Not voting as an act of conscience

I've never built my own personal philosophy around platitudes, first off they're often nuggets of false wisdom and there's also that faint whiff of conformity about them, the best distillation that groupthink has to offer but you can have your VSOP. For instance you often hear it said that it's your patriotic duty to vote and as an extension of this if you don't vote you have no right to complain. I disagree in this sense, let's say you sincerely feel both candidates would do damage to the country, you're not voting for the lesser of two evils anymore, you've conscientiously thought it through, turned it over, stretched it inside out and come to the same conclusion. In such a limited case, and I'm not talking here about young'ens who don't vote 'cause they're lazy, in this restricted scenario I hold that not voting can be an act of conscience. It's kind of like a person who never marries or ain't marrying anytime soon, sure he/she can do like everyone else and vet candidates they can live comfortably with, someone strongly likeable but the purist would insist you really should be in love with someone before you marry them and if he ain't feeling that amorous about anyone of late than not marrying can be a personal act of conscience albeit a painful one at times, better to be lonely for a bit than not be pure at heart. Stands to reason you should be "in love" with a candidate first before you pull the lever for him or her, of course the Obama-ites are enraptured but what about our side? Sean is only getting jiggy with it because he's such a party hound. I'm turning Conventional Wisdom on its head here, that's the Z-man thing, an outside the box kind of deal and the possibility is always there that I won't vote this time around. It's that remote option for most of us because we don't like to be held in contempt but I've always been the type to hold to an opinion even if 9 others disagree with me. As Benjamin Disraeli once said "the majority is usually wrong."

Maybe we're orbiting through a supernova of pot right now

Apparently the 9-11 conspiracy theories have more legs than a centipede. Michelle Malkin talks about this worldwide poll they did, some 16,000 respondents in sundry nations and seems many inhabitants of Planet Earth believe that somehow OBL and Al-qaeda were not behind the 9-11 terrorist attacks after all but our own government along with our best buddy Israel of course. Now I wouldn't waste my time responding to and counterbutting every technical point of the conspiracists, the true hallmark of any bona fide conspiracy theory is they come after you, think Karen Silkwood and auto accidents. Last I checked Charlie Sheen is still doing 2 1/2 Men, if he were really on to something he'd be walking down Sunset Boulevard and a big ole black sedan would pull up with at least 3 tall clad in black G-Men, all clean-shaven with Neo shades on. They'd take old Charlie around the block

and warn him,

then while the car is still in motion they'd push him out the door and he'd go rolling like a tumbleweed to the curb having learned his lesson never to speak of 9-11 conspiracy theories again, maybe he'd go home to a dead cat but that would be the end of it. Is the Hub of the Conspiracy having high-level meetings right now in some mid-Manhattan penthouse overlooking Central Park on how to deal with Rosie O'Donnell?

Sorry guys, this conspiracy theory's a dud, life should be so exciting.

Bam: "You can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig"

en espanol: "Usted puede poner lapiz de labios en un puerco pero es todavia un puerco."

i'm lovin' it

But Howard Wolfson this begs the question

If the John Edwards scandal would likely have put all his voters in her corner just how did the Hillary Handvac fail to suck up this dirt? When you're watching TV at night sooner or later you have to realize the cat threw up behind the couch, there's a centipede on the rim of your coffee mug, or the mouse that got stuck behind the wall is just now starting to give off those wonderful aromas. Come on Hill, this'd be like on a big fishing expedition for lunker bass catching a bluegill on a strip of baloney on a warmup cast from shore. Losing the old Clinton touch, they have to have a time machine for these things, it must keep you up at night. BTW I bought my copy of the National Enquirer yesterday and got up to speed on that love child, yes my reading range encompasses Atlas Shrugged as well as Mike Walker, it's good to be broad-based as they say.

