Month: May 2007

Here’s a quick drive-by question:

Congress (et al) compels me to ask: Do most politicians *spit* become crooks because they are simply weak and the temptations of office are too great for them, or is it that most politicians *spit* are already crooked and seek public office as a way of legitimizing their desire to perform criminal acts?

Inquiring minds want to know…

Trackposted to Perri Nelson’s Website, DeMediacratic Nation, Pirate’s Cove, Webloggin, The Bullwinkle Blog, The Amboy Times, Dumb Ox Daily News, High Desert Wanderer, Right Voices, Pursuing Holiness, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Today hasn’t been eaten by locusts in advance so much as by a Me$$y$oft notebook with a very strange STOP error. When I’ve dealt with that, among the other “must dos” of the day, I want a ready-made reading list here, OK?

🙂

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Anyone want to apply the title of this post to the lying, destructive behavior of congresscritters and others? Of course, when applied to politicians, maybe the post title should read, “Give a skunk a poodle cut… ”

An amnesty bill calling “king’s x” over multiplied millions of outlaws (instead of dealing with the problem). “That’s not Juan; that’s Fifi!”

Refusing to deal with the real problem and pretending that there are such impossible creatures as “civilized” or even “moderate” Muslims. “That’s not a savage, murdering, brutal terrorist (or terrorist enabler); that’s Fifi!”

Refusing to deal with the quotidian congressional ethic. “That’s not a (typical) lying, cheating, money-and-power-grubbing congresscritter; that’s Fifi!”

Lying about amnesty and about enforcing our borders. “That’s not President Bush; that’s Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s lap dog!”

Trackposted to Cao’s Blog, Right Celebrity, Stageleft, and Walls of the City, MacBros Place, and Woman Honor Thyself, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

At first glance, a headline like the following might make some folks’ blood boil:

Santa Fe Police Department looking into hiring Mexican nationals

But reading further down in the story from the Las Cruces Sun-News, I see something that would have me campaigning for the move:

“Every day, we get approached by young men and women from Mexico who are in the country legally but are not naturalized,” [Sgt. Gillian] Alessio said.

“There is a huge pool of people who are dedicated, hardworking and trying to become citizens of this country. They would like nothing better than to devote their time to protecting the communities that they live in… “

Folks, if they are in the country legally and seeking to become natualized citizens, I’d be all for it… until and unless “legally” meant “entered illegally, committed identity theft and other crimes to stay and steal American jobs but have been ‘legalized’ by an amnesty deal cooked up by the crooks in Washington D.C.”

I will never consider ANYONE “legalized” with an amnesty deal cooked up by crooks in the White House and Congress to be legitimate. Never.

No, let me clarify that: never.

But people who have entered this country by getting in line and doing it right, who then begin serious attempts to become natualized citizens? Those people should be considered for jobs in community service, such as law enforcement, just as they are allowed to enlist in the military.

Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Big Dog’s Weblog, and The World According to Carl, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

[Immigration law enforcement in these dis-United Stated seems to be a sad joke where the devil–and his minions in Congress–gets the last laugh… ]

Frankly, the title of this post ought to be “Bad News-Good News-Disasterous News”–*sigh*

The bad news? The U.S. is currently drowning in a sea of illegal aliens who take far more, net, from the economy than they contribute, while doing so via means of identify theft, scamming social services and taking jobs Americans will too do, contrary to the lies told by surrender monkeys and their favorite lapdog in the White House. And all because of massive corruption throughout every level of law enforcement.

Yes. Corruption in law enforcement. At every level, though the corruption is more obvious when we start at the top with a President who is determined to see those who enforce the borders punished and those who violate it rewarded. (“Determined”? Isn’t that a little strong? No, not at all. One of his cronies hatched the persecution of Ramos and Compeon and he has sat by and had his flacks lie about the situation for him.) The guys on the line have to be corrupted–or at least stiffled–by intimidation as a result of such things.

*sigh*

But there are some small, weak signs that not all are bending over to serve our masters in D.C. (and their deep pocket, short-sighted sugar daddys). At least at the State level, some states are waking up to the tiger they’ve been feeding in their livingroom. In Oklahoma (you know, land of backward hayseeds and low-brow yokels fit to compete with Arkansas rednecks and Southwest Missouri hillbillies), a new bill signed into law last week takes steps to address the problem of illegal aliens. Among other things,

House Bill 1804, signed into law by Gov. Brad Henry on Tuesday, would cut off in-state tuition, and possibly enrollment, for illegal immigrant students unless they can verify they have applied for citizenship or plan to within one year.¹

Well, it would be a nice start for the region were it not for the fact that President Bush and certain Republican Senators plan to stab the whole country in the back with a bill agreed upon for next week.

And that’s news that takes the very minor good news out of Oklahoma and trumps it with disaster. And it’s news that has led three people in our tiny community in just the last couple of days to volunteer to me that they believe there’s a violent revolution coming in this country.

