This is hard to believe, but a jury in Austria just found a man guilty of insulting the religion of his Islamic neighbors-by yodeling. They fined him 700 Euros, for yodeling while he was mowing his yard. He claimed the thought that he might have been insulting his neighbors never crossed his mind. He was just yodeling while mowing because he was in a good mood.
So in what way can yodeling be interpreted as an insult to Islam? Well, the Austrian's Muslim neighbors thought he was making fun of the Islamic call to prayer.
So, let's look at it. Here's an Austrian woman named Ernestine yodeling in a song-
And now, here's the Muslim call to prayer in Istanbul-
Yeah, come to think of it, there is a similarity, but I think its off the charts insane to fine an Austrian citizen, in Austria, for doing something Austrians have been doing for centuries, by deciding the man was obviously indulging in an old Austrian tradition to be provocative towards members of a group that have just recently moved to their country and gone out of their way to be obnoxious assholes, pretty much like these clowns do everywhere they go.
But hey, that's just me.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Must Be Santa
Any old hippy from the 1960's will tell you, half the fun of listening to a Bob Dylan song was wondering just what he was really saying. What was the hidden meaning behind those cryptic lyrics?
Well now, thankfully, Bob has taken the fun to a whole new level for the YouTube generation. In this video, something inexplicable happens that seems out of place to the general setting and mood of the song.
Now all those old hippies can gather at the local Starbucks and expound, theorize, and philosophize as to "what was Bob saying here?"
Or you can just enjoy the video.
H/T Maggie's Farm
Well now, thankfully, Bob has taken the fun to a whole new level for the YouTube generation. In this video, something inexplicable happens that seems out of place to the general setting and mood of the song.
Now all those old hippies can gather at the local Starbucks and expound, theorize, and philosophize as to "what was Bob saying here?"
Or you can just enjoy the video.
H/T Maggie's Farm
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Victory And Defeat
Ed Schulz on his execrable MSNBC program The Ed Show has taken to excoriating John Boehner, the Republican House Majority Leader soon to become Speaker of The House of Representatives, for his propensity to cry, notably during discussions of The American Dream. Schulz blames Boehner and the Republicans for the country's problems and for "throwing working families under the bus" even going so far as to say his crying during a recent Barbara Walter's interview is a sign of a guilty conscience. Walter's co-host on The View like to infer that Boehner is just emotionally unstable. And of course liberal Democrats fall in line behind this rhetoric, and excuse it on the grounds that conservatives would be worse if Obama or Pelosi were to break down in tears. Some even point out how conservatives were cruelly derisive of Hillary Clinton when she broke down and cried following her loss in the Iowa caucus during her 2008 run for the Democratic nomination.
I would like to point out a major difference between Hillary and John Boehner which should be mind-numbingly obvious to any with the brains of Ray Bolger's Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz.
Boehner cried when his party, not just him, made their biggest electoral gains in several decades.
Hillary Clinton cried when she lost. When she lost her first caucus.
When that happened, Hillary Clinton lost the first important test of her candidacy during a primary season, prior to which she had been hailed for about two years as the all-but presumptive Democratic Party nominee for President in 2008. It was but the first of a series of long, hard fought primary season contests that she would lose, leading to her ultimate defeat and the corresponding ascension of Obama as Democratic nominee. Hillary had to know that her first defeat in Iowa was but a portent, an ominous foreshadowing of what promised to be a long, hard fought and bruising primary campaign season, one in which she was no longer assured of the victory she had come to feel was hers for merely the asking.
When it looked as though she might also fall to defeat in New Hampshire, it was too much for her. For a few brief seconds, she lost her composure, the steely, hard resolve for which she was noted, and she was overcome with a sense of emotional insecurity that actually revealed her to be more human than many might have suspected. Ironically, it actually helped her. She ended up winning the New Hampshire primary, and went on to score other victories. But in the end, she lost, as she feared she might that night two years ago when she broke down for just a few brief seconds, and lost her composure.
But her tears, despite her stated anxiety about those things she feared she would never accomplish, seem based on disappointment at the loss of the opportunity to extend the Clinton legacy of power and influence through yet a third presidential term.
Contrast this to John Boehner, whose tears were not tears of disappointment in the face of a crushing defeat, but instead were tears of gratitude and humility in the face of an overwhelming sense of responsibility entrusted by the American people not just in him, but in the party of which he is a leader. John Boehner came up the hard way, through hard work and dedication, working at menial labor jobs and rising from there to become a successful, even a wealthy businessman. He doesn't just trust and have faith in the American Dream. He has lived the American Dream. He has experienced it first hand, and knows what it can do for a person who puts enough of his blood, sweat, and tears into pursuing it. He also knows there is always the possibility of failure. He wants government to not interfere with it. Unfortunately, John Boehner knows that the government, thanks to a series of ill-advised policies, many implemented in some cases with the best of intentions, has for far too many people made the American Dream measurably harder to achieve. In some cases, it has outright crushed that dream.
John Boehner knows full well that he has the power to do one of two things. As House Majority Speaker, he can be a major influence towards restoring the American Dream to its former level of greater attainment by those with the potential to strive for success. Or, he can accede to policies that will continue to strangle that potential for greater and increased success for greater numbers of people. That has got to be an awesome responsibility, an awesome weight to hoist upon ones shoulders. He knows it is going to be hard. He knows it is going to be one set of long, hard battles after another, with some failures, and maybe few victories.
But you see, John Boehner will fight those battles to the end, and he will do it with all the strength he can muster. Because John Boehner, unlike Hillary Clinton, is not just fighting for his own sense of entitlement, of self=aggrandizement, for ever greater personal power and influence.
No, John Boehner is fighting for something greater, much greater than himself, or for that matter, much greater than the Republican or Democratic Parties.
He is fighting to keep the Dream alive, and he knows its life might well depend on what he does. Or maybe on what he doesn't do, as Speaker of the House of Representatives.
If he breaks down and cries from time to time from being overcome with the emotion inherent in such an awesome responsibility, I can not only forgive it, I can appreciate it.
At least I know he gives a damn.
I would like to point out a major difference between Hillary and John Boehner which should be mind-numbingly obvious to any with the brains of Ray Bolger's Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz.
Boehner cried when his party, not just him, made their biggest electoral gains in several decades.
Hillary Clinton cried when she lost. When she lost her first caucus.
When that happened, Hillary Clinton lost the first important test of her candidacy during a primary season, prior to which she had been hailed for about two years as the all-but presumptive Democratic Party nominee for President in 2008. It was but the first of a series of long, hard fought primary season contests that she would lose, leading to her ultimate defeat and the corresponding ascension of Obama as Democratic nominee. Hillary had to know that her first defeat in Iowa was but a portent, an ominous foreshadowing of what promised to be a long, hard fought and bruising primary campaign season, one in which she was no longer assured of the victory she had come to feel was hers for merely the asking.
When it looked as though she might also fall to defeat in New Hampshire, it was too much for her. For a few brief seconds, she lost her composure, the steely, hard resolve for which she was noted, and she was overcome with a sense of emotional insecurity that actually revealed her to be more human than many might have suspected. Ironically, it actually helped her. She ended up winning the New Hampshire primary, and went on to score other victories. But in the end, she lost, as she feared she might that night two years ago when she broke down for just a few brief seconds, and lost her composure.
But her tears, despite her stated anxiety about those things she feared she would never accomplish, seem based on disappointment at the loss of the opportunity to extend the Clinton legacy of power and influence through yet a third presidential term.
Contrast this to John Boehner, whose tears were not tears of disappointment in the face of a crushing defeat, but instead were tears of gratitude and humility in the face of an overwhelming sense of responsibility entrusted by the American people not just in him, but in the party of which he is a leader. John Boehner came up the hard way, through hard work and dedication, working at menial labor jobs and rising from there to become a successful, even a wealthy businessman. He doesn't just trust and have faith in the American Dream. He has lived the American Dream. He has experienced it first hand, and knows what it can do for a person who puts enough of his blood, sweat, and tears into pursuing it. He also knows there is always the possibility of failure. He wants government to not interfere with it. Unfortunately, John Boehner knows that the government, thanks to a series of ill-advised policies, many implemented in some cases with the best of intentions, has for far too many people made the American Dream measurably harder to achieve. In some cases, it has outright crushed that dream.
John Boehner knows full well that he has the power to do one of two things. As House Majority Speaker, he can be a major influence towards restoring the American Dream to its former level of greater attainment by those with the potential to strive for success. Or, he can accede to policies that will continue to strangle that potential for greater and increased success for greater numbers of people. That has got to be an awesome responsibility, an awesome weight to hoist upon ones shoulders. He knows it is going to be hard. He knows it is going to be one set of long, hard battles after another, with some failures, and maybe few victories.
