One Obama paragraph. Five errors.

I've been very, very busy at work, so I haven't been posting much on this site.  I've been producing things that other people want.  I produce things that people voluntarily give their money for. 

The president of the United States has been very busy too.  But he takes things by force. 

Fortunately for the nation, Barack Obama has disadvantages that I (and many others) don't have. 

You see, we're not burdened by being totally full of shit. 

Here's a recent Barack speech, in italics. 

"You'll hear if you watch the nightly news or you read the newspapers that, well, there's gridlock, Congress is broken, approval ratings for Congress are terrible.  And there's a tendency to say, a plague on both your houses. 

And I take pride in being the Point Man for Tarrant County, Texas, for many of those who say "a plague on both your houses".  Both houses spend other peoples' money like drunk cowboys.  Both sides support the Drug War, they've supported the War on Gays, the War on Brown People, etc., etc., etc.  My side doesn't. 

But the truth of the matter is that the problem in Congress is very specific.  We have a group of folks in the Republican Party who have taken over who are so ideologically rigid, who are so committed to an economic theory that says if folks at the top do very well then everybody else is somehow going to do well;

Name ONE "economic theorist" who says that if "the folks at the top" (and they're centered around D.C.) do well, then EVERYBODY ELSE is going to do well.  Name one.  Barack, I will kiss your ass on the White House steps, and give you 30 minutes to draw a crowd beforehand, if you can produce the economic theorists who claim that if the folks at the top are doing well, then EVERYBODY ELSE will somehow do well.  There will always be some losers.  Always.  In the purest libertarian capitalist system that anyone can imagine, there will be some heartbreaking losses.  Someone, somewhere, will be the last VHS cassette manufacturer. 

BTW, here's a map of the wealthiest counties in the USA.  I'll never tire of posting it.  Barack is in the middle of that radioactive orange spot. 

....who deny the science of climate change;

Well, you got me there.  Climate is changing.  It always has.  I believe that it always will.  So does everyone else.  But I'm not going to stop flying, or hauling the nation's toilet paper around in semi-tractors.  Barack, you aren't going to stop flying either.  So please, please, please drop the posturing.  We've been through four or five Ice Ages in the past, and we're blessed to live in the gap between a couple of them now.  Enjoy it while it lasts.   

....who don't think making investments in early-childhood education makes sense;

Here's an analysis of the Government Accounting Office's study that proved that investment in early-childhood education don't make sense (when government is the party making the investments).  Most caring people in America have heard of this study.  Read it, for God's sake....

who have repeatedly blocked raising a minimum wage so if you work full-time in this country you're not living in poverty.... 

If, if, if....If, if, if....  That's like saying "if you get lucky enough as a low-skilled victim of public schools and the legal system and the drug war, you're not living in poverty."  We have a horrifying number of unemployed minority teens in this country.  They are unemployed because the minimum wage is too high.  The only alternative to that view is to believe that employers are now more racist than they were 70 years ago. 

...who scoff at the notion that we might have a problem with women not getting paid for doing the same work that men are doing.

I scoff at that notion.  I repeat....  I scoff at that notion.  And if you are honest, so will you.  Think of your workplace.  Think of someone who does your exact job, with your exact experience level, and your exact output, and your exact level of training. 

Thought of that person yet?  No?  Well, you never will.  He or she doesn't exist.  That's why this segment of Barack's Inequality Crusade is a red herring.  It's a feast for lawyers and the government's regulatory munchkins. 

Also, if you adjust for hours worked and education, women make virtually the same as men.  Barack's Pajama Boys pulled that 77% number out of their asses. 

So there you have it.  One paragraph of a Barack Obama speech.  Five misrepresentations of reality.  He could've said that Republicans are superstitious homophobes.  Well, maybe.  He could've said that they're scared of people with different skin colors from theirs.  Well, yeah, but so are Democrats.  Barack could've said that Republicans are Crony Capitalists of the worst possible sort, and I woulda stood on my coffee table and cheered. 

There's so much low-hanging fruit out there, just waiting on a politician like Barack to reach up and pluck it. 

He can't even do that properly. 

Sorry for the anger in this post.  But I'm so tired of that man.  I've spent a long, long day trying to hire and train victims of our public schools who first became victims of the Welfare State, who then became victims of the Drug War, and who then later became victims of "the helping professions" in government social work bureaucracies.  The system depresses me and terrifies me. 

Good night. 

From The Jihadist Safety Consultant, On Accidental Beheadings

To: All members of Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, The Taliban, and Al-Shabaab

From: Rickle Abu-Noir, Jihadist Safety Consultant

Subject: Workplace Safety and Beheadings

Date: 11/16/2013

It has been four years since my last email. 

Please reset your "This Shop Has Worked ____ Days Without A Lost Time Accident" calendars back to zero. 

No one in your organizations will receive a Ramadan safety bonus, all because two of your members didn't follow the rules. 

We were doing so well, and now this disaster.  You should all cover yourselves in shame, be treated as women, and be forced to live out the rest of your days eating what the heretics and unbelievers call Jimmy Dean's Pork Sausage and Baken-Ets Pork Rinds. 

Here is what the infidel media reported about our recent "accident":

Militant Islamist rebels in Syria linked to al-Qaeda have asked for "understanding and forgiveness" for cutting off and putting on display the wrong man's head.

In a public appearance filmed and posted online, members of Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, one brandishing a knife, held up a bearded head before a crowd in Aleppo. They triumphantly described the execution of what they said was a member of an Iraqi Shia militia fighting for President Bashar al-Assad.

