Take…three?
Yeah, yeah, I know, this whole reinvention thing is only really appealing the first couple of times. All I can say is, my life hasn’t exactly been reliably calm and my creative mind has been downright turbulent. Life is good, don’t get me wrong, but what I want and what I’m getting out of this blog have continued to be different things.
I really wanted this to be a creative outlet, a place to write something decidedly different from the standard political blog. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened, mostly because being decidedly different takes a lot of time I just don’t have. There’s a reason why 99% of political blogs are made of brief entries commenting on a single news item: bloggers (mostly) work for a living and don’t have three hours a day to write out lengthy, detailed, structured creative works. That certainly describes my life, and so every day I’d pass by several things I’d love to comment on, but ignore them because ‘I’ll wait till I have more time.’
It is my firm conviction that ‘more time’ will come a few minutes after I assume room temperature, and I imagine blogging will be a mite more difficult by then.
I’ve tried to create material that makes it worth people subscribing to the feed, building a readership. I may have succeeded, but only updating once every few months certainly trumps that, and then some.
Once again, we’re back at the point where I set your expectations. And, to some extent, mine.
You’re going to see a lot more traditional blogging. You’ll either enjoy my commentary or you won’t. If you do, hey, hit the site every once in awhile or subscribe to the RSS. Comment, when the mood strikes you. (A reminder to LJ folks: commenting to the LJ feed will likely miss me entirely, as I won’t receive any of those comments in e-mail. Comments need to be here, in the Almanac.)
You will also, on occasion, see a longer piece with more depth and creativity than usual. It won’t happen often, and it may come in spurts, but it will happen. When it does, I’d ask that you’d give those pieces a chance by reading them all the way through, even when I get tedious. That’s a big request, but hey, you’re great people, right?
My Winamp playlist has a great sense of humor, as I’m about to make this last comment, it pulls up ‘Lunatic Fringe’ by Red Rider. Yes, that’s the last thing, you’ll still see a lunatic fringe to all of this. I still love the absurd, the bizarre, and my writing will still take that twist. You’ll see plenty of standard political commentary and analysis, but it may just get a little odd or silly at time. If that’s not up your alley, you’ll have to speak to the penguins, as I’m only doing what I’m told.
Get ready for a lot of frequent, if small, posts here. It may be mirrored in several other blogs, but maybe I’ll say it in a way that amuses you. I hope so, because those penguins are really demanding little bastards.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Feeding Meiers
Feeding Meiers
It’s been awhile, and I apologize for that. Been waiting to update until I had time to do some technical upgrading, and that’s done.
I assume everyone will be expecting me to talk about Dubya’s extremely weak and disappointing nomination to replace O’Connor on the SCOTUS. You probably expect me to wax eloquently about her lack of experience as anything but a political appointee, and her apparent complete lack of constitutional scholarship that not only places her well below Scalia and Thomas, but also likely below the people that bring Scalia and Thomas their morning coffee in the SCOTUS break room.
No, I’m here to tell you that I finally set up a nifty RSS feed for the Almanac here. I present you with the link:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/PoorJustinsAlmanac
You can now add me via any RSS reader software. If you’re a LiveJournal user, this feed is syndicated there as poorjustinsalm so feel free to add it to find out when the blog is updated. Due to the length of my entries, the feed just gives you the title, but I’m sure that’s fine with you. Click through, read my hypnotic, mesmerizing words and drift into a soft, gentle sleep where I can brainwash you and turn you into mindless neocon drones.
You’ll also notice that there are Google ads on the site. I am a capitalist, this should be expected. I don’t want them to be intrusive, but if I can make a dime or two, wunderbar. Give ‘em a click every now and then, make an old man happy.
That’s all for now. More to come around 2-3 times a week. Promise.
It’s been awhile, and I apologize for that. Been waiting to update until I had time to do some technical upgrading, and that’s done.
I assume everyone will be expecting me to talk about Dubya’s extremely weak and disappointing nomination to replace O’Connor on the SCOTUS. You probably expect me to wax eloquently about her lack of experience as anything but a political appointee, and her apparent complete lack of constitutional scholarship that not only places her well below Scalia and Thomas, but also likely below the people that bring Scalia and Thomas their morning coffee in the SCOTUS break room.
No, I’m here to tell you that I finally set up a nifty RSS feed for the Almanac here. I present you with the link:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/PoorJustinsAlmanac
You can now add me via any RSS reader software. If you’re a LiveJournal user, this feed is syndicated there as poorjustinsalm so feel free to add it to find out when the blog is updated. Due to the length of my entries, the feed just gives you the title, but I’m sure that’s fine with you. Click through, read my hypnotic, mesmerizing words and drift into a soft, gentle sleep where I can brainwash you and turn you into mindless neocon drones.
You’ll also notice that there are Google ads on the site. I am a capitalist, this should be expected. I don’t want them to be intrusive, but if I can make a dime or two, wunderbar. Give ‘em a click every now and then, make an old man happy.
That’s all for now. More to come around 2-3 times a week. Promise.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
2,000 Buses?
Not much traction with the abuse�-�Nation/Politics�-�The Washington Times, America's Newspaper
That's Washington Times Editor Wesley Pruden on the New Orleans subject. He says TWO THOUSAND buses sit unused in four feet of water in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool.
You figure, even if you only cram 50 people on a bus and only make one trip, that's 100,000 people...pretty much the exact count of how many stayed behind. As for the question of who would drive them, in my youth we had a church bus in our tiny town, and a school bus for the tiny Fascist School I attended. (I refuse to call it a Christian school, as Christ had very little to do with it and doesn't deserve the blame.) In both cases, people with no more experience than driving a pickup truck handled the buses just fine on the open road.
The path to rescuing every person left in New Orleans sat at Ray Nagin's feet...and he chose to ignore them, waiting for the feds to bail him out.
That's Washington Times Editor Wesley Pruden on the New Orleans subject. He says TWO THOUSAND buses sit unused in four feet of water in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool.
You figure, even if you only cram 50 people on a bus and only make one trip, that's 100,000 people...pretty much the exact count of how many stayed behind. As for the question of who would drive them, in my youth we had a church bus in our tiny town, and a school bus for the tiny Fascist School I attended. (I refuse to call it a Christian school, as Christ had very little to do with it and doesn't deserve the blame.) In both cases, people with no more experience than driving a pickup truck handled the buses just fine on the open road.
The path to rescuing every person left in New Orleans sat at Ray Nagin's feet...and he chose to ignore them, waiting for the feds to bail him out.
Fear & Loathing In New Orleans
Fear & Loathing In New Orleans
They were somewhere around Baton Rouge, on the edge of the swamp…
…hey, wait a second, that’s not how it goes.
But it could, if good old Mayor Ray Nagin gets his way. See, his long-suffering police force is really stressed out. You know, the ones abandoning their posts, looting, etc. To reward them, he’s giving many of them (as well as firefighters and EMTs) five-day vacations to Las Vegas. Effective immediately. As in, today.
I’ll pause while the sheer intellectual weight of that comes to bear on your astonished mind.
It’s all right here, in black and white. Yes, the good Mayor says they’ve been under a lot of stress in the last week, so he wants to ‘cater to them.’ He says there are enough national guard units now that they can take a break.
While I don’t want to malign those civil servants who actually did their jobs in the last week, I think that may be the most repugnant thing I’ve ever read. It’s been a week. One week. Seven days. These men were asked to do their jobs, and only their jobs, under extreme duress for one week, and a big portion of them couldn’t even manage to do that. Current reports have over 500 (that’s something like 1/3) walking off the job. We have the chief of police complaining they had to work in wet shoes, and without proper bathroom facilities.
That chief had this to say on the subject of the trips:
‘His words were seconded by the police superintendent, P. Edwin Compass III, in a separate interview. "When you go through something this devastating and traumatic," Mr. Compass said, "you've got to do something dramatic to jump-start the healing process."
The officials were planning to send 1,500 workers out in two shifts for five days each. They are sending them to Las Vegas because of the availability of hotel rooms and to Atlanta because many of them had relatives there.
They said that they were trying to get the first officers on their way on Monday and that the first stop would be Baton Rouge, about 75 miles from here.’
Jump-start the healing process. Well, it’s good to know the fine city of New Orleans is in such capable hands. I think it’s important that a chief of police knows that his job when his city is in complete civil unrest and a total state of destruction is to make certain his law officers are well rested and ‘healed’ from their trauma.
He’s so sure of this plan, he plans to take a vacation as well! So does the head of Homeland Security for the city, the man in charge of the recovery effort. Check this out, and I defy you to do it without gagging on a sudden rise of bile.
‘Colonel Ebbert, the senior official running the recovery and rescue operation, and Mr. Compass both said that they planned to take a break as well, but probably for less than five days, and that they would continue to direct the recovery by telephone.
Officials said they expected the military, with much greater resources, to expand rescue work, begin cleaning up the city and take the first steps toward reconstruction.’
Well, it’s good to know they won’t take the whole five days. I mean, after all, they’re just leading the rescue and recovery effort of their entire city, I hope that only three or four days of rest and relaxation in Las Vegas will jump-start their personal healing process. We can’t have our vital civic leaders stressed out or unrested! No sir!
Of course, all of this shores up every single thing I’ve been saying. They make it clear with their own words: they fully expect the feds to do EVERYTHING. The military will do the rescue and recovery, they will begin cleaning the city, they’ll police the city, they’ll fight fires and perform medical response service, they’ll even start the reconstruction!
I think the good Mr. Nagin should be forced to spend his five day vacation in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool (name stolen from the brilliant Bill Whittle), personally cleaning and restoring every single one of the reportedly 400-500 busses he failed to use to evacuate his own people, enough to EMPTY the Superdome before it became the Thunderdome minus Mad Max and Tina Turner.
I tell you, my friends, I hope the officials and civil servants of New Orleans enjoy their vacation. As they keep hanging themselves in the press, the word will eventually leak out despite the mainstream media’s attempts to completely ignore their culpability and instead pursue the ‘everything is Bush’s fault’ line of hogwash. Once that word is out there, Ma and Pa Kettle in flyover country will be joined by John and Jackie Liberal in Manhattan as they wholeheartedly cry for the heads of these men to be posted on the outskirts of the city on long poles, as a warning to the others.
They were somewhere around Baton Rouge, on the edge of the swamp…
…hey, wait a second, that’s not how it goes.
But it could, if good old Mayor Ray Nagin gets his way. See, his long-suffering police force is really stressed out. You know, the ones abandoning their posts, looting, etc. To reward them, he’s giving many of them (as well as firefighters and EMTs) five-day vacations to Las Vegas. Effective immediately. As in, today.
I’ll pause while the sheer intellectual weight of that comes to bear on your astonished mind.
It’s all right here, in black and white. Yes, the good Mayor says they’ve been under a lot of stress in the last week, so he wants to ‘cater to them.’ He says there are enough national guard units now that they can take a break.
While I don’t want to malign those civil servants who actually did their jobs in the last week, I think that may be the most repugnant thing I’ve ever read. It’s been a week. One week. Seven days. These men were asked to do their jobs, and only their jobs, under extreme duress for one week, and a big portion of them couldn’t even manage to do that. Current reports have over 500 (that’s something like 1/3) walking off the job. We have the chief of police complaining they had to work in wet shoes, and without proper bathroom facilities.
That chief had this to say on the subject of the trips:
‘His words were seconded by the police superintendent, P. Edwin Compass III, in a separate interview. "When you go through something this devastating and traumatic," Mr. Compass said, "you've got to do something dramatic to jump-start the healing process."
The officials were planning to send 1,500 workers out in two shifts for five days each. They are sending them to Las Vegas because of the availability of hotel rooms and to Atlanta because many of them had relatives there.
They said that they were trying to get the first officers on their way on Monday and that the first stop would be Baton Rouge, about 75 miles from here.’
Jump-start the healing process. Well, it’s good to know the fine city of New Orleans is in such capable hands. I think it’s important that a chief of police knows that his job when his city is in complete civil unrest and a total state of destruction is to make certain his law officers are well rested and ‘healed’ from their trauma.
He’s so sure of this plan, he plans to take a vacation as well! So does the head of Homeland Security for the city, the man in charge of the recovery effort. Check this out, and I defy you to do it without gagging on a sudden rise of bile.
‘Colonel Ebbert, the senior official running the recovery and rescue operation, and Mr. Compass both said that they planned to take a break as well, but probably for less than five days, and that they would continue to direct the recovery by telephone.
Officials said they expected the military, with much greater resources, to expand rescue work, begin cleaning up the city and take the first steps toward reconstruction.’
Well, it’s good to know they won’t take the whole five days. I mean, after all, they’re just leading the rescue and recovery effort of their entire city, I hope that only three or four days of rest and relaxation in Las Vegas will jump-start their personal healing process. We can’t have our vital civic leaders stressed out or unrested! No sir!
Of course, all of this shores up every single thing I’ve been saying. They make it clear with their own words: they fully expect the feds to do EVERYTHING. The military will do the rescue and recovery, they will begin cleaning the city, they’ll police the city, they’ll fight fires and perform medical response service, they’ll even start the reconstruction!
I think the good Mr. Nagin should be forced to spend his five day vacation in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool (name stolen from the brilliant Bill Whittle), personally cleaning and restoring every single one of the reportedly 400-500 busses he failed to use to evacuate his own people, enough to EMPTY the Superdome before it became the Thunderdome minus Mad Max and Tina Turner.
I tell you, my friends, I hope the officials and civil servants of New Orleans enjoy their vacation. As they keep hanging themselves in the press, the word will eventually leak out despite the mainstream media’s attempts to completely ignore their culpability and instead pursue the ‘everything is Bush’s fault’ line of hogwash. Once that word is out there, Ma and Pa Kettle in flyover country will be joined by John and Jackie Liberal in Manhattan as they wholeheartedly cry for the heads of these men to be posted on the outskirts of the city on long poles, as a warning to the others.
