Timeline of Rick Sanchez 10/22 lie.

October 22, one of the topics discussed on Rick Sanchez' portion of CNN Newsroom was the limiting of executive pay and bonuses for those seven companies that have not paid back their bailout money.

I began with two tweets to Rick.

2:04 PM "@ricksanchezcnn. Since Congress & the White House rely on taxpayer $ to stay afloat, shouldn't they take a 90% pay cut too?"

2:09 PM "@ricksanchezcnn How many of those 7 firms have already TRIED to pay the taxpayers back but were NOT ALLOWED TO DO SO by Obama?"

These are CLEARLY pro-CEO-bonuses (actually, pro-sanctity-of-contract).

I don't have an exact time for Rick's comments, because I can't find a YouTube video of the show, but I do know Rick's first comment relevant to this came after my second tweet and before my third.

According to the show transcript:

SANCHEZ: Welcome back. I'm Rick Sanchez.Boy, you guys are -- we call this a national conversation and let me tell you something. The nation is conversing
and all of you to a man and to a woman seem to be angry at these big Wall Street fat cats.

I knew this was clearly a lie, considering I myself had tweeted twice taking the side Rick claimed nobody was taking. I didn't have access to Twitter at the time (cheap cellphone; can't surf the net with it) but I could surmise that I surely wasn't the only one, either.

2:16 PM "@ricksanchezcnn just outright lied, said ALL his Twitterers 'TO A MAN' were angry abt corp bonuses."

I honestly thought Rick would take this opportunity to go back and correct his error. He didn't.

(I'm fairly certain this Sanchez quote came after my 2:16 tweet but before my 2:28 one.)

SANCHEZ: By the way, I'm still waiting.

Welcome back. I'm Rick Sanchez here in the world headquarters of CNN.

I'm still waiting for one person to Twitter me since this show began -- maybe it will be you -- Twitter me if you believe that the Wall Street bankers should get their bonuses, because I swear, I have yet to get one person who's backing the bankers on this thing. I have never seen a situation where it's quite so one-sided.

In fact, look. Look at this one that we got just a little while ago during the break. It's another one. And it seems to say the same thing. "Look, if you get government money, all deals are off. No big paycheck until you pay off the debt." That seems to be what everybody is saying.

I would be interested. Again, if you're out there and you believe that the bankers should be getting their bonuses, send me a tweet. I would like to hear what you have to say. Maybe you can even things up. Oh, I doubt it.

I sent another.

2:28 PM "@ricksanchezcnn The CEOs should be paid what they're owed. Dodd, at Obama's urging, put in the loopholes that demanded it, remember?"

SANCHEZ: Let me share a couple more on the Twitter page, if we possibly can. There you go. "What the bankers should be getting is a nice kick in their rear end."

And underneath that: "You're nuts. No one's going to fight for these bankers." There you go. If you're serious, I'm serious. Let me know. If you think that you can explain a cogent reason why these bankers should get their money, send me a tweet and we will put it on right away.

2:46 PM "@ricksanchezcnn Ppl who get welfare still have to honor their contracts. So why shouldn't bailout corps have to honor their contracts to CEOs?"

and finally

2:51 PM "@ricksanchezcnn Out of the last 50 years, how many years has the US gone further in the red? Where's THEIR [i.e. the govt] 90% pay cut?"

Rick didn't put any of them on. Which means "we will put it on right away" is ALSO a lie. He did manage to put an @MikeBates tweet on, so I know it wasn't a case of getting lazy late in the show and not putting on any new tweets, which sometimes happens.

It's not a situation where Rick didn't see my Tweets. He has, on several occasions, had no problem finding my tweets and putting them on the air.

Spin is one thing; we are talking about bald-faced lying. He deliberately, blatantly lied. And I called him out on it.

I watched yesterday, to see if he might, just MIGHT grow a little integrity and admit that he lied (he sure had no problem calling out FOX for what he perceived as a lie, now did he?) or at least retract the claim that his Tweeters TO A MAN AND TO A WOMAN were angry about the bonuses.

But he didn't.

And because of that, I will no longer watch his show.

And I'm in the process of composing an email to CNN explaining WHY I will no longer watch his show.

Participation implies endorsement, and I do not endorse his lying. I will no longer loan him my legitimacy by participating in his little charade.

@RagnrDannskjold

Squidgy.

You know that commercial where the little girl takes what she calls "happy words" out of reviews of Microsoft 7 and makes them the dialogue for cartoons?

Well, I'm at the store yesterday and I was forced to buy a package of Jaffa cakes, a product of Jacob's Biscuits, a subsidiary of Jacob Fruitfield Foods Limited, for absolutely no other reason than it had the following happy words on the box.

Picking up black walnuts to Bring Down THE MAN!

(WARNING: This post is Not Safe For Work if you're Al Gore.)

Yay! Hooray for me! I'm done with walnuts for the year! After probably ten hours of work, I cashed in my walnuts today, and received as a reward for my work a grand total of $6.57.

That wouldn't be much, if the story stopped there, but it doesn't.

I took my walnut money and bought two of the little pull-chain light socket adapter thingies that let you turn off a light bulb without flipping the power switch.

I put them in the bathroom, so now I can burn only one bulb when I need only one bulb, which is the vast majority of the times I'm in there. The only time I really need to burn all three is when I'm shaving. With the pullchains, I can turn on the two over the mirror at the sink if I need them, and turn them back off when I'm done. Previously, with all three running off the same switch, it was all or none.

Awhile ago, I had already switched out the 60-watt incandescent bulbs for 23-watt CFLs, so now instead of running 180 watts whenever I went into the bathroom, I'm only running 23 watts, less than 13% of what I WAS using.

(Pause here while Al Gore needs a moment of "alone time.")

I may ... MAY ... switch out the one bulb for a 10-watter from the kitchen. That'd be a 94+% energy savings.

(Pause here for Al Gore again.)

If I wasn't effectively trading walnuts (which are of no real use to me) for the adapters, I don't know how long it'd take for them to pay for themselves, but I don't think an estimate of "years" is all that unreasonable. So I don't know how cost-effective this is for real-live, actual humans. But once they save enough to pay for the three bucks or so per adapter, everything else will be just gravy.

(Now someone please get Al Gore a baby wipe!)

P.S. The less electricity you use, the less money you're paying the utilities in rates, and thus the less money you're paying the government in sales taxes. Just one little way to help Starve The Beast.

(Now Ron Paul needs a baby wipe too!)

Now, just to review -- Yay! Hooray for me!

As long as we're on Michael Moore...

... his little pie analogy is just stupid. But, for the sake of argument, assume it's not stupid.

Speaking on inequality and lack of access to good loan conditions and livelihood for the vast majority, Moore stated “There's the larger crime, though, of course, of how the pie is divided in this country. And the fact that one guy can come to the table and take nine slices of that pie and leave one slice for everyone else at the table to fight over, that is criminal.

He does not consider the possibility that that one person bought the ingredients for the pie, supplied the stove, and hired a baker to make the pie. If it's your pie, you get to decide how it's divvied up, right?

Nor does he consider the fact that over the years, that person has "grown the pie" and improved the ingredients, so that the "crumbs" are now larger, better-tasting and more healthy than entire pies were as recently as a half-century ago.

This is "The Most Trusted Name In News"?

From CNN Newsroom (keep that "News" part in mind; it's important later) ometime last week,emphasis mine:

Michael Moore: And when you and I went to college, we didn't have to go to a private bank to take out a loan that would have us in hock for the next 20
years, a loan that would eventually have us paying $500,000 to the bank just so
we could go to college. When we went to college, there was a sign on a door that
said "Financial Aid Office," and you went in there and you got a grant or a
scholarship, work study, you might have to work in the library 10 hours a week,
you know, maybe a low-interest loan, like a one or two percent, pay it back when
you can to the college. I mean, that's the way it worked. People got to go to
school and you weren't in debt. Our 22-year-olds now, when they leave college,
they are socked with so much credit card debt because, of course, the credit
cards are all over the campus encouraging kids to sign up for these things. And
they're in student loan debt. The noose is already around their neck, and they
don't really maybe get to go and explore their dreams, or work the jobs that
they would like to work, because they have to get to work right away at any job
they can get because they have to start paying off these loans and these credit
cards. It wasn't that way 30 years ago.But this beast, this beast call
capitalism, just got so out of control and it just said, you know, I'm going to
gobble up whatever I can gobble up. And it's an insatiable beast. You can never
stop it. And even when it's exposed for being a corrupt system, like it was in
this last year, it just moves on to the next thing to suck money out of.

