Marxism = Leninism = Stalinism

Soviet joke: What is socialism? The longest route from capitalism to capitalism.


(image from wikimedia.org)

I have read something that you should read. Go read it here after you glance at my pale-in-comparison commentary. It's from The Politics of Bad Faith, by David Horowitz, a book you may feel free to buy me for my birthday, or Christmas, or just because you like me.

I previously had suspicions that the Leftists out there were ignoring a hundred million or so important facts, but I never twisted my mind quite far enough to understand just how they were arriving at the conclusion that "Communism Can Work, Nevermind The Past, They ALL Just Did It Wrong!".

I was off a bit. The idea is that Socialist societies will free men from private property, and although this seems to always happen by murderous oppression, all of a sudden -like the Big Bang theory of creation- one day, POOF! and equality would break out all over the place. So it's okay for all those millions to be killed in the pursuit of the ideal Marxist Communism, because their grandkids (if any survive) will be happy and prosperous communists. The decades of avarice at the top and abject poverty for everybody else, that's just a hiccup on the road to the Ideal, you see? That's why they hate America, where the poor have cars, color (HD cable) TV, high-speed internet, cell phones, half-assed education, air conditioning and cheap food, and they can love the places where even the elite have trouble getting a telephone line installed, and the poor are -literally- dirt-poor.

David Horowitz had an awakening, and God bless him for sharing it.

Leftists/Socialists/Communists won't let themselves understand some things, so they can keep being ideological Marxists: . . ."to confront these arguments would be to confront the lesson of the history that has passed: The socialist idea has been in its consequences, one of the worst and most destructive fantasies to ever have taken hold of the minds of men."

and

"For seventy years the revolutionary Left put its weight on one side in the international civil war that Lenin had launched, and against the side that promoted human freedom and industrial progress. And it did so in the name of an idea that could not work."

Go. Read. Gain some insight. And vote for the capitalists McCain this November.

Sarah Palin: The Next-Next President?

Wow, I have never heard as much buzz about anything, ever, as I have about Sen. McCain's picking Gov. Palin for his Vice Presidential running mate.

The news cycle: DOMINATED: PALIN, and also a mention of obama last night
The office: DOMINATED: Not just a GILF, also a woman for VP, might be a winning choice for McCain
The talking heads on the radio: DOMINATED: all of the above (except the GILF part)

Wow. Everybody is talking about this choice.

Excellent timing, McCain campaign. Excellent timing.

The sexist hillary supporters who only wanted a woman in the white house are going to be jumping ship from obama in 3...2...1...

Bushmaster to Produce the Magpul Masada!

For those who are into rifles, from plinking to hunting to serious work, the Magpul Masada has been a neat idea from a small company. Magpul wanted to get it into a LOT of hands, and everybody wondered how they would do that... now we know: by licensing the design to Bushmaster as the ACR with only a couple of minor changes.

Do want.



Go read about it at The Firearm Blog.

Did You Know We Are Really In A Recession?

GDP growth was 3.3%. Projections were for 1.9% growth. Stock market is up, the value of the dollar is up, the price of oil is down, and goods are selling faster.

But if you watch the alphabet networks, you might still be under the impression that we are headed for, if not actually in, a recession. Why? Because they are leftists and a good economy makes the party in power (hint: starts with "R") look better, and then they may do better in the upcoming election. Also, they think news of America getting stronger won't be as interesting.

Yup, it's a recession alright. Nevermind that if you were listening to conservative (read: non-broadcast non-alphabet networks) or even objective reporting, you saw that it was dicey for a minute, and there are rough times ahead still, but it was only (going to be) a slowdown and the economy is going to pick up toward the end of the year. You would also know that it was the Democrats in Congress who started the current slowdown in the US economy (by regulating some of the economy, not leaving it alone, by the way). But you wouldn't know what was happening on American Idle, so of course the above is news to you, and probably a pack of lies. Remember to vote for Obama in the general election this December!