Monday, September 05, 2005
Ben Stein's Wisdom
Ben Stein’s Wisdom
Once again, Ben Stein unleashes his gi-normous brain on us and proceeds to out-think most of the country.
In this short piece, he lays out everything I’ve already said and more. I’m telling you people, this is where the event is heading, whether anyone likes it or not. Negligence of a criminal stature was absolutely perpetrated in the days surrounding Katrina, but NOT by the Bush administration.
The media is, big surprise, lying to us. Intentionally glancing over the very, very obvious problems on the ground in Nola before and immediately following the storm while focusing exclusively on any anti-Bush story that comes up, even when the source for that story is someone who has a vested interest in seeing to it that all blame for the problems shifts north to the Feds and doesn’t get anywhere near them.
Read Ben’s piece and chew on it awhile. Even if you’re a staunch Bushitler moveon.org automaton, I defy you to refute the very simple, elegant logic contained in it.
Once again, Ben Stein unleashes his gi-normous brain on us and proceeds to out-think most of the country.
In this short piece, he lays out everything I’ve already said and more. I’m telling you people, this is where the event is heading, whether anyone likes it or not. Negligence of a criminal stature was absolutely perpetrated in the days surrounding Katrina, but NOT by the Bush administration.
The media is, big surprise, lying to us. Intentionally glancing over the very, very obvious problems on the ground in Nola before and immediately following the storm while focusing exclusively on any anti-Bush story that comes up, even when the source for that story is someone who has a vested interest in seeing to it that all blame for the problems shifts north to the Feds and doesn’t get anywhere near them.
Read Ben’s piece and chew on it awhile. Even if you’re a staunch Bushitler moveon.org automaton, I defy you to refute the very simple, elegant logic contained in it.
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Lighting Up New Orleans
Lighting Up New Orleans
I realize I haven’t been doing my job with this blog. It appears that one of the primary purposes of blogging is to get people all riled up and irritated. It’s called ‘drama’, from what I’m told, and I’ve been far short of my required amount.
I imagine this little post about the tragedy of New Orleans should bring my controversy-o-meter up to standard blogging levels. If not, hell, maybe there are more people out there with critical thinking brains than I believe.
I’m going to say something here that a lot of people don’t want to hear. It’s the truth, but that doesn’t mean anyone wants to hear it. I’m going to break down the catastrophe from its early warning stages to it’s current state of medieval chaos and mayhem. In doing so, I’m going to drag some stinking, rotting elephant carcasses out from under our proverbial living room rug and wave them in your faces so we can all discuss this in a realistic manner and dismiss the verbal fecal matter flying around regarding it.
New Orleans has something like 500,000 people. Those 500,000 people were warned of the storm a good 48 hours before landfall, which happened in the pre-dawn hours of Monday, the 29th. According to reports on CNN, as early as Saturday the 27th, as many as 100,000 of these people, a full 20%, didn’t have the resources to leave. A woman is quoted as saying ‘if you have no money, you can’t go.’ By Sunday morning, President Bush had declared Louisiana an emergency area. Mayor Nagin was already discussing a ‘mandatory’ evacuation on Saturday, and declared one on Sunday despite the fact that the ‘mandatory’ part was unenforceable.
Now we all know what has happened since. The storm hit. The ‘worst’ didn’t happen, the storm blew well enough east to spare New Orleans the leading edge and the worst wind damage. On Tuesday, the first levee was breached, and the waters began to rise at an alarming rate. This is generally when everything went to hell. It’s been hell since, and I’ll skip past all the sordid tales of chaos and inhumanity for now.
Let’s start back at the beginning. 100,000 people could not leave? Does anyone actually believe that number is anywhere near accurate? Last I checked, people have legs, and if people want to go somewhere, they go. (My apologies to those without legs, but I do assume you have some sort of wheeled device that someone with legs could use to get you to safety.) This is where the lines began to be drawn by many: rich and poor. You see, New Orleans has a poverty level of around 20%, so they’re suggesting here that the city’s poor simply couldn’t afford to leave town and escape the hurricane.
And here we have our first terribly inflammatory statement: I’d say that number and statement, that around 100,000 couldn’t leave, is some of that unmitigated verbal fecal matter I mentioned earlier. That’s right, here we go, boys and girls, down that dark, nasty alley called reality and reason. I would suggest that there were potential routes of escape for the vast majority of those who stayed. However, as early as Saturday, in the midst of this talk of ‘mandatory’ evacuation, we have the vocal, public plan to use the Superdome as a place for those who can’t leave. We aren’t talking bedridden people in hospitals, we’re talking about people able to cross town and get into the stadium…but not out of the city, apparently.
Michelle Malkin was linking to bloggers discussing the sheer stupidity of this idea over the weekend, before the storm hit. How it holds 40,000 people, but only has backup power for lights and no environmental controls, how the bathrooms would be the first casualty of flooding, how there was a complete lack of food and supplies…you get the idea. And yet, here are somewhere between 25,000 and 35,000 people (depending on what source you heed) showing up with the clothes on their backs.
I’d like to jump in here at this point and let the cat out of the bag a little early. I’m going further on this, but for those who aren’t on board yet, I want to stop the train and allow for easier boarding.
What do we have here? We have a bunch of people who are confident that government will protect them. There’s absolutely no sense of self-preservation here at all. If I’m leaving my house with the knowledge that it will likely not be there when I return, with the knowledge that the city could be underwater in less than 24 hours, I think I’m coming with more than my clothes and my favorite blankey. Let’s press forward, there’s a trail here to follow and we’re just beginning.
The flooding starts, conditions at the Superdome (and everywhere else) deteriorate, looting begins, people start dying by the dozen, the shooting starts, things go thoroughly apocalyptic. Relief isn’t immediate, from what we read and hear. People start going a little mad, trying to hijack helicopters and whatnot. The whole thing starts to look like a Romero movie, but a little darker and more violent. And that brings us to now.
Mayor Nagin, a man who seemed to be handling things well in the beginning, begins to crack. The headlines all report his latest public appearance, a tearful outburst over the lack of federal help. Giuliani, this man is not. Never saw Rudy simpering over public airwaves that those big meanies in Washington weren’t sending stuff down fast enough.
It all seems to solid, doesn’t it? A mayor trying to save his city, a people abandoned in their hour of need, the constant reminder that, apparently, the majority of the stranded are not Caucasian…such terrible, tragic stuff. Bad President, BAD. No donut for you.
Ah, but there’s that alley again, and it’s getting darker by the minute. How about this picture, hosted on Yahoo with absolutely no fanfare, but unearthed by Drudge? That’s about a hundred busses, maybe more. The good Mr. Nagin couldn’t scrape together 100 people capable of driving a school bus to evacuate the Superdome before the storm hit? Or, even in lieu of that, move the busses out of the path of destruction so that they could be used to shuttle people out once the worst passed?
What about city busses? What about police vehicles? What about just about anything other than providing ‘shelters’ that were very, very clearly not shelter at all?
Now we have wonderful folks like Jesse Jackson Jr. and Kanye West proclaiming that this has something to do with the color of the people who are currently stranded in these ‘shelters’. Well, considering the good Mayor Nagin is the same color as those people, I’d say there are some questions to be asked about how seriously Mr. Mandatory Evacuation was taking things in the hours leading up to the storm. His pleas only achieved 80% of the city to leave, at BEST estimates. The 20% that remain are supposedly poor people of his own racial background. We have evidence that not nearly enough was done to help actually get those people out once they made the fatal mistake of ‘riding it out’. To top it all off, he provides ‘shelters’ WITHIN the zone of absolute greatest danger, completely undercutting his own ‘mandatory’ evacuation.
Unfortunately, this is the liberal mindset’s most deadly illustration to date. These people were convinced that Mother Government would save them, provide them shelter, keep them warm and fed. Today we have quotes from people still in the city complaining that they just have cold MRE’s from the National Guard to eat, and not warm meals. We have reports that the Guard was greeted by many who applauded, but some who jeered and said the whole city should be burned down for leaving them behind.
Denied the teat that they were convinced was theirs, they wail like any baby who doesn’t get a bottle when he wants it.
Wow, that’s a harsh thing to say about people who have been living in these conditions, Justin, you’re really just a callous bastard, aren’t you?
No, I’m out here living in reality. The real world. (Well, as close to it as one can come out here in Aztlan.) Everyone seems to want to cling to this fantasy world where some higher human power, some organization paid for by taxpayer dollars, will swoop in and carry them all away to someplace warm and safe.
Guess what, brothers and sisters, I am here today to tell you that storytime is over, the great governmental Prince Charming is not coming to save you, and the only way you will live happily ever after is by God’s good grace and your own diligence and hard work.
You have a liberal Democrat mayor clearly not doing everything logically possible to save his city, then crying on the radio when the feds can’t save it fast enough for him.
You have a small portion of a great city so foolish and blinded by decades of lies that they believe staying in a gigantic punchbowl is a good and safe idea when a gigantic faucet is headed their way.
Bear in mind, only a portion of these potential 100,000 are included here. A number of them stayed very intentionally. They knew the city would be abandoned, and stayed to prey on the empty stores and streets, perpetrating just about every crime you could imagine. These are the people that don’t need rescuing, society needs to be rescued from them.
But I digress. My point here isn’t that these people somehow deserve their fate, but we’re letting their plight sway our entire perception of this event. The reality is, the vast majority of New Orleans had the simple self-preservation instinct to leave before the storm hit. They were willing to do what it took to get themselves and their families out. These people bear the brunt of the tragedy, they left everything they had and sacrificed everything just to keep on living. They have the hope that everything will one day be okay again, and are willing to do whatever it took to protect their lives and those of their loved ones.
There are also a percentage that stayed, and are not suffering greatly. An excellent military blogger pointed out a fantastic blog run by some former military folks who stayed in New Orleans in their office building. They’re relatively self-sufficient, trying to help their fellow man, and above all are NOT sitting around complaining that the government didn’t do enough to get them out once they decided to stay. This proves that, with enough will and hard work, you could even stay and survive. On your own. Without once suckling at government’s teat.
So yes, the majority of New Orleans proved themselves to be smart, tenacious, and willing to do what it took to survive and carry on. What we have on the ground in NO at this point are a small majority very unhappy with how government has treated them. Yes, I know some had valid reasons why they couldn’t get out, but I am firmly convinced that number is very, very small.
All that said, I hope the best for everyone down there trapped in Fallujah West, even those who foolishly believed that their mayor or their president would swoop in, Superman-like, and save them from a catastrophe they all knew was coming. I’m not including the animals currently hunting in the city, for them all I wish is a large-caliber round somewhere vital and a sure, final end.
I do have to say that my limit for those blaming anyone but those who CHOSE to stay behind for their plight has been breached just as thoroughly as those levees. Huffington is hosting people claiming blacks are resorting to cannibalism to survive. Kanye West uses a telethon to benefit the city as a platform for declaring that Bush hates black people and that America is designed to help poor blacks last. RFK Jr. and oh-so-many pundits and armchair pundits are claiming this is, of course, Bushitler’s fault, either by Kyoto, or global warming, or his god-like mutant weather-controlling powers. Michael Moore is even chiming in, still bitching about Iraq, as if the problem here is that we have troops over there so we can’t help anyone here. These people have all, pardon the severe understatement, lost the plot.
I don’t have much of a voice here, but maybe some of you might agree with me and start spreading this line of thought to others, as inflammatory and non-warm-cuddly-fuzzy, to others. Let’s assign responsibility where it belongs: to the individual, not the insane and offensive Moonbat Whackjob Patrol’s list of most popular blame theories.
Most of all, let’s pray for and help those who did what they had to do to survive and left everything, every single thing they had, to make it through this alive. People camping on highways, staying with strangers, seeking shelter in cities thousands of miles away from their homes. The real absolute, total tragedy rests on their shoulders. If anyone will rebuild New Orleans and restore it to what it once was, it will assuredly be these people. Right now, they’re in a place so nightmarish it’s hard to even ponder. The American Dream for them has been simplified a great deal: don’t starve, don’t die, don’t let those around you die. We can help them, we can help the city, but all these smoke and mirrors focusing on a small portion of those who were failed by the pipe dreams of government-as-parent just isn’t fruitful in any way. The Guard is in, supplies are flowing, the dead will be collected and mourned, the water will drain away, everything will slowly start returning to normal. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these people we see so much of on the news, the ones who chose to stay based on government’s promises of safety, those people will likely continue on in their delusions. People with that mindset don’t rebuild cities, they wait for government (and the tax money of others) to do it for them. People with that mindset don’t build much of anything, because their sense of entitlement has been inflated to the point of no return.
We must support those who lack that sense, who instead possess another sense: the common variety. Let’s help them work, let’s help them be safe, let’s join together as a nation and heal the gaping wound carved into us by Katrina. My only plea is that we do all that with our heads firmly planted on our shoulders, not chasing after phantom saviors that will never materialize and save the day.
I realize I haven’t been doing my job with this blog. It appears that one of the primary purposes of blogging is to get people all riled up and irritated. It’s called ‘drama’, from what I’m told, and I’ve been far short of my required amount.
I imagine this little post about the tragedy of New Orleans should bring my controversy-o-meter up to standard blogging levels. If not, hell, maybe there are more people out there with critical thinking brains than I believe.
I’m going to say something here that a lot of people don’t want to hear. It’s the truth, but that doesn’t mean anyone wants to hear it. I’m going to break down the catastrophe from its early warning stages to it’s current state of medieval chaos and mayhem. In doing so, I’m going to drag some stinking, rotting elephant carcasses out from under our proverbial living room rug and wave them in your faces so we can all discuss this in a realistic manner and dismiss the verbal fecal matter flying around regarding it.