But the head was recognized from the video as originally belonging to a member of Ahrar al-Sham, a Sunni Islamist rebel group that often fights alongside ISIS though it does not share its al-Qaeda ideology.

Do any of you flea-infested lovers of syphilitic camels have any idea what this is going to do to our Worker's Compensation rates? 

Do you know how many years (not days, weeks, or months, but years!) I'll spend filling out paperwork on this incident?   When one of our own employees "accidentally" cuts off the wrong head, it becomes a bureaucratic nightmare, making ObamaCare look as simple as a Facebook status update.  A plague of OSHA inspectors, lawyers, and other vermin will descend upon us like a sandstorm. 

I swear by The Prophet Muhammad's child bride, I promise, I declare, I vow upon The Holy Koran that I will bring you miserable bastards into compliance with all safety regulations, and I will do it quickly.  There will be no more accidental decapitations of our own jihadists.  Everyone involved in this incident will have it noted in their permanent employee files, and those files will follow them into the afterlife.
 
This means YOU, supervisors. 

Before cutting off another infidel head, you WILL get proper identification, you WILL get fingerprints, and after starving the suspected heretic for three days you WILL tempt him with a ham sandwich and a bottle of Crown Royal, as noted in our policy manual.  Anyone showboating or taking shortcuts to impress a crowd will face disciplinary action. 

Here is more information on the incident from the Infidel media:

After inquiries, an ISIS spokesman admitted he (the man who was beheaded) was Mohammed Fares, an Ahrar commander reported missing some days ago. This could not be independently confirmed, but in an earlier video of a speech by Mr Fares, he bears a close resemblance to the severed head in the later video.
 

The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, which monitors deaths in the Syrian conflict, and several activists on social media said that ISIS fighters misunderstood comments Mr Fares made referring to the Imams Ali and Hussein, the founding fathers of Shiism.

That's Mohammed Fares on the left.  People, I'm not saying this is all your fault.  If Mohammed had consistently worn his I.D. badge, he might be alive and well and firing missiles at Jews this very day.  Let this be a lesson to you all.....

This isn't just a policy problem, it is a Human Resources problem.  Are we still getting our jihadists through the temp service?  Is a simple disagreement about statements made by two Shiite Sand Preachers enough to justify cutting off the head of Mohammed Fares? 

, القرف الجحيم لعنةالقرف الجحيم لعنةالقرف الجحيم لعنةالقرف الجحيم لعنةالقرف الجحيم لعنة

 بناء غبي من الكلباتيا ابناء غبي من الكلباتيا ابناء غبي من الكلباتيا ابناء غبي من الكلباتيا ابناء غبي من الكلبات

All of Mohammed's wives are pissed, and I can't blame them.  Ditto for his 18 children.  Everyone is now lawyered-up, and this case won't be closed in my lifetime.  You and your own children will live diminished lives because two of our own people got carried away and cut off the wrong damn head.

Here is a picture of two employees holding Mohammed's head, alongside a picture of Mohammed.  For the sake of Mohammed's family, his recently removed head has been blurred.  Anyone seeing the original knows the head without a body once belonged to Mohammed. 

Here's more from The Infidel Media:

The militant group tried to explain their error by referring to a story in which the prophet Mohammed said Allah would forgive a man who killed a believer by mistake. 

القرف جحيم اللعنة اللعنة العضو التناسلي النسوي اللف الإبل نذل المحبة رؤساء القرف

Maybe Allah will forgive these two.  And that's the difference between Allah and me. 

Imagine you are poor Mohammed Fares, approaching the gates of paradise, expecting to receive a martyr's reward of 72 virgins....  Is Mohammed really a martyr if he died at the hands of employees who couldn't follow procedures?  Was he sacrificed for the cause of Islam? 

It would take 72 Imams working overtime to determine if Mohammed Fares deserves 72 virgins.  In my opinion, it isn't martyrdom if you don't take an infidel into the afterlife with you.  It definitely isn't martyrdom if you were sent to meet Allah by two employees who couldn't be bothered to follow established safety procedures. 

Folks, we've got to get better. 

How will we ever successfully kill ourselves if we keep having these preventable accidents? 

Rickle Abu-Noir
Jihadist Safety Consultant

I was wrong, wrong, wrong !!!

I found this old post while looking for something else, and found a terrible mistake. 
Look at prediction #4 on this link.
I apologize for the error. 

Milton Friedman Was Wrong

Milton Friedman once divided all spending into four basic categories, claiming that government spending would always be inefficient because it all fit into his fourth category.

Here's his breakdown:

There are four ways to spend money. 

1. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why you really watch out for what you're doing, and you try to get the most for your money. 

2. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well then, I'm not so careful about the content of the present, but I'm very careful about the cost. 

3. Then, I can spend somebody else's money on myself. And if I spend somebody else's money on myself, then I'm going to have a good lunch!
 
4. Finally, I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it costs, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government. And that's close to 40 percent of our national income.

His point, of course, is well-taken, but incomplete.  Government spending isn't restricted to Category #4.  But I think the good Dr. Friedman should have anticipated the amount of government spending devoted to Category #3 (spending someone else's money on myself.) 

Consider this:

Poor oversight at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs allowed agency officials to waste as much as $762,000 at a pair of multimillion-dollar conferences that took place last year in Orlando, according to an investigative report released Monday.The report, released by the VA's independent watchdog, estimated that the agency spent about $6.1 million on the two conferences, including $762,000 that was identified as unauthorized or unnecessary. Among the wasteful expenses: $97,906 worth of promotional gifts for the federal workers attending the training sessions; $154,000 for contractor travel; $16,500 to produce daily "Happy Face" videos of those in attendance; and nearly $2,300 for beverages, such as soda and juice, consumed by conference officials and speakers.