If it gets you to stop spending more money than you make, though, go ahead and think it's a recession. Yeah, it's a regular depression. Right. Everybody panic. Right. Faster than expected growth. Look out, it's 1932 all over again. Right.

We just won't talk about a national debt of $9,000,000,000,000. That's okay as long as the food gets to the supermarket, right?

well, right?

...Bueller?

On This Day In History. . .

August 28th, 1998:

In the office of the justice of the peace of Rota, Spain,
In the presence of a small group of friends, shipmates, and local Spanish government officials,

My Darling Wife and I were married.

Georgia, Russia, Who's The Bad Guys?

They both are, a little bit, but...

Totten says:

Not so fast, the Georgian conflict isn't quite how you saw it on the alphabet networks.

There is history here, folks, and the Russian part of it is very important. Read the whole thing, then read the comments. Totten may tell a pro-georgian side of the story, but the Soviets are apparently up to their old tricks.

That is all.

Barack Obama: a New Kind Of Politician!

You remember when John Kerry's fellow servicemembers came out and told the world that he wasn't as big a hero in Vietnam as he remembered? You remember how he tried to shut them up?

Yeah, Obama is doing the same thing now. Obama's campaign has said he was friends with William Ayers, and now somebody who can afford it has taken out ads mentioning that Obama got his political career started by visiting Ayers, and oh yes by the way Ayers is an unrepentant america-hating TERRORIST who BOMBED HIS OWN COUNTRY.

Making a Change You Can Believe In from the way big city machine politicians typically stifle dissent, the Obamanites now have a LAWSUIT TO PREVENT COMMERCIALS TELLING THE TRUTH about their guy.

Yep, he's all about that first amendment. The second one, too. Also the tenth.

*
*
*
Oh, wait. Check that. Reverse it. Theeeere, now it's right.

ACLU: Your Colors Are Showing!

From World Net Daily:

So a chaplain who has been instructed not to proselytize or disparage other faiths may say something to indicate whose church he goes to. This of course has been unconstitutional ever since the first session of congress opened with blatantly sectarian prayer.

You know what you have when you include everybody in your prayer? Unitarian Universalism (a sect). And what if you have no prayer? Humanism (a genuine Religion, according to the supreme Court of the United States).

Of course, the ACLU is a bunch of godless/humanist folk anyhow, so I guess that would be fine.

At least this judge appears to have a spine. Good for Judge Pryor. Stand for common sense before we turn into France in the late 18th century people!

They Aren't Talking About YOU, Jerk!

From World Net Daily:

So there was a competition and the winning child's drawing was used. That's fine. The sign it was put on is the international yield/caution triangle. That's fine. The picture is a cartoon of two OBVIOUSLY ELDERLY people.

The sign in question


Is obviously NOT an honest attempt to warn drivers to be careful that they might see that exact thing, in 3-D and in living color in the street! NO that sign is obviously AGEIST and OFFENSIVE and YOU MUST TAKE IT DOWN!!!!1!!

Look old folks If you don't use a cane and have a hunch back, be grateful! the sign isn't talking about you. Believe it or not, you are not the center of the universe, and there really are people who look like that, who take a long time to cross the street. Of course, if they get run over, that's nothing to you right? Who cares if a few elderly elderly people get creamed?

Get over yourself. Just because your legal age qualifies you as elderly, that doesn't mean you actually are "elderly". Don't get your Depends in a bunch because the sign reminds you that you are getting old.

You are

getting

OOOOOLLLLLLD

and you are going to DIE!

Just like the other 6.5 Billion of us.

Get over that, too.

P.S. if you believe in Jesus, dieing is actually a step up, but that's the topic of another posting.

School is Back In, And Trafffic STINKS!

I had forgotten the block-and-a-half long line to get out of my neighborhood. But that was okay, because nobody (except me) wants to turn towards the School Zone and risk getting a ticket for what they ought not to be doing in the first place, because motorcycle cops are thick around this one school.

I had forgotten, actually, that it is the first day of skrewel around here because my Darling Wife had started Mommy Classes a week early at our house, and it didn't affect my commute at all.

