Homercles: Space Monkey Man of Tomorrow
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Unsafe at any speed
Via LGF
Ralph Nader
June 29, 2004
It's all about those dirty Jooooos isn't it, Ralph? Maybe the Palestinians can come up with a solution to the Jewish problem. A final solution, if you will.
You fucking piece of shit.
*Update* I should look at the bright side: maybe Ralph's anti-Zionism will attract some of the loonier elements of the Kerry supporters.
“What has been happening over the years is a predictable routine of foreign visitation from the head of the Israeli government. The Israeli puppeteer travels to Washington. The Israeli puppeteer meets with the puppet in the White House, and then moves down Pennsylvania Avenue, and meets with the puppets in Congress. And then takes back billions of taxpayer dollars. It is time for the Washington puppet show to be replaced by the Washington peace show.”
Ralph Nader
June 29, 2004
It's all about those dirty Jooooos isn't it, Ralph? Maybe the Palestinians can come up with a solution to the Jewish problem. A final solution, if you will.
You fucking piece of shit.
*Update* I should look at the bright side: maybe Ralph's anti-Zionism will attract some of the loonier elements of the Kerry supporters.
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Still Reading . . .
Now about 2/3 through The Death of Right and Wrong. As I've been reading this, some things have occurred to me.
1) As the book progresses, the theory changes (or maybe it's just my understanding that changes). It's not just about the Left changing the world to fit its own twisted image; it's about self-destruction.
Now this is an intriguing idea to me. I can certainly see Bruce's argument here, through my own experiences. Without going into too much personal detail, I will say that I've known a few people who kept falling just to see if they'd ever land. You can't hit bottom when there is no bottom; there's always something MORE degrading or MORE disgusting you can do to yourself.
If you've ever known a person like this, you know, then, how they compulsively act to drag others down with them. They're like little black holes, warping the very fabric of reality around them, endlessly pulling everything around them into darkness.
Why lift yourself up when it's so much easier to pull everyone down?
2) Such a person is central to Bruce's worldview. Very early in the book, she recounts how her lover staged her suicide in Bruce's presence, after she (Bruce) begged her not to. Like an emotional MOAB, it wasn't just designed to end this girl's life, it was made to damage those around her as much as possible.
Bruce acknowledges that this is the definitive experience, the one that changed the way she thought about everything. And as I read, I can hear the echoes of the experience in every word that follows.
3) Upon further reflection, it occurs to me that 9/11 wasn't my definitive experience after all. It was the reaction to 9/11 that changed me, I think. The notion that it was somehow our fault that it happened, that we were to blame, was just too much to stomach.
It's like this woman I knew a while back, who had been raped as a child. As an adult, she entered into a string of abusive relationships; she was convinced that she was a slut who deserved it. Man, everytime she'd hit bottom, she'd just start digging. I don't know where she is now, but I can only hope she's working through all this. Outlook not so good, as of our last parting.
Anyway, getting back to the point:
We're the bad guys. We deserve this. If Americans die, it's because of something America did to deserve it. Let it happen.
Americans are dumb. Americans are sheep. Americans lack nuance. War and Empire. The great Satan.
Sound familiar?
The greatest victory the Islamists ever won against us was not the cold-blooded murder of 3,000 of our citizens; rather, it was that somehow a significant minority of Americans have come to hate this country, just as the Islamists do. They are the rapists that convince an innocent little girl that she's a slut, and that she deserved it.
I just can't accept that. Never could, I guess. I think that's why I started seeing the world differently, when my heart and conscious screamed that this was the most horrible thing I had ever seen, and much of America just decided that we had it coming.
1) As the book progresses, the theory changes (or maybe it's just my understanding that changes). It's not just about the Left changing the world to fit its own twisted image; it's about self-destruction.
Now this is an intriguing idea to me. I can certainly see Bruce's argument here, through my own experiences. Without going into too much personal detail, I will say that I've known a few people who kept falling just to see if they'd ever land. You can't hit bottom when there is no bottom; there's always something MORE degrading or MORE disgusting you can do to yourself.
If you've ever known a person like this, you know, then, how they compulsively act to drag others down with them. They're like little black holes, warping the very fabric of reality around them, endlessly pulling everything around them into darkness.
Why lift yourself up when it's so much easier to pull everyone down?
2) Such a person is central to Bruce's worldview. Very early in the book, she recounts how her lover staged her suicide in Bruce's presence, after she (Bruce) begged her not to. Like an emotional MOAB, it wasn't just designed to end this girl's life, it was made to damage those around her as much as possible.
Bruce acknowledges that this is the definitive experience, the one that changed the way she thought about everything. And as I read, I can hear the echoes of the experience in every word that follows.
3) Upon further reflection, it occurs to me that 9/11 wasn't my definitive experience after all. It was the reaction to 9/11 that changed me, I think. The notion that it was somehow our fault that it happened, that we were to blame, was just too much to stomach.
It's like this woman I knew a while back, who had been raped as a child. As an adult, she entered into a string of abusive relationships; she was convinced that she was a slut who deserved it. Man, everytime she'd hit bottom, she'd just start digging. I don't know where she is now, but I can only hope she's working through all this. Outlook not so good, as of our last parting.
Anyway, getting back to the point:
We're the bad guys. We deserve this. If Americans die, it's because of something America did to deserve it. Let it happen.
Americans are dumb. Americans are sheep. Americans lack nuance. War and Empire. The great Satan.
Sound familiar?
The greatest victory the Islamists ever won against us was not the cold-blooded murder of 3,000 of our citizens; rather, it was that somehow a significant minority of Americans have come to hate this country, just as the Islamists do. They are the rapists that convince an innocent little girl that she's a slut, and that she deserved it.
I just can't accept that. Never could, I guess. I think that's why I started seeing the world differently, when my heart and conscious screamed that this was the most horrible thing I had ever seen, and much of America just decided that we had it coming.
Monday, June 28, 2004
This is exactly what I'm talking about
Via LGF:
Hamas thugs launched rockets at a nursery school, killing a child, and an adult male.
Stop, and let that sink in for a second.
A nursery school.
A. Nursery. School.
Gee, who were the targets here?
I will never pray for the death of a human being, but I won't shed a single damned tear, not a one, if those Hamas animals die in some particularly nasty way.
Read the article, then skim the user comments. If you don't have time, I'll offer up a quick precis of what's being said:
It's Israel's fault.
Hamas thugs launched rockets at a nursery school, killing a child, and an adult male.
Stop, and let that sink in for a second.
A nursery school.
A. Nursery. School.
Gee, who were the targets here?
I will never pray for the death of a human being, but I won't shed a single damned tear, not a one, if those Hamas animals die in some particularly nasty way.
Read the article, then skim the user comments. If you don't have time, I'll offer up a quick precis of what's being said:
It's Israel's fault.
Too good to excerpt
I've basically given up on reading Atlas Shrugged. During the reign of terror of my last girlfriend, I tried to read it, but the relationship didn't last long enough for me to get more than halfway through. I tried picking it up again this summer, and I've discovered that while I may agree with Rand on a few things, her tendency to create idiotic characters as straw men representing the beliefs she disagrees with is a little off-putting.
Honestly, if people actually ran businesses the way it's described in the book, they would certainly deserve to go broke, and not even a federal bail-out could salvage something ran that ineptly.
I will agree with the notion that our Yay! Everybody! society makes it difficult for true people of vision to innovate, but, I guess, I just find the way she makes her point to be arrogant.