Rick Sanchez: Well, then why is it -- you know, it's funny, because I don't
think anybody who just listened to you say that, whether they are on the right
or on the left, Republican, Libertarian, whatever the heck they call themselves,
are going to disagree with what you said, but yet when we watch protests, all we hear people say is give more power to the corporations and take it away from the government. How have they been able to pull what appears to be a snow job off?

What's wrong with that, you ask? Well, first, on it's website, CNN lists Sanchez under the "Anchors & Reporters" heading, not "Commentators." An anchor/reporter ought to be sticking to the facts, not presenting personal opinions as if they WERE facts.

Second, it's flat-out wrong. I disagree with what Moore said. Capitalism has built this country into the strongest, freest, most prosperous country in the world. And under capitalism, while the rich got richer, the poor and middle class got richer too. Today's middle class have it better than the rich did even fifty years ago. And this country's poor have it better than a lot of countries' rich.

I used to think MSNBC was the most insidious, with their far-left agenda. But while MSNBC claims to get you the real story, it's with a little wink; you KNOW what you're getting when you tune into MSNBC. But what CNN does is try to pass off agenda-driven opinion/commentary as objective, fact-based news. And that's just dishonest.

Barack Obama's THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER

Once upon a time in the heartland of America, an ant and a grasshopper were discussing the future on a bright spring day.

"I'm going to gather a little extra food each day and store it away for the winter," the ant said. "That way I'll have enough to last until next March, when the grass and seeds will start growing again."

"Oh, that's too hard!" exclaimed the grasshopper. "Besides, there's time to do that later. I'm going to take some time off to enjoy the summer and have some fun!"

So every day, the ant would work hard gathering food, carrying it past the grasshopper, who played his fiddle and paused only long enough to smirk or laugh at the ant.

"You work too hard!" he observed. "Who do you think you are?"

The ant answered "I'm someone who intends to survive another year!" and kept on going.

This continued all summer and into the fall.

Little by little, the food became scarcer and harder to find.

The ant didn't worry; if he didn't find enough food in a day, he would take a small amount out of storage to fill his plate. With careful rationing, he'd still have plenty to last until spring.

But the grasshopper grew hungrier and hungrier and became resentful of the ant.

"Who does that greedy little ant think he is, hoarding all the food?" he muttered to himself. "He thinks he's too good to share with those less fortunate than him!"

When the grasshopper's appetite grew too voracious to control, he petitioned the Deer Leader, a tall, lanky creature with protruding ears, whose job it was to make all the decisions the woodland creatures had to live by.

"Look at all the food that greedy ant has, Deer Leader, and I don't have ANY! If I don't get something to eat, I'll be dead by November! It's not fair!" he implored.

So Deer Leader paid a visit to the ant.

"It's not fair that you have so much, ant," he said, "while the grasshopper has so little."

The ant cried, "But I worked hard for every piece of food that I have! If you take it, all that work will have been for nothing!"

Deer Leader snorted derisively, "Then maybe you shouldn't have worked so hard!"

Angered, the ant asked "And why is it that the grasshopper had NO responsibility to work HARDER, instead of playing his fiddle all summer?"

Deer Leader snorted again, "What an insensitive question!"

Deer Leader seized half the ant's food and took it to the grasshopper.

"Here, grasshopper," he said as he dropped the food on the grasshopper's doorstep. "When the rich, greedy ants won't share, remember that Deer Leader will take care of you, because I CARE."

The leaves fell, and soon the snow did too.

As December faded into January, the ant, who had gathered enough food to last until March, and the grasshopper, who hadn't even gathered enough to last through November, starved to death, dying in fact on the same day.

And Deer Leader laughed and laughed and laughed, because their Outcomes were Equal, and in the end that was the only thing that mattered.

THE END

A Spider's Eulogy.

(Written 9/11/09)

At the far end of my front porch is a metal garbage can. I put my aluminum cans in it until I get enough to take to the recycling center. It's next to the wall, half-blocking the view from my bedroom window.

Some time this past spring, a large, slender spider built a web attached at one end to a point a couple of feet above the trashcan on the window and at the other end to the trashcan's handle facing the wall.

I say "large." Not Tarantula Large, but large enough to take down a good-sized grasshopper or Junebug. It was mostly black, with a few small spots of yellow on the thorax, with long, spindly legs that were black from the "elbows" to the ends, and a pale, pinkish brown from the "shoulders" to the "elbows."

Now, bugs are a problem on my porch. In the evenings, mosquitos will about carry you away if you try to sit out there, and on humid days especially, you have to swat flies at any hour.

So I decided to let the young spider keep on keeping on there in the hopes it would gorge itself on some of the bugs and eventually, they'd forward a chain email to all their friends warning them to stay off my porch.

(Here's where you think I'm going to put in a pun about the World Wide Web, but nope. Not gonna do it.)

Every few days, I'd take an armload of crushed soda cans out. I'd be careful not to jostle the web too much when I lifted the lid or to drop the cans in too loudly.

In time, the spider grew, not too much in length, but a good deal in girth, so I could then recognize it was one of those ... I think they're called "garden spiders" ... with the pretty yellow- and black-splotched thorax.

It seemed rather peaceful and content there in it's home, except when it would swiftly and gleefully pounce on the latest hapless bug that became ensnared it the web. That part wasn't too peaceful.

Then came the day that I came to view as The Attack. A smaller, evil-looking spider, this one brown, took up residence in one corner of the web.

My spider stayed in the middle and on the opposide side for a few days. Then, on one of my can runs, I noticed the brown one in the center and my spider on the edges. Mine would try to regain the center and the brown one would pounce on it and drive it back to the edges.

That night, my spider disappeared. To be honest, I thought the invader had killed it, or at least driven it away.

A week or so passed, and one dewy morning, I found my spider had moved to the other end of the porch, with a new, bigger, stronger web on the outside of the living room window. This web would prove far more productive, as the living room lights were on several hours a night, as opposed to a couple of minutes for my bedroom window. It drew in all sorts of big, juicy nightbugs.

Over the past couple of monthes, I enjoyed from my chair many occasions of watching my spider catching bugs.

I never named my spider. I should have, but I didn't really know if it was a male or female (my knowledge of Spider Anatomy is very limited), and I find those gender-neutral names like "Pat" and "Kim" obnoxious.

About a week ago, I discovered "it" was a "she," and she had deposited a bulky eggsac (about an inch in diameter) on the underside of the upper windowframe.

Maybe the invader hadn't been an attacker after all, but a mate. (Again, my knowledge of Spider Anatomy, specifically Gender Differentiation in Spider Anatomy, is limited, so I don't know what the males of the species look like.)

Then, as the first hints of fall set in, my spider grew listless and lethargic. The first couple of days, she'd still eat bugs, but without much gusto. I hoped maybe she was resting. But when she stopped repairing holes in her web, I knew what was coming.

Two days ago, she moved up close to the eggsac and stopped moving. I thought she had died yesterday, but a couple of taps on the window glass elicited a feeble wave from one of her front legs.

This morning, six of her legs were curled up. The other two were still grasping the web. I knew she was probably already gone, but decided to wait a couple of hours in case some small remnant of her consciousness was still in there and wanted to die in peace.

After noon, I went out on the porch and plucked at one of the anchor lines of her web. No response. I moved a little closer and tried again. Still nothing. Just in case, I grabbed a stick (I didn't use my finger because I'm allergic to spider and insect venom, one of the reasons I so LOATHE the mosquitos) and gently prodded her body. Nothing. She hung there lifeless.

My spider was gone.

At first, I started looking for a large matchbox to bury her in, but then I thought maybe the babies are supposed to feed on her body. I know less about Spider Life Cycles than I do about their anatomy. So I left her hanging there.

She hangs there still.

In lieu of a burial, I decided to give her what she SHOULD have had all along, a name.

Rest In Peace,

STARFIRE,

A Very Good Spider,

Mother & Friend

Spring 2009 - September 11, 2009

Barack Obama, on his decision to abolish my freedom to choose. (My comments in brackets.)

"Now, even if we provide these affordable options, there may be those -- especially the young and the healthy -- who still want to take the risk and go without coverage ... The problem is, such irresponsible behavior costs all the rest of us money. If there are affordable options and people still don't sign up for health insurance, it means we pay for these people's expensive emergency room visits.

