He’s every bit his old man. For the first time in this rot, I’m laughing. Sure, its derisive, but it does resemble laughing.
You know me. I’m not one to bloviate in the cause of new legislation, but someone ought to draw something up. I mean, with last week’s decree shovelling (MORE of) other people’s money to the state of Florida as solace for enduring a big rain storm, and with a new hurricane twirling its way into the Gulf of Mexico, I wish somebody would pass and enforce a law stating that if people choose to move to Florida or New Orleans or Corpus Cristi or any place along the swath, that they DO IT ON THEIR OWN FUCKING DIME!
That is all.
They believed — like you and I believe — that America should be a place where you can make it if you try.
"And if you can try it there,
You can make it anywhere… "
The talking heads are giddy with it, but it’s nothing less than perverted.
Anyone can try. That’s all that "freedom" promises. Success is a bit more complicated.
Billy Beck and wiley Malone Vandam. Thanks, guys. I’m just glad that I have you two to read, instead of me.
Interesting times we live in, though, no?
I’ve been afraid of thinking myself a flip flopper after publicly doubting and even double doubting my own initial sure wager that Fair Rodham would wind up with the Somewhat More Socialist Party’s nomination, but around the house I’ve been pushing Vandam’s 70% odds that she’ll still manage it, and darned that it isn’t just flatly laughed back at me. The prognostication gives pause. Such is the populace’s firm grasp of the surreality of the tragi-comedic-farce now being reissued as Director’s Cut III.
Sadly, I don’t even know when the flipping Denver convention is supposed to start, but if the mayhem can’t be contained, it just might be entertaining, and worthy of trying to find someone (other than Wolf Blitzer) to attempt to frame it for me. Or, knowing that all of everybody else’s fol de rol means a big heaping pile of actual squat to me, I could industriously find something else to do until it I might balefully eye the picture and headline prominently placed on the Drudge Report. Fuck ‘em and their entire enormous whorehouse sitcom. Decisions, decisions.
And that’s to where it’s got, it would seem.
Take care, gents. You two are islands in a sea of insanity.
.. and the huge bulk of them a complete waste, from the physical matter gone to build them, right on through to their pollution of the perceptual environment, to the toll they exact on the earnest human psyche continually bombarded with their indefatigable admonishments. Etc.
Hans Monderman, traffic engineer, seemed to get it, but as usual, good luck to the one in a million guy who didn’t have his head shoved up his own or someone else’s ass. Even a sympathetic toady has to get cute with the slantings of the essences:
But often, the reports reduced Monderman’s theories to a simple libertarian dislike for regulation of any kind. Granted, he did occasionally hum this tune. “When government takes over the responsibility from citizens, the citizens can’t develop their own values anymore,” he told me. “So when you want people to develop their own values in how to cope with social interactions between people, you have to give them freedom.” But his philosophy consisted of more than a simple dislike of constraints. He was questioning the entire way we think about traffic and its place in the landscape.
So, the guy built a "squareabout" that actually worked, but can’t be explained to the average bureaucrat, so we won’t be seeing any of them, anywhere, ever.
Meanwhile, the traffic light and sign industry continues to serve as the rich and luscious manure in which busybodies and small town despots get their dicks wet in the fun game of trying to run other people’s lives for them.
I believe it’s Virginia, now (at least), where some hard working misfit has managed to have a little sign placed every tenth of a mile along the interstates. commemorating the distance. Imagine the dollars poking out of that deal.
I ramble. And the cops are waiting out on highway 27, ready to pounce on any miscreant stupid enough to want to go more than fifty eight and a half on the wide, smooth four lane with virtually no traffic.
The signs aren’t good.
R.I.P. Hans Monderman
A degree in Physics has just been awarded to Kevin Kearney, aged 26, who swiftly and suddenly came to understand certain fundamental principles pertaining to force and mass when he attempted kite surfing in the winds of tropical storm Fay. Be sure to watch the video. Ouch, that’s the kinda hurtin’ that lives on for a generation or two (providing Mr Kearney manages to reproduce, after this.) Me? I only hope he wakes up in time to vote in the general election. We need more people of Mr Kearney’s caliber making those important decisions for all of us.
And later, Sweet Cheeks spins…
So you ride yourselves over the fields and
You make all your animal deals and
Your wise men don’t know how it feels to be thick as a brick.
–Tull (Jethro)
Don’t text or use a cell phone while engaged in any physical activities that require sustained attention; such activities include walking, biking, boating, rollerblading or even intermittent-contact sports such as baseball, football or soccer.
Never text or use a hand-held cell phone while driving or motorcycling, and use caution even with headsets.
Avoid becoming distracted by rummaging through purses, backpacks or clothing by keeping cell phones and blackberries in easy-to-find locations, such as phone pockets or pouches.
Ignore the call or message if it might interfere with concentration during critical activities that require attention. Better yet, turn off the device beforehand during times when incoming calls or messages might prove to be a dangerous or even simply embarrassing or annoying interference.
