Tag: stupid is as stupid does

Provocative enough post title for ya? 🙂

Several things have converged to create this post: Reading (piecemeal) The Founders Constitution and steeping myself in the ground from which this country sprang. Antics in the Loony Left Moonbat Brigade, the Mass Media Podpeoples’ Army, among Mixed Academia Nuts, the ACLU and all their ilk to sabotage what remains of the democratic republic the Founders and Framers bequeathed us. The fact that the next seven days will determine just how much of my money the Feds will have stolen from me over the last year (yeh, doing my taxes before Feb 10-“feds have stolen” refers to all the monies levied and spent by the feds for things NOT AUTHORIZED BY ANY GENUINE CONSTITUTIONAL WRIT. Monies given to folks who ought instead to get it by earning it legitimately.)

Well, I guess I’ll just focus on one aspect of The War on Democracy. Democracy, as Jerry Pournelle often reminds his readers, is rightly “rule by the middle class”-those citizens whose productive lives add value to the republic and who have a stake in its health.

Democracy, when it works, is rule by the middle class, the middle class being those who possess the goods of fortune in moderation: those who have enough that they don’t want to risk it trying to take more from the wealthier. Democracies can tolerate a spread of wealth so long as there are not too many very rich and very poor people in the society.

[N.B. Click the link and read Dr. Pournelle’s review of the SOTU address.]

The federal tax structure in this country (as well as how those monies are spent) is one of the most potent weapons the enemies of a democratic republic could ever have devised to effect its downfall. By robbing its productive members of the fruits of their labors for use for anything not specifically designed to protect those citizens from “enemies foreign or domestic” or mediating disputes among the states or other legitimate responsibilities of federal government, the feds grow stronger at the expense of the republic as a whole.

Briefly scan a history of the federal income tax, from Lincoln to the present day, and tell me it isn’t unjust, unfair and antithetical to the Founders’ democratic republic.

There is a better way, and The FairTax is a start down that path. I urge you to get and read this book:

Then call AND write your congresscritters, join a local FairTax group (or just go to a meetup) and do something to get this ever more in the public eye.

Your children and grandchildren will bless you.

Since tbs seem to be working well there today *s*, here’s another at TMH’s Bacon Bits, eh? 🙂

[NB. This is an 0pen Post. See the info below.]

Hollyweird has been influenced too much by mixed academia nuts and isolated from the real world by its own preoccupation with celebrity. Witness the behavior noted by Where Have You Gone Ronald Reaganwherein the Hollyweird “academy” nominated Brokeback Mountain for four times as many Oscars as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Seems Hollyweird missed the point of Holly Lisles’ “Thirteen Sacred Commandments of Suckitudinous Fiction” and took those “commandments” as their bible for “art”.

… the quest for good fiction is not the only way. There is … another path. A dark path. And it is a path rich in tradition and esteemed by many. It is the Path of Suckitude.

Not all bad fiction is Suckitudinous. Some of it is simply bad — written by people who are completely tone-deaf to the language, blind to character and motivation, and incompetent with conflict.

Unlike bad fiction, Suckitudinous Fiction takes a dedication to the fine art of sucking that, if pursued with sufficiently rabid fanaticism, can win Pulitzers. (Yes, I think an inordinate number of recent Pulitzer-prize-winning novels suck. Hugely.)

It’s as though Hollyweird and its suckophants (no, I did not mean to write “sycophants”) among the “critics” read Holly Lisles’ rant and thought, “Hey! These are really good ideas! Let’s follow these commandments as much as we can, at least a little at a time, until no one will even know when the Emperor is walking around in his birthday suit… “

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Auditioning for the part of Critias “with Prometheus setting up a democracy and arming the peasants against their masters” at TMH’s Bacon Bits.

This week’s Stop the ACLU post is from Gribbit.