[Except that it is not a foregone conclusion that those without insurance will go to the emergency room. Some, such as I, will go to their family doctor and pay out of pocket. Others have a deep mistrust of all doctors and will choose to treat themselves. Some might even take care of their health and not HAVE to go to a doctor.]

... And unless everybody does their part, many of the insurance reforms we seek -- especially requiring insurance companies to cover preexisting conditions -- just can't be achieved.

[It's not my responsibility to offer up my liberty as a sacrifice just so you can achieve your agenda, Mr. President.]

And that's why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance -- just as most states require you to carry auto insurance.

[Apples and oranges, Mr. President. I can CHOOSE not to buy auto insurance, by choosing not to drive a car. Do we really want to live in a society where the only option I have to exercise my freedom is to choose not to live?]

... There will be a hardship waiver for those individuals who still can't afford coverage ...

[So, I'm supposed to go crawling to some career bureaucrat on a power trip, throw myself on his mercy, and beg for an exception?]

... [W]e can't have large businesses and individuals who can afford coverage game the system by avoiding responsibility to themselves or their employees.

[Where did this responsibility come from? Is it in the Constitution? Or is it a responsibility because you SAY it's a responsibility?]

Improving our health care system only works if everybody does their part."

[I am a human being, endowed by my Creator with certain unalienable rights, such as life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness, not some cog in your death machine, Mr. President.]

Now, just a reminder of what CANDIDATE Obama said about the Individual Mandate:

You STILL don't believe the public schools are deliberately brainwashing children into socialism?

My friend (we'll call him Spongerob Tyrapants) called me a couple of days ago, alarmed at what he'd just heard on the Sean Hannity radio show.

At a Fay Boozman town hall, it seems, a woman related her child's story to the Congressman.

She and the child were getting their school supplies for the year. He (I assume it was a 'he'.) wanted a specific kind of pencils; she and the school supply list thought he should get a cheaper kind.

She came up with a good idea. If he earned enough money himself to buy the pencils, he could get them.

Which he did.

On the first day of school, however, the teacher let each child keep four of his or her own pencils and put all the rest into a community "pot." When someone lost or broke their pencil, they could pick any pencil out of the pot they wanted.

Private property, it seems, is not a priority for the Educational Establishment.

Call it Pencil Socialism. You have no incentive to keep track of your pencil, or to take care of it. If you lose or break it, hey, no big deal -- there's more in the community pencil pot. And under such a system, why on earth would you buy a good pencil instead of the cheapest one you can find?

And, sadly, that's not the only instance. There are examples here, here, and here. And I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg.

[UPDATE:] Question is, what to do about it? I suggest having the child "lose" a couple of pencils a week, grab his or her own pencils out of the pot to replace them, and smuggle them home.

And NEXT year, buy some of those personalized pencils, and put things on them like "Socialism is WRONG!" or "Ron Paul 2012!" or "Redistributors go to HELL when they die!"

I am the Coupon King! (I can do anything.)

Through my mastery of Double Couponing, today I managed to get $15.71 worth of groceries for $8.27, a $7.44 (or 47%) savings. Plus, I caught a $3.99 bag of Doritos on sale for two bucks.

I consider it a success if my couponing saves me more than I pay in sales tax. This time, I accomplished that goal many times over.

Congress should put me in charge of making all the government's purchases.

Massacre.

From From My Cold Dead Fingers: Why America Needs Guns by Sheriff Richard I. Mack:

On August 21, 1992, 14-year-old Sammy Weaver and his friend Kevin Harris went hunting. Sammy's dog Striker caught scent of the men hiding in the woods. The dog barked and ran ahead. Sammy and Kevin thought he'd picked up the trail of a deer. They hurried to follow. An unexpected burst of gunfire from a hidden sniper stopped Striker in his tracks.

Terrified and confused, Sammy fired his rifle, then turned to flee. A federal agent shot him in the back, killing him instantly. Kevin Harris fired into the woods, mortally wounding Marshal Degan. In the dark of night, Harris and Randy Weaver brought Sammy's body from the woods to a shed near the house.

Weaver and his 16-year-old daughter, Sara -- along with Kevin Harris, who was armed -- went to the shed where Sammy lay dead. Two hundred yards away, an FBI sniper took aim and fired. The bullet caught Randy Weaver in the arm. The trio bolted for the cabin. Vicki Weaver stood in the doorway, holding her infant daughter Elisheba. Sniper Lon Horiuchi shot her in the face. Some fragments of bullet and of Vicki Weaver's skull wounded Kevin Harris. For a week the family and Harris holed up inside the cabin. Sarah Weaver crawled over her mother's body to prepare food and water for her wounded father and Harris, her 10-year-old sister Rachel and baby Elisheba. FBI negotiators outside taunted the family with remarks like, "How's the baby, Mrs. Weaver?" and, "Good morning, Randall. How'd you sleep? We're having pancakes. What are you having?"

Text of my email to Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, Sens. Bond & McCaskill

I have found at least three different versions of the health care bill that contain an individual requirement to buy insurance.

I have no income. If this requirement passes, it will be literally impossible for me to comply. You may as well add on a rider to build debtors' prisons all across the country, because there will be a lot of people who cannot buy insurance. If we could afford it, we would already HAVE it.

I have heard Barack Obama and others say the poor will be reimbursed with tax credits. This demonstrates how completely out of touch Washington is with the real people of this country. Tax credits do ZERO good to people who are too poor to pay taxes.

I urge you to do everything within your power to keep the individual requirement from becoming law if it is not paid for up-front, perhaps through a voucher system. Vote against the entire bill if you have to.

Respectfully,
John Hutchison

From our "God Is The State; The State Is God" desk...

Earl Durnell: "God" and "Government" are synonyms, and Barack Obama's my Own Personal Jesus.

Rick Sanchez on CNN running old tweets while Twitter's down to create the ILLUSION of being interactive!

Idk how much I'll be blogging. Isn't it futile to continue raging against the dying of the light after the Dems & Reps have smashed the lightbulb into a million pieces & siezed control of the lamp? Libertarians may retrieve a few slivers of glass from the trash, but can they ever reassemble them into a functioning lightsource? No. So why bother? I dunno if I should even vote anymore. Doesn't participation in a process imply an endorsement of the results? Chk out my tweets & fb if u wanna keep up w/ me.

There are SOME Randian superheroes left.

Heh-heh.

According to the signs he posted for "Hope-y, Change-y Obama Lemonade," the drink had special "class warfare prices" that depended on each customer's income. Those who made less than $25,000 per year were to pay 25 cents, while those in the upper income brackets paid a full five bucks. The profits will help Scherle's grandson pay off the federal deficit in 2030, according to one sign.

That's probably better at getting the point across than the way I would have done it.

I would have used the opportunity for a little "Re-Redistribution Of Wealth." Those making under $25K would have to pay the five bucks, and those making more would pay increasingly less ("increasingly less?" WTF does THAT mean?) until, if you're a multimillionaire, you'd pay nothing at all. It's the opposite of progressivism. What would one call that, exactly, CONgressivism?

Then, when the poor bought their expensive lemonade, I'd shout at them "See? Now you know how it FEELS, asshole!"

[Xposted to BFA.]

What is it with Nixons & secrecy? MO guv's aide squashes ANOTHER report. This time it's e. coli at 19X upper safe limit, not MIAC. Places lives at risk, to protect Memorial Day tourism $ at Lake of the Ozarks.

It's the dog days of summer, folks.

It's hard to get enthused about blogging for the next little while. Even when Senator Leahy goes on TV and tells outright, factcheckable falsehoods.

[LEAHY to SOTOMAYOR:] You said that, quote, you "would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would reach wise decisions."

Well, no. That's not what she said. If she had, there would be no grounds for objection about it.

But here's what she DID say (emphasis added), and there's PLENTY to object about it.

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor...

No, Senator, what she said was not simply a compliment in a vacuum on the decision-making abilities of Latin women. What she said could easily and honestly be interpreted as a Latin Supremacist view.

The most benign interpretation of your quote, Senator, is that you are too stupid to know the difference. But then, one does not get elected Senator if one is stupid.

Which means, Senator Leahy, that you are not stupid, but a liar.

Linkfest: 7/3/09.

Nixon veto means certain people's heads must remain imprisoned.

