Giving Thanks

Sannakji is Korean comfort food-though probably not too comfortable for the squid while he's being eaten alive. Since Thanksgiving is coming up, and since Korea is such a vitally important presence in world news of late, I thought I might give you a glimpse of this exotic people and a sample of their cuisine. If you try this for your Thanksgiving holiday, be sure and chew thoroughly before swallowing. The squid keeps squirming all the way down your throat, and those suction cups can be hell.

In the meantime, remember our troops stationed in the region, especially those who guard the border of North and South Korea, where they stand ready to prevent the enforced Koreunification of the peninsula. Yes, things are flaring up in the region, and our soldiers, far from home in this uncertain time, could use our prayer, well wishes, and calls and letters from home. Thankfully, we assume they will also have access to a more traditional Thanksgiving dinner than the luckless sea denizen displayed above.

You too might be better off with more traditional Thanksgiving fare, so on the off-chance you've gotten off to a late start (or you are waiting for the weekend to celebrate with your extended family) let me help you out here with a homemade cranberry sauce recipe, courtesy of this here YouTube video.



If you're a traditionalist, the type of person who would prefer to hunt his own Thanksgiving turkey as they did in days of yore, let little six year old Grace Zerbel show you how its done. Sure, here she was deer hunting, but same principle.



Unfortunately, not all kids are as lucky or gifted as Grace, and in fact there are still many kids in our country that suffer from lack of adequate diet. No, there is not a significant problem with starvation, but with unemployment and homelessness being on the rise, there is a huge need for donations to places such as Saint Vincent De Paul's, the Salvation Army, various community soup kitchens, food pantries, and homeless shelters, etc. One organization working to solve the problem of childhood hunger is Share Our Strength.

Most people are engaged in the usual traditions, and here President Obama engages in what might well be the most constructive act of his presidency thus far-he pardons not one, but two Thanksgiving turkeys-"Apple" and "Cider".



At least this is one time-honored tradition he can't wreck, or so I hope.

Speaking of turkeys, another Thanksgiving tradition will unfold when the Detroit Lions get their asses kicked, this time by the New England Patriots. It's maybe even more of a sure bet this year, however, that the Dallas Cowboys will be utterly humiliated by the New Orleans Saints. As if the Cowboys and the Lions aren't bad enough, the Cincinnati Bengals have a Thanksgiving Day game tonight-with the New York Jets. I wonder if this is going to herald the start of a new Thanksgiving Day tradition. If so, I wonder whether the Bengals or the Jets will be the yearly host. I wonder if it really even matters.

Speaking of football, here's a clip, courtesy of Ace of Spades, that reminds us that, we should always be thankful for our friends. Especially those friends who are willing to overlook and forgive our most blatant fuck-ups. Sometimes even when we fuck up twice.



This might have been a good year for the NFL to have the Lions and Cowboys play each other. At least that way, one of them would almost have to win in what would probably be the highest scoring game of the season.

Amazingly, my UK Wildcats managed to squeak in there. Yes, once more, they are bowl eligible, by the skin of their teeth. So UK football fans have yet another reason to be thankful. And I have an excuse to post this.



Speaking of sports entertainment, even though Linda MacMahon lost the Connecticut Senate race earlier this month, she and her company, the WWE, still has something to be thankful for-her father Vince's ass.



Thankfully, the GOP did much better overall than Linda did, for which we should all be grateful. Even so, even Left-wing lunatics have something to be thankful for this season-Bristol Palin lost on Dancing With The Stars. You got your wishes, leftie pricks, so knock off the death threats.

Not all left-wing loons are equally loony though, and in fact, I will advise everybody to view some stories of left-wing lunacy with a healthy dose of skepticism. Granted,for example, its easy to believe that Angelina Jolie would say she refuses to celebrate Thanksgiving, because its a holiday that celebrates murder, but according to the LA Times at least, the story is more than likely not true. Unfortunately, its just much too easy to believe the worst about some people.

Here we see a picture of Jolie celebrating Thanksgiving years past, back when she was married to Billy Bob Thornton.



Finally, let's hope that the parents of missing college student Jenni-Lyn Watson really have something to be thankful for. Their daughter went missing after returning home to Syracuse New York for Thanksgiving. I'm not too hopeful for her chances, but you never can tell. Here's one of many pictures of her on the CBS News site.



Let's just hope for the best.

In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving to everybody.

All Right Ma'am-License, Registration, And Pussy Please

A part of me thinks its rip-roaring funny. You just can't get away from the TSA. If you decide not to fly over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, and take a train or bus instead, there they fucking are. Is it really that much of a stretch to think they might start patrolling the interstate highways if more people start driving to grandmother's house?

This is a perfect example of what happens when you grow government. See, I have this theory. If you resent government intrusion in your life, the government automatically adopts the attitude that you must have something to hide. It's an endemic, systemic, built in virus common to any bureaucracy, and it can only get worse.

But I don't think you have to worry about it getting to the extreme where the government is doing spot checks of your homes out in the middle of fly-over America. That is, unless a family of Muslims move into your neighborhood, in which case don't be surprised to hear a knock on your door. In that event, you your family and home might well be subjected to a government spot check. You know, just to be on the safe side.

Of course, it is highly unlikely that they will search the home and persons of your new Muslim neighbors. But you really shouldn't let that bother you either.

Remember, our country has a terrorist problem. Not a Muslim problem.

Major Conflict On The Horizon

If you're a North Korean dictator looking to maximize the impact of your son's succession to your throne of power, and thus pave the way for the building of his own cult of personality, what better way to go about it than bombing the living shit out of a neighboring countries island while they're in the middle of military exercises? That seems to be the consensus as to the reason for North Korea's attack on the South Korean island of Pyongyuang.

Not only does South Korea want to engage in payback against the North Koreans for their latest provocation, but Japan is also demanding a strong response. Predictably, everybody else is urging caution and patience, including the US, even though South Korea is an ally, and they have been attacked. Many are worried that the tepid response from the Obama Administration bodes ill for our overall foreign policy and our standing in the world with but friend and foe alike.

Nevertheless, the South Koreans, while claiming that a considerable number of North Koreans were likely killed as a result of their response to the North's attack, are threatening an even stronger response.

The North Korean position is typical-South Korea started it.

The time for diplomacy is past. It doesn't work, and neither does sanctions. Yet, what can we do about it? Officially, we'll issue stern rebukes and threaten further sanctions and eventually accede to demands for yet another round of multilateral diplomatic meetings in the hopes of working things out, if in fact we ourselves do not call for them ourselves. To all practical intents and purposes, we will end up doing nothing other than what amounts to hiding under our beds, quaking in fear, and otherwise adhering to the overall posture of the American Left-crying about how scary it is.

Because of the fear and trepidation which is endemic to the public's perceptions and its attendant paranoiac assumptions pertaining to foreign policy and security concerns of the modern era, both the good news and the bad news is-things are probably not going to change. I hold the Democratic Party in particular responsible for this, along with much of the rank-and-file of their liberal base, but also many Republicans among the Washington political establishment. For good measure I'll throw the mainstream media in to this boiling vat of scared chicken soup as well. Add hot tar and mix well.

Somebody on the leftist site linked above did make an interesting point before I was banned, though unfortunately her reply was also removed. The gist of it is as follows-there is nothing of strategic importance in Pyongyang, therefore it would be meaningless to raze the city, as all that is there are bureaucrats and laborers. That was not her exact wording, but that was the sense of it, and it does make sense. A nation as provocative, unstable, and more to the point as paranoid as North Korea would probably not want to put all their eggs in one basket. If we absolutely decimated the North Korean capitol, the majority of the nation's military and power infrastructure would be mostly unharmed.

Be that as it may, it would nevertheless send them a strong message, one they would be hard pressed to spin to their advantage. My guess is they would claim credit for destroying the city to keep it from falling into the hands of the South Koreans or the Americans.