What really irked me is that I ran into a block-long backup caused by, of all things, a typically incompetent po-lice directing traffic. And a little girl being all grown up, being overseen by the 'adult' crossing guard. All covering the same driveway on a 2-lane divided street.

That sort of hassle, before my coffee has kicked in? That's a blog writeup.

Homeschool your children, and save the planet by reducing emissions from cars waiting for untrained police/crossing guards!

Since I Mentioned This Before:

Now there is a lawsuit by a Democrat to prevent Obama defrauding the Democrats by being ineligible for The Office by not being a Citizen of the United States.

The evidence for both sides seems shaky, and for once I think a lawsuit is necessary. It's not like the man is running for Podunkville Dogcatcher here. It's blood relatives and timelines vs. a sheet of paper. Lots of verbal testimony-or-nothing type evidence will be the order of the day. . . This has the potential to be very interesting.

Via World Net Daily

Turns Out, I May Have Needed That After All...

You see, God can do funny things with the timing of mundane events in the lives of men.

I bought a car. For parts. It has a manual transmission and my daily driver has an automatic. The idea is to convert my car to a standard transmission. Yay.

I get it mostly torn apart, and a water line on my house breaks. Work on the car stops.

Then I go ahead and change the timing and drive belts on my driver, along with the water pump.

And the timing belt stretched. I had installed it too loose to begin with, so normal stretching resulted in the timing skipping a tooth. This is a Bad Thing for a car.

I thought the noise I heard was from the intake valves in the engine being bent.

The noise is apparently a bad axle.

The axle was new (7000 miles) and under warranty.

If I had been working on the auto-to-manual conversion instead of repairing plumbing, or changing timing belts, or spending a week troubleshooting what that noise was,

I would have had the standard transmission in by now.

That would be fine, except that I would have caught the blame for the axle failure.

So I would have been out another couple of hundred dollars for a new axle or two, when it was actually a bad part from somebody else. And God has (depending on the pro rating on the warranty) saved me that money which I didn't really have to spend, as well as a LARGE loss of face in front of my wife and the Hyundai tuning community online.

Coincidence?

If you insist. I call it a blessing in disguise.

Thank you, Lord!

By the Way, Have You Noticed?

Mrs. Obama is decidedly quiet, demure, and specifically NOT foaming-at-the-mouth America-hating these days. That's nice. For Obama's sake, we may all hope she does not get within a mile of a microphone a day or two before the Democrats anoint choose him to be their candidate.

It's also funny (ha-ha, not funny odd) that Obama can make fun of McCain's (wife's parents') busting hump to make a successful business resulting in prosperity (7 residential properties), while his own brother is living quite literally in a shack, dirt-poor. Is it hypocritical to put down someone else's wealth earned through honest labor, whilst you yourself are a multi-millionaire from your earnings last year alone, and your own brother is so poor a $20 gift would double his annual income?

Nope, couldn't be. Barry is a Different Kind of politician.

Or something.

While I am making cheap shots at Obama's family, you will note that I specifically did NOT refer to his 8 half-brothers by his left-Obama-and-his-momma-when-Barry-was-a-baby Black African Muslim sperm donor. Or the fact that, when a child is "educated" in a Madrasah (according to our sources), all they learn is the Koran, not readin' rytin' and' rythmatic. Nevermind that we don't know (he don't say) what kind of place it was and it probably isn't a jihad preaching breeding ground. If all you learn as a youth is the Koran, you will be lacking in some pretty important Other areas. But the man DID graduate from a good college, so we won't mention the school he attended as a child overseas. Or the possibility that he isn't actually a citizen, and the only proof ever offered of his being born Here appears to be an outright forgery.

What's on TV anyway?

Yep, I Was Right.

. . . I DO have something disparaging to say about the running mate pick.