Not that you'd know it from the media which would rather cover Republican sex scandals, but Congressman Conyers' (D-MI) wife admits to taking bribes.

Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA)caught on tape taking bribes.

Becker-Posner launches the War On Hyperlinks. [H/T 2InfoWars.]

Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion.

He who controls the present controls the past. Democrat-controlled Congress talks of purging Reagan's name from Ronald Reagan National Airport.
Can we take Clinton's name off his Presidential Library, too?

Jihad Cyndi imprisoned for pulling an Allred/Sharpton/Jesse Jackson-style Meddle Caper. Good. Maybe they'll keep her. Probably not. All those people with Qs and Zs and "Eem"s in their names who donated money to her on 9/11/01 and in the days immediately following will probably bail her out.

Recession? What recession? Remember the $100 burger? Well, now you can have a $700 coffee with it. Imagine how expensive it would have been if it wasn't made out of cat poop.

Let me get this straight. Sanford visits his chick in South America and it's some big traveshamockery. Biden visits his kid in Iraq and it's all just hunky-dory?

I wonder . . .

... how many shared dreams there are in the collective sub/unconscious ether. You know, the dreams everyone seems to have more than once.

I can think of at least five. I don't count the falling one, because it's more a sensation as you fall asleep than an actual dream. But here are some of the ones I'm able to identify.

There's the one where you go to school/work naked. The one where you are taking or are about to take a test you haven't studied for. The flying one. The one where the closet at the end of your bed opens up and becomes a puppet theater, and demonic Punch & Judy puppets rise from the suspiciously red-glowing area below and tell you awful, horrible things, like how they're going to stab everyone in your family. And finally, the one where you're in a public place like a library or a department store or a restaurant and you either have to poop or have let a very wet-sounding fart and need to check your underwear, and the only "restroom" in the place isn't a room at all, but a single stall out in the middle of everything, and the walls only come up to seated-armpit height or the door is missing or unable to shut, so everyone can see you, and you go into it and don't know how exactly you're going to do your business without everyone looking at you, and then you wake up.

What's that, you've never had the last two? Well, in that case, neither have I! I, uh, have a FRIEND who has, and he told me about it! Yeah, that's it!

If ever you find yourself four to a room in a European hostel . . .

... and two of the four are named Klaus and Gunter, and they are twirling a ribbon streamer, and they are dressed as Euroweenie rave trash, and they have a 1986 boombox, and there is music blaring from it, there is a pretty good chance it sounds like this:

What's a polite way to say BIG FAT LIAR?

Oh, I know.

Obama's remarks upon signing the tobacco legislation yesterday are inconsistent with reality.

This legislation will not ban all tobacco products, and it will allow adults to make their own choices.

Well, no. Clearly it won't.

The new law bans candy and fruit flavors in tobacco products[.]

So as an adult, I will be prevented from buying an orange-flavored cigarette (similar to those Camel used to make) or a chocolate-flavored one. How does that allow adults to make their own choices?

Prohibition is alive and well, folks. I just didn't know they'd get around to banning FLAVORS so soon.

The War on Pleasure marches on.

Iran riots over stolen election.

Apparently in sympathy, L.A. riots also.

Here in flyover country, we don't tend to riot much.

Idea for response to the 21st-century Prohibition.

If it pisses you off that the government hassle has made or WILL make you quit smoking, here's an idea:

Write down how much money you WOULD have spent on cigarettes each day. Come election time, use that amount to punish one of the freedom-haters in Congress.

If your Representative or Senator voted for the latest restrictions, for example, donate half of that money to a primary challenger against him or her, and half to a general election challenger.

If your guy voted AGAINST this monstrosity, donate half to him or her, and pick out one of the Prohibitionists that voted YES and spend the other half trying to get them defeated.

The YES/NOs can be found here and here.

Suspend HABEAS CORPUS and you TOO can be on lots of denominations of currency!

That guy that ignored the Constitution is on the five, on the Illinois quarter, and now on BOTH sides of the penny.

How much did this redesign cost taxpayers?

And, as long as they were redesigning it, why didn't they find a cheaper metal (like aluminum) to make it with, so that it doesn't cost 1.2 cents to make a penny anymore?

I'm 3 for 3.

I wonder if I'm the only one texting The Brian Gongol Show. I've texted them three times, and so far every one has been commented on on the show.

One was a week ago last night, when I said GM is already dead and the government is wearing the corpse like Buffalo Bill in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.

Then, during the week, I texted a question about how many of those "ready to repay" banks are the ones that didn't WANT a bailout in the first place, but were FORCED to take one by the government, so that now the government, upon repayment, can say "See? It WORKED!"

Brian was short-handed last night and I didn't think he was going to get around to that one, because he wanted to talk about Iran and Iowa's self-image problem, so I texted that people outside Iowa don't know much of anything about it other than corn, caucuses and Radar O'Reilly (sp?). I didn't mention how easily Iowa was confused with Ohio and Idaho postally, or how it looks pretty much like Nebraska East to outsiders. That one made it on, then in the waning few minutes he read the bank text on the air.

He moved on to his YAY CAPITALISM BABY and TINFOIL HAT awards. The Tinfoil Hat award was about renaming Sears Tower to Willis Tower. I didn't have time to text in "At least it's not 'Willis Tower, brought to you by Preparation H'" before he went off the air. We'll see next Sunday night (starting at 9 PM, 1040-AM) if that one gets on, or if by then it's time will have passed.

Bonus Democrat Knock-Knock Joke.

"Knock-knock."

"Who's there?"

"Barack Obama."

"Pardon me; I have to go change my panties. The mere mention of His name makes me Moist Down There!"

"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't know this was the Mainstream Media's house!"

Democrat knock-knock joke.

Knock-knock.

Who's there?

Barack Obama.

Hurry inside, Mr. President! Sandy Berger's in the area and he might stuff you down his pants and run off with you!

My life is boring.

No substantial posts lately. My life is fascinating, no.

Hmm...

FIAT: noun, an arbitrary decree or pronouncement, esp. by a person or group of persons having absolute authority to enforce it: The king ruled by fiat.

FIAT MONEY: noun, irredeemable paper currency, not resting on a specie basis, but deriving its purchasing power from the declaratory fiat of the government issuing it.

[Both definitions from dictionary.com.]

Chrysler gets go-ahead for Fiat rescue

US President Barack Obama said Chrysler had "a new lease on life" as a result of a substantial commitment by the US Government and "sacrifices from all stakeholders involved".

[Update:] nonhocapito weighs in:

We all remember when recently Obama asked for a FIAT-CHRYSLER partnership as a pre-requisite to help CHRYSLER. Many wondered why that should be, since FIAT is such a small and pretty insignificant brand in the world of car-makers.

I am italian and I assure you that even from our small province this request appeared as pretty strange.

I think that the answer is in the Bilderberg attendees list, since one of the members is John Elkann, vice-chairman and major shareholder of FIAT (while a FORMER member was the CEO of Damien Chrysler).

You have to wonder why, the more outrageous Alex Jones' claims are, the more spot-on they seem to be.

Bonus Democrat Knock-knock Joke.

"Knock-knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Barack Obama. I hear you clinging to your guns and religion in there! Stop it RIGHT NOW!!!"

Another Democrat Knock-knock Joke.

"Knock-knock."

"Who's there?"

"Barack Obama."

"Ted Kennedy left a message for you. He wants to take you on a car ride over the Chappaquiddick Bridge."

"But I'm not pregnant!"

I would think . . .

. . . satellites could be used for a better purpose than watching penguins poop.

The brown-haired girl is obviously a Democrat.

Note how happy she is when Suit Guy (who represents the Nanny State) gives her a toy pony. Then note how quickly her happiness turns to the Green-Eyed Monster when someone else gets something better.

"Knock-knock." "Who's there?" "Bill Clinton. Me & Janet are having a b-b-q and wondered if you'd like to come over." "What's on the menu?" "Branch Davidian children."

Finally getting around to this.

Mentions of Andrew Sullivan's anus in the April 28, 2005 Daily Dish: 0.

Mentions of Andrew Sullivan's anus in the BrothersJudd Blog the same day: 1.

He was, for awhile, worth reading even if your world didn't revolve around your anus.

If Sullivan is obsessed with his own anus, the evidence suggests the Brothers Judd are even more so! :)

Redirection.

Gonna TRY to post a little more regularly over on Blog Free America, so if you don't see anything you like here, you might try over there.