Anyway, to the point. On a whim, I stopped at Barnes and Noble, and picked up Tammy Bruce's The Death of Right and Wrong.
My God, someone else out there gets it. I'm not alone.
One of the things that sends me into a funk is just how much of a madhouse our society is becoming.
There is no right and wrong. There is only different.
There are no consequences.
The only sin is not doing whatever you want, whenever you want to, regardless of the price others will pay.
I watched as a man who murdered his ex and another man got off scot-free because the jury was more willing to accept a lunatic theory of conspiracy and racism than forensic evidence.
I watched the most powerful man in the world betray his own marriage vows while in office, and then lie to the nation about it.
I watched as Tel Aviv nightclubs were blown up, and whole families were murdered while at supper or while out shopping; and I watched as mass media told me the perpetrators were the real victims here.
Tammy Bruce gets it. Her basic theory thus far: moral relativism has become the mechanism by which damaged people get to twist the world to fit their image. Why heal yourself, when you can make the whole world applaud your failure to GET OVER IT, whatever IT is. And anyone who disagrees is a racist. Or a homophobe. Or an islamophobe. Or a neocon. Or a fundie Christian.
I'm only 1/4 of the way through the book, so I reserve judgment on whether her theory is right or not. But any one who is willing to stand up and say, "This is wrong," gets a standing O from me.
I'm sick of victims, and the cult of victimology.
I'm sick of the assumption that there's a certain way I should think about everything.
I'm heartsick at the death of classic liberalism, and the shambling, rotting, morally absent monster that has taken its place.
Ms. Bruce's book is, so far, simply too good to excerpt. If I started, I'd end up re-typing everything I've read so far. Anecdote after anecdote, she shows the symptoms of a society pushed too far into one set of values, ie: the absence of values.
To be continued...
Honestly, if people actually ran businesses the way it's described in the book, they would certainly deserve to go broke, and not even a federal bail-out could salvage something ran that ineptly.
I will agree with the notion that our Yay! Everybody! society makes it difficult for true people of vision to innovate, but, I guess, I just find the way she makes her point to be arrogant.
Anyway, to the point. On a whim, I stopped at Barnes and Noble, and picked up Tammy Bruce's The Death of Right and Wrong.
My God, someone else out there gets it. I'm not alone.
One of the things that sends me into a funk is just how much of a madhouse our society is becoming.
There is no right and wrong. There is only different.
There are no consequences.
The only sin is not doing whatever you want, whenever you want to, regardless of the price others will pay.
I watched as a man who murdered his ex and another man got off scot-free because the jury was more willing to accept a lunatic theory of conspiracy and racism than forensic evidence.
I watched the most powerful man in the world betray his own marriage vows while in office, and then lie to the nation about it.
I watched as Tel Aviv nightclubs were blown up, and whole families were murdered while at supper or while out shopping; and I watched as mass media told me the perpetrators were the real victims here.
Tammy Bruce gets it. Her basic theory thus far: moral relativism has become the mechanism by which damaged people get to twist the world to fit their image. Why heal yourself, when you can make the whole world applaud your failure to GET OVER IT, whatever IT is. And anyone who disagrees is a racist. Or a homophobe. Or an islamophobe. Or a neocon. Or a fundie Christian.
I'm only 1/4 of the way through the book, so I reserve judgment on whether her theory is right or not. But any one who is willing to stand up and say, "This is wrong," gets a standing O from me.
I'm sick of victims, and the cult of victimology.
I'm sick of the assumption that there's a certain way I should think about everything.
I'm heartsick at the death of classic liberalism, and the shambling, rotting, morally absent monster that has taken its place.
Ms. Bruce's book is, so far, simply too good to excerpt. If I started, I'd end up re-typing everything I've read so far. Anecdote after anecdote, she shows the symptoms of a society pushed too far into one set of values, ie: the absence of values.
To be continued...
Sunday, June 27, 2004
$20,000,000 can buy a LOT of Krispy Kremes
Based on the spectacular rise in crappy independent films during the '90s, I knew that some effete aesthetes would pay to see anything "edgy." I never knew how many, though.
I personally wouldn't mind seeing that pseudo-documentary turd, just so I could debunk it, but there's no way I'm paying for it. Mayhaps someone has it on the internet.
In related news, Michele writes:
Also, Protein Wisdom finds a refreshingly honest USA Today article.
I personally wouldn't mind seeing that pseudo-documentary turd, just so I could debunk it, but there's no way I'm paying for it. Mayhaps someone has it on the internet.
In related news, Michele writes:
Ok, so let me get this straight. The top selling film at the box office - a film which has made 20 million dollars already - is a purported documentary whose sole purpose is to discredit, disgrace and oust the sitting president.
Who is paying to see this film? Why, the very people who cry that America is now a police state where dissent is crushed and our civil liberties have been taken away.
Also, Protein Wisdom finds a refreshingly honest USA Today article.
Tolerance from the RoP
Found via Instapundit:
Lovely, isn't it, how the Left has come to ally itself with people who seek to destroy the very things the Left says it stands for.
Consider these scenarios:
1)A gay man is murdered for being gay.
2)A woman is beaten for daring to leave the house without the hijab on.
In our culture, #1 is rightfully considered a hate crime, and #2 is rightfully considered domestic abuse.
In the Arab world, it's just family values.
Maybe I'm just not nuanced enough, but as I see it, immoral acts are immoral acts, no matter where they're committed, or by whom they're committed. To this bastard form of liberalism that has perverted the party I respected, it's only a sin if someone from the Judeo-Christian world is responsible. Otherwise, it's just that warm fuzzy tapestry of cultural diversity.
A Muslim spokesman has called for death for homosexuals on New Zealand television. Responding to protests, the dhimmis at the television network said that "the programme was a religious address by a mullah concerning issues raised by the Koran. The television company acknowledged some of the comments could be viewed as 'rather extreme' but it had 'reason to believe' the comments were a genuinely held belief of followers of Islam."
"Rather extreme," eh? It's useful to remember that contrary to a good deal of overheated rhetoric claiming otherwise, the Christian "Religious Right" in America does not call for death for homosexuals. This is a uniquely Islamic phenomenon, which of course we will be seeing much more of in the West in the years to come.
Lovely, isn't it, how the Left has come to ally itself with people who seek to destroy the very things the Left says it stands for.
Consider these scenarios:
1)A gay man is murdered for being gay.
2)A woman is beaten for daring to leave the house without the hijab on.
In our culture, #1 is rightfully considered a hate crime, and #2 is rightfully considered domestic abuse.
In the Arab world, it's just family values.
Maybe I'm just not nuanced enough, but as I see it, immoral acts are immoral acts, no matter where they're committed, or by whom they're committed. To this bastard form of liberalism that has perverted the party I respected, it's only a sin if someone from the Judeo-Christian world is responsible. Otherwise, it's just that warm fuzzy tapestry of cultural diversity.
Friday, June 25, 2004
Ah, crises . . .
You do have a way of pulling me out of my doldrums.
I think my lawn mower is toast. We'll try again tomorrow, but tonight it's having serious issues, and as near as I could tell in the dim light of my garage, it's nothing I can fix.
Still, I almost welcome this. Sure, it's likely going to cost me money to fix, but now I have something to focus my energy on. Calling a repair shop, making arrangements to borrow a mower, etc, makes me feel like I'm doing something.
