Month: April 2011

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Dhimmicraps Think You’re Stupid

Here in America’s Third World County, the price of a gallon of gasoline is 2.71 times higher than it was before The Zero took office and his policies took effect. But The Dhimmicraps’ outrage at the Bush policies (spend, spend, spend on foreign wars that returned nothing to the American people plus sweetheart treatment for his terrorist-enabler buddies, the Saudis, etc.–ignoring natural disasters and terrorist acts that had had some effect of their own) that had aided in nearly doubling the price of gasoline at the pump over the course of twice as much time as The Zero has had to screw things up is strangely missing when it comes to $4.00/gallon gas, which they now apparently view as a good thing…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKdScVerrBU

And the Dhimmicraps (and their co-conspirator, the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind–yes, I intended the singular noun, “co-conspirator,” there) also seem to think they can sell you on the idea that we are in an actual economic recovery. Anyone who’s actually bought into that con is too stupid to be walking around without a keeper.

You Call This a Recovery? Obama Offers More Excuses Than Solutions

Seven quarters into the Obama recovery, GDP growth has averaged an annual rate of only 2.8 percent. In contrast, since 1970, the first seven quarters of previous recoveries averaged 4.6 percent. The poor growth rate is especially surprising since the preceding recession was so severe, there should have been ample room for high growth as the unemployed returned to work. For example, the Reagan recovery followed a similarly high unemployment rate and saw the economy grow at an average annual growth rate of 7 percent.

The slight decrease in unemployment – currently at 8.8 percent — has been touted as good news. Yet that slight drop has largely been the result of job-seekers giving up looking for work and leaving the labor force. On top of that, the new jobs that have opened up have primarily been temporary jobs, the number of permanent jobs has actually fallen…

But there is some (very) small good news: fewer people seem to be fooled by the “feddle gummint” lies about the “recovery” than were fooled by the Hivemind and others into voting for The Zero. From the source linked and quoted above,

By an incredible 68 percent to 26 percent margin, The Real Clear Politics average of polls shows that Americans think that the country is headed in the wrong direction, which is the pessimism people experienced at the depths of the recent recession. By a 56 to 40 percent difference, even the liberal Talking Points Memo average of selected surveys finds that Americans disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy.

And in the face of all the economic woes, Dhimmicraps–and The Zero especially–think YOU are so stupid they can sell you the idea that $4.00/gallon gasoline is a good thing. Perhaps the reason they think both things (that it’s a good thing and that they can sell swampland to you as “ocean front property”) is that they have insulated themselves from the worst effects of their destructive policies. They have theirs. You can simply eat cake. Or suck swamp water, however you prefer to metaphorize their viewpoint.

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One Good Thing About the Current Economy…

…is that perhaps–perhaps!–a few people might learn the truth of that old saw that debt is a tax on stupidity. Then, if we as a society can learn, even in small part, that allowing our supposed representatives in government to place us all in debt, mortgaging our grandchildren’s children’s futures to purchase the votes of the greedy and stupid and lazy is beyond merely stupid all the way to criminally stupid, then–if we are far more fortunate than we as a society deserve–we might survive the ends our “political masters” have apparently designed for us.

Of course, I know that saying, “have apparently designed for us,” may be stretching things, as the conspiracy of dunces we have put into power over us may simply be validating that other old saw attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte:

“Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence.” (Though some sources substitute “stupidity” for “incompetence”)

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Oh, Just Gag Me

Awoke at 5:45 to find my Wonder Woman watching a couple of Brits getting married. The last 15 minutes or so were more than I could stand. Probably the worst part was seeing the choral conductor’s really crappy conducting technique. Gagamaggot. The two guys double-teaming the service had to have taken advanced degrees in Boring Speech and then have been chosen from a field of the absolutely most accomplished bores on the planet. They really, really needed to have conscripted Peter Cook to be master of ceremonies or whatever…

The Impressive Clergyman: Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam…

OTOH, the sevenfold amen from the choristers was better than some I’ve heard, and the trumpets were very good.

I missed The Ancient Booer though. *sigh*

Hadn’t had my coffee yet, so the commenting by Mass MEdia Podpeople just washed over me without leaving any perceived toxic waste, just normal B.S.

Oh, and “15 minutes”? Wrong. I stuck around for the horses. Almost uniformly great conformation and nice gaits. Nice tires (tyres? *heh*) on the carriage.

Apart from that? Who frickin’ cares? Not my family or personal friends, so whatever comes of this “royal” wedding is no more important to me than the last one was, which is to say, not at all.

Bored now.

