Yeah, we’re confused too
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Things to like aboot Canada
Water pressure. And lots of it. Did you know it only takes one flush to use a toilet here? What do we have to do to get this technology in the US?
Flight.
It is entirely too early to be awake. I’m about to shoehorn my large self in to an 18 seat prop plane to go to the great white north, eh.
Why I am going to do this willingly is beyond my ability to comprehend.
Bradley now has free wireless internet. This is a Good Thing.
Food, on the other hand…
Deficit - why the left has the wrong idea on how to solve it
I really ought to stop watching “The Cost of Freedom” block on Saturdays on Fox News. Granted, watching a bunch of Wall Street types try to intelligently discuss tax policy is amusing, but please.
To wit - the Estate Tax (death tax) is being discussed. One guy is arguing that people shouldn’t be allowed to get a head start because their parents did well. Let’s play the old “class envy” card, shall we? If that’s the case, then we should say the same of political dynasties, shouldn’t we? I mean, should Ted Kennedy really have gotten into the Senate? Absent his inherited wealth and his inherited fame, he really has nothing to recommend him for service, does he? Life is unfair. Get over it.
Another is arguing that government has made promises that it cannot afford to keep. Well, the solution seems obvious, doesn’t it? I’ve gone into debt up to my eyeballs, I think I’ll hold up my customers for a 50% rate increase. Oh, wait - they’ll just go somewhere else. Government has one advantage I don’t — they can legally take your stuff, and threaten to kill you if you don’t give it up. What government needs to do is stop making promises it can’t keep.
And Ben Stein - no liberal he - has advocated for raising taxes on “the rich” to increase military salaries. I have no beef with raising the salaries of military personnel, especially those on active duty. In fact, when a soldier is deployed, his family should not have any need of welfare, food-stamps, or mommy working a job so that she can feed the kids. My problem is the assertion that the government should stick up overtaxed citizens once again to pay it. How about this idea instead: end all government subsidies to private businesses. And for all countries that we trade with that subsidise their industries? Import duties in the amount of their subsidies to level the field.
And this is why liberals piss me off. The answer to everything is “tax the rich”, and never “hey, maybe we ought to stop promising to steal from the sheriff to give to the peasants.”
I’m'a smack BP up side the head
BP ad: “What is global warming” - followed with several granola-eaters fretting that “it’s real, very real”, and then (complete with hand wringing) “the ice caps are melting, the glaciers are disappearing”, and another “we’re destroying the planet’s ability to heal itself”.
What fucking arrogance. Do you honestly think that we could destroy this planet if we WANTED to? We can’t. It’s entirely too large for us to have that kind of impact.
And what’s BP’s solution? Using hydrogen to generate electricity - which they claim will reduce carbon emissions by 90%. I’ll take Bad Ideas for 500, Alex.
Alex: “Nearly twice as much as you get back.”
Me: “What is the amount of energy required to produce hydrogen?”
Alex: “That’s correct.”
Let’s see - how do we get hydrogen? Two ways - electrolytic liberation, chemical liberation. Electrolytic - exactly what it says: electricity. Chemical - most methods produce by-products that are toxic.
And for every watt of energy you use to liberate hydrogen through electrolysis you can only get about 0.5 watts back out through either combustion or through a fuel cell. Where, precisely, do they think they are going to get all the electricity to generate this hydrogen? The only one that doesn’t produce carbon is nuclear, and wouldn’t it be more efficient to just put the nuke plant on the grid and be done with it?
Using enviroweenies to push the anthropogenic global-warming agenda to promote a bullshit technological agenda in an effort to increase your company’s market share is despicable. That people actually believe in and are actively promoting the use of tax money to research the “hydrogen economy” is far worse. That’s going to be an enormous gob of money thrown down the shit-hole for no benefit whatsoever.
Chickenhawk!
The battle cry of the anti-war left. The implication is, of course, that if you’re so gung-ho about Chimpy McHitlerburton’s Iraq Escapade then why don’t you sign up and go die like a fool?
