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?