I've said it a few times that Rush Limbaugh does not need my help to spread his word, so I try very hard to just be creative and not to ape Rush's words. You have to excuse the occasional lapping over of ideas as an inevitability, but largely, Rush doesn't need me to help him.
Similarly, president hussein does not need me to help him either. He has the mainstream media, Hollywood idiots and delusionally self-important americans who have forsaken personal responsibility for the lure of easy-street.
So in accordance with these two not needing my help, I do not write today about the first 100 days of the new administration's presidency, but rather to a far more vital and important sector of the company.
The Conservative Movement.
If you consider the inauguration of hussein to be the point of death of a struggling Republican/Conservative constituency who had hoped and dreamed that the hussein administration would not be as bad as we had feared, then you must consider any actions taken since then as a re-birth... a second coming if you will.
You see, there is a simple axiom that children need to learn, that seldom if ever problems are as bad as they appear before they arrive. We are a people who have learned to fear the unknown far more than we fear the thing right in front of us. So prior to his taking office hussein was a largely unknown entity whose policies appeared to be dangerous and radical, and whose background was seeded with left-wing anti-American sentiment. As adults we tend to believe that once the great scary thing gets here it will not be as bad as we had imagined.
Except that we were NOT wrong in this instance.
Years of watching movies wherein conspiratorial bad guys would plot and scheme to replace world leaders so that they could take control of governments had failed to properly prepare us for the insanity that was unleashed starting with the insulting inaugural invocation, and marches on unrelentingly to this day.
And in that moment of pain, that realization that what we knew no longer applied, and that we conservatives were the underdogs in a grand war for our homes, we dropped back, went underground and started to sort things out for ourselves. And in that process, which was by necessity the pain of our second childbirth... we started the road back.
We do not exist in offices and can not be sought out via the yellow pages. We can exist silently among a den of liberal co-workers and pursue our agenda privately. We are NOT organized by political parties nor are we following the lead of Fox News. We are individual cells of resistance, well-versed in keeping tabs on those who seek to control us and destroy our homes.
We waited, and we became lonely in the dark, and we began to get exhausted and fearful as each new day yielded horrors we never contemplated. Americans pitted against Americans, industries being forced to bow down to hussein the way he bowed down to the Saudi King, threats of crippling and individually targeted taxation as a means of vengeance... all these things went beyond the scope of our original fears. Hell, it's safe to assume our biggest fear was JUST socialized medicine. Now we had to contend with the most historically irresponsible spending bill in world history.
And we needed a turning point. We needed to locate a focus point that would take all of our collective anger and direct it in a positive manner against the brutal regime of president hussein. We needed to step back into the light and to be counted.
And thus was born the Tea Party. The true hero of the past 100 days, and the Eagle to which I refer. The Tea Party, which SHOULD be the third political party and the future home of the Conservative movement, was the young creature born of anti-obama anger.
Many have debated the success of the Tea Parties. Did they change a single law? No. Did they repeal unfair taxation? No. Did they convert the Garafolos of the world? No.
They did something far greater than those deeds. They brought US together. They united American with American, and they demonstrated that Conservatives are people of their word. Did we shake the pillars of the hussein palace? Undoubtedly. Did we receive the only kind of accolades we would ever WANT to get from CNN? Damn straight!
They railed against us, and in so doing the battle lines were laid down, and the gauntlet was flung.
Nothing makes heroes of us all like the lost cause. And being outnumbered and hideously out-financed, we prefer the odds this way. When Arlen Specter turned colors the other day and became Democrat it was seen as a way to strengthen hussein. Our reply, "Good Effin' Riddance!". As a movement we don;'t want him here, and if he makes our enemy stronger, than that only makes our inevitable victory that much sweeter.
In coming out of the darkness and stepping out from behind our computers and laptops did one thing, it made friends and alliances. It took away the fear that was creeping in, that maybe we really WERE just conspiracy theorists who had gone off the deep end in our solitude. It solidified the sense of moral outrage we felt and crystallized our gaze to a razor-sharp focus.
Our enemy, president hussein, leads a philosophically amoral legion of people who, ala Perez Hilton, find Jesus insulting, and who have no time for God. I say this is fine. I say that this is actually preferable.
Because then it can leave only one undeniable conclusion... the one that armies over the centuries have sought for themselves.
God is on our side.
No amount of money, no mass-media spin-doctoring, no "hip-ness" nor adoring magazine covers and sickening posters adulating the man can save him from an army equipped with God on their side.
This is the first 100 Days of the Eagle. God has smiled upon us, and he is our portion and our shield. He guides our aim and he sounds the trumpet as we begin the long and difficult campaign to reclaim our land from heathens.
This is the first 100 Days of the Eagle, and you are the left arm of God.
I'm so very proud of my fellow Americans as I write this. We have stood up and said "No".
I'm Dr. Calamity, and I approve this message wholeheartedly.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Want to know why we should use aggressive interrogation techniques on captured Al Qaeda?
If you really want to know WHY we were not wrong to use the methods we did, nothing speaks so aggressively to that idea than THIS:
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Providing Aid and Comfort to the Enemy....
As we near the eponymous 100th day in office for president hussein we look back with a sense of awe and wonder. Here, truly, is a masterful entertainer... a man who has taken that old axiom, "Pain is Comedy" and turned it into a hedonistic expression of life lived to the fullest by quashing the hopes, dreams and desires of the fools stupid enough to put him there in the first place.
Just a skant week or so back he left the nation reeling with the release of the Bush "Torture Memos". You remember those little post-it notes of misery... the ones wherein we waterboarded people for valuable information and stuck them in small, confined places with non-stinging insects.... Yes, that's right... THOSE memos.
hussein went a step further and opened the door for the authors who decided that these non-lethal, non-injury causing methods of interrogation were likely subject to legal action because they have violated the law. They didn't hurt anybody, they intentionally sought to avoid physical damage, and they did their damndest to preclude any laws being broken... so naturally they are criminals. Would that we could speak so well of hussein.
Former Veep Dick Cheney, he who stands so poorly in Hillary Clinton's esteem... argued that this presented a biased view of the memos and that ALL the memos should be released if you are going to do something so insanely asinine as to give valuable information to an active enemy of the state (remember, however, that hussein probably had ACTUALLY READ these memos, and could not hold up under their whithering descriptions, and cracked and gave up the info to Al Qaeda under the stress of Torture Memos...).
Of course since Cheney knows that the WHOLE truth is nothing like a portion of the truth, you can bet your bottom dollar (which after a few more weeks with hussein in charge is all you'll have...) that we'll never See or hear anymore of THOSE memos. Like it or not, Cheney called him on it and the weasel folded. Republicans may have only won a symbolic victory, but wars have turned on far less hope.
So then we have Monday's photo-op flight with back-up Air Force One and two F16s flying around the Statue of Liberty and scaring the feces out of New Yorkers, who scrambled out of their offices and ran for God knows where to avoid the horror of 8 years ago.
And THAT, my Friends, is the single gravest thing Barack Hussein Obama has done to the people of America since taking office. The most egregious, desperate and radical crime he has yet committed.
He broadcast a message to Osama Bin Laden who may or may not be alive, that Americans are STILL terrified of what Al Qaeda had done. That their message STILL RESONATES! Our United States President provided moral support to the most dangerous enemy of the State since Adolf Hitler. He has sent the message that the old wounds are still fresh and that their cut may never go away in this generation.
Fear, anger, frustration, seething resentment... all of those things boiled up in the people of NYC Monday on a warm and pleasant Monday Morning... sending them in a heartbeat of seconds from regular working men and women to scared victims wondering if maybe they won't see their loved ones for supper.
And hussein has the grapes to say (YET AGAIN) that he had no idea. This man has amassed a resume of lack of knowledge of his surroundings when faced with possible scandal that would make H.R. Clinton blush.
Let me be clear here... president hussein violated both Federal Law and his oath of office by providing material support to the declared enemies of the United States of America (with whom we as a nation are at war...) in the form of valuable interrogation techniques and what American limits are, and further in the emboldening of the enemy's moral and spiritual belief that they are still relevant and feared by America.
And no one's gonna do a God Damned Thing About It. Are they?
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Just a skant week or so back he left the nation reeling with the release of the Bush "Torture Memos". You remember those little post-it notes of misery... the ones wherein we waterboarded people for valuable information and stuck them in small, confined places with non-stinging insects.... Yes, that's right... THOSE memos.
hussein went a step further and opened the door for the authors who decided that these non-lethal, non-injury causing methods of interrogation were likely subject to legal action because they have violated the law. They didn't hurt anybody, they intentionally sought to avoid physical damage, and they did their damndest to preclude any laws being broken... so naturally they are criminals. Would that we could speak so well of hussein.
Former Veep Dick Cheney, he who stands so poorly in Hillary Clinton's esteem... argued that this presented a biased view of the memos and that ALL the memos should be released if you are going to do something so insanely asinine as to give valuable information to an active enemy of the state (remember, however, that hussein probably had ACTUALLY READ these memos, and could not hold up under their whithering descriptions, and cracked and gave up the info to Al Qaeda under the stress of Torture Memos...).
Of course since Cheney knows that the WHOLE truth is nothing like a portion of the truth, you can bet your bottom dollar (which after a few more weeks with hussein in charge is all you'll have...) that we'll never See or hear anymore of THOSE memos. Like it or not, Cheney called him on it and the weasel folded. Republicans may have only won a symbolic victory, but wars have turned on far less hope.
So then we have Monday's photo-op flight with back-up Air Force One and two F16s flying around the Statue of Liberty and scaring the feces out of New Yorkers, who scrambled out of their offices and ran for God knows where to avoid the horror of 8 years ago.
And THAT, my Friends, is the single gravest thing Barack Hussein Obama has done to the people of America since taking office. The most egregious, desperate and radical crime he has yet committed.
He broadcast a message to Osama Bin Laden who may or may not be alive, that Americans are STILL terrified of what Al Qaeda had done. That their message STILL RESONATES! Our United States President provided moral support to the most dangerous enemy of the State since Adolf Hitler. He has sent the message that the old wounds are still fresh and that their cut may never go away in this generation.
Fear, anger, frustration, seething resentment... all of those things boiled up in the people of NYC Monday on a warm and pleasant Monday Morning... sending them in a heartbeat of seconds from regular working men and women to scared victims wondering if maybe they won't see their loved ones for supper.
And hussein has the grapes to say (YET AGAIN) that he had no idea. This man has amassed a resume of lack of knowledge of his surroundings when faced with possible scandal that would make H.R. Clinton blush.
Let me be clear here... president hussein violated both Federal Law and his oath of office by providing material support to the declared enemies of the United States of America (with whom we as a nation are at war...) in the form of valuable interrogation techniques and what American limits are, and further in the emboldening of the enemy's moral and spiritual belief that they are still relevant and feared by America.
And no one's gonna do a God Damned Thing About It. Are they?
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Just Plane Insensitive...
I have a hard time trying to keep a straight face on these things some days. I just ran across THIS bit of governmental wackiness and man, I don't even know where to begin.
The citizens of New York City are many things, not all of them well-thought of, but one thing that everyone can agree upon, is that they just won't forget that September day some years ago, and it will inform them for years to come.
Now enter the hussein administration with their witless and tactless approach to things, and for some reason they decide it would be just a jim-dandy cracker of an idea to do photo-surveillance of NYC...
From a jet....
Flying low over the city.
Had they NOT invoked the name of NY State jackass senator Chuck Schumer in this piece it might have been tossed off as a minor incident that became blown out of proportion, but the reality is his knowledge and cooperation in this event has chilling implications.
Apart from the very obvious idea that only a fool like Jarjar Binks might think it was a good idea to fly a jet low over NYC, it is dawning on me that there is a very real possibility of your government at work preparing to do something truly deep and dark.
Ive got no proof, just a supposition...
After all, it's not like they expected a secret mission flying a jet low over a city that is prone to not being comfortable with that sort of behavior was going to go unnoticed. They HAD to know it would get noticed.
And it sure as hell didn't happen by accident. You don't notify everyone but the citizenry of your secret mission and then make it spectacularly non-secretive unless of course that was the plan all along.
Call it a primer for things to come.
After all, I had to listen for years about how Bush and Cheney masterminded the attack on the WTC and this was an inside job. I even had to listen for years to the idea that Cheney took out insurance on the WTC buildings... which, of course, is ridiculous, you can't get insurance for something you have no ownership in.
So let's engage in a little paranoia about the current hostile regime in the White House. Let's say that hussein LIKED the amount of power Bush was able to accrue from an attack on the US. Let's say he wants to field test some theories. Maybe he WANTED people to get panicked. After all, this was a PHOTO taking mission of a city that is historically amazingly well documented.
Unless you were looking for something specific you could get similar information from a review of Google Earth. So the motive is not general locational survey, it's something else... and that leads to one of three possibilities that come to my mind in the short term:
1) Let's say that hussein was uncharacteristically doing his job as Commander-in-chief and was acting on a tip from the intelligence community that someone had nuclear bomb components, and the government dispatched one of their spook planes to use sensitive technology to really get a good understanding of where and how much.
2) Something NEW is in the city... maybe the Cloverfield monster, I don't know... and they are searching for it as fast as they can before it can avoid paying its share of the excessively high NYC taxes.
3) hussein wants to gauge the level of panic that a low flying and likely unmarked jet plane over NYC would generate in advance of some sinister plot.
The first idea pre-supposes that protecting Americans is part of hussein's agenda. Would that anything since his pastor insulted whites everywhere during the inauguration invocation had proven that were the case. His legacy to date is one of destruction and chaos, with no proven successes and a significant sense of betrayal of trust.
The second idea is visually more interesting, but unlikely, even by my standards.
That leaves the third idea. The one that plays so well off all the conspiracy theories that liberals and democrats have been shoving down our throats since September 11th at 1:15 PM, 2001. The idea that a sitting US President would knowingly throw something so frightening to so many Americans into their daily lives.
Think the next president will release THAT memo of this regime's torture? And torture it amounts to. Re-read the CNN piece I linked to and see if this is any different that what Bush authorized to use against high level detainees.