Yes, real people are getting more than a little angry at how our political masters are willing to sell our birthright for a bowl of pottage. But are there enough real people left to balance out the masses of sheeple who stumble from bread to circus, completely oblivious to the real world, distracted by the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind blather and too stupid to stop and think (or to be able to) just what the end will be when they are sucked dry…

Meanwhile, if there are a few non-sheeple who read this, consider CLICKing on over to NumbersUSA. Read the site’s wealth of information. Use the site’s FREE FAXING to your congresscritters. GLean phone numbers and addresses of congresscritters and call and write.

And spread the word: a country that refuses to enforce its borders is soon called one thing–conquered.

Addendum:

“Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western civilization as it commits suicide.” – James Burnham

(And at least the situation in the Senate may give us some idea of the relative corruption of the Senate and the House… if the House doesn’t behave as irresponsibly and with such complete disregard for the rule of law and common sense and constituents’ desires as the Senate. If.)

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Is It Just Me?, Right Celebrity, DeMediacratic Nation, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Nuke’s news and views, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, Phastidio.net, The Amboy Times, Cao’s Blog, High Desert Wanderer, and Jo’s Cafe, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

I’m sure nearly very reader who blogs has found themselves doing at least one of these at some time or another, usually in all innocence, but red-faced when caught–by themselves or others. (BTW, the simple solution when one falls off the wagon and commits one of the errors below? Apologize, if applicable, and then police one’s behavior more closely.)

1. No “hat tip” for blogpost inspiration from another blogger. Oops. No one wants to be ungracious, stealing ideas from another blogger w/o crediting them, right? Well, no one with any ethics whatever.

2. Unfar use of “fair use”. Come one, now. We all know how tempting it can be to quote material at far too great a length until what was fair use becomes unfair. Quoting snippets and commenting at length? Cool. Quoting a whole article or blogpost and simply having a one sentence intro and that or less as a summation? Theft. But sometimes, it seems sooooo tempting toquote 90% of an article with lil bitty punctuating remarks thrown in, eh?

3. Uncool trackbacks. Sure, almost anything goes when someone posts an open trackbacks/linkfest post. Almost. (Even OTPs can be abused.) But tracking back to a NON open trackback/linkfest post but tracking back to a post with just a link in a post that has nothing else relating to the post linked to and no reason (apart from simple link whoring) for the link is cheap and tawdry and rude.

4. Speaking of which, “link whoring” can be exceptionally rude in other forms, too. Sure, a joke post poking fun at the behavior by going over the top with it can be fun, but folks who regularly surf blogs dropping comments with multiple links to their blog, send innapropriate trackback pings, etc., for no reason but the link posting are (see previous comment on “cheap and tawdry and rude” behavior)…

5. Hot-linking images or media files. This is usually a newbie error. Most folks don’t deliberately steal bandwidth, so usually those who commit this error simply need a lil schooling. Usually. Well, almost always, actually.

6. Flame wars. It’s a natural reaction when one is attacked to take everything public immediately and “go nuclear.” But I’ve found that most folks (MOST) respond well to private dialog via email when they’ve made some stupid remarks on their blog about me or committed one of the other blogging faux pas. Most folks really do appreciate an offer to set the record straight. Of course, there are those who refuse to admit error and then compound it by blowing their stack publicly. In that case, sometimes flame wars are unavoidable, but those cases are really not as common as some of the flame wars in the blogosphere might make it seem… And while I’ve known some real idiot bloggers who deserve a public flogging, time’s better spent beating up on pubschool administrators, politicians *spit* and Mass Media Podpeople, cos they are among the most dangerous elements of society right now. 😉

7. Playing with trolls. Trolls do not make good playmates unless one has LOTS of time and energy to spend playing “whack-a-troll” with a BIG stick. Best solution? Ban their IP. Freedom of speech on one’s own blog is defined however the blogowner wants. Here, it’s pretty simple: make sense. Dumabsses need not reapply for commenting privileges. 🙂

8. “Me too! Me too!” Too many posts that simply say, Me too!” are almost terminally boring. Wanna say nothing but “Me too!” go sit in the amen corner where you can be ignored.

9. Commenting at more length than the original blogpost. (Guilty as charged.) If your comment on someone else’s blog is running to greater length than the original post, GET YOUR OWN BLOG! Or, for those who already have your own blog, why the ever livin’ heck are you wasting blogfodder in a comment?!?!? Blog it, link to the post that spurred/inspired your comments and track back! *sheesh!* You’d think that would be elementary (remedial?) Blogging 101. 😉 (Yeh, one of my personal failings for sure.)

