ashamed to even think it . . .

I went to the Texaco station to fill up the gas tank.  I offered my Texaco gas credit card to pay for the gas.  The attendant wanted to see some indentification so I showed my driver's license.  He explained that he had to ask for proof of identity because his boss insisted that all the rules be followed.

Okay, I showed my identification; this isn't a big deal.  I had to show it to travel by air, and I have to show it if I want to pay for things with a check.  Sometimes we have to show a driver's license to rent a video.  Us law abiding citizens frequently display our drivers licenses in order to obtain wanted goods or services.

What I don't understand is the fuss raised by certain political observers (communists) at the idea of requiring government identification for purposes of voting in government elections.  They argue that requiring a person to show identification is inherently biased and unreasonable, or racist. 

Why is it unfair to require a person to confirm identity to vote, but it isn't unfair to ask for identity to board a plane or buy something with a credit card?

Why it's almost as if they (fascists) were personally offended by the idea that voter fraud should be suspected, detected, and prevented. 

Hey, nobody said it was the liberal political commentators (socialists) who were cheating.  But I think that describing the requiring of proof of identity in order to vote as being somehow racist or unfairly discriminatory constitutes probable cause to believe that those self-same liberal political commentators (traitors) are encouraging and profiting from voter fraud.

Either that, or Texaco is subjecting me to racial discrimination. 

All of a sudden, I feel so violated!

In keeping with 21st century American social mores, I therefore claim victim status.

So, when do I get paid?

Michelob message

I see that Michelob Lite has a new pretty boy illustrating the life you think you could lead with beer. This pretty boy does't shave, just like the previous beery avatar. Grooming isn't important if you drink the right beer, right?

Altruists and weasels . . .

How come people are so hard on one another?  T. S. Eliot said, long ago: “Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm — but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.” 

I pulled the quote from http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/304288/legislative-dishonesty-thomas-sowell. 

Oh.  The other half the harm that people do comes from pure malice. 

As between the two, I'll choose to deal with a malicous weasel before I want to hang with a self-congratulatory altruist.  They're both evil but you'll meet a higher class of evildoers among the weasels.

Mannies, of all things, wierd and wonderful . . .

Last night my bride and I finished watching the monster historical mini-series from the 70s and 80s, Winds of War and War and Remembrance, about World War II.  If you want to watch it, it's available for rental but plan on using two or three weekends and staying up late to watch 'just one more disk'. 

Anyhow, now, while steeped in WWII, my parents' times, I happened to see the front cover of a magazine where one of the articles was "We love our manny."  The article was about "mannies," that is, the increasing frequency of males being nannies, nurturing other people's children all day.  You know.  Drawing daffodils, telling stories about pastel colored families, and singing songs of unicorns. 

Looks to me like males like the resolute and deadly American males of WWII, and their glorious women, are certainly an endangered species.

No doubt those who own up the title, "manny," are thinking that by doing so others will think that they are admirably secure in their woosie-tude.  (I made that word up but you know what I mean.)  But we don't think that at all.

They're just everyday woosies.

Little voices .. . .

There are leaf blowers going on outside.  I mean, THERE ARE LEAF BLOWERS GOING ON!!!!.  These are being operated by lawn care service employees, who, being employees covered by Worker's Compensation and OSHA work rules, are required to use hearing protection devices.

But what about the rest of us?  We aren't issued hearing protection devices; we just have to muffle our ears in our arms and hope the bastids finish soon.  I already have a permanent ringing in my ears from seventy years worth of the unrestrained noise of civilization gone mad with the power to industrialize the processes and procedures of noise making to an unnatural level.

Hey, how tough would it be to muffle engine noise?  Answer, it isn't that tough. 

On the other hand, there is a large subclass of subhumans who evidently like noise in all its forms.  How else can we explain why many people will prefer a big, throbbing, loud Harley to a well-muffled, big Honda, purposefully humming along?  Why else will the big Harley hog rider sit waiting for a green light, twisting the throttle repeatedly while going nowhere?  Why else do some children completely ignore the colorful and expensive educational construction toy purchased by an aunt, in favor of vigorously and repeatedly pounding a four dollar sauce pan on the bare kitchen floor?  Producing loud noises fulfills some atavistic need; it makes them feel good about themselves? 

But even if production of noise for its own sorry sake isn't a motivator for all of us, there remains many of us who tolerate noise, who live with it comfortably.  I have  theories.

One theory is that the absence of random, intrusive noise permits a person to hear the background "om" of the universe, causing one to contemplate both one's place in things, and one's naked insignificance, a notion which is discomforting to undeveloped egos. 

Okay, well, maybe it isn't the background noise of the universe; it's just your own blood circulating in your inner ear.

The other theory is that we all grow along the way a little interior voice based on our experience, that serves to guide us past points of difficulty.  You know.  That little voice that you want to ignore, that tells you that you are about to screw up, bigtime.  Again.  The noise helps a person ignore that little voice, so that they can go ahead and screw up bigtime. 

When a woman is saying to herself, "He said he's sorry and if I take him back he'll never do it again, and I know he loves me in his own way,"  she must not be hearing the little voice that's saying, "You've been through this before, try to catch up." 

When a man is saying to himself, "So all I have to do is give them my credit card number and they will send me, with free shipping, a three month supply of Ecuadorian batshit beetle bark to rub on myself in the privacy of my own home, and my manhood will swell to legendary proportions and all the girls in my keyboarding class will want me," there's a little voice he isn't hearing that is saying, "You might want to do something about that fat ass and those skinny arms, and lose about forty pounds first, there, Sparky."

When a doctor is saying to himself, "All my friends say that they've made alarming amounts of money, and Bernie says he can't promise anything but he's never made less than 30% a year before, but we have to buy in before all the wall street crowd finds out about this and the more I put in, the more I'll get out, and I'm really tired of working fifty-five hours a week to make a lousy two hundred grand a year," there's a voice in his head that says, "If it sounds too good to be true, it damn sure is too good to be true.  Do you know the expression, 'Sucker bait'?"

Why do otherwise smart people screw up?  It's because they can't or won't listen to that little corrective voice in their head.  And why won't they or can't they hear that little voice?  It's because of the DAMN LEAF BLOWERS AND HARLEYS AND ASSORTED OTHER INSTRUSIVE NOISES.

There's a little voice in my head right now, saying I should just give this up because I'm looking like a nut case.  But I can't hear it.

Experts to the left of us, experts to the right, but nary a correct thought among 'em . . . . . .

Overheard a conversation at a restaurant.  It was a guy I'm guessing is in his late fifties.  He and his companions were discussing the current political scene.  I heard him say,

"It's not their fault.  The trouble is, the people are politically uneducated.  They don't know it is against the law to criticise the President of the United States.  They don't teach the constitution in school.  People don't know that the job of a corporate president is not to maximize profits; it's the same as the job of the president of the United States.  They are both supposed to create jobs.  That's what they are for under the Constitution."

This is so wrong that it hurt my ears, but this guy conceives of himself as a cut or two above the general population when it comes to political information.  The helluvit is, it could be true.  In any event, his companions seemed to be impressed.

Gah.

Bumpersticker Scripture

I saw a bumper sticker today.  It asked, "Since when did compliance with Marxist idealogy become patriotism?"

Actually it didn't mention Marxism.  It used the expression, "corporate directives," so I fixed it for you.

What European elections tell us . . .

So Greeks said austerity sucks and they voted against it and Germans are getting a little more comfortable with the idea of currency inflation to "help" Greece, Italy, Portugal, et al.  But in France, the voters went all the way and dumped on their liberal president and voted for the  farther left anti-western socialist. 

Copy cats.

Portland does politics . . .

Here in Oregon, Portland has twenty-three candidates on the ballot for mayor.  Twenty-three!

With that number you can bet that at least one of them is a socialist.  At least one is clinically depressed.  At least one tears up when singing the National Anthem.  At least one has had an extramarital affair.  At least one bounces checks.  At least one collects pornography on a home computer.  At least one cares for a disabled adult relative.  Probably more than one are genuinely nice people for whom there is no place in politics.  One is a sociopath; one is a psychopath; one is an animal lover.  At least one should be locked up; hell, one has been locked up.  Probably one inherited money, and probably another one started from nothing and made money.  At least one is a religious fanatic, probably.  The problem is  -- who?  How can you tell?

