Dance, Soterios Johnson, Dance

Paranoimia

I Have a Problem

I want Peanut Butter M&Ms.

But I'm too lazy to go to the store.

So how do I get them? Is there a delivery service that will bring me Peanut Butter M&Ms?

You Go Here

Bill Whittle has posted a new Afterburner about the health care debate.

You go now!!!

To All You Leftist Drones

Any of you socialist fucktards that came here from Gateway Pundit or Moonbattery, stick around. You can be my new chew-toys.

Honestly, having spent too much of the day arguing over health care and the thuggish behavior of your side, I can honestly say there's not a damned bit of difference between any of you. You are all the same... any issue we could argue about I would know where you stood before you wrote a single sentence.

One Small Step

Listen "live" to the moon landing here.

HA HA!

Freshman Rep. Grayson Taken to Cleaners in Ponzi Scheme

July 10, 2009, 5 p.m.
By Paul Singer
Roll Call Staff

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Freshman Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) lost $3 million in a stock swindle between 2000 and 2005, a Florida television station reported this week.

According to Orlando’s Local 6, Grayson was an investor in a Ponzi scheme run by the company Derivium Capital. The scheme allowed Grayson and other investors to turn over stock to Derivium in exchange for cash loans and redeem the value later if the stock prices increased.

The station cited court filings indicating that Grayson transferred about $29 million in stock to the fund, taking out about $26 million in cash. A South Carolina court ruled earlier this year that Derivium shareholders were owed about $270 million in lost profits and that Grayson’s share of that would be about $34 million.

Grayson, an attorney who started a lucrative telecom company, has not yet filed financial disclosure forms for 2008, but even with his losses, he is likely to rank among the top 10 richest Members of Congress this year. As a candidate last year, he reported assets worth more than $25 million.

He is a member of the Financial Services Committee.

Oh, wait. Grayson is my congressman. I guess the joke is on me.

(More on this idiot here and here.)

Going Green with Cap and Trade

Cap'n Trade Passes the House

Fry: Are you crazy? I can't swallow that.
Professor Farnsworth Well, then good news! It's a suppository.

Yeah, thanks, fucktards.

Bend over, taxpayers, here it comes.

Update: Remember this?



Is there EVEN ONE campaign promise this asshole has kept?

Shock Value

In the 1950s, Ed Sullivan paid Elvis Presley $50,000 to appear several times on his show. It wasn't Sullivan's choice; The Steve Allen Show had had Elvis on previously and had crushed Sullivan. So Elvis was booked, singing Don't Be Cruel and Love Me Tender. Famously, Elvis was shot mostly from the waist up, because his gyrations were deemed too controversial to show.

Every generation of youth must find a way to rebel, to shock the older generations. In the 1950s, Elvis was controversial. Today, he's elevator music.

In my day, Madonna was shocking and controversial.




Today, she's elevator music. Well, that's not strictly true... nobody listens to her anymore.

And so it goes. KISS and Ozzy? Fodder for reality TV nowadays. Marilyn Manson? Pftttt. So '90s. Gangsta rap? Yawn.

Sure we look disgusting
But whose chops are we busting?
In a year, maybe two, we'll seem tame

And three years down the track
We'll be a Las Vegas lounge act
-Billy and the Boingers, "I'm a Boinger"

I feel bad for today's kids. It must be harder and harder to shock the squares, to make your parents wonder where they went wrong. Music has broken so many taboos that there really aren't very many left to break. Hairstyles, clothing, nothing shocks anymore. Things that even back in the 1990s would have had parents brandishing pitchforks and torches are ignored or simply waved off with a "what a dumbass" (for example, the "prison bitch" style where pants are pulled down to show underwear and butt crack).

See, kids, your parents listened to rockers sing songs about Satan, had piercings, had premarital sex, did drugs. You can't shock them.

Is there a point to all this? Surprisingly enough, yes.