And this one:

Where does a muffin cost more than $16?At a government conference, it turns out.They may run just over $2 at your average coffee shop, but the Justice Department paid seven to eight times as much at a gathering it held at the Capital Hilton in Washington. And on Tuesday, the muffins seemed well on their way to joining the Pentagon’s $600 toilet seat as symbols of wasteful spending.Justice Department auditors also criticized a $76-per-person lunch at a conference at a Hilton in San Francisco, featuring slow-cooked Berkshire pork carnitas, hearts-of-romaine salad — and coffee at $8.24 a cup.A report released Tuesday by the department’s acting inspector general,Cynthia A. Schnedar, is full of what she called “wasteful or extravagant spending” at 10 law enforcement conferences spanning the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. Descriptions of cookies and brownies costing the government nearly $10 each and beef Wellington hors d’oeuvres at $7.32 per serving struck a nerve in Washington, where austerity and belt-tightening are the watchwords at a time of economic hardship.

And there are the recent GSA scandals:

At least 77 General Services Administration employee conferences that totaled more than $6.7 million in costs are under review by the agency’s inspector general, the watchdog said at a hearing before a House panel Wednesday.


The conferences, which cost at least $10,000 each and were attended by 25 employees or more, were held between October 2010, when the agency held an $823,000 employee conference in Las Vegas, and April 2012, when that conference became public.

The conferences were the focus of a hearing before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. GSA acts as the realtor and purchasing officer of the federal government.

The conferences ranged from a a five-day regional marketing managers meeting that cost $10,920, to the 2011 GSA Training Conference and Expo that cost $1.2 million.

According to GSA preliminary findings obtained by The Washington Post, the Federal Acquisition Service held 30 conferences costing more than $3.5 million, the Public Buildings Service held 38 conferences costing more than $2.5 million, the Office of Governmentwide Policy held one conference costing $136,495, the Office of the Chief Information held two conferences costing $177,960, the PBS and FAS held a single joint conference costing $112,131, the Chief People Officer held three conferences costing $60,588; and one for Intergovernmental Relations, costing $15,922.

While the list gave numbers of people who attended, it did not break down the number of employees.

Since the 77 conferences are currently under investigation, the agency’s inspector general could not give examples of which conferences had problems or red flags.

The committee also reviewed a one-day $270,000 awards ceremony in Arlington County for employees of the Federal Acquisition Service.

The one-day conference was held four weeks after the Las Vegas event with a more than $140,000 tab for coordination and logistical costs, $34,000 for the venue, $28,000 on picture frames and $20,579 for drum sticks, Brian Miller, GSA’s inspector general, testified.

So, yeah, Government spending my neighbor's money on me isn't very efficient. 
But I bet spending my neighbor's money on $20,579.00 worth of drumsticks is a lot more fun! 

If you've ever wondered how the Federal Poverty programs can spend over $61,000.00 per family in poverty and still have families in poverty?  Look no further.  Milton Friedman's category #3

3. Then, I can spend somebody else's money on myself. And if I spend somebody else's money on myself, then I'm going to have a good lunch!

From the people who are about to take over healthcare....

Here's a Justice System Update, courtesy of Instapundit:

Man Left in Solitary Confinement for 2 Horrific Years … for Suspected DUI. “After Steven’s arrest on suspicion of DUI and driving a stolen car, he was placed in solitary confinement because because officers felt he might be ‘suicidal.’ There, he was essentially forgotten about by the legal system. He was given no health care. His toenails grew so long they curled around his feet. He developed bed sores. A fungus grew on his skin after being denied showers. He lost a ton of weight. His hair grew long and shaggy — he looks like he just got off a desert island. He descended into madness. And his dental problems grew so severe that he was forced to pull out one of his rotting teeth by himself. Eventually, after 22 months, Steven was released after all charges against him were dismissed.”

The poor guy is now batshit crazy, but has won 15.5 million in a lawsuit.  

"His mental health has been severely compromised from the time he was in that facility. That continues to be the same. No amount of money will bring back what they took away from him," Matt Coyte, Slevin's Albuquerque-based attorney, said on Wednesday. "But it’s nice to be able to get him some money so he can improve where he is in life and move on."

And the people who were running the prison?  Still employed there.
The people who paid the fine?  The citizens of New Mexico.

Wait until the same mindset takes hold in our intensive care wards.
Go here to read occasional updates on Britain's National Health Service.  
Go hear to read about the recently formed political party opposed to any NHS reforms!  (Kinda like postmen forming a union to retain 6-day letter delivery in Merigold MS in the age of email.)
Hey, anybody can make a mistake, right?  

FDR+BHO = SOL

"Like FDR, President Obama inherited a nation in economic crisis. Let us not forget, however, that Roosevelt’s policies converted the crisis into a decade-long full-blown depression. Why anyone would seek to emulate that experience is beyond me." - Alan Blinder, in a letter to the Wall Street Journal

Don Surber is despicable. Or maybe just misinformed.

Don Surber, whose writing I ordinarily enjoy, has been pushed over the edge.  It seems that Ron Paul's opposition to Hillary Clinton's and Dick Cheney's and Condi Rice's and George Schultz's and Henry Kissinger's foreign policy screw-ups have driven him over the edge. 