So, look at the externalities.  Only a small number of them have spent a lot of money promoting themselves for the job.  All the signs and ads reveal that.  We know who has spent a lot of money.  Is that the one we vote for, on the ground that at least we know something about them?

I know this.  Few people who have a lot of money money will  spend it without expectation of return of value of some kind, even if it is just to get their vanity bump rubbed.  And I know that the job of mayor doesn't pay all that well, to justify the kind of money that is being spent.  And the prestige of the job isn't really all that great.  It's kind of like being voted Most Courteous for your high school year book.  I mean it's something, but not quite . . . as meaningful to others as it is to your mother.

So, as to the big spenders for the mayoral election, well, I have to wonder who do they really represent.  No.  Really.  Where is the money coming from?  Really, who do they represent?

Portland potholes triumphant . . .

There's a guy named Charlie who is running for Mayor of Portland.  Lots of people like Charlie, evidently, based on the appearance of yard signs.  Charlie is experienced in government and Portland affairs despite having not lived in Portland all that much of late.  One of his claimed reasons for why we should vote for him is his record on potholes.  He says he fixed 'em.

I say he missed a bunch.  Maybe somebody should put some signs up around the potholes, "Charlie missed this one."  Bet the pothole signs would exceed the number of yard signs.

. . .and little pink piggies can fly . . .

within living memory -- mine -- the Red Chinese were killing people for the crime of being landlords. They called it a cultural revolution to purify the culture for communism. Nowadays? There are country clubs in China where a Western car manufacturer is sponsoring a golf tournament for professional golfers and the event isq available for viewing on cable television here in the U.S. and Euurope.

A toxic culture . . .

Reuters reports the poisoning of Afgan schoolgirls.  Education of women is un-Islamic, you see.  Oh, it's "legal," now, for females to be educated, after having formerly been illegal, according to the Taliban.  Just a little, oh, let's say, risky.  These "people" also stand around and throw disfiguring acid into the faces of young girls walking to and from school.

I say, any  "multi-culturalist" and anybody else who holds that all cultures are morally equal, is himself a moral and intellectual moron, no matter how many academic degrees may have been earned.

Hollywood romantics . . .

So Brad and Angelina got engaged.  Just in the nick of time.

Intelligent dinosaurs on other worlds . . .

Oh, my.  We need to worry about meeting extra-terrestial life.  Scientists say that intelligent dinosaurs might rule other worlds, so it's just as well we not meet them. 

What's the worry?  Intelligent apes rule our world.

Trayvon be thy name . . .

Turns out that a news producer has been fired for manipulating, or editing, the transcript of the police report that Zimmerman was phoning in.  The report left the impression that young Trayvon was hunted down and shot merely for being black and out of place.  But the material "edited out" leaves a little different impression of Zimmerman's motivation.

Well now.

I don't know if Trayvon Martin was a victim or if he had it coming.  Neither does most anybody else, but that hasn't prevented people, great and small, from expressing their opinions or feelings on the subject, or somehow finding meaning in the reports of the event.

I won't do that.

Except to agree with an Australian commentator, that "Trayvon" is a ridiculous name. 

Notwithstanding that when you hear the name, "Zimmerman," you don't instantly imagine "Hispanic guy from Florida."  

And for that matter, if your first name in common usage is 'the reverend" you should be staying at home administering to some congregation, and not cashing in frequent flier miles in search of news cameras to jump in front of to preach your message -- which has damn little to do with salvation and a whole bunch to do with shaking down institutions for cash and concessions under threat of the next racial storm.

No vacation this year, with gasoline this dear . . .

Filled up my car with gas today.  On the one hand, I can remember when it was a good day when I could afford to say, "Two bucks of regular, please," when I got down to a quarter of a tank, and that would easily take the needle to over half a tank.  On the other hand, it's good that I can afford to have the tank filled without thinking about the cost.

But then, on the other, other hand, good great flaming fires of doom, have you seen gas prices recently!

I am typing this just after amending my will.  Don't want there to be any confusion about who gets the unused portion of my gasoline.

The pornification of America . . .

It seems to me, more and more, that everything around us is reducible to sex.  And if it isn't actually that warm little secret familiar tingle and rush, then matters can still be communicated sexually, in metaphors. 

For example:

Justice Breyer was dealing with the Obamacare matter during oral argument, and the question of whether the commerce clause has any limitations that would prevent the government from requiring citizens from buying insurance, or a Chevy Volt, or multiple use condoms for that matter.  (Just rinse, roll, and repeat!) 

Judge Breyer said,
. . . and I think if we look back in history we see sometimes Congress can create commerce out of nothing.  That's the national bank which was created out of nothing to create other commerce out of nothing.  I look back into history and I see it seems pretty clear that any substantial affects on interstate commerce, Congress can act.

That's the McCulloch v. Maryland case, which said that Congress could create a national bank.  But that case was a "necessary and proper" case, not a "commerce clause" case.  Lawyers will know that case.  Shoot, my high school history teacher, the football coach, told us about that case.  You'd think an Article III judge would know it's a "necessary and proper" case.  Why not?  ONly one possible explanation.  He spent every possible minute of his school years boinking till his ears sizzled.  Nothing else could explain it.  (Bet you wondered how I'd get back to the main topic, didn't you.)

Oh, and continuing the metaphor, it also means we are so screwed.

For Six Bucks a Gallon You should Expect to Get a Little Sarcasm with it . . . .

The White House has very recently learned that gasoline is getting too expensive for the voters. 

The reason it is too expensive is that oil companies are selling the stuff and charging voters more than they used to, just because it is costing them more to buy the oil in a politicized international market with various governments attempting to manipulate prices, and more to transport the oil from Canada and South America and the Mid-east, and more to refine the oil into gasoline, the greedy bastids. 

So the White House, mindful on the burden that high gas prices places on ninety-nine percent of us voters , has figured out that if the government will cancel "tax breaks" or raise taxes on the oil companies, that will necessarily deprive them of their greed-soaked profits, the greedy bastids. 

Of course, once deprived of profits, the oil companies will naturally want to charge voters lower prices at the pump . . . and  . . . .   and . . .    Hey!  Wait a minute.

What's the chances the oil companies would raise voters' gasoline prices even more to make up the difference? 

But it's okay.  Think of the satisfaction you'll feel, as you are walking to your job because you can't afford both to feed your car and feed your kids, knowing that the greedy bastid oil companies at least had been punished for their greed.

What?  You don't have a job anymore, since your employer's bankruptcy? 

Well, fortunately you still have your old 401K you can liquidate, right?  They can't take that away from you, can they?  Just pay the government the income taxes on what you withdraw, with the extra 10% penalty tax the government says you owe for using your own money before government planned for you to do, and you should be okay.  I bet you're glad you didn't put your retirement investment into oil company stocks, aren't you? 

Much safer to invest in wind energy companies and solar panels and electric cars,  right?  Nobody would ever accuse those sorts of businesses of being run at a profit, unlike the greedy bastid oil companies, seeing as how green companies all require government tax rebates, and outright loans of taxpayers money just to stay in business.

And how about this?  Maybe the government will be driven to nationalize the gasoline companies, and then us voters would own the greedy bastid oil companies!  Like with General Motors and Chrysler.  If that happens, the White House will be able to see to it that greedy corporations will supply voters with what government determines the voters need.  Instead of what we want.

Provided the wealthy will shut up and pay their fair share.

Is there life after death?

Evidently, the proposition that there is life after death has been proven correct, at least when it comes to 1.8 million dead people.  They can still vote according to Pew Center Research. 

Your car and natural gas . . .

Should we convert vehicles to run on natural gas?  Here's an article on the subject.  Cars will run on natural gas, just fine.  But there are some significant problems with conversion, much of which is not actually technical but is political.