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/24023prs20060201.html
http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/discrim/24032prs20060201.html
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/24037prs20060201.html
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/24040prs20060201.html
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/24029prs20060201.html
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/24028prs20060201.html
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/24009prs20060201.html
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/24036prs20060201.html

Also crossposted to the other third world county..

[Note: MMPA=”Mass Media Podpeoples’ Army”]

In yesterday’s best of the Web, James Tarranto cites this lil graph that lends itself to some morbid amusement:

“In the original version of this report, Newsweek misquoted Falwell as referring to ‘assault ministry.’ In fact, Falwell was referring to ‘a salt ministry’–a reference to Matthew 5:13, where Jesus says ‘Ye are the salt of the earth.’ We regret the error.”–Newsweek online, Feb. 6 issue

Yep. Newsweak. Assigning culturally illiterate (let alone biblically illiterate) reporters with no grounding in the memes* of Western Civilization or the Bible to write about comments of someone who is steeped in the single greatest influence on the English language: the Bible. But never fear, as Rolling Stone’s Jeff Sharlet is equal to the task of matching Newsweak’s cultural illiteracy by accusing Senator Sam Brownback of homosexual-bashing with a reference to Matthew 7:20.

(7:19) Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.(7:20) Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. (KJV)

BTW, ABCNews online doesn’t fare much better in reporting the incident. Apparently no one at ABCNews could find a Bible to check the reference, so they said Brownback’s comment, “”You’ll know them by their fruits,” was a reference to Matthew 7:19, instead of correctly noting it was a close paraphrase of verse 20. If this were an exam, I’d have to mark ABCNews’ article wrong on the facts. Close, but no cigar.

Ahh, it’s just a sign** of the ever-growing cultural illiteracy of American society. Perhaps even of functional illiteracy as well-at least among the members of the MMPA. Who can check the facts when reading is so haaaaarrrrrrd?

h.t. to John at Powerline, who note also that Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University debate team took the Harvard debate team to the cleaners a month ago… *heh*

[*Heck, everyone’s heard of the meme “salt of the earth” haven’t they? Here’s its origin, in context. Makes a difference, doesn’t it?

**Sign, not symptom. A symptom is something a patient can describe to a physician. These folks are so clueless it takes an outside observer to see the signs of their subliteracy in their grunts and squeals.]

A shot across the bow gone awry at Diane’s Stuff and TMH’s Bacon Bits and Basil’s Blog

About that State of the Union address last night… I didn’t watch this one, just as I have not watched the SOTU for several years, now. Instead, I read the transcribed address at the Whitehouse.gov site. I find the “sizzle” factor to be a distraction. How someone delivers a speech has some significance, but I just want the meat. On average, I’d probably give the speech a solid “B.” An “A” tending toward “A-” for the foreign policy section. A Solid “C” for the domestic section, IMO. Read it for yourself and judge the contents.

Good things: Explaining the need to take the fight to the terrorists (for those who simply haven’t been listening since 9/11-apparently just about half the pols in the room. *sigh*). Hitting the old Gray Whore and her pimps with a bitch-slap on the so-called ‘domestic surveillance lies, as in,

…to prevent another attack — based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute — I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected al Qaeda operatives and affiliates to and from America. Previous Presidents have used the same constitutional authority I have, and federal courts have approved the use of that authority. Appropriate members of Congress have been kept informed. The terrorist surveillance program has helped prevent terrorist attacks. It remains essential to the security of America. If there are people inside our country who are talking with al Qaeda, we want to know about it, because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again.

Exactly.

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For an acid spoof of “Brokeback Mountain” (the movie about two homosexual sheepherders—duh, who’d-a thunk o’ that?) see WHYGRR’s “‘Walk the Line’ Re-write Features Bi-Curious Johnny Cash; Earns 9 Oscar Nominations”

Pure snark. And rightly so.

OK, so I’ve resisted moving off blogger for quite some time. Rich, The English Guy, generously offered me hosting and a WordPress setup. Romeocat, of CatHouse Chat, nearly bowled me over when she offered me a Typepad account.