He's got a piece on his site entitled "Ron Paul Is Despicable".  Here's Mr. Surber: 

His (Ron Paul's) weird take on the Constitution is Jacksonian and I do not mean that in a complimentary manner. Republican Congressman Ron Paul envisions a world in which the USA is neutered as she was in the 1990s. He talks as if the last 65 years without a major European war are not worth the sacrifices our nation has made over the years in standing up to communism and in standing up for democracy in Europe and elsewhere.

Ok, lets look at the easy stuff first.  There hasn't been a major European war, only a minor one in Yugoslavia/Bosnia/Serbia.   But let's broaden our horizon to include continents that don't include so many white folks.  What about Korea, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Libya, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, El Salvador, and the financial aid and training we've given to dozens of dictators? 

Never mind.  Those folks ain't white, and they talk funny. 

There are places in the world where nothing is more terrifying than the U.S. coming over to "stand up for democracy". 

Back to Mr. Surber:

But even if I agreed with him, I would think of Ron Paul as a despicable human being because of this, which he said to supporters, according to CBS: “Just think of what happened after 9/11. Immediately before there was any assessment there was glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq.”

Well, if memory serves, we went into Iraq claiming that they had WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.  We never found any.  The flimsy evidence upon which we based our invasion was weak and flawed.  I repeat....WMD's were the only reason we had to invade Iraq at the time.  We went in.  We found nothing.  We were looking for anything, any excuse whatsoever, to go invade the place.  We were "gleeful" to have that excuse, as no others had presented themselves.  We're still there.  We now have the largest fort in the world over there, and it is disguised as an embassy.  We'll be there forever.  Mission accomplished.
And there was very little Al-Qaeda presence there until we showed up and started kicking over anthills. 

He is lucky we outlawed dueling, because I am pretty sure that given the opportunity, Dick Cheney would indeed issue such a challenge.

And if Dick Cheney's dueling skills are anything like his dove hunting skills, Ron Paul has nothing to fear.  Cheney's no better at hitting targets than he was at finding WMD's.   
 

UPDATE: Ron Paul need not worry about repercussions. No one in the Bush administration takes him serious. The London Daily Mail reported that Ari Fleisher, Bush’s spokesman during 9/11, tweeted, “The man is nuts.”

Ron Paul has peddled this bullcrap for years. Recall this exchange during the 2008 presidential debate season:

Ron Paul: “They attack us because we’ve been over there, we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We’ve been in the Middle East. I think Reagan was right. We don’t understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics.”

Rudy Giuliani: “That’s an extraordinary statement of someone who lived through the attack of Sept. 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before and I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11.”

Ron Paul is a perennial presidential candidate whose first bid was in 1988. He has figured out how to make a buck or two off paranoid rubes who buy this swill. It is a cottage industry that others such as Lyndon LaRouche work quite well.

I defend his right to lie about honorable men because I trust that most people have the wisdom to understand how ignorant he is.

The day after this debate, Ron Paul's campaign took in one million dollars. 
Until Ron Paul dropped out of the race, he had the honor of receiving the most contributions from active military personnel. 

Here's something from the comments beneath Surber's article:

I wish Ron Paul was crazy. I wish Iraq really did have WMD’s. I wish the Federal Reserve really did have the knowledge and ability to maintain stable prices and full employment. I wish that our welfare programs were solvent and sustainable. I wish the sacrifices made by our troops were really necessary. I wish the Patriot Act was patriotic. I wish we didn’t have inflation and unemployment was only at 9%. I wish we could win the war on drugs. I wish the terrorists really did hate us for our freedom. I wish we were defending our national interests in Afghanistan. I wish our big banks really were too big to fail.

But I can’t believe these lies anymore, and Ron Paul is the only candidate who is brave enough to tell the truth. Open your eyes.

Memorial Day - some gave all for Lockheed Martin

About 6 months after starting this website, I discovered the power of the Demotivational Poster.  If you've got the time and patience to create one, and it starts getting emailed and re-posted and linked, it'll drive a tremendous amount of traffic to your site. 
I've tried to hit all the major holidays. 
The link between "Demotivational" and the self-motivated nature of my ex-military employees came to mind when Memorial Day rolled around.  Here's what I did with it:

I now find myself wishing I could have a do-over with this one, and I don't know if I can articulate why. 

Last night, after holding forth on a few political issues, someone asked me if I'll ever admit to being wrong about anything political. 

Well, yeah.  I will.  Like most folks, I've only got about a 70% success rate. 

I once thought that it would be a good idea to go into Iraq, overthrow Saddam, and set up a democracy there.  After all, he had slaughtered 90,000 Kurds, and was rewarding the families of suicide bombers. 

I probably would've gotten behind the invasion of Libya, had it happened a decade earlier. 

Had I been of age, I probably woulda supported our adventure in bringing democracy to Viet Nam. 

Ditto for Korea. 

We are often told that our military dead gave their lives "defending our freedoms".  But why do our freedoms need defending so much more often that those of, say, Canada?  Or Mexico?  Or Switzerland?  And why is the fighting for our freedom usually done in someone else's country?  Are our freedoms being violated in Afghanistan?   

If Mexico were to decided that we needed a "regime change" in the U.S., organized a coup, and put a group more to their liking in power, we would resent Mexico.  We would bomb Mexican embassies.  We would try to kill their soldiers and citizens in dance halls.  But when we put Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party in power in Iraq, did we really expect to be immune from any blowback? 

If China were to remove our head of state and set up a China-friendly puppet, the way we did in Iran, I believe that we would take pride in undermining China.  Hijacking their airliners would only be the beginning of what we would do for retaliation.  Please don't get me wrong on this.  I'm glad we found Osama.  Killing women and children with airplanes crosses the line, if there is one. 