Of course, natural gas is abundant, and is therefore cheaper than gasoline, right?  On the other hand, gasoline would be a lot cheaper but for government perversion of the market, and how much do you want to bet that if natural gas were the automotive fuel of choice, government would screw that up, too. 

Because it isn't actually about fuel.  It's about who is the boss of you.

Super Bowl excitement . . .

. . . can overtake any one of us.  Even me.  I'm normally pretty balanced about the whole Super Bowl experience although I know that for many it is the main religious event of their year.  But this year, right after halftime, I got carried away and put an extra seed in the parakeet's cup.  

FBI agent says . . . My bad!. . . . .

The premier investigative agency in the whole wide world investigated themselves right  into the wrong apartment.  With a chainsaw.  And guns drawn.

They have a defense if the resident wants to file a tort claim.  The defense is that they are the government and you can't sue them unless they damn well feel like being sued, oh, and they said they were the FBI after they got inside and then they said, "oopsies," right after learning they were in the wrong place about a half hour after getting in.  And okay, so we'll buy you a new damn door 'cause we feel kinda bad about this.

Let's see, so they had an arrest warrant.  Assume for a moment they were even in the right place -- which they weren't, dammit -- how long does it take to determine that the guy they are looking for isn't in the apartment, when the only people in there are a kid and a female? 

On the other hand, if only there had been some kind of a clue, I'm pretty sure the premier investigative agency in the whole wide world coulda figured it out by the time the panel on the door with the apartment number on it was cut out of the door.  But there evidently weren't any clues around anywhere. 

Sometimes these things just happen in the never ending war against chemical happiness.  In a world where some people refuse to accept unhappiness when they can afford to do something about it, it is up to the government to discourage unearned happiness at gunpoint and with chainsaws if necessary.

There's going to be hell to pay when it occurs to the government bozos how much enjoyment there is in chocolate.

Thinning the herd . . .

Here's a woman who, for purposes of personal growth, health and wellness, let herself be "cooked to death."  This was at a personal growth seminar.  Ah, let's all jump onto the new age movement and free ourselves of the old prejudices of the dead past -- things like hygiene, and a sense that events can have predictable consequences.  Wonder how much personal growth the other participants in the seminar experienced, the ones who abide with the knowledge that this procedure just killed somebody?  I'm sure it was worth the price.  Which I believe was $18,000.00.

When you read of things like this, how can you not mock these people?

The secret code of stubble . . .

I think I'm noticing an increasing amount of two or three day whisker stubble on the male "leads" in commercials.  You know.  Shiney movie star teeth, a sweeet, sincere smile, charm out the wazoo, and stubble.  We have a little advertising trend going on. 

And I know that I'm seeing it more frequently on European pro golfers. 

What's stubble?  It means you've been too careless about your appearance to shave. 

But what is stubble when you've shaved your neck?  It means you want to look stubbly without the irritation of neck stubble scraping against your collar.  In other words, this is stubble that is part of an intentionally selected message.

What's the message?  The message is that the stubblee knows that you know he's a little bit of an airy spirit, and he hopes a little stubble will throw some confusion on the topic.

Does the stubble work as planned?  No.  It confirms the fey.  Either grow a full on beard or mustache, or shave.

Oh, and cheek stubble with a shaved neck, plus a shaved head? 

Bingo!

Well, Congressman Blumenauer . . .

Congressman Earl Blumenauer sent me a little expensively printed flier under his franking privilege (free postage.)  He claims Washington in broken, Wall Street gets all the breaks and the middle class is broke.  I call B.S.  I have to ask, well, just who should we hold responsible for breaking Washington if not our elected officials, the people who broke the damn thing in the first place?

I agree that our government is broken.  I’m not so sure about the congressman’s other propositions.  If the middle class is broke, well --  how can that be, if at the very same time Wall Street gets all the breaks, as Congressman Blumenauer asserts?  Most of the investment in public corporations, dollar for dollar, comes from the middle class, which is invested in Wall Street, both directly and indirectly through retirement plans which have professional management to invest in stocks and bonds.  And the middle class relies heavily on mutual funds, that is, stock investment managed by expert investment counsel, so it’s not as if the pros have a particularly large advantage over the middle class investor.  The middle class investor buys into retirement plans and mutual funds managed by those self-same pros.

Nah, it’s not Wall Street getting all the breaks.  It’s some of the corporate cronies who heavily support politicians who get the breaks.  It’s not capitalism that’s the problem; it is insider Washington’s crony capitalists who are the problem.

And that leads in to another point Congressman Blumenauer made, that is, that Congress needs to be reformed, to prohibit Congressman from “trading stocks based on information obtained on the job.” 

Let’s call this what it really is.  Congressional investment “information obtained on the job” is of two kinds: either tips about what stock to buy and sell supplied by insiders who expect and get favors from Congress in return, or else the Congressmen know what the market must do in response to the laws that congress passes.  In other words, a trading tip is a just a bribe, and passing legislation affecting the market to the profit of the voting Congressmen is basically market manipulation.  Both of these practices are illegal, and I’m unaware of any principal, legal, ethical, or moral, that would argue that congressmen should be immune to prosecution for such conduct.

And I note that Congressman Blumenauer reports that “after recent news of lawmaker involved in insider trading, I feel passionate about Members of Congress . . . trading stocks based on information obtained on the job.”  Congressman Blumenauer didn’t know about it before the news reports?  If he did, how come he wants to do something about it only now, after news reports?  He could have ratted out the bad guys at any time.  On the other hand, if he didn’t know about it, well, where’s he been all this time?

Congressman Blumenauer also wants to end the “flood of unaccountable corporate campaign spending that threatens the integrity of our political system.”  I agree that this is a problem, where a very few individuals have an outsized impact on the political process;  corporate boards and officers have access to large funds that can be used to influence legislation and governance.

I suspect that this was a circumstance that could not have been anticipated by the writers of the U.S. Constitution, whose view of the world encompassed personal wealth which was largely in land, and therefore illiquid and unavailable to match anything like the impact of enormous cash campaign contributions currently feeding into our mass media information machine.  But it seems to me that if the problem is that a few individuals who control large funds have an outsized political impact as compared to an individual voting citizen, then, we should muzzle all institutional campaign spending.  Muzzle corporations, unions, non-profits, and all institutional campaigning and political activity.   In other words, if “big money” is a problem, get rid of all the “big money,” not just the money from the current target for scapegoating, Wall Street.  If large corporate political influence was not anticipated in the U. S. Constitution, neither was the political influence enjoyed by large employee unions, or large ‘non-profits” such as the A.A.R.P., which flat didn’t exist in 1786.

The constitution can be amended.  How about, instead of “One man, one vote,” we make it “One man, one vote, one campaign contribution?”

When I started voting, over forty years ago, the normal situation was for a family to be supported by the job of one spouse.  Now, couples are frequently hard pressed to maintain a family lifestyle using the earnings of both spouses, and are flat out desperate if one of those spouses becomes unemployed, which is currently frequently the case.  And unemployment insurance is insufficient to make a lasting difference.  The economy is simply no longer such that families can be supported by the earnings of one spouse, alone, without supplementation either by the other spouse or by government hand out.

Yet through these same forty years I’ve been voting, I’ve heard politicians saying that they are going to Washington to protect people like me, to fight for me, to represent me, to support me.  Guess what?  I think one could safely say that the evidence is largely to the contrary – that politicians are selfishly motivated, and nothing else explains the last forty years of politics and the economic mess the country has been caught in.  Things got worse, not better over the last forty years.
 
And for every single troublesome campaign contribution or stock tip or corporate favor, there was always and unfailingly a smarmy, eager politician’s hand out to grasp it.

What’s necessary?  First, our political masters need to acknowledge, to themselves at very least, that they have screwed up wonderfully in the last forty years, taking the country down a road which led to what we’ve got, now, massive debt and stagnation at best.  Our government has overwhelmed the ability of the private sector to replace the energy and assets that government increasingly has gobbled up in programs owned by politicians who neither know nor want to know about the foreseeable consequences of their decisions.  I wonder how many of ‘em are familiar with or could explain the tragedy of the commons?  Yup.  It was the political leadership.  Nothing else will explain the current mess.  Some of our most respected politicians have screwed up the mightiest, probably out of the best of motives and the emptiest of heads.  Let’s acknowledge it and get on with rebuilding America.