But you see, John Boehner will fight those battles to the end, and he will do it with all the strength he can muster. Because John Boehner, unlike Hillary Clinton, is not just fighting for his own sense of entitlement, of self=aggrandizement, for ever greater personal power and influence.
No, John Boehner is fighting for something greater, much greater than himself, or for that matter, much greater than the Republican or Democratic Parties.
He is fighting to keep the Dream alive, and he knows its life might well depend on what he does. Or maybe on what he doesn't do, as Speaker of the House of Representatives.
If he breaks down and cries from time to time from being overcome with the emotion inherent in such an awesome responsibility, I can not only forgive it, I can appreciate it.
At least I know he gives a damn.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Sarah Palin's Alaska
I finally got around to watching a few episodes of Sarah Palin's Alaska the other night, and to tell you the truth its hard for me to fault Kate Goslin's performance for her guest-starring stint on the show. If you have never watched the show and decide to give it a shot, let me give you some good advice. You are going to want to make sure you are as close as possible to a soft, comfortable bed with the thickest, warmest blanket you can find.
Not because the show is so boring it will put you to sleep. Far from it. No, its because by the time you get through one episode you will be fucking exhausted just from watching it. And cold.
I have always imagined Alaska to be a land of scenic beauty and wonder, one of the last great nature refuge's on earth. And I'm sure it is, but you might not notice that from this series. Here, Alaska seems like a lonely, cold, and desolate place.
In one episode, Sarah and family visit a woman who lives in a large trailer way off somewhere in a secluded area, more than one hundred miles from her nearest neighbors. She related how one night when out foraging she was attacked by a bear which grabbed her by the head and dragged her off. As the Palin's felt her head and remarked on the evidenced left by the bear's crushing jaw, she related how she later sewed her head up by herself. Something's missing here, I thought. How did she get away from the bear? I never heard her explain, but I might have missed it running for the aspirin.
The main thing to remember about this show is-these people. Never. Stop. It's sunup to sundown activity. In an earlier episode, they went fishing, not with rod and reel, but to check their salmon nets. After one dry run, they went back the next day and took in a hefty haul. I shivered every time Todd or his partner reached into that frigid water to pull that thing in.
Todd is trying to train son Track to take over the family fishing business, but unfortunately, the Palin's son has-during his sojourn in Iraq-grown soft and lazy. He and his buddy neglected to clean up the tool shed, which they left in the biggest mess you could possible imagine. They were roused out of their sleep by little sister Piper some time after Todd and Sarah discovered the transgression and, sure enough, took it on themselves to clean up.
"No, please don't", I moaned to myself. "Please, take it easy. I can't take anymore."
But they just kept on. Not just Sarah and Todd, but the whole family. In that same episode, the middle girl, Willow, was up to her elbows in fish blood helping some of the other extended family members prepare dinner. And this, by the way, was on her birthday.
Her sweet sixteen birthday.
All of them were there, and all of them were working, constantly. This might sound like a put down, but its not. If anything, this show is proof positive that these people are the real deal. If Sarah becomes President, don't worry about her not being up for the job, or taking too many vacations. I seriously wonder if any of them even know what the word vacation means, in addition to other words, such as rest, relax, etc.
I am not exaggerating when I say that if I could go back in time one hundred years or so and tell the story of one of these programs around a campfire, by the time I was finished somebody would say "okay its my turn. Once there was this giant lumberjack with a big blue ox."
There are two different fallacies regarding Sarah Palin. One group thinks of her in negative terms, that she's a hick, or an opportunist, or that she's inexperienced and unqualified for high public office. One recent example of this is Aaron Sorkin, who recently penned a rant for the Huffington Post in which he criticized Sarah's apparent delight in killing animals, even though he admitted he himself was a meat eater. Apparently he thinks people that produce meat for supermarkets and restaurants wait until the animal dies of old age.
More to the point, these kinds of people are typical of the elitist, snobbish buffoons who like to portray themselves as the pillars of society. They know in reality that their lifestyle requires the hard work and sacrifice of other, and even the shedding of blood in some instances. They just don't want to have to know about it in detail, and in fact, they have a visceral reaction to the very people their very lives depend on. They want to pretend that they are too civilized, above all that, while people who live the life of the Palins are to their way of thinking too common, too crude, to regard seriously as their equals, when the fact of the matter is, people like the Palins are their superiors in every way that matters.
But there is another group of people who are just as deluded, and that is the people who think Palin is "just like us". Okay, in the sense that there are certain intrinsic values she might share, yes. But believe me, there is nothing ordinary or average about Sarah Palin.
The last thing I saw before I stopped watching was Sarah and an older in-law waiting to kill a caribou once it got in range, until it stopped and seemed to stare in their direction. "Something's wrong", whispered the older man.
Yeah, I think I know what that something was. That caribou stopped in his tracks and was thinking "Oh fucking dammit, I see a Palin at seven o'clock!"
I never saw how that turned out either. By that time my bones were so cold and sore, and I was so exhausted, I had to crawl off to bed.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Don't Ask, Don't Tell-Don't Tread!
Now that West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin has managed to derail the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, joining a filibuster with 39 Republicans, its probably a pretty safe bet the law won't be repealed for at least another two years. Manchin explained that he was not sure where his West Virginia constituents stand on the subject. I think he might have been kidding.
For my own part, I'm mixed on the subject, but Ann Coulter makes a great point when she decries the recent Pentagon poll as pretty meaningless as a gauge of military attitudes. That poll was skewed by the presence of non-military, non-combat related civilian branches and employees of the Pentagon. The actual military branches which would be most affected are dead set against repeal. This is especially true of the Marines, and it is a predominant attitude throughout the ranks. Asking the opinion of the Pentagon would be about as relevant as a poll of the members of Cirque du Soleil on this subject.
The military is politicized enough as it is. Democrats especially love to turn the military and its soldiers into political footballs, crying to the heavens about how they love and respect our men and women in uniform, yet insisting they go way beyond the call of duty to save civilian lives even at greater risk to their own, imposing unrealistic and outrageously strict codes of conduct against the most savage and barbaric of foes, and in myriad other ways limiting their success if not outright derailing it. They then use that lack of success as a political stick with which to whack Republicans up the side of the head. In the meantime, the bloody carcasses of our military casualties becomes a red meat they throw to their leftist base.
That is why we have not yet won in Afghanistan, and probably will not, and that is also why it took so long to achieve real progress in Iraq. I would personally discourage any young man or woman, especially a member of my family, from serving in any branch of the military. As a member of the armed forces you get unbounded respect from most of the general public, but you get next to none from the people who send you into harms way. This is especially true of the ones that have a "d" after their names.
The policy of Don't Ask Don't Tell is just another distraction from what is the real issue. Gays themselves are just another kind of cannon fodder to the Democratic Party, just another group of pawns the Democrats try to manipulate as cynically and as cravenly as the establishment Republicans try to manipulate Christian conservatives.
The real issue isn't should gays be allowed to serve openly in the military. The real issue is why would they want to serve openly or otherwise. The real issue is, why the hell would anybody want to?
I favor making the military a fourth co-equal branch of government myself, but that's a post for another day. For now I'll just suffice it to say they should have their own policies regarding who they allow to serve and under what conditions, and the civilian branch, the Pentagon and even the President and Congress should butt the hell out of it. They've done enough damage to our armed forces as it is, to say nothing of the psychological and physical damage to individual members of the military. They have served their country honorably at great sacrifice of life and limb. In some cases they will never recover from the mental and emotional turmoil to which they have been subjected, not only by foreign enemies but by mostly Democrat politicians who in some cases have enabled if not outright engineered their difficulties for political purposes, with tragic consequences.
For those same Democrats to then use the despair and tragedy they have wreaked upon our soldiers as a political issue and an excuse to even further oppose their missions while claiming out of the other side of their mouths that they only have their welfare and best interests in mind goes beyond the realm of insult. It's pure, unadulterated treason under the hypocritical guise of building a better, more just society and world. Its about time they were called on their bullshit, not allowed to hijack the legitimate interests of yet another poorly represented, leftist hijacked interest group as merely another political vehicle.
The military especially should be viewed as a sacred institution, something we depend on to secure the blessings of liberty and use respectfully only when deemed necessary with our full and wholehearted support. It should have a special places in our hearts and prayers, put on a very special pedestal, a place of honor. It should never be cynically manipulated for political gain by the likes of the craven politicians of both parties who have poisoned and perverted this nation's values.