New Orleans has something like 500,000 people. Those 500,000 people were warned of the storm a good 48 hours before landfall, which happened in the pre-dawn hours of Monday, the 29th. According to reports on CNN, as early as Saturday the 27th, as many as 100,000 of these people, a full 20%, didn’t have the resources to leave. A woman is quoted as saying ‘if you have no money, you can’t go.’ By Sunday morning, President Bush had declared Louisiana an emergency area. Mayor Nagin was already discussing a ‘mandatory’ evacuation on Saturday, and declared one on Sunday despite the fact that the ‘mandatory’ part was unenforceable.
Now we all know what has happened since. The storm hit. The ‘worst’ didn’t happen, the storm blew well enough east to spare New Orleans the leading edge and the worst wind damage. On Tuesday, the first levee was breached, and the waters began to rise at an alarming rate. This is generally when everything went to hell. It’s been hell since, and I’ll skip past all the sordid tales of chaos and inhumanity for now.
Let’s start back at the beginning. 100,000 people could not leave? Does anyone actually believe that number is anywhere near accurate? Last I checked, people have legs, and if people want to go somewhere, they go. (My apologies to those without legs, but I do assume you have some sort of wheeled device that someone with legs could use to get you to safety.) This is where the lines began to be drawn by many: rich and poor. You see, New Orleans has a poverty level of around 20%, so they’re suggesting here that the city’s poor simply couldn’t afford to leave town and escape the hurricane.
And here we have our first terribly inflammatory statement: I’d say that number and statement, that around 100,000 couldn’t leave, is some of that unmitigated verbal fecal matter I mentioned earlier. That’s right, here we go, boys and girls, down that dark, nasty alley called reality and reason. I would suggest that there were potential routes of escape for the vast majority of those who stayed. However, as early as Saturday, in the midst of this talk of ‘mandatory’ evacuation, we have the vocal, public plan to use the Superdome as a place for those who can’t leave. We aren’t talking bedridden people in hospitals, we’re talking about people able to cross town and get into the stadium…but not out of the city, apparently.
Michelle Malkin was linking to bloggers discussing the sheer stupidity of this idea over the weekend, before the storm hit. How it holds 40,000 people, but only has backup power for lights and no environmental controls, how the bathrooms would be the first casualty of flooding, how there was a complete lack of food and supplies…you get the idea. And yet, here are somewhere between 25,000 and 35,000 people (depending on what source you heed) showing up with the clothes on their backs.
I’d like to jump in here at this point and let the cat out of the bag a little early. I’m going further on this, but for those who aren’t on board yet, I want to stop the train and allow for easier boarding.
What do we have here? We have a bunch of people who are confident that government will protect them. There’s absolutely no sense of self-preservation here at all. If I’m leaving my house with the knowledge that it will likely not be there when I return, with the knowledge that the city could be underwater in less than 24 hours, I think I’m coming with more than my clothes and my favorite blankey. Let’s press forward, there’s a trail here to follow and we’re just beginning.
The flooding starts, conditions at the Superdome (and everywhere else) deteriorate, looting begins, people start dying by the dozen, the shooting starts, things go thoroughly apocalyptic. Relief isn’t immediate, from what we read and hear. People start going a little mad, trying to hijack helicopters and whatnot. The whole thing starts to look like a Romero movie, but a little darker and more violent. And that brings us to now.
Mayor Nagin, a man who seemed to be handling things well in the beginning, begins to crack. The headlines all report his latest public appearance, a tearful outburst over the lack of federal help. Giuliani, this man is not. Never saw Rudy simpering over public airwaves that those big meanies in Washington weren’t sending stuff down fast enough.
It all seems to solid, doesn’t it? A mayor trying to save his city, a people abandoned in their hour of need, the constant reminder that, apparently, the majority of the stranded are not Caucasian…such terrible, tragic stuff. Bad President, BAD. No donut for you.
Ah, but there’s that alley again, and it’s getting darker by the minute. How about this picture, hosted on Yahoo with absolutely no fanfare, but unearthed by Drudge? That’s about a hundred busses, maybe more. The good Mr. Nagin couldn’t scrape together 100 people capable of driving a school bus to evacuate the Superdome before the storm hit? Or, even in lieu of that, move the busses out of the path of destruction so that they could be used to shuttle people out once the worst passed?
What about city busses? What about police vehicles? What about just about anything other than providing ‘shelters’ that were very, very clearly not shelter at all?
Now we have wonderful folks like Jesse Jackson Jr. and Kanye West proclaiming that this has something to do with the color of the people who are currently stranded in these ‘shelters’. Well, considering the good Mayor Nagin is the same color as those people, I’d say there are some questions to be asked about how seriously Mr. Mandatory Evacuation was taking things in the hours leading up to the storm. His pleas only achieved 80% of the city to leave, at BEST estimates. The 20% that remain are supposedly poor people of his own racial background. We have evidence that not nearly enough was done to help actually get those people out once they made the fatal mistake of ‘riding it out’. To top it all off, he provides ‘shelters’ WITHIN the zone of absolute greatest danger, completely undercutting his own ‘mandatory’ evacuation.
Unfortunately, this is the liberal mindset’s most deadly illustration to date. These people were convinced that Mother Government would save them, provide them shelter, keep them warm and fed. Today we have quotes from people still in the city complaining that they just have cold MRE’s from the National Guard to eat, and not warm meals. We have reports that the Guard was greeted by many who applauded, but some who jeered and said the whole city should be burned down for leaving them behind.
Denied the teat that they were convinced was theirs, they wail like any baby who doesn’t get a bottle when he wants it.
Wow, that’s a harsh thing to say about people who have been living in these conditions, Justin, you’re really just a callous bastard, aren’t you?
No, I’m out here living in reality. The real world. (Well, as close to it as one can come out here in Aztlan.) Everyone seems to want to cling to this fantasy world where some higher human power, some organization paid for by taxpayer dollars, will swoop in and carry them all away to someplace warm and safe.
Guess what, brothers and sisters, I am here today to tell you that storytime is over, the great governmental Prince Charming is not coming to save you, and the only way you will live happily ever after is by God’s good grace and your own diligence and hard work.
You have a liberal Democrat mayor clearly not doing everything logically possible to save his city, then crying on the radio when the feds can’t save it fast enough for him.
You have a small portion of a great city so foolish and blinded by decades of lies that they believe staying in a gigantic punchbowl is a good and safe idea when a gigantic faucet is headed their way.
Bear in mind, only a portion of these potential 100,000 are included here. A number of them stayed very intentionally. They knew the city would be abandoned, and stayed to prey on the empty stores and streets, perpetrating just about every crime you could imagine. These are the people that don’t need rescuing, society needs to be rescued from them.
But I digress. My point here isn’t that these people somehow deserve their fate, but we’re letting their plight sway our entire perception of this event. The reality is, the vast majority of New Orleans had the simple self-preservation instinct to leave before the storm hit. They were willing to do what it took to get themselves and their families out. These people bear the brunt of the tragedy, they left everything they had and sacrificed everything just to keep on living. They have the hope that everything will one day be okay again, and are willing to do whatever it took to protect their lives and those of their loved ones.
There are also a percentage that stayed, and are not suffering greatly. An excellent military blogger pointed out a fantastic blog run by some former military folks who stayed in New Orleans in their office building. They’re relatively self-sufficient, trying to help their fellow man, and above all are NOT sitting around complaining that the government didn’t do enough to get them out once they decided to stay. This proves that, with enough will and hard work, you could even stay and survive. On your own. Without once suckling at government’s teat.
So yes, the majority of New Orleans proved themselves to be smart, tenacious, and willing to do what it took to survive and carry on. What we have on the ground in NO at this point are a small majority very unhappy with how government has treated them. Yes, I know some had valid reasons why they couldn’t get out, but I am firmly convinced that number is very, very small.
All that said, I hope the best for everyone down there trapped in Fallujah West, even those who foolishly believed that their mayor or their president would swoop in, Superman-like, and save them from a catastrophe they all knew was coming. I’m not including the animals currently hunting in the city, for them all I wish is a large-caliber round somewhere vital and a sure, final end.
I do have to say that my limit for those blaming anyone but those who CHOSE to stay behind for their plight has been breached just as thoroughly as those levees. Huffington is hosting people claiming blacks are resorting to cannibalism to survive. Kanye West uses a telethon to benefit the city as a platform for declaring that Bush hates black people and that America is designed to help poor blacks last. RFK Jr. and oh-so-many pundits and armchair pundits are claiming this is, of course, Bushitler’s fault, either by Kyoto, or global warming, or his god-like mutant weather-controlling powers. Michael Moore is even chiming in, still bitching about Iraq, as if the problem here is that we have troops over there so we can’t help anyone here. These people have all, pardon the severe understatement, lost the plot.
I don’t have much of a voice here, but maybe some of you might agree with me and start spreading this line of thought to others, as inflammatory and non-warm-cuddly-fuzzy, to others. Let’s assign responsibility where it belongs: to the individual, not the insane and offensive Moonbat Whackjob Patrol’s list of most popular blame theories.
Most of all, let’s pray for and help those who did what they had to do to survive and left everything, every single thing they had, to make it through this alive. People camping on highways, staying with strangers, seeking shelter in cities thousands of miles away from their homes. The real absolute, total tragedy rests on their shoulders. If anyone will rebuild New Orleans and restore it to what it once was, it will assuredly be these people. Right now, they’re in a place so nightmarish it’s hard to even ponder. The American Dream for them has been simplified a great deal: don’t starve, don’t die, don’t let those around you die. We can help them, we can help the city, but all these smoke and mirrors focusing on a small portion of those who were failed by the pipe dreams of government-as-parent just isn’t fruitful in any way. The Guard is in, supplies are flowing, the dead will be collected and mourned, the water will drain away, everything will slowly start returning to normal. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these people we see so much of on the news, the ones who chose to stay based on government’s promises of safety, those people will likely continue on in their delusions. People with that mindset don’t rebuild cities, they wait for government (and the tax money of others) to do it for them. People with that mindset don’t build much of anything, because their sense of entitlement has been inflated to the point of no return.
We must support those who lack that sense, who instead possess another sense: the common variety. Let’s help them work, let’s help them be safe, let’s join together as a nation and heal the gaping wound carved into us by Katrina. My only plea is that we do all that with our heads firmly planted on our shoulders, not chasing after phantom saviors that will never materialize and save the day.
Monday, August 29, 2005
P.S.
Allow me a brief caveat, my friends, lest my comment on the impending doom of New Orleans in my last entry be taken the wrong way.
Humor is my way of responding to stress. I’m the fellow at the funeral with a large smile, hugging and shaking everyone’s hand. Quick with a joke and eager to bring smiles to those around me. It’s not due to a lack of compassion or mourning, quite the contrary. I don’t really respond well to such things, so I tend to veer towards inappropriate gallows humor. Nothing unseemly, but it’s safe to say I’d be the fellow on the deck of the Titanic asking the orchestra to play something less depressing than ‘Nearer My God To Thee’ and ordering another martini as the ship split down the middle.
During my brief respite in the shower, Art Bell let me down and didn’t serve up his usual buffet of lunatics, damn him. Rather, he’s covering Katrina non-stop, taking calls from those in the effected areas. It’s what I love about Art. Behind the mask of the showman who parades out the weird and bizarre on overnight talk radio sits one of the last remaining true newsmen. Focused on the story and clearly invested in it and the people behind it, he provides the kind of raw, real information that can no longer be found on the ‘regular’ news media.
He mentioned a few minutes ago that an anchor and a reporter (who is onsite) on CNN just engaged in a shouting match over the situation. Ah, if only I could have seen that, I love it when the phoney-baloney veneers of the mainstream media crack and we see that these are people who generally have no clue how to present the news.
But I digress.
Of course, my heart and prayers go out to those in New Orleans, and we certainly do face a catastrophe like none we’ve ever seen in America. Art is currently posing the question, what happens when we lose a major city? Just, lose one? It’s never happened to us before.
My answer, of course, is that there’s no such thing. If Americans decide that the city will come back, it will. It may take time, it may take an amazing amount of effort, but when Americans set their mind to something, it happens. We just do not give up. We refuse to be put down by anyone or anything.
So no, New Orleans isn’t going away. I don’t believe it, anyway. We just don’t work that way. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I believe I’ll be eating those beignets in the French Quarter before I breathe my last.
So here’s to all of you who are in the path of Katrina or those with loved ones in that path.
And here’s to the rest of us, and the harsh reality that within the next few days, our country might be plunged into a crisis the likes of which we’ve never seen before: gas that no one can afford, if they can even get any. Go fill your tanks, buy some wonderful Bulldog Root Beer, and get ready for one seriously interesting work week.
Humor is my way of responding to stress. I’m the fellow at the funeral with a large smile, hugging and shaking everyone’s hand. Quick with a joke and eager to bring smiles to those around me. It’s not due to a lack of compassion or mourning, quite the contrary. I don’t really respond well to such things, so I tend to veer towards inappropriate gallows humor. Nothing unseemly, but it’s safe to say I’d be the fellow on the deck of the Titanic asking the orchestra to play something less depressing than ‘Nearer My God To Thee’ and ordering another martini as the ship split down the middle.
During my brief respite in the shower, Art Bell let me down and didn’t serve up his usual buffet of lunatics, damn him. Rather, he’s covering Katrina non-stop, taking calls from those in the effected areas. It’s what I love about Art. Behind the mask of the showman who parades out the weird and bizarre on overnight talk radio sits one of the last remaining true newsmen. Focused on the story and clearly invested in it and the people behind it, he provides the kind of raw, real information that can no longer be found on the ‘regular’ news media.
He mentioned a few minutes ago that an anchor and a reporter (who is onsite) on CNN just engaged in a shouting match over the situation. Ah, if only I could have seen that, I love it when the phoney-baloney veneers of the mainstream media crack and we see that these are people who generally have no clue how to present the news.
But I digress.
Of course, my heart and prayers go out to those in New Orleans, and we certainly do face a catastrophe like none we’ve ever seen in America. Art is currently posing the question, what happens when we lose a major city? Just, lose one? It’s never happened to us before.