But does anyone else find it odd that the threat to our freedoms from Islamic Fundamentalism came along almost immediately after the threat to our freedoms from Communism were ended? 

If I could redo this poster, it would probably say something like "Memorial Day - In Honor Of Those Willing To Die For Their Politicians".  Or "Memorial Day - Some Gave All For Lockheed Martin". 

Atlas Shrugged - They didn't screw it up.

I went to the local premiere of the Atlas Shrugged movie last night in Southlake. 

Southlake is having an arts festival in the same shopping center as the theatre, and I decided to grab something to eat and check out the artists before the movie started.  I found a great Steak-K-Bob, paid for it, and then decided to step into the beer booth for a Bud Lite. 

Beer Lady: Do you have coupons? 

Me: What?

Beer Lady: You know how it is, sorry for the hassle, but we have to ask you to purchase some coupons at the next table, and then you can redeem the coupons for beer. 

Me: Huh? 

Beer Lady: You know how it is, it's one of the rules of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission.  We're not allowed to sell beer, but we can exchange beer for coupons that were purchased elsewhere. 

So I took four steps to the left, bought four dollars worth of coupons from the Coupon Lady, took another four steps back to the right, and exchanged my coupons with the Beer Lady for a Bud Lite. 

This ritual didn't help anybody, it added unnecessary costs to the transaction, no one would've been harmed if the Beer Lady had been allowed to take my money.  But we can't allow Bud Lite Beer Ladies to simply sell Bud Lite without the State's blessings, can we? 

No.   

This puts one into a fine frame of mind for watching Atlas Shrugged.  Sorry for the digression. 

I hung out with numerous libertarian-types after the movie, and our most common comment was....they didn't screw it up.  Thank God they didn't screw it up. 

The screenplay isn't particularly good, the acting is nothing special, the Reardon Metal tracks and John Galt trains employ special effects that look like early 1980's.  The editing is kinda sloppy.  I was sitting by my friend Michael Coyne, a fine guitarist, and he shared my opinion that some of the background music was good, and some of it seemed borrowed from another movie.  But at least they didn't screw it up !!!

I once spent two years of my life doing metal price quotes.  When pricing metal, there are a lot of factors you have to take into account, and that's just for building fruitstands.  In this movie, Hank Reardon instantly commits to about half a dozen massive metal deals without even calculating the expenses on the back of a napkin.  Granted, he was trying to bed his customer, but one of those deals was for a bridge that rivals anything in North America.  I almost broke out in giggles.  But they didn't screw it up !!!!

I spent last weekend with my daughter at a two-day beer and music event called "Chilifest".  There were people at Chilifest who had an alcoholic beverage in hand for 48 hours.  That was nothing compared to the cast of Atlas Shrugged.  Those actors drank like Prohibition was just around the corner.  I stayed for the end credits, just to see if "Turning Leaf" had paid a product placement fee.  But at least they didn't screw it up !!!

Another problem....Rand's novel is set in an imaginary future.  Since this was a very low-budget production, there wasn't much money for funding any whiz-bang future.  So the future looks like....now, but with lots of trains.  There wasn't much money for the set designer to come up with any elaborate CEO offices, or a corporate Valhalla for the Taggart board meetings.  And the dress that Dagny wears to the Reardon anniversary party?  I think I've seen it before.  On a bridesmaid.  But the bridesmaid's version didn't need ironing.  The filmakers made some mistakes in the movie adaptation of this novel, but at least they didn't totally screw it up !!!

I'll purchase the DVD to this thing because it reflects reality.  Washington crusaders are shown to be the calculating parasites that they are.  Entrepreneurs are shown working longer hours than the people that they support.  This is a movie about a business and corporations, but the CEO's of these corporations are not in an underground lair, plotting to kill all their customers from deep inside a hollowed-out volcano, just so they can increase their margins.  You start thinking....what would happen if the a-holes that run my company went on strike? 

There was a very libertarian audience on hand for the showing in Southlake, so Dagny Taggart's line about "I'll let you and your Washington friends solve that problem" got a massive laugh.  One sequence of headlines and magazine covers had the guys sitting behind me saying things like "saw it today", "now", and "General Electric". 

The audience cheered loudly when the title flashed on the screen, something I think I've only seen done for the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Harry Potter movies. 

They cheered just as loudly when the movie ended, mostly because....they didn't totally screw it up !!!

When the book was released in the late 1950's, mainstream critics ripped it all to pieces, but it has gone on to be one of the bestselling novels of all time, and one of the most influential.  I hope this first installment will earn enough to justify some upgrades on the next two. 

Overall, just because of the subject matter, I'd give it a 6 or 7 on the 10 scale.  It's nowhere near as good as the book, but with only a 20 million dollar budget, it's far superior to the Barack Obama Community Theatre version that has cost us trillions.  Now THAT version is screwed up. 

How to get people off the fence in the War On Drugs

You might remember this video of the Columbia Missouri SWAT raid, the one where they bust in, terrorize the family and shoot the dogs for a trifling amount of weed? 

....and maybe wishing they would have the balls to try that idiotic stunt in some more upscale neighborhoods? Maybe try breaking into some well-connected politician's residence in the name of The War On Personal Freedom? 