North Korea today threatened to wipe the United States off the map. Now, discounting for a second that they can't actually do that even if they have a few nukes, and discounting the fact that attacking us would result in North Korea becoming a glass parking lot, this sort of extreme rhetoric has become the equivalent of a teenager coming home with six piercings, green hair, and a swastika t-shirt. Threatening to simply go to war doesn't impress anyone nowadays. Dictatorships threaten this all the time. Every recent action coming from NK has been designed to ratchet up the shock and tension. The recent withdrawal from the Korean War armistice (which, technically, means we're already at war with them), their nuclear program, their almost daily insane threats, all of this is intended to provoke a reaction, to get the United States back to the table to give the failing NK government more stuff. Kim Jong Il needs us to prop up his Orwellian disaster-area state for a few more years.

Like a teenager's attempts to shock his parents, there are limits as to what we can tolerate. Kim Jog Il isn't dressing in dark clothes, listening to devil-rock, and cutting himself to get attention anymore... he's moved on to animal torture and threats against the neighbors. When someone is threatening to KILL YOU, there comes a point when the amused ignoring can't go on. We've reached the end of what the rebellious kid can be allowed to do to shock us.

There is actually a historical pattern for what is going on right now. World War I, the "War to End All Wars," is largely forgotten nowadays, at least compared to the much more romanticized Second World War. We've forgotten just how brutal, how horrific, it was. Whole generations of young Europeans were sacrificed for a few hundred miles of bombed-out wasteland. Compare Iraq's casualties of less than 5000 in six years with the body count of 146,000 French and British cdeaths in the Battle of the Somme, which took place from July to November 1916. The British alone had over 19,000 dead on the first day. That war was a meatgrinder in an almost literal sense. When it was over, the nations of the world were desperate to prevent another war like it.

We like to mock Neville Chaimberlain over his appeasement of the Nazis, but what we fail to understand is that for him and the men of his generation, the First World War wasn't a chapter in a history textbook. They'd lived it only twenty years before. Nobody reasonably expected that Hitler wasn't bluffing. "After all," they reasoned, "It would take a madman to willingly start another World War." Best just give Hitler what he wanted, because it was assumed that he was just blustering, but we don't want to risk it. Let him have the Rhineland, Austria, Czechoslovakia. Better that than sacrifice another generation to war.

Hitler had a weapon that his opponents were unwilling to use: ruthlessness. His first choice wasn't war with France and England, but he was willing to start one if he had to. HE WASN'T BLUFFING. He couldn't be appeased. He was willing to do the unthinkable to get what he wanted. Eventually even Chaimberlain understood that, but only after it was too late.

Kim Jong Il is playing the same game. He may or may not be willing to risk a real war, but we can not assume he is bluffing or can be appeased. He must be treated as if his threats are real. The only weapon one has against ruthlessness is ruthlessness. This does not mean glassing his country (unless he uses a nuclear weapon), but his threats must be met with threats, his provocations must be met with steely resolve. That ship carrying weapons we've been tracking? It should be seized. All aid to North korea should be shut off, sanctions should be brought into play, and diplomatic efforts towards South Korea, Japan, and China should focus on isolating North Korea even more.

And if he pulls the trigger, we must be prepared to go to war to stop him.

Reply to Nemo

A commenter named Nemo over at Gateway Pundit replied to me in a troll-filled thread. Since the Haloscan system won't let me post a long reply, I brought my reply here. Trolls from that thread... you are unwelcome. Anyone can comment if you are polite. If you behave like you do in that thread, I will either delete your comments or alter them so they are more amusing to me. Probably the latter.

Nemo's comments are in green.

----------------------
Nemo, I'm going to go through your post point-by-point, since you raise many issues that need to be addressed.

Alight Evil Otto you got us. I can't defend all of President Obama's policies because quite frankly I don't agree with all of them.

Glad to hear it, Nemo. For the record, most of us here didn't agree with all of Bush's policies. I agreed with more of Bush's policies than I disagreed with, but we're talking about 60-40 here, give or take. I skew way more libertarian than conservative, but the Democrats haven't run ANYONE for president that I could stomach since I came of age to vote.

Infact if the President were now to try to start up relations with Iran after their election was so obviously rigged I'd be quite upset.

Me too, but I'm in a general "quite upset" mood ever since Obama got into office and started spending that made George Bush's spending look like nothing. Obama has quadrupled Bush's worst deficit, all in only a few months. He's bankrupting the country, and we're going to suffer as the recession is joined by massive tax increases and inflation.