Another Democrat Knock-knock joke.

"Knock-knock!"

"Who's there?"

"Barack Obama."

"Oh, are you back from your drug-fueled limo joyride into Sodom already, Mr. President?"

Democrat knock-knock joke:

"Knock-knock."

"Who's there?"

"We inherited this mess; it's all Bush's fault! Never mind that OUR party has controlled Congress since 2006!"

A 13-yr old girl has a right to abort w/o parental consent, but a 13-yr old boy doesn't have a right not to put poisons in his body w/ parents OK?

Is it a comment on not living within your pigeonhole?

Here's the dream I had last Wednesday night.

I'm living at my old house in Sturkie, and am planning a yardsale. Prior to the yardsale, I am going through my old things and giving away things to whoever wants them.

I open my closet, and inside is every shirt I ever owned, and some I saw in catalogs and liked, and some that didn't really exist at all but that I thought OUGHT to exist. And they're all somehow in mint condition.

In my bedroom are three groups of people, all waiting eagerly to see what shirts they get. They are a group of stereotypical nerds, Angie Dover (the homecoming queen my senior year in high school), and KORN.

Yes, KORN. The rock group.

And my shirts are all dividable into three categories: preppy/clothes that were popular or trendy at the time I had them, shirts with comic-book characters or mathematical equations on them, and black rock band/monster tees. One I remember was Frankenstein, Dracula, Nosferatu and Quasimodo in grey silkscreen, arranged like Mount Rushmore.

The thing was, I'd pull out, for instance, a preppy shirt and look at the size and say, "Who wears a Large?" And all the members of Korn would raise their hands. But if I pulled out the Monster Rushmore shirt and asked "Who wears a large?" Angie Dover would raise her hand. And if I pulled out a pastel Miami Vice shirt the same size, the nerds would raise their hands.

And if I pulled out the VERY geeky yellow T-shirt I got for my birthday in sixth grade with the picture of a guitar-playing crocodile on it with the caption "Croc & Roll!!!" shirt, and asked who wears a medium, suddenly all the members of Korn were now size medium.

I am a believer that dreams try to tell us things about ourselves, but for the life of me I can't figure this one out. Is it telling me I don't fit in anywhere? That I shouldn't judge people by their experience? What?

Gunny Rain Brew, or Bunny Grain Stew, or something. And Sleestak are scary.

This is how runny my brain goo is today.

Imagine two or three thoughts, each encased in a ping-pong ball, trapped in a vat of cold molasses. When you want to express a thought, you have to reach in, move your hand around to find one, then grab it and try to pull it out. It takes a good five seconds sometimes to complete the process. That is my brain in the month or so surrounding the winter solstice.

Now imagine a hypersonice popcorn air-popping machine on crack, filled with THOUSANDS of ping-pong balls. You open the top to pull out a thought, and DOZENS fly out, and you have to crawl around on the floor and frantically look at each one, trying desperately to find the one you want. Once you do THAT, you have to corral all the others and put them back in the machine. It too can take a while to complete the process. From the outside, it can look very similar to my brain in wintertime, but from the inside, it is very different indeed. This is my brain around the summer solstice.

For instance, here are some of the things ping-ponging around inside my head right this very instant.

1. These three songs, all playing simultaneously at equal volume.







To approximate the experience, press play on all three. It doesn't really matter if you synch up the starts.

2. The word "month" should have a "u" in it, not an "o."

3. Why is it A "u," but AN "o"?

4. How I didn't put the lid back on the garbage can last Tuesday because it was an off-week for garbage bag use. Still, I SHOULD have put the lid back on, but it was never the PERFECT moment to do so, or if that moment DID happen, I missed it.

5. I don't understand the methodology for naming dinosaurs in the old LAND OF THE LOST. Spike, Emily, Dopey, Grumpy, Alice, and Junior seemed to apply to individuals, but Spot seemed to apply to ALL members of that particular species.

6. Marshall, Will & Holly repeatedly referred to the Sleestak as insectlike, when CLEARLY they were more reptilian. The only thing remotely insectoid about them was their eyes, and even THOSE were more spidery than insectlike.

Add to those the idea that I should change the name of this post to "The Summer Oranges," because what I'm experiencing right now is the polar opposite of the Winter Blues.

And the fact that "molasses" is a funny word when spoken. Not so much when written.

Uh-oh. Here comes Dope's cover of "You Spin Me Right Round" from the AMERICAN PSYCHO 2 soundtrack.

If you are unwilling to even splash water on or show a bug to an enemy willing to crash planes into buildings, you are bringing a knife to a nuke fight.

I hate how the picture is too big for the screen on analog TVs on cable. They need a ZOOM OUT feature. Whose brilliant idea was this?

Someone should do an album of Beatles covers with a key word replaced w/ "egg". EGG EGG ME DO. CAN'T BUY ME EGG. SHE EGGS YOU YEAH YEAH YEAH. I AM THE EGGEGG...

Well, *yeah*, but it's not a good thing.

Breitbart reports on the possibility of Borg Queen Obama being a Vulcan.

What with all the "The needs (or in his case the WANTS) of the many outweigh the needs (or in his case the RIGHTS) of the few" positions, the similarities are definitely there.

So maybe he IS a Vulcan. Or at least he WAS, before he got assimilated and ascended the Hive Mind to the rank of Queen.

[H/T 2 Drudgey-poo.]

Seen on DRUDGE this morning . . .

In the navy, come on and join your fellow man.

I don't know what's worse, that someone thinks deeply enough about the subject to write Sodomy & The Pirate Tradition, or that he found enough documentation on the subject to write a 215-page book about it.

I imagine the Cliff's Notes would go something like this:

"Many did, some didn't."

Arrgy, mateys!

Q: Why did Shirley Goodness get her dogs Justice & Mercy fixed? A: So there'd be no Mercy in Justice & no Justice in Mercy.

Reid: Not only is taxation patriotic, it's voluntary!

Yeah, and armed robbery is a donation!

Max Headroom Shrugged.

Federal soda tax in the works.

If it passes, I'll quit drinking it.

My desire to drink a soda does not make me responsible for paying for some old lady's hip replacement.

Okay, you kind of suspected it was going to happen . . .

. . . or at least, my jaded, cynical self did, but still, what happens at 5:00 is a nice moment.



And if he wasn't already because of his internet following, Ellen just made this kid Officially The Coolest Kid In Japan.

He got to meet the Prince of Bleeping Darkness, man!

The t*tty-pink Escort's funky little manually-retractable antenna thing.

I wonder, if I leave it retracted and just listen to local stations and/or cassettes (yes, some of them still exist!), how much will it help my fuel mileage, if at all?

Call it the KILL THE MUSIC bill.

This is alarming.

Radio stations say the artists get their fair share when their music is played over the radio free of charge, and people who like it go out to buy it. That could all change if a bill in Congress becomes law. The bill's proposed tax would make all radio stations pay every artist whom they play, on top of what they pay for licensing fees.

A lot of radio stations (maybe even most) would have no choice but to either fold up their tents or switch to a talk radio format. And since right-wing radio is more pervasive and more professionally-produced and more interesting, they'd likely choose that. Which, of course, would give the Obama administration an excuse to bring back the Fairness Doctrine.

Which may be their plan all along.

Obama expresses disdain for absolutes in announcing Souter's retirement. "It is never OK to kill 3000 innocent people by crashing planes into buildings" is an absolute.

If they ever make a musical of Waco, the part of Janet Reno should be played by Tim Curry.

White is a race. Straight is an orientation. Male is a gender. All people are covered under hate crimes categories. Those claiming it is an equal protection issue are lying or stupid or both. Now the "criminalizing thought" argument is another story...

No, Massa.

I remember an old Soviet-era anecdote from the satellite countries.

It seems their farming equipment, especially tractors, would often break down. Or they'd run out of gas and the farmers would have no money to buy more.

Their solution? Hitch a couple of cows to the front of the tractor and keep on plowing.

This struck me as remarkably inefficient. Surely, someone could come up with an adaptor of some sort that would allow the cows to pull the plow directly, without the extra weight of the tractor.

I underestimated the ability of socialism to crush innovation, I guess.

