Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Anyone out there interested in winning some money?
I gotta warn you folks, some of these questions are tricky.
There are some music questions, too, so there’s that.
Same kind of trivia quiz, same rules, same prizes, different questions.
Y’all in?
Regarding The California Sales Tax Hike
I sure do have a lot to bitch about lately.
Dear California Politicians,
Whether you are Republican, Democrat, a member of the Green party, or an indepedent of some form of another, it’s safe to say that you’ve made me very mad with this latest proposed tax hike. I was reading the Los Angeles Times this morning and I read about the proposed sales tax increase to cover our $15.2 billion dollars budget problem. All in all, I’m not very happy about this. According to my calculations, I lose close to 50% percent of my paycheck to state and federal taxes. What are you, as politicians, doing with half of my money instead of paying back what has been spent already? Following along with that line of thinking, why do you keep spending money if the programs and handouts are not working? Why should a hard working person like myself be responsible for people who do not want to work, but are more than happy to stand around with their hand out and spend my hard-earned money? Not to discount the welfare state you have created, the various California programs are out of control. There are too many useless state employees (How many clerical workers do you need? Wouldn’t it be more cost effective to hire five good ones instead of fifty bad ones?). Our traffic is horrible. Our streets and freeways are horrible. You are spending money on the wrong things and not spending any on the right things.
Please consider this before you take any more of my money: stop spending money and try saving it. If it works for me, it’ll work for you.
Sincerely,
Helo Lunahtic
Drumwater’s Rants
http://www.drumwaster.com
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
I’m hearing lots of chatter
about the Olympics “Medal Count”, and how China is really cleaning up this time around.
However, I notice a pattern developing…
There are two kinds of Olympic sports, and this applies to both sets of Olympics, Summer and Winter.
There are objective events and subjective events.
The objective events are those where an objective standard can be applied to the outcome. Team X scored more points than Team Y. Athlete Q crossed the finish line before Athlete R did. Or threw the javelin farther or hit more of the pistol targets. Events like all of the swimming competitions, track and field, the archery and fencing competitions.
The subjective events are any that require the phrase “degree of difficulty” and have a bunch of judges from various countries deciding how well the athlete did, based on some hair’s-breadth difference between one teenager doing things to their body that make me cringe when I see them and another teenager doing exactly the same things, and the only time I can see a difference is when one teenager puts a foot just a little out of bounds, and the whole audience groans.
It is those subjective events - equestrian, figure skating, diving, gymnastics, etc. - where all of the judging scandals have arisen over the past few years, and each time, the only cure that they can come up with is to establish some sort of half-assed compromise in an attempt to appease pissed off athletes and world media that approaches an objective standard. “Eliminate the highest and lowest scores” (to eliminate ideological and nationalistic bias). “Eliminate the Perfect Ten” (to appease coaches who complained that their athlete is better than Olga Korbut ever was “and don’t you forget it!").
However, if you eliminate the subjective medals, I’d be willing to bet that the US manages to win more gold medals than China does. It is only in those subjective events that China’s medal count becomes so overwhelming, and to an extent that people are starting to notice, but they aren’t talking about it more than once. I hear a controversy pop up, a commentator will mention it during the event (almost in passing), and then the matter is dropped as though it had never occurred.
Any takers?
I saw this
over at Ace’s Place, and thoroughly enjoyed both the music and the visual display.
Yeah, it’s old, but I haven’t posted it before.
Enjoy.
What A Clip - video powered by Metacafe
The Olympics will be the end
... of the Communist Chinese Government. They just don’t know it yet.
In a little town in North Korea, a girl child is being born. This young baby girl is not the feeling of joy that she would be to most parents around the world, because she will be a burden to her parents for many years to come, without being able to care for her parents in their old age like a son would. The government she has been born into will be controlling her every move from the moment she first drew breath until either she quits breathing or the People get sick and tired of them.
That government so strictly controls every aspect of her life that she will never see a radio or television that has more than a single channel. (In fact, it is a capital offense in North Korea to own a radio or TV that has been altered to receive any other broadcasts than the Official Government station.) As a result, the Government gets to shape the narrative that she sees and hears. This young girl will be taught that North Korea won the Korean War fifty years ago. She will be taught that North Korea is a Worker’s Paradise where all is perfection and she should be grateful to eat tree bark soup and fried grass burgers while Glorious Leader has to struggle along on lobster tails and champagne.
The People believe this for one reason. They’ve never been told any different!
This brings us to Communist China. Richard Nixon went for the first time in modern history about a generation ago. Slowly, our capitalist system has infiltrated their Communist lifestyle, and with the absorption of Hong Kong a decade ago (and the capitalist system that the HK bankers insisted upon, lest they take their massive stores of wealth and walk away) the “poison pill” was swallowed in earnest.