Folks, there is a REASON why BIDEN isn't the Candidate, and the Candidate apparently forgot about that when he picked someone 'with experience'. I suppose Obmaminitly thought it was a compliment to be referred to as a Black Man who is "articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy" . . . I thought it was insulting and derogatory, as well as racist, myself but Offenses can only be taken, right? Or maybe the "white" half of Obama agreed with Biden about his "black" half. I dunno. But ANYways:

So, Captain Hopey Changey, a NEW kind of politician, Looking for Change (tm), chose as his running mate...

A 35-year veteran of The Way Things Have Always Been. Of course, if you were really paying attention, you would know that Barry Obama is actually a lightweight emptysuit big city machine politician, and the change he really wants is the kind that gets us closer to killing people for speaking against The State the government that the other politician who had a cult of personality liked.

With apologies to the artist for not properly linking to the comic strip:


You know what would really make Hillary the Smartest Woman In America? If this 'symbolic vote' between her and Barack [Redacted] Obama (you know: racism vs. sexism as the Democrat Choice) was the final move in a masterfully played chess game. She deceived the nation into thinking Obama was the one, got him to pick a running mate that would finally sink him with the Youth Vote and then She's the Nominee and she's been spared MONTHS of SCATHING (read: true) coverage in the right-wing (read: objective) media. Not that it would help, because she almost comes pre-fisked out of the box, but still... if someone is not paying attention enough to vote Hillary in a primary, maybe the shiny bauble Obama's campaign will have kept them from paying attention to her, and they'll still Love her.

Yikes.

Remember to Vote, people. At least you can cancel out somebody else's vote for a genuine Socialist.

With Baited Breath...!

The world is waiting...

for Obama...

to name his Vice Presidential running mate!

Let's talk about the choices before they are made, and give him a few more minutes to change his mind if somebody says something bad about his choice...

Seriously, isn't there a bank robbery or a kitten in a tree to report on this morning? There was an 18-wheeler burned to the pavement fouling up my commute this morning. You can hardly catch a whiff of that except in the traffic report. It's all about Obama's successful domination of this week's news cycle. Good job on that anyway. Whatever happened to campaigns starting Labor Day with the running mate announcements made by press release, unnoticed, sometime later?

I'm sure I'll have something disparaging to say about whomever he picks, so come back later.

How did this guy get this far? Are we too late to pull for Hillary at the convention? She muscled Obama into getting a vote to choose between them... let's hope she wins it!

Socialists: BOO!

Socialism: 100,000,000 dead and still going strong!

Cop Shooters and Their Criminal Use of Guns:

Uncle and a couple of other folks have pointed this out, but the more places on the Intarwebz you can find it, the more likely it is you will find it, so here goes.

The FBI has done a(nother) study of the pieces of human [deleted] criminals who shoot cops. That's 800 in the last 5 years, which is the term of this latest study. Read the highlights at policeone.com.

Morals of the story:

A street criminal will use whatever gun they can lay hands on, and shoot anyone without hesitation if they feel the need to do so.

They all laugh at gun laws (shocking!)

They don't buy guns. Even through the eeeeEEEEEeeevil NRA-mandated GUNSHOW LOOPHOLE. They steal them. Okay, so ONE (of 800) used a gun bought at a gunshow. 1/800th = none, statistically, so neener neener.

They are better trained with arms, and they practice WAY more than almost all the police out there. This results in better marksmanship, "even though" they don't use their sights very much.

Carry your guns, people. And keep an eye on the waistbands of suspicious looking characters around you. Watch the hands, not the eyes. Nobody ever got shot with a gun being held by a shooter's eyes.

You will not see this on the alphabet network news.

That is all.

Global Warming: We'll Need More Shovels!

From Mt. Ruapehu's official website:

The man-made global warming crisis is worsening! The snow pack is thicker than it has ever been on Mt. Ruapehu! Everybody Panic! There will be much excellent skiing and snowboarding!



Come on people. The globe is warming, on the long term, from the time when they say it was covered in vast sheets of ice. There were no SUVs when the glaciers began their retreat. 2+2=?

Now, did you see this on the nightly news from any of the alphabet networks?

