Cranky-D

On twitter, someone pointed to this speech (youtube) by Ronald Reagan, made in 1964 during the Goldwater campaign. If you have the half-hour to spend, I strongly suggest that you watch it. It’s amazing how similar the problems back then are to the problems we still have today.

BTW, I don’t know if any of you watched Obama’s state of the union speech, but the Reagan speech reminds one how well a good public speaker can do. I hope we can find someone half as good soon, because we need that person to lead the small government fiscal conservatives to victory.

Go here to read about the Religion of Humanity and Obama’s place in it. Also, another good read here on the aims of progressives.

When I read the first article, I was reminded of the Star Trek - The Original Series episode “Return to Tomorrow.” In it, Sargon said something like, “Our minds had become so powerful, we dared think of ourselves as gods.” The minds of humans are not even close to being powerful, but so many think they know what’s best for so many others. It is quite frightening at times, but since they are apparently incredibly inept, their threat has been diminished for a time. Once one of them realizes that a gradual transformation is the only way to make it work, their successes will be more frequent, and they will eventually get their dystopia, all the while pretending it is actually utopia.

Links are from here

Another good read from Charles Krauthammer, another favorite political writer of mine. He is also a regular on the FauxNewz panel discussion on weekday afternoons. The only thing I have ever disagreed with him on is that he thinks private ownership of guns should be illegal. Even the best of us have blind spots.

I just saw the movie “New Moon” at the local cheapo theater down the street. I was curious about what the teenage kids like these days.

Wow. Just wow. That movie dragged like you wouldn’t believe. They could have cut 30 minutes out and not done it any damage. The only reason I can think to give it so much space is to give the little girls time to get done crying before the next plot point scene takes place. And the protagonist wallowed so much in her misery it was damn annoying at times. Sure, she had a reason to be upset, but she seemed to relish it.

Every young male in her life seemed tough but still sensitive. Her father was a doddering idiot at times. And we have 100 year old vampires going to high school for frel’s sake. Jeebus. I wouldn’t be going to high school. I’d be dressing up in period clothing from 200 years ago and wallowing in decadence and killing humans and stuff like that. I mean, if you’re going to hell already, why worry?

It could have been a lot better with some editing. The story was quite predictable, but it had some good action scenes. More of that would have been welcome. It really wasn’t as bad as it could have been, I guess, and it was pretty much what I expected, except too gosh darn long. Rent it if you’re curious.

That was such a chick flick, I think I just ovulated.

Mark Steyn is a favorite political writer of mine. Go here to read one of his latest pieces.

I watched/listened to the State of the Union address last night while participating in the live blog of the event at Ace of Spades HQ. I have never heard so many lies at once since, well, the last time I listened to one of our President’s speeches while live-blogging (or participating on twitter, I don’t remember which) the event. If you want a basic recap, the President did not “pivot” as so many pundits thought he would. Instead, he doubled down. He is not giving up on any of his policies despite the fact that they are not only overwhelmingly opposed by the public but that they will also damage the economy in a time that it cannot take many more hits.

Health care reform is still in play, as are Cap and Trade, at least in his mind (I don’t know how he’s going to get the legislature to go along with him, as most of them want to be re-elected). His solution to the problem of employment is a “jobs bill” which sounds a heck of a lot like another stimulus bill. We all know how well the last one worked out.

My favorite lies, because I agree that they are good ideas, are the claims that he wants more nuclear power and that he wants to drill for oil here in the U.S. Of course, no one is supposed to believe him. A few of the most blatant lies include the claim that he has cut taxes for 95% of Americans. I don’t remember any tax cuts, but I do recall some tax increases and proposals for more of them. However, one stupid big lie which might get talked about a bit is the part that the recent Supreme Court ruling that businesses cannot be kept from making campaign ads (which I think is a good ruling) somehow makes it legal for foreign corporations to participate in U.S. politics. That is flatly not true. The big story will be, however, that one could see Justice Alito mouth “not true” after the President said that.

The speech was his grand attempt to appear to be a populist while continuing his leftist ideology. He continued to blame Bush for his troubles, because of course he is not responsible for anything that goes wrong. He said he wants everyone to “come together” while making one of the most partisan speeches he has ever made. He berated Republicans for not compromising their principles. Overall he again proved that as Narcissist-in-Chief, he is the most divisive force in politics in this country. However, I expect him to continue to kid himself that he has now spoken the magic words that will bring us all together and let the healing begin.

If he keeps this up, he’s in for a rude awakening come November.

There is an interesting article here that states that some people cannot distinguish between a major and minor triad when they are played in succession. That just boggles my mind because the difference is so blindingly (or deafeningly) obvious to me. It was a little harder to pick out the difference when it was done in the midst of a chord progression, but I can hear it. I can also usually tell whether the key of a song is major or minor as well, though I can’t explain how I know it.

I wonder how people who can’t tell the difference manage to enjoy music. I guess they don’t hear it the way I do.

Here is a really good article about what is happening in the Chicago “inner city” which is my way of saying what it’s like to grow up and live in gang territory, and what is being done about it. Short answer: not a heck of a lot that will work.

In my open tabs I found another article on the subject.

The problem is one of absent fathers. A boy needs a man in his life to teach him how to be a man. Without that, it is much more likely he will grow up completely undisciplined. I’m not saying it will always be that way, but more often than not it will be.

How do you change a culture that accepts absent fathers as a norm? That sort of thing used to be kept under control by societal pressure. However, in our “no guilt” and “no shame” culture, people do what they want and no one tries to intervene and you get this mess which does not seem to have an end of any kind. We really need some guilt again, and shame. People who cannot feel guilty about doing the wrong thing will do the wrong thing way too often.