And the most traumatic and tragic aspect of the low-flying plane and the callous insensitivity of it all, is that this happens IMMEDIATELY after the White House, with hussein in it, was evacuated this past week-end because of... wait for it... a small passenger plane that flew off course and entered DC airspace.
Difference is, hussein knew what he was doing when he sent that plane over NYC.
(UPDATED: just found this YouTube! clip showing panicked New Yorkers running in fear as a large jet closely followed by an air force jet rumbles too low overhead. I don't blame these people.
I will admit my paranoia piece is probably off the mark, and it's likely that they were legitimately shooting pretty pictures of each other, but for cripes sake, haven't they ever heard of Photoshop?)
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
The citizens of New York City are many things, not all of them well-thought of, but one thing that everyone can agree upon, is that they just won't forget that September day some years ago, and it will inform them for years to come.
Now enter the hussein administration with their witless and tactless approach to things, and for some reason they decide it would be just a jim-dandy cracker of an idea to do photo-surveillance of NYC...
From a jet....
Flying low over the city.
Had they NOT invoked the name of NY State jackass senator Chuck Schumer in this piece it might have been tossed off as a minor incident that became blown out of proportion, but the reality is his knowledge and cooperation in this event has chilling implications.
Apart from the very obvious idea that only a fool like Jarjar Binks might think it was a good idea to fly a jet low over NYC, it is dawning on me that there is a very real possibility of your government at work preparing to do something truly deep and dark.
Ive got no proof, just a supposition...
After all, it's not like they expected a secret mission flying a jet low over a city that is prone to not being comfortable with that sort of behavior was going to go unnoticed. They HAD to know it would get noticed.
And it sure as hell didn't happen by accident. You don't notify everyone but the citizenry of your secret mission and then make it spectacularly non-secretive unless of course that was the plan all along.
Call it a primer for things to come.
After all, I had to listen for years about how Bush and Cheney masterminded the attack on the WTC and this was an inside job. I even had to listen for years to the idea that Cheney took out insurance on the WTC buildings... which, of course, is ridiculous, you can't get insurance for something you have no ownership in.
So let's engage in a little paranoia about the current hostile regime in the White House. Let's say that hussein LIKED the amount of power Bush was able to accrue from an attack on the US. Let's say he wants to field test some theories. Maybe he WANTED people to get panicked. After all, this was a PHOTO taking mission of a city that is historically amazingly well documented.
Unless you were looking for something specific you could get similar information from a review of Google Earth. So the motive is not general locational survey, it's something else... and that leads to one of three possibilities that come to my mind in the short term:
1) Let's say that hussein was uncharacteristically doing his job as Commander-in-chief and was acting on a tip from the intelligence community that someone had nuclear bomb components, and the government dispatched one of their spook planes to use sensitive technology to really get a good understanding of where and how much.
2) Something NEW is in the city... maybe the Cloverfield monster, I don't know... and they are searching for it as fast as they can before it can avoid paying its share of the excessively high NYC taxes.
3) hussein wants to gauge the level of panic that a low flying and likely unmarked jet plane over NYC would generate in advance of some sinister plot.
The first idea pre-supposes that protecting Americans is part of hussein's agenda. Would that anything since his pastor insulted whites everywhere during the inauguration invocation had proven that were the case. His legacy to date is one of destruction and chaos, with no proven successes and a significant sense of betrayal of trust.
The second idea is visually more interesting, but unlikely, even by my standards.
That leaves the third idea. The one that plays so well off all the conspiracy theories that liberals and democrats have been shoving down our throats since September 11th at 1:15 PM, 2001. The idea that a sitting US President would knowingly throw something so frightening to so many Americans into their daily lives.
Think the next president will release THAT memo of this regime's torture? And torture it amounts to. Re-read the CNN piece I linked to and see if this is any different that what Bush authorized to use against high level detainees.
And the most traumatic and tragic aspect of the low-flying plane and the callous insensitivity of it all, is that this happens IMMEDIATELY after the White House, with hussein in it, was evacuated this past week-end because of... wait for it... a small passenger plane that flew off course and entered DC airspace.
Difference is, hussein knew what he was doing when he sent that plane over NYC.
(UPDATED: just found this YouTube! clip showing panicked New Yorkers running in fear as a large jet closely followed by an air force jet rumbles too low overhead. I don't blame these people.
I will admit my paranoia piece is probably off the mark, and it's likely that they were legitimately shooting pretty pictures of each other, but for cripes sake, haven't they ever heard of Photoshop?)
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
You've gotta give the guy credit, cuz' he's gonna take it anyway....
I'm a few days lagging on this one due to the combined impact of a family wedding and a Saturday lifted directly from a 1970s Irwin Allen disaster movie. On the bright side, I finally went to a wedding reception where nobody fought and everyone had fun, no one was a jerk, and I got to dance without insult.
But back to work now...
I may be wrong on the origins of this, but as I understand it, the Credit Card companies, sensing they were close to being targeted for governmental intervention, made appointments with mid-level government offices to come to Washington and assure the hussein camp that all was well in their front yards. No need to get all concerned with the credit card business.
Then, and again, this is as I understand it, the Lucy and Ethel of politics, president hussein and that Gaitner thing, invited themselves to the meeting. If anyone knows the story better than me, please feel free to inform me, but this was the version I heard, but can't recall from where... You WILL be credited.
So this mid-level meeting gets hijacked by a well dressed Somali pirate and what do you think, he's not happy with the credit card companies. He wants to re-shape them. You can read some of the story here.
First and foremost, I am the FIRST person to say how much I loathe credit card companies. They are essentially legalized Yakuza with payment minimums designed to keep you paying until thirty years after you've died. Federal intervention in their case is a good thing. With the type of debt that can be run up on a credit card you can pretty much destroy your ability to live a normal life.
Getting the opportunity to replace my 24.99% Visa loan rate card with a 4% loan from the owner of the company I work for ( a loan with a definite pay-off date...) means that I am now looking at a significant increase in access to my own income in another two and a half years. Compare that to a debt that grows just because you're paying the minimum and you can see the obvious benefits.
But do I necessarily want hussein to be the one to tackle this problem? No.
As much as I want to see Visa rot in hell, I am not really interested in vengeance. I just want to be free of them. And then to tell young couples, ala the House of the Rising Sun, not to do what I have done. I want positive change.
And I don't trust hussein to bring about that positive change... I trust him to ruthlessly usurp these very large companies and strip them of their powers and install puppet CEOs who will be answerable to ... I dunno... a "Credit Card Czar" or something. I nominate Wilma Flintstone for that post (I should offer a prize to whomever is capable of identifying that reference...).
Because we have a common enemy does NOT imply that I support hussein. When my boss began to ask me about my financial situation and I laid out a steady road that put me... about six months from no idea how to make my payments anymore, he asked me why I hadn't come to him before. I was very straightforward in my reply... "You're a millionaire", I said. He got a bit uncomfortable and tried to minimize his wealth. "No, I'm not winding you up, I'm being honest. You're a millionaire." He finally agreed.
"You started a small office in the late 1980s and worked your fingers to the bone building up a very large and successful business, you employ a large number of people at least by my standards, and you probably have people coming up to you all the time with their hand out.".
He didn't confirm or deny, which pretty much told me I was right. I continued, "You earned your money. You can do with it whatever you want. You pay my salary so I can do the job I do, and that's the only realistic interest I have in your money. You don't owe me anything just because you're successful. And after many years of surviving on the generosity of others I feel obligated to cover my debts personally.".
This is in reality a near ver batim of the conversation. This was one man to another espousing a philosophy of conservatism.
He later presented me with an offer and we came to a mutual agreement. I then paid off and cut up my credit card. Best weight-loss program I ever had.
But hussein isn't going to approach this with a conservative's eye. He's going to approach this with vengeance in mind. That's how he's handled everything so far. He's pitted American against American over monetary issues, he's putting banks through "stress tests" he's castrating the auto industry, and he's selling out the Israelis to appease his Muslim brethren.
So in a war between the devil you know and the devil who hides his origins, I trust the credit card companies a whole hell of a lot more. They're in it for the money... I can understand that sentiment, even as I seek to distance myself from it. The deceptive one, however, is in it for dodgier, more disturbing reasons of his own, and as much as there might be a momentary "feel good" quality for a lot of people to push back on the credit card companies, the long-term results will be a disaster. They have no choice. Anytime you remove a free market business from its free market practices and start instilling non-business oriented rules to the code of conduct, you basically ruin that business.
I'm one of the lucky ones, I was given a chance to get out of significant and crushing debt and am now paying off on a fixed and realistic schedule a more manageable debt. In the end, the credit card company got a hell of a lot of money from me, so they were not victimized by my leaving them. That was in the contract too. And me, I'm a good bit more savvy about credit cards than I was before.
So I contributed to the economy for a long time, and now do credit on very short-term deals only, and I set fixed pay-off dates on most of those. I have learned to make double-payments where possible, and to guard against too many small loans.
See what experience can do for you?
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message....
But back to work now...
I may be wrong on the origins of this, but as I understand it, the Credit Card companies, sensing they were close to being targeted for governmental intervention, made appointments with mid-level government offices to come to Washington and assure the hussein camp that all was well in their front yards. No need to get all concerned with the credit card business.
Then, and again, this is as I understand it, the Lucy and Ethel of politics, president hussein and that Gaitner thing, invited themselves to the meeting. If anyone knows the story better than me, please feel free to inform me, but this was the version I heard, but can't recall from where... You WILL be credited.
So this mid-level meeting gets hijacked by a well dressed Somali pirate and what do you think, he's not happy with the credit card companies. He wants to re-shape them. You can read some of the story here.
First and foremost, I am the FIRST person to say how much I loathe credit card companies. They are essentially legalized Yakuza with payment minimums designed to keep you paying until thirty years after you've died. Federal intervention in their case is a good thing. With the type of debt that can be run up on a credit card you can pretty much destroy your ability to live a normal life.
Getting the opportunity to replace my 24.99% Visa loan rate card with a 4% loan from the owner of the company I work for ( a loan with a definite pay-off date...) means that I am now looking at a significant increase in access to my own income in another two and a half years. Compare that to a debt that grows just because you're paying the minimum and you can see the obvious benefits.
But do I necessarily want hussein to be the one to tackle this problem? No.
As much as I want to see Visa rot in hell, I am not really interested in vengeance. I just want to be free of them. And then to tell young couples, ala the House of the Rising Sun, not to do what I have done. I want positive change.
And I don't trust hussein to bring about that positive change... I trust him to ruthlessly usurp these very large companies and strip them of their powers and install puppet CEOs who will be answerable to ... I dunno... a "Credit Card Czar" or something. I nominate Wilma Flintstone for that post (I should offer a prize to whomever is capable of identifying that reference...).
Because we have a common enemy does NOT imply that I support hussein. When my boss began to ask me about my financial situation and I laid out a steady road that put me... about six months from no idea how to make my payments anymore, he asked me why I hadn't come to him before. I was very straightforward in my reply... "You're a millionaire", I said. He got a bit uncomfortable and tried to minimize his wealth. "No, I'm not winding you up, I'm being honest. You're a millionaire." He finally agreed.
"You started a small office in the late 1980s and worked your fingers to the bone building up a very large and successful business, you employ a large number of people at least by my standards, and you probably have people coming up to you all the time with their hand out.".
He didn't confirm or deny, which pretty much told me I was right. I continued, "You earned your money. You can do with it whatever you want. You pay my salary so I can do the job I do, and that's the only realistic interest I have in your money. You don't owe me anything just because you're successful. And after many years of surviving on the generosity of others I feel obligated to cover my debts personally.".
This is in reality a near ver batim of the conversation. This was one man to another espousing a philosophy of conservatism.
He later presented me with an offer and we came to a mutual agreement. I then paid off and cut up my credit card. Best weight-loss program I ever had.
But hussein isn't going to approach this with a conservative's eye. He's going to approach this with vengeance in mind. That's how he's handled everything so far. He's pitted American against American over monetary issues, he's putting banks through "stress tests" he's castrating the auto industry, and he's selling out the Israelis to appease his Muslim brethren.
So in a war between the devil you know and the devil who hides his origins, I trust the credit card companies a whole hell of a lot more. They're in it for the money... I can understand that sentiment, even as I seek to distance myself from it. The deceptive one, however, is in it for dodgier, more disturbing reasons of his own, and as much as there might be a momentary "feel good" quality for a lot of people to push back on the credit card companies, the long-term results will be a disaster. They have no choice. Anytime you remove a free market business from its free market practices and start instilling non-business oriented rules to the code of conduct, you basically ruin that business.
I'm one of the lucky ones, I was given a chance to get out of significant and crushing debt and am now paying off on a fixed and realistic schedule a more manageable debt. In the end, the credit card company got a hell of a lot of money from me, so they were not victimized by my leaving them. That was in the contract too. And me, I'm a good bit more savvy about credit cards than I was before.
So I contributed to the economy for a long time, and now do credit on very short-term deals only, and I set fixed pay-off dates on most of those. I have learned to make double-payments where possible, and to guard against too many small loans.
See what experience can do for you?
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message....
Friday, April 24, 2009
The twisted, perverted tale of Brad and Janet....
Every once in a while I "rest" bits of entertainment. Instead of just listening ad nauseum to the same music over and over I compartmentalize and set aside some music so that at a later date I can get back into it with something resembling freshness.
Honestly, it even makes Andy Gibb work for me some times...
So yesterday I chose to listen to the soundtrack to an old favorite film, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show".
Taken on its own merits, RHPS is essentially a very traditional old-fashioned horror story jazzed up with a pretty catchy if occassionally unintelligible set of lyrics. No, I can figure our what they are saying, it's just that in some of the songs the words don't actually string to gether to form a coherant thought.