Y’see, capitalism and communism are inherently antithetical to each other. Neither system can truly exist in the presence of the other, and any attempt to mix the two will always default to the capitalist side of the scale.
And I’ll tell you why…
Obama Tries to Sell Himself to Evangelicals
Will they not be satisfied with the actual Messiah and opt for the Obamessiah in spite of his politics?
I don’t really know what to think after the McCain/Obama debate with Rick Warren. As usual, we had Obama’s empty platitudes, but McCain was mostly on target. This was probably a slightly worse venue for Obama, given the fact that he thinks unwanted babies should be left on a shelf to die and most evangelicals, uh, slightly disagree.
Obama said he would limit abortions in the late stages of pregnancy if there are exceptions for the mother’s health. He said he knew that people who consider themselves pro-life will find his stance “inadequate.”
He said the government should do more to prevent unwanted pregnancies and to help struggling new mothers, such as providing needed resources to the poor, and better adoption services.
McCain expressed his anti-abortion stand simply and quickly, saying human rights begin the instant a human egg is fertilized. McCain, who adopted a daughter from Bangladesh, also called for making adoption easier.
The government should do more to prevent unwanted pregnancies? This from the guy who’s with the Party of Keeping Government out of the Bedroom. I’m sure he can point to the fantastic success of China’s government attempts to prevent pregnancy. Obama, of course, has referred to having children as being “punished”, so it’s not clear on what he means by “unwanted” pregnancy. Is that “all of them”, “most of them”, or what?
Ah well, “Government will solve all of your problems”, sayeth the Lord Obama.
Obama said America’s greatest moral failure is its insufficient help to the disadvantaged. He noted that the Bible quotes Jesus as saying “whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.” He said the maxim should apply to victims of poverty, sexism and racism.
Jesus didn’t say that we should use the coercive power of government to bring that about. He was quite clear that his was a spiritual message. The trouble with Obama is that he can’t tell God from Caesar and he is running for Caesar. I really can’t answer this better than Fred Thompson (God, how I wish it had been him on that stage and not McCain):
Christ didn’t tell us to go to the government and pass a bill to get some of these social problems dealt with. He told us to do it..
The government has its role, but we need to keep firmly in mind the role of the government, and the role of us as individuals and as Christians on the other.
Dead on. Come back to us, Fred!
Both men said marriage is a union between a man and a woman. Obama added that he supports civil unions for gay partners, which would give them rights such as hospital visits with one another. He said he opposed a constitutional ban on gay marriage, calling the matter a state issue.
Gay marriage is a state issue but abortion is not?
Here’s where McCain screwed up:
Warren asked each man to name a Supreme Court justice he would not have appointed…
McCain named the court’s four most liberal members: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens.
Guess which Justices upheld McCain-Feingold as Constitutional? If you guessed all four, you win! The conservative Justices said it was unconstitutional. Nitwit. Fred, I’m serious; come back!
I guess we can all feel somewhat liberated by the fact that no matter what happens, we’re screwed to some extent. I give McCain credit for playing to the venue well, but he isn’t picking up the evangelical voters that Obama can’t attract thanks to his extreme left-wing “values”. This is an unbelievable failure for a man with a solid pro-life record running against a man-child who doesn’t seem to believe that life begins at birth in Illinois.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
I want to know….
...how many of these medal winners that live and train in the United States?
The runners, the swimmers....how many of them live and train at American universities and then leave to compete in the country of their birth?
It is irritating the heck out of me. You people want to impress me? Train in your own backwards, Third World-country and then come and win the Olympic medal.
Boy, that’s irritating.
Another One Of My Dumb Theories
How do I keep coming up with these things?
I noticed that a lot of pretty women these days do not think they’re pretty because they don’t weight 65 pounds, or resemble a 14 year old boy. Here’s the sad thing about being a single guy: when women aren’t happy with their appearance, they aren’t going to go out on a date with you. Even if you turn up the charm and try to make her feel good, the peer pressure from the media and their ilk will tear the self esteem out of the woman. In other words, you can be as Rico Suave as you want, but it’s not going to go work.
I blame the media. Allow me to explain. If you look at the so-called supermodels and superhot chicks in magazine and on TV, they’re all thin, they have no boobs, they have no butts, and they look like 14 year old boys. I believe that is the new trend because the fashion and media industry is run by gay men who think 14 year old boys are hot.
So here is my note to women: You’re beautiful. Don’t listen to the media. If you have curves and some shape, that’s what guys are looking for. Straight men don’t want a women who looks like a 14 year old boy. That’s disgusting. We want hot women with features.
That’s my public service announcement of the day. Thank you, media, for screwing up everything once again.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Man Gets Life for DUI
It might as well be life for buggery.
