Gay marriage in the Empire State

New York State has legalized gay marriage. I knew this already but popped on my local newscast last night anyway to get the latest on the pharmacy murders, whatever fire in Brooklyn and what it's gonna do tomorrow but after about two minutes, no make that 30 seconds I channel-surfed back to Globetrekker. It wasn't my local pornographic violent news I've come to expect, it was the Gay News. It's like sometimes I'll be watching Ch. 25 here and they have some good stuff but some nights it's just the whole gay theme and you're like why can't they just have some good cooking show on instead? Social Liberalism as a Way to Placate the Annoying - maybe folks just wanted to pass the gay marriage just to move onto more pressing matters like the economy and jobs, you know we don't endorse what you do but shut up already, we'll give it to you is there anything else? Look people don't get along. I don't care if you're Man & Woman, Man & Man or Woman & Woman, have two people live alongside each other for years and years and they'll get on each other's nerves. Today Gay Marriage, tomorrow Gay Divorce. Obama's stance is still evolving because of the ickiness factor, perfectly understandable. There will always be that residual societal disgust that gays just need to accept and get over. My deliberately provocative title poses a conundrum, what to do when PETA and gay rights clash:)

You're killing me

How do people annoy you? For me listening to David Brooks on the Friday evening political roundup with Mark Shields on the Jim Lehrer Newshour falls into this category. Maybe it's a sign of age but lately for me it's everything but I have to remember not to top it off with analysis from Shields and Brooks:)

Do you want Obama picking the next Supreme Court?

The Supreme Court in a recent and narrow 5-4 decision (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/23/supreme-court-orders-california-to-free-40000-prisoners/) has ruled that the State of California must release about 40,000 prisoners in two years. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority decision. The usual liberal and ACLU-inspired drivel, prison overcrowding, lack of full medical attention, constitutional violations but it was really a cruel and unusual decision for the people of California. Point I'm getting to is new justices and Obama appointees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan BOTH joined in the majority. Remember them? they were supposed to be centrists, not scary at all. Well the decision merits a blog unto itself but IF the GOP nominees were smart and that's a big if they'd run with this front and center. I'm expecting alot I know.

Sex before jobs

New York State under the liberal stewardship of Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo seems poised to become the sixth and largest state in the Union to legalize same-sex marriage. Some key Repubs in the State Senate have shifted position and so it's closer to becoming a reality but I hearken back to Michael Kinsley's position of not too long ago that maybe it would be a good deal for the government to not get involved in the marriage business on any level hetero or homo. So WHY do you need the government to recognize and validate your special relationships anyway? Is this the time to push for radical social change? Aren't jobs and the economy more important and who has time to worry about this stuff in this day and age? Last time I brought up the Kinsley Proposal folks seemed to miss the point but it's a good time to revisit it. Couple gay jokes: when Liberace died they scattered his ashes in San Francisco Bay and killed all the blowfish. Bunch of gay men in a pool and some white thing comes floating by and one guy goes "ok who farted?" Not too long ago I lamented the fact that we have another Cuomo in office and it won't be long before we revisit the Social Issues annoying as that is and I just think Kinsley's idea makes alot of sense. Just take this stuff off the table:)

Weiner pulls out

Now the Democrats can go about the unfinished business of implementing liberalism for the American people. I liked it better when it was a distraction:)

The Pearl Harbor Bias

For purposes of the following discussion Asian means Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thai and all the rest (folks don't know the difference) but the thesis of the thread is the existence of what I call the Pearl Harbor Bias. Anyways so I'm watching an episode from the second season of Masterchef a few nights ago. This is kinda the American Idol of amateur chefs from around the country who get to show judges Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot and Joe Bastianich their culinary skills. So early on in the competition you have to present one of your signature dishes and so it's the young Asian guy's turn and even the judges agreed his crab dish was absolutely delectable, light and the purity of it all but only Joe thought he had potential and the other two simply eliminated him. Some picayune, nitpicking criticism that it wasn't a main dish or something. OK so in the wake of the tragic Japanese tsunami my parish never even took up a collection for the victims unless I missed something or even mentioned it in their prayer intentions at Mass. Now on the workfront we usually have some type of trendy collection box going especially when such an apocalyptic disaster occurs but with this thing straight out of the Bible absolutely NOTHING and I mean nothing. Yeah the usual cancer and Jerry's Kids stuff, pink ribbons and March of Dimes, oh that's K-Mart. Oh yeah some bakery manager who I haven't seen in quite some time came in yesterday and I said hi and she said "what happened to you, are you anorexic?" Always a plain-spoken bitch but mathematically at 195 lbs. and exercising regulary with the chest pull resister I bought at Modell's her theory doesn't work out and I said my doctor gave me my ideal weight range and I reached it, I mean take it up with him. I'm digressing but the point is a bunch of Japs can be swept out to sea and folks express more concern that I'm healthier now (funny how they don't seem to notice it when you're overweight). I've long ago come to the conclusion Society is irretrievably weird. Getting back to the Asian crab guy on Masterchef he was standing there all proud and sure of himself but then it was like he was relegated to culinary eternal damnation or something. Joe said the other two were making a mistake but it was like Gordon and Graham saw absolutely no potential in the guy and it was only his first signature dish and yet they'll pass in some black mama from Georgia or Mississippi who talked sweet and threw something together. You know they've had a bad run of it lately what with the tour bus full of Asian gamblers coming back from Mohegan Sun in Connecticut overturning when it reached the Bronx, one half-expects to turn on CNN only to find a jetliner full of Koreans flying into some erupting volcano somewhere but you'd think they could get a little respect in the culinary world:)

The guy has a first name you know

The weird part about the Anthony Weiner scandal is he didn't actually have sex with any of these women so it's like a kind of pseudo-scandal, it'd be like going to hell for masturbation and where in hell does Bill Clinton get off being mad at him? Now if you're name is Weiner and you do decide to engage in this type of behavior wouldn't you go with a legal name change first? You know there's a side street over by Cross County in Yonkers called "Hiscock Place" and it'd be like if Mr. Hiscock ran for office and got embroiled in some big gay sex scandal you might wanna dot your i's and cross your t's first is all I'm sayin'. The existential coldness of Anthony Weiner's situation, even his own party wants to throw him overboard. Maybe he didn't push abortion enough, dunno but Slick Willie got away with more, far more and it made him stronger. Been meaning to pose this: so who do conservatives hate more, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama? You remember back in the day you couldn't live through 24 hours without hearing of Paula Jones or Kathleen Willey or even Juanita Broaddrick, dead teenagers on the Arkansas train tracks and drug-running at the Mena Airport, Whitewater, Lewinsky, those 500 or was it 900 FBI files? Ken Starr, Chinagate, impeachment, last-minute pardons......we don't even talk about that anymore, that's like a Three's Company or Sanford and Son rerun but the void has been filled by one Barack Hussein Obama. I must caution the Republicans if they're buying tickets to board the big old PhallusShip into the next election. An overindulgence in Weiner minutiae is not gonna get you there but with Huma being pregnant and all this throws a curve into normal conservative thinking. Mr. Weiner doesn't even have a business or law degree to fall back on like some of the others, what's he gonna be a deli clerk? and you wouldn't want those economic pressures to lead to a bad decision here. BTW some rich guy is gonna scuba-dive for bin Laden's corpse in the North Arabian Sea next month and our corporate media is wasting no time in calling him an eccentric.

FREE SPEECH - abortion, gay jokes, the works

Beth thought this important enough to discuss and I agree. The link: http://beta.news.yahoo.com/jilted-ex-boyfriend-puts-abortion-billboard-194142831.html
Since I subscribe to the principle that in the vast majority of cases free speech should win at the end of the day it didn't take me long to reach my conclusion. I read the article twice and it doesn't say if the ex's name was used on the billboard but it clearly falls under free speech even if he shouldn't have done it. Of course you could make the argument that since it's a specific guy on the ad people in the local area can easily put 2&2 together and deduce who the ex probably is but it's a very interesting case and I love this stuff. Now Tracy Morgan of 30 Rock has said some stuff, some antigay jokes down in some nightclub and well it didn't take long for the almost immediate pro-forma apology from Mr. Morgan (maybe in the future it can come right after the joke, saves time) but the thing about these cases is I absolutely HATE political correctness. Now I'm not antigay by any stretch but when the obligatory gay spokesman from some group issues the mandatory official statement that everyone's feelings got hurt you just wanna call him a faggot. You see the thing about humor is it's entirely subjective, it's in the eye of the beholder. There's no objective norm to humor in the first place and so some people in the club, the ones who weren't offended did find his comments hilarious but that doesn't prove exactly they hate gays. The best gay jokes I ever heard in my life came from liberals btw. Here's the other thing, how does censorship solve the Problem? Why not let Tracy Morgan make his jokes and the gay guy can call him a dick? Works for me and why if he's such a big star on 30 Rock is he doing standup in the first place?:)

Essential Truths

Most people don't read your blog. Letters-to-the-Editor are probably more widely read although the blog offers far more creative freedom of course so I prefer them (not really into cyberforums anymore either, always the moderators with their corrective measures). My sitemeter is like my weight, it keeps going down. Actually my weight's being maintained but my hits keep going down. Keeping this essential truth in mind why do we blog? For me it's a kind of hobby, something to relax to after work. There are those who say to increase your hitmeter you have to visit quite a few other blogs on a regular basis, you know you scratch my balls I'll scratch yours. Too much work to do on a consistent basis imo so I only visit those that interest me on any given day and I tend to visit the same ones. If it ain't fun don't do it. Essential Truths -- a kind of continuing series:)

AIDS - 30+ years later

Read a big writeup about AIDS in my Sunday paper yesterday, how despite initial pessimism they're making progress after all these years. Many of the harsher earlier drugs like AZT have been replaced by kindler, gentler and more efficient and less toxic medicines and there is definite hope on the horizon but I got to thinking back to what the Jamaican chef (a character who occasionally pops up in these blogpages) told me once. Now if you met the guy you'd say he's quite intelligent, articulate and not your broadbased wildeyed conspiracy theorist, you can rap with him and since I'm on the subject I've been meaning to pose the question for BB and the others is there at least one conspiracy theory that you believe in, that you subscribe to? (what is this overtrust of government anyway?) Anyway he opined to me one day that he thinks AIDS was invented by the U.S. Government as a form of genocide against black people. Now I don't subscribe to this but it should be apparent by now that the darker-hued folks do see alot of subjects quite differently but I will say the key here and something I cannot answer and that doesn't sit well is why should there be a new disease? We've had your basic classic diseases down through the centuries. Mentions of syphilus have been woven into some of Shakespeare's plays and breast tumors have been around since the time of Cleopatra but AIDS??? Was this invented by some weird masturbator in a CIA lab somewhere, some Mengeleian prodigy? a form of biological warfare as it was maybe initially designed that somehow found its way into the general population? So how would you respond to the Jamaican chef? The argument from intimidation won't work, the man wants anwers.

