Tag: Politics

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I’m Living In The Wrong State

Evidence just keeps cropping up that my wife is right and I simply need to bite the bullet and move to Texas. It’s culturally, legally and politically far more amenable to those of my particular persuasions. For example, the state legislature sees the idiocy that is speeding cameras and reacts accordingly:

[T]he Lonestar State will set yet another precedent by passing a bill onto the governor that would ban speeding cameras and require warning signs to be posted around red-light cameras.

The cameras are so obviously about making money for the localities that install them and so not about “public safety” that the TX legislature is acting to protect its citizens from bad technology/law greedily-applied.

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Bestest Fark Thread Evar

We’ve previously discussed the lolcats Internet meme briefly here before, so I won’t go into its origins at the moment (citations for the development of said meme/macro/fad/”kitty pidgin” available here, here, here, here, here and here, if you’re interested). However, I simply must point out the following “lolpresidents” thread over on Fark that has some of the funniest mutations of the meme I’ve yet seen — particularly the Grover Cleveland “I’d hit it twice — non-consecutively” entry.
Then again, I’m a U.S. History nerd and an Internet meme hound, so maybe it’s just something that will simply scratch my own humor itches…

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Amnesty Idiocy

The latest likely-to-get-signed-by-The-Decider-in-Chief border “reform” package looks likely to pass the House and Senate, a proposition that has conservatives and many libertarians hopping mad. Lest we be too quick to judge our Congresscritters, though, Rick Moran points out that we should have sympathy for them, since we’re dealing with a whole other species:

Reading and listening to politicians talk about their Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill is an interesting anthropological exercise. Being a separate species of human, Homo Politicus exhibits all the characteristics one might expect from a breed apart.
The ability to talk out of both sides of the mouth at the same time is highly prized in Politicus although evolution has given the genus a forked tongue and a larger mouth to go along with this ability. This tends to force the nose to get out of joint on a regular basis which can be a hazard to the beast’s health considering all the hot air generated by an increased lung capacity. This tends to crowd the heart in the chest cavity, making that organ much smaller than ours. But evolution once again comes to the rescue as not only does Politicus have engorged bile ducts (a necessity given how much of that precious fluid they generate on a regular basis) but also a massive bladder – all the better to piss on the rest of us whenever they get the chance.
Many of these unusual attributes have been on display as Politicus has been busy trying to justify its sellout of the United States on immigration to a bored, cynical public who doesn’t believe half of what it hears and is depressed and discouraged by listening to the other half[.]

Ouch.

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Marxist Turbines: The New Jersey Toll Roads And You!

Lousy Marxist turbines…
I’m actually surprised nobrainer hasn’t commented on this story as of yet — seems like it’d be right up his alley.
Anyways, here goes: some moron idiot charlatan high school dropout enterprising inventor has proposed placing wind turbines along New Jersey highways in order to “harvest” the “wind energy” generated by traffic and funnel it into powering the public transportation grid. This sounds like a nice plan, if only it weren’t for that darn little thing known as “physics”.
As any halfwitted fan of NASCAR knows, there’s this little thing called “drag” that keeps cars from going their fastest. Good drivers know how to “draft” to reduce their drag and thus gain fuel economy (well, if the rate at which NASCArs use fuel can be considered “economical”, that is) and potentially a good bit of speed. [Note: I am not calling all NASCAR fans halfwits, I am merely stating the obvious fact that there are fans that happen to be halfwits. Please don’t send hatemail. -ed.] Anything causing turbulence (i.e., giant rotating turbine blades positioned next to or under the road surface) increases drag and thus decreases speed and fuel efficiency. Basically, the cars have to work harder to keep the same rate of speed.
Decreased fuel efficiency == increased fuel consumption and, since the current incarnation of the internal combustion engineis not terribly efficient at turning hydrocarbons into usable energy (it’s around 15% efficient or so), it means a lot of fuel is simply wasted every time you start your car. The rest of the fuel is emitted as particulate matter, unburned fuel, heat, sound and waste gasses. Even typical fossil fuel-powered electrical plants run at between 35% and 60% efficiency. So this moron, in an attempt to “save” the environment would instead increase the pollution emitted by cars and increase all Jersey drivers’ fuel bills.
He gives himself away, though, when he blathers on about being excited to harvest energy from privately-owned vehicles for use in the public transit system — he’s a freakin’ redistributionist trying to sell what would amount to a per-gallon energy tax hidden neatly beneath the asphalt of 295 and the NJTP.