Maintaining a High Standard

People will fall short of the standard to which they are held. As a general rule, human nature tends to go for "good enough". You and I have both seen that if you expect and/or demand a 7, folks will give you a 5 or 6 oftentimes, and call it good, and you will usually acept it. They know, and you know, that a 2 or 3 will not be good enough. People will fall short of the standard, but they will at least try to come close. Usually.

This goes for your children, also,

The problem with our country's government school system is due in large part to the failure to recognize this trend, and "when" the children fail, the soft-headed "educators" want the Poor Little Things not to have hurt feelings (because the child also knows that a B is not as good as an A) So the standard is lowered, and this is the beginning of a vicious cycle of non-achievement in the schools.

Children will strive to attain most of what they understand is expected of them, just like you will.

So give them a high standard to strive For. They will do better by falling short of a high standard than by falling short of a low standard. By the way, when they fall short of a very low standard, they will feel much worse about themselves because they know they could be doing much, much, better; so your wrong-headed attempt to make a population feel better about themselves by lowering the bar is DOOMED to failure from its misguided outset. If you show someone a standard of or near perfection, they will fall short and feel bad. But they will try, and the result will be better. What's more, they will feel better about themselves falling short of a very hard goal than a very easy goal that they lazied out from under.

Don't be afraid of a high standard. Realize that you will be disappointed if you expect perfect compliance, and temper your responses to failure in proportion with the magnitude of the failure and the effort expended in the attempt to reach the goal.

But don't you tell me that kids a hundred years ago could handle their own checking accounts after 8th grade, and now they are graduating "high" school functionally illiterate, for any other reason, than that YOU have allowed the standard to be lowered.

My family has voted with our feet, and we are costing the local school district thousands of dollars annually, per child. We are also spending an uncomfortable amount of dollars out of our own pockets due to the whacked-out taxation scheme we live under. So that OUR children will be educated...

to a high standard.

Above His Intellectual Grade, He Means.

So Obama says it's "Above [his] paygrade" to decide when a person is a person, and it's not something he's thought about enough to decide. This was the best answer he could come up with -off the prompter after all- after his "tell" (i.e., he's about to tell a lie) fumbling and bumbling trying to come up with words to use that will pacify the soft-headed moderates, while not alienating his baby-hating leftist kook fringe base constituency.

You know why? Because he's a lightweight/empty suit, and he suspects he's on the wrong side of this issue.

If it weren't for the apparently large number of individual US Americans giving him money against their own interests, and the vast majority of black racists who support him because he chooses to identify with the black (muslim, ran away when I was a baby) side of his family, rather than the white (rich, raised me) side, I would say that this joker HAS to be somebody's sock puppet.

Alas for America! I think he is as sincere as a lightweight/empty suit can be!

More News From The Place Where England Used to Be

From the Daily Express:

Rushmoor Borough Council: Hey residents, we're going to go ahead and pick up your trash cans every other week, mmmkay?

Residents: Bite us.

RBC: Okay, we're going to just charge the taxpayers a million and a half dollars to buy you trash cans that are half as big so you can only put out the same amount of trash anyway LOLz

Residents: Sucks to be subjects.





Hold on there.

See, here in 'murica we don't have a problem like this. The private company (UK readers take note: NOT a governmental agency) that I choose to pay cash money to, comes twice a week. Yes, twice a week. Not a month, a week. To take out a trash bin that I could put my entire immediate family into. Do we have to take out our garden rubbish waste leaves, egg shells, etc.?

We do NOT.

You know what we call this in a free country with market-based economic activity widely permitted by the Government?



Normal.





What happened to you, England?

You Know, I Really Didn't Need That

...at least, I don't think I did, but I could be wrong...

As I was driving the GLS home from work last night, I noticed that it was making a soft noise when I let off the throttle "bbbbbbbbbb". That got worse, and worse, and worse, until, when I got home, it was TATATATATATATATAT when I lifted the gas pedal, and it positively clattered when I shut off the engine.

Nice.