Well, it finally happened.  Here's the Cato Institute:

The SFPD and DEA found no piles of marijuana money at 243 Diamond St., one of six addresses raided simultaneously in San Francisco that morning. Instead, they found Clark Freshman, who rents the penthouse at the two-unit building. Freshman, a UC Hastings law professor and the main consultant to the television show Lie to Me, was put into handcuffs while in his bathrobe as agents searched, despite Freshman's insistence that they had the wrong place and were breaking the law…

Soon they may be called defendants in a lawsuit. A furious Freshman has pledged to sue the DEA and the SFPD for unlawful search and seizure of his home…

[Officer] Biggs describes 243 Diamond as a "two-story, one-unit" building in the warrant. There's no mention of Freshman or Larizadeh's son-in-law or seven-months pregnant daughter who were detained in the downstairs unit that morning. But property records — and a quick visual scan of the property — reveal it to be a three-story, two-unit building. That mistake alone may be enough to invalidate the search warrant.

Here's the San Francisco Examiner on what will probably happen next:

But Peter Keane, dean emeritus of Golden Gate University's School of Law, says there appears to be a problem. "There's been cases like this in the past where police have a warrant to search [a single residence], then they get there and it's a multi-unit building and they search the whole building. In those cases, people have sued and collected substantial settlements. I think whomever is representing the government better get out his checkbook."

I disagree.  The people of San Francisco shouldn't have to pay for this lawsuit.  Most of them would probably say that they don't approve of our version of Sharia Law.  The thugs who broke the door in and tied up the family should have to pay.  Here's a parting shot from someone who is no longer a neutral party in The War On Personal Freedom:

"I've been on the fence for years about the legalization of drugs ... and now I'm a victim of this crazy war on drugs," says Freshman, who pledged to sue until "I see [the agents'] houses sold at auction and their kids' college tuitions taken away from them. There will not be a better litigated case this century."

They really, really, need to stop doing this.  No matter how much we want to save and create jobs for narcs and SWAT teams.  No matter how much we want to support the private prison lobby, the counseling industry, the parole officer cartel, the urinalysis industry, the Department Of Homeland Security, the people trying to stamp out Afghan Opium production, and the people we're paying to ride around and monitor probationers' ankle bracelets.  They can eventually find other jobs where people WANT their services. 

And isn't it about time that we end the monopoly that the Mexican Drug Lords are enjoying?  Haven't we screwed up that poor country enough? 

So, good luck, Clark Freshman !  Sue 'em until that have a bright, radioactive glow. 

Al Gore takes off the mask. Or puts it back on again. It's hard to keep track.

Go here to read about the latest pronouncements of Saint Albert, The Goracle Of Music City, Tennessee. 
He didn't blow a lot of money to save the planet or the polar bears. 
He did it to get elected.  Saint Albert is now admitting that his support for ethanol was a mistake.   

Here's Ed Morrisey, in the article linked above:

Why, then, did Gore spend most of the last two decades pushing for ethanol subsidies? It wasn’t because he was trying to help humanity:


Well, here's The Goracle:
“One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president.”

Well, everyone who isn't trying to get into his Prius with a recycling bin shoved up his ass already knew that.  Can we have our incandescent bulbs back now? 

I'm just glad that he's finally admitting it. 
How long until he admits that the rest of his ClimatePanic is a scam to buy votes and to help subsidize Green stuff ? 

Mario Vargas Llosa has won the Nobel Prize for Literature

Mario Vargas Llosa, a self-described "classical liberal", has won the Nobel Prize for literature. 
("Classical liberal" is what the rest of the world calls libertarians.) 

I don't know how they allowed this to happen.  I mean, the man can WRITE ! 
Heads will roll.

Lawyers to go on hunger strike due to lack of business

Recent law school graduates are going to stage a hunger strike to protest the lack of jobs in their profession. 

Can you imagine how popular that would be if the starving lawyers were on a webcam?  Go here to watch a damn divorce lawyer starve himself to death.  Hit this link to watch a politician saw his arm off.  Click here to see an IRS agent slowly die from carbon monoxide poisoning.   

The picture of the vicious attack dog came from here.

The list of the mistakes in the list of the mistakes

Go here for the Obama administrations review of the mistakes made that allowed Captain Underpants to get on flight 253 with explosives tucked into his drawers on Christmas Day.

Go here for the preliminary list of the Obama administrations obvious mistakes in the Obama administrations review of the mistakes that allowed Captain Underpants to get on flight 253 with explosives tucked into his drawers on Christmas Day.

This list of mistakes in the list of the mistakes is still being vetted for mistakes by Patterson Management Systems (PMS). Any mistakes in the latest list of corrections to earlier lists of mistakes will be released as soon as possible.

In the meantime, please ask yourself why you want these people running our healthcare system.

Lies We Tell Our Children, Part 2

This is a continuation of the story I began here. Click that link before continuing, or you'll be lost.

The Future Aggie was met on the ground by a group of well-wishers.

She brushed them aside as soon as possible, and then said "Ok, Dad, let's go buy a piglet !" Some of the well-wishers followed us, perhaps to make sure I wasn't going to go back on my promise, or perhaps because they'd never seen anyone purchase an Immigrant Boat People Piglet because of losing a bet.

We went back to the Vietnamese Pot-Bellied Pig booth. The runt of the litter was the only one left, and he was marked down to $10. The owners gave us some unhelpful literature on piglets and told us in no uncertain terms that we needed to get this one "fixed" as soon as possible. They didn't have any available info on what that would cost. I was betting it would be more than $10.

This was a male piglet and was immediately christened "Pumba", after the warthog in Disney's "Lion King" movie. He might have weighed four or five pounds.

As soon as The Future Aggie picked up her piglet, a squeal erupted like compressed air blowing through a dozen kazoos, mixed and filtered through Ted Nugent's amplifier system. She instantly put Pumba back on the ground and the noise stopped.