Be mindful of the distraction and corresponding reflex-response delay that texting can cause, and don’t text in any environments in which excessive inattention can cause safety concerns, such as while sitting alone at night, waiting for a bus, or in a crowded area, where one could easily become a victim of a personal theft.
link via SondraK.com
In today’s crate of newly proposed and/or implemented plans for further government intrusion into the private lives of the nation’s citizenry lurk the tobacco nazis:
Citing the long history of warnings about the dangers of smoking, Representative John D. Dingell, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said that it was hard to believe that the federal government had not yet regulated the tobacco industry.
… and…
[…] Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who sponsored the bill, responded, “The minority leader said ‘When is enough, enough?’ Well cigarettes, one of the most dangerous products on sale today, are not regulated at all.”
Ha ha hee… hoo hooo. The tobacco industry… "not yet regulated" and "not regulated at all". ?????
They’ve got to be kidding, right?
Maybe they’ve never noticed that little thing called the "Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms"? Or what about the… wait, here’s a smattering of what the tobacco industry deals with, government-wise, at the RJReynolds site:
There is extensive regulation of the tobacco industry and the cigarettes it produces at every level of government. Perhaps no other product is regulated in so many ways, or by so many agencies, as tobacco products. Moreover, while regulation of consumer products is typically left to federal agencies, Congress itself has stepped in to oversee the tobacco industry in many areas, and during the past 30 years Congress has held frequent hearings to consider whether additional regulation may be warranted. From the seed-bed to the sales counter, tobacco products are among the most highly regulated products in the nation.
It goes on to give a general overview of what the tobacco industry is subject to and by whom it is overseen, including "the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965, the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969 and the Comprehensive Smoking Education Act of 1984", The Environmental Protection Agency, the United States Department of Agriculture, the Department of Justice, the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau , and the Office on Smoking and Health in the Department of Health and Human Services.
Then there are all the states, with their mash of regulations, and their attorneys general milking billions from tobacco under false pretenses.
There isn’t a single bit of it that isn’t completely disgraceful, but to read Dingell and Waxman lying like that shows exactly the dishonest game government has become.
The Sheikh in Qatar who flew his Lamborghini to London for an oil change.
The workers at the airport who wrung their hands and worried about the climactic effects should be summarily fired and sent home without their stipends. The friends of the earth droids and likeminded synchophants (The horror! The horror!) should have their arses kicked up and down the length of one of Heathrow’s runways and then be set to harvesting acorns or whatever like task suits their dispositions, so as to begin pondering a world without air transport and the people who can afford to take advantage of it.
How many people did the frivolous Sheikh manage to employ, either directly or indirectly, in his little oil change adventure? It’s hard to say, exactly, but there were dozens at the very least who had the good fortune to be in position to take advantage of his need.
I have no idea who he is, but I like that Sheikh!
Sooner or later, everyone with an interest in economics stops around to make a monkey out of the New York Times’s very own Paul Krugman. It’s been happening for years. The guy has no shame, apparently. Today, the ass kicking comes courtesy of Mises.org:
If there is a cause-and-effect pattern in this article, it is based solely upon who occupies the White House, according to Krugman. Now, one might expect such talk from the heads of the two main political parties, but a Princeton economist is supposed to operate by higher standards than what prevail in pure, partisan politics.
They’ve got Krugman zipped up tight in his little nutshell, but here’s the economic bottom line:
One hates to break it to this perennial candidate for the Nobel Prize, but the problem is not "unregulated free markets." For one, financial markets are heavily regulated by government. Second, the real problem has been the belief that government can act as the backstop for every financial failure. In fact, the various guarantees, bailouts, loans, and the other measures taken by the government to prop up failing markets have served not only to lengthen the coming recession, but also to block the recovery. One cannot simultaneously have free and wide-open financial markets and government guarantees to back failures, which economists recognize as a moral hazard.
They kick Dubya Boosh, deservedly, too.
The free market in this country is all but strangled. The harpies in Congress are gnawing the bones of the oil industry. In California they’ve banned certain restaurants from opening in select locations, and proscribed their ingredients for the rest of ‘em throughout the state, and fricking Nestle can’t even set up a water bottling plant without conducting a multi-year global warming impact study. Etc., ad nauseum, across the land. Idiots like Krugman make careers out of promoting (on leaflets of ignorance and error) more and more of the destructive intrusion into that which works superbly without outside interference, and the rubes study up for another round of lever-pulling believing (against all known measures of logic and sanity) that things is really gonna change this time.
A sampling of the jabber, as gathered by The Hill:
“I am unalterably opposed to drilling,” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who cited a massive oil spill that closed nearly 100 miles of the Mississippi River last week.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) urged Reid to be “very careful about drilling off the coast of Alaska.”