I think the new timing belt was put on too loose, and when it stretched (as new belts do) the valves made kissyface with the pistons. I tightened the belt real good-like when I got into it last night, but it still clatters so the damage may be done. I'm going to do some troubleshooting by removing the (new) belts to the a/c, power steering, (new) water pump, and maybe even the alternator real quick... but I'm pretty sure it's time to get REALLY hot on reworking my spare cylinder head, or else it's time to go get some valves and gaskets and keep running stock for a while.

Oh well. We'll see. It's just a machine, and if all the parts are good, it should work when I get done putting it back together. It's still cheaper than a car payment. It's still cheaper than a car payment. It's still cheaper than a car payment. It's still cheaper than a car payment. It's still cheaper than a car payment. It's still cheaper than a car payment. It's still cheaper than a car payment. It's still cheaper than a car payment. It's still cheaper than a car payment.

I know God has his own idea of a good idea, but sometimes I almost wish he'd pass down a cliff's notes version of it.

Maybe This Explains It....

Why my readership remains low despite spending meeleeons uf dullers on advertisements:



This makes me happy. I found it in a roundabout way via KeesKennis' blog which I never knew existed before I tripped over it on the way to the rest of the Intarwebs.

Update: This USED to show the Blog Readability Test which said you would need to have a high school education to read my blog. There used to be a cool logo & everything, but it has since disappeared from criticsrant.com. Oh well.

The Innocent Have Nothing To Fear.

Right?

From The Guardian

You see, they're not storing the actual CONTENT of your phone calls, text messages, emails, and the webpages you view, it's just the connections. You called your mum on such & such day, and they wrote down the time. That's all. It's so we can track whom the terrorists are ringing up, you see? It's for your safety, after all. You are for safety, aren't you? You remember 7/7 don't you? You're not a terrorist are you? We're only storing date/time/connection information, so don't worry!

For now.

What's the objection? The innocent have nothing to fear, right? Are you trying to hide something comrade citizen?

More news from the place where England used to be... coming soon to a police state near you. Soon with CONTENT storage! Get a copy of 1984 while you still can, and read it. Then make your children read it. And see what you can do to protest this sort of thing to your legislature.

Good luck.

Abhinav Bindra Does. . . What, Exactly?

I wasn't sleepy after, er, discussing taxes or something, with L, so I got up to check my email. Yahoo teases a story about India's first Olympic individual gold medal in a long time. The "click here to read all about it" tag says "which sport?" and so I clicked the link. The story I just linked above is what you get. It mentions a shooting range when the man was a child, and calls him a shooter. Does it name the sport?

Read it again, go ahead, I'll wait.

No, it doesn't. That's some fine detective work there, Lou.

You have to click through to here by clicking Abhinav Bindra's name to actually find out what he did.

Men's 10m air rifle. 60 shots. Qualified 4th, finished first.

Why can't you just come right out and say that he skins live cats and bites the heads off chickens and (gasp) horrors! shoots GUNS!!! Okay, so they're air guns but still he's a shooter! Come on, Yahoo!, you can at least mention the sport, if not the event, when you lead with "which sport", can't you? Hopolophobia: curable through education about, and direct contact with and shooting of guns.

I add my applause to the adulation coming at you from the entire nation of India.
Abhinav Bindra, congratulations on your world-class marksmanship. Jesus loves you.

:)

Common Sense Prevails In California?!

From World Net Daily:

A busybody social worker who will probably not be fired got their arbitrary and capricious actions overturned by an appellate court, after turning the lives of a family with small children upside-down and violating the Natural Rights of US American citizens.

In other words:

The judge says, until they make it illegal, it's legal (again) to homeschool your own children in the People's Republic of California.

Good. The homeschoolers now have slightly more time to plan their exodus from that anti-goodness state.

That is all.

Surely the Christians Did Something To Deserve This

You know, like, exercise their religion in accordance with law and the dictates of their own conscience?

From World Net Daily:

So some peaceful and tolerant hindus stormed a christian school and told them to violate the tenets of their faith, or else.

Ho hum, what a slow news day!