I think my lawn mower is toast. We'll try again tomorrow, but tonight it's having serious issues, and as near as I could tell in the dim light of my garage, it's nothing I can fix.
Still, I almost welcome this. Sure, it's likely going to cost me money to fix, but now I have something to focus my energy on. Calling a repair shop, making arrangements to borrow a mower, etc, makes me feel like I'm doing something.
Mood(y) Music
This one popped up on Launch. Suits my mood today.
Joy Division
Decades
This will pass. It always does.
At least I leave angsty, pseudo-poetry to the professionals.
Joy Division
Decades
Here are the young men,
a weight on their shoulders
Here are the young men,
well where have they been?
We knocked on the doors
of hell's darker chambers
Pushed to the limits,
we dragged ourselves in
Watched from the wings as
the scenes were replaying
We saw ourselves now as
we never had seen
Portrayal of the traumas and degeneration
The sorrows we suffered
and never were freed
Where have they been (4)
Weary inside, now our hearts
lost forever
Can't replace the fear
or the thrill of the chase
These rituals showed up the door
for our wanderings
Opened and shut, then slammed
in our face
Where have they been (4)
This will pass. It always does.
At least I leave angsty, pseudo-poetry to the professionals.
Thursday, June 24, 2004
It is finished
Completed my test questions. It only took, I'm guessing, about 35 hours. Sheesh.
Now to get to the curriculum work I'm doing for my school district.
I'm starting to understand why socialists want free money. It's a LOT easier than working for it. Of course, "easier" and "right" aren't often the same things. At least when I get paid for this, I know I'll have earned it; the money won't be some government-enforced charity for the downtrodden.
Now to get to the curriculum work I'm doing for my school district.
I'm starting to understand why socialists want free money. It's a LOT easier than working for it. Of course, "easier" and "right" aren't often the same things. At least when I get paid for this, I know I'll have earned it; the money won't be some government-enforced charity for the downtrodden.
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
I'm going slightly mad...
I've been spending about eight hours a day, for the last 4 days, working on the side as a test item writer for one of those companies that makes standardized tests. At this point, I'm thinking that the compensation I receive is not adequate considering the effort I've had to put in.
I'm very frustrated at the moment. Say I make deadline, and get the questions in on time. Suppose I can actually make the questions relevant to students' everyday lives, as well as gender- and culure-fair.
Within a month, they'll be sending them back to me for revision, no matter how much effort I put in now.
Argghh.
/whining
Oh well, I'm done bitching. I fully realize that I'd better nut up, and just do what they hired me for.
And I want to earn that money. I want to do a good job. Anything that has my name on had better damn well be quality work.
I'll get it done, and it will be done right.
I'm very frustrated at the moment. Say I make deadline, and get the questions in on time. Suppose I can actually make the questions relevant to students' everyday lives, as well as gender- and culure-fair.
Within a month, they'll be sending them back to me for revision, no matter how much effort I put in now.
Argghh.
/whining
Oh well, I'm done bitching. I fully realize that I'd better nut up, and just do what they hired me for.
And I want to earn that money. I want to do a good job. Anything that has my name on had better damn well be quality work.
I'll get it done, and it will be done right.
Cognitive Dissonance
Daniel Pearl.
Nick Berg.
Paul Johnson.
Kim Sun-Il.
Four times now, a man has been beheaded by Islamic terrorists.
I'm just mentioning it because you may have missed it. The media's been too busy circle-jerking about what forms of "torture" were approved by the Bush administration prior to hostilities.
Whatever happened to "If it bleeds, it leads?" I've heard a lot of talk about how the media is only biased in favor of the most sensationalistic story. If that's the case, then why is Abu Ghraib still making news, when a) the story is long past its shelf life, and b) fraternity hazing pranks are nowhere near as sensational as oh, say, DECAPITATION.
Evidently, it only makes the evening news if a) it's bad news, and b) it's about Americans doing something wrong.
Nick Berg.
Paul Johnson.
Kim Sun-Il.
Four times now, a man has been beheaded by Islamic terrorists.
I'm just mentioning it because you may have missed it. The media's been too busy circle-jerking about what forms of "torture" were approved by the Bush administration prior to hostilities.
Whatever happened to "If it bleeds, it leads?" I've heard a lot of talk about how the media is only biased in favor of the most sensationalistic story. If that's the case, then why is Abu Ghraib still making news, when a) the story is long past its shelf life, and b) fraternity hazing pranks are nowhere near as sensational as oh, say, DECAPITATION.
Evidently, it only makes the evening news if a) it's bad news, and b) it's about Americans doing something wrong.
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
What a tangled web we weave...
The occasionally irritating Christopher Hitchens offers a devastating, fact-based takedown of Michael Moore's latest love letter to himself. (Found via Roger L Simon)
This is interesting:
There's more. Much more. I would say "Read the whole thing," but then I think Instapundit could sue for copyright infringement.
Update: Michael Moore is a tubby bitch.
June 21
Cardio
Time: 0:50:00
2004 total: 96:12:00
Weights + Cardio: 107 Days (49 to go)
This is interesting:
Fahrenheit 9/11 makes the following points about Bin Laden and about Afghanistan, and makes them in this order:
1) The Bin Laden family (if not exactly Osama himself) had a close if convoluted business relationship with the Bush family, through the Carlyle Group.
2) Saudi capital in general is a very large element of foreign investment in the United States.
3) The Unocal company in Texas had been willing to discuss a gas pipeline across Afghanistan with the Taliban, as had other vested interests.
4) The Bush administration sent far too few ground troops to Afghanistan and thus allowed far too many Taliban and al-Qaida members to escape.
5) The Afghan government, in supporting the coalition in Iraq, was purely risible in that its non-army was purely American.
6) The American lives lost in Afghanistan have been wasted. (This I divine from the fact that this supposedly "antiwar" film is dedicated ruefully to all those killed there, as well as in Iraq.)
It must be evident to anyone, despite the rapid-fire way in which Moore's direction eases the audience hastily past the contradictions, that these discrepant scatter shots do not cohere at any point. Either the Saudis run U.S. policy (through family ties or overwhelming economic interest), or they do not. As allies and patrons of the Taliban regime, they either opposed Bush's removal of it, or they did not. (They opposed the removal, all right: They wouldn't even let Tony Blair land his own plane on their soil at the time of the operation.) Either we sent too many troops, or were wrong to send any at all—the latter was Moore's view as late as 2002—or we sent too few. If we were going to make sure no Taliban or al-Qaida forces survived or escaped, we would have had to be more ruthless than I suspect that Mr. Moore is really recommending. And these are simply observations on what is "in" the film. If we turn to the facts that are deliberately left out, we discover that there is an emerging Afghan army, that the country is now a joint NATO responsibility and thus under the protection of the broadest military alliance in history, that it has a new constitution and is preparing against hellish odds to hold a general election, and that at least a million and a half of its former refugees have opted to return. I don't think a pipeline is being constructed yet, not that Afghanistan couldn't do with a pipeline. But a highway from Kabul to Kandahar—an insurance against warlordism and a condition of nation-building—is nearing completion with infinite labor and risk. We also discover that the parties of the Afghan secular left—like the parties of the Iraqi secular left—are strongly in favor of the regime change. But this is not the sort of irony in which Moore chooses to deal.
