Yeh, my grape vines were under attack today, as it were. Foxes, locusts, whatever. Whole day eaten up with little tasks that expanded to more than fill the day.
Tomorrow? Looks like my “to do weather” is still snowed under.
Write your own post. 🙂
What Do You Have Planned for Earth Day?
In honor of this enviro-weenie day I propose that folks who’ve not entirely submitted their minds to daily Progressive Lobotomies by the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind
1. Turn AC on full blast
2. Pour 2-cycle oil in your 4-cycle mowers and spew smoke
3. Turn on ALL electronics
4. Turn on–and leave on–all the incandescent lights in your houses.
5. Moon at least one greenie.
OK, maybe not the last, but I want to.
I cannot express how disgusted I am with what has become of what was once conservation, and so I advocate that this day be given over to conspicuous over-consumption and ridicule of all that contemporary enviro-nazis stand for (yes, I use the word “nazi” to refer to them for very sound reasons. Examine the German Socialist Democrat Party and draw the parallels for yourself; you can do your own googling).
Hitler Was an Anti-smoking Vegetarian
He was also a rampant, flaming… socialist. Does this mean that all anti-smoking vegetarians–not to mention socialists–are evil? No, but it does give one justification for looking just a bit slaunchwise at ’em. Especially the socialists.
*heh*
Also note: FYI: Hitler Was A Socialist Thanks for reminding me of that post, Woody.
Stopped Clocks, Blind Pigs and All That
Now, we can add radical leftists to the list of improbable stumblers-upon-truth:
The level of anger and fear is like nothing I can compare in my lifetime. Ridiculing the tea party shenanigans is a serious error. For over 30 years, real incomes have stagnated or declined…The bankers, who are primarily responsible for the crisis, are now reveling in record bonuses while official unemployment is around 10 percent and unemployment in the manufacturing sector is at Depression-era levels. The financial industry preferred Obama to McCain. They expected to be rewarded and they were. Then Obama began to criticize greedy bankers and proposed measures to regulate them. And the punishment for this was very swift: they were going to shift their money to the Republicans. So Obama said bankers are ‘fine guys’ and assured the business world: ‘I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system.’ People see that and are not happy about it. People want some answers. They are hearing answers from only one place: Fox, talk radio, and Sarah Palin.
And what radical right-wing “tea bagger” terrorist said that? Noam Chomsky
I understand that Satan’s breaking out his long underwear.
While he was at it, Chomsky said a few other surprising–for a radical leftwing “intellectual” (yes, scare quotes around intellectual in reference to Chomsky’s retarded, reactionary excuses for advancing his socialist agenda. His legitimate contributions to linguistics are another very different story). Notably, taking note of all the swooning over The Ø!’s rhetoric,
“I’m just old enough to have heard a number of Hitler’s speeches on the radio, and I have a memory of the texture and the tone of the cheering mobs, and I have the dread sense of the dark clouds of fascism gathering…”
Yep, just another radical right-wing “tea bagger” racist spewing hate at a café au lait cyanide-laced Oreo in the White House. Noam Chomsky, of all people.
Thursday Thought
“The principle is this: good government is rare. It is to be cherished. When grubbing for political power takes precedence over that principle–when lust for political power takes top priority–then it threatens good government.” –Dr J.E. Pournelle
“There Will Always Be An Island Off the Coast of France”
It used to be that it was said, “There will always be an England,” but it ain’t necessarily so anymore.
Caravanner, 61, prosecuted for having Swiss Army knife in his glove box… to cut up fruit on picnics
A disabled caravanner who kept a penknife in his glove compartment to use on picnics has blasted the authorities after being dragged through court for possessing an offensive weapon.
Rodney Knowles, 61, walks with the aid of a stick and had used the Swiss Army knife to cut up fruit on picnics with his wife.
That’s right, folks” a 2.5-inch bladed Swiss Army Knife. Evidence of obvious intent to commit mayhem.
*sigh* And here in the USA, more of the same, as the TSA will confiscate any lil teen-eintsy bladed “weapon” from once-free citizens, when they’re not going full court press to fine and imprison folks for whatever strikes the Thousands Standing Around as an appropriate expression of their goonery.