Abortion

......(continued)......

Politics is alot like cooking

Everyone thinks their way is the way.

Don't get involved with Anthony's Weiner

Already I'm beginning to read the conservative punditocracy microanalyzing what happened, that a risque picture was somehow sent to a young female college student out West from New York Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner's Twitter account. It's a mildly interesting scandal at the beginning of summer, something to sip on in the shade of your hammock and points to the fact of a rather bleak GOP presidential field if this is what we're spending time on. I like this stuff but only for the entertainment value, I don't want to bring the man down. He doesn't look the type and with a name like his you'd think he'd be extra-vigilant for potential scandals of this nature. Speaking of underwear doesn't Obama look like a male underwear model? You know you're in Sears or the Big K looking for some Hanes or Fruit of the Loom and there he is on that fresh cottony package in his briefs rather well-toned and grinning from ear to ear. I think I heard on the news that Weiner has something like 50,000 followers on Twitter so anything's bound to happen. I'm hearing he ain't acting right, ain't acting like an innocent man and why didn't he go to the cops over this? Anyway enjoy the scandal for what it's worth but if this is your way of pushing forward a public-policy agenda to counter Obama's it has that prurient look to it like finding an orange pubic hair in the drain of a public shower. I feel a little skeevy even talking about it. It's all fungusy so let's not spend too much time on it OK?

stress @ work

It's one of those hypocritical issues stress at work because while practically everybody says it's bad for you, studies show it's a killer when push comes to shove nobody really cares about it or does anything about it. Boss (holding general meeting of staff at 9AM): "I realize workplace stress is an important issue to address so if there's anything I can do to make your day go better please let me know." Well no, certain work has to be done and done in a timely fashion, other work has to be completed not tomorrow but today. The honchos are coming in later, the suits are gonna go over everything with a fine toothcomb and this is your typical average American workday. When stress is addressed again we realize it's A Bad Thing but the problem is most likely YOU, don't let it get to you and btw you don't have to come in at 6:30AM anymore because we realize you also require so many hours of sleep again for reasons of health. The modern paradox, we all realize one's health is extremely important but it's the nature of the business world that nothing can really be done about it and if it leads to an early grave you can always be replaced. The wake information will be posted of course but the show must go on. When was the last time the issue was addressed at your place? No, put your political gavel down for a minute and think about it, Herman Cain and Ron Paul and Mitt Romney can wait. It's not so much my stress at work but I feel as if through osmosis the stress of others, that tense vibe going through the place and I'm thinking it doesn't have to be that way but it is. Health and Work, two worlds apart:)

Not voting as an act of conscience

NONE OF THE ABOVE is a valid option. Besides Jack Kemp is dead.

What is the purpose of the IQ test?

seriously

The GOP Establishment wooing of Chris Christie, why they're always out of touch

You'd think he's the best the GOP can throw up against Obama next year, NJ Governor Chris Christie. Brash, plain-spoken, fiscally restrained or just a dickhead. I ain't voting for the guy and here's the reason. In one of my threads about the red-light traffic cams in the city of Yonkers a commenter posted a link about Gov. Christie wanting to double the number of towns in New Jersey that use red-light cams (http://njtoday.net/2011/04/14/scutari-criticizes-christie-administration-push-to-double-number-of-towns-using-red-light-cameras/). That ain't limited government, that's Big Brotherism, Basic Thuganomics 101. So that's it, that's my reason and that's the sheer beauty of our voting process. I can go into that booth, oh I forgot it's not a booth anymore. I can stand at that there table and fill those little oval circles on that scansheet and pull the lever, I mean hand it in, bascially vote for or against someone for whatever reason that tingles my ball that day. I care not one whit whether others think my reasons stupid, that's between Me, Myself and I. Maybe I don't like it that I think he's had too many Krispy Kremes and is therefore a poor role model for our youth. So the Supreme Court in New Jersey said he has to spend millions and millions of dollars on the poor school districts in that state, he criticized the court for telling him how to spend the state's money but will comply anyway. Well whoop-dee-doo!!! he's still for those red-light cams and I've gotten four of those in Yonkers to date. Didn't get anymore for a few weeks now since I now totally avoid the area where I got 'em, I treat it as practically a nuke zone but at the time I couldn't write out a check to Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York for their annual fundraising appeal. I usually give a hundred, built up my checking account again and sent my check in the mail just this morning so charity has to wait at times so as cash-strapped cities, towns and municipalities who don't know how to handle money in the first place can rape the American taxpayer. The GOP wooing of Chris Christie, God help us!!! Obama will go into the next election with he killed something that may have been bin Laden, had the body chucked into the ocean after several hours so we'll never know for sure but the public has seemed to accept it as they always do and it is now a part of our collective socio-politico mythology (who can forget that iconic picture in the Situation Room?) and they've already moved on to Sex and Eschatology and all we get is the Republican establishment wooing faux libertarians/tea partiers. Michelle Bachmann who voted to extend certain provisions of the Patriot Act, same deal honey. Don't tell me what conservatism is. I know it in my gut and these folks ain't conservative:)

Fresh from the bin Laden kill Bam thinks he can solve the Mideast Crisis

Every president has to give it a shot, it's the irresistible political version of Rubik's Cube. President Obama has told Bibi to go back to Israel's pre-1967 borders before the Six-Day War. This apparently didn't go over too well, guess Obama has more important votes to get than the Jewish bloc. WHY do we have to spend so much time on this subject? Don't other parts of the world merit attention? I mean yeah they get covered like the Ivory Coast but they don't turn into foreign policy obsessions. Immigration reform and the Mideast, Obama put alot on his plate just now. Why not wait 'til a second term unless, unless...you don't think the World is ending soon do you?

The world will end not with a bang but a whimper

I hardly noticed, I mean the seamless transition was so smooth. The phrase comes from poet T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" and I'm gonna make a bold prediction here. The world will end when the Sun runs out of fuel. I haven't worked on the calculations yet but it involves literally millions of years. According to 89-year old preacher Harold Camping the World As We Know It was supposed to end this past Saturday at 6PM. Went to work the next day and the place was unusually slow for a Sunday afternoon in a food place so I says to a co-worker you know why it's slow right? All the good folk have been Raptured up and you're always going to Giggles (you have to be around these parts to get the joke). He said to me "you have five months." Yeah go through your hardcore I said and start throwing the shit out, softcore too buddy before the angels with the flaming swords start knocking on people's doors. I'm not against the world ending, it should but you have to be a fool to predict when. One of the readings this past Sunday had to do with only the Father knows when the world is going to end, apparently He didn't share this info with the Son. That's interesting and one of the curiouser passages from Scripture along with those unforgiveable sins against the Holy Spirit. Of course the world doesn't have to end per se, more likely humanity might just kill itself off by then. Think Charlton Heston in front of the Statue of Liberty (fave line from that movie: "you damn dirty ape!"). Our Lady of La Salette said "in the Last Days Rome itself will lose the faith and become the seat of the Antichrist" and then the Three Days of Darkness and the earth will renew itself and mankind will start over basically with the unrepentant in "the everlasting chasms of Hell." I think the Protestants especially the evangelical crowd take the End Times more seriously than the Catholics, Catholics only care if they can get a last game of Bingo in. As I said everything after bin Laden is anti-climax, we have to have something to fill the weekly newscycle. Religion and Sex lately:)

The Sperminator

Already I'm hearing the cluck-clucking of the tongues but c'mon, we love the story! ADMIT IT. I always look at these stories first and foremost as is it interesting to read? You're darn tootin'! Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger are filing for divorce because he had a love child with the hired help, compared to what Strauss-Kahn is alleged to have done it's a generic scandal, no more no less. What's not to enjoy? So what is this moral clacking? after bin Laden everything else is anti-climax anyway.

I'm really not getting anything out of all this bin Laden coverage

Everyday it's something new. A diary, bin Laden porn and you don't even know if it's all true or not. Long Island Congressman Peter King has said he saw those pictures. Apparently there's some small cell of a room select Senators and Congresspeople go into and it's like the Third Secret of Fatima. You have to leave your cell phone outside so you can't send an image to the outside world. Mr. King said part of bin Laden's forehead was blown off which begs the question how can we positively identify him now? not that anybody's tallying all the contradictions. Then there's all the versions of the Story. Please can we settle on one positive official White House version of the Events for all posterity even if it is wrong? Let's say he was reaching for a strap-on harness and they thought it was an AK-47 ya know?

Will the bin Laden execution anger Obama's base?

