Ain’t We Got Fun?

My, my, my.  Isn’t this just a pickle? I like being right, but there is a limit.I’m here to tell you, I’ve never had this much fun, and I’ve been to two world fairs and a goat fucking.  Politics, finance, world order itself hang in the balance, and it gets no better than that.

In just the last month as I reckon it the federal government has injected or is on the verge of injecting over TWO Trillion (that’s trillion with a T) bucks into the financial market.  What comes after trillion? it’s million,billion, trillion….but what comes next?  Whatever it is, we’ve sunk a quarter of one of them into this mess.  In fact, I’m not even counting the fannie and freddie buyout, so probably more like 3 trillion.

Yet, amazingly, no one is to blame.   I keep stopping as I write this.  Laughter overcomes me.  A complete and utter dearth of leadership has created the situation, and suddenly we find that the two candidates aren’t really capable of leading either.  Given an incredibly devastating economic crisis just 2 months prior to the election, and McCain panics whilst Obama cowers.  The cowering isn’t exactly a surprise.  It conforms to both the voting record, and the lack of forthrightness on the part of Barack.  The panic was a little surprising.  I take it that’s what a bonafide hero does when faced with a situation beyond his understanding.  Lacking the tools to capture the essence of the crisis it is better to do be doing something useless than nothing at all.  I remember the mindset clearly from my time in the military.  I believe they teach it at The Basic Officers Course.

So what we have is a candidate willing to trounce longtime friendships as if they mean nothing, and a candidate incapable of dealing with those issues not related to beans, bullets, and bandages.  Let’s look back:

We could’ve had Hillary.  Mitt.  Guiliani.  A host of others.  All uniquely unqualifed, but gifted with the egocentricity needed to believe one capable of performing that job.   Bill probably would be nice to have around right now.  Would be nice if he hadn’t used up his term limits before he achieved wisdom.  Oh well.  What we have are these two knuckleheads.  Both of whom, coincidently, have less executive experience, and less personal appeal than the vice presidential candidate.  The hockey mom.  Not the inveterate liar and longtime defender of current social policy that has us where we are today.  Of course, I’m partial to a well turned calve.  Beats worn out political bullshit everytime.

Anyway.  I just came by to chuckle.  Spending what you don’t have got us here.  Blame whoever you want, but that’s what did it.  Your friends, neighbors, coworkers…maybe you, maybe a little me.  that’s who got us here.  Bad spending, atrocious voting.  Accepting that in a free and democratic society the government should be bailing out private enterprise.  We suck folks, and we just keep sucking.  Come the first Tuesday in November we’re going to suck again.  We chose these two to lead us to the promised land?  We’re we drinking?  Hopped up on speedballs and Latte’?  Whatever the case.  This is frigging hilarious.

awkward conciliatory and encouraging afterward:

If your job is sound, and you aren’t in hock up to your genitalia; if you spend little and conserve copiously you should come through this mess ok.  If not, well, tough shit.  You were warned.

Ron Paul wins FOXNEWS Debate

  By what is apparently double the nearest competitor.  At last look he had 33% of the vote to 16% for Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani, with John McCain at 15%.  That would be considered a win by anybody I would think.  Popularity in New Hampshire is not an easy thing to come by.

But wait.   There is more.  Every question Brit Hume asked was asked either derisively or facetiously when speaking to Ron, and every answer given was combative and circuitous.  Ron really didn’t answer the questions he was asked, but rather rephrased them to fit the answers he wanted to give.  He was shrill, petuleant, and argumentative.  His viewpoint appeared to be self serving and cowardly, and during his debate within a debate with Mike Huckabee he came off as irrational and whiny. 

    This was not only an unpresidential showing, it exhibited almost perfectly why he is for ending the war on drugs.  He appeared very in need of something to get him back in touch with reality.

    BTW, the poll was a nationwide phone in poll in which you can call as often as you like, but you have to pay for each call. 