Now, fast-forward a quarter century or so, and we here in the United States have situations such as this, in which a heroic public official will not be thwarted by the range limitations of fuel-cell technology:

[Congressman] Massa [D-N.Y.] drove one fuel cell car while a hybrid SUV
towing an additional SUV followed along. Once he got half way, he switched to
new fuel cell car. The empty fuel cell was then towed back by the first SUV. As
he continued on his journey, the second SUV followed. Once Massa arrived in DC,
the second SUV then towed the second fuel cell car back to NY.

If we HAVE to have caps on greenhouse-gas emissions, I say we start with putting them on dumbass publicity stunts.

The Recession: Cliff's Notes.

Need a concise piece you can assign to non-policy-wonks to read to help them understand why Obama's economic plan will lead to drift and decay?

Print this out and give it to them.

[H/T 2 my friend R.]

For the purposes of this post . . .

. . . forget the fear and lost productivity that this cost New Yorkers.

My question is, how much did this little stunt cost taxpayers? And for what purpose, so Obama could use the picture of Air Force One with the Statue of Liberty in the background in campaign ads in 2012?

And if I might ask a follow-up, Mr. Gibbs, why hasn't whoever ultimately authorized this maneuver been fired?

This goes under "How much did this cost taxpayers, Part 2?"

Media crying wolf again, like they did w/ SARS, Hanta virus, flesh-eating bacteria, bird flu & on & on & on.

Crap! I lost my glasses behind the bed where I can't get to them.

Was anyone in the Lincoln administration held accountable afterwards for his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus?

testing...

Oops.

I messed up the date on the Tom Tom Club/Timbuk 3 Cage Match poll. It's now open until June 1.

If you've already voted, you have to vote again.

What was it St. Diddy told us? Oh yeah -- VOTE OR DIE!!!

Fortress USSA.

Obama McCavity.

I had one of those Unified Field moments of synthesis last night.

I was planning what I wanted to post today, and while mulling over Borg Queen Obama a seemingly random memory popped into my head. A quote, I think to my friend Max, in high school or maybe my brief stint at a Government Higher Indoctrination Center.

A simple observation:

"Dogs are glad to see YOU; Cats are glad that YOU see THEM."

I've revisited this once or twice over the decades, and come up with an expansion.

"Dogs are glad for themselves to see you; cats may be genuinely glad for YOU that you see them."

Suddenly, my muse vomited the following on my head.

Obama is a cat. He thinks so highly of himself that he honestly believes he is doing us a favor by letting us bask in his presence. Our President, my friends, is a cat.

Which explains why it took him a lifetime to get a dog.

And why he is so often found sitting on the floor, one leg hiked straight up in the air, cleaning his butt with his tongue.

I just hope he doesn't spray the furniture.

This is belt tightening?/How much did this cost the taxpayers? Part 1.

Only if this is Opposite Day and by "tightening" you mean "loosening."

Remember the hell Nancy Reagan caught for buying some drapes and dinnerware? Borg Queen Obama, against the will of Congress, decides to renovate the Washington mall at a minimum cost of $55 million (They, those monuments to Obama's narcissism, such as the "People's Garden," aren't gonna build themselves), then plans to embark on a self-congratulatory joyride in Air Force One to celebrate his first 100 days in office.

But hey, how do you* complain about THIS frivolous use of taxpayer money when you let him get by with that little jaunt to Denver for a photo-op without so much as a peep?

You want to save money, Mr. President? Then put a boot on one of the tires of that plane, and don't take it off without the permission of the minority party.





* - And by "you," I mean YOU, Lapdog Media!

That'll show them.

My city council raised electric rates by 11%. In response, I've resolved to try to reduce my usage 22%.

Part of that is addressing my 9/11 Cable News Syndrome, which manifests itself in a need to know EVERYthing that's happening THE MOMENT it happens. I've resolved to refrain from turning on the TV (and the VCR, with which I change the channel) until at least 2 PM every day.

Waco.

From From My Cold Dead Fingers: Why America Needs Guns by Sheriff Richard I. Mack:

Attorney General Janet Reno ordered the final assault, knowing at least 25 children were still inside. On April 19, 1993, CEV tanks began pounding holes in the walls and structures at Mount Carmel Center, pumping in CS gas. While armored combat vehicles rammed and rocked entire buildings, spitting nauseating tear gas into rooms containing babies, FBI agent Byron Sage shouted over loudspeakers, "This is not an assault! Do not shoot. We are not entering your compound." Ambulances and local hospitals had been put on alert, and agents continued to call out, "You are responsible for your own actions. Come out now and you will not be harmed." Sheila Martin's husband Wayne called 911 and pleaded, "Call them off -- there are women and children in here!" When the Davidians began firing in self-defense at the building-crunching tanks, federal agents became indiscriminate in spewing clouds of tear gas anywhere they could, irrespective of where women and children might have gathered for safety. Many had gone to a second-story location from which there was no exit.

The Compound exploded and all but nine inside perished.

I have posted to my blog today . . .

. . . I can expect a call from R telling me what I posted in 3 . . . 2 . . .


:)

Update: Especially this --

Is this the end of hip-hop?

Hip-hop somehow survived the Rappin' Barney Fruity Pebbles commercials (here and here).

But it may not survive the Potty Dance.

What does it mean . . .

. . . when you have a song that you are not particularly fond of stuck in your head for several days straight?

And then the morning you plan to post it on Blogger, you can't remember what it was because you can't think over the ZZ Top playing on the radio?

Poll results!!!

1. They Might Be Giants sucks at streetfighting, at least against the B-52's.

2. Korn sucks at hopskotch and Candy Land, but are pretty good at Chutes & Ladders.

3. Insane Clown Posse kick's hopskotch's ass.

Why I don't eat at Quizno's.

Because a creepy bicurious pizza oven will try to seduce me.

Among Us, There Was A Fungus (Non-humongous).

Or, The Morel of the Story.

A few pieces at a time, I am endeavoring to transfer the one brushpile (a leftover from the Ice-pocalypse) that is still in the backyard to one of the two brushpiles piled by the road in front of the drainage ditch, where at some point in the future I assume the city will make it disappear.

Where it will go, I cannot say. Maybe the city will wish it away into a field somewhere, like that deranged little Opie-esque child/god in the Twilight Zone.

This morning, I was wrestling my daily quota of ten limbs out of the pile and by my feet I noticed a little spongy thing. It was a morel mushroom.

It seems a little early for those, I thought. Don't they come up a little closer to May? But then I realized I was thinking of my childhood.

You see, there is history between us, these little mushrooms and me.

I spent my childhood in Illinois. It's further north, so spring, and hence mushrooms, come later.

We had about an acre of land. It was bordered on one side by the woods and on the back by a neighborhood baseball field.

At the border of the ballfield and the woods, and fifty feet on each side, was prime morel-growing real estate. Late April or early May, somebody would notice one growing somewhere, and my parents and I would gather up some paper grocery bags (this was pre-plastic-grocery bags, but oddly not pre-plastic-garbage bags) and go on a mushroom hunt.

That night, my mom would fry them and it would be enough to feed a family of six, plus whatever hangers-on always seemed to be hanging around the house.

Fast-forward several years and 400 miles south, and I'm in 8th or 9th grade science class under Mr. Prewett. We are discussing the different kingdoms of living things. We get to the fungi.

"Fungi, of course, includes mushrooms. Hase anyone here gone picking mushrooms?" he asked the class.

I raised my hand. Nobody else did.

I lowered my hand, hoping nobody had seen it.

It was embarassing because A. since I was the only one, it set me apart from everyone else and the last thing an 8th or 9th grader wants is to stick out like a sore thumb. The important thing is to fit in by conforming to what everyone else does. And B. I thought it marked me as poor. What, can't you afford to BUY mushrooms, Poory McPoorpoor?

Looking back, we weren't any poorer than most of the people in my school. In fact, we were LESS poor than quite a few. My dad had a Caterpillar retirement check coming in every month.

But we LIVED poor. I used to think my parents spent it all on coffee and cigarettes. But back then, those luxuries were still cheap, so I don't know WHERE all the money went, or why we never had anything to show for it. Maybe it was the livestock. What's the joke -- How does a farmer end up with a small fortune? Start with a large fortune.

But I digress.

My raising, and sheepish lowering, of my hand had not gone unnoticed by Mr. Prewett.

And he couldn't just let it go, oh no.

He launched into a lecture directed specifically at me, in front of the whole class, about how I shouldn't be embarassed about picking mushrooms just because nobody else, certainly no civilized person, does it and how I shouldn't just follow the crowd. This lasted for several minutes.