For my own part, I'm mixed on the subject, but Ann Coulter makes a great point when she decries the recent Pentagon poll as pretty meaningless as a gauge of military attitudes. That poll was skewed by the presence of non-military, non-combat related civilian branches and employees of the Pentagon. The actual military branches which would be most affected are dead set against repeal. This is especially true of the Marines, and it is a predominant attitude throughout the ranks. Asking the opinion of the Pentagon would be about as relevant as a poll of the members of Cirque du Soleil on this subject.
The military is politicized enough as it is. Democrats especially love to turn the military and its soldiers into political footballs, crying to the heavens about how they love and respect our men and women in uniform, yet insisting they go way beyond the call of duty to save civilian lives even at greater risk to their own, imposing unrealistic and outrageously strict codes of conduct against the most savage and barbaric of foes, and in myriad other ways limiting their success if not outright derailing it. They then use that lack of success as a political stick with which to whack Republicans up the side of the head. In the meantime, the bloody carcasses of our military casualties becomes a red meat they throw to their leftist base.
That is why we have not yet won in Afghanistan, and probably will not, and that is also why it took so long to achieve real progress in Iraq. I would personally discourage any young man or woman, especially a member of my family, from serving in any branch of the military. As a member of the armed forces you get unbounded respect from most of the general public, but you get next to none from the people who send you into harms way. This is especially true of the ones that have a "d" after their names.
The policy of Don't Ask Don't Tell is just another distraction from what is the real issue. Gays themselves are just another kind of cannon fodder to the Democratic Party, just another group of pawns the Democrats try to manipulate as cynically and as cravenly as the establishment Republicans try to manipulate Christian conservatives.
The real issue isn't should gays be allowed to serve openly in the military. The real issue is why would they want to serve openly or otherwise. The real issue is, why the hell would anybody want to?
I favor making the military a fourth co-equal branch of government myself, but that's a post for another day. For now I'll just suffice it to say they should have their own policies regarding who they allow to serve and under what conditions, and the civilian branch, the Pentagon and even the President and Congress should butt the hell out of it. They've done enough damage to our armed forces as it is, to say nothing of the psychological and physical damage to individual members of the military. They have served their country honorably at great sacrifice of life and limb. In some cases they will never recover from the mental and emotional turmoil to which they have been subjected, not only by foreign enemies but by mostly Democrat politicians who in some cases have enabled if not outright engineered their difficulties for political purposes, with tragic consequences.
For those same Democrats to then use the despair and tragedy they have wreaked upon our soldiers as a political issue and an excuse to even further oppose their missions while claiming out of the other side of their mouths that they only have their welfare and best interests in mind goes beyond the realm of insult. It's pure, unadulterated treason under the hypocritical guise of building a better, more just society and world. Its about time they were called on their bullshit, not allowed to hijack the legitimate interests of yet another poorly represented, leftist hijacked interest group as merely another political vehicle.
The military especially should be viewed as a sacred institution, something we depend on to secure the blessings of liberty and use respectfully only when deemed necessary with our full and wholehearted support. It should have a special places in our hearts and prayers, put on a very special pedestal, a place of honor. It should never be cynically manipulated for political gain by the likes of the craven politicians of both parties who have poisoned and perverted this nation's values.
Sanders Takes The Floor
Sanders clearly plans to take no prisoners.
About three hours ago, just as he took the Senate floor, Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) staff, tweeted: "You can call what i am doing today whatever you want, you it [sic] call it a filibuster, you can call it a very long speech..." And he's been speaking, almost uninterrupted, ever since.... Sanders has been decrying the Obama tax cut plan for bailing out the wealthiest people in America. "How can I get by on one house?" Sanders railed, sarcastically. "I need five houses, ten houses. I need three jet planes to take me all over the world! Sorry, American people. We've got the money, we've got the power."
Yeah, whatever you call it, he's got support from Democratic Senators Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Mary Landrieu (Louisiana), who have stood in for him at various intervals, which is a good thing. Sanders is such a profuse sweater, he's liable to shed five pounds or more as it is by Monday, the day the compromise tax cut extension measure is due to come to a vote on the floor of the Senate. Ironically, he is probably investing all that time and energy in a wasted effort, as the House Democrats have made it plain they will not vote for the bill. Practically every member of the Democratic House caucus is against the bill as it is written, save for possibly one member for now.
I was for the bill until I found out it included tons of pork that went beyond the parameters of the bill, which is supposed to extend all Bush era tax cuts for two years as well as unemployment benefits. Because of this, the bill should be defeated. The incoming Congress can probably forge a better deal and make the tax cuts permanent, as well as retroactive, with hopefully no pork attached, and with at least some spending cuts.
Let Obama veto it, or let the Democrats filibuster it, at their peril. But for now, let Sanders do his best, or for that matter his worse. He's only paving the way for a better deal.
About three hours ago, just as he took the Senate floor, Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) staff, tweeted: "You can call what i am doing today whatever you want, you it [sic] call it a filibuster, you can call it a very long speech..." And he's been speaking, almost uninterrupted, ever since.... Sanders has been decrying the Obama tax cut plan for bailing out the wealthiest people in America. "How can I get by on one house?" Sanders railed, sarcastically. "I need five houses, ten houses. I need three jet planes to take me all over the world! Sorry, American people. We've got the money, we've got the power."
Yeah, whatever you call it, he's got support from Democratic Senators Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Mary Landrieu (Louisiana), who have stood in for him at various intervals, which is a good thing. Sanders is such a profuse sweater, he's liable to shed five pounds or more as it is by Monday, the day the compromise tax cut extension measure is due to come to a vote on the floor of the Senate. Ironically, he is probably investing all that time and energy in a wasted effort, as the House Democrats have made it plain they will not vote for the bill. Practically every member of the Democratic House caucus is against the bill as it is written, save for possibly one member for now.
I was for the bill until I found out it included tons of pork that went beyond the parameters of the bill, which is supposed to extend all Bush era tax cuts for two years as well as unemployment benefits. Because of this, the bill should be defeated. The incoming Congress can probably forge a better deal and make the tax cuts permanent, as well as retroactive, with hopefully no pork attached, and with at least some spending cuts.
Let Obama veto it, or let the Democrats filibuster it, at their peril. But for now, let Sanders do his best, or for that matter his worse. He's only paving the way for a better deal.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Jaimie Alexander In The New Thor Movie Kicks Some Serious Ass-As Sif
UPDATE-I've just been informed in the comments that the video here, even though to the best of my recollection it was posted as a scene from the upcoming Thor movie, is actually from some other movie with Jaimie Alexander. Sorry for the confusion. Personally, I thought it was strange that the Goddess Sif might be portrayed as so adversely affected by a shot of cheap human whiskey. You have to be careful with some of these fan videos.
For what its worth, here's a scene from the upcoming Thor movie. This isn't the official trailer, and I'm not sure it hasn't been left on the cutting room floor, but in it, the goddess Sif has come to earth in search of Thor and has to fight off the advances of an unwelcome but insistent admirer. The role of Sif is played by Jaimie Alexander.
Its always good when films include voluptuous bits of eye candy like this. Natalie Portman is also on board in the role of Jane Foster, who in the original comic was for a while Thor's main squeeze in the mortal realm, before he was reunited with Sif.
Here's the full cast of Thor, which stars Chris Hemsworth as the God of Thunder, and also includes Anthony Hopkins as Odin, and Tom Hiddleston as the evil Loki, God of Mischief.
For what its worth, here's a scene from the upcoming Thor movie. This isn't the official trailer, and I'm not sure it hasn't been left on the cutting room floor, but in it, the goddess Sif has come to earth in search of Thor and has to fight off the advances of an unwelcome but insistent admirer. The role of Sif is played by Jaimie Alexander.
Its always good when films include voluptuous bits of eye candy like this. Natalie Portman is also on board in the role of Jane Foster, who in the original comic was for a while Thor's main squeeze in the mortal realm, before he was reunited with Sif.
Here's the full cast of Thor, which stars Chris Hemsworth as the God of Thunder, and also includes Anthony Hopkins as Odin, and Tom Hiddleston as the evil Loki, God of Mischief.
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Rachel Maddow Misses The Mark
Last night on MSNBC Rachel Maddow interviewed Ugandan MP David Behati, who has recently authored a proposed bill which would impose life imprisonment, and in some cases the death penalty, for the "crime" of homosexuality. I want to say at the outset I don't support or condone any such law, and would hope that diplomatic pressure would serve to reverse this present course in the tragic African country that has seen more than its share of strife, bloodshed, and misrule over the preceding decades.
But Maddow went way off the mark into the realm of political correctness with a vengeance when she made the following statement.