[…]
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), for example, has sponsored legislation to ban drilling in the North Aleutian Basin, an area that Republicans have already opened to oil leasing.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told The Hill that lawmakers should focus on the National Petroleum Reserve on Alaska’s North Slope instead of offshore.
“There are tens of millions of barrels in the reserve. If you want oil in Alaska, drill there,” she said.
Some Democrats are irked that Senate leaders haven’t shown stronger resolve in the face of Republican attacks that attempt to blame opponents of offshore drilling for higher gas prices.
“Some people are just scared of the accusation that not leasing more acres has an impact on oil prices,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio, a senior Democrat from Oregon. “It just doesn’t.”
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, echoed Pelosi.
“I don’t object to oil companies doing more drilling where they already have leases,” said Waxman.
"I don’t think any of the proposals to open more areas for oil drilling off the coast of our country makes a lot of sense, because it will be years before we see any oil from these places,” he said.
[…]
“We truly believe drilling off the icy shores of Alaska is a bad idea,” said Melinda Pierce, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club, who said that sea ice increases the chances of an accident in the Arctic. “We’ve been long and vocal opponents of offshore development in the Arctic Ocean.”
Eleanor Huffines, Alaska director for The Wilderness Society, urged Senate Democrats to forget about offshore drilling and concentrate instead on tax credits for renewable energy development and other ideas.
“We think looking for additional oil and gas leasing will do nothing to lower the price of gas,” said Huffines.
In a free country, what would the pompous asses have to preen and pose about? Free men, of their own volition, would be out there, in the Arctic and on the high seas, risking their own lives and their own assets for a shot at the American dream, with nothing but a casual disdain for the likes of Pelosi, Kerry, and Waxman. Some would make it, some wouldn’t. Oil might be spilt. So what! That’s life: Dirty, dangerous, and nothing assured. Let’s quit fooling around and get on with it. It doesn’t even matter if all the oil in Alaska has no effect on the price at the pump. Instead, it’s about living free, free from the gibbering harangues and mandates of people like those above, with their hands in all our pockets and their guns to our head, while they jabber on and on in the luxury that the power of their jabbering provides them, all the while producing nothing. If we haven’t fallen into Hell, we’ve come damn close to it.
From the recent entries of one of Tennessee’s fruitier (socialist) fruit stands comes Chris Lugo, a gibbering horse’s ass hoping to capitalize on the tragedy of the recent church shooting:
As a candidate for federal office I believe that federal government has the responsibility to place strict limits on gun ownership in this country. Gun rights advocates argue that guns make us safe, but I believe that a heavily armed nation is a dangerous place to live. It is time to make our country safe for our children. Now is the time for comprehensive gun control for a safer America.
Breathtaking, innit? The Second Amendment doesn’t exist for Chris. The recent Heller decision comes from a "stacked court", and is, therefore, in Chris’s mind (one supposes), illegitimate. If elected, Chris will take the Senate oath to uphold the Constitution, all the while "believ[ing]" the exact opposite of what the Constitution and the courts that interpret the Constitution plainly say. Chris "believe[s] that a heavily armed nation is a dangerous place to live" and this avowed faith of his, with its attendant leaps in logic and integrity, trumps everything else. Never mind that Heller was explicitly brought to remedy the exact climate of fear that Chris Lugo purports to abhor, prevalent in a district with exactly the law Chris Lugo wants to take nationwide. Never mind those niggling little items like liberty, freedom, the responsibility of the individual, and words like "shall not be infringed". Those are nothing to the beliefs of the Chris Lugos of the world, idiots and petty despots, every single one of them
Pah, it’s disgusting. In this day and age.
The Associated Press is lying:
Three years later, the reality TV show’s most ambitious project at the time has become the latest victim of the foreclosure crisis.
No, it hasn’t. As the story itself makes clear, the house is being foreclosed because it was used as collateral for a business that failed. The "show’s most ambitious project" is "the latest victim" of an incompetently conceived and/or executed business venture. No doubt, politicians and the politician’s enabling press agents (like the Associated Press) will lump this failed business casualty in with "the foreclosure crisis", because it furthers the lie of the biased narrative (as the kids say, these days), but it’s nothing more than basic dishonesty, from root to flower.
Eight years paddling kayaks and I am ALWAYS conscious of overhanging trees, wondering how disaster might play. I’ve never seen one fall, but they obviously do. This guy never came back from his nice afternoon on the water.
Link from the "Headlines" sidebar at KayakQuixotica.com.
That was the chapter title in a book of riddles I’ve had since I could read, but here’s no joke:
What’s the difference between a cop shaking down Starbucks for a latte or six a day, and the FCC working to gouge a twenty five percent cut out of the XM/Sirius merger?
The cop got fired? Other than that, what’s the difference?
Good luck.
ps. Shouldn’t the cop have been prosecuted?
Do you want to cut Obama’s nuts off, or not?
In this case, my error was responding to a question before a live mic.