10. Putting on airs. Come on, folks! We’re just people standing on soap boxes in the public square. We’re not *shudder* popular pundits, great philosophers or grus with the wisdom of the ages spilling from our keyboards. Maintain a lil perspective. For the most part (and by “most part” I mean 99.99999% of us–including me), we’re just common joes and josephinas trying to make a dent in the once impervious-to-reason-and-fact Mass Media Podpeople’s Hivemind/Political Elite culture of destruction that’s tearing our society down; common folks sharing bits and pieces of our lives; or just folks like me who’re doing nothing more or less than trying to mollify the voices in our heads. 😉 Sure, there are some great movements and important issues being promoted and discussed on blogs… by common folk like you and like me, for the most part. Be what you are. Speak in your own voice. (Of course, those of us with multiple voices vying for attention in our heads have the small advantage of being able to pick and choose among many different voices… as confusing as that sometimes is for both our readers and ourselves. *heh*)

11. Grinding out blogposts because one feels one has to. When it’s not fun, stop. I said that in another context to one of my fav bloggers–someone who has an unique voice and unashamedly speaks in it. That blogger was having a lil difficulty with the level of anger that some actions by a group of folks were engendering in ’em. My counsel? Be angry. Use that anger. Until you no longer enjoy being angry or using it for effect. Same for blogging. Don’t do it unless you’re enjoying it. Really. It comes through no matter how you may mask it.

12. Jumping the gun. Or, depending on timing, the shark. *heh* Yeh, check stories before commenting on ’em. We’ve all seen that juicy bit that’s just toooo juicy to be true. It usually is. Too juicy to be true. Check it out before jumping on it.

13. Slavishly following a meme or preset pattern for a post. Sure, there are LOTS more blogging blunders than 13, but I could have stopped at ten or gone on to 15 (or 20 or… ) if I weren’t slavishly bound to thirteen for this post. *LOL*

Noted at the Thursday Thirteen Hub and Trackposted to Perri Nelson’s Website, The Random Yak, Allie Is Wired, 123beta, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, The Amboy Times, Conservative Cat, Right Voices, The Yankee Sailor, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

(Yeh, I wrote two linkfest posts in advance and sceduled them for publication ahead of time… scheduling them wrong. So, yesterday’s was today’s and today’s was yesterday’s… sorta. 🙂 Glad I caught it so late, eh?)

I constantly run across folks who have no earthly clue how to argue. First, there are those to whom “argue” means loud, highly-emotive rants, with absolutely no rational content. Then there are those who think of argument as something that is to be “won” by any means, including lies, deception, manipulation, misdirection, etc. Then there are those who seem to think that snarky sniping with a quick exit (“I’m not listening to you!”/”Talk to the hand” etc.) constitutes an argument. Among the worst techniques of fake argument? Reacting with whines and tears that facts and reason just aren’t fair! Piffle. Pathetic piffle.

None of those kinds of arguments make the least positive impression on me. In fact, all those kinds of irrational fakeries demonstrate to me is that those who engage in them are insecure, often stupid and always lying–to themselves, if no one else.

Sad.

An argument ought to consist of facts linked with rational commentary. It must be responsive to counter argument, not making stupid non causa comments, for example. It can be gentle and kind or (when gentle and kind do not work or are responded to with lies, misdirection, etc.) it can ramp up all the way to shouting down an idiot–all the while using facts and reason, just perhaps more loudly than is generally–and wrongly–considered “polite”.

You see, politeness when dealing with self-deceptive idiots only goes so far. Sometimes one really does need to whack the metaphorical mule upside the head with a 2X4 to get its attention (and other times, the 2X4 seems to need to be loaded with a nucear payload *sigh*). And politeness that allows lies to continue unconfronted is nothing but cowardice cloaked in a deceptive layer of social acceptability: sugar-coated cyanide, if you will. For if one refuses to speak the truth for fear of bruising an idiot’s (or liar’s or lying idiot’s) po’ widdle feewngs and appearing in the eyes of “polite” society to be brutish (for speaking truth too plainly), then all one is doing is contributing to the lie.

And that, my friends, is called … politics in its best sense. *sigh*

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Another of those twelve cuppa joe days, so here’s another repost of my Javascript Cookies™ recipe from May, 2005. Enjoy!

Continue reading “Once More, with Feeling: Javascript Cookies™”

Alan Woody has sent me another “must read” that I can heartily recommend. Click here for more of this:

…here’s the imagery I want to paint for you. Think of us as a sailboat, politics as a sailboat. ‘Cause it’s not a motorboat ‘cause there’s not enough power. You’re always subject to the wind and the sea, and underneath us in the ocean is the equivalent of the Gulf Stream, this enormous river of water which is so huge that it actually warms all of Europe. And the Gulf Stream is a center right Gulf Stream and so it’s natural pattern is to move the country towards the right.

But up on the surface where our sailboat is, all of the wind comes from the left. So all the news media gets up every morning and says, “How can I shove the sailboat to the left?” And unless you are really disciplined as Ronald Reagan was, you can’t remember that all you have to do is tack. You can sail into the wind as long as you tack, but also if you drop a sea anchor down to that huge river, the river will pull you to the right.

There’s a meta-lesson here, as well: listen to and learn from folks who are smarter than you are. Read the material at the link and I think you’ll agree that the speaker is certainly smarter than I am… and probably smarter than you are, too. 🙂 As politicians *spit* go, he seems one of the very best of that bad breed.

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