Filthy Jews.

From the Jerusalem Post

A holy and pure member of the Religion of Peace righteously refused to be in a competitive event against a jew. It is obviously the fault of the olympic committee which is trying to ensure that jews win by forcing righteous and faithful muslims to race against them or withdraw from competition.

Sure, tolerance, right. Go on, keep talking while you sharpen your knife...

Nothing to See Here, Move Along...

From Reuters:

Russia is protecting the life right out of ethnic russians in Georgia. Fine, no problem. It's just the commies trying to take over the world again. They only want a postage stamp of land back under their wing, so what's the problem?

Hold on there.

They bombed a pipeline that gets oil to your hummer. Fortunately they missed but do you think that's the only set of bombs russia has? Does anyone really believe they don't intend to increase their say over what happens to your oil supply? Really?

Fill up your car's gas tank and keep it full. You may need it soon.

History is Rhyming in Canada

I found Howard Rotberg's story via Irons in the Fire.

So a jooooo dares to have a book about how Canada is becoming tolerant of harassment of jooooos. And some Peaceful Members of the Religion of Peace" show up to a lecture about the book and shout the author down, including the phrase "A f*cking Jew" just in case you were wondering about the caliber of intellect the protesters had.

Now the author is the racist, the protesters are the victim and Canada is apparently turning into a Jew-hating pile of burning sh*t.

Sorry about the language folks, but this really takes the cake. Christians, pray for our neighbors to the North, and for our country as well. Remember that all that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to stand by and do (and say) nothing.

May God help us all.

I Was Government Educated, Too.

The problem with me was, I didn't get diseducated by it.

The system has, in effect, failed me horribly

I read lots when I was a kid. Science fiction, news, history, action, mystery/detective stuff. Not just comic books (too broke for those), books (free from the liebury). Plus textbooks. I couldn't tell you what any of the textbooks said any more (except some poetry), but the stuff I see cropping up in news and high technology doesn't surprise me - I read about it in the fiction of many years ago. My grandfather even lent/gave me some science fiction from when HE was a youth.

God gave me a good mind as well, and an inclination to use it.

I never did see sports as worth enough of my time to spend hours everyday at them, although I'm probably better at riding bicycles off-road than you are. The point of doing just what some coach told me to do, sweating for it and hurting for it, after spending all day doing just what some "teacher" told me to do, I didn't see. I did see the worth in gathering knowledge. You know, like the proverb says? Yeah, it helps to know things.

Then you spent lots of money to train me in the same stuff I had been tinkering with for years, then I spent a few more years tinkering, being exposed to a wide variety of equipment and experiences.

All of this means that the limited education received from the government indoctrination centers (a.k.a. Public Schools) has been supplemented by actual thinking, and use of the imagination.

Get your kid's nose in a book. Try a different subject matter if he doesn't like it. They'll be better educated. Make it a classic. I am (very slowly) becoming a well-read person, filling in the huge gaps in my reading left by the public schooling system. If your child isn't being taught from the texts of someone a thousand years dead, their education is LACKING.

Also, get involved with their schooling. Homeschool them if you can afford it. It IS worth moving from your big house to a little apartment or working a second job to afford it. If you leave the education of your children to their 'public school' teachers, you will fail as a parent, and they will fail to realize the potential they have to be great people. Is it really worth it, to buy a new $6000 television in a couple years, and not pay for the curricula from a good homeschooling organization? Not in my house.

This is part of the reason I can't afford to go shooting as often as I would like. Priority: children and mortgage payments before new TV and cartridges.

That is all.

PETA kills animals

Peta Kills Animals

One of my co-workers said, yeah, when they can't place them.

Hold on there.

How about, yeah, when they are bout to drive out of your parking lot?

The killing vans help to account for <1% of all the animals they take in being adopted out. clickity

Reminds me of the persistent rumor of a peta-staged seal-clubbing for the camera.

Because, if you have good intentions, that's all that matters.

Right?

P.S., when PETA pays to firebomb a building where dogs were being skinned alive, for the record, I'm on their side.