Young Brad and Janet, a white-bread mid-western couple of fresh-faced kids who have just become engaged are driving late one night in a thunderstorm and listening to Nixon on the radio in the dark twilight days of his presidency. Flat tire, songs, strange castle, and before you know it they find themselves in a topsy-turvy world that alters their perceptions of themselves, their narrow view of what sex can be, and how a massive power struggle for control exists between the old world, personified by a 1950's styled scientific community posited by their wheelchair-bound kindly former Science teacher, Dr. Scott, and the bizarre and quite literally alien world that seeks to dominate mankind and abuse rules of life previously the domain of God, as personified by Dr. Frank N. Furter.
Did I mention that the songs are pretty smokin'?
As I relived some fond earlier days of my life... less politicized times welled up in me and for a brief time I started to enjoy my car ride into work.
Then I realized that there are striking similarities to Castle Frank N. Furter and the White House.
Middle America is being condescendingly toyed with for having provincial views of sexual relations that don't include the perversity of same-sex relationships, and transgender exhibition. We are being taunted for having the Audacity of Faith to believe in a God who clearly doesn't care for All Americans. In fact, those that toy with us have their own religion, and it serves men of no discernible moral code other than the subjugation of normalcy.
Obama, as a "transformative" president, is nothing so much as Dr. Frank N. Furter.... he is sexy and cool, and building something not at all right.
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are the hedonistically inclined sexually attracted brother and sister servants who seethe at the unbridled power their foppish boss has, power which by right of greed should have been theirs.
Dr. Scott is the administrations view of Dick Cheney, who seems to be the spokesman for the previous administration, now hobbled and subject to alien control, but fighting it all he can.
Of course Meatloaf's character, Eddie, the troubled and dangerously unstable Rock-N-Roll boyfriend who used to be Frank's lover is a metaphor for Capitalism... formerly powerful and self-motivated, just as he received an inkling of responsibility to try to stop a madman the madman had him chopped up and served for dinner.
In a way, tap-dancing Columbia stands out as Israel... she SHOULD be an ally, she SHOULD be on Frank's side... after all she is in his company, but she loved Eddie, and now she is pretty much targeted as the first one to be lined up against the wall when the revolution comes, and shot (how's THAT for a mixed media metaphor?). Frank can't stand her because she and he both had Eddie as a lover.
Of course the party goers are congress and the house, a weird and Barney Frank-level set of aliens trying to dress and sound like humans but not quite passing muster.
So as America is portrayed as the virginal children, ready to either be seduced into a grander level of sexual realms or be crushed by the weirdness of it all, we are given only two choices, submit or embrace. The choice to not join in on this brave new world of hedonism seems to be anathema to the process.
And as in the harsh and all-too real world, the consequences of Frank N. Furter's selfish and lusty desires is traumatic to everyone, and after he gets offed by his underlings and Brad, Janet and Dr. Scott are left crawling on the scorched, useless Earth where once a castle stood, trying to figure out where we go from there... our future is similarly disheveled and somehow the idea of going back to where we once were seems impossible.
So....
Thanks for everything Frank. We really appreciate it.
You jackass.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Honestly, it even makes Andy Gibb work for me some times...
So yesterday I chose to listen to the soundtrack to an old favorite film, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show".
Taken on its own merits, RHPS is essentially a very traditional old-fashioned horror story jazzed up with a pretty catchy if occassionally unintelligible set of lyrics. No, I can figure our what they are saying, it's just that in some of the songs the words don't actually string to gether to form a coherant thought.
Young Brad and Janet, a white-bread mid-western couple of fresh-faced kids who have just become engaged are driving late one night in a thunderstorm and listening to Nixon on the radio in the dark twilight days of his presidency. Flat tire, songs, strange castle, and before you know it they find themselves in a topsy-turvy world that alters their perceptions of themselves, their narrow view of what sex can be, and how a massive power struggle for control exists between the old world, personified by a 1950's styled scientific community posited by their wheelchair-bound kindly former Science teacher, Dr. Scott, and the bizarre and quite literally alien world that seeks to dominate mankind and abuse rules of life previously the domain of God, as personified by Dr. Frank N. Furter.
Did I mention that the songs are pretty smokin'?
As I relived some fond earlier days of my life... less politicized times welled up in me and for a brief time I started to enjoy my car ride into work.
Then I realized that there are striking similarities to Castle Frank N. Furter and the White House.
Middle America is being condescendingly toyed with for having provincial views of sexual relations that don't include the perversity of same-sex relationships, and transgender exhibition. We are being taunted for having the Audacity of Faith to believe in a God who clearly doesn't care for All Americans. In fact, those that toy with us have their own religion, and it serves men of no discernible moral code other than the subjugation of normalcy.
Obama, as a "transformative" president, is nothing so much as Dr. Frank N. Furter.... he is sexy and cool, and building something not at all right.
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are the hedonistically inclined sexually attracted brother and sister servants who seethe at the unbridled power their foppish boss has, power which by right of greed should have been theirs.
Dr. Scott is the administrations view of Dick Cheney, who seems to be the spokesman for the previous administration, now hobbled and subject to alien control, but fighting it all he can.
Of course Meatloaf's character, Eddie, the troubled and dangerously unstable Rock-N-Roll boyfriend who used to be Frank's lover is a metaphor for Capitalism... formerly powerful and self-motivated, just as he received an inkling of responsibility to try to stop a madman the madman had him chopped up and served for dinner.
In a way, tap-dancing Columbia stands out as Israel... she SHOULD be an ally, she SHOULD be on Frank's side... after all she is in his company, but she loved Eddie, and now she is pretty much targeted as the first one to be lined up against the wall when the revolution comes, and shot (how's THAT for a mixed media metaphor?). Frank can't stand her because she and he both had Eddie as a lover.
Of course the party goers are congress and the house, a weird and Barney Frank-level set of aliens trying to dress and sound like humans but not quite passing muster.
So as America is portrayed as the virginal children, ready to either be seduced into a grander level of sexual realms or be crushed by the weirdness of it all, we are given only two choices, submit or embrace. The choice to not join in on this brave new world of hedonism seems to be anathema to the process.
And as in the harsh and all-too real world, the consequences of Frank N. Furter's selfish and lusty desires is traumatic to everyone, and after he gets offed by his underlings and Brad, Janet and Dr. Scott are left crawling on the scorched, useless Earth where once a castle stood, trying to figure out where we go from there... our future is similarly disheveled and somehow the idea of going back to where we once were seems impossible.
So....
Thanks for everything Frank. We really appreciate it.
You jackass.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
So how's that Sharia law working out for you so far?
Recently the embattled president of Pakistan, trying to appease his anti-American populace, his American partners, and his growing incursion of distaff Taliban, exiled eight years ago from Afghanistan, allowed the Taliban to impose their particular hard-core version of Sharia law (albeit with a few token modifications which it can be assumed are being roundly ignored by the Taliban....) in a Northwestern Province of Pakistan that was formerly revered as a tranquil and energetic holiday spot for both foreign and domestic vacationers. The Taliban, it was felt, would ease up if they were given a place to settle and call their own.
Which, of course, is idiotic.
The Taliban, a brutal and repressive regime which has destroyed priceless and, frankly marvellous works of art that were over a thousand years old, who have sought to peel back any advantages of Western civilization in favor of the warm, fuzzy life of cave-dwelling, enforced facial hair growth for men, enforced covering of heads for women, enforced... well... enforced just about everything, were expected to settle down, put their feet up and say "boy, we finally won. These Pakistani's are awfully nice. Let's not be mean to them anymore.".
Except they didn't do that. It's not in their nature. They don't have a point where they will feel they have been given enough leeway, they are not looking for just enough respect that they can stop their violence... They only accept one way... their way... of dong things, and that is through brutal oppression and subjugation.
Don't believe me? Think I'm all Right Wing Extreme? Then check out this CNN.com news report.
To be fair to the Pakistani leadership, their situation is not all that pleasant. The Taliban are in their own backyard, the citizenship is torn between not wanting violence, but not wanting to be helpful to the Americans, and the Americans are pressuring them constantly to do their part to stop the Taliban, who appear to have a military edge with inroads into the Pakistani military going all the way into their intelligence community.
This has hardly been a decisive moment in Pakistani history. Hard, yes... but that's what leadership is all about. Making the hard decisions and staying with them. If the Pakistanis had agreed to take on the Taliban at the border we could have caught them in a significant squeeze and all the Pakistani's would have to do is prevent them from having a backdoor to escape out of so we could tighten the noose.
That ship has now sailed... the Taliban HAVE escaped, and enjoy Pakistani protection, now officially sanctioned by deeding over the land and the people of the Swat Valley to the Taliban.
If only their had been SOME clue from history how appeasing ones enemies might play out?
What do you think Neville Chamberlain? Any ideas on THAT ONE?
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Which, of course, is idiotic.
The Taliban, a brutal and repressive regime which has destroyed priceless and, frankly marvellous works of art that were over a thousand years old, who have sought to peel back any advantages of Western civilization in favor of the warm, fuzzy life of cave-dwelling, enforced facial hair growth for men, enforced covering of heads for women, enforced... well... enforced just about everything, were expected to settle down, put their feet up and say "boy, we finally won. These Pakistani's are awfully nice. Let's not be mean to them anymore.".
Except they didn't do that. It's not in their nature. They don't have a point where they will feel they have been given enough leeway, they are not looking for just enough respect that they can stop their violence... They only accept one way... their way... of dong things, and that is through brutal oppression and subjugation.
Don't believe me? Think I'm all Right Wing Extreme? Then check out this CNN.com news report.
To be fair to the Pakistani leadership, their situation is not all that pleasant. The Taliban are in their own backyard, the citizenship is torn between not wanting violence, but not wanting to be helpful to the Americans, and the Americans are pressuring them constantly to do their part to stop the Taliban, who appear to have a military edge with inroads into the Pakistani military going all the way into their intelligence community.
This has hardly been a decisive moment in Pakistani history. Hard, yes... but that's what leadership is all about. Making the hard decisions and staying with them. If the Pakistanis had agreed to take on the Taliban at the border we could have caught them in a significant squeeze and all the Pakistani's would have to do is prevent them from having a backdoor to escape out of so we could tighten the noose.
That ship has now sailed... the Taliban HAVE escaped, and enjoy Pakistani protection, now officially sanctioned by deeding over the land and the people of the Swat Valley to the Taliban.
If only their had been SOME clue from history how appeasing ones enemies might play out?
What do you think Neville Chamberlain? Any ideas on THAT ONE?
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Torture and the Party-line ethic...
president hussein's recent and blatantly partisan move to release a hand-ful of memos from the Bush Administration regarding torture techniques has caused a tremendous amount of debate. Even within the hussein camp there is some disagreement on the relevance of the use of these techniques as noted in this CNN.com news article.
hussein has chosen this to be his "high horse" and he believes he is so high in the saddle now that no one could possibly see anything wrong. America, after all, stands for taking the high road and having better values than the rest of the world.... even though that position is at odds with where he is taking us, and indeed, how he has described us to the rest of the world.
To be sure we like to believe we are above the use of questionable tactics when engaging our enemies. It's a bit of a spit-and-polish job to imagine ourselves wearing the white hat, being the good cowboy in war. But the reality is that this WAS a wartime decision. A wartime decision from a war that Bush wisely noted we can not win in this generation.
And therein lies the split. The party-line ethic, if you will.
Our intelligence community has known for a great many years that there were organizations and countries who want nothing more than to destroy the United States. These are enemies who plot and conspire against us because our methods work. We live in peace and with freedom. You can't have that, it upsets their efforts to control, ruthlessly, their own people. After all, if Americans can live happily and in peace why can't others?
And yes, I AM considering the piece form a few days ago about Jackie Chan.
President George W. Bush understood that this was not an enemy who fought based on a physical issue, say, territorial dispute or some other traditional reason for war. This was an enemy for whom there could not be negotiations. When you hate someone because they are offensive to you on a religious ground then your God will not change his mind when the enemy apologizes to you. You'll still hate them, and you'll still want to kill them.
Therefore President Bush was forced to research the law to see what limits there were interrogation techniques. In fact, the initial uproar came with hussein releasing notes showing that Bush had, in fact, asked his lawyers to do just that.
If we were going to go up against an enemy not constrained by the rules of the Geneva Convention we needed to know how far was too far.
And honestly, in a brilliant move, Bush hit upon the right version. Knowing that we were not fighting an enemy with borders, an enemy fighting to protect their homeland, and therefore not only bound by the Geneva Convention, but legitimately deserving of all those protections (for instance, the Iraqi soldiers....) he chose to classify the Al Qaeda as a non-enemy combatant.
In other words, if you won't play by internationally recognized rules of warfare, you will not be granted the rights associated with them, and your fate is in your hands if you choose to go up against the US. So normal boundaries of interrogation were shifted.
They were NOT abolished.
The techniques employed still met a definition of humanitarian conditions. Much was made of the use of non-lethal insects to obtain information from the highest level Al Qaeda operative in US custody. How horrible for us that even though this guy wanted nothing more than to kill as many Americans as possible he was still given protections he would NOT afford an American under the same conditions.
Or don't you recall the taped and broadcast beheadings of captured Americans.
president hussein is adopting a dangerously naive attitude that our enemies have a right, a mandate from the masses, if you will, to hate us. And therefore the answer lies in appeasing them. Clearly they wouldn't have held Americans hostage and paraded them in front of cameras, showing their brutality and then publicly beheading them if we had only said "I'm sorry" earlier.
And most importantly, hussein is tying his handling of this issue of "torture" to a mandate to not have a fundamental split down party lines that could hamper the effectiveness of his government. Huh?
He controls with broad margins the House, The Senate, and the Media. He could decide to nuke Nebraska and he'd get a pass for it, and maybe a mild tongue-lashing from CNN. What does he care about party line ethos?
I'm guessing more than he wants us to know.
hussein was elected as a different leader who crossed party lines and brought everyone together. So far he's brought our enemies together and is making moves to alienate the Conservative Right. And now the Conservative Right is starting to unite together, and to his amazement, not on his side.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
hussein has chosen this to be his "high horse" and he believes he is so high in the saddle now that no one could possibly see anything wrong. America, after all, stands for taking the high road and having better values than the rest of the world.... even though that position is at odds with where he is taking us, and indeed, how he has described us to the rest of the world.