"You're describing one of the foundational myths about how gay people have been slandered and attacked in every country," Maddow told Bahati. "The idea, this myth that gay people are recruiting kids. Assert it as if it is baldly true, and no evidence of it is ever ever ever ever put forward in any way that can be evaluated and every responsible authority who's looked into it says that it's a myth."
Rachel Maddow is of course so full of shit it actually seems impossible. But then I stop and remind myself, well she's not really wrong, she's just lying.
Child sex tourism is a big problem not just in Thailand and other parts of Southeast Asia, but in many other parts of the world, and Uganda is no exception.
There, like in so many other impoverished areas, life is cheap. It's not about gay men "recruiting" or "converting" innocent children into a lifestyle of casual gay sex for fun and pleasure. It's about putting food on the table. It's about survival. When you have a situation where children are recruited as soldiers, its really about clawing your way out of despair. If you can initiate a young child into a life of guerrilla warfare by inducing him to murder a close relative or fellow villager, you can pretty much convince him to do anything else. And when you have smooth-talking, well-connected members of NGO's purporting to offer aid and the hope of a better life to a desperate child who has no one else to whom he can turn, it can all too often set the stage for tragic manipulation and abuse. It has become such a problem in Madagascar there is now laws on the books to fight the sex trade industry in general. It is in fact the fastest growing area of the travel industry, in all parts of the world. But you don't have to take my word for it. The folks at International Sex Guide-Uganda will happily walk you through it. And where there is a burgeoning, prosperous sex industry, there will always be a subset of the species that will cater to the most depraved and perverted of predilections.
And as stated, you can easily disguise your intentions by going under the umbrella of an NGO. That way, you can at least pretend you are doing good by making a positive contribution to the welfare of the least fortunate of the world's population. Although I do not point fingers nor cast stones at any one NGO in particular, I just want to point out that the best of such organizations take on the risk inherent in accepting volunteers who might have, at best, mixed intentions. One such example is Hope Beyond Uganda, which advertises itself as a way of taking part in safaris and otherwise experiencing the beauty of Africa and its people while at the same time working to improve the lives of Ugandan children. In the meantime, their website is dotted with pictures of smiling, eager Ugandan children, predominantly boys, such as the following.
Again, I make no judgments as to the intentions of the site or the organization it represents, but as I mentioned earlier, there has been a problem with individual NGO members. The fact that they might well do good, admirable, even vital work can in some cases afford the best of camouflage. Another one that seems especially dedicated to educating the children of Uganda is Survivors, which bills itself as a project of the Emancipation Network. And I am sure they are dedicated to that cause. But again, this isn't about any one group, or any one person or group that works though them, it is the very real potential for abuse.
For Rachel Maddow to ignore this fact, this proven, demonstrable fact, is damnable on the face of it. Nor am I giving MP Behati a pass for his obvious intolerance, bigotry, and superstitious fear-mongering. He obviously either has a severe psychological problem with homosexuals, or he is pandering to the superstitious fears prevalent in his culture regarding them.
But whatever the case, Maddow missed out on the perfect opportunity to educate him, or more to the point, to educate her audience through him. The sex tourism industry is still one of the back burner issues of the day, always in the back of people's minds, raring its ugly poisonous head on occasion, but for the most part kept in the background, put off while other more immediately pressing matters are addressed.
And let's be clear about this. It is a serious problem. It's not all about consensual sex between adults, nor for that matter is it even a matter of allegedly consensual sex between adults and children. In some cases it certainly is, which in the case of children would still be criminal. But in a great many cases it goes beyond willing consent into the area of sex slavery, with children from all over the most destitute parts of the world sold in some cases by their own parents in the hopes they will have a chance at a better life, only to be sold as sex slaves and as common laborers working for a cot and just enough food to keep them working.
This is the thing Rachel Maddow should be pointing out. The second part of her interview with Behati will come about tonight. I might be wrong about her. Maybe she will broach the issue. But I seriously doubt it. She seems far more interested in separating the two issues of sex slavery/tourism (which she has thus far ignored in the context of this interview) and homosexual pedophilia and grooming, which she would have us believe is a complete myth. Yet, her protestations to the contrary, the two matters are, in this instance, immutably intertwined.
But of course, how can leftists such as Maddow be expected to acknowledge the root of the problem as it exists in Uganda when she and others of her ideological persuasion can't even bring themselves to acknowledge that it happens here, sometimes with an official stamp of approval that will make your head spin.
It hasn't been that long ago that Obama's Safe Schools Czar, Kevin Jennings, promoted a reading list for schools that encouraged homosexual behaviors between boys and adult males. And this list was approved by GLSEN, one of the premiere activist gay organizations of our day, and which is shown to be supported by pedophiles.
You can go to the blog Red Alerts, and read a page which is a category of posts pertaining to child sexual abuse. Although Rob Taylor, the owner of the blog, dislikes labeling pedophiles as either homosexual or heterosexual, regardless of their own particular preferences, they do have a predilection of one flavor or another, and sometimes both.
This is the problem Uganda seems to be faced with, and as I said, it is a problem faced by many poverty stricken countries with high mortality rates and vast numbers of orphaned and homeless children, waiting desperately for help and love, yet all too often taken advantage of. One such example is the case of recently deceased 39 year old Robert Vann Smith, who had earlier been arrested for molesting young boys in Mexico, along with 31 year old Nicholas Simmons. He was the member of no NGO of which I am aware, but he was a pedophile who referred to himself as an omnisexual-which means he would have sex with anything, of any gender of any age. Yet, he insisted he loved and only wanted to "help" his victims.
Or if that seems a little too obscure, who could ever forget the outrageous conduct of director Roman Polanski.
Ah, you say, but Polanski's crime was against a young girl, not a boy, so that's beyond the scope of your argument. Rachel Maddow was objecting to the "myth" that homosexuals groom children to become homosexuals.
But the point is, Polanski was an adult, and his victim was a child whom he drugged and raped repeatedly, someone whom he had power over. The sex of the victim is almost irrelevant, useful only as a means of identifying the preferences of any given predator. And as sure as night follows day, there are abusers who prefer the same sex, just as there are those who prefer the opposite sex.
And this is what is going on in Uganda, in Ugandan cities and more than likely in Ugandan schools, probably facilitated by many elder Ugandan men and women, and possibly teachers and other persons of some authority in the various towns and villages, as well as the larger urban centers, adult individuals who play the role of pimps to a large and growing number of the international idle wealthy, the demented sex tourists who do not respect the integrity of innocence, and to whom boundaries, like mountains, exist to be conquered.
As horrific as are the very real human rights crimes enshrined in Ugandan law by David Behati, due seemingly to religious fanaticism and ignorance, this actually pales into relative insignificance in comparison to the willful blindness and criminal disregard for the rights of abused children propagated thus far by Rachel Maddow, and by extension MSNBC, for nothing more than the sake of a political agenda.
But Maddow went way off the mark into the realm of political correctness with a vengeance when she made the following statement.
"You're describing one of the foundational myths about how gay people have been slandered and attacked in every country," Maddow told Bahati. "The idea, this myth that gay people are recruiting kids. Assert it as if it is baldly true, and no evidence of it is ever ever ever ever put forward in any way that can be evaluated and every responsible authority who's looked into it says that it's a myth."
Rachel Maddow is of course so full of shit it actually seems impossible. But then I stop and remind myself, well she's not really wrong, she's just lying.
Child sex tourism is a big problem not just in Thailand and other parts of Southeast Asia, but in many other parts of the world, and Uganda is no exception.
There, like in so many other impoverished areas, life is cheap. It's not about gay men "recruiting" or "converting" innocent children into a lifestyle of casual gay sex for fun and pleasure. It's about putting food on the table. It's about survival. When you have a situation where children are recruited as soldiers, its really about clawing your way out of despair. If you can initiate a young child into a life of guerrilla warfare by inducing him to murder a close relative or fellow villager, you can pretty much convince him to do anything else. And when you have smooth-talking, well-connected members of NGO's purporting to offer aid and the hope of a better life to a desperate child who has no one else to whom he can turn, it can all too often set the stage for tragic manipulation and abuse. It has become such a problem in Madagascar there is now laws on the books to fight the sex trade industry in general. It is in fact the fastest growing area of the travel industry, in all parts of the world. But you don't have to take my word for it. The folks at International Sex Guide-Uganda will happily walk you through it. And where there is a burgeoning, prosperous sex industry, there will always be a subset of the species that will cater to the most depraved and perverted of predilections.
And as stated, you can easily disguise your intentions by going under the umbrella of an NGO. That way, you can at least pretend you are doing good by making a positive contribution to the welfare of the least fortunate of the world's population. Although I do not point fingers nor cast stones at any one NGO in particular, I just want to point out that the best of such organizations take on the risk inherent in accepting volunteers who might have, at best, mixed intentions. One such example is Hope Beyond Uganda, which advertises itself as a way of taking part in safaris and otherwise experiencing the beauty of Africa and its people while at the same time working to improve the lives of Ugandan children. In the meantime, their website is dotted with pictures of smiling, eager Ugandan children, predominantly boys, such as the following.