My answer, of course, is that there’s no such thing. If Americans decide that the city will come back, it will. It may take time, it may take an amazing amount of effort, but when Americans set their mind to something, it happens. We just do not give up. We refuse to be put down by anyone or anything.
So no, New Orleans isn’t going away. I don’t believe it, anyway. We just don’t work that way. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I believe I’ll be eating those beignets in the French Quarter before I breathe my last.
So here’s to all of you who are in the path of Katrina or those with loved ones in that path.
And here’s to the rest of us, and the harsh reality that within the next few days, our country might be plunged into a crisis the likes of which we’ve never seen before: gas that no one can afford, if they can even get any. Go fill your tanks, buy some wonderful Bulldog Root Beer, and get ready for one seriously interesting work week.
News Briefs From The Wilds Of Aztlan
Many small things to discuss in the news. I’m settled in with a fresh, handcrafted Bulldog Root Beer, the finest beverage ever created by man, so I’m good to go despite this awful heat. It’s hot out here tonight in Aztlan, an incomprehensible 73 degrees at 12:45 AM. It’s madness, I tell you. I’m thinking all these natives who have come to reclaim the Aztlan region have somehow influenced the weather to make it resemble the jungle wilds their people once ruled in South America. Well, there’s no relief in sight, so let’s pop the cap on this Bulldog and get to it. (I should note that I mean that in the ‘opening the bottle’ way, and not the traditional ebonics way…no bulldogs were harmed in the making of this entry.)
Hurricane Katrina...what a shame. Always wanted to visit New Orleans, and I don't like swimming. I’m prone to ear infections, and I doubt beignets taste very good soaked with sewer water.
Cindy Sheehan is thoroughly screwy, driven right round the bend by the loss of her son. Sad, but please lady, stop whoring out the names of other people's sons, especially after they've publicly said they don't want you to do it. Pleas such as this, based as they are on reason and decency, will certainly have no effect. The latest news has Al ‘Who’s Tawana Brawley?’ Sharpton and Martin ‘I play the president on TV so that makes me important’ Sheen down there kibitzing with Cindy. My mother told me Joan Baez has been lurking about as well. She hasn’t really worked since Vietnam ended, so I guess she sees this as her last chance at making money off the deaths of good Americans. This whole Sheehan ‘Camp Casey’ situation has me terribly concerned. If someone like Michael Moore or Jane Fonda should show up, I fear it could create some sort of ‘liberal whackjob wormhole’ that pierces the space/time continuum and causes all matter to instantly blink into nothingness. We should send Fred Thompson and Dennis Miller down there just to balance out the insanity and keep the material universe safe.
Green Day wins seven awards on the VMA's on MTV. Wow, I guess MTV was in a hurry to drive those nails into that 'relevance' coffin, now weren't they? I love that it was a shocker to some commentators I've read that they beat out Gwen Stefani. If the world of music video excellence is a battle between Green Day and Gwen Stefani, we really need to call the whole thing off and just replay every year of MTV from the beginning, like one big repeat episode. The music will be just as relative, although most people will wonder why there are so many white people on the channel.
My dear muse and imaginary mentor Dr. Hunter Thompson finally got blasted off from his gigantic gonzo fist last week. Sad to see the old boy go, but he went out as only the Doctor of Journalism could. Were I able to drink, I’d toast a glass of rum, straight up, in his honor.
Fred Phelps and his 'God Hates Fags' clan are now protesting at the funerals of soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan, claiming that these men are dying because God is mad at us for sheltering gays. Ironically enough, I think Fred is on to something...God MUST be mad at us, because Fred Phelps is still alive. I mean, come on...if there was a popular vote on who to kill, I think Phelps would be a prime candidate for the #1 spot, with the only possible competition being that guy who screams YOU'RE KILLING ME LARRY on those damn Sit N Sleep commercials. I say, use a high caliber weapon and have them stand single-file. We could even have Larry do it, just so that obnoxious bastard could be right, for once.
The Sunnis rejected the Iraqi constitution that's just been ratified by their government. One of the reasons is that the constitution bans the reformation of Saddam's Ba'ath party. Yeah, you -really- want that to happen, good plan guys. I know it was your locus of power in the past, but Saddam is future worm food, his days of power are over, and you really, really need to wake up and smell the hummus. Someone needs to sit down with these yahoos and explain the math. You're only 20% of the nation. The other 80% all hate you and want you dead. You sat out of the first national vote and now they own the vast majority of the national government. Sit down, shut up, be very very friendly, and offer cheap goods and services. Otherwise, well, let's just say I really need to invest in a funeral home near Sunni country, because business is going to be booming. It's going to be coffins a go-go, and there won't be much anyone can do to stop it.
The Bulldog is gone and the heat continues. I’m going to hit the shower, use very little hot water, and listen to Art Bell’s show. I think I need to listen to a little quackery and conspiracy lunacy to relax my overtaxed mind.
Hurricane Katrina...what a shame. Always wanted to visit New Orleans, and I don't like swimming. I’m prone to ear infections, and I doubt beignets taste very good soaked with sewer water.
Cindy Sheehan is thoroughly screwy, driven right round the bend by the loss of her son. Sad, but please lady, stop whoring out the names of other people's sons, especially after they've publicly said they don't want you to do it. Pleas such as this, based as they are on reason and decency, will certainly have no effect. The latest news has Al ‘Who’s Tawana Brawley?’ Sharpton and Martin ‘I play the president on TV so that makes me important’ Sheen down there kibitzing with Cindy. My mother told me Joan Baez has been lurking about as well. She hasn’t really worked since Vietnam ended, so I guess she sees this as her last chance at making money off the deaths of good Americans. This whole Sheehan ‘Camp Casey’ situation has me terribly concerned. If someone like Michael Moore or Jane Fonda should show up, I fear it could create some sort of ‘liberal whackjob wormhole’ that pierces the space/time continuum and causes all matter to instantly blink into nothingness. We should send Fred Thompson and Dennis Miller down there just to balance out the insanity and keep the material universe safe.
Green Day wins seven awards on the VMA's on MTV. Wow, I guess MTV was in a hurry to drive those nails into that 'relevance' coffin, now weren't they? I love that it was a shocker to some commentators I've read that they beat out Gwen Stefani. If the world of music video excellence is a battle between Green Day and Gwen Stefani, we really need to call the whole thing off and just replay every year of MTV from the beginning, like one big repeat episode. The music will be just as relative, although most people will wonder why there are so many white people on the channel.
My dear muse and imaginary mentor Dr. Hunter Thompson finally got blasted off from his gigantic gonzo fist last week. Sad to see the old boy go, but he went out as only the Doctor of Journalism could. Were I able to drink, I’d toast a glass of rum, straight up, in his honor.
Fred Phelps and his 'God Hates Fags' clan are now protesting at the funerals of soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan, claiming that these men are dying because God is mad at us for sheltering gays. Ironically enough, I think Fred is on to something...God MUST be mad at us, because Fred Phelps is still alive. I mean, come on...if there was a popular vote on who to kill, I think Phelps would be a prime candidate for the #1 spot, with the only possible competition being that guy who screams YOU'RE KILLING ME LARRY on those damn Sit N Sleep commercials. I say, use a high caliber weapon and have them stand single-file. We could even have Larry do it, just so that obnoxious bastard could be right, for once.
The Sunnis rejected the Iraqi constitution that's just been ratified by their government. One of the reasons is that the constitution bans the reformation of Saddam's Ba'ath party. Yeah, you -really- want that to happen, good plan guys. I know it was your locus of power in the past, but Saddam is future worm food, his days of power are over, and you really, really need to wake up and smell the hummus. Someone needs to sit down with these yahoos and explain the math. You're only 20% of the nation. The other 80% all hate you and want you dead. You sat out of the first national vote and now they own the vast majority of the national government. Sit down, shut up, be very very friendly, and offer cheap goods and services. Otherwise, well, let's just say I really need to invest in a funeral home near Sunni country, because business is going to be booming. It's going to be coffins a go-go, and there won't be much anyone can do to stop it.
The Bulldog is gone and the heat continues. I’m going to hit the shower, use very little hot water, and listen to Art Bell’s show. I think I need to listen to a little quackery and conspiracy lunacy to relax my overtaxed mind.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Chasing The Extraordinary
Chasing The Extraordinary
After a brief unexpected virtual vacation, I have returned. (It’s a long story, involves tights, guns, and people with names like ‘Komodoman’. We’ll just leave it at that.)
And…I can’t think of a single thing to say.
That’s not true at all. Starting out with lies. Oh, that doesn’t bode well. I have a thousand things I’d like to get into here. The problem is that they aren’t the fuel for the fire I want to create. I don’t want to just light the burners on my convenient, gas-powered counter-top writing stove, I’m looking for a Burning Man-style pyre to light the skies and scare the gods.
At the very least, a nice little bonfire, perfect for roasting hot dogs, marshmallows, and the occasional witch.
My search for intellectual and creative kindling just isn’t working. I’m thinking it’s because I’m well rested and generally relaxed. I think one of the reasons I identify so well with the late and recently blasted into the atmosphere Dr. Thompson is that we have something in common: we do our best work when we’re at the limits of our endurance. Chemicals and alcohol fueled his plunges into the depths; mine tend to be driven by extended periods of sleeplessness and stress. If I feel happy, healthy, and awake…chances are I would be able to make a grocery list boring and pedestrian, if I could work up the stuff to actually write one out without puzzling for 25 minutes for an appropriate and interesting synonym for ‘eggs’.
It’d be very easy to just pull a Jack Webb and stick to the facts, ma’am. It’s oh-so-very easy to just say the basics. Cindy Sheehan is a total whack job who is destroying her life and that of her family because the death of her son drove her mad. Illegal immigration is killing the country like a slow poison, and something must be done to stop it or we’ll need to do a remodel job on the Alamo and find the new Davy Crockett really damn soon. John McCain is a power-mad nutjob who shouldn’t be allowed out of his house unmonitored, nevertheless allowed to join up with Hillary to try and teach junk science to the unwashed masses. A blonde girl is still missing on an island, a black girl is no longer missing in the east, and Sin City is one of the best things I’ve ever seen on film.
The list goes on. It’s all so…pedestrian. Not the issues, the things I have to say about them.
My original intent tonight was to try and shape something out of a recent experience I had at a local children’s pizza establishment. For the sake of the story, we’ll call it Chuckie Cheese, since that’s what it’s called. The bizarre nature of the place and it’s denizens on your average Sunday afternoon in the California desert seemed like a ripe opportunity for social satire and commentary on the state of the culture as it is reflected in the hyper little heathens populating it’s broken, dysfunctional playground. Unfortunately, the experience was marked with a nice shot of pain alongside the mesmerizing elixir of absurdity filling the place, so I found all attempts to make light of the situation completely useless. Losing things you love tends to put the kibosh on your ability to highlight the social inadequacies of modern Californian society using lighthearted quips and satire.
Another plan was to take the detailed, travel-oriented trip report of my recent Vegas wedding and try to work it into something different. As I wrote it in the first place, it morphed into something other than your average ‘stayed here, ate here, it was a good bargain but avoid the veal’ kind of travel piece. Try as I might, I just can’t find the inspiration to take it beyond a travelogue and make something entertaining, bizarre, and socially relevant out of it, despite the action-packed tales of feeding bums on Fremont St. and pondering violent outbursts on clerks at high-fashion boutiques on the Strip.
I think I understand why the good Doctor of Journalism approached his gonzo journalism the way he did…well armed and liquored up. He dove into things, personally. Hell, Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas only happened because he’d spent weeks tracking down an extremely dangerous assignment involving police brutality and murder in the Latino community of Los Angeles. In both cases, he threw caution to the wind and just inserted himself into situations where a story was inevitable; it was only a matter of telling it. And yes, he usually had some liquid or chemical courage to embolden him when walking into situations most of us would never conceive of.
I, on the other hand, am an unfortunately sober newlywed with a full-time job that has nothing to do with writing and everything to do with keeping up with the ever-increasing cost of living here in this wonderful paradise of Aztlan, North Mexico. (To call it Southern California any longer is just a sick, stupid joke and I’ll have none of it.)
My desire to buy a laptop, rent a car, and drive to Vegas for a week or more, resuming Thompson’s search for the American dream in a post-9/11 world is simply out of my reach. Were I a single, healthy man, maybe I’d take that kind of chance, committing small crimes and social indiscretions for the sake of the story, pushing my body and mind to the limit to squeeze out something that I could be proud of once I slept it off.
I’m not that man. Never will be. So what do I have? Right now, I don’t have a whole hell of a lot. Ideas. Desires. Inspirations. Drives. Ambitions. Obsessions.
I also have a meeting with Komodoman before I finally succumb to inevitable sleep and the impending five days as a wage slave. I need to meet with him while there’s still time. If I hurry, I may just catch him before my wife insists I go to bed.
I understand this made little sense. That may have been the point. Maybe not. Figure it out on your own, and if you come to any conclusions, let me know.
After a brief unexpected virtual vacation, I have returned. (It’s a long story, involves tights, guns, and people with names like ‘Komodoman’. We’ll just leave it at that.)
And…I can’t think of a single thing to say.
That’s not true at all. Starting out with lies. Oh, that doesn’t bode well. I have a thousand things I’d like to get into here. The problem is that they aren’t the fuel for the fire I want to create. I don’t want to just light the burners on my convenient, gas-powered counter-top writing stove, I’m looking for a Burning Man-style pyre to light the skies and scare the gods.
At the very least, a nice little bonfire, perfect for roasting hot dogs, marshmallows, and the occasional witch.