I think that the next politician who can truly be a leader, irrespective of party or creed,  is the politician who will first, trust that the American people can and will lead the way out of the current mess if provided a fair, stable, and predictable body of laws and legal outcomes to work with (and providing our government doesn’t screw it up with an overburden of clumsy management in the hands of civil service oafs, and worse) and second, will see to it that the people get such laws and outcomes.  Such a politician would be able to lead a discussion to define exactly what is the proper role of government, what can and can’t the government do, and what should and shouldn’t a government do.

What’s government for?  I can tell you what government is not for.  Government is not something for politicians to use cynically to do anything they think might buy them a few more votes so that they and their cronies and fellow travelers can continue living large.  If government tries to do things it can’t do, or shouldn’t do, the doing of those things constitutes either a failure of government or a misappropriation of the energies of the electorate, or both, simultaneously.

After all, it was the politicians who declared that certain industries and businesses were “too big to fail,” not the electorate.  And it was government that handed out enormous amounts of cash to ventures that were “too big to fail,” not the people.  But it wasn’t government that generated the cash to bail out those that were “too big to fail.” Government spent money made by the electorate, and worse, spent money that has yet to be made by the electorate.  It wasn’t the voters who put us all in debt to pass out cash to the cronies running the outfits that were “too big to fail.”

Congressman Blumenauer, you say we should “prosecute the crooks who brought the economy down,” right?  You’ll find a whole gaggle of ‘em in the congressional offices all around you.

The Mayans who predicted the end of the world in the year 2012 weren't as smart as all that, after all . . .

Some people I know are concerned that we are now in the year 2012, which is the year that the Mayans predicted would be the end of the world.  That's right.  The Mayans were much advanced over all other stone-age cultures, ever, and so naturally they could predict the end of the world with precise reliability.  (I wonder what ever happened to the Mayans, anyhow?  All they left us is some riddles, some stone carvings, and the Mayan calendar of doom.)  The Mayan prediction of the end has been corroborated; I've been given to understand that the end time, right around now, is likewise foreseen by other advanced thinkers unhampered by limitations of algebra or physics.  So, don't make too many long range plans but let your heart be light.  Think of it this way.  When the catastrophe comes and goes next December, right after the election, you could say, "People said if I voted for Obama again, the world would be totally destroyed, and I did, and it was." 

But seriously.  Some people are actually worried about the imminence of the end of the world.  They should be assured that there's something we can do about it.

Did you see where our president figured out a way to do what he pleases despite the fact that Congress doesn't want to do what he pleases, when it pleases him to do it?  (He's decided that running on his record might be a problem, so he's going to run against a "do-nothing" Congress.)

The President wants one of his fellow travelers (look it up) to be kind of a consumer czar, but since Congress shows signs of not wanting to appoint his choice, the President made a "recess appointment" (look that up too), while the Senate is still technically not in recess.  And then, and this is the really cool sweet spot,  there was a concern that Congress wouldn't fund this scheme out of resentment over not being consulted as has traditionally and legally been required, thinking that without money, it wouldn't work.  But Obama came up with a sweet work-around.  Just have the Federal Reserve print more dollars to fund this dealio.  Money is just words on paper, anyway, so why not just print what you want.  It isn't as if there is a budget to bust, 'cause a do-nothing Congress hasn't got around to passing a budget for the last several years. 

So.  Let's use the same clever thinking to avoid the whole end of the world inconvenience.  Let's just scrap the calendar.  It doesn't have to be the the year 2012.  We can just come up with a new beginning date.  I say, let Congress pass a bill identifying the current year as year 1, O.E.  (Obama Era). 

Problem solved with a minimum of fuss and we can all get on with our lives without fearing the loss of anything other than our Constitutional liberties.  It's not the year 2012, anymore, and the Mayans, if there are any left, are just going to have to get over themselves.

We call it a feature, not a bug, and you would too if you weren't a 20th century unenlightened throwback . . .

Hey, Mazda people.  Locking and unlocking the doors remotely is nice, but I seldom - okay, never - need to roll down the car windows remotely by pushing a button on the ignition key.  But since you Mazda guys added that unneeded capability, I think at least one of you could have forecast that a paying customer might want the ability to roll the damn windows back up remotely, instead of running outside to get into the car to insert the damn ignition key into the damn steering column to put the damn windows back up, IN THE RAIN!!!, because the damn ignition key window-roll-down-button got pushed by a damned dime while the key was in my damn pocket with pocket change. Damn!  Which wouldn't have been important if you hadn't rigged the thing to roll the windows down in the rain in the first place, around here, where it rains.

And hey, Portland Political Masters.  I suppose that polyethelene grocery bags are things that pelicans might fatally eat, or polar bears might get their toes tangled in while doing whatever polars bears do when they aren't poking around being photographed for popular publications.  So I can suppose that such bags might pose a threat to the environment, as the environment didn't evolve capability of dealing with poly bags.  But I figure that pelicans will have to learn to deal with the challenges presented by the modern world, just as I do.  I mean, like all of my tribe I'm an omnivore but if I eat a plastic bag and it kills me, I pretty much deserve what I get.  Nothing I call food looks at all like a plastic grocery bag.  And those baby-poop brown paper bags beloved by the green weenies for their supposed recyclability begin to recycle themselves disastrously when I try to carry the damn wet things filled with groceries from the car to the front door, through the rain.  Oh, and for the record, poly gets recycled from and to water bottles, sporks, and carpet, kids' toys and even golf shirts.  The portion of brown paper bags that gets recycled requires a lot of energy to get the job done, but mostly paper bags just go into landfills to dissolve into sludge that even the organisms which usually dispose of old natural fibrous material won't touch.  Because brown paper doesn't resist moisture all that well.  And did I mention that it rains a lot around here?  Damn politicians.  Too bad looking, too untalented, too uneducated, too dull, and too arrogant to succeed at a real job, so they go into politics where their shortcomings are considered virtues within their respective parties.

And hey!  What's with toilets that cannot be relied upon to get the job done with only one flush?  C'mon.  Toilets were pretty much invented and perfected in the 1800's.  We have had for years the know-how to make a flush toilet that flushes and we have the know-how to deal with the product of the flush.  It all requires enough water, which we fortunately have in abundance as two-thirds of the surface of the earth is covered with water.  So what did the bright boys and girls hanging around the plenipotentiary government agencies do?  They decided that flush toilets used too much water per flush, so all new and replacement toilets must produce only miniature flushes.  Think of them as exquisite, bonsai toilets.  There must be a special politician/bureaucratic math that shows that two or three flushes to get the job done, uses less water than one sufficient flush.  Okay, I grant that there are locales where water is in short supply, as in the desert Southwest.  But throughout the rest of the counry we have water and here in the Northwest we have a too much.  Water falls out the sky whether needed or not, around here, and we have ponds, lakes, and rivers of the stuff.  The solution to the problem of insufficient water in desert lands to support working flush toilets isn't denying the rest of us toilets that work.  The solution lies in getting the people who want to live in the desert to pay what it costs to  furnish water there do what water can do, that is, flush their toilets.  And if they don't want to pay to import water, let them just poop in the dust of their back yard.  Hell, most of L.A. is so crappy already that dried up poop in the back yard probably wouldn't even be noticed.  For that matter, if poop in the back yard is offensive, let them poop into brown paper grocery bags.  Oh, and I bet there's more than one bidet in Los Angeles, located right next to a low flush toilet.  I say, if there isn't enough water to flush the toilets they should be required to use brown paper bags to cleanse themselves as punishment for the hypocricy of a low-flush toilet paired with a bidet.

And I say, who put such people as these in charge, who peddle windows that go down but not up, or idealogues who decree using brown paper bags in the rain, or who require that everybody acccept less effective technology? 

I won't lose sleep but . . .

I've been troubled by a lot of little things for some time.  Evidently, I miss some of the memos or I'm not in the circulation cue for the emails.  But things constantly come up that everybody else seems to have come to understand based on access to key information that has eluded me.  I've evidently arrived at that station in life where things pass me by.  How come everybody else seems to know these things?