*heh* My Wonder Woman just told me that when the gal was having her ring slipped on, it looked like her finger had swollen or something because it seemed to get stuck for a second.

“Here, minion, run along and find me a woman who fits this ring. There’s a good minion.”

*heh*

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This Is Just Bizarrely Stupid

From an AP report about the document posted/released by the White house recently in response to The Donald’s success in pushing the question about The Zero’s strange reluctance to release his birth certificate:

…For much of the past two years, the issue has been marginal. And then it flared again as critics clamored for the long-form certificate of birth.

In response, Obama secured special authority to secure two official copies of the more detailed certificate. He dispatched his personal attorney to fly to Hawaii, get the certificates and hand deliver them back to the White House. [emphasis added]

“[S]pecial authority”?!? WTF? From Hawaii’s own DOH website,

“Vital records (birth, death, marriage, and divorce certificates) for events that occurred in Hawaii are received and preserved by the Office of Health Status Monitoring, a unit of the Department of Health (DOH). In Hawaii, access to vital records is restricted by statute (HRS §338-18).

“Certified copies of these records may be issued to authorized individuals and used for such diverse purposes as school entry, passports, Social Security participation, driver’s licenses, employment, sports participation, survivor’s benefits, proof of property rights, and other needs.

“This is only an ordering system for certified copies of vital records. The certified copies being ordered WILL NOT be issued online as a part of your transaction. You will receive the ordered certified copies via first-class postal mail within 4-6 weeks…

“…You may order certified copies only of your own birth and marriage certificates or of an immediate family member (e.g., a parent of his/her child’s birth or marriage certificate) on this web site…” [emphasis added]

And it doesn’t take spending many multiples of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money to obtain those records by sending an attorney to get a copy in person, either. Total cost for one: $11.50, including an electronic handling/processing fee, and I imagine one could pay for special handling by the post office to ensure the thing was delivered in a timely and safe fashion.

But “special authority” needed? Nah. Just a copy of one’s driver’s license or other verifiable ID. Easy-peasy.

Why lie about how easy it is to get an official, certified copy of a Hawaiian birth certificate? And heck, I’ll say it again, if some rubber-stamped signature is the equivalent of the normal embossed seal that has appeared on all the other Hawaiian B.C.s I’ve seen images of, then I’m a red-tailed baboon.

And these obvious dumbass mistakes in presentation, things ANYONE with access to the internet can check for themselves, are just icing on the cake amid the substantial questions the documents as presented have raised when simply looked at with the naked eye, let alone the fakery discovered by folks who’ve made more thorough examinations of the White House’s pdf file.

Sure there could be some innocent excuses for all the different issues that have come to light about this latest offering from The Zero, his minions and his handlers, but any innocent explanations of them all have to depend on incompetence from The Zero, his minions and his handlers and the JDs (no, not juris doctorates: juvenile delinquents, no matter what their chronological ages) effecting this shit.

This is all just so patently stupid that I must keep reminding you to look for what the other hand is doing…

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Burning Straw Men

This HuffPo post is typical of the least offensive arguments Obamaniacs* muster against reasonable questioning of the least transparent presidency since Richard M. Nixon’s. Heck, The Zero is less open than Tricky Dicky was.

“We fully plan on hearing from birthers about why his authentic certificate still raises doubt. Here are some of our predictions of what lingering questions they will have about the birth certificate.”

Then follows this graphic full of ridiculous straw man assertions of “objections” those the HuffPo target demographic labels “birthers” will have to the newly-released document:

Typically appallingly dishonest argument from a HuffPo Obamaniac.

And, of course, the expected “objections” have no relation whatsoever to the few questions I’d likeanswered about the document, and, also of course, the HuffPo post ignores all the other issues with The Zero’s legitimacy.

*Since these people have consistently engaged in dishonest labeling of skeptics as “birthers” and worse–accusations of racism whenever folks question The Zero abound–I don’t feel that the rather mild “Obamaniac” descriptive is unwarranted.

And Woody has the perfect response to such disingenuous “straw man” arguments as the HuffPo presents:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QNJfdKClbH4

There. Didn’t see that one coming, did you HuffPo weenies?

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The Absent-Minded Techie

So, rebooted after some Win7 updates on this Win7 compy. Didn’t really have to, but although I’ve not had the problems with Win7 requiring regular reboots that I’ve had with other Windows versions, I’ve generally made it a practice to reboot after updates whether it was required or not. Besides, it’d been quite a while since this computer had been booted and I wanted the lil script that automagically defrags my swap file and Registry Hives to run.