The Ron Paul library, and the war on drugs

   People keep saying go to the Ron Paul library and see what he says.  You’ll be inspired, you’ll change your tune, you’ll have a bluebird on your shoulder…its the truth…its actual…everything is satisfactual.   Uhhhhh…wrong.   I went, and perusing just one issue I find more of the nonsense that I’ve come to expect from this radical right wing, my-cronies-are all-that-matter zealot.

   The above link takes you straight to an article about the governments war on drugs, but if you hit the little X up in the right hand corner of your screen it will take you to the homepage.  What really sickens me about this article is that I’ve dealt with chronic pain.  i had a doctor shovelling pills at me till they were coming out my ears.  When he broke out the 40mg Oxycontin I decided I’d had enough.  I switched doctors.  While he had no miracle cures, he used non-drug methods for dealing with the pain that eventually restored me to a somewhat healthy existence.

    In any group of people you will have those that are inclined to break the rules.  No hippocratic oath is going to change that, and the DEA should be going after these doctors that work like vending machines to put painkillers in mass quantities on the street.  His anecdotal evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the governent is the same old  “look here, don’t look behind the green curtain” trick that politicians are always playing.  There are criminally negligent pill dispensers disguised as doctors all over the country, and the health care system is so rife with fraud and corruption that, wow, we’re getting clobbered by health care costs.  Your almost free market health care system at work.

   I’m sorry Ron.  Your continued efforts to make everything fit in your little idea of government is tending to sicken me, and your rabid defense of all doctors is disturbing as hell.  You can’t see the problem, and since it’s your professional peers that must mean there isn’t one.   You may be as honest as the day is long, but at least in this article your integrity isn’t the issue.  Your ignorance is.

Ron Paul Campaign Reality Check

   Feeling a little froggy over there in Dr. Paul ville?  You have a few straw polls under your belt, the meetup groups are burgeoning, and he just had a birthday.  Let me put you in touch with some numbers you need to know.

The first one is you have not more than 6 months until this is over.  Since I’d rather not listen to you snivel about how you were robbed I’d also like to point out these numbers.  These a re the numbers it took to win each state in 2000.  Many of them of course are skewed because everyone drops out once its obvious who the winner is going to be, but these are still big numbers.

   Internet support is solid…you are still looking for that magic million, but even if you get to it, that’s only 20,000 per state on average.  Your meetup groups are tracking maybe as high as 50,000 members nation wide.  Thats 1000 per state on average.  Most states will require at least 100,000 votes to win. 

  In other words, you aren’t even close, and based on what I can see your numbers aren’t climbing fast enough to get you anywhere close.  You need more money, more advertising, more phone calls, and more reason if you hope to compete.

So get out of that armchair, put down the mac-10 and hit the streets.  You still have a lot of work to do.

16 years of scandal; maybe its time for Ron Paul

   The never ending treadmill of scandal has finally claimed Alberto Gonzales.  An honest to god rags to riches story, he is now naught but fodder for the uninspired inanities of career corruption facilitators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) and Harry Reid (D-Nev).  If you add in the smarm merchant John Edwards, it has to be a devestating blow for Gonzales.  To be trivialized by a bunch of scoundrels who lack the ability to think on their own is surely a long drop from  being considered for a Supreme Court job, and being selected as the Attorney General.

   It doesn’t take a huge helping of intellect to understand that this is just partisan politics.  Congress never even bothered to name what it was that Mr. Gonzales did that would amount to wrongdoing, because in point of fact, they can’t prove he did anything wrong.  These same pontificating lackwits stood mute during the FBI file scandal, and the white House post office scandal during the Clinton administration, where not only wrongdoing did occur, but proof of said wrongdoing was available.

   I guess the question is whether the electorate is tired of supporting one band of rogues at the expense of another.  Neither major political party has moral standing, and integrity is a punchline for both.  They have spent the past 16 years making themselves and their friends richer while America languishes in every major economic category except the stock market, where the rich like to play.  Ineptitude and malfeasance have become the rule of law on capital hill, and Harry Reid is a known participant.  It’s a shame that he maintains his seat while a man trying to do what he thought was right for America goes home in disgrace.  I guess if Alberto needs consolation he at least has that.  That he at least tried to do what he believed to be right.  The slatterns nipping at his heels lo these many weeks know that they are not doing what is right for the country, and they don’t care.