The purpose of the retort is to remove any legitimacy from the point being made: specifically that the war in Iraq in the context of normalizing the Middle East must be fought. Their argument goes something along the lines of WHY DO THEY ALWAYS SEND THE POOR!? (as is bellowed in one popular modern song of nouveau-riche punk-metal rockers formerly from Eastern Europe).
I have many responses. The first of which is that I don’t buy the implication that lack of first-hand experience immediately disqualifies one from taking a position. I’ve never had an abortion. To the best of my knowledge, I lack the proper parts to even need one. Am I therefore precluded from having an opinion on the subject at hand?
Alternatively, if you on the anti-war left are so gung-ho against the military, then why don’t you ship your happy ass to Iraq, shove some dynamite up your ass, and self detonate?
Finally, even though I cannot serve in the military (age, condition and temperment all weigh heavily against me), I am supporting the war effort in a very real and direct way. I am a computer consultant by trade. My company’s purpose is to make sure that my customers remain productive. A good portion of my customers produce machinery that is used in the production, maintenance, or operation of military hardware. If my customers can’t make their stuff, then our military gets stuff late. A bit part, perhaps. But a supporting role nonetheless.
Call me chickenhawk if it makes you feel better. I have the comfort of knowing that we are at least attempting to drag the medieval Middle East kicking and screaming into modern times.
The answer
Cindy Sheehan: “Why did my son die?”
God: “Because.”
That’s really all there is to it. There is no “why” that you will either understand or accept. Your mind has been made up.
You want the Earth-realm answer to “Why?”
Here it is: A radicalized sect of Islam has delcared war on everyone. They cannot be appeased, bought off, contained, or ignored. They must be killed. When one civilization is confronted with another civilization that wants to kill it, we call that “war”. There are simple rules in war. Two of them are *:
- Young men die.
- Mothers can’t change rule number 1.
I know you want some simple answer that can be boiled down to money, or greed, or property. It’s not that simple. This is like the cold war. A war of concepts. Concepts with guns. Concepts that would kill you given the chance. The difference between these Concepts that the ones we fought in the cold war? These Concepts don’t care if they die trying.
There’s your answer Cindy. It’s been in front of your face for as long as you’ve asked the question. You simply haven’t the moral fortitude to accept the answer. And you haven’t the ability to accept that your son (God bless him) understood and was willing to stand up to those who would kill you for the simple crime of being.
* Apologies to Larry Gelbart
More stifling of dissent
Jonah Goldberg gets hate mail at The Corner.
Is it just me, or are the leftists showing themselves to be the anti-semites and racists that I’ve always known they were?
The first e-mail - if that’s not anti-semitic, I don’t know what is.
The second one - “not one twenty something American soldiers life is worth the freedom of the Iraqi people.” is either callous or racist. I don’t know which. Makes me wonder what this guy would have said in 1941. I imagine it would be something along the lines of “not one American boy’s life is worth the freedom of the English people.”
But what do I know, I’m just a neocon chickenhawk taking orders from the jooooooze.
On using the words of the enemy
Just to clear things up for all of you who don’t get the point.
“Israel out of Palestine” is NOT a moderate call for Israel to return to the pre-1967 borders and leave the West Bank and Gaza. Those are the words that Hamas uses when they speak of Palestine being a whole nation “from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterannean] sea”.
Why do you think nobody uses phrases like “Final Solution”?
Because you do not use the words of the enemy. Allowing the enemy to frame the terms of debate gives them a moral victory, and a propaganda victory.
If you use the words of the enemy without knowing their meaning, you can be forgiven, once. When you have been educated to the particluar meaning of a turn of phrase, and you continue to use it, then you are objectively supporting the goals of the enemy. If your first use of the phrase comes with the knowledge of its meaning, and/or in support of the enemy that utters it, then you have moved from merely objective support to outright sedition.