My search for intellectual and creative kindling just isn’t working. I’m thinking it’s because I’m well rested and generally relaxed. I think one of the reasons I identify so well with the late and recently blasted into the atmosphere Dr. Thompson is that we have something in common: we do our best work when we’re at the limits of our endurance. Chemicals and alcohol fueled his plunges into the depths; mine tend to be driven by extended periods of sleeplessness and stress. If I feel happy, healthy, and awake…chances are I would be able to make a grocery list boring and pedestrian, if I could work up the stuff to actually write one out without puzzling for 25 minutes for an appropriate and interesting synonym for ‘eggs’.
It’d be very easy to just pull a Jack Webb and stick to the facts, ma’am. It’s oh-so-very easy to just say the basics. Cindy Sheehan is a total whack job who is destroying her life and that of her family because the death of her son drove her mad. Illegal immigration is killing the country like a slow poison, and something must be done to stop it or we’ll need to do a remodel job on the Alamo and find the new Davy Crockett really damn soon. John McCain is a power-mad nutjob who shouldn’t be allowed out of his house unmonitored, nevertheless allowed to join up with Hillary to try and teach junk science to the unwashed masses. A blonde girl is still missing on an island, a black girl is no longer missing in the east, and Sin City is one of the best things I’ve ever seen on film.
The list goes on. It’s all so…pedestrian. Not the issues, the things I have to say about them.
My original intent tonight was to try and shape something out of a recent experience I had at a local children’s pizza establishment. For the sake of the story, we’ll call it Chuckie Cheese, since that’s what it’s called. The bizarre nature of the place and it’s denizens on your average Sunday afternoon in the California desert seemed like a ripe opportunity for social satire and commentary on the state of the culture as it is reflected in the hyper little heathens populating it’s broken, dysfunctional playground. Unfortunately, the experience was marked with a nice shot of pain alongside the mesmerizing elixir of absurdity filling the place, so I found all attempts to make light of the situation completely useless. Losing things you love tends to put the kibosh on your ability to highlight the social inadequacies of modern Californian society using lighthearted quips and satire.
Another plan was to take the detailed, travel-oriented trip report of my recent Vegas wedding and try to work it into something different. As I wrote it in the first place, it morphed into something other than your average ‘stayed here, ate here, it was a good bargain but avoid the veal’ kind of travel piece. Try as I might, I just can’t find the inspiration to take it beyond a travelogue and make something entertaining, bizarre, and socially relevant out of it, despite the action-packed tales of feeding bums on Fremont St. and pondering violent outbursts on clerks at high-fashion boutiques on the Strip.
I think I understand why the good Doctor of Journalism approached his gonzo journalism the way he did…well armed and liquored up. He dove into things, personally. Hell, Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas only happened because he’d spent weeks tracking down an extremely dangerous assignment involving police brutality and murder in the Latino community of Los Angeles. In both cases, he threw caution to the wind and just inserted himself into situations where a story was inevitable; it was only a matter of telling it. And yes, he usually had some liquid or chemical courage to embolden him when walking into situations most of us would never conceive of.
I, on the other hand, am an unfortunately sober newlywed with a full-time job that has nothing to do with writing and everything to do with keeping up with the ever-increasing cost of living here in this wonderful paradise of Aztlan, North Mexico. (To call it Southern California any longer is just a sick, stupid joke and I’ll have none of it.)
My desire to buy a laptop, rent a car, and drive to Vegas for a week or more, resuming Thompson’s search for the American dream in a post-9/11 world is simply out of my reach. Were I a single, healthy man, maybe I’d take that kind of chance, committing small crimes and social indiscretions for the sake of the story, pushing my body and mind to the limit to squeeze out something that I could be proud of once I slept it off.
I’m not that man. Never will be. So what do I have? Right now, I don’t have a whole hell of a lot. Ideas. Desires. Inspirations. Drives. Ambitions. Obsessions.
I also have a meeting with Komodoman before I finally succumb to inevitable sleep and the impending five days as a wage slave. I need to meet with him while there’s still time. If I hurry, I may just catch him before my wife insists I go to bed.
I understand this made little sense. That may have been the point. Maybe not. Figure it out on your own, and if you come to any conclusions, let me know.
Monday, August 01, 2005
Once More, With Feeling
Almost a year ago, I started this blog, planning to use it as an outlet for my frequent socio-political rants and, maybe, help influence the outcome of the 2004 election. I did just that, pouring out quite a few large pieces of commentary on political things big and small. My personal journal just wasn't a place for that anymore, I'd lost numerous friends over the election as it was and my remaining friends really didn't care to hear me chatter on for three pages about Memogate.
I hate writing things if I know no one will read them, so that led me here. This worked for quite awhile, but by the time Dubya found victory, I was fried. Burned out. Cooked. Just completely spent, physically, mentally, and emotionally. All those hours spent on the intellectual battlefield here and elsewhere just took a toll on me, and it was a high one.
Before and during this period, I was also writing for a major Internet entertainment site. Once the election was over, I became very busy there as I covered video games and, well, the fourth quarter of the year is zero hour for video game releases. Needing to heal and rest after the lengthy election battle and focus on my part-time journalism gig, I abandoned this blog, supposedly just until things cleared a bit.
That turned out to be a long time, as you can see.
I lost my voice. Many things happened in that time, and continue to happen, that changed who I was as a person and a writer. They're the kind of changes that don't have much of an effect on my outward personality, but the voice that tells me every writer what to put down on the page is very susceptible to those elements. The final effect was that I just wasn't interested in simple political rants anymore, commenting on public affairs in a sarcastic way. This left me without anything to say here. As you can see in my original introductory post, this was a pretty small frame I built for myself, a cramped box with little room for stretching.
That has to change if I'm to continue here, and I am. I'm back, this blog will return to relatively frequent action. I've found my voice again, changed though it is.
So what's new? Don't expect quite so much political ranting. At least, not the standard stuff I did before. In the last couple of months I've embraced the wild, bizarre side of the writer inside me, and I've decided I like him quite a bit. Expect to see him show up a lot more often. You'll either get into it or you'll think I've gone a bit odd and delete the bookmark to the site. Either way, I'm his hostage at this point. I'm a writer. I HAVE to write. It's not an option, it just has to happen. This stuff either comes out on the page or it finds it's own escape route, and that frequently involves a high-caliber handgun.
Keep checking back. More often than not, you'll be rewarded. If I can sort it out, I'll set up an RSS feed for you to add so know when I've updated over here. If you enjoy it, keep coming back and maybe leave a comment or drop an e-mail. If you don't enjoy it, just remember that it's free and all you're paying is time you'd otherwise be spending reading the rantings of some other semi-demented netizen.
As long as I'm enjoying what I'm writing, I'm going to keep doing it. Maybe this can be a place where people will actually read what I write and enjoy it. That's all I want, no loftier goals in mind at all. If you enjoy what I put in here, recommend it to a friend. That's all I ask.
I hate writing things if I know no one will read them, so that led me here. This worked for quite awhile, but by the time Dubya found victory, I was fried. Burned out. Cooked. Just completely spent, physically, mentally, and emotionally. All those hours spent on the intellectual battlefield here and elsewhere just took a toll on me, and it was a high one.
Before and during this period, I was also writing for a major Internet entertainment site. Once the election was over, I became very busy there as I covered video games and, well, the fourth quarter of the year is zero hour for video game releases. Needing to heal and rest after the lengthy election battle and focus on my part-time journalism gig, I abandoned this blog, supposedly just until things cleared a bit.
That turned out to be a long time, as you can see.
I lost my voice. Many things happened in that time, and continue to happen, that changed who I was as a person and a writer. They're the kind of changes that don't have much of an effect on my outward personality, but the voice that tells me every writer what to put down on the page is very susceptible to those elements. The final effect was that I just wasn't interested in simple political rants anymore, commenting on public affairs in a sarcastic way. This left me without anything to say here. As you can see in my original introductory post, this was a pretty small frame I built for myself, a cramped box with little room for stretching.
That has to change if I'm to continue here, and I am. I'm back, this blog will return to relatively frequent action. I've found my voice again, changed though it is.
So what's new? Don't expect quite so much political ranting. At least, not the standard stuff I did before. In the last couple of months I've embraced the wild, bizarre side of the writer inside me, and I've decided I like him quite a bit. Expect to see him show up a lot more often. You'll either get into it or you'll think I've gone a bit odd and delete the bookmark to the site. Either way, I'm his hostage at this point. I'm a writer. I HAVE to write. It's not an option, it just has to happen. This stuff either comes out on the page or it finds it's own escape route, and that frequently involves a high-caliber handgun.
Keep checking back. More often than not, you'll be rewarded. If I can sort it out, I'll set up an RSS feed for you to add so know when I've updated over here. If you enjoy it, keep coming back and maybe leave a comment or drop an e-mail. If you don't enjoy it, just remember that it's free and all you're paying is time you'd otherwise be spending reading the rantings of some other semi-demented netizen.
As long as I'm enjoying what I'm writing, I'm going to keep doing it. Maybe this can be a place where people will actually read what I write and enjoy it. That's all I want, no loftier goals in mind at all. If you enjoy what I put in here, recommend it to a friend. That's all I ask.
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Welcome to the New Left
All those who don't see the left self-destructing, raise your hands.
pagan: Magical Election Tampering: SHUT IT DOWN!
No, this isn't satire. Yes, this is probably one extreme of things, but it exemplifies the kind of thought going on with the New Left...it can't be a large portion of the populace deciding one set of ideals is better than another, it HAS to be some sort of fix.
pagan: Magical Election Tampering: SHUT IT DOWN!
No, this isn't satire. Yes, this is probably one extreme of things, but it exemplifies the kind of thought going on with the New Left...it can't be a large portion of the populace deciding one set of ideals is better than another, it HAS to be some sort of fix.
Thursday, November 04, 2004
Who Is On Your Side? - Epilogue
Well, it's all over. With a sweeping win of both the popular and electoral vote, President Bush was re-elected. We can now look forward to a prosperous and eventful term as the Democrats and liberal left admit defeat and re-examine their agenda in hopes to find a way to once again attain a place at the political table.
Oh, wait, that last part is happening in Bizarro World. Here on earth, the left wing is self-destructing at an alarmingly increased rate. This calls us back to my campaign theme, 'Who Is On Your Side?' one last time. We see here photos from the liberal rally in SF on November 3, 2004 protesting the Bush victory. Once again, you liberals out there, take a good look: who is on your side? These aren't a bunch of people pretending to support your cause to make you look bad, THIS IS YOUR BASE. This is the core of the active left, here.
On the net we've had everything from calls for domestic terrorism to wishes of assassination to the apparently imminent mass exodus to Canada. What you hear least is what you'd expect to hear most: people passionate about their beliefs who now see a difficult four years ahead, but four years they will spend rebuilding and reorganizing, trying to change the system from within. Rather, the vast majority you see and hear resembles a day care right after it's been announced that milk and cookie time has been cancelled. We haven't seen tantrums like this since Michael Moore was told that there was a two-item limit on the 'Buy one get one free' chili dog deal at Wienerschnitzel.
The light is shining on the left, and it's revealing quite a bit of ugliness. As I've said for months now, if you have a conscience, if you can look past your own desires for a few seconds and think...do you really want to be like these people? Before, my question was about your voting decision, now it's changed a bit. Do you really want to do this? Do you actually want to insult and threaten your friends over how they voted? Is the outcome of any election so important that people you supposedly care about are expendable?
I'm not suggesting that you should agree with us. I'm not stupid enough to expect you to just sit down quietly while we dominate the country and do everything our way...just like I would refuse to do that if the shoe was on the other foot. What I'm saying is this: the country you live in and it's laws are important, but how much more important are the relationships you make with those around you? Is gay marriage really worth hating your neighbor over? Are tax cuts, for the wealthy or for everyone, worth calling everyone who voted for Bush a rich, white, racist, homophobic inbred idiot? Is ANY agenda or policy that can be enacted by the federal government worth breaking friendships and relationships forged between you and another private citizen, when that other person isn't even doing anything to draw those issues between you?
Think about this, lefties. Your party and your ideals are self-destructing. They're taking your personal relationships with them. The only way you can hope to salvage those things is to take a good hard look at how you're behaving and decide whether you want to be one of these hateful, bitter people. You live in the greatest country on earth, and it would still be so even if John Kerry had won the election and the Dems had won back control of the Senate and the House. I can say that, believing what I do. You can do the same, you just have to decide what's more important.
Oh, wait, that last part is happening in Bizarro World. Here on earth, the left wing is self-destructing at an alarmingly increased rate. This calls us back to my campaign theme, 'Who Is On Your Side?' one last time. We see here photos from the liberal rally in SF on November 3, 2004 protesting the Bush victory. Once again, you liberals out there, take a good look: who is on your side? These aren't a bunch of people pretending to support your cause to make you look bad, THIS IS YOUR BASE. This is the core of the active left, here.
On the net we've had everything from calls for domestic terrorism to wishes of assassination to the apparently imminent mass exodus to Canada. What you hear least is what you'd expect to hear most: people passionate about their beliefs who now see a difficult four years ahead, but four years they will spend rebuilding and reorganizing, trying to change the system from within. Rather, the vast majority you see and hear resembles a day care right after it's been announced that milk and cookie time has been cancelled. We haven't seen tantrums like this since Michael Moore was told that there was a two-item limit on the 'Buy one get one free' chili dog deal at Wienerschnitzel.
The light is shining on the left, and it's revealing quite a bit of ugliness. As I've said for months now, if you have a conscience, if you can look past your own desires for a few seconds and think...do you really want to be like these people? Before, my question was about your voting decision, now it's changed a bit. Do you really want to do this? Do you actually want to insult and threaten your friends over how they voted? Is the outcome of any election so important that people you supposedly care about are expendable?
