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.