Yes and No. Actually there are two left-wing bases we're talking about here, there's the base and then there's the base-base. The first base, maybe the majority are what I call the liberal pragmatists despite their various moral intonations from time to time and I include several prominent bloggers here. So long as Obama supports gay marriage or rights, health care reform, economic and social justice, whatever their issues are then the dubious and murky events in that compound in Abbottabad don't bother them in the least. In fact they're happy about it, will use it to their advantage and will quite joyfully point out that it was their man Obama and not the hated Bush who finally got the bastard and meted out justice. I used to think most liberals were alike but many of them will show the same bloodthirstiness they often bemoan conservatives as having. Conservatives may be pro-war but the more traditional ones from the Old School anyway are also pro-the laws of war meaning you don't kill an unarmed man no matter how bad. It's just the way it is as my Dad who served in the Navy during WW2 and who is as far from a liberal as you can get explained to me. Now the base-base, I think they're smaller than the pragmatists but they do take their principles very seriously and while they are all for the gay marriage, health care reform, economic and social justice and all the rest of the first group with which you can agree or disagree to your heart's content but they also have a certain moral compass that doesn't waver, one that eschews violence whenever possible and may even tend strongly towards pacifism re war and foreign policy in general. I know how we all feel about Michael Moore but he's mad about what Obama did. Say what you will he's consistent. Finally about the Event itself I've come to this conclusion: the government is probably telling the truth that bin Laden was killed, is dead. I choose to believe it and yet I can't fault those who don't or who at least question it and here's why. They got rid of the body so damn quickly, put it on the USS Carl Vinson, said something in Arabic we're told after wrapping him in a white sheet and then dumping him overboard. Basically what we have here is the government or those acting on the government's behalf telling us that bin Laden was shot to death but the evidence, namely the cadaver is gone so that no independent entity or more objective group of observers can verify that this is indeed what happened. You can make fun all you want, knock yourself out with your pejorative of choice and be clever but in the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of truth this is no small problem. Surprised nobody foresaw this. So who's on first?:)

Why Bush didn't go to Ground Zero

He knows something ain't right. Bill Clinton another one, scheduling conflict. Chatter at work and wherever I go, something weird went down. There's a surreal vibe in the air, visions of Eric Holder under oath, a Congressional investigation? IMO President Obama authorized this kill mission to boost his poll numbers and to seal his reelection, to give his presidency a certain historical gravitas that has been sorely lacking until now. Spokesman Jay Carney who is a joke at this point called it a "legal kill." What are we on safari here hunting lions on the Serengeti? Speaks volumes but listening to Rush Limbaugh's childish commentary yesterday afternoon reminded me of why I don't listen to the man anymore. His take: liberals (his fave word) saw him as a kind of faculty lounge wuss and the Osama kill made a man out of him. Whatever, a more incisive commentary would have been government is corrupt and Obama who campaigned as a fresh moral voice in Washington has lost his innocence as they all do. Osama's death, like curing cancer sure it helps humanity but it also helps you and many times we make moral decisions out of supposedly altruistic reasons but the hidden moral calculus is how it really benefits us. I Killed Osama will be a kind of unspoken campaign slogan next year, may as well say that in response to each question in the presidential debates but folks are starting to ask questions and word on the street is he won't win reelection ("I don't think he's gonna make it" one woman said to me). This is not a transparent government, which government is? Final Word: Bush would have done it differently:)

The reluctant conspiracy theorist (an abridged reader)

Although to be sure there are inconsistencies. Now unless the unarmed Osama at 6'6" was a mystical Bruce Lee figure who could pull off some fancy Matrix moves there's nothing those Navy SEAL hunks in that room couldn't have handled with a little Krav Maga action? Did one of the SEALS lose his cool the way Magnum P.I. once shot that Nazi at the end of that classic episode? Worked a little late last night and on the drive home tuned into Mark Levin, wasn't gonna listen but it turned out to be a fascinating discussion. A former Navy SEAL called in and said are we to believe that AG Eric Holder would let them just walk in and kill a man in front of his whole family? The burial-at-sea, as one commentator wrote this was a mistake and gave the impression that Osama was a good and practicing Muslim being buried according to Muslim law and we might add why so quick to make him shark bait? Obama has told Steve Kroft of "60 Minutes" that they've made the official decision to not release any of the Osama death photos (ahem), cadaver images even though CIA head Leon Panetta said just the other day he wouldn't be surprised if a photo emerges. They're afraid of inflaming the Muslim world but here's the thing. Obama is exhibiting a pronounced anti-Muslim bias here, most are bad and can't handle the pics goes the thinking but somehow they can stream live videos of actual beheadings and we get those put on on right-wing websites like Savage. The Administration now has an image problem which begs the question HOW do you exactly fuck up a good thing?

A question of Authority, libertarians and conservatives

Alot of folks assume conservatism and libertarianism are more or less the same creature, not so and at times they do make strange bedfellows. If I could distill one of the key differences it is this: conservatives are vastly more pro-authority than libertarians although to be sure there are different flavors, genres you could call it of libertarianism. Conservatives generally respect authority far more than libertarians because social and political stability is at the foundation and cornerstone and practically inspires and permeates all conservative thought which is why they were and still are against the hippie upheaval of the Sixties and feel the Vietnam War should have been fought on to ultimate victory. At heart it's really not about the wisdom of the war but about respecting institutions like the military and if you get drafted suck it up like a man and do your duty. Hit the nigger on the head and they'll come up with excuses for the cops. The AZ immigration law, the con 'tude is it's 'bout time, we're gonna kick some alien ass with the new law. Authority itself is problematic for me even though I recognize it is necessary and practically runs through the whole of our existence, how could it not? I've a visceral reaction to it like the boss making your schedule, it's mostly what he or she needs. Now it may be necessary for the workplace to run this way in order to function but at heart authority is a control issue. Think about how many ways your life is not your own. You have to put off your daily run or trip to the pier because somebody else, Authority finds the workplace a far more important place for you to be than you do. Maybe it's good, maybe it ain't but it's still all about authority, control. So how much authority do we need and how much is over the top? Driving drunk is and should be a crime, buckling up should be up to you and when cops are expected to uphold even nonessential laws they in effect symbolize the Power of the State. Think of the sheer power that comes with authority, the power of the few over the many, it's awesome in fact. Anarcho-libertarianism would seem to reject all authority so where do you fall on the spectrum?:)

Porn in Brooklyn, just don't light up

Apparently it is now OK to view porn on public library computers in any of the 200+ branches in New York City if you're a grown A-dult. "Customers (?) can watch whatever they want on the computer" said Brooklyn Public Library spokeswoman Malika Granville. "In deference to the First Amendment protecting freedom of speech the New York Public Library cannot prevent patrons from accessing adult content that is legal" said New York Public Library spokeswoman Angela Montefinise. The libraries provide for extensions on the sides of the computers for privacy, no mention if they provide spackle buckets too. Libraries that only get federal funding have to install filters on the public computers to block content that is illegal like obscenity (?) and child porn. Maybe someday we'll get around to actually nailing down the definition of obscenity but if a barely 18 girl with braces and a couple of zits is circle-jerking three guys and it's straight down the hatch and she's blowing bubbles does that qualify? I give great preference to the First Amendment in most cases but this is kind of skeevy. You already got your societal castoffs playing card games by themselves, your homeless set, druggies, young dorky stalkers, older men who form a kind of male bonding club and spend all day at the library because their wives don't want 'em around the house. Do we really want to downgrade the clientele even further? I feel like an immigrant in my own country. As my friend once said New York City is violently weird:)

The Royal Flush

Imagine if Donald Trump's lavish lifestyle were funded by the American taxpayer, Warren Buffet's sons were Princes and Oprah Winfrey were the Queen. American Royalty. Well that in a nut is the situation in the United Kingdom and you can't bitch and moan about tax cuts to the wealthy here and then get all misty-eyed about the celestial nuptials this Friday over there. Contradiction in terms, at least our well-to-do have earned their riches the honest ones anyway. Kate lost alot of weight, stress? William already has a receding hairline and I get the sense he's bored looking for things to do else why trek up the Arctic and have a dog outside your tent at night in case a polar bear is lurking? The roots of my conservatism are more primeval and explains my distaste for the Royal Welfare. It's not that I'm pro-work, not at all. Kyle Smith recently wrote a piece about why we love the rat race, I don't think so Kyle but if I have to suffer, if I have to work then so do the rest of you, princes and paupers alike. Get off your Royal Ass and get a job! They seem like nice enough kids though:)

The World's Biggest Egotists

Now it's good to have a healthy sense of self-esteem but these outsized egos are out of all proportion to their actual contributions (can you Supersize that?), I mean none of them have cured Cancer. They see themselves as so integral to the Progress of Civilization, so pivotal to the Race of Man, well here's a partial list by no means exhaustive: Hugh Hefner - actually let's throw in Charlie Sheen here too since together they form a kind of hybrid creature called Don't You Wanna Be Like ME? which even if you thought that would you say it? Now Hef sees himself as a kind of cultural icon/hero who helped Society break off from the iron shackles of sexual repression (the World didn't enjoy Sex until He came along) but the culture would have gone whichever way with or without his help. They say Charlie Sheen is actually a crystal methhead in which case he's a goner, just sayin'. Glenn Beck - makes the list only for pro-forma reasons, so many people think he should be there although I'm not sure how many egotists (or is that egoists?) talk about their past alcoholism and how they messed up their lives. For me Bill O'Reilly looks like he has the bigger ego the type that would give the deli clerk a hard time ("I said THINNNNN!!!"). Then there's Keith Olbermann - never got those lists of his, THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD. One week it was Rush Limbaugh. You don't have to like the guy, I really don't care but Worst Person on the Third Planet from the Sun Keith? that'd probably be Moammar Khadafy with Robert Mugabe running a close second. Barack Obama of course with his messianic complex. Has a bug up his ass about the rich, he sees it more as the problem of wealth and it's been bothering him his whole life but you're somehow an extremist if you don't see him as a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist. His Saviorhood has been somewhat tarnished by his rather dismal performance in office thus far but as a Kool-Aid drinker at work told me the other day give him some time, he only got his feet wet. Donald Trump - probably heads anybody's list but I'd still vote for the guy, actually I'd vote for Ryan Seacrest if he ran against Obama. Diddy (past names Puff Daddy, real name Sean Combs) - actually most rap stars but YOU made it that way, all those white suburban kids who somehow gravitated away from Rock over the years. Once arrested on a gun charge they become semi-respectabalized as time goes by, look for Fitty to be doing Eugene O'Neill on Broadway. Egotism is like a weird drug trip and to me never made any sense. I mean I've done so many dickheaded things in my life it'd be hard to be that way. Doesn't seem like the natural state this overinflated self-deified condition but that's just me. The Lady Gaga - Here's how it works. In Madonna's case she was like a monkey swinging from the trees, she discovered Morality and now she's swinging from the trees again. Look for Gaga to have a moral arc somewhere in the middle, settle down, have a couple kids and then go back in the jungle again. Gaga's talents which I will concede are eclipsed by her antics and I like what my friend said once. We were in a Target store looking at the magazines and we seemed to be in the young adult section, Miley Cyrus on the cover over here, the pale guy from Twilight over there, Avril Lavigne, whoever and he takes one look at them and says to me they're all full of shit:)

Would you vote for Donald Trump?