It was even more embarassing than the thought of everyone thinking I was poor.

That night (too late to be of any help whatsoever) I realized that what I SHOULD have done is told him I misunderstood the question, that I had thought he meant getting mushrooms at the STORE. A lie, yes. But a lie I could bluff my way through and muddy the waters with, enough to run out the clock on the classtime.

That was . . . gawd it must be pushing 25 years ago. And that's the first thing I thought of when I saw the little morel on the ground.

At first, the unpleasant memory was almost enough to make me ignore the mushroom.

But then something clicked in my head -- Hey, that's something I can eat that the government doesn't get a cut of! I don't have to pay an indulgence to Uncle Tom Sam for the privilege of obtaining it!

My first scan of the backyard yielded five of them. Two subsequent scans yielded one each.

They were delicious.

4/2/09 UPDATE: Got five more today. Gonna eat 'em.

Did his Old Yellow Car make it to Heaven?

Dan Seals, R.I.P.

Nixon: Pay no attention to that name on the letterhead!

"It's all Matt Blunt's fault, honest!"

"And please don't notice that I spent nearly a week defending the report!"


The MIAC report has been retracted, but I wonder whether it's possible to unring the bell.

Suppose you work in a cubicle at Corporation X. One day, Memo #8675309 crosses your desk. It warns you to be wary of Gay Rastafarian Swedes, because they may be dangerous.

Weeks later, another memo crosses your desk, saying only that Memo #8675309 is null and void.

Now, a little time passes, and who walks into the office but a Gay Rastafarian Swede?

Do you remember the second memo? Or does the phrase "Gay Rastafarian Swede" connect a couple of neurons in the back of your mind? Wasn't there something said about them being dangerous awhile ago?

I hate it when that happens.

What happens when you Newsgoogle the term "prison toilet sausages"?

The smoke was traced to the inmate's cell, and he admitted trying to heat up snack sausage bought from an inmate store in the stainless steel toilet[.]

There's No "I" In "Drone."

I get what He's trying to do with the bees.

He's borrowing a page from the Clintons' playbook and trying to make it all about the symbolism. You know, style over substance. You remember the Clinton Era, don't you, when appearance mattered over reality so much that on more than one occasion when Congress held hearings on pollution or harassment or the health problem du jour, they would call to offer expert testimony and actor or actress who had starred in a movie about that problem?

It's not all that surprising really, coming as it does from someone with a Borg mentality. "Look what the noble collective can do, My underlings. All it takes is a strong central individual and a bunch of workers and drones that have shed their individuality and intellect in favor of The Hive Mind. See how much can be accomplished when we are each our brother's beekeeper."

But bees are not people, Mr. President. They do not come with a soul in their basic equipment package. They are not endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those very concepts are often annihilated for individuals in The Hive for "The Greater Good."

Another difference between bees and people is that bees lack the greatest force for the good and progress of the species that has ever existed -- the human capacity to reason. Bees do not experiment. Bees do not invent. Bees do not transform a slab of metal and perspiration into a Cadillac, nor do they aspire to try. Bees do not discover penicillin. Bees do not punish the murderers among them.

You know what bees do, Mr. President? They eat and drink and poop and accidentally pollinate some flowers and stick chewed-up paper on the walls and if they're lucky they might get laid somewhere along the way and then they sting you and then they die. They don't assign their best minds to work on curing the Colony Collapse problem; they have not invented a Mite Repellant Cream.

And when they die, hey, no big. What is one nameless drone among thousands? It's not like he ever did anything special with his life. It's not like he invented the Cadillac.

Nothing worth a damn was ever designed by a committee.

I'm pretty sure that goes for colonies, too.

One of the reasons I don't eat at Subway . . .

... is that it makes people act like THIS!



And why don't I eat Hillshire Farms? Because it makes people do this:

Is it just me . . .

... or does the other Kevin look more like a real athlete?

Ah, the Government Propaganda Channel!

Missouri undergoes a political earthquake all week long with the MIAC scandal, and what does Jeff City Journal on the Government Programming Channel have on? A couple of token blacks from the state legislature uncomfortably answering non-time-sensitive questions like "How does it feel to be a black legislator in Missouri?" and "Is it lonely?" from the clueless white moderator chick.

Meditations On The First Beehives.

1. How far away are they from

A. the First Swingset?
B. the area where dignitaries hold ceremonial gladhanding?

2. Is the taxpayer funding the salary of a Beekeeper Laureate just to provide the Obamas with a few jars of honey every year? If so, wouldn't it be cheaper just to go to Costco, where the Time Masheen is?

I should've posted this months ago.

And, to be honest, the timeliness for this has probably passed, but the longer I don't post it, the more it bothers me.

Remember Obama's "share my toys" quote?

“I don’t know what’s next,” Obama said with a chuckle. “By the end of the
week, he’ll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys
in kindergarten, or because I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

What bothers me is that it demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding, or perhaps an outright mischaracterization, of what communism (and, by extension, it's identical cousin socialism) is.

Communism is not sharing your toys and sandwich. In fact, under communism, they are not YOUR toys and sandwich at all; they are OURS. If you siezed all the toys and sandwiches and redistributed them according to YOUR priorities (much like you are doing with taxpayer money and AIG, Mister President), or petitioned the teacher to do the same, THAT would be communism.

Maybe that's why he doesn't think he's a socialist -- he doesn't know what a socialist IS.

While we're on the subject of redistributionist metaphors from the Left that bother me -- Hillary Clinton and the Christmas presents. What she didn't tell you is that instead of buying the presents herself, Grinch-like, she stole them out from under the trees of people she didn't think deserved them.

I'm burnin' I'm burnin' I'm burnin' for you . . .

Take this hypothetical situation.

Suppose someone . . . let's call him The Last American . . . is fixing a bowl of Top Ramen with pieces of smoked sausage in the microwave. He puts the water in, and cooks it for ten minutes.

Upon removing it from the microwave, some of the water sloshes onto his hand, burning it. By reflex, he jumps and splashes hot water and ramen noodles all over his chest. It causes what looks like 2nd-degree burns.

Who is responsible? Pick one:

1. The ramen company.
2. The water company.
3. The sausage company.
4. The bowl company.
5. The microwave company.
6. The shirt company, for making a shirt that is not heat-resistant.

Or is it that dumbass that sloshed ramen on himself?

I probably shouldn't start with "I was listening to Alex Jones on the shortwave last night . . ."

... but I was. And as much as I fear that gives the big-government supporters an excuse to refuse to address the substance of what follows and instead paint both me and Jones as tinfoil-hat-wearing whackos, I have to give my two cents on what he spent much of the show discussing.

This Missouri Information Analysis Center report business (you can view the document here).

It seems the authors of this report need to be reminded that "extremism" is not a synonym for "terrorism." Extremism, as used in the famous Goldwater quote, is the holding to one's ideology without compromise. Terrorism is the infliction of violence to instill fear.

This part is rich:

"Political Paraphernalia: Militia members most commonly associate with 3rd party political groups. It is not uncommon for militia members to display Constitutional Party, Campaign for Liberty, or Libertarian material. These members are usually supporters of former Presidential Candidate: Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr."

(There were so many [sic]s in that quote I gave up trying.)

1. What is the methodology they used to reach this conclusion? Did they survey known militia members and ask them what sort of bumper sticker they have on their cars? Where is their research to back up this claim?

2. One of the things that makes Libertarians Libertarians and not anarchists is the principle of noninterference in the lives of others. This is incompatible with militiaism.

3. This will lead to ideological profiling. Is D.W.L.* the new D.W.B.**? And isn't this WAY over the line into Thoughtcrime?

4. Bob Barr is the grouchy brother-in-law at the family reunion; Ron Paul is the eccentric grandpa. Both are harmless. Any notion that they are leaders of some militia movement is patently absurd.

5. Isn't it convenient how this further marginalizes third parties that present a clear and concise alternative to the duopoly of Republicans and Democrats? Doesn't it give them another arrow in their quivers to shoot at us? "You don't want to vote for them, do you? After all, there is a perception that they are vaguely dangerous. Are you vaguely dangerous too?"

6. Timothy McVeigh was a Republican. John Wayne Gacy was a Democrat. As long as we're painting broad strokes here, doesn't that mean Republicans are terrorists and Democrats are murderous child molesters?

That's my two-cents after a quick once-over. I'm printing the report out to go over it more in-depth at my leisure.

