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.

I'll Never Smoke Weed With Willie Again

I'll Never Smoke Weed With Willie Again - The best video clips are here

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Fucktards

What do we have here? These people are members and supporters of the of a group known as Jamaat-i-islaam. So what is going on here exactly? Is it a political rally of some kind? Or maybe they are watching and cheering on their team at a soccer tournament, or a cricket game?

Naw, actually they are protesting because the President of Pakistan is possibly considering granting a pardon to a woman who has been convicted of insulting Islam-a Christian woman who is the mother of five children. They are demanding that the woman be hung. You know, because that is the sentence that was handed down by an Islamic court.

Forgive the hate speech, but I don't think that's exactly what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they drafted the First Amendment, and I applaud the people of Oklahoma for voting to ban the use of Shariah Law in their state, although I am surprised it only won seventy-percent of the vote. CAIR is appealing the election results on First Amendment grounds.

Of course, I have no doubt the Islamic fundamentalists who prefer Shariah law over the law of the land (not just this land, but any land stupid enough to take these people in) have no intention of utilizing their laws and customs to this degree here. After all, they are only about one percent of the population. They'll probably wait until they're ten or maybe twenty percent of the population before they get that radical.

Islam is not a religion. It is, like liberalism, a mental illness. I'm dead serious. I don't know anything about what's in the Quran other than a few choice passages, but then again I don't really need to know. I can see the evidence with my own two eyes. Everywhere Islam either predominates or is a strong influence, this is the result. The least provocation or perceived insult sends these people completely over the edge. All it took was for a Danish cartoonist to draw an insulting image of the "prophet", and you had Muslims all over Europe and the Middle East taking to the streets in a livid rage demanding retribution and pronouncing "Death to Europe".

Now one unknown woman from an obscure village in Pakistan commits what amounts to a nebulous offense which no one seems able to explain, and the whole country is up in arms demanding her death. The Pakistani President would probably not even bother with her case if it weren't for the influence of some international amnesty groups and some American politicians (Hillary, probably, though I don't know for sure), and what do these people do?



When Karl Marx said that opium was the religion of the masses, he was of course talking primarily of Christianity, and communists today explain this by saying Marx was comparing religion to how people in his era used opiates for medicinal purposes.

If that analogy is extended to Islam, adherents of that faith then must be the crackheads and meth freaks of the world's religious faithful.

Only, there is nothing about these people that is devout, in any meaningful sense of the word. These people are just plainly, certifiably insane. All fucking 1.4 billion of them. I know that sounds harsh, but there it is. No, all of them don't act like this, yes, most of them probably wouldn't favor killing somebody for what was probably some minor offense (if she really did anything at all). But I've seen and heard enough excuses for this kind of behavior and seen enough evidence of the results of a growing Muslim population in any given area, in any given culture, to know that it has to be an inherent problem with the religion itself. No other people, of no other faith, acts this badly.

Yes, there are persons of other faiths that act this bad and worse, but by "people", I mean mainstream. In Islam, it is the so-called moderates who are the "lunatic fringe".

John Lennon, were he still alive, and the Dixie Chicks might feel differently, but its one thing to burn a bunch of records. Nobody demanded that they be hung, or beheaded. Lennon recovered in short time, the Dixie Chicks have not, but that has more to do with talent than a vengeful public. The American people got over their little mad spell with Lennon, and to my knowledge, no one is out to deliver Natalie Manes's head on a platter. Salmon Rushdie is still living under the threat of a fatwa.

When a religion tells you how many times you have to pray on a daily basis, and what times of day to pray, that should be your first clue that something is wrong. And when you are expected to adopt a Middle Eastern, Arabic name upon conversion, that should be your first clue you might be dealing with a cult.

I don't know, but I suspect that while praying you have to go deep inside of a dark, harsh place in your subconscious mind in order to emerge with the world view held by so many of these people. Maybe it puts them in a subjective state of mind, one that is ripe for manipulation. I don't know.

But it would explain why there are a relatively small percentage of these people, in comparison to people in other religions, who don't engage in violence, or in hateful rhetoric, yet who seem to very seldom speak out strongly against the ones who do.

When the moderates bow in prayer, perhaps they are not really praying at all. They are merely bowing.

Sarah Palin-A Thanksgiving Message To All 57 States

My fellow Americans in all 57 states, the time has changed for come. With our country founded more than 20 centuries ago, we have much to celebrate – from the FBI’s 100 days to the reforms that bring greater inefficiencies to our health care system. We know that countries like Europe are willing to stand with us in our fight to halt the rise of privacy, and Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s. And let’s face it, everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma and they end up taking up a hospital bed. It costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early, and they got some treatment, and ah, a breathalyzer, or an inhalator. I mean, not a breathalyzer, ah, I don’t know what the term is in Austrian for that…

Yep, Sarah Palin gives Barak Obama the business on her Facebook Page. Actually, she gives it to the media for failing to jump on these Obama gaffes like they did and always do hers, even when her gaffes aren't gaffes at all, or when she catches herself and immediately corrects a misstatement that is, let's face, a human error anyone might be subject to. And, like they most certainly would have, and still would yet, if she had made any of the above gaffes.

Let's face it, we are living in a country in which a good one fourth to maybe a third of the people are stark raving lunatics. I watch MSNBC on a fairly regular basis, and last night I watched Lawrence "I am a socialist" O'Donnell, and his interview with Levi Johnson, who says he is going to run for Mayor of Wassilla Alaska. The interview was a series of questions previously asked of Palin by CBS News anchorwoman Katie Couric, who if she reads this will probably think "I'm an anchorperson, you sexist pig".

Anyway, a contest was being conducted on O'Donnell's show-who did better answering the questions between Levi and Sarah. Three percent of the show's respondents said Sarah won, almost all the rest said Levi, with maybe a small percentage calling it even, though I don't remember that for sure because I was too stunned at the mere three percent who voted for Palin to keep paying attention.

For one thing, Palin agreed mankind might be at least partially responsible for Global Warming, while Levi said flat out he didn't believe it, without offering any qualifying explanation. Palin should have got enough points on that score alone to put her ahead with the leftist audience, because Levi, poor dude, was stumped on just about everything else, though he did express that we should talk with our enemies, while Sarah said we should not talk to them without preconditions.

But the point is, Levi was clearly unprepared, but O'Donnell, obviously willing to help Levi score points with the audience, gave him credit for being honest enough to admit when he didn't know the answer, or would have to study up on it-which was most of the time.

The whole contest was an exercise in leftist idiocy to begin with, and I'm telling you right now, even if I honestly thought Sarah Palin would be the absolute worse president in the history of the US (which I don't think that by any means) I would still be seriously tempted to vote for her anyway just so I could have the pleasure of seeing leftist loons heads exploding, like O'Donnell. Some, more than you think, would probably suffer a nervous breakdown, go completely off the rails and run amok, commit suicide, or maybe at least keep their fucking word (for once) and leave the god damn country.

If that wouldn't be something to be thankful for, I don't know what would be.

H/T Ace Of Spades (again)

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.