As for national healthcare it could work, look at most of the European nations.

I did. And I came to the opposite conclusion. It CAN'T work, not long-term. The US government has been incompetent in running Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, and every other medical program it's tried. Am I somehow to believe they'll be competent in running ALL health care?

National health care will destroy our health care system.

I understand our taxes would be much higher than they are now. If there was an alternative that made let's say insurance more affordable I would have no problem with that.

I would start with tort reform. Limit lawsuits (a major cost in medicine is malpractice insurance), possibly with a "loser pays" system for legal fees. Then I would encourage employers to get out of providing health insurance... give me the money my employer spends on health insurance and let me hunt the free market for the best deal. Competition lowers prices. Encourage more small clinics like the ones run by Wal-Mart, Walgreens, and others. Most minor medical issues don't require a doctor, and the savings would reduce costs.

If there is ever a viable alternative for any idea I would be more then willing to listen.

Good to hear. Personally, I want the government out of the way as much as possible.

Now as for hating conservatives that's just ridiculous.

Again, good to hear. However, I wasn't just addressing you. Look in this thread... tell me that most of the liberals here aren't filled with hate towards conservatives.

Infact the only point I was trying to make earlier was that politics, and therefore the government itself, would run more efficiently if we took out all of the partisanship.

That's not possible. As a (mostly) libertarian, I understand that it is not in the nature of government to be more efficient, nor is it in the nature of government to be less partisan. It's the very nature of the beast. The government is POWER, and as long as it exists there will be competition for power... in other words, partisanship.

The way I would like to handle the problem is to shrink the government. Smaller government means less opportunity for power to be abused. More... MOST decisions should me made at the state and local level. The federal government should be reduced to its Constitutional limits.

Now in no way am I accusing just the GOP of this. It's just quite sad how low we've sunk as a country when it comes to politics.

It's always been like this. Read what some of the Founding Fathers said about each other... makes our little spats seem like nothing.

When it comes to my own personal spelling I'll be the first to admit that I rely a little to heavily on spell check.

At least you use it.

But honestly if the best you can do to tear down an idea is pick it apart like an english teacher, then get a job as an english teacher.

I believe that how one presents an argument is important. When someone posts a comment that looks like a 12-year-old texting his friends, I'm inclined to treat that person as a 12-year-old.

And I really don't mean that in a mean way. When we are freely exchanging ideas it's the ideas we should be dissecting and not the grammer.

I do both. Honestly, I don't care about a few spelling or grammar errors, but look at the comments of "noname" above and tell me you're glad to have him on your side. I'm guessing you think the same thing as I do: "What an idiot."

Finally as for the atheist thing, would it be any better if I were a Muslim? Or would that make you respect my ideas even less (if that's even possible)?

It's not that... I'm agnostic. I just wonder why time and again virtually every liberal I run across on blogs is an atheist, often obnoxiously so. On the conservative side here you have Christians of every stripe, atheists, agnostics, you name it. But it's like liberals I come across on blogs like this are ALWAYS atheist.

Where is the diversity of thought? Where are the comments from Christian liberals? I know they exist.

I went to a Christian school as a child for some time. I admit I met some Christians I really didn't like, but then again I also had the greatest teacher of my life at that school. Just because I don't share the same beliefs as you doesn't mean I don't respect yours. And I hate to even say this but if you are a Christian that blindly hates all Muslims simply because they're Muslims then you are not a true Christian.

I'm not a Christian at all. I don't blindly hate Muslims... however, Islam is a belief system and as such is open for criticism as much as any other. And what I see from too many Muslims is NOT open-mindedness and a willingness to live-and-let-live.

The old testiment may have some heavy stuff about cursing thine enemy but I look to Christ's example. You know the guy who died for ALL of our sins, the same guy who taught to turn the other cheek.

That's the thing... most Christians believe the same thing. In Christian tradition, the New Testament supersedes the Old. If there's a conflict, the Christian is supposed to follow Christ's teachings.

Now I don't believe I've said anything offensive, but I know I think differently than most of you. So if I have offended you I am sorry.