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Oh, 9/11 “Truthers”, Purveyors Of Endless Comedy And Inspiration For View-Co-Host-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named

That expressway tanker truck fire in Oakland the other day seems to have driven the 9/11 conspiracy nuts“truthers” well, to distraction, shall we say. The Fark thread commenting upon the affair (see Panicky 9/11 truth nutjobs debate Oakland gas tanker incident, see their WTC conspiracy theories collapse as quickly as that highway did) is absolutely hilarious in and of itself, but it also lead down a minor rat hole to conspiracy theories on the destruction of the first Death Star. To wit:

We’ve all heard the “official conspiracy theory” of the Death Star attack. We all know about Luke Skywalker and his ragtag bunch of rebels, how they mounted a foolhardy attack on the most powerful, well-defended battle station ever built. And we’ve all seen the video over, and over, and over, of the one-in-a-million shot that resulted in a massive chain reaction that not just damaged, but completely obliterated that massive technological wonder.
Like many citizens of the Empire, I was fed this story when I was growing up. But as I watched the video, I began to realize that all was not as it seemed. And the more I questioned the official story, the deeper into the rabbit hole I went.
Presented here are some of the results of my soul-searching regarding this painful event. Like many citizens, I have many questions that I would like answered: was the mighty Imperial government really too incompetent to prevent a handful of untrained nerf-herders from destroying one of their most prized assets? Or are they hiding something from us? Who was really behind the attack? Why did they want the Death Star destroyed? No matter what the answers, we have a problem.

Heh. Go ye and read and verily laugh.

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Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones, But Op-Ed Pieces Sure Can Leave A Mark

I happened across a few opinion pieces over the last day or two that give lie to the old adage about “words can never hurt me”. If these opinion pieces are any indication, words certainly can sting, I tell you what.
First up is a piece by Alan Dershowitz that completely decimates Jimmy Carter (“History’s greatest monster”, if you prefer) and his pathological anti-Israeli views:

If money determines political and public views as Carter insists “Jewish money” does, Carter’s views on the Middle East must be deemed to have been influenced by the vast sums of Arab money he has received. If he who pays the piper calls the tune, then Carter’s off-key tunes have been called by his Saudi Arabian paymasters. It pains me to say this, but I now believe that there is no person in American public life today who has a lower ratio of real to apparent integrity than Jimmy Carter. The public perception of his integrity is extraordinarily high. His real integrity, it now turns out, is extraordinarily low. He is no better than so many former American politicians who, after leaving public life, sell themselves to the highest bidder and become lobbyists for despicable causes. That is now Jimmy Carter’s sad legacy.

Yeowch.
Next up is Jeff Goldstein who, in a post commenting on a Joe Lieberman op-ed in the Washington Post, sums up precisely what is wrong with the modern incarnation of the Democratic party in a single run-on sentence:

This is a conciliatory gesture, but an empty one, ultimately: because the fact is, the intent of anti-war Dems (which I see as an attempt to will the war into failure, blame Bush and Republicans, parlay that blame into electoral victories, then institute a foreign policy that will weaken the US militarily and force it to join coalitions of consensus, lorded over by international bureaucrats, while concentrating its energies domestic policies driven by a collectivist ideology and an unhealthy fealty to dubious social engineering) aligns with that of al-Qaeda.