I have negelcted blogging here for a minute an I intend to make up for it. Since we have some law enforcement officials here, I would like to get some convo started on this story.
WICHITA FALLS, Texas — A man with nine previous drunken driving convictions was sentenced to life in prison.
Kenneth Chris Oneal, 58, received the maximum sentence Thursday after jurors convicted him of driving while intoxicated-repetition, his 10th drunken-driving related offense.
The offense was a felony because he had at least two such convictions in the past, prosecutors said. He faced from 25 years to life in prison.
I am actually going to go out on a limb and say this is excessive punishment, even though I can understand why they would come to this extreme. I’m going to post a few more on this topic, but I wanted to know what you all think about the verdict? Is it fair to lock this man up for life for the crime of DUI?
So…so right
Drummie always gets a base hit with his posts.....which is why I started blogging here.
But what I want to do is to explain the ‘blah’-ish doldrums here.
I know my reasons.....work has been frustrating, the summer has been busy (with kids 10 and 9, you know the drill), and I’ve been writing columns about wrestling, politics, or both since 1998 or so.
So, I can say I’ve had other things on my mind except writing. But I’ve been watching the election, as my two last posts suggest. And there is an apathy that I readily admit is in the air around my keyboard.....and all the authors that post here.
And I think I can place it. I think I can.
It’s not really the POTUS campaign itself, but two main factors, which I will discuss at more length under the fold. These two factors have taken a lot of the air out of the sails of the columnists that post here....and maybe the commenters, too. But, one thing before I get to that.
The whole flame war with and at Lee’s site soured me to blogging. It is easy....so frackin’ easy....to get into an echo chamber when blogging. You don’t really feel it, or even see it, because you’re enjoying the fact that the people that read you or comment on your posts agree with what you are saying )for the most part). Lee’s site became a echo chamber, and opinions that were in opposition (Remember the whole ‘Geneva/waterboarding/torture’ episode) were basically assaulted with a viciousness and bile that was, and is, very effective in making the target of the attack stop posting comments and/or responses of any kind.
I haven’t been back to that site since a week after Lee went to China. There was no reason to do so. There was no allowance for differences of opinion.
I get the fact that people tend to hang around people that are like them; I tend to think of it as an outgrowth of the herding instinct. There’s a comfort level inherent in that, but when thinking about Lee’s site I would consider myself as conservative (and not even the Sean Hannity-type ‘conservative’, but a quasi-Libertarian/federalist conservative in the fashion of John Locke) as the posters over there. I just held the opinion that the POTUS was responsible to uphold the COTUS first, then the treaties signed to by Congress. There cannot be any duty greater than defending the Constitution....that’s the oath, isn’t it? I wasn’t asking Bush to overthrow the Bill of Rights, but voicing an opinion. And I was personally attacked for it, as were others.
So, that’s part of the reason I haven’t posted a lot. Now, the election:
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
24 Hour Fitness Sucks
These guys are real jerks.
I hate 24 Hour Fitness. No matter what you do, no matter how great of a deal you get, and no matter who vouches for them, do not join 24 Hour Fitness. I cancelled my membership because I didn’t use it anymore, and I still got charged the monthly fee. I took it up with the management, and they made up a bullshit story about why I got charged, how the account works, and why I better march out the door and just accept the fact that they can take my money whenever they want.
That’s the wrong way to talk to me. I’m the last guy you want to mess with, or be a bully to.
So I wrote their corporate headquarters a letter explaining what happened. I’ve seen people go through this kind of stuff before, and I know they never get their money back. Shady corporations are shady corporations, and they could care less. Besides that, taking them to court will do nothing. They have more money to hire more lawyers than any of us. I’m not out to get my money. That’s not going to happen. I just don’t want new people to join their gym and get ripped-off. Therefore, I’m just going to use my awesome blog to post this awesome post and rail against them for a few minutes.
In closing, do not join 24 Hour Fitness. I’m going to give it a few months and then I’ll post my letter. It’s guaranteed to give you a few laughs.
We Matter! Really! Hello?
Al-Qaeda is sucking wind and blowing hard
During the rise of AQ during the 1990’s, bin Laden made a comment that when people see a strong horse and a weak horse, they prefer the strong horse. The US, of course, was the weak horse in bin Laden’s sad little mind. With his ragtag gang of cavemen, he had believed that he could make war on us and the world would sing his praises. The reality has proven much different:
A senior Bush administration counterterrorism official said Tuesday that an analysis of public statements by al Qaeda in the past year shows that nearly half the verbiage is devoted to justifying the group’s legitimacy.
The terrorist group seems to be adopting a more defensive tone in its public pronouncements, indicating that its leaders may be concerned that criticism from former allies and the increasing civilian death toll from attacks are undermining support.