"It's a defense mechanism," the piglet salesman said, as if that much racket had actually come from Pumba. "It scares away predators." Later on, when I had the leisure time to read up on Vietnamese Potbellied pigs, I'd learn that they have a higher decibel level than airliners.

She picked up the piglet again. The Ned Beatty squeal started again. I was expecting officers from ASCAP to appear. But after about 20 seconds, Pumba chilled out and nuzzled into my daughter's shirt.

"Awwwww", said the onlookers.

We laughed all the way home, congratulating ourselves on being Urban Pig Owners, and laughing over the climbing wall adventure.

Once we got home, we cautiously put Pumba in the back yard with our dogs - the yellow lab and beagle we had at the time. The Learjet level squealing had freaked them out, but once all the sniffing was done, they ignored the pig and the pig ignored the dogs. Pumba ran around making tiny little grunting sounds and then started digging. It was ineffectual baby piglet digging, but still, yard digging is yard digging. Later on, I'd learn that the only way to stop this behavior would be to put a ring through Pumba's nose, foreshadowing the currently fashionable Tribal/Pierced look.

Mrs. Whited Sepulchre was away on a church retreat. (They retreat more than the Italian Army....) The Future Aggie and I brainstormed on how to break the news that she was now 1/3 owner of a Vietnamese piglet. We decided to just let it surprise her.

It could've been worse. Once she got over the initial shock and got the obligatory lecture out of the way (I can't even let you two go to Mayfest together, 'cause you'll come back with a pig....) Mrs. WS thought Pumba was cute, as yard pigs go.

For the first month, everything was fine. Pumba wasn't big enough to effectively plow the yard, and he sometimes helped the dogs chase squirrels. I was working retail at the time, and when I came home from late shifts, Mrs. WS would be sitting on the couch watching TV with Pumba in her lap with his head resting against her arm. Like a surrealist Madonna And Child painting. Or a preview of that infamous Tori Amos album cover.

The Future Aggie had a great time with him. They'd invent games where she'd tie a little bag of Purina Piglet Chow in a mesh sack, tie the sack to a rope, and then run Pumba around the yard. He also loved to push beach balls from one place to another.

But then Pumba started growing. And growing. He was no longer a good lap pig. One of the main reasons - we had neglected to get him fixed. A pig's manhood is all interior, not exterior, and any reproductive surgery is quite a bit more complicated (and expensive) than it is for cats or dogs. All of a sudden, The Future Aggie couldn't go into the back yard without being the unwelcome object of Pumba's carnal affections. The little beagle wouldn't even come out of the doghouse. She was totally terrorized. (If you've ever wondered about the size of a Vietnamese Pot-bellied Pig's manhood, it's about....oh, never mind.)

Our backyard began to look like....well, not that much different than it does now. But it was irritating to see the springtime grass ripped up by a pig, instead of being allowed to die from neglect. I was the only one in the family brave enough to go into the back yard to feed the dogs or the pig. (If you've ever wondered what it's like to have your leg.... oh, never mind.)

This event was the final straw: We live on a corner lot, and one day Mrs. Whited Sepulchre came home and saw three Fort Worth Water Department trucks parked by our back yard fence. 5 or 6 city employees were looking, laughing, and pointing at something. When she joined them at the fence to see what was going on, she saw that they were watching Pumba have (ahem) relations with one of his beach balls.

When I got home from work, she told me all about the trauma of being a popular lunch break spot for Civic Employees. "It would be really good," she said, "if we didn't have a pig in our back yard when I wake up in the morning."

It was a tough, tough decision.

Most of my regular readers know that I'm a firm believer in 2nd Amendment rights. Even if it's inside the city limits. Let's just leave it at that.

But the official story is that Pumba went away to live on a farm, where he would be happily surrounded by girl pigs in need of his services, and have plenty of wide open spaces and plenty of beach balls.

That's one of the many, many lies we sometimes have to tell our children.

Lies We Tell Our Children

Brian Micklethwait has an interesting series of links and posts about "Lies We Tell Our Children". You could list Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, step on a crack-break your mother's back, the Tooth Fairy, or the doctrine of Original Sin. In Brian's case, the falsehoods were related to the death of the family cat.

It reminded me of one of my favorite stories about my daughter, The Future Aggie. You couldn't force her to read this blog at gunpoint, so this story should be safe here. Unless one of you people rat me out.

Every year, Fort Worth has a big celebration called Mayfest. There are a few carnival rides, but it's mostly fund-raiser booths, live bands, and good food. A fun time is had by all.

Payments at Mayfest are done with coupons. This lessens the need for cash handling and security at so many different locations. I probably bought about $50 worth of coupons. We rode a few rides, ate some junk food and were having a great time until we saw....the piglets.

They were Vietnamese Pot-Bellied piglets, miniature versions of regular pigs. In the mid-90's, there was a fad of keeping them as pets. Mother and Father pig were nowhere to be seen, which should've been a warning. Three Pot-Bellied piglets were for sale - something like $50 each for the larger two, and $30 for the runt of the litter. The Future Aggie was enthralled. Fascinated. Obsessed. She would be a Vietnamese Pot-Bellied pig owner, or die in the effort.

All Mayfest fun ended once piglets entered our sight. The Future Aggie has always been obsessed with animals, and will soon be going to the Veterinary Science school at Texas A&M. We now own 3 weiner dogs, and sorta own 3 cats. We've had as many as 17 lizards, including a basilisk named Norbert.

I didn't see room in the equation for a piglet, since in my experience, if left alone, piglets have always grown up to be pigs.