(Emphasis Goldstein’s.)
Lastly is Iowahawk’s parody of a Toledo Blade post-VT-massacre-reactionary-gun-control editorial by one “Dan Simpson” that is so idiotic and so hare-brained that is absolutely has to be a parody itself. I mean, compare the original:

Now, how would one disarm the American population? First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty.
Hunters would be able to deposit their hunting weapons in a centrally located arsenal, heavily guarded, from which they would be able to withdraw them each hunting season upon presentation of a valid hunting license. The weapons would be required to be redeposited at the end of the season on pain of arrest. When hunters submit a request for their weapons, federal, state, and local checks would be made to establish that they had not been convicted of a violent crime since the last time they withdrew their weapons. In the process, arsenal staff would take at least a quick look at each hunter to try to affirm that he was not obviously unhinged.

Compare to Iowahawk’s version:

Where was I? Oh yeah, the disarming the American population plan thing. First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty. As an added incentive, all owners tuning in guns would receive money saving coupons for Whole Foods and a gift subscription to Utne Reader.
Hunters would be able to deposit their hunting weapons in a centrally located arsenal. It would be heavily guarded, by heavy guards. The hunters would be able to withdraw their guns each hunting season upon presentation of a valid hunting license. The weapons would be required to be redeposited at the end of the season on pain of arrest, with substantial penalties for early withdrawl. When hunters submit a request for their weapons, federal, state, and local checks would be made to establish that they had not been convicted of a violent crime since the last time they withdrew their weapons. To insure the guards are not gun-nut double agents, each of these guards would be guarded by two meta-guards who would themselves be made to rub gravel in their hair and hold their palms over open flames as a test of loyalty to the disarmament cause. Also, these arsenal staff would take at least a quick look at each hunter to try to affirm that he was not obviously unhinged.

Sometimes it’s scary how reality almost puts itself beyond parody.

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Run From Teh Hillary!

The Photoshop goons at Fark and SomethingAwful both happened across the following wonderful picture of Hillary Clinton mid-, well, something:
Hillary
Hilarity (or is that “Hillaryarity”?) ensued.
OBLIGATORY FARK/SA WARNING: Juvenile content, cursing and all manner of inappropriate imagery abound in the above-linked PS threads. There are gems amongst the slop, however, to violently mix metaphors. You have been warned.

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Conspiracies, Man, Conspiracies!

Several disturbing conspiracies have come to light recently and I just can’t keep quiet about them any more.
First up is the Great Shrinking Cadbury Creme Egg conspiracy, as pointed out by noted researcher and comedian B.J. Novak:

I knew something was up when Cadbury, that most English of companies, was gobbled up by a Swiss company in 1969(!). There’s something about that year, man!
First there was “Loose Change“, the insane and ignorant of basic physical realities and, well, physicsbrave documentary that first inspired 9/11 “Truthers” to look into the truth behind our government’s involvement and complicity in the WTC attacks, the Moon landings and disco music. Also, I think Rosie O’Donnell and Charlie Sheen may have watched it a time or two.
In any event, there still remain great conspiracies to be busted: JFK’s assassination by CIA-trained Cubans left over from the Bay of Pigs Invasion and funded by Texas oil interests, Bell Helicopter and the Mafia all supervised by LBJ, George Bush’s 2000 Presidential “win” and the Great Eye on the back of American paper currency (check it out! It’s straight from the Illuminati!). One of the last unvisited conspiracies, though, is the sinking of the Titanic. Fortunately, a brave filmmaker, inspired by Loose Change, has composed Unfastened Coins, a riveting documentary that proves, once and for all, that the Titanic wasn’t sunk by an iceberg but by some kind of “Berg”, if you get my meaning:

That stuff is on the Internet, man, so it must be true!

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Well, There Goes My Support For Giuliani

I have been wrestling with whether I could support Rudy Giuliani in the upcoming GOP Presidential primaries and had decided that I could most likely hold my nose and vote for him based upon his Basically Right stances on most issues, but then he had to go and restate his 1989 position that abortion is a Constitutional right and should be publicly funded in an interview with CNN. Reprehensible, absolutely reprehensible.
C’mon, Admiral Painter – run!