The bottom line is, we are going to have to take them out. If we don't, they are eventually going to go to the extent of launching a nuclear missile, on the South, maybe on Japan-and without a doubt, if they can do it, to the US. I know that conventional wisdom insists they won't do that, because they know we would utterly destroy their nation.

I am afraid that such an assumption is, as they say, assuming facts which are not in evidence. We have given the North Koreans no reason whatsoever to think that we are capable of taking strong, decisive and devastating action. They have watched in a mixture of amusement and disgust at the way we have conducted ourselves in our two current wars. To them we act like a schoolyard bully who is at heart a coward and who has been called out for a reckoning, and is now desperately trying to prove his bravery, while both inwardly and outwardly quivering and quaking in his boots the whole time. In short, we are a laughing stock to the developing world. That is not an attitude which is unique to North Korea, they are just the first ones to take their place in line to confront the bully.

This is not the first time they have done something like this, nor is it even the worse thing they have done. It hasn't been but a few short months ago that they torpedoed a South Korean submarine, resulting in the deaths of 46 South Korean sailors. Now this, on the heels of the failure of Obama to accomplish anything substantive at the G8 summit, incidentally held in Seoul. Then we were informed just a few short days ago that the North has a highly advanced nuclear processing plant, one which can easily produce nuclear warheads.

I would not go so far as some as to suggest the North Koreans were behind the explosion of the Deep Water Horizon. On the other hand, would anybody really be surprised to learn that the strange unidentified flying object flying over California right around the time of Obama's trip to Asia was in truth a North Korean missile? This is a country run by a rogue regime composed of people who are primarily psychopathic in nature. Korea is almost like a country which has a split personality, and the Mr. Hyde of the pair, the North, rightly blames China for their problems, while in a sense being enslaved to them through dependency. Because of this natural resentment, there is only so much the Chinese can do to rein them in, even if they wanted to, despite what some US lawmakers such as John McCain might believe. The awful truth is, there is little if anything the Chinese can do about it, but they are not about to lose face by admitting as much, any more than the North Koreans will stand for being perceived as a Chinese lapdog. If anything, it is the other way around, and China, possibly in an attempt to manufacture an excuse to not have to risk a confrontation with this insane regime, probably assisted them in constructing the aforementioned uranium enrichment facility, maybe as a strategic means of isolating the regime further and yet making it less likely that any would risk assaulting the North with anything stronger than a good tongue lashing.

Unfortunately, when the South Koreans halted aid to the North as a punishment for the North's refusal to cease developing its nuclear capacity, it helped set the stage for yet more conflict. In the insane world of the North Korean dictatorship, any slight, any refusal, is not only an excuse for a martial response, it practically demands one.

Whether we like it or not, we have to stand by the South Koreans, even if we end up being responsible for the most massive casualties since the days of Hiroshima. There are some things in life for which there is only one conceivable satisfactory ending. The national suicidal posture of North Korea might well end up being one of these examples.

Repeal The Federal Reserve Act

It's time to dump the Federal Reserve. If anything served to demonstrate the urgency of the need to get rid of this probably unconstitutional institution, Ben Bernanke's plan to monetize the debt serves as the gold standard-which might incidentally be something else we might want to look at getting back on. I think Nixon decided to get off it out of the desire for a more flexible system. Well, if that's true, remember that you can only stretch a rubber band so far before the damn thing snaps.

The problem is, not many people want to seriously discuss repealing the Federal Reserve Act, which to me is nothing more than a blatant attempt to hold US currency hostage to special interests. One of the biggest jokes ever perpetrated on the American people is the lie that the Fed is a non-political body, or that it is neutral. Yet, everybody that sits on the board is a political appointee. Which, if you have something like that, they probably should be, but that's beside the point. The best you can say about the fed is that it is made up of a balance of appointees from both major parties, and if a Chariman is appointed by a President from one party, he can't be removed by a President from the opposition party until his term expires.

Wait a minute, come to think of it, that is a problem in its own right, isn't it?

We don't need it. Without it, our elected leaders have far more impetus to control spending and stop tinkering with the economy. As long as you have a Fed Chairman willing and able to step in and artificially raise and lower interest rates according to the flavor of the month in terms of fiscal policies, no one has any incentive to reign in spending. The ugly secret is, no one cares about the short term impact on the finances of the average American. While they play a long game, the short term is enough to send most of us over the edge and into the poor house-or worse, into the streets.

That brings me back to Bernanke and his latest move to monetize the debt by purchasing 400 billion to a potential trillion dollars, by just willy-nilly printing money. Hey, I'm no financial expert, nor am I an Economist-though in my defense, I'm a pretty good Tarot reader, and when the opportunity presents itself I can on a good day discern the will of Zeus by the way the wind rustles in the trees. But one thing I know almost instinctively is that this move by Bernanke is dicey at best, and at worse it is-hold onto your seats, folks, its politically motivated.

Why do I say that? Let's walk it back, shall we? It became pretty obvious as long ago as two months before the election that not only were the Republicans going to make big gains in the election, they were almost definitely going to retake the House, and for a while it looked like they had an outside chance of taking the Senate as well. This has been in the works for a while, folks, due mainly not to the prospect of the GOP taking over, but because of the main impetus behind the sea-change in American politics-the Tea-Party. It was pretty obvious that most Tea Parties are deathly serious in their demands to severely curtail if not eliminate deficit spending, and when many of their chosen candidates won seats in the House, it became patently obvious that many non-Tea-Party Republicans were going to have to accommodate them. Witness Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's recent road to Damascus conversion to the anti-earmark faction, fueled entirely by Tea-Party politics.

Usually, such talk is shelved almost as soon as the elections are over with, but now, we have in all seriousness a Congress made up in large measure of people who won't have it. So what does the Fed do? Out of fears that cutbacks in spending might lead to deflation, Barnanke decides he's going to monetize the debt in order to keep inflation up, and in so doing devalue the dollar.

A lot of people don't understand this, and I can barely wrap my head around it, but some people want the dollar to be weak. You wouldn't think so, but they do. I think it has something to do with international currency trading. A weak dollar has room to grow, whereas a strong dollar can mostly only go down. This gives greater emphasis for speculators to invest in the dollar, while those who own the dollar are either stuck or find themselves selling for a loss. In fact, this could lead to a massive dumping particularly by China, leaving some other faction to buy up that debt. In the meantime, main street America will find its purchasing power severely curtailed.

The end result-spending cuts become all the more imperative, yet at the same time, more unlikely than ever before. Worse, even if they are implemented, for all intents and purposes they will prove to relatively useless, and by and large unpopular, maybe even with vast segments of the Tea-Party. The political motivations behind this move are breath-taking.

Sarah Palin has been warning about the short-term and long-term impact of this move, this putting to rest the lie that she doesn't know what she's talking about. Well, to anybody with an open mind, that is. This should be a signature issue, not just for her but the Republicans in general. Say what you want about Ron Paul, but he has been beating this drum for years, and his son Rand, Kentucky's newest Senator and a Tea-Party member, has spoken out about it as well.

If the Federal Reserve Act is repealed, that would go a long way towards finally putting our fiscal house in order, simply because deficit spending will have to be severely curtailed, finally. The markets just won't be able to accommodate such policies without some dictatorial board of political appointees declaring interest rate levels as though by royal decree.

And that is precisely the reason why it was created to begin with, and why it will be a hard-fought battle to put an end to it. But it is a battle that would be well worth the fighting. It might even be worth a challenge in the courts based on its constitutionality. Nothing should have that much power over the countries finances and fiscal policies, especially something that has next to zero accountability. It's unconstitutional on the face of it. But then again, about half of the members of the Supreme Court itself is unconstitutional, so what do I know? It's at least worth a shot, and if it doesn't pan out, we can go the legislative repeal route. But something has to change.

The Pope Don't Smoke No Dope

This month be the month of double-talk. Maybe its an outgrowth of the recent election, but if so it must be contagious. Pope Benedict has recently stated that if you are a gay male prostitute, its permissable wear a condom. This is because there's obviously no chance that you will interfere with the one legitimate use for sex-procreation in the context of marriage.