For example, just who the hell are the Kardashians? 

Why does everybody seem to know who they are?  I've become familiar with some of them.  I know there is a Kim, and I think the rest of them are Kloe, Komet, Kupid, Donder and Blitzen, Dok, Sneezy and Dopey. 

Was there an original Kardashian, a product of some kosmic mutation which provided the inherited trait for which all Kardashians are now famous, whatever the hell that is? 

Does a Kardashian come out of hibernation every year, and if he sees his shadow we are going to have six more weeks of winter, so that we can plan for when to plant our spring crops?

If you are accepted as a Kardashian, do you have to pay annual dues, or is it a lifetime membership?  Is there an entrance exam, and if so, is there any math involved?

If I come into contact with a Kardashian, is it infectious?  Is simple handwashing enough or is there some more elaborate hygiene adviseable?  Once a Kardashian, can it be cured?

If lost in the woods, can you improve your chances of survival by rubbing two Kardashians together to make a toasty fire?

Should the Kardashians be admitted into the European Union, or the North Atlantic Treato Organization?

Have you noticed that the rise of the Kardashians in the public popular media corresponds with the continuous decline of home prices?  If the Kardashians stop doing whatever it is that they do, will the unemployment rate drop?

How much wood can a Kardashian chuck, if a Kardashian would chuck wood?


If I encounter a wild Kardashian, should I avoid making eye contact and slowly move to the side and away, or should I attempt to frighten the Kardashian by raising my harms up to appear as large as possible?   How do Kardashians mark their territory in the brush?  Who are these people? 

I'll need a clue -- even just a few brief words, like, "ancient warlike tribe of gold diggers," or, "like cherubim and seraphim," or "your new masters in the age of fear to come,"  or "sculpted silicone."

This is the prototypical WTF event!  The recent National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 authorizes the military to indefinitely detain a person they label a terrorist, without a trial.  No habeas corpus.  Doesn't matter if they are a U.S. citizen entitled under the U.S. Consitution to 4th amendment protections and habeas corpus.  The Senate has voted to screw that.

Was it just a few years ago that the professionally aggrieved were yelping about the detention of captured combatants being interrogated at Guatanamo?  Couldn't have been.  They wanted there to be trials in civil court.  But that was then, and this is now and there are some folks who think it might be neat to be able to lock up people who might appear to be terrorists by reason of their being critical of the government.

Of course, I, for one, welcome the activities of our new overlords and masters in Washington.

Destiny and the Ninety-nine percent. . . .

Saw a sign proclaiming membership in the 99%.  Right.  There's a way to distinguish yourself -- be exactly like everybody else, with no distinguishing features.  Unexceptional.  Common as dirt.  Interchangeable, dispensible, forgettable and inconsequential.  Like I said.  Unexceptional.

Now, being part of the 1%.  That would be something to talk about.

What happened to aspiration?  People used to hope and work and plan to improve themselves, and wanted their kids to "have a better life."   Observing that others were financially better off was seen as an indication of possibilities, not as evidence of injustice, as if somehow being wealthy was criminal, res ipsa loquitur.

The fact is, the social commentariat who've designed this "eat the rich", "the rich need to pay their fair share" nonsense, and this 99%/1% societal division are really telling you that any aspirations you may have are delusions, that in fact, you are fated to be -- nothing much.  Don't aspire to improve your lot; it can't be done.  Hope is not for such as us, because the rich have stolen it.  Your destiny is fixed, and you are looking at it right now.

So.  Your continued survival and safe membership in the 99% requires you to demand that more tax money be extracted from the people who still have it, so that it can be distributed to the corporations, unions, and cronies who fund election campaigns.

Hey folks.  It wasn't your wealth that was stolen by the rich.  What has been stolen is the belief that a person might become exceptional by application of the traditional middle class values  -  work, study, saving, planning, investing in the future.  Because if you don't believe that, if you don't believe you can make a difference, then there is no hope for you and you might as well sell your vote in exchange for fine sounding words empty of meaning, and settle in to life of relentless envy and unrewarding bitterness that comes with the conviction that the rich get richer and the game is rigged to keep poor people poor.

Welcome to the proletariat.

BING News

I noticed BING news posted a story and they labeled it "in depth."  Cool.  I wanted "in depth".   What I got was an obvious opinion from somebody who was emotionally involved with the story but without any information beyond her feelings.  I accept her feelings with some sympathy, but . . c'mon.  That's not "in depth" to me; I thought "in depth" would provide more information than just headline information.

What was more interesting is that BING just republishes news from other sources, and the source of the opinion that BING labeled "in depth," had actually clearly labeled the piece as "opinion."

So the question is, are the unidentified and untouchable BING editors instigators and enablers of the dumbing down of America, or are they in fact the result? 

How come Progressive Socialism hasn't actually progressed since the 1920's, anyway? . . .

Jane Fonda is complaining that QVC has taken down her segment because of her politics.

Good. 

Ain't it just dreadful when a soi disant heroine of the socialist movement is denied the financial benefits of capitalist marketing?

Pay no attention to that man behind the Social Security curtain . . .

The current AARP Bulletin published an opinion piece by James Roosevelt, Jr.,  the grandson of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Mr. Roosevelt is currently president of Tufts Associated Health Plans, Inc.

Mr. Roosevelt is of the opinion that worries that Social Security will run out of money are "utter distortions," the same sort of vicious foolishness that his grandfather had to endure when president.  He says that Social Security pays back 99 cents for every dollar collected.  He argues that Social Security is solvent because there is a positive balance of 2.6 trillion at the end of 2010, and a projected positive balance of 3.67 trillion at the end of 2022.  Why?  Because of interest to be earned.

Interest earned?  That's because money in the social security balance sheet isn't money.  It is debt, money that has been loaned to the federal government which is supposed to repay the money with interest. 

And how is the federal government doing?  It is currently spending $3.00 for every $2.00 it collects.  The other $1.00 it borrows.  The current federal debt, including money owed to Social Security, is 14 trillion and growing. 

So where is the cash that Social Security is going to pay out in the future going to come from?  It's going to come from future tax revenue.  In other words, we all have been paying money into Social Security once.  The government borrowed and spent it.  We'll pay again at tax time so the federal government can repay Social Security so that Social Security can return our 99 cents on the dollar.

Why it almost sounds as if there's some spinning of the facts, particularly in light of the unmentioned fact that Tufts Associated Health Plans, Mr. Roosevelt's employer, sells Medicare Advantage plans.

Top ten tips for new lawyer mentoring . . .

The Oregon State Bar, funded by generous and mandatory attorney dues and CLE purchases, has come up with yet another grand scheme.

It's new lawyer mentoring. 

Since newly graduated attorneys can't seem to find that big-bucks job they always assumed would be waiting for them at the end of the bar exam, many are choosing to go into practice solo as rank beginners.  But they don't quite know how to practice law because law school doesn't teach how to be a lawyer.  It teaches how to pass tests on the law, stressing retention over application.  (Except where the law school has a legal clinic intended to permit law professors to enjoy the illusion that they can practice real law.)  So, experienced attorneys, who won't or can't hire beginning lawyers, will nevertheless teach rookies the ropes, as it were.

Yeah, that's what I would want to do if I were an experienced attorney who was still practicing law.  I'd want to train up my competition for the same scarce client dollars. 

I'm not in practice now and I won't be asked to mentor anybody.  But if I was still in practice I'd want my new competition to keep the following top ten tips in mind. Yeah, that's the ticket. 

• Always address the judge by his first name.  Clients love insiders.
• No matter what, always pay your malpractice insurance premium unless you need to pay your bar bill instead.
• Develop a network of people who can refer clients to you, like hair dressers and cab drivers.  Pay them a cash "gift" for every paying sucker they send you.
• Find a bar close to your office where you can spend three or four hours every afternoon and evening, developing client contacts.  Run a tab if they let you.
• Once you've got the retainer, don't be in too much of a hurry to close the case.  You might screw things up and lots of times things just work themselves out if you let them.
• Get a gimmick to develop recognition.  Sure you'll look silly going to court in a batman costume, but client's love that sort of flash.
• Go ahead and commit to the most expensive office space there is.  The money will show up to pay for it.
• Don't be afraid to lie.  They expect it and will be disappointed if you don't.
• Use double entry book-keeping.  One book for you; the other for IRS
• Ethics are for suckers.