To be sure we like to believe we are above the use of questionable tactics when engaging our enemies. It's a bit of a spit-and-polish job to imagine ourselves wearing the white hat, being the good cowboy in war. But the reality is that this WAS a wartime decision. A wartime decision from a war that Bush wisely noted we can not win in this generation.
And therein lies the split. The party-line ethic, if you will.
Our intelligence community has known for a great many years that there were organizations and countries who want nothing more than to destroy the United States. These are enemies who plot and conspire against us because our methods work. We live in peace and with freedom. You can't have that, it upsets their efforts to control, ruthlessly, their own people. After all, if Americans can live happily and in peace why can't others?
And yes, I AM considering the piece form a few days ago about Jackie Chan.
President George W. Bush understood that this was not an enemy who fought based on a physical issue, say, territorial dispute or some other traditional reason for war. This was an enemy for whom there could not be negotiations. When you hate someone because they are offensive to you on a religious ground then your God will not change his mind when the enemy apologizes to you. You'll still hate them, and you'll still want to kill them.
Therefore President Bush was forced to research the law to see what limits there were interrogation techniques. In fact, the initial uproar came with hussein releasing notes showing that Bush had, in fact, asked his lawyers to do just that.
If we were going to go up against an enemy not constrained by the rules of the Geneva Convention we needed to know how far was too far.
And honestly, in a brilliant move, Bush hit upon the right version. Knowing that we were not fighting an enemy with borders, an enemy fighting to protect their homeland, and therefore not only bound by the Geneva Convention, but legitimately deserving of all those protections (for instance, the Iraqi soldiers....) he chose to classify the Al Qaeda as a non-enemy combatant.
In other words, if you won't play by internationally recognized rules of warfare, you will not be granted the rights associated with them, and your fate is in your hands if you choose to go up against the US. So normal boundaries of interrogation were shifted.
They were NOT abolished.
The techniques employed still met a definition of humanitarian conditions. Much was made of the use of non-lethal insects to obtain information from the highest level Al Qaeda operative in US custody. How horrible for us that even though this guy wanted nothing more than to kill as many Americans as possible he was still given protections he would NOT afford an American under the same conditions.
Or don't you recall the taped and broadcast beheadings of captured Americans.
president hussein is adopting a dangerously naive attitude that our enemies have a right, a mandate from the masses, if you will, to hate us. And therefore the answer lies in appeasing them. Clearly they wouldn't have held Americans hostage and paraded them in front of cameras, showing their brutality and then publicly beheading them if we had only said "I'm sorry" earlier.
And most importantly, hussein is tying his handling of this issue of "torture" to a mandate to not have a fundamental split down party lines that could hamper the effectiveness of his government. Huh?
He controls with broad margins the House, The Senate, and the Media. He could decide to nuke Nebraska and he'd get a pass for it, and maybe a mild tongue-lashing from CNN. What does he care about party line ethos?
I'm guessing more than he wants us to know.
hussein was elected as a different leader who crossed party lines and brought everyone together. So far he's brought our enemies together and is making moves to alienate the Conservative Right. And now the Conservative Right is starting to unite together, and to his amazement, not on his side.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Just to prove they're fair....
What really bothered me while scanning this news article found on Yahoo! about an American terrorist being added to the FBI's Most Wanted list was not that they had chosen to target an American.... it is, after all, the FBI and not the CIA... it's the urgency and "look at us!!!! Look at us!!!! We're being fair here!!!" attitude.
What am I babbling about?
Well, just two weeks after the Dept. of Homeland Security issued copies of Right Wing Extremism reports to the law enforcement firms around the United States and fell under intense pressure, even being cited by both Democrat and Republican Senators for what is at best a shoddy and near Garafolo-like compost heap of unfounded accusations, the FBI not only opted to make AN AMERICAN CITIZEN, as they boldly point out, and a LEFT-WING TERRORIST as they wanted damn certain to make sure you'd pick up on it, a member of the FBI's mile-high club.
This administration is almost painfully trying to be seen as fair and equal in its treatment of Americans, even going so far as to tout it as a good thing that we still can be assured that left wing people are still capable of committing crimes.
Anyone who has paid attention to the media for the past six months is already very familiar with this concept.
Do I really care of this guy is on the list? Not per se... he's a bomber with a greater love of animals than he has for humans, and his use of anarchy to spread his message makes him perfect fodder for the hussein version of Craig'sList.
I'm really more interested in the crude manner in which the FBI wants everyone to know that gosh golly gee whiz, they're not unfair to Americans. They'll arrest anyone. Honest.
I'm expecting now to hear that they will be secretly eavesdropping on Bruce Springsteen concerts just to make sure Tea Partiers are convinced that this is just normal behavior.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
What am I babbling about?
Well, just two weeks after the Dept. of Homeland Security issued copies of Right Wing Extremism reports to the law enforcement firms around the United States and fell under intense pressure, even being cited by both Democrat and Republican Senators for what is at best a shoddy and near Garafolo-like compost heap of unfounded accusations, the FBI not only opted to make AN AMERICAN CITIZEN, as they boldly point out, and a LEFT-WING TERRORIST as they wanted damn certain to make sure you'd pick up on it, a member of the FBI's mile-high club.
This administration is almost painfully trying to be seen as fair and equal in its treatment of Americans, even going so far as to tout it as a good thing that we still can be assured that left wing people are still capable of committing crimes.
Anyone who has paid attention to the media for the past six months is already very familiar with this concept.
Do I really care of this guy is on the list? Not per se... he's a bomber with a greater love of animals than he has for humans, and his use of anarchy to spread his message makes him perfect fodder for the hussein version of Craig'sList.
I'm really more interested in the crude manner in which the FBI wants everyone to know that gosh golly gee whiz, they're not unfair to Americans. They'll arrest anyone. Honest.
I'm expecting now to hear that they will be secretly eavesdropping on Bruce Springsteen concerts just to make sure Tea Partiers are convinced that this is just normal behavior.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Jackie Chan's comments not so strange if you think about it...
Chinese actor Jackie Chan, perhaps the friendliest face to Western eyes from a country which prizes obedience and group effort over individual achievement, has come under a good deal of fire for his comments at a recent Chinese Business forum.
Known for portraying largely upstanding citizens who find themselves in larger situations and finding the courage to go outside the box to combat evil, he has developed a film career un-equaled in cinema history. His initial goal, to be seen as something other than just a Bruce Lee clone, gave him fuel to pursue the blending of comedy and his particularly enhanced physical acrobatic skills which has propelled him way past the achievement of any western actor's standing. His biggest failing as an actor is a slightly weak dramatic acting capacity, which has tended to push his parts toward comedy.
After a relatively disastrous attempt to break into western cinema in the early 80s when Hollywood had no idea what to do with him (imagine pairing him with Danny Aiello as an action partner.... enough to make you leave Hollywood forever....) he came back again in the tail end of the 1990s to much greater acclaim, some modest success (compared to what might have happened had he had greater control over his destiny here...) and then finally in the last few years he saw the limitations and disasters of working in Hollywood, and returned to Hong Kong and Chinese Cinema vowing never to make any permanent change to appease western audiences again.
Blame Chris Tucker, who forced Jackie to follow thru on Rush Hour 3, which was a slap in the face to him artistically, and on a personal level. Jackie did the job and to his credit what little screen time he had he kept a solid front up for, but it was clear that sub-standard Chris Tucker, whose own career would have been significantly lessened had he not fallen into the first Rush Hour, was the person in control.
Which brings us to the present day. Jackie does not particularly want his films re dubbed for western distribution, and he wants to finish out his career primarily serving Chinese cinema.
The only person who was treated worse in recent years was Jackie's good friend and fellow school-chum ( a phrase which means significantly much more to Chinese actors than it does to western actors.... Chinese Opera School life is akin to having eight year old boys put through the Navy Seals training, and then for a graduating thesis mastering Cirque Du Soleil.... ) Sammo Hung, whose physical girth masks an agility and capability every bit the equal of Jackie's.
Sammo had his own CBS TV series, where his phonetic English was reasonably well handled as he took time and effort to learn the language, only to find his first season cliff-hanger of a traditionally intriguing police crime-drama typical of Hong Kong Cinema being ignored so he could return to the second season with.... wait for it... Arsenio Hall as his hip and jive-talking partner, doing his best Chris Tucker impression.
Ratings plummeted and Sammo got out of Hollywood faster than you could say "stupid Americans".
So it's really not unexpected that Jackie's attitude toward our level of freedom is what it is. Even though he had the opportunity to live among us, work among us, and do the things that we value as free men and women, he was mistreated, badly showcased, and used for the financial gain of the studios and even professed friends. It's a good bet that Chris Tucker ruined a promising start to a second career in the US for the highest rated actor in much of the rest of the world.
Hollywood can do that to people. It can bring out the worst in them, and make them screw people over. From Joan Crawford to Janeane Garafolo, appearing on film seems to give people lease to be assholes out there, and controlling those people makes studio executives the toilet paper of the toilets of the cinema industry.
Now as it happens, I work for a Chinese-born man who built a company up in North America from a small office to a series of offices and warehouses around the world. As a boss he can be quite harsh with the largely Chinese staff of his Toronto office, and honestly, as much as they detest it it, they seem to accept it as part of their community. He knows enough not to get too harsh with his employees from the West as we would not accept many of the things he demands of his own people.
I, for instance, have managed to learn enough of the man, and said as much to his face, that I understood when he would yell at me, which happens from time to time, that it was not a personal thing so much as an urge to dispense with pleasantries and finish a subject. Once I understood that relations between him and I... I won't say they blossomed, but things became better.
I asked my boss a few months ago a question that plagues me to this day. As a self-made man in our world, who understands the value of personal achievement, who understands that he has to earn every dollar he makes, and has in true Reagan-era free-market manner become an employer of a pretty decent number of people, how was it that he had not only no problem with Barack Obama becoming president given his desire to tax the rich at greater levels and remove freedoms for most Americans.
His answer came from his perspective on America. His information about the US comes not so much from working with us or selling to us, but from reading about us and listening to BBC world news. He favored America's new president, saying that control was what Americans needed most.
He considers the control that the Chinese Government has over its own people far superior to the free society we have here in the west.
He has his own reasons for wanting to see the US economy weakened, and the US dollar's value diminished, especially against Chinese currency. When you live in Canada and pay your factory in China with US funds it's preferable to have the US dollar weaker than the Canadian dollar... which currently it is not. The US Dollar is on average lately worth about $1.25 CDN.
I do not think my boss is evil, or that his reasons for wanting what he wants are wrong. To do so would be to be ignorant that there are any other viewpoints in the world beside my own. He has been very generous to me, given me second chances that honestly I did not deserve, helped me in situations he had no cause to, and opened up to me about some of his private life which he shields from others.
I have learned in life that so long as I take someone's paycheck I am charged with advancing their agenda. And he has little real impact upon the US economy, as our company sells apparel to one sector of the business only, and not at volumes that shake any foundations. Hell, president hussein himself probably wouldn't want to take control of our company.
I have found it an interesting and rewarding lesson in other cultures, and while I do not share their agenda or goal, I have come to learn some important things about the Chinese. We are alien to them, and they are alien to us.
Jackie Chan has experienced the same sort of thing with the Western world. He came away from America seeing its worst side, while at the same time being toasted everywhere he went as a great ambassador. But while you can force him to follow up on a contractual agreement to make an ill-conceived movie with Chris Tucker, you can not take the man's appreciation for his culture away.
I am NOT advocating a change to Eastern culture. I am NOT advocating a switch to socialism or looking favorably upon Chinese influence. I still feel there is much to be concerned about as they spy on us, challenge us and keep us at an arm's length. What I do understand, and I believe it's worth knowing, is that you CAN work with the Chinese, but you need to know they will never be like us.
Sometimes in this world, that is reasonably comforting.
But I still don't watch BBC World News.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Known for portraying largely upstanding citizens who find themselves in larger situations and finding the courage to go outside the box to combat evil, he has developed a film career un-equaled in cinema history. His initial goal, to be seen as something other than just a Bruce Lee clone, gave him fuel to pursue the blending of comedy and his particularly enhanced physical acrobatic skills which has propelled him way past the achievement of any western actor's standing. His biggest failing as an actor is a slightly weak dramatic acting capacity, which has tended to push his parts toward comedy.
After a relatively disastrous attempt to break into western cinema in the early 80s when Hollywood had no idea what to do with him (imagine pairing him with Danny Aiello as an action partner.... enough to make you leave Hollywood forever....) he came back again in the tail end of the 1990s to much greater acclaim, some modest success (compared to what might have happened had he had greater control over his destiny here...) and then finally in the last few years he saw the limitations and disasters of working in Hollywood, and returned to Hong Kong and Chinese Cinema vowing never to make any permanent change to appease western audiences again.
Blame Chris Tucker, who forced Jackie to follow thru on Rush Hour 3, which was a slap in the face to him artistically, and on a personal level. Jackie did the job and to his credit what little screen time he had he kept a solid front up for, but it was clear that sub-standard Chris Tucker, whose own career would have been significantly lessened had he not fallen into the first Rush Hour, was the person in control.
Which brings us to the present day. Jackie does not particularly want his films re dubbed for western distribution, and he wants to finish out his career primarily serving Chinese cinema.
The only person who was treated worse in recent years was Jackie's good friend and fellow school-chum ( a phrase which means significantly much more to Chinese actors than it does to western actors.... Chinese Opera School life is akin to having eight year old boys put through the Navy Seals training, and then for a graduating thesis mastering Cirque Du Soleil.... ) Sammo Hung, whose physical girth masks an agility and capability every bit the equal of Jackie's.
Sammo had his own CBS TV series, where his phonetic English was reasonably well handled as he took time and effort to learn the language, only to find his first season cliff-hanger of a traditionally intriguing police crime-drama typical of Hong Kong Cinema being ignored so he could return to the second season with.... wait for it... Arsenio Hall as his hip and jive-talking partner, doing his best Chris Tucker impression.