Again, I make no judgments as to the intentions of the site or the organization it represents, but as I mentioned earlier, there has been a problem with individual NGO members. The fact that they might well do good, admirable, even vital work can in some cases afford the best of camouflage. Another one that seems especially dedicated to educating the children of Uganda is Survivors, which bills itself as a project of the Emancipation Network. And I am sure they are dedicated to that cause. But again, this isn't about any one group, or any one person or group that works though them, it is the very real potential for abuse.
For Rachel Maddow to ignore this fact, this proven, demonstrable fact, is damnable on the face of it. Nor am I giving MP Behati a pass for his obvious intolerance, bigotry, and superstitious fear-mongering. He obviously either has a severe psychological problem with homosexuals, or he is pandering to the superstitious fears prevalent in his culture regarding them.
But whatever the case, Maddow missed out on the perfect opportunity to educate him, or more to the point, to educate her audience through him. The sex tourism industry is still one of the back burner issues of the day, always in the back of people's minds, raring its ugly poisonous head on occasion, but for the most part kept in the background, put off while other more immediately pressing matters are addressed.
And let's be clear about this. It is a serious problem. It's not all about consensual sex between adults, nor for that matter is it even a matter of allegedly consensual sex between adults and children. In some cases it certainly is, which in the case of children would still be criminal. But in a great many cases it goes beyond willing consent into the area of sex slavery, with children from all over the most destitute parts of the world sold in some cases by their own parents in the hopes they will have a chance at a better life, only to be sold as sex slaves and as common laborers working for a cot and just enough food to keep them working.
This is the thing Rachel Maddow should be pointing out. The second part of her interview with Behati will come about tonight. I might be wrong about her. Maybe she will broach the issue. But I seriously doubt it. She seems far more interested in separating the two issues of sex slavery/tourism (which she has thus far ignored in the context of this interview) and homosexual pedophilia and grooming, which she would have us believe is a complete myth. Yet, her protestations to the contrary, the two matters are, in this instance, immutably intertwined.
But of course, how can leftists such as Maddow be expected to acknowledge the root of the problem as it exists in Uganda when she and others of her ideological persuasion can't even bring themselves to acknowledge that it happens here, sometimes with an official stamp of approval that will make your head spin.
It hasn't been that long ago that Obama's Safe Schools Czar, Kevin Jennings, promoted a reading list for schools that encouraged homosexual behaviors between boys and adult males. And this list was approved by GLSEN, one of the premiere activist gay organizations of our day, and which is shown to be supported by pedophiles.
You can go to the blog Red Alerts, and read a page which is a category of posts pertaining to child sexual abuse. Although Rob Taylor, the owner of the blog, dislikes labeling pedophiles as either homosexual or heterosexual, regardless of their own particular preferences, they do have a predilection of one flavor or another, and sometimes both.
This is the problem Uganda seems to be faced with, and as I said, it is a problem faced by many poverty stricken countries with high mortality rates and vast numbers of orphaned and homeless children, waiting desperately for help and love, yet all too often taken advantage of. One such example is the case of recently deceased 39 year old Robert Vann Smith, who had earlier been arrested for molesting young boys in Mexico, along with 31 year old Nicholas Simmons. He was the member of no NGO of which I am aware, but he was a pedophile who referred to himself as an omnisexual-which means he would have sex with anything, of any gender of any age. Yet, he insisted he loved and only wanted to "help" his victims.
Or if that seems a little too obscure, who could ever forget the outrageous conduct of director Roman Polanski.
Ah, you say, but Polanski's crime was against a young girl, not a boy, so that's beyond the scope of your argument. Rachel Maddow was objecting to the "myth" that homosexuals groom children to become homosexuals.
But the point is, Polanski was an adult, and his victim was a child whom he drugged and raped repeatedly, someone whom he had power over. The sex of the victim is almost irrelevant, useful only as a means of identifying the preferences of any given predator. And as sure as night follows day, there are abusers who prefer the same sex, just as there are those who prefer the opposite sex.
And this is what is going on in Uganda, in Ugandan cities and more than likely in Ugandan schools, probably facilitated by many elder Ugandan men and women, and possibly teachers and other persons of some authority in the various towns and villages, as well as the larger urban centers, adult individuals who play the role of pimps to a large and growing number of the international idle wealthy, the demented sex tourists who do not respect the integrity of innocence, and to whom boundaries, like mountains, exist to be conquered.
As horrific as are the very real human rights crimes enshrined in Ugandan law by David Behati, due seemingly to religious fanaticism and ignorance, this actually pales into relative insignificance in comparison to the willful blindness and criminal disregard for the rights of abused children propagated thus far by Rachel Maddow, and by extension MSNBC, for nothing more than the sake of a political agenda.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Pigford Settlement Update-"If You Got A Potted Plant That Makes You A Farmer."
Pay close attention to this case, because sooner or later its going to blow up in a lot of faces. See my post just preceding this one. Better yet, follow Breitbart's coverage at Big Government. The mainstream media, as usual, is missing in action.
No damn wonder Michelle Obama is so devoted to her little garden at the White House. After all, she is entitled to her fair share of the
If we ever get around to legalizing pot, a lot of the Boyz In Da Hood will make a killing out of that homegrown reefer. All that lighting, irrigation, and fertilization process is one hell of an expense, and there are security expenses as well.
Hang in there, homies. After all, they "owe it to you".
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Don't Drink That Racist Coffee!
Thanks to the yeoman's work of Andrew Breitbart, maybe one of these days we'll all have a national dialogue about race that includes a little bit of intellectual honesty, one that doesn't involve unfounded charges of racism. That does seem unlikely, when any criticism of Democrats or the Obama Administration is usually met with such charges, such as when a crowd of Tea Party protesters were accused of hurling racial epithets at members of the Congressional Black Caucus. It does not bode well for race relations when a reputed hero of the Civil Rights movement, Congressman John Lewis, along with other members of the caucus, are proven demonstrably to have lied about the whole thing.
That was just the beginning. When Andrew Breitbart produced video evidence of the institutional racism that infests the NAACP, it led to the firing of USDA employee Shirley Sherrod. In response, Sherrod threatened a lawsuit against Breitbart, who was defended by none other than Chris Matthews during a segment of MSNBC's Hardball, in which it appeared that Matthews persuaded Howard Dean that Breitbart was being falsely and unfairly maligned. He did not present the video out of context after all. It was not Shirley Sherrod he was accusing of racism, it was the NAACP itself, whose Chairman, Benjamin Jealous, initially promised to get to the bottom of the blatant racist reaction of many of his fellow members. Even Sherrod, as Breitbart points out, took his side on the matter, before being co-opted by the Administration.
Incredibly, however, the segment was redacted from the program when it was re-aired-just two hours later. Someone had gotten to Matthews, or to somebody at MSNBC, and warned them to get back on message. Something was obviously amiss.
To make a long story short(er), Breitbart eventually found out that he had stumbled onto a story of rampant government corruption in the form of the Pigford II settlement. Without going into a lot of detail, Pigford was a case decided in favor of black farmers who had been victims of the FDA's prejudiced policies. These farmers were demonstrably shown to have been unfairly denied loans and other forms of assistance from the FDA to which they were entitled, something for which no one in the FDA has yet lost their jobs.
Unfortunately, the final settlement seems to have helped the lawyers who filed the suit more than the original relative handful of black farmers truly victimized by the FDA, which by the time the suit was filed seemed to grow to a greater number than the actual number of black farmers in the US. It turned into a staggering sum of money so great it was originally slated to be included in Stimulus Bill, apparently at the instigation of Obama and others in his administration. When the story looked to be in danger of going public, it was removed from the bill.
The suit was originally filed in part due to the advocacy of the Sherrod family, which as it turns out just happens to have been the largest single beneficiary of the lawsuit. Shirley Sherrod's firing by the Administration was due mainly to this, and the fact that she probably should not have been hired by the FDA to begin with due to conflict of interest. The controversy over the video released by Breitbart merely afforded a convenient excuse to get rid of her, something many within the Department had already been clamoring for. It was also possibly a way of sweeping this story under the rug before it got out but, as so often happens, they only managed to arouse suspicions-notably those of Andrew Breitbart, who had already had more than enough of being under the gun.