"Daddy, can we get a piglet? Huh? Huh? I'll take care of it, I promise, I promise....huh? Huh? I can pay you back out of my allowance? Can we get the little one?"

"We don't have room for a piglet," I lied.

"Daddy, we have plenty of room," she said. "Our back yard is huge."

"They eat too much," I lied.

"I'll feed it out of my allowance," she said. "Can we get the little one? He's the runt, so he won't eat much? Please?"

"No. We can't come home from Mayfest with a piglet," I said. "People would talk. Your mother would kill us both. I don't want to hear any more about it. Let's go ride some rides."

The Future Aggie appeared to be over it, since there was no more talk of pigs for at least thirty seconds. I kept invoking Mrs. Whited Sepulchre's absence from the decision, and how she would at least want to have input as to which piglet we'd purchase.

Then we saw the climbing wall. It was about 35 feet tall, portable, and had the usual assortment of knobs, projections and footrests bolted to it. If you haven't seen these before, there's a pulley at the top that a safety harness mechanism is threaded through. In this case, it projected about two feet over the climbing wall like a gallows.

At the very top of the wall was a bell. If you could ring the bell, the crowd applauded. Then you would rappel down the wall into the waiting arms of your girlfriend, you would High-5 your buddies, and you would feel more macho than anyone else.

But high school and college boys were getting about halfway up this climbing wall, getting scared, and bailing out. (Since the wall was portable, it swayed a little.) There were at least a dozen people in line to try it. Since it was expensive, The Future Aggie asked to try. I reasoned that if it would take her mind off the piglets, I was all for it, and forked over $12 worth of coupons. While we were waiting in line, a helpful cheerleader-type employee put her in a small safety harness and gave her a few climbing tips.

In the meantime, a kid who looked like an American Gladiators contestant got halfway up the wall and came to a halt. He was scared to death because the wall was swaying. His buddies on the ground started booing. The Future Aggie looked on apprehensively as the kid on the wall faked a loss of balance and rappeled to the ground.

"Daddy," said The Future Aggie, "I think I might want to go look at some other things, and then come back to this...."

"Don't you even THINK about backing out of this. I've paid $12 in coupons."

Another huge athletic boy went halfway up the wall. Then he started climbing very, very slowly. "You can see Dallas from here," he said, before he muttered some obscenities and gave up, dropping into a knot of his friends. They called him names.

The Future Aggie didn't miss any of this. "I think if we went and got something to eat first, I'd have more strength and energy...."

"Dang it, we're not leaving this line," I said. "If we leave now, we'll never get back to this line."

"Well, what if we just rested a little right here, and let some of these other people go first?" she asked.

"I tell you what," I said, in a moment of weakness, "Get on that damn wall, climb to the top, and ring that bell. If you ring that bell, I'll buy you a piglet."

It was like that feeling you get as you slam the car door shut when you know your keys will be locked inside. I couldn't stop myself. I knew as my mouth, tongue, and teeth formed the sentences that I was making a mistake.

All of a sudden the climbing wall that had been Mount Everest was nothing but a speed bump. The Future Aggie was transformed. She ran to the climbing instructor, the perky cheerleader-type girl, and tugged at her shirt. "Hey, my Dad is going to buy me a piglet if I can ring the bell at the top. Can you teach me how to climb better?"

The climbing instructor, the perky cheerleader-type girl....she's going to Hell. She taught The Future Aggie all sorts of helpful climbing tips and hints. By the time we got to the front of the line, my daughter could've ascended the north face of The Matterhorn without an oxygen tank.

"Listen up, everyone !" the perky cheerleader-type climbing instructor said. "This is (insert The Future Aggie's name here). Her Dad is going to buy her a Vietnamese Pot-Bellied Piglet if she can get to the top of the wall and ring the bell !"

Half of the forty-or-so people gathered around the base of the climbing wall applauded politely for the nice father who was willing to reward his child with a piglet. The other half of the crowd, mostly the veteran onlookers, scowled viciously at the a-hole who had set an impossible task in front of his daughter.

Once the safety line was clipped to her harness, The Future Aggie went up the wall like Spiderman. "Go Go Go Go Go Go Go," the crowd chanted. "Slow Slow Slow Slow Slow," I thought. More and more Mayfest attendees gathered around the climbing wall.

It got difficult at the halfway point. Maybe the knobs and projections were further apart. She kept going. It took her ten minutes to go five more feet. Wagers were placed. Money was changing hands. As a compulsive gambler, I almost bet against my own offspring, and was prevented from doing so only by the knowledge that I might need all my money to buy a freakin' pig.

At the 3/4 point, The Future Aggie slipped and lost contact with the wall altogether, spinning around on the end of the safety rope like a little spider. Once every revolution she would reach out toward the wall and miss it. The perkly little cheerleader-type climbing instructor, guaranteeing herself an even hotter spot in hell, told her to be still and stop spinning. Once that happened, she grabbed a wall projection with her feet and pulled herself to the wall.

The crowd down below went nuts. Totally batshit nuts. Total strangers were slapping me on the back in well-intentioned gestures of solidarity and support.

Ten minutes later, after a few more incidents of separation from the wall, The Future Aggie reached up and rang the bell. The cheers could be heard in Waco. She kicked away from the wall, leaned back like a commando, and allowed the hellbound cheerleader to lower her to Terra Firma.

"Ok, let's go buy a pig," she said.

Click here to continue.

Climbing Wall photo is from Moonwalk Rentals.

Vietnamese Potbellied Pig photo is from Stashy