Guilt

The longer you live the more you become a student of human nature, things you took for granted in the past now form patterns not just for me but I've heard others say this. You're now a detective of the human psyche and of course there's a chance you are wrong but you don't think so. Take insomnia and here I'm talking about the chronic of the chronic cases, those people you come across like at work who never ever seem to get a decent or at least an adequate night's sleep. I'd have to say this is highly unusual, even the big-time insomniacs admit it's an off and on problem. Um, in my book this falls under the "you killed somebody buddy" category, maybe a hit-and-run, who knows? and brings to mind the Bard's classic "Macbeth doth murder sleep" speech. Discussed a person like this with somebody once and she goes "must have so much on his conscience." Or take the person you're ice-fishing with and it's an unusually severe winter, we're talking at least 3 feet of pure ice and just auguring the hole and your body will be sore for the next couple days so the two of you are walking out into the middle of the frozen lake and he goes "don't walk so close to me." Or maybe you're boating with someone else and just coming out of the harbor to catch some monster blues and he goes "don't go so far out" but that's where the blues be. So you start thinking ok so what did he do? It's almost as if they expect to see the Hand of God come up over the cliff ready to smite them, they know their Bad Karma is a couple weeks overdue and they're taking precautionary measures, I mean caution is a good thing and all but what's up with the overcaution? They're not ready to meet the Maker yet. Bishop Sheen was great at seeing through all this and held that unacknowledged or unconfessed guilt create unending neuroses, shadows in the mind. I'm all the listening ear but some people are just a tad off-center is all so the next time that chronic insomniac complains to me sleep sucked again last night and is it time to go home yet I might just pull out of my pocket a "ok, so what did you do?"

The two Joes

I have a question.

You work in an office with two managers named Joe, one of whom is white and the other one black. You don't quite have a handle on the black guy's last name yet and the phone rings and you pick it up. It's for Joe the African-American. If you say on the intercom "black Joe pick up line 2" is that considered racial? Conversely you can also say at another time "white Joe line 1" OR do you just say "Joe pick up line..." and let them both pick it up?

Has McCain lost his mojo?

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wolf Blitzer's CNN show "Late Edition" on Sunday that Obama being the first African-American nominee of a major party is "great for our country. I do think it says we've come a long way." She said she's made her decision who to vote for but wouldn't reveal the answer and denies rumors that she wants to be Obama's VP. She'd be a great choice though. Picking Hillary would only be a reminder of Obama's traditional liberalism, since he is now under the powerful vortex of Z's Law of the Power of Negative Appraisal Condi is the ONLY way to go. Yes, Hillary is sooooo yesterday she's not even assured of the VP slot anymore, you got the black chick in leather boots who has strode the colossus of the World and who can greatly offset his inexperience in the foreign policy arena. An Obama/Rice administration even has, let's face it, a certain sex appeal for those bored with all things McCain and don't worry, she's pro-choice. Won't even be close, it's Kama-Sutra vs. Straight Missionary after a highball, it's the modern Shakespearian version of Batman as opposed to Adam West and Robin and the Batcave, it's Maroon 5 doing a song with Rihanna, it ROCKS!

These chicks have issues

"I dug my key into the side
Of his pretty little souped-up 4 wheel drive
Carved my name into his leather seat
I took a Louisville slugger to both head lights
Slashed a hole in all 4 tires
And maybe next time he'll think before he cheats."
(Before He Cheats - Carrie Underwood)

"And don't tell me you're sorry when you're not
Baby when I know you're only sorry you got caught."
(Take A Bow - Rihanna) ~~~btw I always thought this would be a great line a state trooper could use when he pulls you over, he could even sing it~~~

"I learned the hard way
That they all say
Things you want to hear
And my heavy heart sinks
deep down under you and
Your twisted words your help just hurts
You are not what I thought you were
Hello to high and dry."
(Love Song - Sara Bareilles)

I detect a theme here. They really should make this into the Men Suck World Concert Tour of 2008 so I say let the chicks vent. I have to say though I like the Bareilles song, for starters the singer has a very clear voice and you can make out every word without googling lyrics, something I have to do with Fergie and others from time to time. Take it away.

Shades of Gray

From a recent blog of napqueen's at http://www.napqueenspress.blogspot.com/ under "Are Conservatives Stupid? "Liberals can see the gray areas of an issue while conservatives see only black and white and are too stupid (emphasis mine) to see the gray."

Ah yes! I've been patiently waiting for this moment of ultimate clarity. It's the Peter Principle applied to moral philosophy and the result is moral relativism or agnosticism, a marked inability to come to final moral conclusions about things. We've reached our level of incompetence, our Final Placement, we can' t figure out Right from Wrong and we're never to be promoted...and we're happy about it! It's a Cohiba moment.