Well, taking that at face value, does the Pope seriously believe that a female heterosexual prostitute who becomes pregnant is not likely to abort her illegitimate child, in most cases well before the third trimester? He couldn't be that stupid, could he?

Worse, does he think the prospect of catching AIDS, herpes, or other forms of venereal disease-purportedly his reasoning for allowing male gay prostitutes to wear condoms-from a female prostitute is unlikely, or a non-issue, or somehow not as bad?

The Pope and the Church itself is finding itself mired in controversy-again-over this utterance, but this seems to be one of these statements that only pretends to be for general public consumption. In reality, it might be intended as a veiled message to the Catholic priesthood itself.

The Church is not endorsing homosexual behavior or activities, any more than it is advocating for or condoning unprotected heterosexual sex with female prostitutes. The Church is trying to come to grips with a serious internal problem here and can't seem to get out of its own way.

The implicit message here would be-we do not encourage you as Priests of the Church to engage in homosexual relations, which is a deadly sin, but if you must, by all means we encourage you to take protective measures, and as such the use of condoms is not only acceptable, but advisable.

After all, as embarrassing as it would undoubtedly be for large numbers of Catholic Priests to become afflicted with venereal disease, especially those which are for now incurable, that would pale into insignificance in comparison to the outraged reaction that would result if these same Priests were shown by their behavior to have afflicted some lay members of their respective parishes.

If a large number of said lay members were, say, under the age of eighteen, or twelve, or eight, now that would really be a bitch.

I have to admire faithful and honest Church apologists, like The Anchoress, who are trying desperately to wrap their heads around this, but I don't see any other way of spinning it. Granted, you can point to criticisms of the Church over this issue, but by and large Church teachings are firm and non-binding. Contraception, like abortion, is a big no-no, and Church teachings are similarly firm when it comes to premarital and extramarital sex. Homosexual behaviors are similarly frowned upon. The Church isn't big on wiggle room. I have never seen an excuse for abortion ever hinted at, nor for contraception. Now that the Church has suddenly moderated its position supposedly for the benefit of those innocents who might be affected by affliction with venereal disease, I have to ask one simple question.

Isn't a wife more likely to contract venereal disease from a husband who has had unprotected sex with a female prostitute (who if she were to get pregnant is far more likely than not to abort the fetus) than she is to contract such a disease from a husband who has had unprotected sex with a gay male prostitute?

Maybe just as importantly, is the Church trying to get ahead of yet another scandal that might be brewing in its future?

Queen Mother Issues Proclamation On Larry King Live

In a desperate, last ditch effort to put an end to the current, so-called "Tea-Party" revolt and restore order, the Royal Family made an appearance on Larry King Live, determined to re-establish control over the hearts and minds of the commoner class that make up the base of the Republican Party.

The King of the Inside-The-Beltway aristocratic class, His Royal Highness George Herbert Walker Bush, maintained that the Tea-Party had some good ideas but he wasn't sure where they fit in the grand scheme of things. In doing so, our beloved monarch demonstrated the depth of his royal genius by sending two concurrent messages.

To the Tea-Party commoners, the message was clear. Just stick to your donating, voting and your praying, but don't step out of line, or we will have to put you lower class peasants back in your places, real quick.

And of course, to the rest of the country, he was saying, with a wink and a nod, don't worry about these people, we can control them.

It was our beloved Queen Mother, however, who issued the sternest rebuke, while at the same time gracing us, her loyal minions, with a proclamation that could not help but fill all of our hearts with glee.

She let that upstart rebellious peasant girl Sarah Palin know that her place was not in the United States of America, it was in that cold, forlorn place known in hushed whispers and mythical legends as "Alaska".

"You'd better keep your skank ass up there where you belong!" our beloved Queen Mother bellowed with imperious rage, much to the delight of her adoring court and all of us, her loyal minions who have long hungered for the benefit of her inspired guidance.

For these past two days now we have wept uncontrollable tears of gratitude and relief, for the beloved mother of heaven and earth ended with the announcement for which we have hungered for yo, these past two years.

"It will soon be Jeb's turn to ascend to his rightful, God-given place on the throne of the Empire of the USA," she assured all of us, her weeping and grateful followers.

Since that time, there has been dancing, feasting, and much merry-making throughout the land, for now we see a coming end to the dark days of sorry and misery that has reigned throughout this, our beleaguered and divided nation, and we with humble hearts and thankful spirits look forward to a return to days of yore, when we shall happily make our way throughout a land that is no longer divided, no longer besieged by the forces that rip asunder the fabric of our nation, a nation where it will once again no longer matter who sits upon the throne.

Brave New World

See, those airport scanners can show you quite a bit if you just take the time to have the photograph inverted. But no matter how much they show that might be hidden just under the clothing, you're not going to see much inside the body cavities, even if you could take a day or two to pour over each photo. Once you consider the danger of exposure to radiation, you arrive at an impasse. Our security concerns in this age of potential terrorist activity is such that common sense solutions are warranted. But, if you still can't stand the idea of subjecting yourself to the prying eyes that monitor the scanners, you could find yourself in a touchy situation.

But there are those who demand a change from the standard TSA operating procedure, and insist that not only the scans, but the "pat-downs" that some have compared to groping, and molestation, are equally abhorrent and even unconstitutional. Specifically, there are those who claim they violate the Fourth Amendment guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures.

This is indeed the stance of a Texas Congressman. Not some far leftist whack job, but very conservative Republican House member Ted Poe said this, so, you know, "that's just the way it is".

It seems to me there's two possible solutions. My favorite one-stay the fuck off passenger jets. If enough people boycott the airlines until the provide adequate security, possibly utilizing the Israeli El Al system of character profiling, they might come around.

But since that's not likely to happen without a plethora of lawsuits from the ACLU, CAIR, PAW, and Gods only know what else, there might be a compromise solution.

Let the TSA keep on doing the pat-downs, but make them more enjoyable. Allow each customer to have his or her pick of security personnel to perform their search. Since many will be embarrassed to state their preference, especially in the presence of their significant other, we could train our beleaguered TSA agents in the art of gauging desire, which when you stop to think about it could be scientifically similar to profiling.

We then have a series of private booths set up into which each customer is escorted. From there, its need only be a matter of a few minutes. The trained agent will go gently up the legs, the inner thighs, slowly and languorously inching their way up to the penis and/or vagina. Insertion of one finger, or two or three, up the rectum and vagina need not be an uncomfortable experience, after all. And if that does not seem satisfactory, the highly trained tongue of the connoisseur agent can be made adept at detecting the tell-tale taste of the residues of powders, as well as plastics.

In the case of male passengers, a gentle yet firm stroking of the penis by a female TSA agent would be certain to detect-well, I don't really know what, but its got to be good for something, and if not, taking it in her mouth for a few minutes would certainly put the matter to rest. Again, tasting is the key. Once she swallows, if well trained she should be able to tell what the male customer has had for dinner over the last couple of days. She should certainly be able to tell if he has ingested heroin inside a balloon which has leaked. Or, more importantly, explosive powder.

After all this manual and oral testing, if there are still some questions, the highly trained and efficient TSA agent can proceed to, if a man, insert his penis into the vagina and then the anal cavity of the female passenger. The intense nature of the thrusting which will follow should in the vast majority of cases be sufficient to dislodge or at the least render inoperable any explosive devices implanted within any body cavity of any potential female flight risk, regardless of how deeply or how expertly it is implanted.

Similarly, a similar thrusting of a male passenger into the vagina or anus of the trained female TSA agent should result in a similar outcome.

Naturally, there should be a variety of gay TSA agents for those passengers who are so inclined.