Diane, of Diane’s Stuff managed to do the impossible: she struck me senseless speechless (I had the sense to accept her offer, so it wasn’t “struck senseless”) by sending me the keys to a fully-hosted, already set up WordPress account, complete with the kinds of plugins, etc., that I use. Told me to “…feel free to use any of the features that are available… Or use none of it and tell me to go to hell…”

Like the tag’s an option!

*sheesh!*

When are people going to start living down to my estimation of the human race? I figure it this way: three times excessively generous folk have offered to relieve me of the cross I bear in fiddling and fooling around with Blogspot. Diane went so far as to present me with a fait accompli—just dumped a fully-hosted WordPress site in my lap, ready made, and left it to me to spurn her gracious gift or not.

The people just blow me away! Where does such gracious and generous behavior come from in a race so seemingly bent on self-destruction (after all, consider: in the U.S. alone, nearly half the electorate voted to commit suicide in ’04!)?

It’s darned near enough to fan the embers of hope for human decency! No! It is enough.

Thank you Rich. Thank you Kat. And thank you Diane for compelling me to face my churlishness in turning down their generosity.

OK, it’ll be a little work, and I may lose some linkage and maybe even one of my readers (OK, one of four ain’t that bad). I’m not tickled pink with the WordPress publishing interface, but I have been testing it out enough on the wordpress.com site to know it’s workable, and Diane has populated the plugins folder with some cool things, so…

Over the course of February, I’ll slowly move things over to that site, probably break the (very nice) template she’s loaded two or three times *heh* and finally end up migrating there until I settle on hosting I want permanently (or perhaps even take over that package, if that’s the option she’d like).

Thanks for moving me off top dead center, Diane. I’ve been looking at hosting packages off and on for the last month and just not wanted to drag my sorry [self] outa my comfort zone (yeh, some of the Blogger stuff hurts, but it’s a comfortable, familiar ache, ya know? :-).

I’ll let folks know when the time comes to turn off the lights here, ‘K?

Things are definitely NOT open for business, but here’s a peek: Sucker punched!

Every now and then PCMag has a really good collection of tips on one or another area of computing. Today, my inbox had an e- from PCMag with a link to “80 Super Security Tips “. Well they’re not really “super” but most of them aren’t half bad. Here are links to the first eleven, but watch out for the last one in this list. While having good password cracking software can save your bacon on a Win2K/XP/2003 system where the admin password has become lost or corrupted, there are other less expensive ways (that don’t necessarily offer password cracking temptation or the danger of you appearing to have unethical software–whether your intent is pure or not–in your arsenal. E- me if you need to legitimately crack into a Win2K/XP/2003 system where YOUR admin password’s become corrupted or lost and I’ll point you in the right direction. (Hint: Linux boot CD and password changing utility–free and It Just Works–for most legitimate uses.)

Slapped up on the BB at Conservative Cat

From John Stephenson at Stop the ACLU, this lil heads up:

The newest full page ad from the ACLU over the NSA stuff is released on the eve of the State of the Union. Here is a little sample of their news release. “The State of Our Union Cannot be Strong if the President Continues to Violate the Law,” Says Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU…

Yeh, well, the truth of the matter is that “The State of Our Union Cannot be Strong if…” people can’t see through lying pussbags like Anthony D. Romero. His idiotic assumption of the false antecedent “the President has violated the law [in the commie-created NSA kerfuffle]” meme.

Anyone who has done their homework knows it is the NYT that has definitely vilolated the law, the ACLU and its ilk that continues to aid and abet in the criminal activities of the Old Gray Whore, and a dumbass population that let’s ’em get away with it.

Rick, over at The Real Ugly American gave me a laurel cap to wear as one of his blog picks for January. He’s also tapped a coupla my fav blogs in his “Blog(s) of the Month” post.

Thanks, guy!