But, “non-system disk error” on reboot gave me a moment’s pause. Checked the optical drive. Nope. No unbootable optical disk there. “Hmmm, am I going to have to check the cables, run a rescue CD, what?”

Nah. I’d plugged a USB floppy drive in a couple of weeks ago to check some old floppies for usable data. Left one in. BIOS was looking there for a boot disk. Ejected the floppy and CTRL+ALT+DELed the thing. All’s well. Just another example of what can happen when I’m short a few cupsa coffee.

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Ignorantia Elenchi?

Update: OK, is this guy just jerking us around or what? Despite my attempts to take the “birth certificate” issued today by the White House as authentic, the thing just screams “Put up!” I finally downloaded the actual WH PDF and looked at it instead of the widely-disseminated cropped version in jpeg format. Here it is screen-capped and with one lil annotation by me:

Go ahead. Download the “official” White House pdf file. Look at the area I noted in the red ellipse. The info presented is apparently supposed to be reproduced as a photocopy (?) from a bound version of a document and then printed out on some security paper? Except… that lil area inside the ellipse doesn’t work too well in that regard, now does it?

And I’m still a bit concerned about the lack of some kind of embossed/imprinted seal as seems to have been the practice, at least at one time, for Hawaiian birth certificates.

And, what’s this business from the WH about having to get a special exemption to get a copy of the birth certificate? The official State of Hawaii site handling such things says,

“Vital records (birth, death, marriage, and divorce certificates) for events that occurred in Hawaii are received and preserved by the Office of Health Status Monitoring, a unit of the Department of Health (DOH). In Hawaii, access to vital records is restricted by statute (HRS §338-18).

“Certified copies of these records may be issued to authorized individuals and used for such diverse purposes as school entry, passports, Social Security participation, driver’s licenses, employment, sports participation, survivor’s benefits, proof of property rights, and other needs.

“This is only an ordering system for certified copies of vital records. The certified copies being ordered WILL NOT be issued online as a part of your transaction. You will receive the ordered certified copies via first-class postal mail within 4-6 weeks…

“…You may order certified copies only of your own birth and marriage certificates or of an immediate family member (e.g., a parent of his/her child’s birth or marriage certificate) on this web site…”

No “special exemptions” required. No waiting three years. CERTIFIED copies available through the mail in 4-6 weeks. And the cost is only $11.50 ($10.00 for the first copy of a document and $1.50 “electronic processing”), not a couple of million dollars (as The Zero and his minions have made it by fighting to delay producing a birth certificate).

Why the lie about needing a “special exemption”? What’s with the weird look? And why do all this so clumsily and “reluctantly”?

Misdirection? Distraction? What is it The Zero and his handlers do not want folks thinking about?

Now, the red herring is in the open. After nearly three years and a couple of million dollars in legal maneuvering to avoid producing a long form B.C., The Zero has finally released an apparently legitimate document showing he was born in Hawaii… as a British citizen, under the laws in effect at the time. *heh*

Now, let’s see the passport Barry Soetoro used to travel to Pakistan in 1981 and the documentation of his time at Occidental College.

Do go ahead and read the post, if you will, but first, here’s yet another update:

ignorantia elenchi, loosely “irrelevant conclusion”. It’s irrelevant that The Zero was born in the U.S. to an 18-year-old American woman since his father was a British citizen and British law at the time conferred citizenship on ANYONE born of a British father, no matter where born or under what circumstances, making Barry’s “native born (American) citizenship” null and void. Dual citizenship does not seem to meet the “native born” qualification. And then there’s the “Barry Soetoro” issue, where he was listed as an Indonesian by his adoptive father in school records and possibly attended Occidental as a foreign student. Let’s get those records out too, Barry, ‘K?

Not that they really matter, as we now know he was born a British citizen anyway, now that we have an apparently legitimate document verifying his father as Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a British citizen.

*heh*

Of course, all the usual suspects will look at the document purporting to be a full and complete record and ignore what it really shows or argue that it doesn’t really matter that he was born with dual citizenship, instead of the kind of citizenship that “native born” has meant in the past and meant when he was born.

But, it is a moderate “win” that he and his minions wasted so many millions to delay producing an apparently legitimate document (that still doesn’t have the quality or quantity of information my lil ole B.C. has… or even The Donald’s hospital B.C., let alone the photostat of his official B.C., though that could just be an artifact of crappy record keeping in Hawaii) to prove… that he is apparently not a “native born” citizen. *heh*

Of course, if The Zero were to start actinglike an American–showing appreciation for and an emulation of distinctly American values instead of showing such contempt for the US and acting in all ways to undermine the country–then the matter wouldn’t matter so very much at all.