We still have a problem when it comes to small children, but even this if handled with sensitivity should pose no great cause for concern. The well-trained TSA agent should be adept at social services and child psychology. A gracious child-sitter can simply, after reassuring the suspect child, show him or her a series of pictures of various objects, then say things like "you know, when I was your age, my mommy and daddy used to teach me to hide things like this up my secret area. It was our little game". Most children with little prompting will divulge the secret.

Yes, my friends, it is a different world, and we must adjust our strategies accordingly. The properly trained TSA agent therefore should receive the appropriate instructions in the sensual arts. I recommend the volume reviewed here as a good starting off point.

Note how, in the following demonstration, the well-trained agent could very easily soothe the concerns of a wary consumer, put him at ease, and turn what might otherwise be a harrowing experience into one that is, at worse, a minor inconvenience and annoyance.



All it takes is the will. Sometimes you have to be willing to think outside the box.

Sometimes you have to be willing to get inside of it.

Roger Aisles Apologizes For Calling Spade, Spade!

I don't get why Roger Aisles thinks he should apologize for calling NPR Nazis but he did so, to Abraham Foxman, the head of the ADL, who these days seems to be the number one defender of leftist fascist news organizations and activist groups. Number one, he's right, and number two, many of the people who support NPR have spent years referring to the Tea-Party as racists, bigots, sexists, and homophobes. Did I leave anything out?

Oh yeah, they are always calling them Nazis and Fascists. Oh, and lest I forget-
RAAAAAACISTS!!

And not just the Tea-Party, but mainstream Republicans as well. Not just mainstream conservatives, but even RINOs, like John McCain. Have we already forgotten-

Bu$Hitler!


That went on for years, but Aisles thinks he should play nice with these clowns?

Wait a minute, now that I happen to think about it, they've spent years calling Roger Aisles and Fox News Nazis and Fascists. They have called the network as a whole Nazis and Fascists and they have referred to individuals within the network by those appellations as well. Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly, all of them at one point or another, have been dubbed Nazis and Fascists who engage in Goebbels style propaganda as an arm of the Republican Party, the chief Nazis in America.

Daily Kos points out that, since Aisles called NPR fascists, and since Aisles hired Juan Williams, that proves Roger Aisles intentionally hires fascists. Incredible.

Why is he apologizing? Even if he were to point out the years we were all subjected to the slurs of the left, the most you would get out of them would be-wait for it-

"Just because a few hotheads on the Left did it doesn't make it right for you to do it. It's time we all tried to soften the rhetoric, start a new more respectful dialogue."

So where the fuck were YOU when this was going on for years from the left, assuming you weren't taking part in it, and oh, by the way, why the fuck is it still going on?

Time to soften the tone? No, actually, its time for all of you to go to hell.

He Who Walks Between Two Worlds

We'll never find somebody who can do the job as well as evil parallel world Mr. Spock did it, but we still need to find somebody who can meld together the two main factions of the Republican Party-the Tea Party and the, you know, those other guys. The ones that are the shit right now. We know they aren't going to go away, so what to do? Well, you put somebody in charge of the RNC who is capable of taking on the mantle of, yes, He Who Walks Between Two Worlds.

I can only think of one person right now with both the inclination, the skill, and the-and this is vitally important-the EXPERIENCE NECESSARY TO TAKE ON THAT MANTLE!

It's probably too late now, as I'd imagine before long the field of dancers on the Steele corpse will be narrowed down to three, neither of whom will be my favored candidate.

To be sure, Dick Armey has a controversial past. He has been allegedly in favor of Amnesty, he has fussed with James Dobson, and some people blame him in part for the bank failure cos he helped bring about the repeal of Glass-Steagall.

But, he was Republican Majority Leader for ten years. Plus, he has recently been the head of Freedom Works, which has been one of the biggest supporters of the Tea Party Movement. In doing this he even walked away from a top-paying position with a lobbying firm in order to avoid conflict of interest.

In other words, if you want somebody to walk between two worlds, you can't do much better than somebody who has already walked the walk.

Granted, he has his issues, and I'm not saying he's the perfect candidate, but he's certainly worthy of being vetted for the position.

We Need A New Way Of Running Things

Sweet, sweet smell of compromise is in the air on the matter of extending the Bush tax cuts, but that perfumed scent disguises the sweaty odor of opportunism. The Republican Party, flush with success in the House, but in the Senate limping over the finish line in an improved position, though still in second place, are rife to be waylaid. They don't seem to perceive the danger. The Democrats act like they are playing soft ball, but in reality they are playing the long game.

If the Bush tax cuts are extended for two years-otherwise known as until after the next presidential election-there's a good chance they could help the economy, and Obama will of course try to take credit for it. Why else would Obama agree to such a "temporary extension" other than as a tacit admission that to do otherwise would put a further drag on economic recovery? He knows good and well that if he refuses to extend the cuts, it is likely to put us further in the hole, whereby the Republicans will have more ammunition to use against him.

So far, so good. But this begs the question if he and the Democrats recognize this, why not extend the cuts permanently, which is easily answered. They have no intention of making those spending cuts that would be necessitated by such tax cuts.

The GOP should change its focus. By no means should they moderate their demands for making the tax cuts permanent, but they should emphasize in addition to this the need for regulatory reform. For without this, in addition to spending cuts, the tax cuts in and of themselves might lessen the amount of the deficit spending, but they certainly won't come close to eliminating it. The best they can do is insist that tax cuts, without the accompanying spending cuts and regulatory reform, will increase the governments revenue by virtue of contributing to economic growth. But you have to be kidding yourself to believe they will solve all deficit problems on just their own merit.

Either way it goes, the Democrats can't lose this battle. Even if the temporary cuts work, they obviously won't be enough to do more than decrease the deficit, and this will be blatantly obvious. Worse, if it doesn't work toward contributing to significant economic growth-which is most likely-the Democrats have a further weapon with which to bash Republicans.

"See, we tried extending the tax cuts, and they didn't work."

And of course they won't work. Tax cuts not accompanied by spending cuts is a non-starter, but you will never find enough spending cuts in this divided Congress to make up the difference. The key, the true key, is regulatory reform which, by the way, is even more important than tax cuts, and for that matter maybe even way more important than government discretionary spending or entitlement cuts.

Without regulatory reform, the whole thing is an exercise in futility, and everybody knows it. Ask any owner or proprietor of any business that qualifies as a small to medium to slightly large business which they would prefer between tax cuts and spending cuts, if they had to pick just one, and I would bet good money the majority, possibly by as much as two-to-one at least, would prefer the regulatory reform. This of course is dependent on the type of business they run and the type of regulatory regime they are under, but I would actually be surprised if the percentage of those who would prefer to see relief from federal red tape were not as high as eighty percent.

That is what puts the brake on economic growth. That is what limits new hiring, it limits R & D, and it is absolute hell on business expansion. Taxes are just one of those ugly necessities of life that you can learn to work around. You don't like them, you don't want them, you would much prefer to not have them, or not quite as much of them, but by the same token if you aren't strangled every step of the way by red tape you can work around them and through them.

The GOP needs to do a better job of explaining this to people when the Democrats spew out shit like "well yeah but the actual *Real* tax rate for business is 16.5%, blah, blah, blah". And then there's my favorite one of all-

"Yo if the Bush tax cuts work so good how come they haven't been working so hot for us lately, cos nyuk nyuk nyuk, we've had them for years, wuuuuuur's all the jobs wingnuts?"

Just once I'd like to see somebody get right back in their face and point out that even a zero percent tax rate might well be useless in the face of a regulatory regime that has all but declared war on American business.

Regulatory reform has got to be the wave of the future if the GOP expects to make a coherent case for economic growth based on tax cuts, because otherwise it just sounds like another appeal for corporate welfare.

Granted, that would be a battle royal in its own right but its one that has to be fought. I don't know how. My own idea is to charge the states with enforcing their own regulations with a minimum of federal oversight. This would be appropriate since any actually necessary regulations are also state law in most cases. Most regulations could then probably be drastically reduced and in some cases scrapped all the way around. Just as importantly, the states, for the most part, can manage what is left over more quickly, efficiently, and thus more cheaply than the federal government, who would only need to provide a small presence for the purposes of oversight.