Hopes this helps

How to avoid going over budget . . .

The Democrats are in charge in the Senate.  Surely, they could get a budget passed because they have the votes.   But they haven't.  For the last two years!  They aren't even trying. 

Note that in recent years it's been Senators running for the presidency: Gore, Kerry, McCain, Obama. 

Really showing some leadership skills, there, guys.  Way to round up that budget problem.  What say you remind us of how you bravely resisted the urge to do your Constitutional duty to pass a budget the next time you need us to vote for you for anything.  Both parties!

So, this sucks . . .

So it looks like the much applauded, elusive mystery recovery isn't happening yet.  We keep getting all sorts of news about the state of the economy, all of it bad and all of it "unexpected."  Unemployment got worse, not better.  Industrial orders fell lower, not higher.  Confidence deflated, not grew.  Maybe there wasn't a recovery on the horizon, after all,despite pronouncements that things had turned around.  It's kind of like the Iraqi news spokesman for Saddam announcing that U.S. tanks were nowhere near Baghdad, as they were drag racing outside the ministry where he was.

Hope and change?  I haven't seen any of the hope part, and the change part really blows backwards.

I don't know if the situation is the result of incompetence or deliberate sabotage.  But I know it isn't simply bad luck.  There's deliberately selected policies at work.

The next revolution . . .

It occurs to me -- it's become a fairly commonplace and untested belief that we, here in the United States of America, have become too rich, too well-educated, too civilized, and just beyond that sort of thing, for there ever to be another civil war or revolutionary war or serious armed rebellion.  Not now, in the 21st century.  And certainly not with guns.  There will be no fighting to the death over politics here.  Our polity has grown beyond all that icky conflict.  It's no longer a matter of whether there should be a social preference for the ballot over the bullet.  The question now is whether it will be the ballot or the bribe that decides our collective situation.

And it occurs to me that if it is true that it is flat impossible to present a serious armed challenge to the government, then it is only a matter of when, and not if, the constitutional guaranteed limits on government becomes a mere historical fun fact, having no contemporary meaning at all.

Government is all about regulation, control, power, and the dependency of the governed on the government for whatever security the governed may get out of the deal.   People being what they are and government agencies being what they are, government involvement in one's everyday life will necessarily increase right up to whatever limits on its growth might exist.  Without at least the possible chance that government could be overthrown by force, there is no effective limit to the growth of government.  The government busies will always find it necessary for yet another regulation, yet one more punishment, another license to be obtained and another agency to be consulted, all for the so called common good.  They can't help themselves and it isn't reasonable to expect that they could ever resist the temptation, once the notion occurs to them.  Most of them do their job sincerely intending to provide a benefit when passing a new law or making a new regulation.  It's just that consequences are frequently unintended and unanticipated.  There is no "too much" built into our system of government as things now stand, and mistakes can and do happen frequently.

So, am I advocating armed rebellion?  Oh, for heavens sake of course not.  That would be horrible.  It's just that when armed rebellion truly becomes unthinkable -- then we've all lost the liberty that this country reached for in 1776.   

I simply think it would be healthier if we decide that rebellion is far from  necessary, for now, for the time being, and not that rebellion is totally unthinkable.  

Oh, and once in a while tar and feathers should be applied, simply for purposes of improving the breed, so to speak.

Today's question . . .

What kind and how good an education do you think you are going to get when your college instructors can't -- not won't but can't -- distinguish between ideology and information?  It's all the same to them.

Illegal alien problem solved . . .

A whole bunch of Tunisians are skipping out of Tunisia and ending up in Italy. Italy feels overwhelmed and is asking for help from the European Union -- you know, their federal government. The E.U. says that Italy may not deal with the problem on its own, and also, that there isn't going to be any help from the E.U. These are refugees fleeing violence and civil turmoil.

Sound familiar? A whole bunch of Mexicans are skipping out of Mexico and ending up in Arizona, which is forbidden by the federal government from doing much -- the feds are suing the state-- and the federal government isn't going to do anything effective about it.

But these Mexicans aren't refugees like Tunisians. They are undocumented immigrants. They used to be legally described as illegal aliens, but that hurt the delicate sensibilities of the college educators, assorted wannabes, pseudos, dipshits and undocumented journalists who objected to the terminology. So now they're immigrants, simply yearning for freedom, a place in the sun, and a chance to cut grass and do jobs Americans won't do, and also to sell drugs.

Anyhow, since we are already going to mess with the language with no sense of shame, why don't we just call the Mexicans who have arrived here without due process something else? They can be refugees. That makes them sound even more desperate, needy, and pitiful and less likely to be deported. You'd have to inhumane to deport a poor, wretched refugee, right?

You'd have to repatriate them.

Things you probably should never say to people. . .

I'm curious. Are you a moron in real life, or is it that the demands of your job require you to behave like one at all times?

They like me, they really like me. . .

Well, I'll just be dipped. It turns out that my call is really important to them, and they would like me to please stay on the line a little longer so that my call can be answered by an operator in the order in which it was received. It is a real comfort to know that I'm cared about, and I'm especially reassured when I hear that same message repeatedly while I wait interminably, like about forty times.

Without receiving that message about forty times before talking to a live person, I might have thought they didn't give frozen gilded moose turd about their customers one way or the other.

My bad.

Somebody needs a life script . . .

Alicia Silverstone, a celebrity who I'm not sure I recognize, has named her baby "Bear Blu." Honestly, these people celebrated for their attractiveness and whose whole life is built around their appearance need to have a script written for them by somebody else, so as to avoid doing or saying anything stupid. Bear Blu! Good luck with middle school, kid.

She also said she was destined to be a mother. Yeah, that kinda comes with having ovaries and intimacy. But it's okay, Alicia, Sweetie. If you want your biological determination to be a destiny, you go right ahead. Just, maybe, check with your scriptwriter before saying things in public.

Oh, maybe I'm being a mite harsh. It's not as if she's doing a Lindsay Lohan or a Charlie Sheen, both of whom evidently could be much improved by having both scriptwriters and keepers.

Sunday reading confessional . . .

Just finished Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth; Evidence for Evolution. Now half way through The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Part I, and just started Epstein's How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution. What are you reading?

If we can't screw our customers, well, who can we screw?

I heard on the news this morning that a big-time national bank has scrapped its plans to raise its fee for using their ATMs by out of system customers from $3 to $5. They evidently did a test, and people stopped using their ATMs. For $5, people are willing to drive to an ATM in their own banking system -- the cost outweighs the convenience of using the nearer ATM for an out of system charge. Imagine that.

Of course, I remember when the banks were trying to encourage the use of ATMs. It was pretty obvious. If they only could get people to use ATMs, they could dispense with hiring tellers some of whom were actually paid more than minimum wage. Providing ATMs relieved the banks of the need to offer customer service.

Yeah, I can remember going into a bank and standing in a long line waiting for my turn at the teller's place, and while waiting having a bank employee come up and offer to show me how to use an ATM so I didn't have to stand in line so long. But I knew how to work the ATM; it was raining out there and the ATM was not sheltered. Thanks for your offer, lady, but this is Oregon and it rains, here. How about getting your sweet little banker butt behind the counter and serving customers instead of pushing them outdoors into the rain.

Now that the teller staffs have all been successfully reduced in favor of ATMs, the banks want to act as if the ATMs are extra special conveniences that the bank offers at great expense and difficulty. Accordingly, we should be grateful for ATMs and willing to pay extra to use an ATM services if we aren't one of their loyal customers.

Oh, bless you, bankers! If I couldn't do my bank business at a machine without human warmth or understanding, I just don't know what I would do.