Z's Law of the Power of Negative Appraisal

A rather potent force in politics, in Life in general and here's how it works. A typical conservative will say something like liberals are pro-abortion or in favor of destroying the unborn. The lib says "oh no that's not us. We're not really for abortion, in fact nobody is, in what universe?" It also works the other way. A typical liberal will say conservatives don' t care at all about the poor and the poor conservative will reply "yeah but we give more." So criticism, especially political criticism, by its very nature exerts a powerful inward pull towards the direction of the position of the critic. So the law of criticism or negative appraisal is for the target to deny the point and then to move gradually towards the critic's stance so all I have to do is make a critical point and look what power I have! Liberals may be from Mars and conservatives from Venus but we take each other's points personally, to heart. This is why Obama has of late made great strides at least towards the political center in his rhetoric, it's all that name-calling in the past that he's a hardcore lib. Of course the exception to Z's Law of the Power of Negative Appraisal are all the left-wing bloggers out there who live in a universe all their own who can't understand one of their own being subject to the same laws of political gravity as the rest of us.

That Cartoon

The now classic New Yorker cartoon with Obama as some sort of anti-American Muslim and his wife as a Black Panther type, McCain was predictably outraged, "tasteless and offensive", but it would have been nice if he had said:

"You know something folks, I have the intellectual capacity to get it. It is so over the top it is obviously intended as some sort of social satire, a parody of right-wing fears of Obama. In fact let's use this as a watershed moment to get rid of Political Correctness once and for all. This PC regime of ours, it's not why I fought for our country. We're all adults here so grow up! BTW Jesse Jackson can't cut these out because they're made of brass."

Alas!

The LAW says go digital

So very early next year you'd better have a digital tv or converter box to convert the signals in your old tv to the new digital format otherwise you just might lose everything brother, not only this it's federal law. Now I'm hardly some techno-nerd but I read somewhere it has to do with using up all that "white space" on all those blank channels or something but already the conspiracists are whispering Big Brother will be watching you. Dunno, I'm more into reading again, Chef Ramsay can only do so much bleeping in one whole hour before I start channel-surfing again, I'm still wondering why The View is an important show basic to the Republic and why Oprah can talk about salacious topics that Stern got in trouble over on mainstream radio. As the bumper sticker goes

WHATEVER

Just something to blog about

Obama told a group of people the black father has been AWOL. Jesse Jackson was doing some show and didn't know his mike was still on and said "he talks down to black people. I wanna cut his nuts off." I don't know, sounds pretty gangster.

I honestly didn't know this

That there are now two, count 'em two, conservatives running in the presidential race. McCain of course and Obama. Obama recently came out for gun rights in D.C., says the ole death penalty can and ought to be used in some restricted but extreme cases (must have boned up on a couple of Dirty Harry DVDs), now says wiretaps without warrants is cool with him so long as there's some kind of Congressional oversight, said something about late-term abortions...let's see what else? That's good to know though and reassuring that no matter how the race turns out we'll have a true conservative in the White House.

Skiing down the slippery slope of gay marriage

The gay marriage deal, it's not so much what they do but the slippery slope. Let this one go and it's bro and sis who wanna get hitched, polygamists, the farmer in the dell.

Modern urban angst. So my friend and I are in this ritzy mall the other day and we're in a very manly Swiss Army type store and I'm just taggin' along, drifting away and then coming back to my pal and so he's paying for something at the counter and the clerk goes to me "you're together, right?" Now two things, I thought of saying something with a pinch, a dash mind you of the old sarcasm as in "no, I'm just following him around" to counter our little urban neuroses in this the age of Jack Jordan or (b) maybe he thought we were a couple ("hey Shaquila, look at them, they're sweet"). Whatever, put it away in the fridge, it'll keep.

Three days without blogging, I feel like there's a squirrel in my head that wants to get out. This weather man, you wake up in the morning and it 's soupy and muggy and just this gray blah sky out there and so you look forward to a day of gliding and sliding. I'd rather be chilling and grilling or waking and baking. So far this summer sucks.

I'm grateful for the little things

having a good night's rest, a family that helps you, a kindly phrase or gesture, a well-turned gam, finding some spare quarters in some pay phone, a girl who will give you the time of day, going to Wendy's during a lull period and five minutes later it gets busy, parking at a meter with alot of leftover time that somebody didn't use, going north on the parkway when the southbound lane is clogged for some reason, driving during July and August without school buses, going to Barnes & Noble with your magazine and actually finding a nice comfy chair without a duff in it and going through a whole day without skid marks.