Then those tax cuts could finally be made permanent, and then we would actually find ourselves walking the long path toward eliminating the budget deficit, and eventually the overall national debt.

The best part of it is, further spending cuts beyond what you accomplish through regulatory reform would not seem so ominous then, in fact, they might not even be necessary. What might be required could probably be accomplished by a freeze on further federal hiring for a year or two and strict limitations on new hiring over a following five-to-seven year period, and in the meantime updating computer systems, maybe even eliminating a few agencies here and there, beyond those reductions and possible eliminations of regulatory agencies. Reductions in the defense department could be achieved gradually over a period of seven to ten years to coincide with our final withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan. And by the way, we should finally end the NATO nightmare. But that's a subject for another time.

Don't tell me this stuff can't be done. It can. It just takes something resembling a spine and a set of balls, from denizens of both political parties.

What we need in Congress is far fewer Lindsay Grahams, who could be replaced by the Carl Paladinos of the world, if necessary. And if things keep going the way they have been, it might not only be necessary, but inevitable. Many people might balk at the idea of such a political culture that would portend, but bear in mind, we are faced with a series of problems that, while no means are they minor, are made unnecessarily worse than they ever had to be. To cure what ails us all is going to require a sea-change in the political culture, and a rethinking as to what actually is the art of the possible.

The Trouble Is Not In Your Set

This is a test of your local PDS station. The trouble is not in your set.



Repeat-your television is an innocent bystander. Do not shoot it. In the event of a real emergency, you will be instructed on the first Tuesday of November of 2012 to turn the barrel of your gun at a one hundred eighty degree angle away from your television screen, and then to commence firing.

This has been a test of your emergency Palin Derangement Syndrome station. The problem is not in your set. And now we return you to our regularly scheduled program. But first, a word from our sponsor.



Brought to you by your local chapter of the Committee To Appoint Bristol Palin Secretary of Education 2012.

Have a good night.

Artemis Smiles

Now THIS is the right way to raise kids. Thanks to WSBT in Indiana for this video. I don't do cute kid stuff, but in this one case I'll make an exception.

 

Of course you always have nuts like the Committee To Abolish Sport Hunting who are going to object and others who even suggest in outrage that children like little six-year old Grace Peregrine Zerbel should be taken from her home. These are some truly sick, screwed up individuals who should not be allowed to be out and about in civil society, let alone allowed to influence it in any way.

There is nothing more magical than a parent bonding with child in the ancient tradition of the hunt in such a way that instills in the child respect for nature and its creatures, while insuring proper gun etiquette and gun safety consciousness. Little Grace is far less likely to grow up to be a menace to society than almost all of the snot nosed brats raised today with a sense of entitlement and NEA school-board approved left-wing "ethics".

Who Jumped The Shark?

UPDATE appears below

A few years back I dropped expanded cable. I've missed having all those channels and decided just a few weeks ago to get it back, but put it off for a while, until last week. Today it was hooked back up. What was the first thing I watched, at 5:00 pm today? Well, I'll just say that the painting above figured prominently in the program. It's an old painting by a Flemish painter named Pieter Bruegel-The Tower Of Babel.

It's important to remember that it is not a photo or a reproduction of the actual Tower Of Babel of Biblical fame but is, in fact, an artists conception of what the structure might have looked like.

That of course is assuming it ever actually existed. There is no proof that it did, nor is there any evidence it did not. But whatever the case, the artwork above would not be an accurate representation of The Tower of Babel which, unlike the sixteenth century painting, was either a gigantic ziggurat or, if it indeed existed only in the realm of mythology, was nevertheless inspired by the ziggurat, a rendition of which is featured below. Do note the difference.




The Bruegel painting is of a gigantic, circular monolith, while the true type of ziggurat is more of a pyramidal structure.

What in the hell am I talking about?

Update tomorrow, sometime or another as time allows. Until then, to those who have not yet seen the previous post, posted earlier today, I have another question I would appreciate an answer to and which I will no doubt ponder tonight.

What color are Chelsea Clinton's panties?

UPDATE-And now as promised, I present the answer, though with great reluctance and trepidation. Glenn Beck may well have jumped the shark, and you can view the carnage here.

I say he *May* have, and you should bear in mind, this is my first experience of watching this gentleman's program on Fox, so for all I know this might be a common theme, though if it is I would be highly surprised were he not called to account by many on the right to say nothing of the left.

And I want to stress, its not that I don't agree with Beck's overall main point, in fact I agree wholeheartedly with the gist of what he is trying to warn us all about. George Soros is without a doubt hazardous to the health of individual freedom, dignity, and overall to the US Constitution. He quite plainly promotes internationalist style "one world government", for lack of a better term. He is through his "Open Society" project a firm believer in open borders, and a leftist approach to democracy in the same vein as the European style Socialist Democrats. He has proven to be a pernicious influence on politicians and the political process, and in particular on the Democratic Party. He also has his tentacles spread throughout the media.

And while I for one consider it a dubious proposition that George Soros is personally responsible for the collapse of the Bank of England, there can be no doubt that he has made a significant portion of his billions in wealth by taking advantage of and utilizing insider information in order to know when to sell short various international currencies in ways that are at least unethical. But the main fault here is not with him, but with those who have set the situation up and allowed it to devolve to this point. Soros has merely taken advantage of the mess others have set up, although I concede he might well be a partial influence on them, or has learned over the past couple of decades how to look for and manipulate these kinds of trends.

Be that as it may, this post is not about Soros, or even about the "New World Order" he undoubtedly promotes. Its about the apparent tendency of Beck to go completely off the deep end, as he came close to doing in his program yesterday. This brings me back to the Brueghels painting, which Beck and his guest, a Jewish Rabbi Daniel Lapin, claims is the inspiration for this-


This is the Louise Weiss European Parliament Building in Strassburg France, which is the headquarters of the European Union. Beck was told by an unnamed EU source that the building was modeled loosely after the Roman Colosseum (which inspired a comment from the Rabbi pertaining to the execution of Christians) but Beck infers that its actual modeling was after the Tower. Again, the Tower was a Hebrew legend inspired by the ancient Babylonian structures known as ziggurats.

I guess what bothers me about all this is that Beck, in jumping into this lion's den, as it were, risks limiting the appeal of what should be his broader argument against over-expansion of government and especially the internationalist aims of the quasi-socialists of Europe and others. And what is worse, he does it in ways that depends on inaccuracies.

At one point, incredibly, he even contradicts the Bible by inferring that mankind already spoke a variety of tongues prior to building the Tower, and that Nimrod tried to enforce a universal language. The rabbi guest did not dispute this.

As for Nimrod, he was a legendary figure, and a very shadowy one about whom, if he did exist, next to nothing is known, other than he is credited in Hebrew scripture with founding the nation of Assyria, and various other cities of that nation and in that general vicinity. He is also referred to as a "great hunter before the lord", which some have taken to mean in opposition to God. The original point was probably an attempt to explain the origins of the divine king system of Mesopotamia, whereby kings were traditionally seen as hunters, and engaged in royal hunts as a matter of cultural tradition, but beyond that as a matter of ritual initiation. He has been identified with various Babylonian gods and kings, but the main gist is he was put forth as the progenitor of the Babylonian system of false religion, the concept of divine rule of kings, and of polytheism-the worship of the forces of nature as opposed to their creator, according to the Hebrew scheme of things.

But even this Beck turns on its head, by identifying the Babylonian system as "secular". By this device, he ties this into the secular humanist movement of modern times. Granted, the Hebrews might have been ahead of their time in seeing the Babylonian pagan religions as somewhat an idolatrous expression of self-worship, but that hardly made them secularists, by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, they were woefully superstitious. Even if this originated as a promise that by building the tower they would "be as gods", there are still significant differences at work here. For one thing, secularists tend not to burn incense and sacrifice animals in hopes of curing their gout, regardless of whether or not the god in question might have at one point walked the earth as a man.