Loyalty. Yeah, right. One of my banks reminds me from time to time about the great deal on a bank card they would like me to have. I would be charged 0% interest on charges for the first 6 months. Of course, if instead of borrowing, I loan the bank money by leaving it on deposit, what do they pay me? Maybe 1% annually. What do they do with my money? Lend it out to credit card holders for 0% interest for the first 6 months, and then 20+% on the unpaid balance thereafter. And they charge those credit card holders an ATM access fee on top of it, all using my money at 1%!

Yeah, I'm happy to accept their 1% on my deposits so that they can make 20%. That 1% they pay makes me feel like they really appreciate me and not like a sucker at all.

Sounds like a license for banks to print money, doesn't it? Laws have been passed to permit them to do business in this fashion. But then, even with this sort of advantage it's possible for banks to screw up. And when they do, what happens? The government bails them out, using guess-whose money.

I think they may be in cahoots.

Osama Bin Fishfood

They say his body was buried at sea with appropriate wrappings to be respectful of Islamic custom, and so as not to give offense. Of course, they, when they have a body of one of ours, drag the body triumphantly and with cries of jubilation all around the town square for a few hours, so as to avoid giving us offense.

The cult of the pirate . . .

Here's an interesting take on piracy, going back to the Barbary pirates, and European colonialism. Worth thinking about.

Inappropriate content . . .

Went to a store today and while there, my wife wanted to look in the book department to see if there were any interesting books. While looking around I saw that the store had posted a little note stuck on the bookshelf, titled "Inappropriate Content." It said something like the following:

Sometimes some publishers publish content that some people believe is inappropriate although others do not consider the content inappropriate. Our customers are always welcome to call to our attention content that they feel is inappropriate. We would never like for our customers to view content which they believed was inappropriate. We fully support the right of our customers to decline to purchase books that contain content they believe to be inappropriate.

I think that translates to if you don't want to see it, don't buy it, but if you think we are going to let perpetually offended dipsh*ts decide what others may or may not read, you can go pound sand and bark at the moon, for all we care.

So now we all know where we stand and I'm good with that.

This will work . . .

President Obama has said that shutting down the government for absence of a budget would be inexcusable. He has also said that if the House passes a bill to keep the government open for another week to continue negotiations, and if the Democratically controlled Senate passed it too, he would veto the bill thus causing the shut down. Why? Because all this talk about trying to get a little extra time to work out budget details was a "distraction."

Kicking the Imam's butt . . .

Take a look at this Pakistani actress kicking butt. The back story is that her accuser is a high member of the Taliban and had sent her a warning that she is going to be punished for making Pakistan look bad by going to India. You know what punishment that means. Remember, they made good on their threats to kill Indira within days after she returned to Pakistan, and she had already served as President of the country once and was an international figure. Of course, merely "punishing" this actress isn't enough. The purpose of her television "interview" was to scare the uppity out of any other women who saw the interview. She's in more danger than ever; she likely didn't change any minds who matter to her continued security.

Hope she makes it out.

Tsunami!

Horrifying amateur video of Japan's tsunami.

Those poor people!

Choosing sides . . .

What we saw in Wisconsin when the government wanted to cut back employee unions' influence over the budget looks a little bit like what we are now seeing in England, when the country is trying to bring some balance to the budget. Demonstrations, intimidation, and riots. In either case, the government has been handing out increasingly generous benefits which now appear to be unsustainable. Same thing all through the U.S. and Europe.

Western governments, state, federal, European, whatever, are powerfully committed to the status quo, troubled only by the need to raise ever-increasing amounts of cash to meet the ever-increasing commitments to government entitlements/handouts. For example, I read somewhere where our current administration is considering a tax based on how many miles you travel in addition to the already high taxes, state and federal, on fuel.

If you are on the "gimme" side of the government/citizen relationship, you are in favor of government as it now stands. If not, your opposition to government by handout could likely lead to threatened mass street action, intimidation and property destruction to accompany the massive disturbance of the peace such demonstrations require. Somebody had a line I read, I wish I could remember who so I could attribute it, where the left has given up on trying to convince based on the force of their logic, and is now working on developing conviction through the logic of their force.

So, here's the question. Are you in favor of increased government taxes to support government checks? Are you a member of a public employee union, getting government assistance, going to school and living on government student loan money, getting aid for your dependent children, sucking up Social Security? If it comes down to fighting in the streets, will you be in favor of increased taxation to support continuing your government checks? If so, I figure you are what is classically called. . . a loyalist. But if you think about the difference between what our constitution says, and what's going on presently, and figure we should return to the old, pre-Wilson notions of federal constitutional limits you are . . . guess what. . . a rebel.

Choose.

Internet Exploder 9 . . .

This is just great. I updated Internet Exploder. So what's changed? Well, when I compose a post for the blog in blogger/blogspot, I can't post it. Either nothing happens, or up comes the print options. Everything else works just fine, except for the part where I put the post out on the web.

But blogger still works in Firefox. So I know what I must do, now.

Way to go, Microsoft. Did somebody say, "This isn't a bug; it's a feature?"

Virginity tests. . . .

Yeah. Virginity tests. Because everybody knows that if you are a protester and not a virgin, the conclusion that you are a prostitute is inavoidable. And everybody knows that if you are a prostitute, you are in need of torture and humiliation.

What a fine people. Let's invite them to join the country club.

The Koran in flames . . .

Yeah, I can see why Iran would want to have the United Nations condemn a U.S. church for burning a Koran.

Wonder how many Christian Bibles there are, left, in Iran. For that matter, I wonder how many Christians or Jews are left in Iran. Not that long ago, within my lifetime, Iran was actually fairly multi-cultural. Not any more.

I figure that the United Nations ought to condemn all ceremonial book burning. Also execution of homosexuals, female genital mutilation, stoning rape victims to death, honor killings, child brides, slavery, violent jihad, the jiz-yah, and public employee unions.

I threw the union thing at the last minute, Kinda adds a final completion to the rhythm of the sentence, doesn't it?

We need something to attract people to our attractive attraction, which isn't all that attractive enough, evidently, all by itself . . .

I read in a recent Portland Mercury that some of our city rulers are considering, once again, building a hotel in or near the Rose Quarter. I don't know how believable or serious this is or if the local politicians thinking about this are officials of the city, or the county, or metro. Or all of them; they're pretty much in cahoots anyhow.

The idea is to attract more action to the Convention Center. Of course, the politicos who like this idea plan to be using our money, whether or not we think it's a dumb idea. Used to be, if a bunch of people agreed that constructing a building would be a good idea, they themselves would invest in it, to earn the benefits of their investment. Or not. Just as they pleased.

If they asked me, I'd say if you guys have extra money of ours to build a hotel I'd just as soon you use it to repair local roads. We are about at the point where many of the roads are more suited to ox carts and burros, than to cars. Even if the cars are hybrids. Roads deteriorate with use, and you can't patch up deteriorating roads by simply painting bicycle lane stripes and green boxes on the roads, or erecting signs announcing that Oregon is being put back to work.

When government wants to do a project, it isn't as if we citizens have much say in it. If they decide to go ahead, there's no way for the "non-interested" investers to pass on that particular investment so as to save their capital for the next idea that percolates up. Oh, we can vote for somebody else next time, but meanwhile we are still invested in whatever it was. Like light rail. Whose bright idea was it, anyhow, to use a 19th century response to transportation problems, applying 20th century technology, to meet the needs of the 21st. century? Doesn't matter; we've got us some light rail and are going to get more.

And as for the proposed Rose Quarter hotel, it doesn't matter what independent investors might decide. To politicans, a hotel in this area would be -- an Attraction. An Attraction can be named after a local dignitary and can provide income opportunities for cronies. And since the Attraction would bring outsiders into the city and they would leave some of their money behind, benefitting us all, it should be okay with us. Right?

Hey, waitaminit. Wasn't the Convention Center, itself, supposed to be an Attraction to bring action to the city? What does it say about our civic investments when you have to build another Attraction to attract people to your Attraction? Oh, and notice that the first Attraction is nicely located next to a light rail stop so that people can easily come to the Attraction from wherever they might be, without being required to seek out lodging close by.

Gah!

Just another oppressed Palestinian . . . . . .