Ratings plummeted and Sammo got out of Hollywood faster than you could say "stupid Americans".
So it's really not unexpected that Jackie's attitude toward our level of freedom is what it is. Even though he had the opportunity to live among us, work among us, and do the things that we value as free men and women, he was mistreated, badly showcased, and used for the financial gain of the studios and even professed friends. It's a good bet that Chris Tucker ruined a promising start to a second career in the US for the highest rated actor in much of the rest of the world.
Hollywood can do that to people. It can bring out the worst in them, and make them screw people over. From Joan Crawford to Janeane Garafolo, appearing on film seems to give people lease to be assholes out there, and controlling those people makes studio executives the toilet paper of the toilets of the cinema industry.
Now as it happens, I work for a Chinese-born man who built a company up in North America from a small office to a series of offices and warehouses around the world. As a boss he can be quite harsh with the largely Chinese staff of his Toronto office, and honestly, as much as they detest it it, they seem to accept it as part of their community. He knows enough not to get too harsh with his employees from the West as we would not accept many of the things he demands of his own people.
I, for instance, have managed to learn enough of the man, and said as much to his face, that I understood when he would yell at me, which happens from time to time, that it was not a personal thing so much as an urge to dispense with pleasantries and finish a subject. Once I understood that relations between him and I... I won't say they blossomed, but things became better.
I asked my boss a few months ago a question that plagues me to this day. As a self-made man in our world, who understands the value of personal achievement, who understands that he has to earn every dollar he makes, and has in true Reagan-era free-market manner become an employer of a pretty decent number of people, how was it that he had not only no problem with Barack Obama becoming president given his desire to tax the rich at greater levels and remove freedoms for most Americans.
His answer came from his perspective on America. His information about the US comes not so much from working with us or selling to us, but from reading about us and listening to BBC world news. He favored America's new president, saying that control was what Americans needed most.
He considers the control that the Chinese Government has over its own people far superior to the free society we have here in the west.
He has his own reasons for wanting to see the US economy weakened, and the US dollar's value diminished, especially against Chinese currency. When you live in Canada and pay your factory in China with US funds it's preferable to have the US dollar weaker than the Canadian dollar... which currently it is not. The US Dollar is on average lately worth about $1.25 CDN.
I do not think my boss is evil, or that his reasons for wanting what he wants are wrong. To do so would be to be ignorant that there are any other viewpoints in the world beside my own. He has been very generous to me, given me second chances that honestly I did not deserve, helped me in situations he had no cause to, and opened up to me about some of his private life which he shields from others.
I have learned in life that so long as I take someone's paycheck I am charged with advancing their agenda. And he has little real impact upon the US economy, as our company sells apparel to one sector of the business only, and not at volumes that shake any foundations. Hell, president hussein himself probably wouldn't want to take control of our company.
I have found it an interesting and rewarding lesson in other cultures, and while I do not share their agenda or goal, I have come to learn some important things about the Chinese. We are alien to them, and they are alien to us.
Jackie Chan has experienced the same sort of thing with the Western world. He came away from America seeing its worst side, while at the same time being toasted everywhere he went as a great ambassador. But while you can force him to follow up on a contractual agreement to make an ill-conceived movie with Chris Tucker, you can not take the man's appreciation for his culture away.
I am NOT advocating a change to Eastern culture. I am NOT advocating a switch to socialism or looking favorably upon Chinese influence. I still feel there is much to be concerned about as they spy on us, challenge us and keep us at an arm's length. What I do understand, and I believe it's worth knowing, is that you CAN work with the Chinese, but you need to know they will never be like us.
Sometimes in this world, that is reasonably comforting.
But I still don't watch BBC World News.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
A bit late, but my thoughts on Wednesday's Tea Party in Buffalo, NY...
I actually held off on doing this for a few days intentionally. I wanted it to be more practical and less emotional. Less.... limbic, if you will.
First, let me say that I am not an active political member. I've never attended any rally that my high school didn't force me to go to, and I've never openly demonstrated for or against any cause before. I was NOT contacted by ANY organization. I found out about these parties and I sought out the nearest one to me. There was no hint that the movement sprouted from any centralized figure or organization, nor was it directed in favor of any political party.
As a legitimate grass-roots movement, Private views being espoused by my fellow demonstrators were diverse and clearly as upset with excess on the Republican side as with the same on the Democrat side. In fact there was a call to form a new political party, the Common Sense party... locally.
When I arrived at the gathering about 20 minutes early there were only a handful of people milling about. Having a natural hesitation when dealing with people in Buffalo at public functions (usually finding them to be loutish, selfish and many times drunk....0 I was pleasantly surprised to find a broad range of types who were all here to promote the common goal of responsible use of taxpayer money.
There was the somewhat scared mid-40s woman whose sister was a co-organizer, who just wanted to express her frustration at how her life has been turned around, there was the guy who works in a company supplying parts for spacecraft manufacture, who not only showed up in a Colonial outfit and brandishing a "Don't Tread on Me" flag (my favorite American flag to date...) but he loaned me his Nikon when I found my son had drained the batteries of our digital camera.
When he sends me the images I'll be certain to post them.
There was a guy with a biker look with a "Don't Tread On Me" tattoo on his arm who compared his snake to the one on the flag and said his was bigger. I replied that "I hear that a lot myself...". which helped lighten the air somewhat. There were a couple of older gentlemen who appeared to be retired auto-industry types, although I did not confirm that with them. Then another man in a more authentic colonial outfit arrived, unrelated to the first, and they decided to form a team.
Gradually the crowd grew in size and by the time Channel 7 news began to cover the event we had approximately 300 people.
Not enough to satisfy Janeane Garafolo, but for Buffalo, NY that's pretty impressive.
For the record, as the Blond reporter first starts to speak the guy behind her with the black and grey jacket is me.
Everyone was respectful, emotionally invested in the message, offered solid and useful commentary and encouragement, and not one of them mentioned hating anybody. We just want our money spent wisely.
I had planned on making a placard that read "President Hussein apologizes for the US, I Do Not" but I opted not to, as I wanted to keep the Tea Party message on track. The co-organizer, Laurie, thanked me for the restraint and reminded me that there were many different issues going on but that this was specifically a tax-related one.
I kind of feel like the Anti-Michelle, here, because this was the first time I actually enjoyed and was positively motivated by my fellow Western New Yorkers. Maybe open-air concerts aren't the best places to see the real side of people. Ich bin ein Buffalonian.
I was tempted to take the mike when the emcee was asking if anyone else wanted to speak, and you all know I can goon for a while ranting, but I felt I should hold my tongue for the moment.
After all, with the success of this party, I'm sure I'll be heard at the next one.
I'm Dr. Calamity, and I approve this message.
First, let me say that I am not an active political member. I've never attended any rally that my high school didn't force me to go to, and I've never openly demonstrated for or against any cause before. I was NOT contacted by ANY organization. I found out about these parties and I sought out the nearest one to me. There was no hint that the movement sprouted from any centralized figure or organization, nor was it directed in favor of any political party.
As a legitimate grass-roots movement, Private views being espoused by my fellow demonstrators were diverse and clearly as upset with excess on the Republican side as with the same on the Democrat side. In fact there was a call to form a new political party, the Common Sense party... locally.
When I arrived at the gathering about 20 minutes early there were only a handful of people milling about. Having a natural hesitation when dealing with people in Buffalo at public functions (usually finding them to be loutish, selfish and many times drunk....0 I was pleasantly surprised to find a broad range of types who were all here to promote the common goal of responsible use of taxpayer money.
There was the somewhat scared mid-40s woman whose sister was a co-organizer, who just wanted to express her frustration at how her life has been turned around, there was the guy who works in a company supplying parts for spacecraft manufacture, who not only showed up in a Colonial outfit and brandishing a "Don't Tread on Me" flag (my favorite American flag to date...) but he loaned me his Nikon when I found my son had drained the batteries of our digital camera.
When he sends me the images I'll be certain to post them.
There was a guy with a biker look with a "Don't Tread On Me" tattoo on his arm who compared his snake to the one on the flag and said his was bigger. I replied that "I hear that a lot myself...". which helped lighten the air somewhat. There were a couple of older gentlemen who appeared to be retired auto-industry types, although I did not confirm that with them. Then another man in a more authentic colonial outfit arrived, unrelated to the first, and they decided to form a team.
Gradually the crowd grew in size and by the time Channel 7 news began to cover the event we had approximately 300 people.
Not enough to satisfy Janeane Garafolo, but for Buffalo, NY that's pretty impressive.
For the record, as the Blond reporter first starts to speak the guy behind her with the black and grey jacket is me.
Everyone was respectful, emotionally invested in the message, offered solid and useful commentary and encouragement, and not one of them mentioned hating anybody. We just want our money spent wisely.
I had planned on making a placard that read "President Hussein apologizes for the US, I Do Not" but I opted not to, as I wanted to keep the Tea Party message on track. The co-organizer, Laurie, thanked me for the restraint and reminded me that there were many different issues going on but that this was specifically a tax-related one.
I kind of feel like the Anti-Michelle, here, because this was the first time I actually enjoyed and was positively motivated by my fellow Western New Yorkers. Maybe open-air concerts aren't the best places to see the real side of people. Ich bin ein Buffalonian.
I was tempted to take the mike when the emcee was asking if anyone else wanted to speak, and you all know I can goon for a while ranting, but I felt I should hold my tongue for the moment.
After all, with the success of this party, I'm sure I'll be heard at the next one.
I'm Dr. Calamity, and I approve this message.
A Shame it was Janeane Garafolo they let talk...
I am reasonably convinced that there are a great many pampered and radically leftist America-Haters in Hollywood. They tend to be tempered by people like Clint Eastwood, the late Ron Silver, and other talented people who have held their heads high and kept the tradition of acting from being completely spat upon.
It is a tragedy of epic proportions that the left felt it was time to unlock the filthy cage they keep Janeane Garafolo locked up in so that she could go out and bravely rant incoherently about the Right Wing movement to prevent the destruction of America.
I would have much rather had an intelligent-sounding, or even attractive rival to go up against. More sanity exists in Tom Cruise on an Oprah-fueled high, or in the Dixie Chicks as they shed their clothes for the cover of Entertainment Weekly, or from Tina Fey who at least can be funny when they tell her she's supposed to be...
But JG? No... she's an unattractive, unfunny, talentless bottom-sucker who has managed to parlay a friendship with Ben Stiller into a life of being pampered, over-paid and thinking she is somehow better or smarter than other people. Sort of like a less talented Whoopi Goldberg.
In order to make herself sound smarter she babbles about "The Limbic Mind", which in lay men's terms, is the more instinctual responses that first are generated by a perception before the later, more educated response kicks in. It's not an entirely unusable concept, however it's also a concept that is widely debated in psychiatric circles. To give you a more physical example, the limbic mind would at first see a shiny apple and jump to the conclusion it was tasty and desirable. The more educated response that would then follow would be the concern that the apple must first be washed to rid it of pesticides, etc... You see? She's talking about the initial emotional response.
Because Conservatives are generally readers, go HERE to find out more about the Limbic Mind.
To find out what too much pampered living without benefit of an original thought can do for you watch the Left-Wing Bimbo herself babble on without facts, logical discourse, or context in this wonderful YouTube! clip.
But for the holier-than-thou JG, we Conservative playthings of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh et al... never reach the liberal concept of rational thought, but are stuck forever in limbic thought.
So, in keeping with the liberal playbook, she is demonstrating her beneficence for us by doing our thinking for us.
And what thinking does she attribute to us?
Racism of course.
She's above that. She would never be racist. The idea is alien and abhorrent to the holier-than-thou Janeane Garafolo, mistress of the unwashed and honorable poster woman for the plain-looking.
So you'd never hear her utter any racist comments of her own... I mean you'd certainly never hear her say anything like "... but these people, all white, most of them, unless there are some people with Stockholm Syndrome.... ".
Gawd almighty, couldn't they have sent us Susan Sarandon? Cripes, at least she believes her own crap.
JG reads her script and doesn't bother to worry if the words string together in a meaningful manner. She knows to hit her touchstones, names of Right-leaning journalists, she knows to be derisive at all the right parts and she... ummm. now what's her motivation supposed to be again when she brings up Fox news?
Did you notice how, just like in the DHS report, it was brought up that no laws were broken, but boy there sure could have been! And THAT's a shame.
I have to apologize. I've been resorting to a certain amount of character-assassination in this rant, which I like to think is out of character for me. I try to limit my charges of personal lapses to the decision-making abilities of those people who have stolen our highest governmental offices. JG is neither a politician, a policy-maker, nor is she a particularly strong voice. She's a ratings grabber. She's a consistent shrill voice that can be pulled out of her dungeon every once in awhile secure in the fact that her dribbling phrases will elicit a suitably left-wing chord of sympathy.
But she's kind of fun to make fun of. I guess it's that condescending manner in which she relegates anyone who isn't on her side as subhuman and hive-minded. It takes away the appeal to use restraint and considerate action when responding to her, and gives us license to just go ahead and call her the unwashed skank whore of the liberal party.
In all due respect, if there are any unwashed skank whores who are not liberals, I clearly and humbly submit my apologies. I did not wish to associate you with someone so clearly capable of lowering your status in life further.
And if you ARE one of the unwashed skank whores of the liberal party and you ARE offended, then congratulations, you got the point.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message
It is a tragedy of epic proportions that the left felt it was time to unlock the filthy cage they keep Janeane Garafolo locked up in so that she could go out and bravely rant incoherently about the Right Wing movement to prevent the destruction of America.
I would have much rather had an intelligent-sounding, or even attractive rival to go up against. More sanity exists in Tom Cruise on an Oprah-fueled high, or in the Dixie Chicks as they shed their clothes for the cover of Entertainment Weekly, or from Tina Fey who at least can be funny when they tell her she's supposed to be...