   If there is one thing that would get me to vote Ron Paul this may well be it.  The major parties are too corrupt to trust America’s future to, and any who think otherwise are either mentally challenged or unaware of the depth of the larceny being perpetrated.  I believe that if Ron Paul were elected we would at least in the executive branch experience honest government for a change.  Not necessarily successful government, but honest none the less.

   It’s another sickening day for Americans.  A good man was dragged down like a wolf by feral dogs, and we are worse for it happening.  Those of you supporting these two parties are as much to blame for whats wrong with America as the parties themselves.  You lack the intestinal fortitude to  say “my party is wrong,” and instead spend your time looking outward, ignoring the enemy within.  We have less to fear from Jihadists than we do from Democrats and Republicans. 

Try and prove me wrong on that.  All the data is on my side.

A note from Ron Paul August 22

Yep, he wrote us a note.  For or against, it is a damn fine read.  He talks about taxes, happy warriors, togetherness, and  monetary policy.  You can see why his followers are so taken by him.  He doesn’t really spell it out, so I thought I would.

Lets start with happy warriors.  Anyone who has ever written a post that contradicted Dr. Paul knows what a hoot this is.  He has some of the most rabid people on the planet supporting him.  they will attack your children, your dead parents, your dog…anything to get an edge.  Ron needs to write a negative blog about himself and see the responses he gets from the pauliac tribesmen.

   The tax thing.  He doesn’t want to replace the IRS with a new tax.  He claims our problem is inflation and an unsound monetary policy that keeps us on a rollercoaster of financial uncertainty.  Here’s what he leaves out.  He wants the states to tax the holy living hell out of us.  He doesn’t want a big federal government, he wants huge monolithic state governments, just like the constitution envisions.  You wouldn’t be taxed less under a Ron Paul regime, you would merely be taxed by someone else.

Freedom brings us all together.  Again, he would be right.  Except his position does not create freedom.  Freedom is not a derivative of the state.  It is, according to his theological ethos I would assume, god granted.  Yet he wants the state to control everything that the fed now controls.  Ron Paul doesn’t envision a nation where abortion isn’t legislated.  He pictures a country where abortion is controlled by the state.   I’m sorry.  His policies would not make me a freer person.  Heres an example of what I mean.  My dog loves going for walks with me.  It’s because she behaves for me and I don’t have to put her on a leash.  She hates going for walks with any of the kids.  In fact they don’t go for walks they go for drags.  She loves the kiddoes, but she hates the leash.  IT DOESN’T APPEAR TO MATTER TO HER WHO IS HOLDING IT.   Ron Paul doesn’t offer you a chance to lose the leash.  He offers you the opportunity to have someone else hold it.  That isn’t freedom.

Unconstitutional government has created…  the guy is always half right.  He doesn’t mention that unconstitutional government has also granted us stability that there is no way the 50 states legislating themselves ever will.  He merely wishes to change the problems we face.  50 powerful little pigs trying to get all the slop for themselves will create a nation that feeds on itself.  At least under the current method we are feeding on others. 

   I’m not trying to change any minds here.  I’m just pointing out the fact that while it sure looks rosie when he says it, the reality could well be an entirely different thing.

“we’re out of gas”

  Thats what he said.  Actually, what he said in its entirity was “hey dad we were on the way to this party and were out of gas can you bring us some.”

So, he needs gas to convey himself to a party that he never would’ve bothered mentioning to me if he had not run out of gas.

so i took him some gas.  Him is my son, btw.  and his hippie buddy will.  Upon further conversing, I learn that this is a girls birthday party and there won’t be any drinking or dope smoking.  Of course.  There was never any drinking or dope smoking at the parties I went to at his age.  It did bother me though that he offered the information.  I noticed he didn’t say there wouldn’t be any heroin shooting, coke freebasing, or animal sacrificing.