When they learned that a Palestinian person had snuck around in the dark of night, crept into a Jewish home, and stabbed the sleeping father, mother, children, and an infant to death, five in all, people in Gaza celebrated and passed out sweets.

What a fine culture.

Let's give them a country all their very own, and support it with lots of aid from American taxpayers.

I gotta get out of here . . .

Jeez, what if being in Portland kind of wears off on you? I hope I don't catch any Portland -- I've been here so long.

Here's what I mean.

A man broke into somebody's house in Portland. The Portland owner came home and heard somebody showering and she knew there shouldn't be anybody showering, so she called 911. At the same time, the trespasser heard the homeowner come in, got scared, and he called 911 at the same time. He said he just broke into somebody's house and they came home on him, and he was scared the homeowner might have a gun.

I mentioned this is the kind of thing that has to happen only in Portland, didn't I?

Maybe she should have turned off the hot water at the tank. Right after she hollered "Chill out, Dude. I have a gun but I won't shoot if you stay in there 'til the cops come."

If they're so progressive, how come they keep trying to drag us all back into the dark ages?

See this. Electricity when they want to give it to you. Only.

A Last Word on Obamacare.

Here it is.

Like the man says. What could go wrong?

Curly bulbs, once again . . .

Don't like curlybulbs. You know, compact florescents. Bad light. Expensive, unreliable. Supposed to last for years but don't. (I've already had four of 'em die in the last eleven months.)

Mostly I don't like outlawing the standard incandescent bulbs to force the curlies on us. Somebody is going to make a lot of money on this, and a big chunk of the Big Green Weenie Movement in politics is really about generating gobs of profits without being hampered by the lack of a market. (Vid Big Al and the Carbon Credit industry.)

So. This is fun. Be vewwy, vewwy afwaid?

I see my fate before me . . .

I just looked over the last few posts here. Lately I've wanted to step up the blogging, so I wanted to see how I was doing. I noticed that I have been all about government lately, and I see my future.

I'm not going to be a greeter at a discount store after all. I'm going to become one of those smelly old geezers hanging around a McDonald's every morning, who's mission it is to tell everybody how screwed we are.

Hey, I'll follow you out to your car if I have to.

Washington's budget...

This will fix things. A college student illustrates the contemplated budget cuts in a way that shows just how seriously the administration is taking budget worries.

Break out the tinfoil beanies . . .

Here ya go! The commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gives the gummint the legal authority to regulate based on what you are thinking, according to Judge Kessler:

As previous Commerce Clause cases have all involved physical activity, as opposed to mental activity, i.e. decision-making, there is little judicial guidance on whether the latter falls within Congress's power . . . However, this Court finds the distinction, which Plaintiffs rely on heavily, to be of little significance. It is pure semantics to argue that an individual who makes a choice to forego health insurance is not "acting," especially given the serious economic and health-related consequences to every individual of that action. Making a choice is an affirmative action, whether one decides to do something or not do something.

Can't write any more. Have to quick change into my red gym shorts and hurry off for the mandatory morning mass calesthenic exercises. Healthy mind in a healthy body, you know. See, I'm gettin' my head right, boss.

She says Marx is dead . . .

Once in a while I run into a person who asks, with their bare face hanging out all naked and innocent, why I'm against socialism. What's wrong with wanting to take care of everybody?

My short answer is that it has never worked any place it's been tried and it pretty much increases the sum total of misery wherever it's tried, except for a blessed few, and that the poor under socialism are poorer than the poor under capitalism. I don't bother with a long answer because I figure that if people won't accept my short answer, they are impervious to the logic of a long answer.

But that may be uncharitable of me. So if you want a long answer -- not too long, you can read it in less than three minutes, easy, even if you have to use your finger and mouth the words silently -- go here. The interesting thing is that you can see how Marxist thinking has infected our own body politic, to the point where people who should know better don't even realize that they are echoing Karl Marx.

Met any new friends online lately?

This isn't funny.

Looks like the government wants to spread its message -- propaganda -- and figures you might not be all that trusting. Or gullible. So the government wants to pretend that it's just some guy. The government is soliciting for a contract to create fake people to be managed with "persona management" software. Through these persona, the government agents will be interacting with us on social networks. It can spread messages that appear to be part of a groundswell, and gather information about its "friends" -- that means us -- on the social nets.

This is repulsive and is certainly not what I thought they meant when they said government was going to be transparent.

I guessby the time they know all about us from being one of our "friends," they would already have advance information about who is most efffectively opposing government programs. They would then know whose house to go to first, when the "disappearancings" start.

Not that this is the intent of this program now, I don't think. But what would prevent it?

Today, I shut down 84,000 websites to keep the world safe from pornography and aren't you proud of me, Mommy?

So, to shut down ten child pornography websites, our government shut down thousands of non pornographers, and called them pornographers? (See here.) These other eighty-three thousand nine hundred ninety were people were doing nothing illegal, presumably, but they were shut down and slapped with a badge of child pornography. It's defamatory. It's impairment of contract. It's also a violation of constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech -- it's government doing it.

Why do these people still have a job?

I think that the responsible individual or individuals in the vast government intellectual swamp (growing as we speak) should be publically identified, vilified, and fired in some suitable ceremony, all as a means of encouraging other bureaucrats to pay-effing-attention-to-what-you-are-doing! Make 'em wear a dunce cap while appearing on television.

Because this event is simply bright, shiny evidence that some our government employees are inept on a grand scale, and they are not accountable for the damage they do.

And we are going to look to this government to do something to increase employment, or literacy, or public health, or reduce obesity, drug-abuse, or homelessness, or shield us from an international politico-religious blood cult buried in a culture that accepts honor killings and female genital mutilation? No. We shouldn't expect good results. We should expect what we've been getting. Ineptitude. The government we have now? It's evidently not the same sort of people who planned the Normandy invation, or strung telephone cable across ocean floors, or put a man on the moon, or electrified a nation with four time zones in a generation or wiped out smallpox and polio. This is now a government that outlaws plastic bags and tobacco.

We are paying for a helluva lot better government then that which we are getting, and there should be some adjustments made.

Smothering anti-government demonstrations . . .

shouldn't be all that tough. They always try to fill up a large square in the capitol city, right? Get rid of the large squares so there's no good place to assemble for more than about 20 people. Why do you need a square where thousands of people can gather anyhow? Yep. No doubt about it. Capitol squares are cause of the downfall of dictatorships, sooner or later.

I don't know how that got there. It's not mine, really. It must be my cousin's . . .

Story here.

U.S. approves Russian state-controlled company's taking over two uranium mines in Wyoming . . .

It's okay if a Russian company takes control of an existing and a proposed uranium mine in Wyoming, according to our government.

I have a couple of questions, beyond the obvious question of - -

What the hell are you thinking?

First, has anybody explained Obamacare and what it is going to cost to do business in the U.S. with all of the expensive social programs built in? Oh, wait a minute. They probably experienced that sort of thing as unwilling members of the Soviet. Nevermind.

But second, isn't this just another example of foreigners being willing to do jobs that Americans won't do?

If you want peace . . .

make them scared of you. One good act of belligerence could go a long way towards gentling things down, internationally, I'm thinking.

Iranium . . .

Got an hour or so? You can watch Iranium, here, for free. At least for a while. This shows what we are facing, and how it came to be.

No surprises in Egypt . . .

We want the kind of democracy where everybody bows down to the mullahs.

Snow and ice . . .

Take a look at this. Most of the entire northern hemisphere is covered by ice and snow. But not Portland.

Must be some slackers aren't doing their part to assure global warming.

Time to start reading up about glaciation, I think. I have read that the earth has been pretty much completely ice free at times, and at other times pretty much covered in permanent ice, and that major glaciation kind of scours the earth clean of the records of previous glaciations. I know that about two thirds of the earth is ocean, where people don't live, and I know that much of the land surface is relatively unpopulated, so that if the activities of people are contributing to climate change, it's probably only on a small fraction of the surface of the earth and consequently is probably only a small percentage of the cause of climate change.

So, are we entering a glacial age? Or leaving one?