He prefers leaden sarcasm to irony and, indeed, may not appreciate the distinction. In a long and paranoid (and tedious) section at the opening of the film, he makes heavy innuendoes about the flights that took members of the Bin Laden family out of the country after Sept. 11. I banged on about this myself at the time and wrote a Nation column drawing attention to the groveling Larry King interview with the insufferable Prince Bandar, which Moore excerpts. However, recent developments have not been kind to our Mike. In the interval between Moore's triumph at Cannes and the release of the film in the United States, the 9/11 commission has found nothing to complain of in the timing or arrangement of the flights. And Richard Clarke, Bush's former chief of counterterrorism, has come forward to say that he, and he alone, took the responsibility for authorizing those Saudi departures. This might not matter so much to the ethos of Fahrenheit 9/11, except that—as you might expect—Clarke is presented throughout as the brow-furrowed ethical hero of the entire post-9/11 moment. And it does not seem very likely that, in his open admission about the Bin Laden family evacuation, Clarke is taking a fall, or a spear in the chest, for the Bush administration. So, that's another bust for this windy and bloated cinematic "key to all mythologies."
A film that bases itself on a big lie and a big misrepresentation can only sustain itself by a dizzying succession of smaller falsehoods, beefed up by wilder and (if possible) yet more-contradictory claims. President Bush is accused of taking too many lazy vacations. (What is that about, by the way? Isn't he supposed to be an unceasing planner for future aggressive wars?) But the shot of him "relaxing at Camp David" shows him side by side with Tony Blair. I say "shows," even though this photograph is on-screen so briefly that if you sneeze or blink, you won't recognize the other figure. A meeting with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, or at least with this prime minister, is not a goof-off.
There's more. Much more. I would say "Read the whole thing," but then I think Instapundit could sue for copyright infringement.
Update: Michael Moore is a tubby bitch.
June 21
Cardio
Time: 0:50:00
2004 total: 96:12:00
Weights + Cardio: 107 Days (49 to go)
Sunday, June 20, 2004
Fellow Geeks: Start Your Salivating
Amazon.com is now hosting a four-minute trailer for the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD. (Found via theforce.net)
As disappointed as I am that the original theatrical versions will not be released, I know I'll buy the DVDs just the same. Damn you, George Lucas! I'll show you. Oh yeah, I'll buy your precious trilogy, but I'll scowl in protest the whole time. That'll learn ya.
Egad, I'm a dork.
Update: For you full-on multimedia geeks, Lucasarts has posted a video preview of Knights of the Old Republic II. (Also found via theforce.net)
At some point I'll write a review for KOTOR I; that is, as soon as it stops devouring my free time. The short version: With the exception of Metroid Prime, this is the BEST. GAME. EVER. I'm already drooling like a fanboy for part II.
As disappointed as I am that the original theatrical versions will not be released, I know I'll buy the DVDs just the same. Damn you, George Lucas! I'll show you. Oh yeah, I'll buy your precious trilogy, but I'll scowl in protest the whole time. That'll learn ya.
Egad, I'm a dork.
Update: For you full-on multimedia geeks, Lucasarts has posted a video preview of Knights of the Old Republic II. (Also found via theforce.net)
At some point I'll write a review for KOTOR I; that is, as soon as it stops devouring my free time. The short version: With the exception of Metroid Prime, this is the BEST. GAME. EVER. I'm already drooling like a fanboy for part II.
Friday, June 18, 2004
These are the kind of people we're fighting
Paul Johnson Beheaded
I, of course, can't speak for the rest of the nation, but my prayers go out to Johnson's family.
As to his murderers, all I can say is, you'll get yours yet, motherfuckers.
Update: Well, that didn't take long.
Update 2: Michele speaks volumes:
**snip**
I, of course, can't speak for the rest of the nation, but my prayers go out to Johnson's family.
As to his murderers, all I can say is, you'll get yours yet, motherfuckers.
Update: Well, that didn't take long.
Update 2: Michele speaks volumes:
**snip**
In an hour or so I might feel different. I might not. The residual anger over Nick Berg stayed with me a for a while. Each time something like this happens, the anger dissipates slower and leaves a shadow behind. How long before the shadow is all that's left?
I do not blame America. I do not blame George Bush. I blame people who have taken a religion and distorted, warped and molded it to fit their own homicidal, ugly needs. They have bloodlust. And that bloodlust has been handed down from father to son, and the resulting butchery of Islam is handed from mother to daughter and murder and justified barbarism goes on and on.
I do not blame Bush, just as I do not blame Clinton, Bush I or Carter. I do not blame America.
But that is what they want and by telling you that their cause in murdering Nick Berg and Paul Johnson, among many others, has anything to do with Iraq they are force feeding you the lie that America is to blame. Some of you are eating that crap up like it's a decadent dessert. Spit it out. It's poison. They want you to believe that they really care about Abu Ghraib. They don't. It's just an excuse to get you to hate yourself the way they hate you.
You should all be taking this very personally. Because it was personal. They would kill you just as swiftly as they killed Paul Johnson.
I know I am not rounding this corner alone. We're an angry mob, aren't we? And quite helpless, which makes us despair even more.
I'm going to repeat what I wrote yesterday and I'll repeat it every day if I feel it's needed:
Wake up, America. Just wake the hell up.
Thursday, June 17, 2004
Log
Had a great dinner, and a thoughtful conversation with a friend tonight. He's a Kerry man, but I don't hold that against him. If anything, I'd like to thank him for the civilized political discourse.
June 16
Cardio
Time: 0:55:00
June 17
Cardio
Time: 0:56:00
2004 total: 95:22:00
Weights + Cardio: 106 Days (50 to go)
June 16
Cardio
Time: 0:55:00
June 17
Cardio
Time: 0:56:00
2004 total: 95:22:00
Weights + Cardio: 106 Days (50 to go)
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
What a fool I've been
I've seen the light, and been swayed by reason. Found on the comments portion of a Yahoo news item:
1)It's really scary. The jingoism of the Bush admin has turned its constituency's brains to marshmallows.
Someone said the other day that I was being just as irrational, because I was trying to debate rationally, with irrational people. And the only way to beat back the First GOP Church of Mammon, Darwin and Fake Jesus, would be to beat them down with a stick.
I hope it doesn't come to this. But half of their constituency are Evangelical Christians, who believe in a magical rapture and many-headed beast that will chomp up the sinners. And polls show that 1/3 of these people believe that it will happen in their lifetime. So -- what can't they be fed?
I fear for this nation.
And:
2)stop asking the neocons to do anything human or intelligent! they can't explain, they only lie!
these things were born without souls or brains!
And:
3)I think it is becoming clearer and clearer. This war was initiated and demanded that instant it was by GWB for 1 reason and 1 reason only to distract the stupid public from THE REAL WORST TERROIST IN THE WORLD KEN LAY, GWB's BEST BUD!!!
KEN LAY DESTROYED FAR MORE AMERICAN LIVES THAN SADDAM EVER DID
I WOULD SET SADDAM FREE IF IT MEANT KEN LAY GETS PRISON FOR LIFE
How about:
4)the war for oil and PNAC is going to be long and difficult...
the greedy among them will need to confuse the public with misdirection
they will enlist Rush Limbaugh to be their speaker (those guards were just blowing off steam)
they will plant deception
they will railroad America with their bloodstained cashola
they will broadcast anything to support the lies
they are truly cursed as warmongers
they are to be ridiculed and slaughtered
they have no vocabulary except BAAAAAA
they are NeoCons
Or maybe:
5)If you are trying to convince someone on this board to listen to reason you ahve lost the battle. Most republicans(the ones who are not in the top 1% earning bracket) do not undertand logic and believe what they do out of a deep rooted psychological issue associated with manners, habits, religion, and addiction. They were raised to be republicans and do not think for themselves. You would find these forums much more entertaining if you just ignored them and talked amongst yourselves.