I'm not offended. I give as well as I take. If someone is polite to me, I'm polite back. One reason I got involved in this thread was the sheer volume of nasty, hate-filled liberals commenting here. Tearing their "arguments" apart is great sport.

It's nice to see you're not one of them.

I Suppose I Should Post Something Else

So here's a picture of a cute kitten.

Shut up. I don't have to entertain YOU.

I Suppose I Should Post Something

OK, here's the theme song for the 1960s Captain America cartoon.



Now pipe down.

The Best Medicine?

The Chinese know a lying Marxist when they see one.

Geithner insists Chinese dollar assets are safe

In his first official visit to China since becoming Treasury Secretary, Mr Geithner told politicians and academics in Beijing that he still supports a strong US dollar, and insisted that the trillions of dollars of Chinese investments would not be unduly damaged by the economic crisis. Speaking at Peking University, Mr Geithner said: "Chinese assets are very safe."

The comment provoked loud laughter from the audience of students. There are growing fears over the size and sustainability of the US budget deficit, which is set to rise to almost 13pc of GDP this year as the world's biggest economy fights off recession. The US is reliant on China to buy many of the government bonds it is planning to issue but Beijing's policymakers have expressed concern about the strength of the dollar and the value of their investments.

The Chinese understand what the average American voter doesn't... we're driving towards a cliff, and the Obama administration's plan of action is "drive faster!"

The Road to Hell

Half the harm in the world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm, but the harm doesn't interest them. Or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves. - T.S.Eliot

We conservatives and libertarians are often painted as hating the poor. We want poor people to go without medical care and housing, at least in the eyes of the more unhinged liberals. We want them to work for low wages, be denied vacations. We're just, well, evil.

No. We're not. We're just realists. We understand that reality can not be altered simply by wishing it to be so. We understand that the attempt to make things better sometimes makes things worse, so judgment and wisdom must be used. And we understand that when government attempts to intervene, the problem will usually get worse.

Out of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional responses which they propose to replace. -Will Durant

Our job is to stand in the way, to shout "you shall not pass" whenever the leftist proposes his latest idea for shredding society in the name of making things better.

Thomas Sowell, in his excellent book "A Conflict of Visions," defines the essential conflict as not "liberal vs. conservative," but constrained vs. unconstrained visions. The constrained vision (which views human nature as flawed but fixed) believes that some problems are due to man's nature and will always be with us. The unconstrained vision (which views human nature as malleable) believes that all problems can be solved. Poverty, crime, hatred, these can all be eliminated with enough effort, money, and knowledge. Most people on the right politically tend towards the constrained vision, while most on the left tend towards the unconstrained vision, though obviously there are elements of both on both sides of the political aisle.


The goals of those with the unconstrained vision are often noble. They want to lift people out of poverty, they want to eliminate crime, they want to end racism. However, their belief that any problem can be solved often causes them to push ideas that have consequences that are far worse than the problems they were meant to solve. When people stand in their way, holding up signs saying STOP!, they are vilified. When the flaws in their noble plans are explained, they ignore them and barge forward. And when things collapse, they are never there to take responsibility.

Let's look at what is arguably the trigger for the current financial crisis, the collapse of the housing bubble. The effort to help poor people buy homes was, in and of itself, a noble end. What actually happened, though, was that government guarantees prompted banks and mortgage companies to lend money to people who never would have otherwise qualified (the so-called subprime loans). In fact, laws required companies to make a certain percentage of these loans. Low interest rates (the result of Fed attempts to stabilize the economy after the dot-com crash and 9/11) combined with easy-to-get loans resulted in a rush into home building and purchasing. People bought houses they couldn't afford, many bought houses as investments rather than places to live, and "flipping" houses (buying a beat-up house and renovating it, then selling at a huge markup) became a get-rich-quick scheme. Of those people who bought into that market, many were convinced that if interest rates went up they could simply renegotiate their loans. After all, while prices were going up, they were still building equity, even if they could barely make their payments.

In short order, cookie-cutter housing developments sprung up like mushrooms. Overpriced, high-rise condos were built in many cities. Many apartment complexes renovated themselves and became condominiums. Housing prices hit low orbit.