Now he's produced documented evidence of what might turn out to be one of the biggest outright scams by the federal government perpetrated against the American taxpayer of all time. It is also worth noting that the black farmers the settlement was ostensibly meant to help received very little of the money. This is more like the workings of an organized crime syndicate working ostensibly to impose a reparations settlement on the American people under the guise of what was originally a legitimate cause of action.
You can download the pdf concerning the case here-The Pigford Shakedown: How the Black Farmers’ Cause Was Hijacked by Politicians, Trial Lawyers & Community Organizers — Leaving Us With a Billion Dollar Tab
There is really too much to go into here-including the murder of a potential informant by a couple out to unfairly take advantage of the settlement and thus defraud the government, and by extension the taxpayers. There is also the heretofore little known fact that this in large measure explains the depth of support for Obama from the Congressional Black Caucus against Hillary Clinton in the primaries. He campaigned on the premise of increasing the numbers of those entitled to relief from the settlement to more than twenty thousand, from an original number of just around four hundred.
By the time all was said and done, the number of litigants approached more than ninety thousand, with a final settlement figure in the billions of dollars.
Take the time when you can find it to pour over the pdf, and ponder the implications, preferably over a strong hot cup of non-racist coffee.
Sunday, December 05, 2010
The Love That Whirls
As if we didn't have enough problems.
Now the US has another group of foes who have come out of the closet, and declared war on us due to our environmental record. And in doing so, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change invoked the ancient Mayan goddess Lxchal, the Jaguar goddess. From The Anchoress-
Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, invoked the ancient jaguar goddess Ixchel in her opening statement to delegates gathered in Cancun, Mexico, noting that Ixchel was not only goddess of the moon, but also “the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving. May she inspire you — because today, you are gathered in Cancun to weave together the elements of a solid response to climate change, using both reason and creativity as your tools.”…
“Excellencies, the goddess Ixchel would probably tell you that a tapestry is the result of the skilkful interlacing of many threads,” said Figueres, who hails from Costa Rica and started her greetings in Spanish before switching to English. “I am convinced that 20 years from now, we will admire the policy tapestry that you have woven together and think back fondly to Cancun and the inspiration of Ixchel.”
This came about at the latest round of what seems to be a perennial effort to address Global Climate Change on an international level, this one held in Cancun Mexico. Such a tone should really not be much of a surprise. There are various factions in the UN that wants to give that body regulatory power over member nations environmental policies, even to the extent of levying fines and issuing injunctions and filing lawsuits in the World Court-not only against offending nations, but against "climate deniers". That's right, they want to take you to court if you deny the "reality" of Global Climate Change as being caused or at least deeply impacted by human activity. The major targets here would be not only dissenting national leaders and bureaucrats, but journalists, pundits, academics, educators, scientists, captains of industry, and basically anyone who dares dispute the sacred script of fundamentalist, environmentalist buffoonery and whackery.
In fact, it has gone from a political movement based more on pseudo-science to what can only be described as a global religious cult based on a cold and harsh earth and nature worship, in which the most prosperous, developed nations are expected to give alms in the form of national and regional sovereignty, while the upper and middle classes will in effect sacrifice personal prosperity for what in reality seems to be the entitlement and empowerment of a high priesthood made up of a relative handful of global elites. We must in effect give up our way of life on behalf of a movement and philosophy that is based on and empowered by fear mongering for the future. They do this by at least greatly exaggerating the consequences, if not outright lying, if we do not accede to their fanaticism.
Here is the money quote from the UNEP paper on the subject-
UNEP has an important—indeed a critical—message, but it is delivering it in the wrong language to the wrong audience. It is attached to the wrong narrative. It will never position itself to do what is needed until it finds the right language and narrative. The force of this message cannot be over-emphasized. UNEP’s success depends on getting this right.
The environment should compete with religion as the only compelling, value-based narrative available to humanity. To do that, however, it will have to make itself relevant well beyond the world of those already concerned with the environment, including very prominently its own formal constituency. Indeed, unless UNEP succeeds in recasting the debate, it is highly likely that the economic community will do it—badly, and on its own terms. It is already happening in the field of climate change
But at the Cancun Convention it was the delegation from Bolivia which struck the most decidedly strident tone against the US and the industrialized world. We are seen by Bolivia and others as the worst offenders, even though the environmental record of Bolivia is hardly attuned to the greater welfare of Mother Nature. This is true of most of these mismanaged countries, who typically and hypocritically try to portray the US as the biggest obstacle to
As you can see in the following video, a grand time was had by all-
And the band plays on. While Julian Assange's leaks of Pentagon and State Department memos are greeted by the left with yawns at best, similar leaks of the documents that came to be known as "Climate Gate" were met by them with howls of angry protests, demands for prosecution, and excuses for the contents of the leaked climate gate e-mails. The Left insisted that, in this case, the e-mails were being presented out of context. Anything to keep the scam going. Ironically, one of the Wikileaks documents details how the current EU President predicted the Cancun summit would be as big a disaster as Copenhagen. More to the point, it reveals that the entire Global Climate Change movement is seen as a big power and money grab. In other words, its one of the biggest con jobs in the history of mankind.
But these people won't give up that easily, as that is the nature of religious fanaticism. All that matters is keeping the faith. Nothing would please them more than to rip open the chest of liberty and display the beating hard to the rabid, maddened mob. Many of the environmentally ill will gladly attune with the spirit of the goddess Lxchel, including those here in America whose activist roots can be traced to the sixties and seventies. Here we see one of Lyxchel's beloved pet Jaguars engaging in one of the sacred pastimes, which the hippie environmentalists of modern days could certainly relate to-consuming a hallucinogenic plant.
I might invoke the goddess myself one of these days. As for the Global Climate Change activists, I really question whether these people truly comprehend the nature of the forces they invoke so casually, so carelessly, while so consumed with mainly their own self-aggrandizement and power.
Saturday, December 04, 2010
If I Had A Hammer Factory
Even if I qualified as a small business, I would not want taxes raised on big businesses. Altruism has nothing to do with it. It's all about self-interest. As a small business owner, I am going to be dependent on the health and vitality of big business, somewhere down the line. If their taxes are increased, on top of their already burdensome regulatory requirements, they are going to pass that cost on to me. So I'm going to have to pay more for the equipment and supplies I depend on them for.
What to do? Well, I can find a cheaper supplier, probably from overseas, maybe or maybe not an American manufacturer who has relocated to China or some other foreign country, or it could be a business which is wholly owned by foreign entities. I won't care one way or another. All I care about is getting my parts as cheaply and still of as high quality as I can.
I can also refrain from hiring new employees. If things get too bad, I might even lay off one or two. Or maybe more. Let's face it, in this economy what workers I retain will gladly work overtime if needed, and even at time and a half it is cheaper for me to go that route than it would be to hire new people, with all the expense of training, new paperwork to file, other federal obligations to pay out for each new employee, etc.
Or, I can simply raise the price of my products, which means I am probably going to lose some customers, or in some cases where I retain some customers, I very well could cause other businesses to lose those customers patronage. If my services are considered more vital for some than dining out, or seeing a movie, or buying new clothes or household furnishings, sporting goods, etc., then those businesses in turn will have to make the same kinds of adjustments I will be making due to losing other customers who can, quite frankly, do without my services if necessary.
Or, if I want to be a nice guy, I can continue business as usual, and for all my trouble I can lose my shirt, which means all my employees lose their jobs.
Or, I can take less of my profits for my own personal salary, but that will probably not be enough to turn things around on its own, so I'd still need to make one or more of these other adjustments. In the meantime, I would have to plan on sending my kids to public school instead of the decent private school I've been shelling out the bucks for so they can have a decent, real education that involves actual learning as opposed to teacher's union approved leftist brainwashing. I have to trade my new car in for a used one for the cheaper insurance and property taxes. I might even have to sell my house and move to a cheaper house, or apartment, in a cheaper neighborhood for the same reason. I have to eat in all the time, and sparingly, and as cheaply as possible. Instead of The Gap, I buy my clothes at Goodwill and hope for the best.
But, I think I'll pass on all that, as I didn't go to school and work my ass off, save money, take out business loans which I'm still paying on and invest in a dream with no real assurance of success so I could live no better than my employees while working my ass off every day to make sure my business is solvent. Bottom line-in other words, fuck you that's not happening. Nothing against my employees, who would hopefully also live a pretty decent life on what I would be able to pay them, but let's face it, I'm their boss and if I don't have the chance to live in comfort and prosperity and give my family a top shelf life-yes, better than what I can afford to pay them-what am I wasting my time for? After all, I'm the one who was taking the risk in starting the business to begin with.
Now I'm being told taxes should be raised on "the rich", but "hey, don't worry, that won't affect you".