Lastly:
6no go back to your huge suv, drive down the road listening to rush, and go beat your wife, you sad sad man
I am not a Republican, but I still take umbrage at these comments. Allow me to rebut:
1)Mammon, Darwin, and the Fake Jesus? I see now what they mean by celebrating diversity. Obviously, anyone who is Evangelical Christian is obviously blind, and not living by their beliefs.
As opposed to Fundamentalist Muslims, who see the world with perfect clarity.
2)Saying the followers of a different ideology were born without souls or brains is a surefire way to sway opinion.
Keep it up! The more shrill you are, the more people you'll convert to your cause, I'm sure.
3)You actually said this. I mean, you actually typed this out with your own fingers, and attached your (likely bogus) name to this. Yeah, let Saddam go! If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then Saddam's your best buddy, isn't he. My God, I can't even muster enough sarcasm to properly mock a man who'd make sure a thief gets life just so a multiple (try six digits) murderer could go free. No, there's no irrational Bush hatred, here.
4)Bob Dylan, you're not. Retarded, you may be.
5)So if someone disagrees with you, they're not thinking for themselves. And if they blindly followed every tenet that comprises your belief system, then what? They'd be free thinkers?
Don't lecture me about logic. I've been using logic and inductive reasoning in my job since you were likely in grade school. Show me some, and maybe I'll listen.
Beeyotch.
6)Jesu Marimba, I wish stupidity was painful.
Let me spell it out for you. I did not abandon the Left. The Left abandoned me. I asked for a vision to keep America safe and prosperous in the face of a terrible danger, and all I get is shrill rhetoric about how stupid I am for not toeing the line.
You could've given me Lieberman, or Edwards. But, nnoooooo, first you had to try to shove Dean down my throat, and when that didn't take, you give me Captain Nuance.
Nuance is for tea parties, not wars. For that matter, nuance implies subtlety or a finely-tuned acuity for details, not the ability to say two contradictory things, and mean them both with such fervor that even Orwell himself would leap out of his grave, and flee, flee into the night weeping.
This hysterical blindness, this unwillingness to accept the world as it actually is, this living in a 9/10 world, is what drove me away.
And that is why I'm voting for Bush.
1)It's really scary. The jingoism of the Bush admin has turned its constituency's brains to marshmallows.
Someone said the other day that I was being just as irrational, because I was trying to debate rationally, with irrational people. And the only way to beat back the First GOP Church of Mammon, Darwin and Fake Jesus, would be to beat them down with a stick.
I hope it doesn't come to this. But half of their constituency are Evangelical Christians, who believe in a magical rapture and many-headed beast that will chomp up the sinners. And polls show that 1/3 of these people believe that it will happen in their lifetime. So -- what can't they be fed?
I fear for this nation.
And:
2)stop asking the neocons to do anything human or intelligent! they can't explain, they only lie!
these things were born without souls or brains!
And:
3)I think it is becoming clearer and clearer. This war was initiated and demanded that instant it was by GWB for 1 reason and 1 reason only to distract the stupid public from THE REAL WORST TERROIST IN THE WORLD KEN LAY, GWB's BEST BUD!!!
KEN LAY DESTROYED FAR MORE AMERICAN LIVES THAN SADDAM EVER DID
I WOULD SET SADDAM FREE IF IT MEANT KEN LAY GETS PRISON FOR LIFE
How about:
4)the war for oil and PNAC is going to be long and difficult...
the greedy among them will need to confuse the public with misdirection
they will enlist Rush Limbaugh to be their speaker (those guards were just blowing off steam)
they will plant deception
they will railroad America with their bloodstained cashola
they will broadcast anything to support the lies
they are truly cursed as warmongers
they are to be ridiculed and slaughtered
they have no vocabulary except BAAAAAA
they are NeoCons
Or maybe:
5)If you are trying to convince someone on this board to listen to reason you ahve lost the battle. Most republicans(the ones who are not in the top 1% earning bracket) do not undertand logic and believe what they do out of a deep rooted psychological issue associated with manners, habits, religion, and addiction. They were raised to be republicans and do not think for themselves. You would find these forums much more entertaining if you just ignored them and talked amongst yourselves.
Lastly:
6no go back to your huge suv, drive down the road listening to rush, and go beat your wife, you sad sad man
I am not a Republican, but I still take umbrage at these comments. Allow me to rebut:
1)Mammon, Darwin, and the Fake Jesus? I see now what they mean by celebrating diversity. Obviously, anyone who is Evangelical Christian is obviously blind, and not living by their beliefs.
As opposed to Fundamentalist Muslims, who see the world with perfect clarity.
2)Saying the followers of a different ideology were born without souls or brains is a surefire way to sway opinion.
Keep it up! The more shrill you are, the more people you'll convert to your cause, I'm sure.
3)You actually said this. I mean, you actually typed this out with your own fingers, and attached your (likely bogus) name to this. Yeah, let Saddam go! If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then Saddam's your best buddy, isn't he. My God, I can't even muster enough sarcasm to properly mock a man who'd make sure a thief gets life just so a multiple (try six digits) murderer could go free. No, there's no irrational Bush hatred, here.
4)Bob Dylan, you're not. Retarded, you may be.
5)So if someone disagrees with you, they're not thinking for themselves. And if they blindly followed every tenet that comprises your belief system, then what? They'd be free thinkers?
Don't lecture me about logic. I've been using logic and inductive reasoning in my job since you were likely in grade school. Show me some, and maybe I'll listen.
Beeyotch.
6)Jesu Marimba, I wish stupidity was painful.
Let me spell it out for you. I did not abandon the Left. The Left abandoned me. I asked for a vision to keep America safe and prosperous in the face of a terrible danger, and all I get is shrill rhetoric about how stupid I am for not toeing the line.
You could've given me Lieberman, or Edwards. But, nnoooooo, first you had to try to shove Dean down my throat, and when that didn't take, you give me Captain Nuance.
Nuance is for tea parties, not wars. For that matter, nuance implies subtlety or a finely-tuned acuity for details, not the ability to say two contradictory things, and mean them both with such fervor that even Orwell himself would leap out of his grave, and flee, flee into the night weeping.
This hysterical blindness, this unwillingness to accept the world as it actually is, this living in a 9/10 world, is what drove me away.
And that is why I'm voting for Bush.
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Verrrrryyy Innnnteresting
Found via Protein Wisdom: Bush Is a Lock
The article itself is so-so. Political prognostication is just about worthless. The truth is that no one knows yet how the election will work out. For every new-found post-9/11 hawk, there's an anybody but Bush pseudo protest voter. And having faith in Americans is OK, I suppose, but I'm still shocked to see how many Americans have pulled the wool over their own eyes, and bought into the everything's-going-to-Hell-in-a-handbasket meme.
FWIW (and it's not worth much), I think the elections going to be a squeaker. I'm voting for Bush, but if Kerry should win, I'd want him to win by a small, but decisive margin. Small enough that Kerry couln't possibly interpret his win as a mandate, yet decisive enough to avoid another election debacle. Of course, if Kerry wins, we'll have proved ourselves to be pansies worthy only of dhimmitude; but that's a battle for another day.