I'm not suggesting that you should agree with us. I'm not stupid enough to expect you to just sit down quietly while we dominate the country and do everything our way...just like I would refuse to do that if the shoe was on the other foot. What I'm saying is this: the country you live in and it's laws are important, but how much more important are the relationships you make with those around you? Is gay marriage really worth hating your neighbor over? Are tax cuts, for the wealthy or for everyone, worth calling everyone who voted for Bush a rich, white, racist, homophobic inbred idiot? Is ANY agenda or policy that can be enacted by the federal government worth breaking friendships and relationships forged between you and another private citizen, when that other person isn't even doing anything to draw those issues between you?
Think about this, lefties. Your party and your ideals are self-destructing. They're taking your personal relationships with them. The only way you can hope to salvage those things is to take a good hard look at how you're behaving and decide whether you want to be one of these hateful, bitter people. You live in the greatest country on earth, and it would still be so even if John Kerry had won the election and the Dems had won back control of the Senate and the House. I can say that, believing what I do. You can do the same, you just have to decide what's more important.
Thursday, October 07, 2004
Bait & Switch Redux
My apologies for my extended absence from these pages, sometimes life's cruel demands make time spent on anything but them a luxury that you can't afford. Rest assured, I didn't go far, and now I've returned with more wit and wisdom focused with laser precision at the liberal MSM (that's MainStream Media for those of you in Pleasant Hill) and their attempts at putting the fix on the upcoming election.
We return now to our most recent topic: the Bait & Switch tactic. The AP strikes again, on the same issue as last time. In this story, with the inflammatory title 'Bush, Cheney Concede Saddam Had No WMDs', one would expect to find a contrite president and VP, copping to every accusation the Kerry campaign and the MSM have thrown their way regarding Iraq's WMD's and the reason for war.
Unfortunately for the AP, even their own story couldn't drum up much enthusiasm for that concept. This story involves Charles Duelfer's final report, referenced in my previous Bait & Switch story in it's initial form. As expected, Duelfer's report confirmed that Saddam had no stockpiles of WMD's and hadn't created any since 1991. However, the report also makes the case very clear that Saddam was only holding off in order to get the sanctions dropped Then, he was planning on immediately building them again and attempting to attain nuclear power to rival Iran. Much of this was admitted by the former dictator himself in post-capture interviews and interrogations.
Now, out here in the real world where people use logic and have the ability to see past their nose, this would be stunning news. This is a very, very sound endorsement for the war. As it turns out, we're lucky Saddam was foolish enough to continue stonewalling the U.N. If he'd have played along, the sanctions would have went away and we'd have been forced to leave him alone. Left alone, he made it clear he was making a beeline towards WMD production, including nukes. Even if we had managed to detect this via intelligence, the whole U.N. process would have begun again. Remember, it took THIRTEEN YEARS the first time around to finally call Saddam's bluff and give him the ultimate inspection, the military version of a proctology exam. If we hadn't, we'd be facing a world with a Saddam Hussein still in control of Iraq, pursuing WMD's with everything he has, encouraged by the knowledge that he's the only ruler in the world who stood up to the U.S. and walked away. I'd say that is a scenario that is completely unacceptible.
Of course, this isn't good enough for the MSM, the Dems, or the anti-war crowd. The fact that this report confirms the reason to go to war (to prohibit Saddam from using/attaining WMD's or getting them to terrorists) is completely ignored by the MSM and the increasingly-desperate Kerry campaign. It's clear, as it has been from the beginning, that NO reason is good enough for this crowd.
If the war was a complete and total success with no setbacks and not a single casualty, they'd still be criticizing the Bush admin. They were early on, when easy victory appeared to be the case. In that period, they complained about the cost, about how it would damage the U.S. in the view of the world, how it hurt relations between the U.S. and impotent Europe. They simply can't sit back and say 'job well done' because that means another four years of Bush, guaranteed.
Now that we see the cost of the battle, that this won't be a cakewalk to election day here or in Iraq, they are trying to say that the effort is doomed, specifically because we shouldn't have done it in the first place. That even fighting the war was a mistake, and this is the natural result. If they admitted that the war was a necessity, what basis of criticism would they have? You can see how well Kerry is faring when trying to make that claim, he's coming off as a complete chowderhead, with no apparent semblence between his statements on the matter yesterday and today. If all of the critics of the war took the same stance, without the spin doctors of the DNC to back them up, they'd be laughed out of the room. They MUST criticize the war as a whole, as a concept...and since that doesn't really make sense anymore, they're just using the Bait & Switch to try and fool Ma & Pa Kettle in flyover country that this isn't the evidence of WMD's they're looking for...move along...
Well, we aren't weak minded enough to fall for that Jedi mind trick out here in the Blogosphere. As long as the Internet remains free, we'll remain here, steadfast and ready to unleash the full fury of the truth upon all those who stand to oppose it. Besides, what else are we going to write on here...'Alias' episode guides?
We return now to our most recent topic: the Bait & Switch tactic. The AP strikes again, on the same issue as last time. In this story, with the inflammatory title 'Bush, Cheney Concede Saddam Had No WMDs', one would expect to find a contrite president and VP, copping to every accusation the Kerry campaign and the MSM have thrown their way regarding Iraq's WMD's and the reason for war.
Unfortunately for the AP, even their own story couldn't drum up much enthusiasm for that concept. This story involves Charles Duelfer's final report, referenced in my previous Bait & Switch story in it's initial form. As expected, Duelfer's report confirmed that Saddam had no stockpiles of WMD's and hadn't created any since 1991. However, the report also makes the case very clear that Saddam was only holding off in order to get the sanctions dropped Then, he was planning on immediately building them again and attempting to attain nuclear power to rival Iran. Much of this was admitted by the former dictator himself in post-capture interviews and interrogations.
Now, out here in the real world where people use logic and have the ability to see past their nose, this would be stunning news. This is a very, very sound endorsement for the war. As it turns out, we're lucky Saddam was foolish enough to continue stonewalling the U.N. If he'd have played along, the sanctions would have went away and we'd have been forced to leave him alone. Left alone, he made it clear he was making a beeline towards WMD production, including nukes. Even if we had managed to detect this via intelligence, the whole U.N. process would have begun again. Remember, it took THIRTEEN YEARS the first time around to finally call Saddam's bluff and give him the ultimate inspection, the military version of a proctology exam. If we hadn't, we'd be facing a world with a Saddam Hussein still in control of Iraq, pursuing WMD's with everything he has, encouraged by the knowledge that he's the only ruler in the world who stood up to the U.S. and walked away. I'd say that is a scenario that is completely unacceptible.
Of course, this isn't good enough for the MSM, the Dems, or the anti-war crowd. The fact that this report confirms the reason to go to war (to prohibit Saddam from using/attaining WMD's or getting them to terrorists) is completely ignored by the MSM and the increasingly-desperate Kerry campaign. It's clear, as it has been from the beginning, that NO reason is good enough for this crowd.
If the war was a complete and total success with no setbacks and not a single casualty, they'd still be criticizing the Bush admin. They were early on, when easy victory appeared to be the case. In that period, they complained about the cost, about how it would damage the U.S. in the view of the world, how it hurt relations between the U.S. and impotent Europe. They simply can't sit back and say 'job well done' because that means another four years of Bush, guaranteed.
Now that we see the cost of the battle, that this won't be a cakewalk to election day here or in Iraq, they are trying to say that the effort is doomed, specifically because we shouldn't have done it in the first place. That even fighting the war was a mistake, and this is the natural result. If they admitted that the war was a necessity, what basis of criticism would they have? You can see how well Kerry is faring when trying to make that claim, he's coming off as a complete chowderhead, with no apparent semblence between his statements on the matter yesterday and today. If all of the critics of the war took the same stance, without the spin doctors of the DNC to back them up, they'd be laughed out of the room. They MUST criticize the war as a whole, as a concept...and since that doesn't really make sense anymore, they're just using the Bait & Switch to try and fool Ma & Pa Kettle in flyover country that this isn't the evidence of WMD's they're looking for...move along...
Well, we aren't weak minded enough to fall for that Jedi mind trick out here in the Blogosphere. As long as the Internet remains free, we'll remain here, steadfast and ready to unleash the full fury of the truth upon all those who stand to oppose it. Besides, what else are we going to write on here...'Alias' episode guides?
Who Is On Your Side - Addendum
This is a great compendium of stories detailing the liberal, free speech oriented, political discourse loving left and their increased terror tactics on any who disagree with them.
The question still stands, liberals: who is on your side?
The question still stands, liberals: who is on your side?
Friday, September 17, 2004
Bait And Switch
A common tactic you can see througout the mainstream media (MSM) is what I'll call the 'bait and switch' tactic. You'll see a headline that clearly states the gist of the story, then find upon reading it that the headline actually only covers one small facet of the story and ignores the rest of the details, even when they completely counteract the suggestion imparted by the headline. My story about the AP and their initial coverage of Memogate is an example of this to the extreme, it's usually more subtle.
Take, for example, this article. This originated with the AP, but the headline has been repeated everywhere from myway.com to Drudge. 'U.S. Weapons Inspector: Iraq Had No WMD!' the headline screams. From that headline, one is clearly lead to believe that the report found no evidence of WMD's in Iraq. If you believe that, you'd be wrong. Abandoning the headline for the truth, the article clears up the matter by the second paragraph of the story.
'In a 1,500-page report, the head of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, will find Saddam was importing banned materials, working on unmanned aerial vehicles in violation of U.N. agreements and maintaining a dual-use industrial sector that could produce weapons.
Um, I really hate to break it to the fine, unbiased folks at the Associated Press, but THAT MEANS SADDAM HAD WMD'S!!! It all adds up to the same conclusion! If he had the material to make them, was doing the research to create them, had the facilities to make them, and clearly had the intent to make them as soon as the UN stopped looking, then every single thing that everyone from the President on down has said is true. He was a threat, via WMD's, to the free world and his own people. Just because he didn't have a stockpile up and ready to use (which I do not believe, I believe we should be checking under Syria's beds for those) does not mean that he was complying with the UN sanctions. This report clearly shows that he was not, and was in open defiance of it, continuing to pursue methods of mass destruction.
This CNN report gets in on the same act. While the headline claims 'Intelligence report: Iraq prospects bleak', you only have to read a little of the story to note a very important fact about the nature of the report:
'But the official noted that the document, which spans roughly 50 pages, draws on intelligence community assessments from January 2003, before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and the subsequent deteriorating security situation there.'
Ah, so those prospects are mighty bleak...well, at least they were almost two years ago! This report was based on theories of what might happen in Iraq offered up before we even set a foot into the place. What would these same intelligence wonks have to say about it now? Well, the story doesn't say, it just quotes a bunch of politicians who say various negative things about the current state of the matter, not adding any real substance based on this report that garnered such an alarmist headline.
So, my friends, as you wade through your daily paper or your morning websites, bear in mind that the front page is just as susceptible to bait and switch tactics as the advertising section.
Take, for example, this article. This originated with the AP, but the headline has been repeated everywhere from myway.com to Drudge. 'U.S. Weapons Inspector: Iraq Had No WMD!' the headline screams. From that headline, one is clearly lead to believe that the report found no evidence of WMD's in Iraq. If you believe that, you'd be wrong. Abandoning the headline for the truth, the article clears up the matter by the second paragraph of the story.
'In a 1,500-page report, the head of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, will find Saddam was importing banned materials, working on unmanned aerial vehicles in violation of U.N. agreements and maintaining a dual-use industrial sector that could produce weapons.
Duelfer also says Iraq only had small research and development programs for chemical and biological weapons.
As Duelfer puts the finishing touches on his report, he concludes Saddam had intentions of restarting weapons programs at some point, after suspicion and inspections from the international community waned.'
Quite a difference from the outcome suggested by the headline. They didn't find actual WMD's, but they found that Saddam was importing banned materials, working on UAV's, maintaining industrial areas that could produce weapons, had small research and development programs for chemical and biological WMD's, and they conclude that he had intentions of restarting the programs as soon as international scrutiny waned.Um, I really hate to break it to the fine, unbiased folks at the Associated Press, but THAT MEANS SADDAM HAD WMD'S!!! It all adds up to the same conclusion! If he had the material to make them, was doing the research to create them, had the facilities to make them, and clearly had the intent to make them as soon as the UN stopped looking, then every single thing that everyone from the President on down has said is true. He was a threat, via WMD's, to the free world and his own people. Just because he didn't have a stockpile up and ready to use (which I do not believe, I believe we should be checking under Syria's beds for those) does not mean that he was complying with the UN sanctions. This report clearly shows that he was not, and was in open defiance of it, continuing to pursue methods of mass destruction.
This CNN report gets in on the same act. While the headline claims 'Intelligence report: Iraq prospects bleak', you only have to read a little of the story to note a very important fact about the nature of the report:
'But the official noted that the document, which spans roughly 50 pages, draws on intelligence community assessments from January 2003, before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and the subsequent deteriorating security situation there.'
Ah, so those prospects are mighty bleak...well, at least they were almost two years ago! This report was based on theories of what might happen in Iraq offered up before we even set a foot into the place. What would these same intelligence wonks have to say about it now? Well, the story doesn't say, it just quotes a bunch of politicians who say various negative things about the current state of the matter, not adding any real substance based on this report that garnered such an alarmist headline.
So, my friends, as you wade through your daily paper or your morning websites, bear in mind that the front page is just as susceptible to bait and switch tactics as the advertising section.
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Six Degrees of Dan Rather
Ever play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? It's a little parlor game where one person names an actor and the other has to connect them to Kevin Bacon in six steps or less. I've always been a whiz at this one, and that skill has come in handy: I believe I've found the smoking gun connecting Rather to the Democrats and the Democrats to Burkett. If this proves to be correct, it will provide the breadcrumb trail of just how Memogate was perpetrated.
Let's start here: Dan Rather participated in a fundraiser for Travis County Democrats, partly on behalf of his daughter who hoped to have a future in Travis County politics. This isn't new, he did this in 2001 and has a long history of involvement with Travis County/Austin Texas politics as a Democrat.