Of course it couldn't last. As defaults inevitably skyrocketed, lenders began to go bankrupt. Thanks to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the US taxpayers were on the hook for many of them. Housing prices started to fall, and suddenly people began to realize that the $750,000 they had paid for that two-bedroom condo may have been a wee bit much.

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis, the more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.'' Rep. Barney Frank, 9/11/2003

Do you get it? Part of the reason we're in this mess is because politicians, claiming the best intentions, screwed with the housing markets. In trying to do good, they did greater evil. As the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" -Ronald Reagan

This is by no means the only time the government has created a crisis while trying to help people. Social Security was started as a program to help the elderly retire with at least a moderate amount of money. Medicare and Medicaid were created to provide health care to those who could not afford it, the elderly and poor. In a few decades (or years, depending on who you're asking), they will collapse, creating a financial crisis that will make this one look like nothing. Food stamps were created to feed the poor, welfare was created to provide them money, but the result was generations of families who relied on government assistance in order to survive; rather than ending poverty, welfare continued it. Gun control laws were enacted in many cities and states, resulting in higher crime rates as criminals ignored the law and victims were not allowed the means to fight back. Internationally, DDT bans intended to protect nature have resulted in tens of millions of deaths from malaria. The list goes on and on.

And yet those of the unconstrained vision never learn. Obama's latest goal is clearly to take over control of the United States health care system. After all, prices for health care are outrageous, and he believes that the government can do a better job. He believes this despite all evidence of history that government CAN'T do a better job in anything. He believes this despite overwhelming evidence from other nations that socialized medicine results in ridiculous wait times, decisions made by bureaucrats rather than doctors, and excessive taxation. He believes this because he wants to believe that he can "fix" health care. Those of the constrained vision know exactly where this leads, because we can look at history.

Or let's look at the proposal of Rep. Alan Grayson, the congressman for my home town and arguably one of the biggest pinheads currently in congress: the Paid Vacation Act, which would mandate paid vacation time for all employees (full and part time). Grayson claims he got the idea while at Disney World, which makes sense. I wonder if he was in Fantasyland.

The bill would require companies with more than 100 employees to offer a week of paid vacation for both full-time and part-time employees after they’ve put in a year on the job. Three years after the effective date of the law, those same companies would be required to provide two weeks of paid vacation, and companies with 50 or more employees would have to provide one week.

The idea: More vacation will stimulate the economy through fewer sick days, better productivity and happier employees.

“There’s a reason why Disney World is the happiest place on Earth: The people who go there are on vacation,” said Grayson, a freshman who counts Orlando as part of his home district. “Honestly, as much as I appreciate this job and as much as I enjoy it, the best days of my life are and always have been the days I’m on vacation.”

An employee on vacation is not making any money for his employer, which means a loss of productivity which will have to be made up somewhere else, by someone else. Having the government mandate such vacation does not magically make up for that loss of productivity. Employers will be forced to either raise prices, hire fewer workers (and work those already employed harder), or fire some already working. The result of Grayson's infinite generosity will be... wait for it...

HIGHER UNEMPLOYMENT.

Higher unemployment at a time when unemployment is already approaching double digits, and is expected to go higher. Higher unemployment during the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.

"That's your plan? Wile E Coyote could come up with a better plan than that!" -John Crichton, Farscape

It doesn't matter, of course. Grayson means well, and believes that he can make everybody's lives better by just ordering their employers to give them vacation time. And that there will be no negative consequences. After all, the employers will make up for the loss in productivity because their employees will be rested and happy. And people will eat it up, because the negative results of a policy or law are often far harder to discern than the positive. (Two weeks vacation! Yay!)

To those of the unconstrained vision, its often as simple as that. Order vacation time. Take money from rich people and give it to the poor. Give everyone free health care. The consequences are often slow to develop and the politicians that propose them are usually out of office by the time the shit hits the fan. Or, like Barney Frank, they apparently represent a district of insane people who vote for that idiot over and over again.

If you get anything out of this rambling, poorly-written rant, hopefully it will be this: sometimes, just leave well enough alone. If someone comes along and proposes a scheme that sounds like it will fix a great societal ill, demand to know what the long term consequences will be. If he can't tell you, or if he tells you there will be none, understand the danger. Don't trust someone's intentions, ever.