He's tapping all the right buttons. Wants to bring jobs back to America, has been stroking the seniors over Medicare and has even told Pat Robertson on the Christian Broadcasting Network that he's done a conversion and is now pro-life. Sounds serious about reducing our debt and deficit but on foreign policy looks a little weak, kind of bullshitting his way through. I look at it this way, if he doesn't work out we can always fire him. If it came down to Trump vs. Obama would I vote for the guy? brief and to the point, YES.

I know what they're doing

Meet the Parents (2000) Meet the Fockers (2004) Little Fockers (2010) Mother Fockers (2012)

Did Glenn Beck get too hot too fast?

His syndicated radio show on WWOR has been yanked here in New York and the Fox News no longer has his show. The usual explanations have some validity of course, a show needs sponsors to survive and Mal thinks his new religious side turned off alot of people. I know he's a Mormon but Mal will have to fill me in on his latest spiritual quirk as I'm not up to speed. Now the classic liberal, more a dinosaur these days that belongs in a museum used to say things like "I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it" but today they behave as if censorship and suppression of speech they find offensive is a more important value and way to go which to me makes no sense since the stuff just goes underground anyway where it just bubbles and percolates, simmers so may as well address it seems to me. For my own taste I always found Beck entertaining and informative but somewhat confusing, his thread. One day he's practically saying we're on the verge of uncovering some monstrous conspiracy with Obama at the apex, plans have been drawn up to put political dissidents in concentration camps and a couple days later he's putting down those parents who are suspicious of the government vaccinating their children against Swine Flu. I have to agree with soapie though, he only goes so far. It's like a half-finished dramatic movie with no resolution or overarching theme and he doesn't connect the dots the way Alex Jones does. For me I'm seeing more and more of Life as a vast control issue, people who want to control others but that's just me. He doesn't seem to put Things in an ultimate framework the way Jones does, what I call the Matrix of Politics. The real offense is not that he's offensive but he's afraid of saying certain things, leads you on and then pulls back. I'd say Alex Jones gives certain matters more weight than Glenn Beck let's put it that way and take any thread at random from my own blog and there are interconnecting themes and that's by design, it's the way to go and you have to tie it all together in the end instead of meandering sputterings but free speech? sure the guy should still be on the air:)

The overweening government of Yonkers and its ticket blitz

There have been severe budget cuts in Yonkers of late, that's nothing new but seems the city under the mayorship of Republican and self-described pro-life conservative Phil Amicone have hit upon a solution. Wasn't gonna do another blog about this so soon since I got my very first traffic camera ticket issued on March the 4th for allegedly not coming to a complete stop going northbound on Nepperhan Ave. in order to make a right onto Odell but I got another nice thing in the mail just yesterday for allegedly doing the exact same thing on March the 16th. The letterhead reads like it did before: City of Yonkers Red Light Traffic Safety Program PO Box 22091 Tempe AZ 85285-2091. That's some intercity racket these cities and municipalities have going on and then there's the website where you can view actual video footage of your moving violation at http://www.ViolationInfo.com/ and they even give you your very own PIN # for this. That's an invasion of Privacy right there, Big Brother would be proud. Fine again is 50 bucks with no points attached to your license and I'm leading up to a very larger point at the end which the soapster should be able to appreciate (he must be rubbing off on me). There really should be an audit from a totally outside independent agency of these things (actually they really shouldn't exist these red light cam programs in the first place as they are unconstitutional but be that as it may) and then we can find out Things like who's involved? who's collecting the money? who knows who? can they target people they don't like? etc. etc. Yonkers is legendary for its corruption, there have been problems in its police and fire departments down through the years and you'd think they'd want to change the image of the City of Gracious Living so why not investigate everything to make sure everything is on the up-and-up? The older reader may remember the Parking Violations Bureau scandal down in New York City during the Koch Administration and for any PVB to be collecting such vast sums of money the need for massive oversight should be obvious. The red light cams at Nepperhan and Odell might also prove bad for business down the road. There's a popular and major shopping area here anchored by an A&P and Walgreen's and I would think the merchants would want to fight this as I'm sure many consumers in the area have already had their tickets doled out in the mail and are thinking of taking their business elsewhere. Now the Overriding Theme where the personal becomes political: I am no longer voting for someone who calls himself a conservative Republican, throw in pro-life too if you want if that person like Mayor Amicone does not really believe in the tenets of limited government and acts that way. Yonkers' Red Light Traffic Safety Program is happening under his watch, he has to have knowledge of it and this is no way to close budget gaps. It's not the Tea Party way and he can find work elsewhere after his mayoralty is over. Last I checked it's the consent of the governed:)

Obama and the birthers

I think he's just messin' with 'em. He probably has his birth certificate in his back pocket but if they wanna think I'm a spearchucker from Kenya so be it. Trump is kinda reviving the whole birther thing with his quasi-bid for president. He was rapping with Meredith Vieira this morning, always entertaining. The other thing is Obama honoring Sharpton and his National Action Network in Harlem the other day does not and will not appeal to the White Voter next time around, just seeing Sharpton's face in the paper gets my Dad upset. That YouTube video of that kid screaming he wants to be governor of New Jersey, NOT funny. Annoying, irritating in a white suburban kind of way and please don't give it the time of day. There's a 300+ pound black NYC Councilman who wants to ban toys from McDonald's Happy Meals. You see here's the thing, people who pass too many laws don't think they're passing too many laws and that's the root of the problem. I was doing some research on feral cats the other day and came across "Glendale CA woman evicted from apartment for feeding feral cats". Dunno why but animals seem to be a polarizing topic for alot of folks, people seem to either love 'em or hate 'em. Andrea Peyser of the New York Post, she's a great writer otherwise and don't know why but she's firmly in the latter category. So we gotta cover everything in the Law these days, stray cats, Happy Meals, pissing in the woods ("no human excreta may be deposited within 500 feet of any marsh, spring or watercourse...," see I still remember my fishing license handbook after all these years). I think what Trump is saying is we got a feral president, probably eats caterpillars and digs ball bugs from the barks of trees when he's not putting plates in his mouth:)

The Ivory Coasters

Why not throw a dart at a board and help the Ivorians? Almost one million people in the Ivory Coast in southern Africa are now refugees and are fleeing in droves especially from the main city of Abidjan. There has been a four month power struggle going on between the incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo and his opposition rival Alassane Ouattara due to the disputed election of last November but Ouattara is internationally recognized as having won. Gbagbo has refused to go saying the election was rigged and the U.N. has accused pro-Gbagbo forces of shelling pro-Ouattara areas. Things are on the verge of an all-out civil war and many health centers no longer operate because staff have left and they lack basic drugs and medical supplies. There's a 12,000 strong U.N. peacekeeping force with calls to strengthen that and here's what French President Nicolas Sarkozy had to say: "At a minimum there should be no heavy weapons in Abidjan. We're talking about helicopters, mortars that could shoot on the population. It should be declared illegal by the international community." France has already drafted a U.N. resolution dealing with this. The way I see it to be constantly intervening and never intervening are two extremes, false options as Obama rightly noted in his address to the nation the other night regarding Libya. We've never been overly interested in the African continent imo, it's all the Middle East 24/7 and that consumes the better part of each succeeding president's foreign policy efforts. Africa's a tragic continent always relegated to the Third World, so much potential and yet so many dictators and bad apples throughout its history. As a sidenote I used to work with a young woman from Malawi, brought back pouches of Malawi gin one day. Not bad:)

If it's a covert operation why are we talking about it?

Caught Chuck Todd this morning on Today in between making the coffee and feeding the cat and generally getting ready for work. Word on the street, CIA operatives on the ground in Libya getting a feel for the rebels with the whole aim of arming them the better to overthrow the Mad Dog. Congress would have fairly tight control with the funding and the whole thing affords the White House legal deniability. Now I can just picture Khadafy eating his palm dates in the morning with a cup of goat milk, a little couscous or tabbouleh on the side going over the early edition of the Ole Gray Lady. What's this a map with who doing what? how many U.S. G-men? they're talkin' smack with who? what kind of weapons, state of the art? turns on the Today show and gets filled in on the rest from Mr. Todd of what Obama's gonna do -- who what where when and how. Again why are we talking about it? why am I even blogging about it? They say the Italian media don't say shit, they talk about the Jersey Shore. Maybe there's a value in pop ephemera after all. Somebody please hit the Sheen Button!!!:)