But JG? No... she's an unattractive, unfunny, talentless bottom-sucker who has managed to parlay a friendship with Ben Stiller into a life of being pampered, over-paid and thinking she is somehow better or smarter than other people. Sort of like a less talented Whoopi Goldberg.
In order to make herself sound smarter she babbles about "The Limbic Mind", which in lay men's terms, is the more instinctual responses that first are generated by a perception before the later, more educated response kicks in. It's not an entirely unusable concept, however it's also a concept that is widely debated in psychiatric circles. To give you a more physical example, the limbic mind would at first see a shiny apple and jump to the conclusion it was tasty and desirable. The more educated response that would then follow would be the concern that the apple must first be washed to rid it of pesticides, etc... You see? She's talking about the initial emotional response.
Because Conservatives are generally readers, go HERE to find out more about the Limbic Mind.
To find out what too much pampered living without benefit of an original thought can do for you watch the Left-Wing Bimbo herself babble on without facts, logical discourse, or context in this wonderful YouTube! clip.
But for the holier-than-thou JG, we Conservative playthings of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh et al... never reach the liberal concept of rational thought, but are stuck forever in limbic thought.
So, in keeping with the liberal playbook, she is demonstrating her beneficence for us by doing our thinking for us.
And what thinking does she attribute to us?
Racism of course.
She's above that. She would never be racist. The idea is alien and abhorrent to the holier-than-thou Janeane Garafolo, mistress of the unwashed and honorable poster woman for the plain-looking.
So you'd never hear her utter any racist comments of her own... I mean you'd certainly never hear her say anything like "... but these people, all white, most of them, unless there are some people with Stockholm Syndrome.... ".
Gawd almighty, couldn't they have sent us Susan Sarandon? Cripes, at least she believes her own crap.
JG reads her script and doesn't bother to worry if the words string together in a meaningful manner. She knows to hit her touchstones, names of Right-leaning journalists, she knows to be derisive at all the right parts and she... ummm. now what's her motivation supposed to be again when she brings up Fox news?
Did you notice how, just like in the DHS report, it was brought up that no laws were broken, but boy there sure could have been! And THAT's a shame.
I have to apologize. I've been resorting to a certain amount of character-assassination in this rant, which I like to think is out of character for me. I try to limit my charges of personal lapses to the decision-making abilities of those people who have stolen our highest governmental offices. JG is neither a politician, a policy-maker, nor is she a particularly strong voice. She's a ratings grabber. She's a consistent shrill voice that can be pulled out of her dungeon every once in awhile secure in the fact that her dribbling phrases will elicit a suitably left-wing chord of sympathy.
But she's kind of fun to make fun of. I guess it's that condescending manner in which she relegates anyone who isn't on her side as subhuman and hive-minded. It takes away the appeal to use restraint and considerate action when responding to her, and gives us license to just go ahead and call her the unwashed skank whore of the liberal party.
In all due respect, if there are any unwashed skank whores who are not liberals, I clearly and humbly submit my apologies. I did not wish to associate you with someone so clearly capable of lowering your status in life further.
And if you ARE one of the unwashed skank whores of the liberal party and you ARE offended, then congratulations, you got the point.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message
Friday, April 17, 2009
DHS Report on Extremism long on extreme and short on report....
After the initial furor a few days ago about the release of a Government report on Right Wing extremism, fueled in no small part by Rush Limbaugh's segment about this, I felt it would be wise to see what was actually in the report. After all, it's easy to criticize and comment on something you have never seen, and the definition of the Conservative is the person who chooses to do for themselves and not to follow the pack (actually that's only one definition, and it's buried down three quarters of the way on the somewhat lengthy list of definitions....).
After doing some looking around I found the actual document readily available over at WIKILEAKS, which, it seems, might become a valuable site to visit more often. Time will tell. I went ahead and downloaded the relatively small PDF file and sat down to breeze through the document.
The first and most glaring thing that comes across is the American Recovery and Re-investment Act - sized vagueness of the report. This is not an internal memo from the DHS to, say, the President of the United States, wherein you might figure that a certain amount of short-hand could be used. After all, I do not bother when chatting with a co-worker to define in detail aspects of the product we work with, I expect them to know (my being perennially let down on this count notwithstanding...). No, this report is expected and says so to be distributed across the country to law enforcement officials as a guideline for dealing with Right Wing Extremists.
But it can't be bothered to define what Right Wing Extremism means. This is likely the single largest complaint in the entire document. It has NO UNDERSTANDING of its subject, and by refusing to declare the parameters opens itself up to Robin Williams-esque interpretative levels. This is why those that DID read it earlier in the week were quick to point out that regular everyday citizens doing the job of regular everyday questioning our beneficent and all-giving overlord, could easily be interpreted as Right Wing Extremists. Because of lack of definition.
The next thing is the magnificently questionable manner in which the authors decide that this decade is very similar to the 1990s, and use the economy as an example.
WHAAAAAAT?
Maybe I was in the wrong decade.... I seem to recall our problems lately having been the result of 25 years of Reagan-Era economics grinding to a halt in the span of a two year period immediately following the Democrats' taking control of the House and Congress. Clinton enjoyed a prosperous era fueled by two preceding presidents who actively sought to encourage free market values. His biggest concerns, apart from the re-usability of a blue dress and his good 'ol boy attitude toward things, was how the hell he was gonna get laid tomorrow night without the Ice Queen finding out.
This decade is just a little different in pretty much every single respect.
The next problem with this report is one that keeps coming up, and it keeps coming up on the side of the Left, not the right.
RACISM!
I'm not about to sanctify all Conservatives as completely disinterested in racial aspects, but seriously, I have yet to hear a single person object to hussein's skin color. Except for the Liberal Left, who spent much of the campaign last summer wringing their hands in fear that the Right would refuse to vote for a black (mulatto) man. The Left are the ones who have been vocally making the associations. And in fact while strenuously denying that race was a factor in the election all along, which the Right was, frankly, getting annoyed with hearing repeated ad nauseum as if we were campaigning on a racial platform.... it was the Left that began going on at length about the Historic nature of the presidency from Election day on through to this report.
Those guys are more scared of having a negro in office than we are.
Umm... was I not supposed to use that word?
The report then goes on to blame pending and restrictive gun-control as a reason for alarm that extremism may be rising. They cite the increase in purchases of guns for this. The fact that that is a free market model... a product on the marketplace is about to become scarce so people want to get their hands on it while it's still there. Intent is a whole lot different than procurement... or another way to put it would be... "Guns don't kill people, but we still have the constitutional right to bear arms.".
Anti-Semitic behavior is thrown in the mix as well. To be sure "blame the Jews" can be said to have been the prevailing sentiment at one time, but largely speaking that time was 1930s Germany. The only person currently displaying a public dislike for Jews in the United States is our president, who is distancing himself from Israel like a former lover finding out their partner has just been diagnosed with AIDS.
So once again, the authors are projecting their own Leftists fears into the report.
The historical election. I know,I already mentioned it, but so does the report. It continues to harp on the subject giving it far more credence than the Right does.
Illegal Immigration - Apart from the fact that that phrase has no legitimate meaning in the real world... you can not be an immigrant if you came here illegally... that just makes you an illegal alien... this may be the closest to resembling accuracy the report gets. But sincerely afraid of being portrayed as something less than spastically alarmist the report enjoyably goes on to spout it's most asinine phrase....
"Debates over appropriate immigration levels and enforcement policy
generally fall within the realm of protected political speech under the First Amendment,
but in some cases, anti-immigration or strident pro-enforcement fervor has been directed
against specific groups and has the potential to turn violent."
In other words, if you specifically do not like the flow of Mexicans, for example, into the US illegally, you risk illegal speak. Your rights as an American become are protected so long as you follow the report's path of massive vagueness.
I'm loving that the DHS is now empowered with determining that some speech is legal and some is not. Because I advocate tossing squatters out of the country does not mean I am going out into the street to burn down their government-bought homes... it just means I advocate tossing the bums out of the country. But I suppose I'm threatening to turn violent just now... or maybe I'll go read the gas meter like my wife just asked me to.
The political and social rise of other countries - This is an interesting one. There is a legitimate fear of the influence of foreign powers usurping control of the United States. We MIGHT feel a little better if we didn't serve under the yoke of a president who is handing those powers the reins to the country, but again, we see this as a political solution. No need to go shooting up a Taco Bell when we can just vote the idiots out of office. It';s cheaper and involves less jail time.
Disgruntled military vets - ummm... whatever. This one's been pretty well parsed already.
So in conclusion, the report goes way out of its way to give reasons for most Americans to be upset with the government, makes vague and ill-considered logical conclusions without benefit of context, It identifies with anything resembling specificity a grand total of 11 people involved in "Right Wing Extremism" over the past twenty some years, seeks to tarnish anybody who is concerned with the country's freedom as a potential source of concern, and ignores that many of the issues raised are in fact the same kinds of issues that generated the Constitution of the United States of America. Except for that negro president thing...
Oh yeah, and it also touched briefly on religion, but relegated it to "end-time" mythology, so it could just be referring to the Mayan calendar, which suggests hussein will be our president at the end of the world.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
After doing some looking around I found the actual document readily available over at WIKILEAKS, which, it seems, might become a valuable site to visit more often. Time will tell. I went ahead and downloaded the relatively small PDF file and sat down to breeze through the document.
The first and most glaring thing that comes across is the American Recovery and Re-investment Act - sized vagueness of the report. This is not an internal memo from the DHS to, say, the President of the United States, wherein you might figure that a certain amount of short-hand could be used. After all, I do not bother when chatting with a co-worker to define in detail aspects of the product we work with, I expect them to know (my being perennially let down on this count notwithstanding...). No, this report is expected and says so to be distributed across the country to law enforcement officials as a guideline for dealing with Right Wing Extremists.
But it can't be bothered to define what Right Wing Extremism means. This is likely the single largest complaint in the entire document. It has NO UNDERSTANDING of its subject, and by refusing to declare the parameters opens itself up to Robin Williams-esque interpretative levels. This is why those that DID read it earlier in the week were quick to point out that regular everyday citizens doing the job of regular everyday questioning our beneficent and all-giving overlord, could easily be interpreted as Right Wing Extremists. Because of lack of definition.
The next thing is the magnificently questionable manner in which the authors decide that this decade is very similar to the 1990s, and use the economy as an example.
WHAAAAAAT?
Maybe I was in the wrong decade.... I seem to recall our problems lately having been the result of 25 years of Reagan-Era economics grinding to a halt in the span of a two year period immediately following the Democrats' taking control of the House and Congress. Clinton enjoyed a prosperous era fueled by two preceding presidents who actively sought to encourage free market values. His biggest concerns, apart from the re-usability of a blue dress and his good 'ol boy attitude toward things, was how the hell he was gonna get laid tomorrow night without the Ice Queen finding out.
This decade is just a little different in pretty much every single respect.
The next problem with this report is one that keeps coming up, and it keeps coming up on the side of the Left, not the right.
RACISM!
I'm not about to sanctify all Conservatives as completely disinterested in racial aspects, but seriously, I have yet to hear a single person object to hussein's skin color. Except for the Liberal Left, who spent much of the campaign last summer wringing their hands in fear that the Right would refuse to vote for a black (mulatto) man. The Left are the ones who have been vocally making the associations. And in fact while strenuously denying that race was a factor in the election all along, which the Right was, frankly, getting annoyed with hearing repeated ad nauseum as if we were campaigning on a racial platform.... it was the Left that began going on at length about the Historic nature of the presidency from Election day on through to this report.
Those guys are more scared of having a negro in office than we are.
Umm... was I not supposed to use that word?
The report then goes on to blame pending and restrictive gun-control as a reason for alarm that extremism may be rising. They cite the increase in purchases of guns for this. The fact that that is a free market model... a product on the marketplace is about to become scarce so people want to get their hands on it while it's still there. Intent is a whole lot different than procurement... or another way to put it would be... "Guns don't kill people, but we still have the constitutional right to bear arms.".
Anti-Semitic behavior is thrown in the mix as well. To be sure "blame the Jews" can be said to have been the prevailing sentiment at one time, but largely speaking that time was 1930s Germany. The only person currently displaying a public dislike for Jews in the United States is our president, who is distancing himself from Israel like a former lover finding out their partner has just been diagnosed with AIDS.
So once again, the authors are projecting their own Leftists fears into the report.
The historical election. I know,I already mentioned it, but so does the report. It continues to harp on the subject giving it far more credence than the Right does.
Illegal Immigration - Apart from the fact that that phrase has no legitimate meaning in the real world... you can not be an immigrant if you came here illegally... that just makes you an illegal alien... this may be the closest to resembling accuracy the report gets. But sincerely afraid of being portrayed as something less than spastically alarmist the report enjoyably goes on to spout it's most asinine phrase....
"Debates over appropriate immigration levels and enforcement policy
generally fall within the realm of protected political speech under the First Amendment,
but in some cases, anti-immigration or strident pro-enforcement fervor has been directed
against specific groups and has the potential to turn violent."
In other words, if you specifically do not like the flow of Mexicans, for example, into the US illegally, you risk illegal speak. Your rights as an American become are protected so long as you follow the report's path of massive vagueness.
I'm loving that the DHS is now empowered with determining that some speech is legal and some is not. Because I advocate tossing squatters out of the country does not mean I am going out into the street to burn down their government-bought homes... it just means I advocate tossing the bums out of the country. But I suppose I'm threatening to turn violent just now... or maybe I'll go read the gas meter like my wife just asked me to.
The political and social rise of other countries - This is an interesting one. There is a legitimate fear of the influence of foreign powers usurping control of the United States. We MIGHT feel a little better if we didn't serve under the yoke of a president who is handing those powers the reins to the country, but again, we see this as a political solution. No need to go shooting up a Taco Bell when we can just vote the idiots out of office. It';s cheaper and involves less jail time.
Disgruntled military vets - ummm... whatever. This one's been pretty well parsed already.
