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:)