This in a land where my grandfather and his brothers once took their Model 1895 Winchesters to school–talk about school safety! Imagine some idiot trying to hold up a school where the teacher and students were all armed to the teeth! Ah, but those were different times, you say. Yes, they were, more’s the pity.
As for that “island off the coast of France” thing, well, that may not even be “always” if the Calip-hate has its way… With a completely disarmed populace, how long until Londonistan is added as “the chief city of an island in the Calip-hate just off the coast of Francistan”?
Department of Education
Jerry pournelle is always worth listening to, and never more so than when he speaks about public education, and especially about the effect of the “feddle gummint’s” Department of Education.
In 1983 the National Commission on Education, headed by Nobel Laureate Glenn T. Seaborg, wrote that “If a foreign nation had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightfully consider it an act of war.”
Go ahead and read the rest of his brief comments at the link.
Asshats in Comments
My post on “unintended consequences” brought a SPAM comment from someone who “respectfully disagree[d]” with my analysis, claiming to be the “Chief Medical Officer of URL Pharma” saying that “There is no such thing as ‘generic colchicine.'” [The inappropriate placement of the second ‘ is in the original.]
Asshat. My post didn’t even use the word “generic” so it’s easy to tell that this was either just a spider-crawling comment or one written by someone who’s too subliterate or lazy for any response from me more than mocking.
On top of that, had I referred to “generic colchicine” I’d have been correct in doing so, since generic=something that is general, common, or inclusive rather than specific, unique, or selective in its primary sense, and “generic colchicine” has thus been in use for the treatment of gout for “six centuries” (according to the historically illiterate FDA–it was first described in use for such treatment over 2,000 years ago in De Materia Medica by Pedanius Dioscorides, but what are 14 centuries difference to an FDA bureaucrap?). The asshat goes on to make other offensively disingenuous commentary, but what can one expect from some auto-response to folks blogging about a company and the FDA conspiring to screw folks yet again?
But let me be clear: I LOVE asshattery in comments, because it gives me a way to blow off steam that doesn’t involve “kicking the cat” as it were. Feel free to return for more mockery, jackass.
Almost Annoying
I like Fun With Words, but this was a tad irritating:
Glossary of Fun Words – What word means to throw out of a window? To dance a child on one’s knees?
Couldn’t they at least choose some relatively obscure words instead of the oh-so-common “fenestrate” [see Random Yak’s correction in comments :-)] and “dandle”? Oh, well, I suppose I’ll check out the link anyway.
Now, this is more like it:
Glossary of Linguistics and Rhetoric – What do euphemism, hendiadys, cacophony, and procatalepsis mean?
I actually had to stop and think about “hendiadys” for a couple of seconds. I can’t recall the last time I used the term in conversation, either, although I am known to commit the heinous act from time to time. *heh*
VAT? Just Say “No Thank You”
Or, say something less polite to get the attention of the anarcho-tyrannical statists. Vats are for boiling oil and such like to pour on the invading barbarian hordes…
*heh*
As opposed to the very open and transparent FairTax plan, a VAT is a stealth tax that hides its burden at various levels of production and delivery of goods and services, just as the current taxation model does. As George Will says in a recent article, strangely in (a semi, half-hearted, limp) defense of a VAT,
Corporations do not pay taxes, they collect them, passing the burden to consumers as a cost of production. And corporate taxation is a feast of rent-seeking — a cornucopia of credits, exemptions and other subsidies conferred by the political class on favored, and grateful, corporations.
While this is a simplistic model, it’s good enough for the purposes of defending axing the 16th Amendment and the whole array of IRS levied taxes it supports, as Will suggests. It is not a good reason to advance a VAT, though, since VATs tend to hide the costs to the economy (not just the end consumer) just as the current tax model does. The FairTax model keeps the tax right up front where the purchaser of whatever (NEW) good or service can see it and be reminded of just what his “feddle gummint” is costing. And that’s a central reason why many politicians *spit* do not like it. The more obscure and hidden from direct view the costs of government are, the easier it is for them to play nearly brain-dead sheeple.