The arc of the commentary regarding Obama and Libya

Early on when the uprising in Libya began and the rebels took some cities but then Khadafy's forces were closing in the criticism then was Obama wasn't doing enough, dithering, taking too long to decide to try to stop a massacre. Hillary was seen as the real powerbroker behind the scenes who eventually persuaded the boss to do something. She was seen as being stronger than him, probably would've been a better president and I remember a New York Post editorial or two saying c'mon Obama let's get with an official Libyan policy already or was that just my imagination? Now their editorials tend to be more critical and questioning of the Libyan situation or is that just my imagination too? So that was the arc of the commentary early on (c'mon, admit it) and now that he has an official Libyan policy and is acting on it the arc of the commentary has now changed to why Libya? what is our national interest there? do we intervene militarily everywhere where dictators oppress their people? and related questions and subissues. I'm sorry but where I come from that's known as a mindfuck. In this case criticizing him early on for not doing something and not having a coherent Libyan policy in place but then the same people criticizing him when he finally does take action with some kind of Obama Doctrine taking shape. I take it these same people would say Bill Clinton did the right thing in not doing more in preventing the Rwandan genocide. There's something in that ancient classic The Art of War by Sun Tzu about the virtue of changing positions, you see it in the workplace alot. Apparently the Rwandan non-intervention is the model to follow since the whole thing hinges on our national interest anyway. So one day Obama is criticized for not putting the U.S. front and center in a leadership role in dealing with Khadafy and practically two days later criticized for putting the U.S. there at all. One can make the case that Obama initially launched those missiles due heavily in part to the earlier criticism of his apparent indifference to the crisis and is now explaining himself in front of the nation and not too well either I might add due in large part to the criticism that came later but that's what the mindfuck does, gets you to act in mutually contradictory ways due to the influence of the critics who change their views on an almost daily basis as events unfold and you're left to fend for yourself and your critics write another column or publish another blog. I try to aim for consistency here and can't fault the president for his humanitarian instincts, a humanitarianism that is apparently irrelevant if it isn't tied in with our national security interests:)

At the risk of being upstaged by world events

In terms of blogging material I had nothing today (Libya/Tsunami, been there done that) so I went home before and opened up my mailbag, a daily ritual I hate btw ("URGENT - Open at Once", well can I take a dump first? cat might be hungry) and got one of those Gotcha! pictures in full color and couple of different angles too detailing exactly where I made an illegal right hand turn by not making a complete stop during the red phase of some traffic light even though otherwise you could make a Right on Red there at the intersection of Odell and Nepperhan Ave. The return address on the stub said City of Yonkers Red Light Traffic Safety Program PO Box 742503 Cincinnati OH 45274-2503 (didn't know the city of Cincinnati and the big YO had a connection, hmmm) and the amount of the infraction was 50 bucks. Now I said quite recently that I probably never would blog about a traffic ticket, not the merits of one anyway as you'll always get the dutiful right-winger from the Law Enforcement wing of the party and overall Good Citizen who points out "but Z you deserved that ticket, could've hit some 14-year old Catholic schoolgirl coming home from school" (visions of the bookbag flying) but there was something in the letter...they gave me my own PIN # and a web address where I can view a VIDEO of my moving violation online. Must everything be online these days??? Yeah I know only I can access it but it's weird and creepy in a vague way. Well if my vid can be online so can my commentary. Now I was always in my bones against these traffic light cams as being somehow a violation of Something although I never felt the spirit move me to blog about it (there are always more important things you know) and always felt these tiny encroachments on our liberty and/or privacy would someday amount to some big cumulative nightmare on the spirit of our freedom but the prob here is if you complain let's say that in a couple years you won't be able to get an incandescent light bulb because our friend Bush signed a law doing away with them in favor of the compact fluorescent you risk sounding like Charlie Sheen in a militia uniform so at the risk of sounding hyperdramatical at what point in time can we say (and apply your own special pet peeve here) this and no more? makes me trepidatious. Can we conversate?:)

Oh so Bush gets to go to war first

I sense a trend developing although conservative commentary is still young on the matter and that is a growing conservative criticism of Obama over our actions in Libya. Savage last night said why are we there yada yada kind of the usual reverse liberal criticisms of Bush's adventures in Iraq. Political fault lines -- when Bush went to war>good, when Obama goes to war>bad. Neocons are the only consistent bunch of the group, apparently they never met a war they didn't like. I get the sense that John McCain always wants to go to war. Liberals apparently never see a war as being morally justified even if the standard being used is helping an oppressed and persecuted people which to me is a kind of a liberal paradox or conundrum since they're against those people being oppressed and persecuted in the first place just not helping them out via war (alternative, singing Kumbaya?). Sure it doesn't help that Obama and members of his administration are saying contradictory things. Now the president says it's official U.S. policy that Khadafy must go and that Ham guy, that commander over there says he can see him remaining in power and even though he's not a member of Team Obama let's throw in that British defense minister who pretty much has come out for assassinating Khadafy. It'd be nice if everyone were on the same page and I've been meaning to say a word or two about assassinations as it applies to foreign leaders. Reagan signed an Executive Order against this and I've read at least one conservative commentator say all Obama has to do is rescind this order with the stroke of a pen and I guess then the CIA can then go in with a poison cigar like they tried to do with Castro or maybe they can put a black mamba or box jelly in his tub where he cavorts with that sensuous nurse. It's all mind-numbingly stupid commentary as once you allow certain albeit extremely narrow exceptions for assassinating foreign leaders, heads of state (e.g. the guy's a monster and eats people or he raped a caravan of nuns) then what do you say years down the road when someone advocates assassination using the rationale Prime Minister XYZ is bad for the global economy or is just an all-around sucky guy who's bringing us down because he makes his population make baseballs for well below any decent standard of living wages? You see it's like this, once you allow moral exceptions or put it another way, the law against murder is ironclad, you can't just off your spouse because he or she cheated on you with the UPS guy but that's a moral philosophy course for another day. Now if they hit Khadafy's tent where he entertains folk, well they might deem it some type of military installation because he has a toy helicopter in there and a DVD copy of Hogan's Heroes so there be a very fine line ya know? I've one word to soapie though,

LOCKERBIE

Not that there's anything wrong with it

On the eve of the allied air assault against Libya Moammar Khadafy had this to say in a personal letter to Obama: "I have said to you before that even if Libya and the United States enter into war, God forbid, you will always remain my son and I have all the love for you as a son." This echoes what he had previously said some time back in a long and rambling and incoherent speech to the UN body in a kind of sonnet: "we are content and happy if Obama can stay forever as a President of United States of America." Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez had warm greetings for Obama at the Summit of the Americas back in the day, they hugged or high-fived or fist-bumped or something and Chavez gave him a book. Raul Castro, brother of Fidel once said "Obama seems like a good man" and wished him luck. They say they can tell.

I must be giving off the wrong vibe or something:)

Obama, in over his head

After a quick browsing through the latest events in Libya I get the impression in some ways that French president Nicolas Sarkozy is the president Obama should have been. France seems to be taking the lead in enforcing a UN Security Council resolution for a ceasefire and French jets were seen flying over the rebel-held city of Benghazi in eastern Libya. According to the latest reports a plane was shot down over the outskirts of Benghazi to the cheers of rebels (in the newswire I read it simply said plane although judging from the reaction it must have been Libya's). Sure there are arguments against a no-fly zone ranging from it is for all intents and purposes an act of war, our troops are already stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan and enforcing a no-fly would have the effect of making Khadafy a hero in the Arab world (huh, from villain to hero in one fell swoop?) but I can no longer subscribe to the paleo-conservative/libertarian position of non-interventionism in such tragic cases. Khadafy and his ministers are pretty much telling the U.S., Britain and France to mind their own business and if in the paleocon mind this has some validity I would ask if the same could have applied to Hitler. The Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings went well for the Mideastern rebels but in this case seems they need that extra push from the international community. It is a moral thing we are finally doing, it's heartening and let's not forget for those libertarian non-interventionists out there we still have those four New York Times journalists missing in Libya which I know the Randian party line would probably go along the tune of that never would have happened unless......Well now at least Obama gets spared his version of Bill Clinton's Rwanda even though it's not so much he took the lead but got pulled along. God so much going on in the world the last few weeks!

Fun with numbers

Since I'm on vacation and online traffic is usually slow when I have all the time in the world I decided to play around with some numbers just now. Some time back in a discussion of dieting that guy from Idaho made the point that medically recommended ideal weights seem overly harsh and I thought he was exaggerating at the time until I just googled "ideal weight" and entered my personal information on a couple of websites for a personal ideal weight calculation (you should too to see what I mean). There are many many websites devoted to this and many formulas but they seemed to have a common enough range. OK so I'm at 200 now, doctor is pleased and thanks to Muscle Milk for many happy returns but get this >> Bearing in mind that I'm 6'2" the first site I visited spit this out: my recommended weight range is between 155 and 194 lbs.!!! with my ideal healthy weight being 174. The second place crunched out these numbers and this was supposed to be a more reasonable site not taking everything doctors say as gospel: medical recommendation 148-195 lbs. and ideal weight 190. Now it's not the 190's that get me, that doesn't seem too rad for a guy of 6'2" and big-boned although I don't plan on that but those other ranges I'd be anorexic at those #'s. Ya gotta question this stuff and I'm lucky I have a doctor who heavily gravitates towards the upper numbers. Also for self-defense purposes I strongly favor those higher figures. Just thought I'd have some fun today so crunch in those numbers for yourself and see what you come up with. Last point, if these are the formulas in use to determine we have a fatty/obesity epidemic in this country then the numbers are highly skewed (a political agenda?). The Medical Arts are a crock if they say your personal role model should be Twiggy. You know somewhere in these ranges you have to enjoy life too ya know:)

Things I hate about Twitter

For starters tweeting sounds vaguely gay but that's not the point. Twitter is the stupidest thing on the Internet,

vapid celebrity xyz: "I just took a dump" (later picked up by "E.T." and "Access Hollywood" and talked about during your favorite drive-time morning show the next day when they should be playing music. Scott 'n' Todd, whassup?)