So in conclusion, the report goes way out of its way to give reasons for most Americans to be upset with the government, makes vague and ill-considered logical conclusions without benefit of context, It identifies with anything resembling specificity a grand total of 11 people involved in "Right Wing Extremism" over the past twenty some years, seeks to tarnish anybody who is concerned with the country's freedom as a potential source of concern, and ignores that many of the issues raised are in fact the same kinds of issues that generated the Constitution of the United States of America. Except for that negro president thing...
Oh yeah, and it also touched briefly on religion, but relegated it to "end-time" mythology, so it could just be referring to the Mayan calendar, which suggests hussein will be our president at the end of the world.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
president faust still giving with one hand while taking (all your money) with another...
I attended the Buffalo, NY Tea Party this afternoon and was very pleased. I'll have more on that later. But just now I wanted to discuss THIS little gem found just now on CNN.com... I direct you to the very last segment....
In an article designed to speak about how people have grown to not trust their government over the very real fears generated by spending a ginormous amount of money without any of the transparency we were promised, we find out at the end that president hussein has indeed taken notice of us, and has indeed made a plan.
Apart from doing the traditional Liberal agenda of identifying their enemy with someone the enemy doesn't like (in this case, claiming we were organized by the old-guard Republican leaders... a falsity matched in it's gall by the fervor in which Tea-Party goers have denounced those same Republicans... ) the Faustian Prince of Darkness is going to set about reminding americans of how he DID cut your taxes...
Which, of course... is wrong.
He lowered your withholding.
You'll still owe the same amount at the end of this year. Only now you may not get a refund and you may actually have to pay them more than you did during the course of the year.
But with hussein it's never about facts, it's about feelings.
In this instance he is relatively powerless. He likes to think he can get us upset by labeling us "Right Wing Extremists" but only hard-line ObamaZombies would even swallow that concept. He wants to show us just how generous he has been with our own payrolls, but many people are starting to realize this is NOT the case.
It'd be fun to see Barney Frank stammer out that he's going to punish American Citizens who participated in these events by handing them crippling 90%% taxation.
Just think of the chaos that would erupt under THOSE terms.
It's sad and a bit maddening to think that we have a real honest-to-God moustache-twirling villain sitting in his throne at the White House, but it's also a bit freeing. So far his responses to everything he has encountered have been wrong. Not really a great deal has been right. So it's actually easy and understandable to go against him and to accept the epithet "Right Wing Extremist" as a compliment, not an insult.
I think I'm gonna sew a scarlet "RWE" on my shirt.
As I said, a little later I'll come back with word on today's Buffalo party, which was pretty decent and very emotionally rewarding.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
In an article designed to speak about how people have grown to not trust their government over the very real fears generated by spending a ginormous amount of money without any of the transparency we were promised, we find out at the end that president hussein has indeed taken notice of us, and has indeed made a plan.
Apart from doing the traditional Liberal agenda of identifying their enemy with someone the enemy doesn't like (in this case, claiming we were organized by the old-guard Republican leaders... a falsity matched in it's gall by the fervor in which Tea-Party goers have denounced those same Republicans... ) the Faustian Prince of Darkness is going to set about reminding americans of how he DID cut your taxes...
Which, of course... is wrong.
He lowered your withholding.
You'll still owe the same amount at the end of this year. Only now you may not get a refund and you may actually have to pay them more than you did during the course of the year.
But with hussein it's never about facts, it's about feelings.
In this instance he is relatively powerless. He likes to think he can get us upset by labeling us "Right Wing Extremists" but only hard-line ObamaZombies would even swallow that concept. He wants to show us just how generous he has been with our own payrolls, but many people are starting to realize this is NOT the case.
It'd be fun to see Barney Frank stammer out that he's going to punish American Citizens who participated in these events by handing them crippling 90%% taxation.
Just think of the chaos that would erupt under THOSE terms.
It's sad and a bit maddening to think that we have a real honest-to-God moustache-twirling villain sitting in his throne at the White House, but it's also a bit freeing. So far his responses to everything he has encountered have been wrong. Not really a great deal has been right. So it's actually easy and understandable to go against him and to accept the epithet "Right Wing Extremist" as a compliment, not an insult.
I think I'm gonna sew a scarlet "RWE" on my shirt.
As I said, a little later I'll come back with word on today's Buffalo party, which was pretty decent and very emotionally rewarding.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
THE DEFINITION OF RADICAL
Dear Dept. of Homeland Security, please be advised that the definition of a radical is one who challenges the status quo because the status quo is not acceptable.
In other words, the definition of Radical is America.
We're not a threat to Homeland Security, we're the vanguards!
Maybe if you loved this country as much as we do you'd see that.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
In other words, the definition of Radical is America.
We're not a threat to Homeland Security, we're the vanguards!
Maybe if you loved this country as much as we do you'd see that.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Hi Mom.... Lookit Me!!!! I'm a Radical Now....
God bless president hussein, he truly is america's president. He manages to keep all of us under his protective umbrella, and is happy to acknowledge us as his busy schedule permits.
Imagine how happy I was to find out that without having violated any law, and abusing only a modicum of good taste (depending more or less upon your feelings about the liberal application of the word "retards" when describing democrats....) , my status as conservative blogger has labeled me a radical in the eyes of the Department of Homeland Security.
Now remember that the DHS was formed in the wake of the brutal attacks on the United States of America from radical Islamo-fascists who hate everything there is about America that is worth protecting. These are people who are committed to killing Americans in as gruesome and as voluminous a manner as possible. The DHS was designed to coordinate and prevent against plots against America from both within and without.
The fact that you and I are offended is actually kind of the point that hussein would do this. He WANTS to agitate us and get us angry, especially in advance of the Tea Parties.
It's very important that we, as conservatives and true patriots of the United States of America stand up for our beliefs and calmly and in an orderly manner demonstrate about how excess government has spent our money without our consent and and forced legislation that violates laws left, right and center.
We do not go and overturn cars, we do not beat people up for their beliefs, we do not hate hussein because he has mulatto blood...
Because those are the things that hussein and his cronies want those of us who do not read blogs or follow the news with any regular effort, to believe.
hussein wants americans to think that conservatives are this offensive group of racists who are anxious to destroy the status quo and topple the government.
Or in layman's terms, he wants americans to think that conservatives are liberals.
Tomorrow's Tea Partys are going to be watched very closely... if not by the media, then certainly by the democrats. You can bet your sweet hinder that hussein is not happy with demonstrations against his policies are going on in his own country (sic). Still, he has not found a regulation that would lawfully pass that allows him to outlaw people peacefully demonstrating.
So get out, open your yaps and tell the world what they need to hear. Tomorrow is the front line for the war to take back our country from this interloper and restore sanity to government.
You have your call to arms, what's the matter soldier? You want to live forever? Now GET GOING!!!!!!
Imagine how happy I was to find out that without having violated any law, and abusing only a modicum of good taste (depending more or less upon your feelings about the liberal application of the word "retards" when describing democrats....) , my status as conservative blogger has labeled me a radical in the eyes of the Department of Homeland Security.
Now remember that the DHS was formed in the wake of the brutal attacks on the United States of America from radical Islamo-fascists who hate everything there is about America that is worth protecting. These are people who are committed to killing Americans in as gruesome and as voluminous a manner as possible. The DHS was designed to coordinate and prevent against plots against America from both within and without.
The fact that you and I are offended is actually kind of the point that hussein would do this. He WANTS to agitate us and get us angry, especially in advance of the Tea Parties.
It's very important that we, as conservatives and true patriots of the United States of America stand up for our beliefs and calmly and in an orderly manner demonstrate about how excess government has spent our money without our consent and and forced legislation that violates laws left, right and center.
We do not go and overturn cars, we do not beat people up for their beliefs, we do not hate hussein because he has mulatto blood...
Because those are the things that hussein and his cronies want those of us who do not read blogs or follow the news with any regular effort, to believe.
hussein wants americans to think that conservatives are this offensive group of racists who are anxious to destroy the status quo and topple the government.
Or in layman's terms, he wants americans to think that conservatives are liberals.
Tomorrow's Tea Partys are going to be watched very closely... if not by the media, then certainly by the democrats. You can bet your sweet hinder that hussein is not happy with demonstrations against his policies are going on in his own country (sic). Still, he has not found a regulation that would lawfully pass that allows him to outlaw people peacefully demonstrating.
So get out, open your yaps and tell the world what they need to hear. Tomorrow is the front line for the war to take back our country from this interloper and restore sanity to government.
You have your call to arms, what's the matter soldier? You want to live forever? Now GET GOING!!!!!!
Monday, April 13, 2009
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum....
Always the rebel, tackling subjects no one else is willing to write about, I have opted to turn my critical pen (er.. word processor...) to the subject of pirates. Not those fancy and somewhat glam Johnny Depps out there, or the classically handsome Orlando Blooms. Hell, I'm reasonably certain these pirates aren't even in Keira Knightly's level of competence.
No, I refer to the Somali pirates.
Now I want to say categorically that I disagreed with Rush Limbaugh earlier today when he wasted a huge amount of his show on how the recent incident was cause to be upset with president hussein. All sardonic witticisms aside, hussein's biggest sin was that he was so low-key about the incident. He did NOT step up to bat and try to make this his first international crisis.
But Rush, God love him, had it all worked out that this was a smile-for-the-cameras moment for our president, even criticizing him for making the executive decision to shoot to kill in the event it became necessary.
Which is, of course, the President's job.
So this isn't about Depp, it's not about hussein, nor is it about Rush.
It's about the pirates. And their business model.
At the moment I'm not even certain who said it first that the pirates had a very successful business model. Whoever it was was correct. The pirates have had a pretty plush time taking ships and their crews hostage and, with very few exceptions, releasing them after a tidy sum has been paid. From the standpoint of the Somalis this probably was their way of showing how nice they were... you know... not killing prisoners they took.
Then we Americans had to go and resist. That just pisses the rest of the world off. We have the belief that we should be able to travel through international waters unmolested by swarthy puffy-shirted types brandishing cutlasses and AK-47s. Why it's downright indecent of us to think that we're anything special. We should just keep our yaps shut and be nice little hostages.
Remember how that worked for the first few planes involved in 9/11? By the time the last plane was on its' way to DC the passengers and crew had caught wind of what was happening, and instead of just shutting up and sitting quietly they gave their lives to save many more American lives.
This is where definitions of heroism come into play. Normal Americans caught up in abnormal circumstances... being given the option to either be meek and mild, or bold and courageous. And the funny thing is, when we know the score... when those passengers on flight 93 knew that they had an enemy who wasn't after ransom or bargaining, but had made a decision to end their lives, those people rose up against them and generated a new battle cry for the 21st century.
"Let's Roll...."
This was the spirit in which the brave men of the Maersk Alabama vowed to regain control of their ship and then to try to rescue their Captain, a man for whom loyalty was truly deserving. That same spirit was part of what our Navy and SEAL teams brought to the table to confront these thugs.
And you may wonder just how heroic it is to surround four men on a fuel-depleted lifeboat with a mini aircraft carrier and other vessels, but the pirates were the ones creating the situation.
They had opportunities from the get-go to walk away and free their hostage.
But when you decide to step on America you can pretty much expect this will be the price you pay.
I DO wish hussein had actually taken the opportunity to be more involved. Sincerely. Not to chastise or criticize, but to send a clear signal to the world that you tread on us at your peril.
But that's not his style. No righteous indignation... not sense of anger that Americans had been harassed in international waters, just a typically gutless threat of holding pirates accountable.
So while our military executed impressive and daring maneuvers for the sake of one of our own, all hussein could muster was a promise of firm government oversight.
I feel safer already.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
No, I refer to the Somali pirates.
Now I want to say categorically that I disagreed with Rush Limbaugh earlier today when he wasted a huge amount of his show on how the recent incident was cause to be upset with president hussein. All sardonic witticisms aside, hussein's biggest sin was that he was so low-key about the incident. He did NOT step up to bat and try to make this his first international crisis.
But Rush, God love him, had it all worked out that this was a smile-for-the-cameras moment for our president, even criticizing him for making the executive decision to shoot to kill in the event it became necessary.
Which is, of course, the President's job.
So this isn't about Depp, it's not about hussein, nor is it about Rush.
It's about the pirates. And their business model.
At the moment I'm not even certain who said it first that the pirates had a very successful business model. Whoever it was was correct. The pirates have had a pretty plush time taking ships and their crews hostage and, with very few exceptions, releasing them after a tidy sum has been paid. From the standpoint of the Somalis this probably was their way of showing how nice they were... you know... not killing prisoners they took.
Then we Americans had to go and resist. That just pisses the rest of the world off. We have the belief that we should be able to travel through international waters unmolested by swarthy puffy-shirted types brandishing cutlasses and AK-47s. Why it's downright indecent of us to think that we're anything special. We should just keep our yaps shut and be nice little hostages.
Remember how that worked for the first few planes involved in 9/11? By the time the last plane was on its' way to DC the passengers and crew had caught wind of what was happening, and instead of just shutting up and sitting quietly they gave their lives to save many more American lives.
This is where definitions of heroism come into play. Normal Americans caught up in abnormal circumstances... being given the option to either be meek and mild, or bold and courageous. And the funny thing is, when we know the score... when those passengers on flight 93 knew that they had an enemy who wasn't after ransom or bargaining, but had made a decision to end their lives, those people rose up against them and generated a new battle cry for the 21st century.
"Let's Roll...."
This was the spirit in which the brave men of the Maersk Alabama vowed to regain control of their ship and then to try to rescue their Captain, a man for whom loyalty was truly deserving. That same spirit was part of what our Navy and SEAL teams brought to the table to confront these thugs.
And you may wonder just how heroic it is to surround four men on a fuel-depleted lifeboat with a mini aircraft carrier and other vessels, but the pirates were the ones creating the situation.
They had opportunities from the get-go to walk away and free their hostage.
But when you decide to step on America you can pretty much expect this will be the price you pay.
I DO wish hussein had actually taken the opportunity to be more involved. Sincerely. Not to chastise or criticize, but to send a clear signal to the world that you tread on us at your peril.
But that's not his style. No righteous indignation... not sense of anger that Americans had been harassed in international waters, just a typically gutless threat of holding pirates accountable.