I think that's pretty much the equivalent of somebody pissing in your face and telling you its raining. This is an interconnected economy, and the negative impact of taxes and regulations on "big business" doesn't happen in a vacuum.
What to do? Well, I can find a cheaper supplier, probably from overseas, maybe or maybe not an American manufacturer who has relocated to China or some other foreign country, or it could be a business which is wholly owned by foreign entities. I won't care one way or another. All I care about is getting my parts as cheaply and still of as high quality as I can.
I can also refrain from hiring new employees. If things get too bad, I might even lay off one or two. Or maybe more. Let's face it, in this economy what workers I retain will gladly work overtime if needed, and even at time and a half it is cheaper for me to go that route than it would be to hire new people, with all the expense of training, new paperwork to file, other federal obligations to pay out for each new employee, etc.
Or, I can simply raise the price of my products, which means I am probably going to lose some customers, or in some cases where I retain some customers, I very well could cause other businesses to lose those customers patronage. If my services are considered more vital for some than dining out, or seeing a movie, or buying new clothes or household furnishings, sporting goods, etc., then those businesses in turn will have to make the same kinds of adjustments I will be making due to losing other customers who can, quite frankly, do without my services if necessary.
Or, if I want to be a nice guy, I can continue business as usual, and for all my trouble I can lose my shirt, which means all my employees lose their jobs.
Or, I can take less of my profits for my own personal salary, but that will probably not be enough to turn things around on its own, so I'd still need to make one or more of these other adjustments. In the meantime, I would have to plan on sending my kids to public school instead of the decent private school I've been shelling out the bucks for so they can have a decent, real education that involves actual learning as opposed to teacher's union approved leftist brainwashing. I have to trade my new car in for a used one for the cheaper insurance and property taxes. I might even have to sell my house and move to a cheaper house, or apartment, in a cheaper neighborhood for the same reason. I have to eat in all the time, and sparingly, and as cheaply as possible. Instead of The Gap, I buy my clothes at Goodwill and hope for the best.
But, I think I'll pass on all that, as I didn't go to school and work my ass off, save money, take out business loans which I'm still paying on and invest in a dream with no real assurance of success so I could live no better than my employees while working my ass off every day to make sure my business is solvent. Bottom line-in other words, fuck you that's not happening. Nothing against my employees, who would hopefully also live a pretty decent life on what I would be able to pay them, but let's face it, I'm their boss and if I don't have the chance to live in comfort and prosperity and give my family a top shelf life-yes, better than what I can afford to pay them-what am I wasting my time for? After all, I'm the one who was taking the risk in starting the business to begin with.
Now I'm being told taxes should be raised on "the rich", but "hey, don't worry, that won't affect you".
I think that's pretty much the equivalent of somebody pissing in your face and telling you its raining. This is an interconnected economy, and the negative impact of taxes and regulations on "big business" doesn't happen in a vacuum.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
US Senate Declaration Of War AgainstLocal Cheese Maskers, Food Producers, And Small Farmers Gains Bi-Partisan Support
Say hello to Darla, one of the sexiest cheeses you'll find anywhere. Don't bother trying to pick her up at your local IGA, she tends to hang out in classier joints. Fair warning, she's an expensive date, but the best thing about her-she only gets better with age.
Unfortunately, if the federal government has its way, her days are probably numbered. The Senate, working under the radar, voted for cloture to bring to a vote the Senate bill known as the FDA Modernization Act, also known colloquially by some as The Food Police Bill. It now faces reconciliation in the House, who earlier passed their own version, after which it will become law, at a cost of 1.4 billion dollars over a four year period.
Here's what the bill does-
Spanning some150 pages, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act would authorize the FDA to dictate how farmers grow fruits and vegetables, including rules governing soil, water, hygiene, packing, temperatures, and even what animals may roam which fields and when. It would also increase inspections of food “facilities” and tax them to do so. And, fulfilling the dream of a long line of agency officials, the bill grants the FDA unilateral authority to order recalls.
To put it bluntly, the worse thing about the bill isn't the upfront cost to taxpayers, although that is considerable and wholly unwarranted in the face of trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. No the worse thing about it is the fact that it will likely result in intense and unnecessary hardships for countless small businesses-small farms, local growers and producers, and farmer's markets, a great many of whom will or are likely to be put out of business by this unwarranted bill. This is especially true of regional local cheese makers such as Beechers Handmade Cheese, and the folks who produce Darla, as well as a variety of fine cheeses, many pictures of which I have copied for this post.
They are the Estrella Family Creamery, and they are already so far under the gun, they are in dire danger of having to close their doors. They have been reduced to soliciting donations from friends and supporters and the general public in order to keep their family business open and operating. The reason-a recent FDA inspection found evidence of bacteria, specifically listeria. The problem with that is, it would be next to impossible to NOT find bacteria at a cheese producing operation. The family assures the public that their product is safe, but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears, despite the face that there has never been a reported illness associated with the family product.
But when they objected to the FDA order to shut down operations, they were closed down, much of their products and supplies confiscated. As they unfortunately don't have the resources to fight a long protracted court battle, their long-term survival is very much in doubt.
Some members of the Senate understand the implications of the bill, thanks no doubt in no small measure to pressure from local food growers among their constituents. Two Democratic Senators, Montana's John Tester and North Carolina's Kay Hagan, co-sponsored the Tester-Kagan Amendment, which would establish less stringent requirements for small local and regional producers. The Amendment basically does this-
The Tester/Hagan amendment would exempt producers whose annual sales are less than $500,000 and who are not more than 275 miles away from the end-user, be it a consumer, restaurant or a distribution facility.
It is a mild amendment, but big agribusiness wants the amendment removed from the bill, as do organizations such as the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. But this should not be a surprise. Big government regulations and taxes are the best friends big business ever had, not because they like them, but because there is the silver lining that they have the potential of doing something big business on its own might never accomplish-they might put their smaller competitors out of business. Brands such as Kraft Foods, for example, can simply absorb the shock of the added expense and pass it on to their consumers. Which, by the way, become more and more of a "captive audience", so to speak, as the bigger companies just sit back and watch their smaller, less connected rivals die from strangulation by red tape while drowning in red ink. And it looks like they also have allies among the left-leaning press, who not only editorializes in favor of the bill but slants their news coverage as well. Advertising dollars can buy a lot of good press, it seems, and money is no object when you are trying to completely dominate a market against a product you have no hopes of matching in terms of class and quality.
And of course, the bill and its agribusiness supporters has its allies among the far-left, who are against the Amendment out of fear that it will "water down" the bill, making it "less effective". Yet, even among leftist groups, there is some debate about the bill and the Tester-Kagan Amendment.
There is always a chance this bill can be repealed once this lame duck session of Congress is over and the new Congress takes its place in January, but that might not be so easy as one might assume. For one thing, this bill actually had strong bipartisan support, with 15 Republican Senators supporting it.
Alexander (R-TN)
Brown (R-MA)
Burr (R-NC)
Collins (R-ME)
Enzi (R-WY)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kirk (R-IL)
LeMieux (R-FL)
Lugar (R-IN)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Snowe (R-ME)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
So as you can see, it's not merely the Democrats in the Senate who did not "get the message" of the last election. Far too many Republican Senators, more than one-third of the current crop, voted for this bill, which amounts to yet another monstrous power grab by the federal government, one that will be yet another drag on local economies while killing jobs and businesses, and raising taxes in the process.
And it happened, as is usually the case, while we were all distracted by the "important" and "controversial" issues. In the meantime, it appears that the biggest enemy facing the American people might not be leftist radicals or long-bearded men in robes hiding in caves, nor lone comoputer geeks hiding in osmebody''s basement half a world away, nor even sworn enemy states.
No, if you're a small business owner, it looks like your greatest enemy is the one to whom we must all pay tribute, with a filing deadline of April 15th
But at least now we know who they are, whether they call themselves Democrat or Republican. Some of them, such as Voinovich, will be gone when the new Congress convenes next year. Some of them, such as Burr, have another full six years in which to make amends.
But others, such as Dick "Sucker" Luger, will be up for reelection in two years. We need to send them packing, along with as many Democrats as we can pile in with them on the outbound train from Washington. The country, and the people, just can't afford this kind of crap anymore. Ironically, government regulatory interference is one thing that puts the price of quality foods out of the reach of most Americans, either in terms of price, or given enough time, in terms of availability. How many small, local and regional food producers will this bill put out of business?
I don't know, but if you are of a mind to purchase a high quality cheese as a Christmas present for someone special, now might be the year to do it.
Next year, high quality products such as this might well be either much too costly for more and more people, or completely off the market. Next Christmas, your highest quality option might well be Sargentos, or maybe Velveeta.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
What Would You Give For A Picasso?