Twitter is the Ego run amok. We're all mini-Sheens now. Young guy at work told me about his Facebook page (Twitter/Facebook, same thing), check it out. Thanx I'll try not to. Now most bloggers have a massive ego that goes beyond healthy (Twitter/Facebook/Blogging, same deal) and the thing with Sheen, I couldn't cap it at first but he has Lucifer Syndrome. "I am the greatest. I fell like lightning from the Sky, I will set up my own Kingdom" and other drug-induced, existentially distorted bullshit). Whatever was gleaned of value in that 20/20 interview he is now reduced to some roving asshole, Dad must be sooooo proud. They say his upcoming city to city comedy tour sold out in a matter of minutes. These are probably, I'm only hazarding a guess here the same folks who wiped out all those potassium iodide tablets from the shelves because some molecule of Strontium-90 or Caesium-137 might float over the East Coast (it's not that they're chem majors but they seem to have an uncanny ability to pick up important info before you do kind of through osmosis, otherwise they're watching Married with Children). Oh well there's always kelp (for now). I remember during one of our major snowstorms this past winter and this was right before the first flakes fell but it got so busy so early I couldn't even set up the showcase, first time that's happened. It was retarded busy and I don't think this culture could make it through the Apocalypse but you can be sure as hell they would have to tweet about it (the combo blogger/tweeter/facebooker: "The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter just broke free and is now hurtling towards the Earth. HOLY SHIT!!!"). I was in Dick's Sporting Goods the other day with my friend, the new one they built in the Danbury Fair Mall and they got these things by Camelbak in the bike section. Basically what it is is it looks like some kind of backpack deal but the idea is you put water in it and there's a tube that goes in your mouth and you suck the water out (as Carlin once pointed out this society seems to feel the need for constant hydration). Then if you buy that you have to buy the cleaning kit that goes along with it of course. My friend seemed interested but that's how they suck you in I said. Now unless you plan on being stranded in the Alaskan wilderness a bottle of BB's overpriced tap water should suffice for your immediate needs when you're simply bicycling, hiking or just jerking off in the woods. Jobs, my friend said every job we've had in our lives has scum in it and you begin to wonder are people really this way? Shellshocked by Life. Nature is acting different too these days. Saw a pigeon the other day soaring, must've thought he was a hawk. The Archie Bunker Talking Alarm Clock: "Get the hell up, geeeez." I have to go home later and bang the crumbs out of my toaster oven, should I tweet about it?:)

Thoughts on radiation/cancer and the Japanese nuclear crisis

With a possibility of a looming Japanese nuclear meltdown I had this thought that I'm gonna throw out there with the complete foreknowledge that this thread will be easily proven wrong by the more learned medical folks here but this blog is more in the style of thinking out loud and so there is something I can't wrap my head around exactly. With the evacuations in certain sectors of Japan and the threat of some type of radioactive cloud drifting towards the West Coast with the Surgeon General telling us to take precautions (I don't know what this means) here it is: we use radiation to treat cancer. In one instance radiation is obviously bad for you and in the other it's the preferred mode of treatment combined with chemo. Now I know Saty will say it's the amounts or some such thing, we don't exactly nuke cancer patients but just the same many of them do look like Auschwitz survivors but this is to be expected whereas in other instances we're told in no uncertain terms to evacuate. I saw a few nights back on a news program how they are now trying to attack cancer cells in the brain with electromagnetism. It was Katie Couric's show and the initial results were promising and they showed one brave soul with his wife and he has been undergoing this experimental treatment for some time now but the reporter stressed that this treatment has to be combined with the more traditional chemo/radiation regimen and my question is why if the electromagnetism is doing a great job on its own? So why in one situation do we run away from radiation and in another embrace it? I thought it was always bad all the time but anyway there you have it:)

Political correctness kills

I have to repeat it although it's an obvious truth, Islam is problematic. The majority of Muslims are not terrorists but the majority of terrorists are Muslims. Radical Muslims are not the whole of Islam but they are a substantial minority and substantial minorities can cause problems. Today is the first day of Congressman Peter King's hearings on homegrown radicals, you may have heard this Congressional investigation is controversial and Peter King has been called all kinds of names and well, let me just say again, Islam is problematic. I think it's a matter of emphases, everyone knows there are Muslim terrorists in the world but the liberal crowd wants to stress the peaceableness of most Muslims (not hard to understand) whereas conservatives are troubled by we don't really know who's who, who's the good guy and who's the bad guy. Seems to me though the good Muslims may want to take back their religion first before they complain and I know I'll hear the usual points by soapster, Satyavati and surely Shaw but my whole thing is the situation is complicated so why can't we understand that?

Fast times

...(resisting the Sheen thread)...Today Wednesday March the 9th is the beginning of Lent, Ash Wednesday for us Catholics and I'm wondering if any of us truly fast anymore. Now my last church bulletin laid out the rules, one regular meal today and on Good Friday and two smaller meals at other times of the day are allowed but they cannot equal another regular meal. Got that? you do the math but since I was dieting for the second half of last year it's probably easier for me so today for lunch I had a tin of sardines, six crackers, a pear and washed it down with some Poland Spring. Later on I'll eat regular but not pig out, dunno what it'll be yet but I do find fasting to be a spiritual experience so let's lay it out. How do YOU fast? Once the hunger starts to set in do you reach for that Twinkie or Ding Dong and rationalize it? Sure you do before you go all Gandhi on us. The Friday thing of abstaining from meat is not an issue for me since I LOVE seafood anyway but the Question before the Board today -- have we become pussies when it comes to fasting?

1 1/2 Men

The show is often deemed the best tv has to offer but for me it's a mixed bag. Yes several episodes were funny but the whole thing is contrived. Yeah I know contrived like duh it's make believe and it's a sitcom but in the last episode I caught even Alan gets laid and that after only meeting some woman in a bar who seems to have a Nazi fetish and later makes a Hitler mustache on Alan with indelible magic marker. It's one long drawn out penis joke over many seasons and Charlie's biggest problem in the show seems to be where to take a nap in the afternoon after banging five different women, does the theme of rejection ever come up? My friend and I were discussing producer Chuck Lorre's vanity cards which flash at the end of each episode, so quick you can't even read them and we both agreed the ones that pissed off Charlie Sheen were inappropriate. Charlie is (or was) a worker for Mr. Lorre, Mr. Lorre was his boss so it'd be like if your boss posted stuff at your expense on the bulleten board, say you're an alcoholic or whatever personal problems you have it ain't right. By now we ALL want to know what Sheen is on and the only way to get to the bottom of it is good old-fashioned blood work. His interview on 20/20 made semi-sense in some creative drugged out sort of way (sometimes you gotta pull back and be objective about this sort of stuff) but he's lost me, now he's just in the Bermuda Triangle, he's tiresome and painfully boring but what a weird way for a show to end. It'd be like if All in the Family suddenly came to an end in its heyday because Carroll O'Connor became fucked up in the head or The Brady Bunch got yanked because Robert Reed became a dickhead overnight. BTW all those who say they've had enough of this story you'll be the first ones to chime in:)

emotional judo, mind masturbation & other techniques of the ancient fighting skills

Channel-surfing last night and on came this commercial about animal cruelty, some animal group which does good work but I always change the channel. I'm sensitive to this stuff so it begins with some hungry and tired dog walking the sidewalk with the caption "when will I eat?" The thought occured why doesn't the cameraman or whoever is filming this give the dog a bowl of Alpo and some water? Watch me suffer to make a political point - the former abortionist turned pro-life activist Dr. Bernard Nathanson passed away Feb. 21 at his home in Manhattan. The Silent Scream, basically he was friends with an abortionist, Dr. Jay Kelinson in New York City and since the procedure was gonna be done anyway it was shot in ultrasound and the rest is history. I would have done without the title though, slightly Elvira-ish. So I was watching this NOVA/National Geographic special couple weeks back about venomous critters and they showed some guy suffering in a Vietnamese hospital after getting bit by a poisonous snake known as a krait. Seems antivenin is rather expensive there and most folks can't afford it so they hooked him up to a respirator instead so he could breathe and it takes a few weeks for the venom to run its course this way and, I don't know it's fucked up.

Does Obama care more about gay marriage than Libya? I really don't care how he's evolving, Rodan the Thinking Man. Just do Something, about Libya that is. He's the kind of person if he worked in a deli he'd be farting around in the kitchen making a seafood pastry puff and you'd have to kick him in the ass to help with the line up front.

I caught Joe Scarborough on the Today Show this morning and it reminded me once again of why I never liked the guy. He said Newt Gingrich is unelectable as president because in the past he has called Obama a socialist among other things. Joe has made a fetish out of pointing out when he feels other conservatives are being a little extreme, think McCain's daughter but less stupid. I even question whether the guy is a real conservative but if Newt's policies are good for the country I don't see a problem. At some time it was decided that it's a Bad Thing to call Obama a socialist, it's a control issue between liberals and elite conservatives like David Brooks to kind of fence us in, the whole argument from intimidation thing. It's a I Want to be Popular at Manhattan Cocktail Parties brand of conservatism, it's hip to be hip, the whole moderation is sexy thing until I'm so dull maybe I don't stand for anything anymore. BTW you can't say the work "cocktail" at Hannityland, discovered that once otherwise it'll be cut off. Reminds me of why I don't miss the place:)

The saddest part about Charlie Sheen is

it's taking away from his important and groundbreaking work on 9-11. I almost think it's a government conspiracy to supply him with 'hos and drugs.

An Oscar thought

I don't watch 'em. The only two movies I saw last year was Inception and Wall Street 2 - Money Never Sleeps. I had this thought though, Italians seem to be the only ethnic group happy with their portrayal in the movies (Jersey Shore doesn't count) and btw I'm not talking about official Italian-American spokesgroups just folks you work with and hang with every day (I had to add this because I know BB is hunting up a link right now). I asked as least three Italians at work how many times they saw The Godfather and they all said so many times they lost count. Goodfellas, another popular flick second only to Marlon Brando, ripe for discussion. All other groups - the Irish don't like it when they're portrayed as drinkers, Puerto Ricans don't like it when they're drug dealers and OF COURSE Muslims don't like it when they're cast as terrorists - the other ethnicities and tribes all have their issues but

The Godfather

the best movie Of All Time hands down and you can bet they own the Trilogy. You don't hear them talk about Citizen Kane for instance or The Maltese Falcon or The Ox-Bow Incident and as one Italian guy I work with noted "every time you watch The Godfather you pick up something new that wasn't there before." That's quite a work of Art. Of course this is just another one of my over-generalizations as Shaw will no doubt point out, maybe it's just the ones I work with and oh, watch what you say about Frank Sinatra. The two mozzarella boys made a delivery to us a few years back and my co-chef said something about Frank Sinatra that was less than glowing and while the boys were busy hustling 'n' bustling, they had to make their rounds they both stopped dead in their tracks and just looked or rather glared at the guy and there was silence in the kitchen. I told him ya gotta watch what you say about the Chairman of the Board. The black guy at work said they don't get offended by gangster flicks because they know it's true. As for the Awards you're free to discuss, I just won't know what you're talking about.