Back to the article. The article may be "meh," but the comments are highly entertaining. I was shocked to see so many comments from people like me, people whose worldview has been changed since 9/11. Look only at the mainstream media, and you'll get the impression that only Bushitler and his wacky NeoKKKon KKKabal are the only people that recognize we are at war. Of course, and as it should be, there are dissenting voices in the comments, along with the inevitable leftybot troll, and socialist Euro-trash.
Skim the article, dive in to the comments.
The article itself is so-so. Political prognostication is just about worthless. The truth is that no one knows yet how the election will work out. For every new-found post-9/11 hawk, there's an anybody but Bush pseudo protest voter. And having faith in Americans is OK, I suppose, but I'm still shocked to see how many Americans have pulled the wool over their own eyes, and bought into the everything's-going-to-Hell-in-a-handbasket meme.
FWIW (and it's not worth much), I think the elections going to be a squeaker. I'm voting for Bush, but if Kerry should win, I'd want him to win by a small, but decisive margin. Small enough that Kerry couln't possibly interpret his win as a mandate, yet decisive enough to avoid another election debacle. Of course, if Kerry wins, we'll have proved ourselves to be pansies worthy only of dhimmitude; but that's a battle for another day.
Back to the article. The article may be "meh," but the comments are highly entertaining. I was shocked to see so many comments from people like me, people whose worldview has been changed since 9/11. Look only at the mainstream media, and you'll get the impression that only Bushitler and his wacky NeoKKKon KKKabal are the only people that recognize we are at war. Of course, and as it should be, there are dissenting voices in the comments, along with the inevitable leftybot troll, and socialist Euro-trash.
Skim the article, dive in to the comments.
Monday, June 14, 2004
Tidbits
I had to remove the table comparing Ann Coulter to Michael Moore. It was messing up the rest of the page, and I'm not enough of an HTML guru to fix it.
Time to vent. How can I be on a prescription toothpaste ($10 for a teeny-tiny little tube), and still get a cavity? Or, to phrase my question another way, why does my dentist have to be so damned perceptive?
Worked all day in the yard, tearing out weeds, etc. I started mowing the lawn, then promptly ran out of gas. And, of course, there was no gas left in the gas can. So off to the gas station I go, all sweaty and stinky from lawn-care-interruptus. While we're at it, I spilled about a buck's worth of gas filling the gas can. More change in the pockets of the Saudi oil ticks just because I'm all thumbs today.
Current mood: slightly inept.
June 13
Cardio
Time: 1:05:00
2004 total:93:31:00
Weights+Cardio:104 Days (52 to go)
I had to remove the table comparing Ann Coulter to Michael Moore. It was messing up the rest of the page, and I'm not enough of an HTML guru to fix it.
Time to vent. How can I be on a prescription toothpaste ($10 for a teeny-tiny little tube), and still get a cavity? Or, to phrase my question another way, why does my dentist have to be so damned perceptive?
Worked all day in the yard, tearing out weeds, etc. I started mowing the lawn, then promptly ran out of gas. And, of course, there was no gas left in the gas can. So off to the gas station I go, all sweaty and stinky from lawn-care-interruptus. While we're at it, I spilled about a buck's worth of gas filling the gas can. More change in the pockets of the Saudi oil ticks just because I'm all thumbs today.
Current mood: slightly inept.
June 13
Cardio
Time: 1:05:00
2004 total:93:31:00
Weights+Cardio:104 Days (52 to go)
Friday, June 11, 2004
Must've missed this on the news
Found at Frank J's twisted playground:
I don't recall hearing ANY of these things from the national news media. Slanted coverage?
You be the judge.
PS: Thanks to Jeff at Tusk & Talon for the link to the post below. I'm reasonably certain my readership has doubled today; after all, I read it, and you read it. :)
Jun 11
Cardio
Time: 1:01:00
2004 total:92:26:00
Weights + Cardio: 103 Days (53 to go)
As I head off to Baghdad for the final weeks of my stay in Iraq, I wanted to say thanks to all of you who did not believe the media. They have done a very poor job of covering everything that has happened. I am sorry that I have not been able to visit all of you during my two week leave back home.
And just so you can rest at night knowing something is happening in Iraq that is noteworthy, I thought I would pass this on to you. This is the list of things that has happened in Iraq recently: (Please share it with your friends and compare it to the version that your paper is producing.)
* Over 400,000 kids have up-to-date immunizations.
* School attendance is up 80% from levels before the war.
* Over 1,500 schools have been renovated and rid of the weapons stored there so education can occur.
* The port of Uhm Qasar was renovated so grain can be off-loaded from ships faster.
* The country had its first 2 billion barrel export of oil in August.
* Over 4.5 million people have clean drinking water for the first time ever in Iraq.
* The country now receives 2 times the electrical power it did before the war.
* 100% of the hospitals are open and fully staffed, compared to 35% before the war.
* Elections are taking place in every major city, and city councils are in place.
* Sewer and water lines are installed in every major city.
* Over 60,000 police are patrolling the streets.
* Over 100,000 Iraqi civil defense police are securing the country.
* Over 80,000 Iraqi soldiers are patrolling the streets side by side with US soldiers.
* Over 400,000 people have telephones for the first time ever.
* Students are taught field sanitation and hand washing techniques to prevent the spread of germs.
* An interim constitution has been signed.
* Girls are allowed to attend school.
* Textbooks that don't mention Saddam are in the schools for the first time in 30 years.
Don't believe for one second that these people do not want us there. I have met many, many people from Iraq that want us there, and in a bad way. They say they will never see the freedoms we talk about but they hope their children will. We are doing a good job in Iraq and I challenge anyone, anywhere to dispute me on these facts. So If you happen to run into John Kerry, be sure to give him my email address and send him to Denison, Iowa. This soldier will set him straight. If you are like me and very disgusted with how this period of rebuilding has been portrayed, email this to a friend and let them know there are good things happening.
Ray Reynolds, SFC
Iowa Army National Guard
234th Signal Battalion
I don't recall hearing ANY of these things from the national news media. Slanted coverage?
You be the judge.
PS: Thanks to Jeff at Tusk & Talon for the link to the post below. I'm reasonably certain my readership has doubled today; after all, I read it, and you read it. :)
Jun 11
Cardio
Time: 1:01:00
2004 total:92:26:00
Weights + Cardio: 103 Days (53 to go)
Capitalism 101
While I was cleaning house yesterday, there was some talking head on TV, although I'll be darned if I can remember who. What stuck in my mind was what he said, which I'm paraphrasing below.
He said that there are more millionaires than ever before, that the median American income was now $42,000 per year, and that more people are making $100,000 per year than ever before. But what does that mean to The Workers? Nothing.
Now, before I thoroughly rebut his ass, consider the mindset that makes such a comment possible. To this unremembered politico, the labor force is made up of some faceless mass of slave-labor troglodytes, armies of Epsilons toiling in the darkness so that the Alphas and Betas can look pretty and party and screw.
I don't operate from that mindset. I guess I like to see the trees for the forest, because I regard people as individuals who choose their own path, for better or worse. Another postulate that frames my beliefs is the notion that economics is not a zero-sum game. In other words, it's not necessary for you to be poor in order for me to be rich. More on this later.
What do the figures referenced above mean to me? Well, for starters, it's not the old adage of the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. It's the rich getting richer, and some of the poor getting richer. It tells me that more people are choosing to live their potential, and are being paid what they're worth.