And here I was ready to order a "Don't Blame Me; I Voted For Ron Paul" bumper sticker...

[H/T 2 Alex Jones.]

[Update: State apologizes, removes Paul, Barr & Baldwin's names. I don't see anything about removing the names of the Libertarian and Constitution Parties, though.]

* D.W.L. - "Driving While Libertarian," also known as DWACI - "Driving With A Consistent Ideology."

** D.W.B - "Driving While Black."

'Tis the Season...

... Happy Bacchanalia, all!

(I'm planning on celebrating with a Shamrock Shake from the Poop-Colored Restaurant, as seen in Scooby Doo: The Mystery of the Poop-Colored Restaurant.)

Hillary's not the only one who can hand out presents.

This one's for R:



And this one's for Kevin:



I would include one for myself, but I can't find anything on YouTube about Virgil Ward.

"From the lakes of northern Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, wherever fish are bitin' that's where we're gonna go . . ."

Pride Goeth Before The Fall of The Hair Off The Head.

Several days after my spring headshave, this weekend I noticed the beginnings of The Dreaded Baldspot forming. On one hand, I suppose it means I still have plenty of testosterone pumping through my system. On the other, I was hoping to make it at least into my forties before it started. Missed it by about ten months.

I can deal with grey in my goatee. But going bald means I really have arrived at the thing I have been calling myself since before I was 25 -- Old Fartdom.

Does this mean I have to give up playing Star Wars Rebel Assault II and start playing canasta or cribbage or ... (shudder) ... shuffleboard? Do I have to give up my goals of someday getting back into comic books and putting my earring back in? Do I give up watching Spongebob and start watching 60 Minutes? Should I trade in my Guns N Roses and Pink CD's in favor of some Glenn Miller or ... (even worse shudder) ... countrypolitan? And do I gripe that you can't buy 8-tracks anymore?

It seems I am presented with a few options.

1. Pretend I didn't see it and keep doing what I have been doing, and risk becoming the pathetic Old Guy living in denial and trying desperately to his long-gone youth.

2. Throw on a baseball cap and hope I can get away with it another 5 or 10 years, but isn't that just kicking the can down the road?

3. Grow my hair long; Mom said it wasn't noticeable when my hair was longer. Maybe put it in a ponytail and become unpleasant Simpsons character Comic Book Guy.

4. Shave my head daily so it looks deliberate. Problem is, with my dark hair, when I shave my head it looks like my head's covered with a giant black birthmark, until the hair grows out a little in a few days.

5. Slather on the Rogaine.

6. Start rockin' a toup.

So, my minions, what's it gonna be?

Ladies & Jeckylfin . . .

. . . a little Steffenwulp.

Hmm...

Anyone else notice how many TV commercials there are nowadays with a young black mother and two young daughters? Why is there almost never a father in the picture?

Is he too busy hanging out with Joe Biden?

It sounds like the vocals in Kanye West's STRONGER video.

I think I saw this in Ghostbusters.

Joycelyn Elders' opportunity for a comeback?

Sanjay Gupta declines Obama's proposal.

He could've used that salary to bid on Gandhi's flipflops.

Because The War On Drugs Is Such a Smashing Success . . .

The National Resources Defense Council launches a War On Asswipe.

They can take my toilet paper when they pry it from my cold, dead . . . well, you know.

Note to both sides.

He's a freakin' radio talkshow host. Get over it!

I don't see you throwing such a hissyfit over Art Bell or Brian Gongol.

Ho-hum.

I don't want to post "DAMNED SOCIALISTS!" every day for the next four years, so what do I post about?

On sassafras.

Claey's Sassafras Candy is good, but oddly orange.

Wow. I had no idea.

Longtime (and not-so-longtime) readers of this blog know I have had great fun taking potshots at CNN's Rick Sanchez, mostly on the basis that he is an intellectual lightweight a-la-Miller Redfield and a shill for the Left.

But I had no idea he was evil. And no, not in the loosely-thrown-around way that the Right often uses the word. Truly, big-time Chappaquiddick Ted-level evil.

From an August 1991 article in the Miami News (emphasis mine):

Best known for his stint as a sometimes-melodramatic correspondent on
Channel 7's "Crime Check," [Now CNN-anchor Rick] Sanchez continues his work on the station's evening and late newscasts while awaiting a September 13 court date on misdemeanor drunk-driving charges. Though the results of one test show the newsman's blood-alcohol level was .15 -slightly over the legal .10 limit - the test was
performed after Sanchez left the scene of the accident. In January Sanchez told New Times he had consumed no alcohol the night of the accident. His attorney,Richard Essen, now says the anchorman returned home and had "a couple of drinks to calm his nerves" before returning to the scene. Essen doubts that Sanchez's DUI charge will ever come to trial. "I think the results of the blood tests will be thrown out," the lawyer says. "If the results of the blood tests are
suppressed, then there is no evidence against him at all. The state cannot
proceed."

Meanwhile, after two months in a coma, [Sanchez's victim] Smuzinick has regained consciousness and is making slow improvement. His right side remains largely paralyzed due to massive brain damage, but he can move his left arm and leg and sometimes hold his head upright. Using hand signals, he can answer yes or no to simple questions. Doctors last Friday removed a feeding tube from his trachea, and
Smuzinick can now eat liquid foods.

This guy has the audacity to call out Hannity for running a commercial for Robert Allen Stanford's company before anybody suspected any funny business was going on?

I will no longer be watching Rick Sanchez' show or mentioning him lightheartedly on these pages. Evil must be opposed.

CNN: Enough drunk-drivers and meth/sex fiends to fill up an episode of Springer AND COPS.

[H/T commenters on NewsBusters.]

Say it ain't Soho!

... Or Paris either, for that matter.

I hadn't been in this particular fast-food joint but once since the remodeling, and then I had been in a hurry, so I didn't fully appreciate how truly awful it is.

Driving by, I had noticed they've replaced the roof with a sort of baby-poop-brown metal, and they dismantled the kidplay area entirely. They didn't seem to know what to do with the fenced-in outdoor area anymore, so they placed a red movie-rental machine in it and left it that way for a long time.

This morning I had a coupon for a free iced mocha, so I decided to grab a couple of to-go sausage biscuits for breakfast while I was there.

The first thing I noticed as I drove up was that the red movie machine now had company. The former playground was now filled with little too-tall dinette sets, the kind at which black-clad, beret-wearing faguets eat baguets, gulp cheap wine, smoke cigarettes, and say things like "neuf" and "mu" and "Life, she is Sheet!" while they recover from a long night of snapping their fingers at black & white movies with subtitles.

Stepping into the place, I took a moment to really take in the atmosphere, and it made me grimace.

Imagine if so-called architect Philip Johnson designed an obstacle course/Habitrail for desperately trend-chasing Hipster Doofii. And, just because he COULD, when working out the color scheme, he drew his inspiration from various dark nuggets of poop.

It seeks to be jaded for the sake of being jaded. Picture Janeanne Garofolo as a fast-food place. The kind of place that makes you wonder "Why must I be so tormented by the sad clown of life?" and you're not being ironic or making fun of the French.

The kind of atmosphere that prohibits being happy while eating a meal there.

Can a design scheme be a psychic vampire? I wondered to myself.

My coupon was good for a free iced mocha, hot mocha, cappucino, or latte. I presented it to the cashier, picked an iced mocha, and ordered two sausage biscuits to go.

The coupon bewildered the cashier. She stretched her arms up, the way a yawning golden lioness arches her back when getting up from a nap, got a confused look on her face, and called her manager over.

"I don't know how to do this!" she exclaimed in a near-panic.

The manager verified that I wanted an iced mocha and entered it into the cash register. Somewhere between there and the mocha machine, the two of them vetoed my drink selection and decided that I really wanted a hot mocha.

I saw them making it and wondered when they were going to put the ice cubes in. They didn't. But at this point, I just wanted to escape the place before it sapped every ounce of happiness out of me like a swarm of Harry Potter's dementors.

By then, trying to straighten out the mess would have been as futile as a quarter-pounder trying to pound quarters flat with a cotton ball.

So I paid my $2.12, gathered up my breakfast, and left, deciding I wouldn't be returning very often. And if I DID, well, that's what drive-through windows are for.

But the bad thing is, St. Patrick's Day is coming up. That means it's the season for those minty green shakes that taste like childhood. I hope the decor doesn't suck all the joy out of those too.

Besides, I have another coupon.