The Evolving President

Now if I were a gay man I'd be kind of offended by the President's recent statements that his views on gay marriage have evolved and are evolving but more on that in a minute. Do you want a president who evolves or who has firm convictions? That's not to say that evolving is always a bad thing but how come he doesn't evolve in a more conservative direction? I mean if all bets are on the table and seems to me the AG Eric Holder should at least be defending the DOMA law in court for now as I think it safe to assume most liberals would expect a future Republican president to uphold health-care reform. Now picture yourself a gay man and re gay marriage the president, your president says his views are evolving on the matter maybe even in your direction as seems to be the political consensus now on Obama. Well what do you mean exactly that you are evolving, are we somehow an acquired taste? Is there something distasteful about the whole thing? It took you that long to like us and you're still not there yet? They say Obama is the best friend gays have at the moment but I would think it would be not just social conservatives who would be disturbed by his evolutions of thought:)

Liberal diversity of thought on abortion?

Not as I see it. Saty believes overall that conservatives all share the same political opinions basically whereas liberals do not and she believes, actually believes this applies to abortion as well. Well obviously it doesn't because while liberals may wax poetic about our nation's diversity and pluralism their overall conclusion is exactly the same re the practice notwithstanding the occasional oddball like Nat Hentoff. That conclusion is that abortion should remain entirely legal, they wholeheartedly support Roe in other words. Now if you had some libs saying abortion legal only during the first few weeks, others saying maybe 4 or 5 months and still others advocating parental notification laws and others not, IF you had one hearty group of libs saying yeah we're pro-choice but the legal framework behind Roe really sucks and needs to be overturned or at least revisited and another group saying no 'tis fine, these and other finer shades and nuances would indicate liberal diversity of thought on the issue but you lose on this one Saty, oh boy do you lose!

Now if I were a liberal Democratic strategist I would counsel the Left distance themselves from abortion. Push the green issues, labor issues, the rights of dissidents in foreign lands and whatever else floats your boat but to chug away at something that is by its very nature ugly makes no eminent practical political sense to me. It's a creepy brand imo (make that creepy-cubed when you throw in Terri Schiavo). There doesn't seem to be that great a diversity of thought on gun control either or immigration for that matter. I'd go so far as to say that overall liberal and conservative thought tends to be fairly homogeneous over time and that is to be expected since liberals have roughly the same ideals as other liberals and conservatives share generally the same ideals as other conservatives and there's gambling in Vegas. So for Saty to tout liberals as somehow being the Great Thinkers of the Age on what planet?

Have at it. I'm pumped and primed and when it comes to splitting hairs and parsing language I already know your next move. I wasn't going to do an abortion blog so soon but her misguided encomia to modern-day liberalism cannot go unaddressed. BTW when it comes to liberal diversity of thought on abortion I want copious documentation and quotes:)

afterthought: You know here's a weird thought, there actually is more conservative diversity of thought on abortion than liberal diversity of thought on the issue. Conservatives also from what I've been reading in the blogosphere and in organized punditry these days also have differing views on gay marriage, Jonah Goldberg is rather all over the map......hmmmmmm......

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

President Obama gets slammed for throwing our longtime and Israel's ally Hosni Mubarak under the bus but he would've gotten slammed for not throwing Mubarak under the bus and not siding with the protesters. First Tunisia and Egypt now they're saying the next dominoes to fall will be Yemen, Iran and Libya and the concern here is whether this will augur in a new wave of democracy in the Middle East or the rise of the Islamic fundies. The brutal sexual assault against CBS News correspondent Lara Logan in Cairo, this would be like if the civil rights marchers of the '60s then engaged in hooliganism and thereby tarnished their own mark in History. Even from a pragmatic standpoint WHY would you do this unless of course that's WHO you are?

Mankind at its finest

According to a new book those 33 Chilean miners who were heroically rescued on international tv wanted and got pot, pornography and blowup dolls and thought about eating each other. Actually it is my understanding that the last item was denied as they didn't have enough to go around and the guys would've been fighting over her but be that as it may it's amazing to me that in such a situation where you're staring Death in the face one of your first thoughts is Sex. We'll even forget the reefer here but when I was lost in Clarence Fahnestock State Park here in Putnam County for the better part of a day with no food and water and night fast closing in let's just say my immediate thoughts were not of a sexual nature. Folks who seem to go out of their way to fulfill their own stereotypes, blogged about this a couple times back in the day. The Latino Horndog, when sticking your face in the very Jaws of Death jerk off first.

Sad to see Beth's last political blog but I can understand where she's coming from. I've been away from blogging for all of two days now but I'm a'ight. Tuesday I had off with my friend and couldn't hit a library and yesterday went to work after a bad night's sleep and figured just go home after it's all done. Now I don't know if this was a factor but the night before I had some gin and was browsing through the mammoth history classic The Arms of Krupp by William Manchester who also wrote Death of a President. You've heard the name Krupp of course, well the Krupp dynasty goes back centuries and officially ended with the death of head Alfried Krupp in 1967. Turns out Alfried helped bankroll Adolf Hitler and his rise to power and ran concentration camps himself during WW2 as a form of mass slave labor for his steel/iron/armaments industry which in turn greatly helped Hitler's military thuggery around the world. One concentration camp was expressly for children and in another adults were either severely beaten when they couldn't churn out the work product or else put into this tight little cage which was so horrible many inmates opted for the beatings instead. Now Alfried Krupp was finally convicted of crimes against humanity at Nuremberg and his entire assets, holdings and property were confiscated. He was released a few years later by U.S. High Commissioner John J. McCloy who apparently felt bad for one of Europe's leading industrialists if not the leading industrialist of the day. Now the Ole Gray Lady was biased even back then and despite the excellent reportage of one of their women writers they practically buried Alfried's Nuremberg trial which lasted about as long as Adolph Eichmann's but anyway after his release from prison and his livelihood restored back to him he became the leading mover and shaker in the European Common Market. A disturbing, depressing and shocking read but important for the historical record and you might wanna go easy on the gin 'n' tonic here, you won't be sleeping too good. So good luck to Beth but I have a feeling she'll be back and have to say Saty gave me a really good laugh when she said conservatives all hold the same opinions whereas liberals encourage real diversity of thought and I was thinking of all the real liberal diversity of thought over abortion let's say or gun control but I'm gonna have to cap it here:)

This has to be a joyous occasion

Occasionally you'll hear or know of a person who is actually underweight, maybe even very underweight and their goal is actually to gain weight as per doctor's orders. I am thinking of Michael Douglas who after all his chemo he's been through is severely under his ideal weight and is happily working on getting it back. Now this is really COOL that you are now officially sanctioned to pig out,

"pass me more bread please, and oh the butter"

if only for a brief period of time, a few weeks, a couple months like you just had a hearty meal and couple hours later you go oh let me hit a McDonald's. A Nirvanic window of opportunity, a quirk in the normal flow of Life. Enjoy!!!

Scales are weird. You'll have one day when you did everything exceptionally right. You really put in the exercise that day, not only that you ate purely for nutritional purposes, no going over, no overeating (it's actually amazing when you do this you see as if in stark relief how everyone else engages in totally unnecessary eating throughout the day) and so you do all this and step on the scale at night and you actually, what is that? gained a couple of pounds?!? Now here's the other thing and doctors never explain it, when they talk about your ideal weight should you weigh say X amount of pounds even after having a decent meal or what exactly is the definition here? The thing with losing the weight is maintaining your weight and you always, but always sense a little creepup. Had a nice cheesecake slice at work the other day, pondered it but said what the hell and so wouldn't you know it and this was at night and into the next day too probably plussed another pound. I don't obsess over it but I can see why this is such a frustrating area for so many people. Then there's the Inversion of Values by people who resent you for some reason like the guy delivering the meats yesterday who says to me "oh you lost weight, was it deliberate?" I like somebody who

Gets to the Point,

I can dig it but no dude I didn't put some bad dick in my mouth or finished off my round of chemo/radiation. So what part of "my weight was related to some blood pressure issues and so I decided to finally address that" don't you understand? People act like this dieting thing is some type of vast Mystery for the Ages but it's really all about discipline and since so many people fail at that, in fact the failure's expected that somebody who actually sticks to the Program is outside-the-mainstream I guess but talk about beating a subject to death! The horse wants to be buried already. Guy at work, I guess he's trying to lose the weight and so he always asks for Weight Watchers bread to be used on his sandwich every day but imo he got it all wrong. It ain't that, he just needs to get his boots on and climb up Mt. Spitzenberg in the middle of this wonderful winter we're having, that'd be a 545' summit in the middle of the Peekskill woods here and do this once or maybe twice a week. I guess it's easier to go with the special bread than the North Face and the frozen snot though:)

Overtime vs. Leisure Time

This constantly amazes me, that most folks seem to see the opportunity for increased overtime as somehow being more important or desireable than more leisure time. Had to leave on time yesterday and the next guy wasn't in yet but because it was slow I said to the older gentleman I was working with I'm goin' and he said but you could get some overtime in. Now here's a very partial list of what the average person has to do on any given day: haircut, oil change, laundry, renew driver's license, visit sick relative in hospital, pick somebody up at the airport, food shopping, exercising, reading, doctor's app't, blogging, cultivating friendships.... I ain't getting it but the biggest practical reason why I now philosophically opt for the leisure time over the OT is the IRS. Make enough overtime and you'll be pushing yourself into a higher tax bracket and will probably owe the IRS some dough, they'll see you as wealthy. Now if we got rid of the income tax entirely then the philosophical argument for OT over leisure time becomes more compelling but until then you're just a bunch of fools folks.