Some lucky guy, a retired French electrician, has come up with not just one but 271 Picasso's worth at least eighty million dollars. I'd settle for that, but he claims he doesn't want to sell them. The Picasso family has sued the guy, who claims Picasso gave him the paintings in 1971, about two years before the artist's death. They say no way would he had given so much of his art away. Well, maybe not, but on the other hand, he obviously didn't care that much about money. He turned down 100,000 dollars for the work he did that went into creating the Chicago Picasso. As the works were never cataloged and were thus unknown, it seems that Picasso either did not consider this art to be of any importance, or he possibly didn't care for his family coming into possession of them for whatever reason. They could have been stolen, which is what the family seems to believe, but that's unlikely.
The paintings were created between 1900 and 1930, and nine of them are from his cubist period. For some reason, Picasso kept them in storage, and unknown, until they ended up in this man's possession more than forty years after the last one was created.
I find the one pictured above strange. It is not cubist, or surreal, like the other new Picasso's. Moreover, I find the inclusion of the swastikas disconcerting. Picasso was a communist, although this stated identification was disputed by some who knew him best.
An artist who was a contemporary of Picasso noted that "Picasso is a Spaniard, and so am I; Picasso is an artist, and so am I; Picasso is a communist, and neither am I".
And even he made the statement concerning the French Communist Party, "I have joined a family, and like all families it's full of shit".
In other words, Picasso's devotion to the communist cause is questionable at best. Is it possible that he was secretly attracted to National Socialism. On the one hand, he remained in France during the Nazi occupation, yet he had items smuggled to him that was forbidden during the Nazi regime for use in art.
Maybe there's a story behind this artwork that isn't readily apparent. Or, maybe it means nothing at all. Maybe he saw Nazism, as symbolized by the swastika, as an attempt to enforce order on a world where order was not the natural way of things. It's just hard to tell with his work exactly where he was coming from. Like the Chicago Picasso, which could be a woman, a bird, a horse, or a baboon.
Remember, this was Chicago in 1967, not the best place in the USA during that year, a year torn by division and social strife throughout the nation, with racial tensions high and the Vietnam War protests approaching a near fever pitch, while Chicago politics was at its typically corrupt level. Picasso readily agreed to his invitation to produce a sculptor for this city, and was very enthusiastic about it. I discovered that he made use of the Minotaur in several or his other works, so it would seem that he did draw on mythological components at various times throughout his artistic career.
As such, I wondered if his Chicago work might be a rendition of the following deity-Anubis, the Egyptian god of the dead, funerals, and embalming. Which would certainly seem to fit the history of Chicago, if anyplace. Here is Anubis
And here is the Chicago Picasso Marquette from which the sculpture was created.
Bear in mind, Picasso was at an advanced age by now so his own mortality had to be weighing on him, and knowing this would be a permanent legacy, this could have been a way of making more than one statement.
Hoot
North Korea has a military budget that eats up a quarter of its GDP, but otherwise produces nothing of consequence while vast numbers of its people are starving and malnourished. Kim Jung Il and his pussy faced little twerp of a son and their regime are incapable of presiding over a culture capable of producing anything but misery.
South Korea, on the other hand, produced this.
Granted, it's not high art. It's nothing but a pop music video, a dance number sung to a catchy tune, encapsulated in a video with a James Bond theme, augmented by electric sitar. But that's just the point, isn't it? A truly advanced society produces a wide variety of art, provided creative expression is afforded sufficient outlet. It's just fun and sexy, and there's nothing wrong with that. That there is sufficient market for it proves the optimistic spirit of the South Korean people is reflected in their culture.
Courtesy GrEaT sAtAn'S gIrLfRiEnD
South Korea, on the other hand, produced this.
Granted, it's not high art. It's nothing but a pop music video, a dance number sung to a catchy tune, encapsulated in a video with a James Bond theme, augmented by electric sitar. But that's just the point, isn't it? A truly advanced society produces a wide variety of art, provided creative expression is afforded sufficient outlet. It's just fun and sexy, and there's nothing wrong with that. That there is sufficient market for it proves the optimistic spirit of the South Korean people is reflected in their culture.
Courtesy GrEaT sAtAn'S gIrLfRiEnD
Monday, November 29, 2010
Hell March
It has been revealed via Wikileaks that North Korea has sold Iran missiles which are capable of striking targets in Western Europe. And, sure enough, they have done so with not just the permission, but with the assistance of China. In fact, the shipments to Iran were conducted not from North Korea, but from the ports of Beijing.
That's not all. We have known about this since November of 2007. Well, *WE* haven't known, but our State Department damn sure has. Remind me one of these days why I should be pissed off at Julian Assange, maybe I'll get around to it one of these days, after I've finished reading the last document dump.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Unique Calenders For The Coming Year
Meet this month's Lindner Calendar Girl.
And Miss December
And as you might have noticed, there is a theme to the Lindner 2010 calendar-coffins. Which would make sense, seeing as how Lindner specializes in making wooden coffins. Yes, it would seem to be a very unique marketing strategy, but they are not the only ones. There is an Italian coffin maker, Cofanifunebri, whose very wryly humorous website might be deemed by some as inappropriate (check out the graphics) for the subject matter to begin with, and who also sell such novelties as a cigarette lighter shaped like a coffin, and porcelain skulls, such as pictured below.
And sure enough, just like Lindner, they also put out their own calendar with sexy models. Following is their Miss February for 2011.
The two companies are at odds with each other, Lindner claiming it was their idea, and that their girls are sexier and prettier. Naturally, not everyone is taken with the new trend. The Catholic Church in Poland, for one, which argues that "death is not sexy".
But they have missed the point. Sex sells, and we suppose it can sell anything. It sells clothing, cars, cosmetics, jewelry, films, books, art, and innumerable luxury items.
Most importantly, sex sells itself. Let's face it, nobody will purchase these calendars for the coffins. But everybody who sees one is going to remember Linder, who in their 2011 catalogue venture into the realm of S&M and bondage.
January
February
Ironically, I don't know how to end this post, other than with a tip of the hat to Tiny Nibbles, and to point out that Lindner has a Facebook page.
Oh, and if you want to get a real good look at these pics, just click to enlarge. Pun somewhat intended.
And Miss December
And as you might have noticed, there is a theme to the Lindner 2010 calendar-coffins. Which would make sense, seeing as how Lindner specializes in making wooden coffins. Yes, it would seem to be a very unique marketing strategy, but they are not the only ones. There is an Italian coffin maker, Cofanifunebri, whose very wryly humorous website might be deemed by some as inappropriate (check out the graphics) for the subject matter to begin with, and who also sell such novelties as a cigarette lighter shaped like a coffin, and porcelain skulls, such as pictured below.
And sure enough, just like Lindner, they also put out their own calendar with sexy models. Following is their Miss February for 2011.
The two companies are at odds with each other, Lindner claiming it was their idea, and that their girls are sexier and prettier. Naturally, not everyone is taken with the new trend. The Catholic Church in Poland, for one, which argues that "death is not sexy".
But they have missed the point. Sex sells, and we suppose it can sell anything. It sells clothing, cars, cosmetics, jewelry, films, books, art, and innumerable luxury items.
Most importantly, sex sells itself. Let's face it, nobody will purchase these calendars for the coffins. But everybody who sees one is going to remember Linder, who in their 2011 catalogue venture into the realm of S&M and bondage.
January
February
Ironically, I don't know how to end this post, other than with a tip of the hat to Tiny Nibbles, and to point out that Lindner has a Facebook page.
Oh, and if you want to get a real good look at these pics, just click to enlarge. Pun somewhat intended.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Leopards-Maternal Instincts And Other Tales Of Love And Horror
This is a picture of a leopard that was recently trapped in India, but not for long. He escaped, and in the meantime injured seven of the villagers who had it trapped in a pit. When I saw the video on television, I knew I had to post it here, so off I went on a YouTube safari. I finally found it, but not before I found several others. They were so good, I posted all of them.
If you don't watch any of the other leopard videos I posted here, you gotta see this one!
Mama Leopard
Although on second thought, the following one might actually be my favorite.
"BOOYAH!"
The next one is more sad than scary
"Our Love Will Never Die"
An enraged leopard can really fuck you up.
"You fucking with ME?"
And here's the one I was looking for to start out with-the latest leopard video, from a little village in India.
"I'm A Leopard, BITCHES, What Are You?"
Unfortunately, this wasn't the best quality video, but it'll do. Fortunately, none of the villagers were killed. It had been killing livestock, and they had set a trap for it, a trap that almost got some of them killed. For all their trouble, the leopard escaped and went on its way. Hopefully, its natural fear of humans will keep it from returning.
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