I’m old and therefore stupid so I wasn’t surprised when he came to borrow money from me because they were going to play poker.  thats a clever euphemism for “I need to buy a dime” I think. Puff puff pass, buttmunch….er…check check fold. Whatever.

   It doesn’t bother me that they think I’m stupid, but the fact they think i was born 45 years old is a bit of a bummer.  I thought I taught them better than that.  Never underestimate anyone. 

I gave him the ten bucks on the off chance it wasn’t for dope.  Besides, he’d of fronted the shit and had Bruno the killer pot dealer chasing him if it was and i didn’t give him the loot.

Teenagers suck.

Ron Paul: In a race of his own

  While the front runners carefully craft shifts in message to attempt to cannibalize votes off each other, and the tailchasers are watching for the exit door that will benefit them the most, Ron Paul blithely continues on his course of action.  He doesn’t make semantic comments foreshadowing a seachange in policy positions, but rather sticks to the deceptively simplistic messsage that placed him here.

    Ron Paul has it good.  He isn’t running against seven other people whose viewpoints are similar to his own.  He doesn’t have to form study groups to see which words make his position sound the best to the voter, and what Mitt Romney says on any given day has no effect on what Ron Paul will do.  He isn’t running against Mitt.  He isn’t running against Rudy, or John or the not running yet Fred.  He is running against voter apathy, public ignorance, and an ingrained, almost slavish tendency to accept the status quo, and only the status quo.

   For Ron Paul to succeed he doesn’t have to combat the others, but rather society in general.  Months into the quest for the White House people have still never heard of Ron Paul. Contrary to the popular misconception applied by his followers, this isn’t because the mainstream media ignores him.  It’s because the largest voting demographic right now is the”I don’t know and I don’t care” majority.  It’s early, and most people would rather wait and pick between less candidates.  It’s easier for their :I need my life to be easy” minds to comprehend.  He and his campaign has to get these people to listen, and shy of promising free lottery tickets, sex, and beer I don’t know how he can do that, other than to just continue being Ron Paul.

  Then you come to the message issue.  He has to convince undertaxed rich folk,  a downsized middle class, and an entitlement oriented impoverished multitude to want his vision of a constitutional government.  His ideas on the surface have merit, but people tend to shy away from you taking something from them that they are used to getting.  I can’t picture big business accepting anything like fair taxation.  Nor can I picture the impoverished masses giving up their state sanctioned freebies.  The middle class might be his best hope, but even they have to question where his economic theories might lead.

   The matter of his current camp followers is something he can control, and has apparently decided not to.  Everything he says is taken as being written on stone tablets, so he needs to convince them that his message is enough to carry the nomination.  So far the trend toward blog-sponsored heathenism is only an irritation, but when people really start paying attention he needs to convince his fringe elements to exercise the flipside to the right to free speech, and convince them to practice the right to shut up.

   So its all about Ron.  Can he convince America that his far reaching ideals will fix whats broken, or will they continue to seek security through stupidity?  It’s easy to convince yourself that everythings not so bad, when the option you have is an all or nothing gamble with your future on the line.

  

Why I’m ok with Hate Speech

    I know, I know, now you don’t like me.  If you don’t, you’re not the sort of person I wish to know anyway, so, “darn it.”

     I am ok with it.  Hate speech I mean.  The first amendment grants the right, and I’m afraid that when we start limiting hate speech we set an awful precendent.  Also, hate crimes being punished more severely than other crimes is absolutely unamerican.

     Part of growing older is hopefully becoming wiser.  I haven’t hated anyone or anything in a long time, and I’ve had some run of the mill heinous shit happen to me in my lifetime.  Nothing others haven’t gone through and survived.  No being dipped into a vat of sulphuric acid by Columbian Drug lords high on crack and bored out of their skulls or anything.

     This absence of malice does not however keep me from picking on hillbillies, republicans, liberals, and almost every other socially defineable group at one time or another.  For delivery purposes sometimes it sounds absolutely hateful.  I could be punished I suppose, and if you happen to know a leggy blonde about so tall with legs up to here let her know I’ve been a bad boy if you would please.