John McCain's Ralph Nader

Big writeup in today's New York Times (A Candidate Runs to a GOP Chorus of "Don't" by Julie Bosman), former Republican Congressman from Georgia Bob Barr is already on the ballot in 30 states as the Libertarian Party candidate for president and could have a definite Ross Perot influence spoiling McCain's chances. In the article Barr relates the story of a recent meeting in Washington between himself and a group of Republicans who told him "look, we understand why you're doing this. We agree with why you're doing this. But please don't do it." Amusing stuff these self-loathing Republicans. The article goes on to say that while in Congress he voted for the USA Patriot Act and the Iraqi war, led impeachment against Clinton and on the subject of gay marriage introduced the Defense of Marriage Act in '96. He now says he's for a quick withdrawal of troops as in all of them, feels states should have their own say re gay marriage and is against wiretaps without warrants. The Moral of the Story folks, if we had decent candidates to begin with we wouldn't need spoilers and in this case Barr says he got fed up with the Republican Party straying from its roots of controlled spending and limited government. Think of it this way as z just loves the analogy. We as conservative and tradition-minded Republicans are asked to give our hand in marriage to McCain but as all the political universe knows it ain't a passionate thing by any stretch and there's Bob Barr over there winking at us, you sly dog you, and he knows we can do better as if to say "I got it goin' on."

Nancy Pelosi supports the "Fairness Doctrine"

She said that the proposed bill by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), called the "Broadcaster's Freedom Act" which would outlaw the "Fairness Doctrine", will not come up for a vote this year and she wants a revival of the "Fairness Doctrine." Dunno what the issue here is exactly. The msm are overwhelmingly liberal, talk radio is strongly conservative, no harm no foul. One side admits their bias, the other doesn't. As John Stossel once noted "asking the media about liberal bias is like asking a fish about water. Water? what water?" & at any rate free market forces have already determined that liberal talk radio is a big loser, does Al Franken and Air America ring a bell?

A recurring theme throughout History - the Ascent of the Psycho

A student of History could write a paper just on this theme alone which is basically people who belonged in lunatic asylums have run empires, countries and nations. Nero, Caligula, Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Ceausescu and the list goes on and on. As all the world knows Zimbabwean president or to be more specific the technical ex-president, Robert Mugabe, has run his country into the ground, an economic shambles with the usual starvation, mass fear and people trying to leave. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change party, won the election in March but apparently not by a wide enough margin so there was to be a runoff but Mugabe's Zanu-PF goon squads have been intimidating, torturing and killing people so Tsvangirai backed out. Now as usual the United Nations seems impotent to do something, can't get the supplies and humanitarian aid through, doesn't even have a consensus yet as it should over what to do about this 84-year old thug who's been in power way too long. The larger question is what exactly is the purpose of the UN anymore? why are rogue bodies allowed to have a say and can we replace the UN with something else?

George Carlin

When I heard the news my first reaction was he isn't supposed to die, he's just one of our regular social commentators we've gotten so used to. Now the fact that he's "dirty", he's not in the same sense of a Howard Stern, the curse word or the vulgarity is always in the service of some larger social or political point (think Lenny Bruce) not "ooh, look what I said!" Two examples will suffice. In one of his books he talks about all those cashiers who at the end of your transaction say to you "have a nice day" and Carlin would like to say back "just give me my f****n change." He also talks about that family uncle and we all have one who when he comes to visit lets the family dog liberally lick his face so he goes just a few minutes before your uncle lets him do this the dog's been cleaning himself so extremely well that and here Carlin goes on to give a rather coarse but hilarious and explicit description of just how clean your dog really is now. He is z's cup of tea, a kind of bourbon that burns the throat a little going down but you like the effects anyway and if something doesn't agree with you just put it down and go on to something else. I thought I'd add this, a favorite of Tim McCarver's - an idea that only Carlin can think up that somebody should go on Jeopardy and just stand there through the whole program, don't say a word and don't answer any questions and then go home. R.I.P.

Before we get started let's review the Obama ground rules first

At some fundraiser yesterday in Jacksonville Florida our political messiah said:

"We know what kind of campaign they're going to run. They're going to try to make you afraid. They're going to try to make you afraid of me. He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black? He's got a feisty wife."

"and did I mention he's black?" well no you just did but now that you mention it I don't care if somebody's green or polka-dot or any shade in between, one term in the Senate does scare the living daylights out of me. Obama is not new, he's same old same old, change we can believe in would be throwing out the race card. And you already see all those political prognosticators and pollsters breaking us all down into racial camps and ethnic voting blocks, "whites won't go for that guy." Well yes many of them would if he were a black conservative, say if Thomas Sowell threw his hat into the ring, hell throw in Armstrong Williams as his vp (hey, now there's a thought). Oy vey, somebody please pass me that bowl of Prozac!