Now, we have Bill Burkett, disgruntled former National Guardsman from Texas who is the likely source of the forged memos. They have been tracked to a Kinko's in the Abilene area, very close to Burkett's residence.
Note in that last story the name of Burkett's lawyer: David Van Os. Van Os is a candidate for Texas State Supreme Court and a longtime Democratic Party operator. This, in and of itself, is a big issue. We've effectively tracked a link between the docs and a Democratic Party operative. Here's where it gets interesting, and we complete the loop right back to Dan Rather's door.
This is the resume of David Van Os, from his campaign site. Notice down in the 'Political & Community Activities, Positions, & Honors' section, there's an entry that should look a little familiar. While he now operates out of the Abilene area, he got his start in Travis County. For over 20 years he held leadership positions in the Democratic Party of Travis County...the very same county and party where Rather broke his network's rules and did a fundraiser, the very same county and party where Dan's daughter, Robin, has political aspirations.
There you have it. A major power player in Texas Democratic politics who has ties to Rather and Burkett and certainly has a motive to strike a blow to the Bush campaign. Motive, opportunity, evidence. If it were a criminal case, I'd be ready for a jury. Hell...it didn't even take me six steps.
Let's start here: Dan Rather participated in a fundraiser for Travis County Democrats, partly on behalf of his daughter who hoped to have a future in Travis County politics. This isn't new, he did this in 2001 and has a long history of involvement with Travis County/Austin Texas politics as a Democrat.
Now, we have Bill Burkett, disgruntled former National Guardsman from Texas who is the likely source of the forged memos. They have been tracked to a Kinko's in the Abilene area, very close to Burkett's residence.
Note in that last story the name of Burkett's lawyer: David Van Os. Van Os is a candidate for Texas State Supreme Court and a longtime Democratic Party operator. This, in and of itself, is a big issue. We've effectively tracked a link between the docs and a Democratic Party operative. Here's where it gets interesting, and we complete the loop right back to Dan Rather's door.
This is the resume of David Van Os, from his campaign site. Notice down in the 'Political & Community Activities, Positions, & Honors' section, there's an entry that should look a little familiar. While he now operates out of the Abilene area, he got his start in Travis County. For over 20 years he held leadership positions in the Democratic Party of Travis County...the very same county and party where Rather broke his network's rules and did a fundraiser, the very same county and party where Dan's daughter, Robin, has political aspirations.
There you have it. A major power player in Texas Democratic politics who has ties to Rather and Burkett and certainly has a motive to strike a blow to the Bush campaign. Motive, opportunity, evidence. If it were a criminal case, I'd be ready for a jury. Hell...it didn't even take me six steps.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Dan Rather's Fantasy World
As Memogate/Rathergate heats up, it's entertaining to watch good old Texas Dan dance around the gigantic pink elephant in his living room as if it didn't exist. This story from the New York Observer is the best I've seen so far when it comes to demonstrating Rather's complete rejection of reality. The man is living in another dimension. He's always been a little nutty, but if he believes half this stuff then he's finally gone around the bend for good. This is a long one, but I just can't pass up this opportunity to examine Rather. It's just fascinating to watch a man's complete psychological breakdown. Let's take a look at some of the highlights.
As the headline of the story reads, the story begins with Rather's exortation to the president to 'Answer the questions.' He suggests, with no small amount of arrogance, that their campaign would be better off if they did. He elaborates that a lack of an official denial is somehow proof that the allegations are true.
"It’s never been fully, completely denied by the Bush-Cheney campaign or even the White House that he was suspended for meeting the standards of the Air Force or that he didn’t show up for a physical," he said. "The longer we go without a denial of such things—this story is true."
First of all, the president has BEEN denying these charges for over eight years. They came up in his gubernatorial campaign in Texas and then again in his first presidential campaign. He has said, time and again, that he completed his duty and is proud of his service. That is the answer, Mr. Rather. That is the denial. Of course, that isn't what Dan wants. What Dan wants is a direct point by point set of evidence proving that the president is telling the truth. He summarizes it as a simple 'deny it' but if that's all he wanted, he'd already be satisfied.
What's more, how exactly do you deny questions raised from false, bogus sources? I wonder if Rather would have such tenacity if someone asked him to prove that he'd never cheated on an exam in college? It's no more reasonible for Rather to ask the president to prove that he didn't disobey an order, considering the extent of record keeping over 30 years ago in the Texas Air National Guard. Indeed, this becomes a spinoff of the old courtroom trick: 'How long has it been since you stopped beating your wife?'
Rather continues his jaunt into fantasy land by taking a play from Hillary's playbook: it's a vast right-wing conspiracy to obfuscate the truth by questioning the documents!
"I think the public, even decent people who may be well-disposed toward President Bush, understand that powerful and extremely well-financed forces are concentrating on questions about the documents because they can’t deny the fundamental truth of the story," he said. "If you can’t deny the information, then attack and seek to destroy the credibility of the messenger, the bearer of the information. And in this case, it’s change the subject from the truth of the information to the truth of the documents. "This is your basic fogging machine, which is set up to cloud the issue, to obscure the truth," he said.
Dan, we're not seeking to destroy the credibility of the messenger. You've done a wonderful job of that, we wouldn't want to interfere. We're refuting the SOURCE of the information, not the bearer of it! While one should always take the source of condemning information in mind when reviewing the information, that isn't the issue here. If clearly, provably real memos had been brought forward and we sought to ignore them due to the source of the revelation (currently rumored to be MoveOn.Org) then he'd have a point. The source of the information, in this case, only provides us with the individual to arrest and charge with the various crimes associated with trying to sway a public election using fraudulent military documents. The documents themselves are the question, Mr. Rather, not the source.
But wait, it gets better. We're deep inside Neverneverland, Wonderland, or whatever fantasy world Rather inhabits when he suggests that he and his producer, Mary Mapes, have been trying to get these files for FIVE YEARS! That would put it back to when Bush was just beginning his first campaign in the primaries, such is the apparent foresight and wisdom of Dan and Co. I'm sorry, but you'd have to be an utter fool to believe that the Democrats, MoveOn.org, the Kerry campaign, AND the mainstream media had no clue that these existed for the last five years and only the unstoppable journalist team of Rather and Mapes was able to cajole the source into forking over the goods. It's simply absurd.
After writer Joe Hagan gives Rather ample opportunity to suggest these intellectually invalid arguments, he finally gets around to inquiring about the papers themselves. Dan's responses show an absolute disconnect with reality. Here's his opening salvo on the issue of forgery.
Mr. Rather said that it would require an exceptional amount of knowledge to craft a forgery—and not just the typographical kind. "You’d have to have an in-depth knowledge of Air Force manuals from 1971," he said. "You’d have to have Bush’s service record, you’d have to have the Air Force regulations from 1971, you’d have to know nearly all of the people involved directly at that time, including the squadron commander, who was Bush’s immediate superior, and his attitude at the time—you’d have to know all those things and weave all those things in."
He's absolutely right, and it's clear that the person who forged these documents didn't have an ounce of that knowledge. I can't believe he's actually refuting the accusation that they're bad forgeries by claiming that one would have to be a master forger to create these documents! The entire BASIS of the accusations is that they're very poor forgeries, full of both technical impossibilities as well as errors in jargon, context, and format. You're right, Dan, it would take someone who really knew what he was doing to forge these. The person who tried to do it in this instance apparently didn't know much about his subject, thanks for pointing that out.
But despite a number of experts calling the memos forgeries, he said that "the truth of these documents lies in the signatures and in the content, not just the typeface and the font-style. Let me emphasize once again, these are not exact sciences. Not like DNA or fingerprints."
I'm guessing Rather has been watching CBS's biggest hit, CSI, and now believes he's Gil Grissom. No, Dan, I'm sorry, they ARE exact sciences. In fact, from the little I know about them I'd say they're equal to or MORE exact than fingerprinting. The amount of knowledge one can gain from examining a historical document is vast, considering the accusations we've seen so far. He's suggesting that the signatures (which have not been verified and have several inconsistencies) and the content (also full of holes) somehow exonerate an otherwise completely bogus set of documents.
"In terms of the experts, you’re going to find an equal number of experts on the authenticity arguments," he said. "I don’t think that’s going to resolve the argument. The core truth of the reporting, I think it’s already clear that it’s true. And I think as time goes along, it will become even more apparent."
There are an equal number of experts who think they're authentic? WHO, Mr. Rather, WHO? Give us names! Bring them out for questioning! Every expert you've referred to in your reporting so far has either refused to be named or has since refuted the accuracy of the documents! Here, Rather is intentionally living in a state of denial. No one has yet to even find one partisan 'expert' that they could parade out and claim the docs are real, but he thinks it's 50/50.
He's then confronted with the street address given for the president on the documents...an address he had moved from the year before the documents were supposedly created. Hagan also asks him about the fact that the signatures are different from the way Killian always signed official documents.
"Both of the allegations are wrong," he said. "I feel confident in saying that." But when asked to offer a specific rebuttal to the observation about the address, Mr. Rather didn’t have one, saying only: "It’s our position, and I believe we demonstrated it …. The address doesn’t match the Bush service time frame—that’s their basic allegation? We think that’s wrong. We took a look at this, and we just think they’re wrong about it."
Ladies and gentleman, you're watching one of the most esteemed reporters in the history of televised journalism stick his fingers in his ears and go LA LA LA LA LA LA LA NOT LISTENING like a four-year-old who's been told it's his bedtime. Can you believe the arrogance and denial involved here? The man is claiming that the president lied about what STREET he lived on over 30 years ago! Man, he's a crafty one, that Dubya, knowing that he should lie about his move so that he could eventually prove damning documents about his service to be forgeries when they were really authentic. I bet he came up with that plan the same day he delivered the magical typewriter to Maj. Killian that prints documents that look identical to Microsoft Word docs and convinced Killian to sign any documents he wrote about Bush in a new double-secret signature so they'd be hard to trace back to him.
If there's one comfort here, it's knowing that whatever mystical imaginary world Dan occupies, it's likely a happy, pretty place. He probably spends his days frolicking through fresh heather and daffodils with his friends the leprechauns and the prankish tree fairies. Back here in the real world, we can only sit back and feel satisfied that he's probably happy there...and if this issue keeps going the way it has been, he may soon have plenty of free time to spend there with his little forest pals.
As the headline of the story reads, the story begins with Rather's exortation to the president to 'Answer the questions.' He suggests, with no small amount of arrogance, that their campaign would be better off if they did. He elaborates that a lack of an official denial is somehow proof that the allegations are true.
"It’s never been fully, completely denied by the Bush-Cheney campaign or even the White House that he was suspended for meeting the standards of the Air Force or that he didn’t show up for a physical," he said. "The longer we go without a denial of such things—this story is true."
First of all, the president has BEEN denying these charges for over eight years. They came up in his gubernatorial campaign in Texas and then again in his first presidential campaign. He has said, time and again, that he completed his duty and is proud of his service. That is the answer, Mr. Rather. That is the denial. Of course, that isn't what Dan wants. What Dan wants is a direct point by point set of evidence proving that the president is telling the truth. He summarizes it as a simple 'deny it' but if that's all he wanted, he'd already be satisfied.
What's more, how exactly do you deny questions raised from false, bogus sources? I wonder if Rather would have such tenacity if someone asked him to prove that he'd never cheated on an exam in college? It's no more reasonible for Rather to ask the president to prove that he didn't disobey an order, considering the extent of record keeping over 30 years ago in the Texas Air National Guard. Indeed, this becomes a spinoff of the old courtroom trick: 'How long has it been since you stopped beating your wife?'
Rather continues his jaunt into fantasy land by taking a play from Hillary's playbook: it's a vast right-wing conspiracy to obfuscate the truth by questioning the documents!
"I think the public, even decent people who may be well-disposed toward President Bush, understand that powerful and extremely well-financed forces are concentrating on questions about the documents because they can’t deny the fundamental truth of the story," he said. "If you can’t deny the information, then attack and seek to destroy the credibility of the messenger, the bearer of the information. And in this case, it’s change the subject from the truth of the information to the truth of the documents. "This is your basic fogging machine, which is set up to cloud the issue, to obscure the truth," he said.
Dan, we're not seeking to destroy the credibility of the messenger. You've done a wonderful job of that, we wouldn't want to interfere. We're refuting the SOURCE of the information, not the bearer of it! While one should always take the source of condemning information in mind when reviewing the information, that isn't the issue here. If clearly, provably real memos had been brought forward and we sought to ignore them due to the source of the revelation (currently rumored to be MoveOn.Org) then he'd have a point. The source of the information, in this case, only provides us with the individual to arrest and charge with the various crimes associated with trying to sway a public election using fraudulent military documents. The documents themselves are the question, Mr. Rather, not the source.
But wait, it gets better. We're deep inside Neverneverland, Wonderland, or whatever fantasy world Rather inhabits when he suggests that he and his producer, Mary Mapes, have been trying to get these files for FIVE YEARS! That would put it back to when Bush was just beginning his first campaign in the primaries, such is the apparent foresight and wisdom of Dan and Co. I'm sorry, but you'd have to be an utter fool to believe that the Democrats, MoveOn.org, the Kerry campaign, AND the mainstream media had no clue that these existed for the last five years and only the unstoppable journalist team of Rather and Mapes was able to cajole the source into forking over the goods. It's simply absurd.
After writer Joe Hagan gives Rather ample opportunity to suggest these intellectually invalid arguments, he finally gets around to inquiring about the papers themselves. Dan's responses show an absolute disconnect with reality. Here's his opening salvo on the issue of forgery.
Mr. Rather said that it would require an exceptional amount of knowledge to craft a forgery—and not just the typographical kind. "You’d have to have an in-depth knowledge of Air Force manuals from 1971," he said. "You’d have to have Bush’s service record, you’d have to have the Air Force regulations from 1971, you’d have to know nearly all of the people involved directly at that time, including the squadron commander, who was Bush’s immediate superior, and his attitude at the time—you’d have to know all those things and weave all those things in."