The point is, it was a different time, and a different world, when men looked towards strong rulers and cohesion, with a goal of building society. Freedom was based on strength and security, not individual liberties and human rights, which were secondary considerations at best.

Of course, there are similarities worthy of illustration. For example, even though Beck's Jewish Rabbi guest insists there is no Jewish word for "coincidence", there is one at play here. Bruegel's painting of The Tower of Babel was purposely modeled after the Roman Colosseum. It just so happens the Louise Weiss Building was also purposely patterned after the Colosseum, although presumably for different reasons. Brugels used the Colosseum as a symbol of hubris and tyranny. The European Union is certainly nothing if not an exercise in hubris. In its own way it is also tyrannical in concept and execution. But does that mean the leaders of the EU are purposely trying to recreate the culture of ancient Babylon?

Granted, there are other similarities which can be read as disturbing. The Tower in Bruegel's painting is unfinished. So is the Weiss Building, as a symbol of the "unfinished" nature of the European Union. There are also similarities between communism and capitalism, but if you make too much out of the similarities the whole fabric unravels, and so does your case.

In other words, you wonder if Beck actually believes himself in what he is saying. In the example of the language mix-up, he certainly seems to be tip-toeing ever so gently around the prospect of literal Biblical truth, which is understandable. He doesn't want to offend a large portion of his viewers who insist on a fundamentalist interpretation of scripture.

The real reason for the mix-up of languages is pretty well-established as an on-going, multi-epochal process that involved mankind being "scattered" long before there was any civilization to speak of, let alone anything on the order of a major city. We are talking about prehistoric times here, and for that matter possibly even before the times when human beings had evolved to the point where they could properly be called human. As a natural consequence of this multiple migration to various and diverse points around the globe, when mankind did develop more complicated languages and social structures, there would by the nature of the process have to be significant divergences and variations in language and culture.

This does not imply that the story of the Tower is not without merit as a morality tale and a warning relevant to any time as to the dangers of tyrannical dependence on human government. It just speaks to a need to see to that greater truth.

The Tower Of Babel was written in ancient times by people trying to come to grips with these differences in humanity and in the meantime explain other phenomena as well. Beck had to have known this, or at least he had to be familiar with this commonly accepted view, yet instead of confronting it directly he dances around it in order to preserve his greater point.

That point is that any such attempt to forge all mankind into one common, one-size fits all system of laws and government, however loosely forged, is unnatural and by its nature doomed to failure. It always does, as the decline and fall of empire after empire serves to demonstrate. That was the meaning of the Biblical story. He could have concentrated on that, and he could have used the story of The Tower Of Babel as an apt symbol, a prophecy if you will, that perfectly illustrates the ultimate outcome of any such endeavor, however well-intentioned or cleverly and carefully implemented. It will always be doomed to failure.

Unfortunately, Beck wasted precious time chasing after phantoms in the forms of now widely discarded mythologies once but no longer accepted as literal fact, instead of making clear their value when viewed as symbolic warning applicable to the time and subject matter.

In doing so, he does himself and us a disservice by building his case on a foundation that will collapse as quickly as the Tower, and as quickly as, ironically, the European Union has all but collapsed today, with one member nation after another going into default and bankruptcy, with others desperately trying to engage in severe cutbacks in spending and services, all geared toward propping up a system which by its nature is unsustainable.

The Tower has all but fallen, as well it should, but it seems to have escaped the notice of Glenn Beck.

The Accounting School Of Economic Theory

When you read the words of an economist, you might as well be reading Tarot. You should always bear in mind that Economics is a social science and is highly theoretical, far from hard science. So when Paul Krugman declares, for example, that it would require a much larger stimulus package than was passed in 2009 to pull the US out of its economic rut, you need to realize that Krugman is, by definition, spewing out of his ass what amounts to fumes of guess. Its the perfect example of a person who would see you in a big hole and tell you to keep digging. Eventually, you'll dig yourself out of that hole, it will just take some time. In reality, you're far more likely to find yourself at the bottom of the ocean.

Krugman's latest gem is a pastiche of the wonders of magical thinking. He makes three points, one of which is a gross contradiction of his previous claims. Another is typical Krugman style economic snake oil disguised as strong medicine. He ends this exercise in fantasy with such a fanciful speculation you have to wonder if he's kidding.

His three points are as follows-

*In order to climb out of our massive debt, eliminate deficit spending, and thereby get our finances in order, we are going to have to institute a VAT (Value Added Tax). This is the one that falls in the category of wishful thinking, in ignoring the obvious fact that this would more than likely amount to just another drag on economic recovery.

*In order for the current health care law to remain viable over the long term, there will have to be some form of rationed care, which he admitted in an almost throw-away, off-hand fashion would amount to "death panels"-a contradiction of his earlier statements of rebuttal to Sarah Palin when she warned this was a near certain consequence of Obamacare. He later claimed to be utilizing sarcasm by use of the term death panels. Since that is nevertheless what it would amount to regardless of what name you apply, the joke is on Krugman. Actually, its on all of us.

But the biggest gem of all-

*One day, the President of the United States will be Clinton-CHELSEA Clinton, who will go on to institute the policies Krugman recommends.

Sure, Paul, that's going to happen. By the way, while you're at it, what color panties does she wear?

Can we now all agree to stop taking this clown seriously? Sure, he *might* have been "joking", but a joke only has value if it has some basis in reality. Seeing as how Chelsea Clinton has no experience of elective office, or even in running for such, his remark isn't humor or satire, its nonsense based on some fantasy only he is privy to, but which he might have inadvertently let slip. It's the kind of thing that makes you wish Bill O'Reilly had knocked the little shit silly when he had the chance.

As for the other statements related above, there's nothing particularly original about the concept of a VAT, and he seems to be way behind the curve when it comes to recognizing the potentially negative impact of The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) on the quality of health care in America.

So really, my question is, is there a chance that Economics is in essence nothing more than snake oil in general, and that we might be best served by relying far less on economic theory? After all, it seems that the slightest disruptions render the most impressive economic models obsolete. What's worse, they don't necessarily have to be that profound, or that unexpected.

It might sound simple-minded, but maybe we would be better served by turning to people who know how to balance a checkbook.

You know, people like Sarah Palin.

Let The Right One In

"parents, not politicians, should decide what their children eat, especially when it comes to spending their own money. Despite its good intentions, I cannot support this unwise and unprecedented governmental intrusion into parental responsibilities and private choices."

That was Gavin Newsom explaining why as outgoing Mayor of San Francisco he vetoed the ordinance passed by the City Board of Supervisors which banned the practice of the inclusion of toys in McDonald's "Happy Meals". Never mind the Supervisors have enough votes to override his veto, and doubtless will within two weeks, and that he has to know that. The main thing to realize here is that he has purposely misrepresented the ordinance. As many of his critics have pointed out, the ban is on the use of toys as a marketing tool for Happy Meals. The Supervisors ruling even stated that the toys could instead be used in menus that featured healthier alternative foods. However, Happy Meals themselves were not banned by the measure.

Newsom further elaborated the position that, in his opinion, overreaching rules and regulations such as this had transformed San Francisco into a laughing stock.

Newsom said his opposition is not just about policy, but also about reputation. The city already has been through the wringer nationally and internationally for its ban on plastic bags and a mandatory recycling law in which residents can get in trouble for not composting – ordinances the mayor supports. But Newsom said the toy ban, which has captured the attention of Jon Stewart, “Dr. Phil” and national headlines, goes too far.

“There’s a reason there’s not a TV station in this country that hasn’t candidly been mocking us,” Newsom said.

My question is, has he just now become aware of this? Is it possible that San Francisco is that insulated from the outside world that they aren't aware of their reputation? That would explain a lot, but I don't buy it.