I said, above, “apparently legitimate” indicating I had some small doubts. If I had a better graphic to work from those might be assuaged somewhat. Here’s what I mean:

Here’s the problem. If you “embiggen” the photo of the 1963 vintage Hawaiian long form (the closest I’ve been able to find so far), and look in the upper right hand quadrant, you’ll see something I’ve seen on every other B.C. I’ve viewed from various states, in one form or another: an impressed/embossed seal. It’s faint, but quite easily seen. Now, study the graphic released of The Zero’s apparently authentic B.C. Can you find the seal I’ve missed? Yeh, yeh, the released graphic has a rubber-stamped “signature” but that’s it. Where’s the embossed seal?

Again, I am NOT saying the released graphic is somehow faked up. I would wonder about the standards of record keeping in Hawaii if this is an example.

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Change of Pace

Microwave pressure cooker
1.5 cups pinto beans
3 cups water (or a wee tad more)
dehydrated garlic chips and
onion powder (or flakes) to taste
~20 minutes on high

Nicely cooked pot of beans. Could’ve added some bacon or a ham hock if I’d had it handy, but this is good. (Maybe next time I’ll add some “white” pepper… )

*sigh* The lil microwave pressure cooker that I picked up several years ago for $3 at a flea market is starting to show some wear around the ring where the gasket is installed. Still works, but I can see having to replace it down the road, so I went looking for it. Exact match: ~$52 at Amazon. *gag* I just have to find it for less. Oh, it’s worth the price and can afford it, but… nah, I’m just too much of a tightwad to pay that for one. (Update: OK, have found it for $45. That’s 25% less than the manufacturer–Nordic Ware–sells it for, direct, but I’d still rather find it for less… *heh*)

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Third World County Flood Updates

First two pics from a town ~12 miles south-southwest [of twc central–ed.]. Keep in mind that the clearance between the river and the bridge is usually 15′ or more. One of four ways into town, and two others are flooded out as well. So, that’s one town in the county where most of the kids can’t get to the schools… IF they can get out to go, as pics further down illustrate. Fortunately, given the river’s use for recreation, there are a lot of boats in the area:

Oh, and do keep in mind that the routes in as far as these pics were taken are also still flooded in several places. Pics below are of a road washed out nowhere near low land areas, in fact in an area elevated above one of those other accesses to the same town that’s closed due to flooding. The dirt/gravel road, one of many here in America’s Third World County, is THE access to a group of about 30 homes on a rise above a (very minor) state highway:

Most of the folks in the county do NOT live in the towns but out, mostly away off paved roads. ANY place with “Hollow” (e.g., Thief Hollow) or “Creek” (e.g., Buffalo Creek) in its name is sure to feature several washouts or flooded areas similar to those pictured above. Most of the photos I have access to (lots more than these) are from school bus drivers attempting their routes in 4X4s.

I’ve driven most of the county over the years–it’s a great “mini-vacation” to explore a new-to-me area on a weekend afternoon, for example–and there are more than a few areas that I know folks are breaking out the emergency generators and feelin’ pretty good about the root cellar being well-stocked, because, 4X4 or not, they are NOT getting out for a while.

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Wild Hare…

While chasing down the rabbit trail that comprises my mental processes, this wild hare jumped out at me.

1. Term limits for politicians: two terms at any one political office, then they must leave and work at a minimum wage job at manual labor, with NO OTHER RESOURCES allowed for a period equal to whatever public office terms they have served, with NO money r benefits or perquisites whatsoever (including welfare or tax refunds or whatever) from ANY government source or any source dealing with any aspect of their former office. This would perhaps tend to focus their attention while in office a bit closer on the effects their policies have on common folk.

2. Every seven years, anyone in so-called “Civil Service” would be required to take two years off under similar circumstances.

3. ALL Civil Service employees and elective offices to have their retirements limited to EXACTLY whatever common folks might have–Social Security and retirement plans individuals have actually paid their own money into.

4. Health care? Whatever they can pay for themselves, either in cash or via self-funded health insurance.

5. Military gets a bye. There’s not a politician or Civil Service employee that’s worth the lowest, faithful grunt. No, not one. Period. Full stop. End of story. Some may be worthwhile, but until they volunteer to literally lay down their lives to defend the Constitution and their fellow citizens, politicians and Civil Service employees aren’t worthy to carry the slop bucket of the lowest-ranking, faithfully serving enlisted man.

It’d be a start.