So while our military executed impressive and daring maneuvers for the sake of one of our own, all hussein could muster was a promise of firm government oversight.
I feel safer already.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Social Engineering 101....
If you are a student of media manipulation for larger political causes you will readily identify this as a basic primer on how to manipulate the masses prior to their knowing that they're even being manipulated.
This CNN.com news article tells the tale of an uncaring Japanese authority forcing the Japan-born daughter of two Filipino illegal aliens who are being banished back to the Philippines to choose between her family and her country.
It helps dramatically that president hussein is a staunch lover of Chinese governmental styles, speaking on more than one occasion of how much better they are than we here in the US of A. The Chinese have been socially and politically at odds with Japan for.. well... over a hundred years. So this is a win/win situation for him.
This is an article designed to make you look at the touchy/feely aspect of the sense of unfairness inherent in how an uncaring and US-friendly government is forcing this horrible situation on this young girl who is... sympathetically, dressed int he traditional Japanese school girl uniform as seen in anime a disproportionate amount of time.
This is NOT an article designed to present the facts in a fair, balanced measure. If that were the case more might have been made of the illegal alien status of the parents.
The theory is that if you read this article and feel that the Japanese are a harsh and brutal regime, uncaring for the feelings of this girl, that when you have to read similar stories of the US government behaving in this manner you will get upset and support the bid to make illegal aliens legitimate citizens.
You have not really read that that is the case, but then the issue is being prepared for you even now. There is a strong effort inside the White House to make the legalization of millions of illegal aliens a priority.
The rules of play are not fair, and they will attempt to make us feel bad. But we have to remember that at the heart of all of these sad-sack stories WE are not the guilty party. The guilty parties are the people who entered the US illegally. THEY are the ones forcing these difficult situations on their family members.
But then, in the end, will the truth really matter?
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
This CNN.com news article tells the tale of an uncaring Japanese authority forcing the Japan-born daughter of two Filipino illegal aliens who are being banished back to the Philippines to choose between her family and her country.
It helps dramatically that president hussein is a staunch lover of Chinese governmental styles, speaking on more than one occasion of how much better they are than we here in the US of A. The Chinese have been socially and politically at odds with Japan for.. well... over a hundred years. So this is a win/win situation for him.
This is an article designed to make you look at the touchy/feely aspect of the sense of unfairness inherent in how an uncaring and US-friendly government is forcing this horrible situation on this young girl who is... sympathetically, dressed int he traditional Japanese school girl uniform as seen in anime a disproportionate amount of time.
This is NOT an article designed to present the facts in a fair, balanced measure. If that were the case more might have been made of the illegal alien status of the parents.
The theory is that if you read this article and feel that the Japanese are a harsh and brutal regime, uncaring for the feelings of this girl, that when you have to read similar stories of the US government behaving in this manner you will get upset and support the bid to make illegal aliens legitimate citizens.
You have not really read that that is the case, but then the issue is being prepared for you even now. There is a strong effort inside the White House to make the legalization of millions of illegal aliens a priority.
The rules of play are not fair, and they will attempt to make us feel bad. But we have to remember that at the heart of all of these sad-sack stories WE are not the guilty party. The guilty parties are the people who entered the US illegally. THEY are the ones forcing these difficult situations on their family members.
But then, in the end, will the truth really matter?
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
The Dictator who would be a big fish in a small pond...
Still trying to find new reasons to think well of president hussein? I know, I feel your pain.. it's getting harder. And for you liberals and democrats who thought he was on your side, it's got to be particularly galling.
First off, it's really hard to paint a picture of hussein as anything other than a dictator. A Legitimate President of the United States, one who was legally able to take the pledge to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, would never have considered surrendering the legitimate and necessary sovereignty of our country to a non-existent coalition of largely European governments.
And yet that is exactly what he is doing by allowing other nations to have control like he has over the inner working of banking institutions. Read more about it HERE.
Is it any wonder that many Americans, those that aren't blinded by his Brilliance and awesomeness... question his legitimacy as a natural-born U.S. Citizen?
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
First off, it's really hard to paint a picture of hussein as anything other than a dictator. A Legitimate President of the United States, one who was legally able to take the pledge to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, would never have considered surrendering the legitimate and necessary sovereignty of our country to a non-existent coalition of largely European governments.
And yet that is exactly what he is doing by allowing other nations to have control like he has over the inner working of banking institutions. Read more about it HERE.
Is it any wonder that many Americans, those that aren't blinded by his Brilliance and awesomeness... question his legitimacy as a natural-born U.S. Citizen?
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
A comprehensive list of world leaders who have come to the US and apologized publicly to us for their bad behavior...
In no particular order....
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve of this message.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve of this message.
I don't want to be responsible for my actions, whines teen...
In a disturbing news article on CNN.com a young man is bemoaning having to pay a hefty price for an action which took less than two minutes to do.
Of course, the consequences to the young lady, a former girlfriend who has been the victim of nude photos sent to him in private being disseminated, will take years to work out. But that's not important.
What's important is that this kid doesn't feel he should be punished.
I recently went through something similar (albeit less nudity-based) where my son was concerned, and in some cases the offending kids and their families were agreeable that punishment... fair punishment... should be meted out, and in one case one kid and his family risked the kid having a felony offense on the records. They backed down at the last moment, but the idea that consequence was considered an inconvenience too heavy to bear was what enraged my wife and I.
I won't go into the issue of "sexting", which is frankly something I've not engaged in (I was, however, forced to leave a website once for posting a photo of myself naked wearing an apron and holding a KFC chicken leg and bucket... long story, but true...) so I'm not particularly qualified to go into.
On the other hand, the reason we have laws precluding young adults from drinking, drugging, driving while drinking, or even voting is because too many times they are insufficiently capable of using long-term consequence as a guidepost to their decision-making practices.
Seriously? Is this even something we need to be reminded of? Yes. Because after the illegal aliens are granted all the rights and privileges of Americans you can bet your bottom dollar (which will be the ONLY one you'll have left by that point...) that the left will start campaigning to lower the voting age to either 16, 14 or 3 depending upon how much they think they can get away with.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Of course, the consequences to the young lady, a former girlfriend who has been the victim of nude photos sent to him in private being disseminated, will take years to work out. But that's not important.
What's important is that this kid doesn't feel he should be punished.
I recently went through something similar (albeit less nudity-based) where my son was concerned, and in some cases the offending kids and their families were agreeable that punishment... fair punishment... should be meted out, and in one case one kid and his family risked the kid having a felony offense on the records. They backed down at the last moment, but the idea that consequence was considered an inconvenience too heavy to bear was what enraged my wife and I.
I won't go into the issue of "sexting", which is frankly something I've not engaged in (I was, however, forced to leave a website once for posting a photo of myself naked wearing an apron and holding a KFC chicken leg and bucket... long story, but true...) so I'm not particularly qualified to go into.
On the other hand, the reason we have laws precluding young adults from drinking, drugging, driving while drinking, or even voting is because too many times they are insufficiently capable of using long-term consequence as a guidepost to their decision-making practices.
Seriously? Is this even something we need to be reminded of? Yes. Because after the illegal aliens are granted all the rights and privileges of Americans you can bet your bottom dollar (which will be the ONLY one you'll have left by that point...) that the left will start campaigning to lower the voting age to either 16, 14 or 3 depending upon how much they think they can get away with.
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Joe Biden's fantasy life...
president hussein has been known to say some pretty stupid things... among them "I do" when asked if he would take Michelle to be his lawfully wedded wife... but there's just something so endearing about his VP, natural-born American Joe Biden, that when he speaks you just wanna listen... for the laugh track.
In this brand spanky-new CNN.com article the veep speaks in characteristically vague terms about such ideas as how Dick Cheney's "power" weakened America and how George W. Bush was not a leader.
Cheney's power, which we might infer from Joe, is some sort of mystical Power Rangers kind of thing... was that he was vice president. He is a gruff man and not prone to mincing words, but then he works with democrats sometimes, so that's not necessarily a bad trait. Beyond that, I believe, there was no mystical quality to the man, nor did he have Rasputin-esque tendrils of control over the Bush administration.
I suppose it might be argued that Bush was NOT a leader. Not in the traditional sense, anyhow, of a man who formed two multi-national coalitions against enemies who posed threats not only to America but to the rest of the world. Nor in the traditional sense of a man who would walk confidently into the seats of other nations' governments and look them in the eye and declare that he was an An American. You could also argue that he might not have been the kind of a leader who proceeded with what he knew in his heart was the right thing to do, even though touchy/feeley naysayers suggested otherwise, and then went ahead and did it. Hell, you might even be able to argue that he was certainly not the kind of leader who would tell you in advance what he planned to do, and then go ahead and keep his word.
But you'd be wrong.
Bush raised two coalitions of nations to help fight against the tyranny of Islamo-fascism by leading an invasion against the Afghan regime that protected and supported Osama Bin Laden (funny how I can write HIS name, but still can't really put the new guy's name with his job title yet...) and again to overthrow the brutal regime of Saddaam Hussein.
Bush visited many foreign countries and greeted many foreign leaders, and never once apologized for his country. He loves America with all his heart, and whether or not he made mis-steps he will be remembered as a true and loyal protector of America, who spoke often of how great a nation we are.
When he stood up to make his case for invasion of Iraq, a risky proposition as it was the first time in US history that we would initiate a war with another country, he told us in advance what he would do, and despite populist sentiment he went ahead and did it. His unswerving belief that S. Hussein was a threat and his moral core guided him to defy the protesters.
Joe's fantasy life is very interesting. He repeatedly states that he is not worried about the events going on around him in the world. He points out how other countries are expected to make the big decisions in the world (I was under the impression big government was the answer... guess I misunderstood his boss.....) and he has made the greatest case for why we should be confident in the stimulus package... that we won't see any benefit from the $780,000,000,000.00 stimulant package anytime soon.
Feel like buying a used car from this guy?
But my favorite part... the one that really sparked this particular rant, is where he asserts early on in the piece that the rest of the world is following our lead now, thanks entirely to this administration.
Now this may surprise you, but he's right. and I'm gonna prove it.
His boss, president hussein, has gone overseas and apologized for us, making a laughing stock of America in front of those countries, many of whom we pulled out of the frying pan just a few decades ago..., and now, with hussein as their bandleader the rest of the world is laughing at us.
Some leadership. I'd sooner follow Dan Quayle.
It's okay-ish to have a man of mystery going around the world telling them to laugh at us and not be put off by our bad breath or whatever... we expect that from hussein. But Joe Biden was born in this country and grew up here, presumably with two American parents. What the hell does HE have to hate America for?
Joe's fantasy life, by the way, could use some spicing up. Maybe he could talk about that hot date he's always wanted to have with Dem hottie Madeleine Albright.... hey.. it's just fantasies, y'know?
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
In this brand spanky-new CNN.com article the veep speaks in characteristically vague terms about such ideas as how Dick Cheney's "power" weakened America and how George W. Bush was not a leader.
Cheney's power, which we might infer from Joe, is some sort of mystical Power Rangers kind of thing... was that he was vice president. He is a gruff man and not prone to mincing words, but then he works with democrats sometimes, so that's not necessarily a bad trait. Beyond that, I believe, there was no mystical quality to the man, nor did he have Rasputin-esque tendrils of control over the Bush administration.
I suppose it might be argued that Bush was NOT a leader. Not in the traditional sense, anyhow, of a man who formed two multi-national coalitions against enemies who posed threats not only to America but to the rest of the world. Nor in the traditional sense of a man who would walk confidently into the seats of other nations' governments and look them in the eye and declare that he was an An American. You could also argue that he might not have been the kind of a leader who proceeded with what he knew in his heart was the right thing to do, even though touchy/feeley naysayers suggested otherwise, and then went ahead and did it. Hell, you might even be able to argue that he was certainly not the kind of leader who would tell you in advance what he planned to do, and then go ahead and keep his word.
But you'd be wrong.
Bush raised two coalitions of nations to help fight against the tyranny of Islamo-fascism by leading an invasion against the Afghan regime that protected and supported Osama Bin Laden (funny how I can write HIS name, but still can't really put the new guy's name with his job title yet...) and again to overthrow the brutal regime of Saddaam Hussein.
Bush visited many foreign countries and greeted many foreign leaders, and never once apologized for his country. He loves America with all his heart, and whether or not he made mis-steps he will be remembered as a true and loyal protector of America, who spoke often of how great a nation we are.
When he stood up to make his case for invasion of Iraq, a risky proposition as it was the first time in US history that we would initiate a war with another country, he told us in advance what he would do, and despite populist sentiment he went ahead and did it. His unswerving belief that S. Hussein was a threat and his moral core guided him to defy the protesters.
Joe's fantasy life is very interesting. He repeatedly states that he is not worried about the events going on around him in the world. He points out how other countries are expected to make the big decisions in the world (I was under the impression big government was the answer... guess I misunderstood his boss.....) and he has made the greatest case for why we should be confident in the stimulus package... that we won't see any benefit from the $780,000,000,000.00 stimulant package anytime soon.
Feel like buying a used car from this guy?
But my favorite part... the one that really sparked this particular rant, is where he asserts early on in the piece that the rest of the world is following our lead now, thanks entirely to this administration.
Now this may surprise you, but he's right. and I'm gonna prove it.
His boss, president hussein, has gone overseas and apologized for us, making a laughing stock of America in front of those countries, many of whom we pulled out of the frying pan just a few decades ago..., and now, with hussein as their bandleader the rest of the world is laughing at us.
Some leadership. I'd sooner follow Dan Quayle.
It's okay-ish to have a man of mystery going around the world telling them to laugh at us and not be put off by our bad breath or whatever... we expect that from hussein. But Joe Biden was born in this country and grew up here, presumably with two American parents. What the hell does HE have to hate America for?
Joe's fantasy life, by the way, could use some spicing up. Maybe he could talk about that hot date he's always wanted to have with Dem hottie Madeleine Albright.... hey.. it's just fantasies, y'know?
I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.
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