He's absolutely right, and it's clear that the person who forged these documents didn't have an ounce of that knowledge. I can't believe he's actually refuting the accusation that they're bad forgeries by claiming that one would have to be a master forger to create these documents! The entire BASIS of the accusations is that they're very poor forgeries, full of both technical impossibilities as well as errors in jargon, context, and format. You're right, Dan, it would take someone who really knew what he was doing to forge these. The person who tried to do it in this instance apparently didn't know much about his subject, thanks for pointing that out.
But despite a number of experts calling the memos forgeries, he said that "the truth of these documents lies in the signatures and in the content, not just the typeface and the font-style. Let me emphasize once again, these are not exact sciences. Not like DNA or fingerprints."
I'm guessing Rather has been watching CBS's biggest hit, CSI, and now believes he's Gil Grissom. No, Dan, I'm sorry, they ARE exact sciences. In fact, from the little I know about them I'd say they're equal to or MORE exact than fingerprinting. The amount of knowledge one can gain from examining a historical document is vast, considering the accusations we've seen so far. He's suggesting that the signatures (which have not been verified and have several inconsistencies) and the content (also full of holes) somehow exonerate an otherwise completely bogus set of documents.
"In terms of the experts, you’re going to find an equal number of experts on the authenticity arguments," he said. "I don’t think that’s going to resolve the argument. The core truth of the reporting, I think it’s already clear that it’s true. And I think as time goes along, it will become even more apparent."
There are an equal number of experts who think they're authentic? WHO, Mr. Rather, WHO? Give us names! Bring them out for questioning! Every expert you've referred to in your reporting so far has either refused to be named or has since refuted the accuracy of the documents! Here, Rather is intentionally living in a state of denial. No one has yet to even find one partisan 'expert' that they could parade out and claim the docs are real, but he thinks it's 50/50.
He's then confronted with the street address given for the president on the documents...an address he had moved from the year before the documents were supposedly created. Hagan also asks him about the fact that the signatures are different from the way Killian always signed official documents.
"Both of the allegations are wrong," he said. "I feel confident in saying that." But when asked to offer a specific rebuttal to the observation about the address, Mr. Rather didn’t have one, saying only: "It’s our position, and I believe we demonstrated it …. The address doesn’t match the Bush service time frame—that’s their basic allegation? We think that’s wrong. We took a look at this, and we just think they’re wrong about it."
Ladies and gentleman, you're watching one of the most esteemed reporters in the history of televised journalism stick his fingers in his ears and go LA LA LA LA LA LA LA NOT LISTENING like a four-year-old who's been told it's his bedtime. Can you believe the arrogance and denial involved here? The man is claiming that the president lied about what STREET he lived on over 30 years ago! Man, he's a crafty one, that Dubya, knowing that he should lie about his move so that he could eventually prove damning documents about his service to be forgeries when they were really authentic. I bet he came up with that plan the same day he delivered the magical typewriter to Maj. Killian that prints documents that look identical to Microsoft Word docs and convinced Killian to sign any documents he wrote about Bush in a new double-secret signature so they'd be hard to trace back to him.
If there's one comfort here, it's knowing that whatever mystical imaginary world Dan occupies, it's likely a happy, pretty place. He probably spends his days frolicking through fresh heather and daffodils with his friends the leprechauns and the prankish tree fairies. Back here in the real world, we can only sit back and feel satisfied that he's probably happy there...and if this issue keeps going the way it has been, he may soon have plenty of free time to spend there with his little forest pals.
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Remembering September 11th
Some of you may notice that I didn't write a piece regarding the 3rd anniversary of 9/11. From what I saw, virtually every other blogger, conservative or not, put something up yesterday. You might be thinking that I didn't post anything because I forgot.
Honestly, yesterday was a busy day. Ran some errands, had some Taco Bell for lunch, played a lot of video games. I intentionally chose not to write anything in regards to 9/11.
Why? There is more to this than remembering the victims. I remember them and I always will. I also remember the purpose behind the attack. That purpose was to instill fear, to disrupt the lives and commerce of every American, to damage us as a whole.
I remember that purpose, and I stand in defiance of it. I have mourned the victims of 9/11. I will never forget what happened on that day, who did it to us, and why. However, I refuse to allow it to divert me from whatever tasks I have on that day. I refuse to let the animals behind the attacks sway me from my daily life. I refuse to be afraid. Every time an American acts in fear because of the acts of 9/11, a small portion of victory is given to those who perpetrated those acts.
So yes, I remembered the victims yesterday. If I had a flag, I would have flown it at half-staff per the President's instructions for Patriot Day. Beyond that, I refuse to allow those behind the attacks to move me. I remembered the attacks in the perfect way: by going on with my life, if a bit wiser and sadder, and refusing to live in fear. I encourage you to do the same.
Most say you should never forget. I agree: never, ever forget. But do not be afraid, do not give them the small victory of even one day a year where you avoid your normal daily activities due to what happened on that fateful day. Live, love, eat, laugh, buy, sell...engage in all the things that make America great. THAT is the best way to remember and honor those who lost their lives and that is the best way to strike back at the monsters who took them from us. Continue to be American and free, and live the American dream!
Honestly, yesterday was a busy day. Ran some errands, had some Taco Bell for lunch, played a lot of video games. I intentionally chose not to write anything in regards to 9/11.
Why? There is more to this than remembering the victims. I remember them and I always will. I also remember the purpose behind the attack. That purpose was to instill fear, to disrupt the lives and commerce of every American, to damage us as a whole.
I remember that purpose, and I stand in defiance of it. I have mourned the victims of 9/11. I will never forget what happened on that day, who did it to us, and why. However, I refuse to allow it to divert me from whatever tasks I have on that day. I refuse to let the animals behind the attacks sway me from my daily life. I refuse to be afraid. Every time an American acts in fear because of the acts of 9/11, a small portion of victory is given to those who perpetrated those acts.
So yes, I remembered the victims yesterday. If I had a flag, I would have flown it at half-staff per the President's instructions for Patriot Day. Beyond that, I refuse to allow those behind the attacks to move me. I remembered the attacks in the perfect way: by going on with my life, if a bit wiser and sadder, and refusing to live in fear. I encourage you to do the same.
Most say you should never forget. I agree: never, ever forget. But do not be afraid, do not give them the small victory of even one day a year where you avoid your normal daily activities due to what happened on that fateful day. Live, love, eat, laugh, buy, sell...engage in all the things that make America great. THAT is the best way to remember and honor those who lost their lives and that is the best way to strike back at the monsters who took them from us. Continue to be American and free, and live the American dream!
Friday, September 10, 2004
Cheney is out of touch? Edwards should check eBay!
Taking a break from the tumult surrounding the forged CBS documents, I have to comment about this story that made the rounds yesterday regarding some comments Vice President Cheney made.
In his comments, he points out that we currently don't capture sales made on eBay as part of the overall economic outlook. Edwards was quick to chime in on how 'out of touch' Cheney is and made a crack that bake sales should be included as well.
On the contrary, this shows how completely out of touch Edwards is. Has he ever been on eBay? Since the dot.com bust, I know at least three or four people personally who make their living selling stuff on eBay. Check out how many 'eBay Stores' there are now. On top of the stores, there are hundreds of thousands of dedicated sellers who use the site's basic auctions to sell their goods. Some are small businesses that branched out to eBay while others started selling on eBay and turned it into a small business. Considering that my girlfriend and I are trying to get an eBay business going, I'd just like to tell Senator Edwards that he can stick to his bake sales and forget about pretending to represent anyone but rich white trial lawyers. He clearly doesn't know what he's talking about.
When we have unemployment figures that can be affected by a shift of 500,000 people, then eBay is absolutely a factor we should be capturing. By ignoring it, we're ignoring thousands of small businesses. They just happen to be conducting business without a license and, in many cases, without paying taxes.
...
On second thought, maybe we shouldn't have government paying attention to eBay. Once Democrats like Edwards figure out that Cheney is right, they'll swoop in and squash the free trade by imposing taxes and Federal regulations on eBay sales!
In his comments, he points out that we currently don't capture sales made on eBay as part of the overall economic outlook. Edwards was quick to chime in on how 'out of touch' Cheney is and made a crack that bake sales should be included as well.
On the contrary, this shows how completely out of touch Edwards is. Has he ever been on eBay? Since the dot.com bust, I know at least three or four people personally who make their living selling stuff on eBay. Check out how many 'eBay Stores' there are now. On top of the stores, there are hundreds of thousands of dedicated sellers who use the site's basic auctions to sell their goods. Some are small businesses that branched out to eBay while others started selling on eBay and turned it into a small business. Considering that my girlfriend and I are trying to get an eBay business going, I'd just like to tell Senator Edwards that he can stick to his bake sales and forget about pretending to represent anyone but rich white trial lawyers. He clearly doesn't know what he's talking about.
When we have unemployment figures that can be affected by a shift of 500,000 people, then eBay is absolutely a factor we should be capturing. By ignoring it, we're ignoring thousands of small businesses. They just happen to be conducting business without a license and, in many cases, without paying taxes.
...
On second thought, maybe we shouldn't have government paying attention to eBay. Once Democrats like Edwards figure out that Cheney is right, they'll swoop in and squash the free trade by imposing taxes and Federal regulations on eBay sales!
The AP Is Hot On The Story!
I just love this link. This story should be taught in college journalism classes as a perfect example of using extreme spin to cover up a story that the reporter's personal politics can't handle. This is just classic Associated Press spin.
We've all seen, by now, the stories of these new records of Dubya's Air National Guard service supposedly found among personal records of Major Jerry Killian, one of his superiors. It's hard not to hear about them, considering most sites have been running them as headlines for the last week and 60 Minutes did a major 'expose' of them on their show Wednesday night.
One little problem: the records are fakes. Outright forgeries. As detailed here, they aren't even GOOD fakes. 60 Minutes just spent network TV time committing fraud against the President of the United States using forged military documents. Why didn't this make the news? Oh, it has! In the story linked above, in fact!
You'll notice that the headline isn't '60 Minutes Slanders President' or 'CBS Uses Forged Documents For Story', it's 'Bush Piloted Guard Trainers Before He Quit'.
The first four miniscule paragraphs of this non-story make it clear: Bush spent quite a lot of time in trainers as opposed to actual aircraft. Why, he even needed two passes to land his plane on two different occasions! Shocking, horrifying, scandalous accusations, of course.
The piece gets interesting around paragraph five, where they bring up in an offhanded sort of way that those memos everyone's up in arms about just might be fakes. They then proceed to discuss this for over a full page of text...but the headline talks about Bush and his trainers!
Man, you have just got to love the stench of desperation here. Both the media and the Democrats absolutely reek of it like a wino on his fourth day of a three-day binge. Considering that CBS got those memos from someone, I'm more than willing to bet that they came from the Kerry campaign. Who else would bother? Who else would care?
I suggest that this makes Watergate look like a minor social faux pas. This is a felony, possibly a series of felonies, and I'm quite sure it could be traced back to a certain French-looking Senator or his campaign. Will the media hold CBS to the fire? Will CBS roll on the source of the docs if the proof that they're fakes rises to the top of the news by sheer force of outrage on the part of the conservative Internet? Eh, doubtful.
My initial prediction still stands, however: the Kerry campaign will implode before election day, mark my words. You cannot have someone as singularly egotistical and self-centered as Kerry in a position where humility and the ability to take attacks is required. This guy gets angry over having to stand in line to rent snowboards (as recounted in the infamous Dave Barry piece) so he won't last ten seconds in the debates. It's only a matter of time. These forged documents just might be the fuse that lights the big bang. We can only hope it happens soon, it's going to be one hell of a good show.
We've all seen, by now, the stories of these new records of Dubya's Air National Guard service supposedly found among personal records of Major Jerry Killian, one of his superiors. It's hard not to hear about them, considering most sites have been running them as headlines for the last week and 60 Minutes did a major 'expose' of them on their show Wednesday night.
One little problem: the records are fakes. Outright forgeries. As detailed here, they aren't even GOOD fakes. 60 Minutes just spent network TV time committing fraud against the President of the United States using forged military documents. Why didn't this make the news? Oh, it has! In the story linked above, in fact!
You'll notice that the headline isn't '60 Minutes Slanders President' or 'CBS Uses Forged Documents For Story', it's 'Bush Piloted Guard Trainers Before He Quit'.
The first four miniscule paragraphs of this non-story make it clear: Bush spent quite a lot of time in trainers as opposed to actual aircraft. Why, he even needed two passes to land his plane on two different occasions! Shocking, horrifying, scandalous accusations, of course.
The piece gets interesting around paragraph five, where they bring up in an offhanded sort of way that those memos everyone's up in arms about just might be fakes. They then proceed to discuss this for over a full page of text...but the headline talks about Bush and his trainers!
Man, you have just got to love the stench of desperation here. Both the media and the Democrats absolutely reek of it like a wino on his fourth day of a three-day binge. Considering that CBS got those memos from someone, I'm more than willing to bet that they came from the Kerry campaign. Who else would bother? Who else would care?
I suggest that this makes Watergate look like a minor social faux pas. This is a felony, possibly a series of felonies, and I'm quite sure it could be traced back to a certain French-looking Senator or his campaign. Will the media hold CBS to the fire? Will CBS roll on the source of the docs if the proof that they're fakes rises to the top of the news by sheer force of outrage on the part of the conservative Internet? Eh, doubtful.
My initial prediction still stands, however: the Kerry campaign will implode before election day, mark my words. You cannot have someone as singularly egotistical and self-centered as Kerry in a position where humility and the ability to take attacks is required. This guy gets angry over having to stand in line to rent snowboards (as recounted in the infamous Dave Barry piece) so he won't last ten seconds in the debates. It's only a matter of time. These forged documents just might be the fuse that lights the big bang. We can only hope it happens soon, it's going to be one hell of a good show.
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