Charlie Sheen

Martin must be so proud,

& finally a Philosophical Question

Ever have a day at work where something can be right in front of you and you ask for help and somebody says over there by the ... and you still can't find it so I jokingly says to the guy yesterday don't yell at me because I'm a little retarded. Now this is not meant in a disparaging way but if you know you're retarded then you can't be retarded just like if you know you're insane you can't really be insane or if you know you have the Alzheimer's then you really don't have it. Are the people under these conditions always unaware of their situation? It's like this is rare but a few times I had a dream and while dreaming I knew I was dreaming. Since this is becoming a little Convoluted

Oh hell let's throw in a Political Point too

Re the proper role of Government in our lives what with racial and economic disparities, the lack of educational opportunities and health care and all the other slings and arrows of outrageous fortune my conclusion is this: Saty's overall philosophy resonates with me, she taps home but Beth is right on the merits. I think they're both basically saying the same thing that we should lend a hand to those in need, to help those less fortunate than ourselves but Saty sees the government as a prime mechanism here and Beth sees it instead as I do as a whole Biblical/Christian mandate kind of thing whereas Ayn Rand resolved the whole thorny philosophical dilemma with Fuck Charity. So soapie what you have done to give back??? Good day folks!

The crisis in Egypt and its implications for the geopolitical consortium

(Disclaimer: I don't know WTF I'm talking about here)

Sometimes certain major topical events pose a type of dilemma for the average blogger. I am not an Egyptologist, the Mideast is beyond my pay grade and yet I feel rather compelled to open up the crisis in Egypt for discussion. It's one of those topics you have to google or bing so as to appear semi-literate ("Mubarak's 30-yr rule", "Anwar Sadat assassinated in 1981", "Suleiman for VP", "40% of oil to Europe flowing through the Suez Canal"......) but you'll never rise to the rank of university professor rapping with Jim Lehrer (the reader will note I didn't have much to say on Tunisia of late). It seems to me Mubarak has to go, even his own generals are against him (how am I doing? OG I wish I could blog about Charlie Sheen right now!) but Mubarak kind of reminds me of Pinochet, our kind of dictator about whom we can look the other way at least for a time. Did the looters get to the Pyramids yet? there's a curse on that sort of stuff you know. I have to give my blog some heft with an occasional foray into foreign policy, people are still starving in Niger you know, but as Wikipedia would put it this article can use input from an expert or scholar in the field. BB?:)

The snow/climate change connection & some other Notes

Oh God I was homebound yesterday not because I couldn't go out but I didn't want to lose my parking space, the space I spent a good hour shoveling out (garbage cans are so yesterday). The 7th snowstorm of the season up here in the Northeast, snowiest January on record for Central Park where there was 19" of the white stuff on the ground yesterday. This is the time of year when you browse through large swaths of the conservative blogosphere and you'll see the predictable large-scale photo of the latest blizzard with the title "What Global Warming?" and a few potshots at AlGore so yesterday there was some Japanese scientist on the Today Show saying maybe this all has to do with global warming. Seems there might be more moisture in the Gulf of Mexico these days colliding with that rush of Arctic air coming down from Canada and you really have to love the sheer philosophical tenacity of the global warming crowd, whenever you're theorizing and encounter contrary evidence spin it your way. Now I've been theorizing my whole life about people, things whatever but you're bound to encounter things that don't always support your theory every now and then. Some people become more devoted actually when this happens and have an uncanny ability to work the odd stuff back in but that's not good theorizing imo. It's like with the few people and they're not in the majority by any stretch but when you lose alot of weight your co-workers think you're sick but when you tell 'em two or three times the deal they still stick with the erroneous theory ("Z-man has been losing alot of weight lately. It can't really be all that fish and veggies and exercising, must've been sucking some mean dick. I mean does he ever talk about a girlfriend?" chatter chatter) You know persisting in bad theories is, well just plain bad and can cause all sorts of trouble, a real snowjob you could say. Now I'm more open to theories of climate change than your average conservative but a snowstorm a week beginning the day after Christmas is still a snowstorm a week beginning the day after Christmas and if we had glaciers forming on top of skyscrapers in downtown Manhattan we'd still have the same Japanese scientists blaming it on some jetstream of warm air down south. So temperatures are rising folks but expect more snow. Yeah I thought of doing a blog on Obama's SOTU and his reemergence as a conservative (did he actually say something about unnecessary regulations and parts of the health-care law being bad for Small Business?) but this latest commentary on the winter we've been having up here in the Northeast is just too rich. BTW re this work thing soap feels you should work during a blizzard if you're scheduled to go in and Beth feels in general if you're scheduled X amount of hours during the day you should work those X hours. I just feel you should be able to use your last ten or fifteen minutes to wash up and rap and you have to use your own personal judgement about the weather. My position can best be summed up: in this here 21st Century there should be a more rational way to work. I challenge anybody on this stuff but if you want to talk about the SOTU instead I got no problem. BTW if you're driving in the City and your car gets stuck Bloomberg says you may be towed at your own expense. This guy STILL doesn't get it!!:))

American Idol - Season 10

I liked it, it worked. The new team of Randy Jackson, J-Lo and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler proves that a show doesn't have to be cruel to be interesting. Not having Simon is like getting out from under the yoke of a bad boss and the proceedings were much more pleasant this time around. Got the impression they let a few more go through to Hollywood than were warranted and imo a few were let through because of their compelling personal stories alone which kind of made up for their less than special renditions but whatever (you gonna say no to the guy whose Dad just survived throat cancer or the young Kosovar girl?). That 17-yr. old from somewhere in Jersey had me fooled, didn't look the part but crooned his heart out like Frank Sinatra. Benson somebody and I think the judges agreed he was the best so far, look for him to go a long way in this competition. That overemotional chick who works in a shopping mall who they had pegged only for Broadway they let through after she begged and pleaded, a decent enough voice but she definitely needs to reign it in. There was the 16 yr. old girl chock full of Personality and a good voice for her young age who said "yo yo dawg" to Randy and overall I enjoyed the evening. I'm sure you're gonna get your tv critics to nitpick the thing (Linda Stasi) but I have to say it was a'ight:)

Do liberals and conservatives share the same goals?

The fashionable answer is yes and I've been hearing alot of this lately but it really is a rather vague statement and is it even true? I'm gonna go with a no. Do liberals and conservatives both agree on you keeping more of your hard-earned money? Do liberals and conservatives look at the wealthy in the same way especially regarding the previous question? Do liberals and conservatives view Big Business and Labor the same way? I daresay liberals have a problem with Walmart and conservatives want you to work your ass off for even peanuts because by so doing you're setting yourself up for a mansion and Lamberghini down the road (HAH!!!) Do liberals and conservatives share the same goal of making abortion rare? Again the fashionable answer is yes but just saw on Yahoo News abortions increasing in major cities and in NYC it's almost like an Olympic Event so what have liberals done for us lately?......do liberals and conservatives view your right to self-defense the same way? Does this include the right to bear a firearm? Do liberals and conservatives view RACE the same way? (do liberals ever ask blacks why they commit so much crime?) our nation's security? war & peace? the cops? God and faith in general? SEX? (that there deserves its own blog) and so on down the list. Name any political issue and is the basic goal the same? Of course your personal health not to mention health care deserves another blog but I'm gonna go with libertarians just wanna be left alone and liberals would rather you eat an apple instead of a Funny Bone and seem rather obsessed about it at times. The same goals? I just don't see it.

Bankruptcy

Some of the soapster's most recent comments about Big Government got me thinking and instead of directly responding to his previous remarks I thought I'd do a blog about how far back the problem really goes and today we're gonna focus on this thing called Bankruptcy. Now I always have First Impressions of everything, gut feelings, call it my Primeval Conservatism at work and if you provide a good or service for somebody and you don't get paid and that person or company or corporate entity does not have to pay you after hiding behind a bankrupty filing well that just seems immoral and unjust to me. Of course your initial reaction can me modified by other factors as I feel credit-card companies charge usurious (there's a word you don't hear anymore) interest rates and so the person legitimately trying to pay off his debt gets shafted. Now I'm no lawyer and don't know all the intricacies of bankruptcy law, there's this chapter and that chapter and a few subclauses but you take a large company that has gone into 3 billion dollars in debt let's say and then they get protected by the Bankruptcy Court and get a chance to reorganize their gangster outfit and even get a bailout or loan for their troubles. Well HOW exactly did they go 3 billion dollars into the hole in the first place? At what point in time did nobody notice what was going on? Where was the company auditor in all of this, asleep at the switch? Was there corruption, were honchos putting their hands in the till? The people who were responsible, have they been held to task and if need be prosecuted or at least told to look for other work? Well in our fictitious example (or maybe the better word is factitious) all these questions become moot as they in effect get rewarded for their past bad behavior. Now I have a few philosophical issues with Ayn Rand but at least in her vision if a company deserves to go out of business they deserve to go out of business and in a pure laissez-faire marketplace system businessmen would be forced to be more careful and then there's the question of how is a bankrupt company gonna pay off a government loan (well actually a bank loan but the government is somehow involved as always)? So a couple of immoral things have happened, the vendors who provided certain goods and services won't get paid and the company gets rewarded in effect for their past bad, irresponsible or even corrupt behavior by getting a loan because it's been deemed by Big Government they're too big to fail.

The Republicans "reformed" bankruptcy laws, the Dems want to swing back but I say we need to start at Square One again. IMO it's the bailouts that drive the Tea Party. I give you something, you don't pay me and the government protects you and even arranges to get you more money. If you don't see the dysfunction here then you're not a true conservative, maybe a neocon at best. President Obama in his speech at the AZ Memorial Service spoke briefly about what he called "the forces that divide us." Well no Mr. President it's the forces that disagree with you and your vision of what government should be but this old old polemical device seems to be a favorite of his. So in effect we are left with failing companies that have run their course, should be out of business by their own doing but are being propped up by the government. Remember when the Five & Dime (Woolworth's) went out of business? THAT'S the natural course of events or used to be and it may be Destiny's way of telling you you need to be doing something else with your life, accept it. The Question Before the Board today: should we get rid of ALL bankruptcy laws?:)