The whole thing is a disaster and I see no way out. It’s a sad, sick waste of lives. We as a country would be so much better if it was not happening. We are all Americans, and those who suffer living in that kind of sub-culture are no less American than I am. But how do you impart principles of personal responsibility to a child when no one around him demonstrates any such principles?

As part of the reward when we got the contract, the boss sent me a bad-ass 30 in monitor. Well, now that I’m funemployed he either wants me to send it back or pay for it. Of course, he broke his “word” which is effectually meaningless when he said he’d give me two months notice of my termination (though he gave me one month notice which is more than legally or “morally” required). He has decided that he will charge me the market price which is probably what people want to charge for them, not what people actually pay for them. I figure that if I pay about $600 for it then I’m not making a huge mistake. That will be my offer, and otherwise he can tell me how he wants it shipped back.

Perhaps I should just have him have a shipper come and get it.

Update: He wants $1200 for it. I told him I would have to wait and see if I can find work first.

Yay! I’m now funemployed! I’ve heard it’s all the rage these days. I have a lot more time to play video games and go to the gym and stuff like that.

Society, take heed, I may be about to become a burden on you. Or not.

Another way of putting it is that this recession has become a depression since now I’m one of the ones out of work.

Please quit calling me. Seriously, stop it. It’s pretty much over between us.

No, I don’t have any money to give you. I gave money to the campaign of Sarah Palin and that old guy (who I really did not like at all) who was running with her. I really couldn’t afford it, but I really can’t afford what the current president and congress is doing, so it was a trade-off. As long as you continue to back candidates who are not fiscal conservatives, 2nd amendment supporters, and supporters of the war on Islamo-fascism, I really have nothing to say to you either.

If I give any money, it will be to individual campaigns, not to the party. Just like last time. And I certainly didn’t provide my phone number to the Palin (and that old guy) campaign so you could harass me. I’m a little disappointed that they even gave you my number, but then again, I’m disappointed with the way the campaign was run by the old guy.

Find someone else to stalk. I’m done with you.

Go here for an article on the Harry Reid dust-up and how one might interpret it.

Read here for a take on the current and coming soft despotism that is America. A sample:

Democratic despotism, Tocqueville points out, is unlike despotisms of old. It pre- fers the carrot to the stick. The goal of the operation is the same—the achievement of conformity and the consolidation of power—but the means of choice is not terror but dependence. Accordingly, Tocqueville writes, democratic despotism is despotic at one remove. It does not, unless stymied, terrorize. Rather, it “hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd.”

By the way, both parties are guilty of this kind of thing, but the Democrats have really ramped it up lately. If the government didn’t have so much power and money, they couldn’t get away with the bribery necessary to make this kind of legislation happen.

On Christmas Eve, the federal government lifted the $400 billion cap on money given to Freddie Mac and Fannie May (see here for details). They can now continue to make bad loans as the government continues to direct them to do.

And this was all done under the cover of a holiday. Most transparent administration ever!!

His take is here.

I had a flight four days after the incident, and security procedures had not changed, and least for domestic flights. However, anyone who wasn’t trying to bend over backwards to not “profile” would have had the guy in custody toot sweet.

Here. Share and enjoy.

There is an online article referencing a paper here which would put the AGW via CO2 theory to rest if anyone involved actually cared about science. Basically, the AGW theory violates the first and second laws of thermodynamics. It actually requires heat to flow from a colder region to a hotter region. If I had known this sooner, I would have said something. Heat can only flow from a higher temperature region (or body) to a lower temperature region (0r body).

So, AGW theory basically violates our current understanding on how the universe works.

SCIENCE!!

Go here for all five parts.

A quote I pulled (hopefully correctly):

“… We are not interested in reforming the left. We’re not interested in compromising with the left. We’re not interested in understanding the left. We’re interested in replacing the left.”

Good stuff. If you don’t have the time to watch it all, watch parts 5, then 4.

I’ve tried to understand them, and I think I do. I understand that they make all their decisions from emotion rather than reason. I can’t think of a single idea they have had that is worth “trying again, and maybe this time we’ll get it right.”

More:

“… The country believes increasingly that the stimulus is just a waste of money, and just politician payoff. … We’re going to have a big fight over the economy starting in January. They’re going to try to ramp through another stimulus. ‘Cause they don’t know anything else. These are people of stunningly limited capacity. They get up every morning, they know the answer is government, they just don’t know what the question is yet.”

No compromise. No surrender.

One more quote, which is very necessary, and is Newt paraphrasing Orwell:

If you cannot describe something accurately, you cannot think about it. And you can always tell when you have bad policy because you cannot use language clearly to explain it.

I found the full text of Orwell’s essay to which Newt was referring here.

BTW, I have a new mantra which I’m working on. “Principles, not values.” It fits nicely on a bumper sticker, and I think it might have legs. I should do a workup for cafe press, maybe. It should work on shirts as well.

You can find some links for some of the best of commentator Charles Krauthammer (from things he has written for The Weekly Standard)here.

He is one of my favorite political commentators. I don’t agree with him all the time, but I know that he has given some thought to his positions.

Here. Go read if you’re interested in another take-down of the results that have appeared after those emails were released.

If you go here you can see a breakdown of the timeline of some of those emails. The story they tell looks pretty damaging to me.

This instance of apparent deception by “scientists” damages all science. One scientist needs to be able to trust the results of others completely, because science cannot advance through the efforts of just one person or group of people. And if someone along the way is lying, it sets the entire thing back because someone has to go back and re-do everything.

Why people cannot simply tell the truth, whether it damages their theory or not, is beyond me.