Jump back a minute; there's another fundamental postulate I need to mention. I believe that people end up exactly as wealthy as they choose to be. People, individual people, have the uncanny knack for producing wealth from nothingness. Consider this example from the magnificent Bill Whittle:
Here’s something even the dimmest hippy protester / poet should be able to wrap his mind around:
Get it? We create wealth by doing or thinking. Our labor has value, and our ideas have value. Therefore, the only limits to wealth are how much breath is in your body, and what portion of life you choose to invest in thinking or doing.
For instance: I take my prior knowledge base in Mathematics and teaching, and I think about how to arrange the information in a meaningful way, and then I present the information in as relevant and clear a manner as I can devise (ie, I do). For my thinking and doing, I am paid a salary on which I can live more comfortably than 70% of the rest of the
world. I am not paid for summers off, and rightfully so, as I'm not actually working. If I wish to, however, I can give more of my labor and make more money. And while it's not as fundamentally important to human civilization as the script to Weekend At Bernie's III, it's the same basic process. I synthesize food, air, water, prior experience, and occasional doses of tequila, and I create something. I too was able to avoid stealing from a dirt farmer in Angola.
Let me reiterate: the ONLY reason I'm not making more money is that I chose how much I was willing to work for it. Other people have chosen to do more, and they make more. How many actors or musicians toiled away in crap jobs by day, chasing their dreams by night, until that One Big Break?
Your labor is a commodity you control. You decide how much of it to produce, and by the effort you put in, you determine how much it's worth.
There is no secret capitalist cabal toasting their efforts to keep the common man down with vintage Dom Perignon and an evil chuckle. Sorry, folks. That's not how it works. The rich actually want everybody to be rich.
Stupid example, but it works. Wouldn't the Heinz family (as a completely random ferinstance) like it if everyone could afford afford Heinz ketchup instead of Hunt's or Del Monte, or whatever generic equivalent Aldi's sells? If I earn more, I spend more. If I spend more, then someone else is earning more. And so on. From thinking and doing, I make money. I spend money, and someone else makes money. The more money people are making and spending, the more the economy grows. The more the economy grows, the more money my labor is worth. The more money I earn, the more money I spend, and so on ad infinitum. Perpetual motion, baby.
One of the biggest lies the Left ever sold, is that rich people are inherently evil, and that we should all be equal in income. Well, screw that. Should I ever, God forbid, require the services of a brain surgeon, I sure as hell want him paid more than what my garbage man makes. I want Mr. or Ms. Hypothetical Brain Surgeon to be highly paid. That way, there's more at stake, and if they'd like to keep their mansion and the Jag, well then, they better damn well make sure they don't leave me an effing vegetable.
Let me put it another way: no upward mobility = no incentive to work. There is no incentive to build, create, or innovate, if you make just as much money as the guy whose sole job is to watch widgets fly by on the assembly line, or the guy who mops up the booths in an adult theater.
So, to sum up:
1) I don't need to steal from you to get rich. I only have to work hard. The value of my work is determined by my effort.
2) I am not trapped in some social underclass.
3) Instead of saying that there should be no rich people, why don't we decide to work hard, and get rich together?
Saying we should lift up The Workers, as some sort of bland generic mass, is doing a huge disservice to all of the individuals who make up the masses. What the talking head on TV was basically saying was "Redistribute the wealth." What horrifies me is how much traffic this sentiment has, especially with the people who stand to lose the most out of their hard-earned wealth. The very people who created something from nothing.
He said that there are more millionaires than ever before, that the median American income was now $42,000 per year, and that more people are making $100,000 per year than ever before. But what does that mean to The Workers? Nothing.
Now, before I thoroughly rebut his ass, consider the mindset that makes such a comment possible. To this unremembered politico, the labor force is made up of some faceless mass of slave-labor troglodytes, armies of Epsilons toiling in the darkness so that the Alphas and Betas can look pretty and party and screw.
I don't operate from that mindset. I guess I like to see the trees for the forest, because I regard people as individuals who choose their own path, for better or worse. Another postulate that frames my beliefs is the notion that economics is not a zero-sum game. In other words, it's not necessary for you to be poor in order for me to be rich. More on this later.
What do the figures referenced above mean to me? Well, for starters, it's not the old adage of the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. It's the rich getting richer, and some of the poor getting richer. It tells me that more people are choosing to live their potential, and are being paid what they're worth.
Jump back a minute; there's another fundamental postulate I need to mention. I believe that people end up exactly as wealthy as they choose to be. People, individual people, have the uncanny knack for producing wealth from nothingness. Consider this example from the magnificent Bill Whittle:
Here’s something even the dimmest hippy protester / poet should be able to wrap his mind around:
You buy a legal pad: $1.29
You steal a Bic pen from the counter at Kinko’s: free.
You write the script for Weekend at Bernies 3: Bernie’s Revenge!: free.
You hire someone to type it: $30.00
You have Kinko’s print 5 copies: $62.20
You mail the 5 copies: $7.82
5 idiots in Hollywood love the idea: free
They enter a bidding war: free
You get a check for: one…million…dollars!
So let’s see…that $1,000,000, minus the $101.30 in expenses…uh…that means…You, the village idiot, have just raised the Gross Domestic Product by, uh, one million freaking dollars, and have made a personal profit of $999,898 dollars and 69 cents.
Where did the $999,898.69 come from? It came from thin air! You created it, out of nothing. You added value to the stock of paper and ink you started with. From the monumental talent you posses, the gift of intellect, the pen that made Shakespeare weep with envy, you have created WB3. You’ve given millions of people two hours of side-splitting hilarity, for which they will part with $8.00…and you have created wealth. What’s more, when you go and blow it all on the pointless material crap that makes life so much fun, you’ll be bringing in a little extra for the Sea-Doo distributor, the BMW dealer, the girls at Cheetahs in Las Vegas, and all the others. Not to mention putting – I dunno – maybe half a million freaking dollars into welfare, Social Security, Medicare, the National Endowment for the Arts and the world’s first fusion-powered, laser-armed, flying stealth submarine, the USS George W. Bush.
You did not have to steal $999,898.69 from a farmer in Angola.
Get it? We create wealth by doing or thinking. Our labor has value, and our ideas have value. Therefore, the only limits to wealth are how much breath is in your body, and what portion of life you choose to invest in thinking or doing.
For instance: I take my prior knowledge base in Mathematics and teaching, and I think about how to arrange the information in a meaningful way, and then I present the information in as relevant and clear a manner as I can devise (ie, I do). For my thinking and doing, I am paid a salary on which I can live more comfortably than 70% of the rest of the
world. I am not paid for summers off, and rightfully so, as I'm not actually working. If I wish to, however, I can give more of my labor and make more money. And while it's not as fundamentally important to human civilization as the script to Weekend At Bernie's III, it's the same basic process. I synthesize food, air, water, prior experience, and occasional doses of tequila, and I create something. I too was able to avoid stealing from a dirt farmer in Angola.
Let me reiterate: the ONLY reason I'm not making more money is that I chose how much I was willing to work for it. Other people have chosen to do more, and they make more. How many actors or musicians toiled away in crap jobs by day, chasing their dreams by night, until that One Big Break?
Your labor is a commodity you control. You decide how much of it to produce, and by the effort you put in, you determine how much it's worth.