Newsom is looking toward the future, and I have a very good idea he is making plans to run for Governor of California-not in eight years, but in four. He wants to make sure the people of California know that he is not the stereotypical Bay Area leftist lune. He is a successful businessman with a record of accomplishment as Mayor, and takes a common sense approach to situations and to the problems that face the every day Californian.

That's plain to see, but the question is, why now, well over a month before his scheduled swearing-in as California Lieutenant Governor? Others think his actions are cynical politics, such as a commenter at Queerty who also speculates that Newsom is trying to pivot toward the center. But again, why? The election is barely over, and though he hasn't even taken office yet-he won! So what's the big deal?

I think he sees the runaway train screeching down the tracks and knows California is about to experience the biggest crash since New York defaulted a few decades ago. In fact, this will be much, much worse. He knows its coming, and he knows Jerry Brown will be unable to do the hard work necessary to get California back on the right track, even if he had the political will to do what was necessary to set things right again. But, while Jerry Brown will likely be seen as the favorite lap dog of the California State Legislature and the unions, Gavin Newsom might well play the role of the pitbull willing and eager to go for their throats. We might have just seen a preview of that.

When the crash comes, it will be a national issue, and there's a good chance California will go through a political upheaval such as it has never experienced. By positioning himself early as a moderate, one willing to stand up to the legislature and the unions, as well as other specially targeted interest groups, Newsom might well think he can avoid the coming bloodshed, and even profit from it.

There's also a possibility that he holds national aspirations. If he does run for Governor of California in 2014, and wins, he would have to be considered a top contender to run for the presidency in 2016. In the meantime, there has been talk of a potential challenge to Barak Obama from the left in the next primary season. If California is suddenly in play in 2012, which is very possible depending on what happens between now and then, Newsom might position himself as a liberal on social issues, while at the same time portraying himself as a friend to business, families, and the middle class, thus capturing for himself that spark that lit the Obama movement in '08.

Alternately, if he doesn't challenge Obama, it might well be that he could help keep California in the Democratic column that year. It might not be enough to save the presidency of Barak Obama, but it would be enough to earn him serious consideration as Obama's heir apparent. That will be all the more true if his help is vital in re-electing Obama. In that scenario, he will be owed big time, and remember, California is on the edge of default. When that happens, whether before or after the next election, there will be a significant push to bail out the entire state, which would amount to a massive federal expenditure.

There will then be a push for reform of the states pension systems and tax and regulatory systems as well. If Newsom is seen as the man that saves California by instituting these reforms, and making them stick, he could be well on his way to a major place in the Democratic Party firmament, and beyond.

Watch him but believe nothing that you hear and no more than half of what you see.

Century Old Treaty Ends With Invasion Caused By Google Maps Error

I don't know why anyone in the Nicaraguan military would look at Google Maps anyway-they have their own precision military maps-but a Nicaraguan Commander named-I swear-Eden Pastora did so and must have come to the conclusion that the treaty forged more than a century ago in a peace deal mediated by President Grover Cleveland must have been some kind of illegitimate fraud. Having taken this dramatic leap of faith, albeit one based on the cutting edge hard science of Google technology, Pastora came to the conclusion that a territory long ceded by terms of the treaty to Costa Rica, by rights belonged to Nicaragua.

Commander Eden Pastora therefore entered the territory of roughly 1.7 miles, ordered the flag of Costa Rica removed and replaced with the flag of Nicaragua. As you might imagine, that didn't sit too well with Costa Rica, but what could they do? Nicaragua is a revolutionary, militarized society, while Costa Rica, Central America's oldest democracy, while prosperous and successful, is also at a slight disadvantage in that they have no standing military. Out of exasperation as much as desperation they turned for assistance to the OAS, an official of which attempted the first mediation between the two countries concerning the territory since 1897.

Nicaragua scoffed at them, told them in effect to go to hell.

It starts to sound like some kind of surreal play. Costa Rica is a little democracy with a prosperous market based economy, and its President-President Lauren Chinchilla (Yeah, really)-has stated she might take the matter to the UN Security Council. What else can she do? Nicaragua is aid dependent, so maybe they would have enough leverage to solve this problem without making it a bigger disaster than it already is, although I doubt it.

The crazy thing is, Pastora is laying the blame on Google Maps, which seems to be a tacit admission that he was wrong, but at the same time the OAS is still trying to "resolve the problem"-which seems to suggest the Nicaraguans have no intention of leaving or ceding the territory.

In fact, Nicaragua has stated the incursion was nothing more than "security officials conducting drug raid operations in the region", and further stated the OAS had no authority to resolve border disputes.

That sure sounds to me like they have every intention of keeping the territory. All this over 1.7 miles. Well, I guess they must have their reasons.

But whatever their reasons, you can blame Google for providing the impetus. Google's competitor Bing got it right.

Airport Security

H/T Ace Of Spades

Only In Kentucky

Let's face it. You have to go down into a really deep, dark place in your soul before you are capable of cutting off a man's beard-and making him eat it!



Of course, alcohol was involved. Whiskey, to be precise, and who knows what else. In another report, the perpetrator Troy Holt, in typical alcoholic fashion claims the fault lies mainly with his victim, Harvey Westmoreland, by whom he supposedly had been threatened, and by whom he claims he still felt threatened.

It is also worth noting that, although the men were friends, a significant part of their problem could be traced to a woman, one which allegedly one or the other (or both) had been seeing.

Whether or not this is true, it seems patently obvious that this has been brewing for quite some time. The controversy over the lawn mower was simply the spark that blew the lid off.

Interestingly, there is some evidence that beards among at least some prehistoric cultures were viewed as expressions of virility. If true, this cultural attitude might well be stored in the human unconscious, where It is possible that it could be accessed while in a deep state of alcohol intoxication.

Seen in this context, by cutting off Westmoreland's beard-which he had grown for eight years, and which was evidently very long and thick-Holt and his partner James Hill were not only humiliating their victim, but symbolically emasculating him as well.

In other words, its probably a damn good thing for Westmoreland that he and Holt were friends. If anybody needs "supervised diversion", it's these two guys.

The Hopi Indian Tribe Declare War On The Radical Environmentalist Agenda

Recently, the Hopi Indian Nation ended its relationship with the Sierra Club, declaring the organization persona non gratis. The ultimate decision to end the relationship came after a unanimous vote of the tribal council. The reason was one of economic livelihood. The Sierra Club, in an effort to shut down a coal fired energy plant they claimed polluted the environment and contributed to Global Climate Change, won instead the ire of the Hopi Indian Tribe, recognized by the US Government as a sovereign entity in its own right. The tribe held that closing the plant would cost the Hopis in jobs and in economic development.

The Sierra Club held firm to its commitment, promising the Hopi long-term benefits in terms of a cleaner environment while holding out the promise of future jobs and economic development in the field of green energy. This however was not enough to ease the ire of the Tribe, which ordered them permanently off their sovereign lands.

When I first learned of this story from Moonbattery, I wanted to make note of it, but at the same time I wanted to find out more. Basically, I wanted to get the Sierra Club's side of the story, if for no other reason than just to get their spin on it, but also on the off chance that I might one day find myself blindsided with a previously unstressed other side of the story.

True to form, the Sierra Club makes no bones about their objection to the coal industry and their desire to rigidly regulate, if not entirely dismantle the industry. One article, entitled King Coal, elaborates their efforts and accomplishments in the West, particularly in Kansas. It is all the more surprising then that I have been unable to find anything about this incident involving the Hopi Indians on the Sierra Club's official website. I did, however, find some mention of the Hopi pertaining to another matter.

Interestingly, they had at one point been allies. The two had banded together and won an injunction to prevent uranium mining on Mt. Taylor, a sacred mountain to the Hopis, on the grounds of potential contamination of ground water and streams. They succeeded in winning a one-year moratorium on any further mining and exploration by declaring Mt Taylor a Traditional Cultural Property.