   I’m rambling.  Surprised?  Not if you’ve been here before you aren’t.  What I’m working my way around to is hate speech is a good thing.  It’s honest, heartfelt, emotion, vociferously delivered in a manner that allows the rest of us to know just what a sorry assed human the speaker is.  

     An example of this would be poor old George.  The hate speech directed at him is as voluminous and colorful as that directed at any president since Truman.  It’s not only vitriolic, but as often as not totally untrue, but fortunately protected by the first Amendment.  Same goes for the trash falling out of Baracks mouth lately.  This is obviously a man in search of a crusade that can make him seem like the rest of the big kids.  All it’s shown is that he is bigoted against mass quantities of the human race, and probably is justified in his feelings.  To deny him the right to express it would be as wrong as shutting down Daily Kos or White Noise Insanity.  They have almost nothing of value to impart to the conversation, but at least they allow us to know who they are.

   Just so you don’t think I’m picking on liberals,  I read Ann Coulters column today, and while clever, informative, and well written as always, it was just more hate speech spewing from the mouth of an overpublicized pundit.  Same goes for the nonsense coming out of O’reilly, Hannity, and the list continues almost forever.

   The reason we need hate speech should be obvious.  Our nation would stop communicating altogether if we were not allowed charachter assassination and verbal evisceration.  Republicans bashing gays, and gays bashing neo-cons.  Liberals screaming vitriolic antiwar rhetoric into microphones and besmirching the military, and the military vilifying the lefties.  Capitol hill would be the quietest place on the planet.  Quieter than an integrated prison, which would be silent as a church mouse.

   You see, the truth is we’re not all that gifted individually.  Check out the blogworld.  How often do you find a post you are really consumed by?   Almost never.  Hateful is usually more interesting than the sycophantic bullshit, but both forms of insidous stupidity are easy to remove from your daily reading.  I for one wish to hell I had a blogroll for work.  Just put on the people worth listening to, and be able to not even notice the braindead trogs that are so common.  I don’t, so what I do is not converse with those I find repugnant, and that’s the option we all have.

What we do, is hate…either publically or in little private enclaves, we hate each other, and its a beautiful thing.  Because that notwithstanding, as a society we remain incredibly successful.  All the things that make human beings better than shit tossing monkeys (now the animal lovers hate me) continue to flourish in the midst of all this ire.  As we age, for the most part, the hate will go away for most of us.  What will be left is maybe a little guilt, and a lot of wisdom about how the rest of society thinks.  So if you have it to say, say it.  You can start with me.  I’d prefer you do it intelligently, but if all you can come up with is honkie, or cracker, or whitey, or whatever the hell…run with it.  i don’t mind at all.

Responsibility and search engines

  I read an intriguing defense of not regulating search engines, and by extension the internet today.  I disagree with it in part, because search engines are getting a free ride to riches, and ignoring their responsibilities in the process.  I’m not an expert, but it seems like a logical extension of current law to require search engine owners to ensure that they are not promoting stolen or plagiarized intellectual property.  I can hear the cries of foul already.  Can you imagine how much slower information would be placed on a search engine if you required them to ensure its authenticity and ownership?

   Why shouldn’t that be a requirement though?  We require newspapers, televisions, private foundations, et al to ensure that anything they use of an intellectual nature be vetted, and credit be given to the original authors of that material.  Further, there are a host of laws on the books that punish those who steal intellectual property or plagairize the work of others. 

   It occurs to me that the defense must be, well, we are only listing it.  Well, that makes you a conspirator, and open to every statute under the RICO act.  You have knowingly entered into an organized venture to defraud others of a valuable commodity that they own, and you should be punished.  If you list stolen proerty that has value on a search engine you own, then you have profited from that listing, and have damaged the original owner of that property by not ensuring he recieves the renumeration for the work.  

   Seems to be sensible to me.  If something I own causes damage to something else, I am liable for that damage.  My example is if my dog bites you, it’s my resonsibility.  This plays out all over the country everyday as dog owners are punished for damage their animals perpetrate.  Why not search engine owners when their search engines are used to profit off works stolen from others?