Thanks to the stupidity of AQ focusing their war against us in Muslim countries while deliberately killing Muslims, they are amazed to discover that Muslims are finding that the Great Satan’s Crusaders aren’t so bad by comparison. Although Muslims disapprove of the US occupation of Iraq, they cannot abide by the killing of Muslims by so-called fellow Muslims.
Al Qaeda senior leaders this year “have devoted nearly half their airtime to defending the group’s legitimacy,” said senior U.S. intelligence official Ted Gistaro. “This defensive tone continues a trend observed since at least last summer and reflects concern over allegations by militant leaders and religious scholars that al Qaeda and its affiliates have violated the Islamic laws of war, particularly in Iraq and North Africa...”
Despite its continuing operational capabilities, the group had been hurt on the ideological front, he said.
Al Qaeda “has suffered several setbacks among its key constituents,” including the fact that its “brutal attacks against Muslim civilians are tarnishing its image among both mainstream and extremist” Muslims.
Mr. Gistaro highlighted criticism of al Qaeda from former allies such as Egyptian extremist leader Sayyed Imam al-Sharif, better known as Dr. Fadl, and from other Islamic hard-liners, such as Saudi cleric Sheik Salman al-Oadah.
Remember: terrorism itself is a miscalculation. If we continue to press them on foreign soil and expose them as not only a “weak horse”, but even as a scourge against the people they claim to be fighting for, they will lose the confidence, recruits, and funding that are essential for their form of warfare. This will choke them. This is yet another reason why President Bush has been correct all along in why the fight must be taken to the enemy at every opportunity.
Make no mistake about the fact that they are not finished yet and that this effort will continue for years. As they grow more desperate to regain their credibility with the pissed off Muslims of the world, they will try that much harder to strike us at home. We must not be lax.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
The Infamous Burnout
It was bound to happen.
It seems that Drum, John, and I are totally burnt-out on national politics. Can you really blame us? For close to four years, we’ve been rallying on a few simple points, and none of them have come to light. Allow me to highlight a few of those that we got screwed on:
1. Lower taxes
2. Less spending/wasting taxpayer dollars
3. Crackdown on corruption
Let’s start with the lower taxes. I don’t know the percentage of single taxpayers in the nation, but I do know that we’re getting screwed when it comes to having a big chunk of our paycheck jacked by Uncle Sam. I file single with one exemption and I see somewhere around 50% percent of my paycheck. I’ve been told time and again that I need to buy a house, but unless I plan on living on Top Ramen and tap water for a few years, buying a house with a worthwhile down payment through a reputable mortgage company and in a safe part of Los Angeles is a pipe dream. As it stands right now, owning a house is the best tax writeoff you can have, but even for someone like me who makes upwards of $70,000 dollars a year, it’s really a tough sell. Please allow people like me to take home more of our paychecks.
We need to get one thing straight - I don’t want to pay for poor people. Really, I don’t. And I don’t want to pay for some government program that happens to be the dream of some guy I didn’t elect that received this program as a kick-back for voting for some other dirtbag I didn’t vote for. Something tells me that the 50% of my paycheck that goes to taxes is going to pay for unused flight tickets totaling $100 million (I’m serious, click on the link from the Heritage Foundation to see what else our money is being wasted on.) If that is any indication of how well the government can waste money, then I don’t want incompetent people sitting in cubicles spending my money.
While we’re on the subject of wasted resources, I’m not very happy with the rampant corruption in both the Democratic and Republican parties. You guys can all kiss my ass. If you want to have good ol’ boy deals and sit around drinking fine scotch while figuring out what the next tit-for-tat deal will be, do it somewhere else than in a place where you’re going to be wasting my money.
I hate to sound like it all comes down to the money, but really, it all comes down to the money. I hate losing the vast majority of my paycheck to some government black hole.
I’m sure my interest in national politics will pique again when some of this trash can be set on the curb, but until then, I’ll focus on making my city, my county, and my state a better place to be.
Monday, August 11, 2008
My Muse has departed
With all of the juicy stories going on around the globe, I cannot seem to find anything worth writing.
Even trying to explain takes more energy than I have.
Check back every now and then, but I need to take a little time to recharge. My fellow Authors will have something from time to time (I hope).
A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
Here is a picture that is being sent to just about everyone in our department of Deputy Escalante. I’m not going to talk about the case. It’s ongoing, there are tons of investigators working on it, and the last thing I want to do is whiz all over their investigation by talking about it online. The LA Times has a great story about what happened to Deputy Escalante. I suggest you head over there to read it.
When this case is closed I’ll have some more. Until then, please pray for the family of this great man. He’ll truly be missed by all of us.