There is no secret capitalist cabal toasting their efforts to keep the common man down with vintage Dom Perignon and an evil chuckle. Sorry, folks. That's not how it works. The rich actually want everybody to be rich.
Stupid example, but it works. Wouldn't the Heinz family (as a completely random ferinstance) like it if everyone could afford afford Heinz ketchup instead of Hunt's or Del Monte, or whatever generic equivalent Aldi's sells? If I earn more, I spend more. If I spend more, then someone else is earning more. And so on. From thinking and doing, I make money. I spend money, and someone else makes money. The more money people are making and spending, the more the economy grows. The more the economy grows, the more money my labor is worth. The more money I earn, the more money I spend, and so on ad infinitum. Perpetual motion, baby.
One of the biggest lies the Left ever sold, is that rich people are inherently evil, and that we should all be equal in income. Well, screw that. Should I ever, God forbid, require the services of a brain surgeon, I sure as hell want him paid more than what my garbage man makes. I want Mr. or Ms. Hypothetical Brain Surgeon to be highly paid. That way, there's more at stake, and if they'd like to keep their mansion and the Jag, well then, they better damn well make sure they don't leave me an effing vegetable.
Let me put it another way: no upward mobility = no incentive to work. There is no incentive to build, create, or innovate, if you make just as much money as the guy whose sole job is to watch widgets fly by on the assembly line, or the guy who mops up the booths in an adult theater.
So, to sum up:
1) I don't need to steal from you to get rich. I only have to work hard. The value of my work is determined by my effort.
2) I am not trapped in some social underclass.
3) Instead of saying that there should be no rich people, why don't we decide to work hard, and get rich together?
Saying we should lift up The Workers, as some sort of bland generic mass, is doing a huge disservice to all of the individuals who make up the masses. What the talking head on TV was basically saying was "Redistribute the wealth." What horrifies me is how much traffic this sentiment has, especially with the people who stand to lose the most out of their hard-earned wealth. The very people who created something from nothing.
Thursday, June 10, 2004
I want my MTV...to go straight to Hell!
I just got done watching the MTV Movie Awards, and aside from being the usual crass and tacky promote-a-thon it usually is, I was also saddened by their lack of pretense regarding Hollywood's political darling.
No, I'm not talking about Jack Black wearing his "Vote Kerry" t-shirt, or Sean Astin's outfit festooned with Kerry stickers. That's called free speech. Although I am disappointed with young Mr. Astin, as he is someone who should recognize that some things are worth going to war for, considering how he's spent the last three years of his life.
That's not it.
Halting the show to give Michael Moore time to plug Fahrenheit 9/11, and a chance to insinuate that Bush is afraid of this movie, is what angered me. (And judging by a quick survey of the MTV.com message boards, I'm not the only one.) Even CBS makes a small effort at the pretense of objectivity, despite the fact that no one's buying it. (via the almighty Instapundit)
I don't need to tell you that MTV is where most teens and 'tweens get their marching orders. Anything on the network gets the automatic "cool" stamp of approval. Although MTV is not a news network, Viacom has a responsibility to ensure that its subsidiaries do not become tools of any one political viewpoint, especially with regard to MTV, and its enormous power to shape cultural attitudes.
All I want is for kids to be able to make up their own g*****n minds; and I truly think, given equal time to all sides of the debate, more than a few kids would reach the same conclusions I have. More than likely, a lot would disagree with me as well. I wouldn't have it any other way.
No, I'm not talking about Jack Black wearing his "Vote Kerry" t-shirt, or Sean Astin's outfit festooned with Kerry stickers. That's called free speech. Although I am disappointed with young Mr. Astin, as he is someone who should recognize that some things are worth going to war for, considering how he's spent the last three years of his life.
That's not it.
Halting the show to give Michael Moore time to plug Fahrenheit 9/11, and a chance to insinuate that Bush is afraid of this movie, is what angered me. (And judging by a quick survey of the MTV.com message boards, I'm not the only one.) Even CBS makes a small effort at the pretense of objectivity, despite the fact that no one's buying it. (via the almighty Instapundit)
I don't need to tell you that MTV is where most teens and 'tweens get their marching orders. Anything on the network gets the automatic "cool" stamp of approval. Although MTV is not a news network, Viacom has a responsibility to ensure that its subsidiaries do not become tools of any one political viewpoint, especially with regard to MTV, and its enormous power to shape cultural attitudes.
All I want is for kids to be able to make up their own g*****n minds; and I truly think, given equal time to all sides of the debate, more than a few kids would reach the same conclusions I have. More than likely, a lot would disagree with me as well. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Attn: CBS News
Could you at least wait until the man is in the ground before you start going on and on about how bad he was for America?
Thanks much.
Assholes.
June 7
Cardio
Time: 0:50:00
2004 Total: 91:25:00
Weights + Cardio: 102 Days (54 to go)
Thanks much.
Assholes.
June 7
Cardio
Time: 0:50:00
2004 Total: 91:25:00
Weights + Cardio: 102 Days (54 to go)
Sunday, June 06, 2004
No doubt the leftybots are all abuzz
I don't have the stamina to look about the greater blogosphere today; there's just not enough in the tank to work up a really good case of righteous indignation. Maybe tomorrow I'll hit DU and find something really infuriating about President Reagan, or about D-Day, and work myself into a good lather, but not today.
It's been a day. Let's just say that the more members of my family that are gathered in the same place at the same time, the less I want to be there. And they were all there today.
It's been a day. Let's just say that the more members of my family that are gathered in the same place at the same time, the less I want to be there. And they were all there today.
Thursday, June 03, 2004
Congratulations
to the proprietors of Random Mentality, Tusk & Talon, IA Porkforest, And Cornfield Commentary for being mentioned in the IC Press Citizen (I think it was anyway).
All three of these blogs deliver insightful opinion with style to spare. You can find links to them via Iowa Libertarian (see my link bar). I may not always agree with them, but I do always enjoy reading them.
Well done, gentlemen and lady. Now, if only Cedar Pundit comes back...
All three of these blogs deliver insightful opinion with style to spare. You can find links to them via Iowa Libertarian (see my link bar). I may not always agree with them, but I do always enjoy reading them.
Well done, gentlemen and lady. Now, if only Cedar Pundit comes back...
Summer, summer, summer, summertime
Only 80 odd days 'til the madness begins anew. Actually, I think I'll be ready (read: bored to tears by late August).
The hardest part for me is the lack of structure during the summer. During the school year, everything I do is at a specific time, and for a specific amount of time. Summer vacation forces me to structure my own time.
Still, I've got a list a mile long of things to do this summer. Between working part time writing curriculum, exercising, taming the savage yard, and Knights of the Old Republic, I should be able to keep myself busy.
The hardest part for me is the lack of structure during the summer. During the school year, everything I do is at a specific time, and for a specific amount of time. Summer vacation forces me to structure my own time.
Still, I've got a list a mile long of things to do this summer. Between working part time writing curriculum, exercising, taming the savage yard, and Knights of the Old Republic, I should be able to keep myself busy.
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
My vote for best guitar solo of all time
Time, by Pink Floyd. Technically brilliant, and it fits well into the rest of the song.
Other thoughts are appreciated.
June 2
Cardio
Time: 0:55:00
2004 total: 90:35:00
Weights + Cardio:101 Days (55 to go)
Other thoughts are appreciated.
June 2
Cardio
Time: 0:55:00
2004 total: 90:35:00
Weights + Cardio:101 Days (55 to go)
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