However, it is worth noting that this story was posted on the Sierra Club website on March of 2008, more than two and a half years ago. Since then, there has been nothing posted on the website pertaining to any kind of followup on the Mt Taylor controversy, even though the injunction was granted for only one year.

The story seems suspended at the following point-

The nuclear power industry is now seeking to resume operations, and in response the New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division streamlined the permit process, allowing mining activities to proceed without notifying the affected tribes when the site is less than five acres, and ignoring Governor Bill Richardson's executive order requiring statewide tribal consultation to protect sacred places. New mining plans on Mt. Taylor are opposed by tribes because the state has failed to perform environmental analysis on underground drinking water supplies, groundwater withdrawls, and impacts from exploratory wells.

The emergency stay granted by the New Mexico State Cultural Properties Review Committee will give the state time to gather input from affected tribal groups and allow the tribes and the state Historic Preservation Division to carefully evaluate applications for mining permits. "The committee action means pueblos and tribes can't be ignored when there are imminent threats to a sacred mountain," says Tohe.

And that seems to be the end of it, with no word on whether the mining permits and exploration and/or mining resumed or whether there were further extensions on the injunction granted, or for that matter whether or not the entire project was scrapped, or even if the required testing turned up any kind of evidence as to any potential hazards or seeming lack thereof. We just don't know, at least insofar as anything I've learned from the Sierra Club or from any other source thus far.

Putting aside for the moment my considered suspicion over the likelihood that a state agency would "ignore" an Executive Order issued by a governor, which is curious enough, I find one other thing that I thought perhaps even more telling.

In the above linked Sierra Club article on Mt. Taylor, there was a link pointing to a website which seems to be a joint enterprise of the Navajo and Hopi Tribes, and which the Sierra Club points to as evidence of their collaboration with the Hopi. However, if you click on this link now, you will see-an empty page, one which is nevertheless identified in the url as the page of an article, albeit one which seems to have been deleted. It almost looks like the cyber equivalent of a jilted lover excising his unfaithful spouse's image from the wedding pictures.

The same website, however, in another post has a lot to say about the present rift between the Hopi and the Sierra Club. The title says it all-

Hopi Tribal Council bans environmental groups-
Actions by environmental groups threaten total economic collapse of the tribe, council declares

There's so much there its almost impossible to copy a small part of it which is adequately representative of the whole, but suffice it to say the Tribe felt their very existence was threatened by the Sierra Club, in addition to various other environmentalist groups working in tandem with them.


(Black Mesa Water Coalition photo
Roberto Nutlouis (left) and Lillian Hill at the Black Mesa Mine coal mine before it was closed.)

It's worth your time to go and read the entire article, because it could well be a signpost to what lies ahead in the coming years for all of us if these groups succeed in imposing their radical agenda.

Cigarettes With Graphic Warning Art Coming Soon-Collect All Seventy-Two

See now, there's an upside to big government after all. If our corporate tax rate wasn't the second highest in the industrial world, our government wouldn't have enough money to be able to do this.

But thanks to the new law giving the FDA power to regulate the tobacco industry, we soon will have the opportunity to buy packs of cigarettes with graphic warnings as to the possible consequence of smoking. This is your chance to invest in a potential collector's item. Most people that buy cigarettes will continue to discard the empty packs, insuring they will become rare after so many years.

Ah, but if you save them, store them and keep them in mint condition, in fifty years time each one in good to mint condition might fetch from five to ten dollars. That means that even if you live in New York City you will almost recoup at least half your investment. Or, if you are a more frugal investor, you can buy your smokes in a neighboring state or an Indian casino. You have to bear in mind though that not only will smokers buy them, it might become a big fad with non-smokers as well. You might even have schoolkids trading them, like baseball cards. Take advantage of such opportunities wherever and whenever it might arise. Fads are always temporary, whereas with patience and perseverance you might have an opportunity to double, triple, maybe even quadruple your investment over time.

Just remember, although its certainly not out of the question that the FDA will mandate that they must be laminated, its probably not likely. No matter how carefully you store and preserve them they will still be a fragile product, but you can increase the likelihood of preserving their long-term value simply by not purchasing packs of cigarettes in soft packs, but in the hard, or box packs.

You can get a head start on this new, exciting collector's opportunity. Just head over to the website of the FDA, where you can view or if you want even download the proposed gallery of up-coming cigarette artwork in either pdf or jpeg format.

Friday Night Lies

I hate to say this, I know there are more people than you could ever imagine who might disagree, at least privately, but I'm going to come on out with it-

There's more important things in life than high school sports, even football or basketball. So if one of your more talented players, a student who excels at both sports, is involved in a sexual assault of a younger female student, you should have no problem booting him from the team. After all, talent and ability notwithstanding, this is not the kind of person you would want to represent your school, correct? Just because he might well be instrumental, possibly even vital in getting you to the state finals, that should not really be an issue, right?

Well, evidently most of the citizens of this small little town in Hardin County Texas don't quite see it that way. When Rakheem Bolton, one of the star players on their school football team, was accused of sexual assault, the Grand Jury failed to return an indictment on him. A second Grand Jury did so, but he managed somehow to plea bargain his case down to one of simple assault. He later engaged in an altercation with one of his teachers, which earned him a requirement to engage in anger management courses. Otherwise, some one hundred fifty hours of community service staring him in the face and a few remorseful statements to the press, and he's back on the football field.

One of the cheerleaders on his squad then got in trouble for refusing to join in the squad's cheers for him when he made a play. She was told she had to forget about what happened and either join in with the rest of the squad in cheering him on, or she had to resign her position.

Sounds reasonable enough. Of course, it would probably be easier for her to accede to these demands if she were not the girl he and two others assaulted and, according to her, raped. Her father led her off the court when patrons of the school team, their former friends, neighbors, and fellow community citizens, verbally abused her for what they took to be her bad sportsmanship-or maybe it was her unladylike conduct.

She sued the school on First Amendment grounds, claiming that she had the right to not cheer her assailant. Unfortunately the Fifth Circuit Court Judge who heard the case disagreed, going so far as to sanction the girl for what was described as a frivolous lawsuit, even ruling that she was liable for the school's legal expenses. The family is appealing the verdict, but its probably a lost cause. Justice is often cold and hard when it is applied fairly and according to precedent, and the truth is there is no free speech issue here.

A better, perhaps more realistic attorney would have tried a different approach than the use of the First Amendment as grounds for a suit. Not being an attorney myself, I wouldn't know what that would be, but there would have to be something, you would think, some legitimate grounds with which to defend the rights of a young girl against an oppressive, humiliating, and perhaps even dangerous environment enforced by her own school against her, a victim, in favor of her oppressor. Maybe some kind of civil rights suit might have been more appropriate.

After all, this girl was subjected to an ordeal that went beyond one night at a football game. She was ostracized, mocked and humiliated during school hours on a regular basis, and it got so bad her younger sister transferred to another school.

The larger point, in reality, is that there never should have been a need to bring any kind of action in court. The offending player should have been removed from the squad permanently, but the people of that small town in Hardin County Texas, as much as the school officials involved in this sorry case, may have had other, varying priorities.

For one thing, the defendant was black, the girl white, and it was widely assumed the first Grand Jury failed to render an indictment because of that, due to the presence of a number of blacks on the Jury.

But even more perniciously, the school seems to have been far more intent on keeping a valued member of their sports team than in seeing to the welfare of the one lone girl, evidently feeling that, in some way that is unclear, she willingly put herself in the position where she should have known she was endangering herself. In other words, she was asking for it.

For the record, this happened at a party where a number of team members and cheerleaders were present, and alcohol was a factor. But even that much is beside the point. The girl has been expected to give up her position on the cheer-leading squad, sacrifice her own social standing at school, as well as her dignity, peace of mind, and in effect her basic rights, in order to help salvage the potential future of her assailant.

Bear that in mind the next time you hear somebody pontificate about how we should look out for the welfare of our children. With all too many people, that's apparently only good for so much, and as long as it doesn't stand in the way of a winning record.