"I love animals... because they taste so good"

Changin' My Earl

So last night I picked up a few quarts of Mobil 1 Synthetic 10W30, some Marvel Mystery Oil, and a timing belt for my car.

Got home and asked #2 if he wanted to help me change the oil in my car. Immediate affirmative response.

Yay! I must be doing something right!

Took the standard 1/2 hour or so, and that was with commentary and talking to the next door neighbor. #2 was more interested in comparing the smells of the oils and seeing their relative colors than being under the hot engine, but still. My son is starting to WANT to help me work on my cars! Woohoo!

Yes, before you ask, I did change the filter, with a Purolator Pure One that I had on hand already. The interval was just a hair over 6,000 miles.

Okay, so if the glowbe is warmening, what's up with this?

Via Watts Up With That?

T3h Meteorological Institute says: "In most years, there are open waters in the area north of the archipelago in July month. Studies from this year however show that the area is covered by ice"

You know it's after July, right? So how come you're all frozen over? Don't you know the global is warming? You are supposed to be all MELTY!!!!1!!!


Okay, that's just some pundit looking at random satellite imagery from NASA, and quoting some foreign language source that proves his point beyond all doubt... how about some stuff from a Real Scientist, you say?

Okay, how about Walter Cunningham? (who?) in Launch Magazine, He says: "There are excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations of the Sun and the Earth’s temperature, while scientists cannot find a relationship between industrial activity, energy consumption, and global temperatures. But global warming is an issue no longer being decided in the scientific arena."

and in case you forgot, "After warnings that 2007 would be the hottest year on record and a record year for hurricanes, what we experienced was the coolest year since 2001 and, by some measures, the most benign hurricane season in the Northern Hemisphere in three decades."

And for those who are counting, have a peek at the current level of sunspot activity. If you are wondering what that's about, you might google up the little ice age a few hundred years ago... you know, the last time there were so few sunspots between solar cycles. Just sayin', that's all.

Go. Read. Is question the paradigm too complex a phrase for the government-educated?

He Wouldn't Comply, So We Tasered Him!

19 times. As he lay there with a broken back.

There are 2 sides to every story, but this one is looking pretty bad for the police.

That is all.

This Man is Obviously a Liar.

... because you can't convert from islam to Christianity. You just can't. Because they said so, that's why. Freedom of conscience? Who needs it?

Of course, if it's the son of a prominent moslem terrorist, it's even more unpossible. his brother said so. This is the same reason the islamist world likes Obama: since his daddy was a muslim, he is too, regardless of what he might have said or done for the last couple of decades. Because that's the rules.

If you haven't yet, go read the book Prophet of Doom by Craig Winn. Stock up on the nausea medication first though.

Peaceful Islamists Say: Prayer = War

So the ever peaceful adherents to the peaceful Religion of Peace say that going to a place that was a Jewish and Christian holy site before Mohammed made up his religion o' booty and booty for Mohammed, and praying to the God who (used to) put his name there, constitutes an intent to wage religious war. Sure. Why not? That way, you can just pick them off from a nearby rooftop whenever you feel like it, and get your oh-so-religious jihad fix out of the way for another day.

Yep, it sure was a good idea to share Jerusalem w/ the Muslims alright.

Oh, and don't try to bother them with pesky facts, either (read the 2nd half of the article).

The average muslim has probably never read her koran, much less a thousand-page commentary that covers it, as well as the sunna and hadith. I have. Faithful Muslims should, too.

... you know, so they would either go killing like muhammad said, or convert to another, less made-up religion.

Oh, That IS Convenient!

From BBC News:

Zimbabwe has (again) dropped a few zeros from its currency. It still takes a full days' allowed bank withdrawals (in the Trillions of dollars) to buy a single bus fare, but at least you don't have to count so many zeros when you write out a check.

Good one Mugabe. That's really going to help. I am beginning to be more and more surprised that nobody has given him his 9 grams yet.

My High Standard:

I have a high standard. My expectations of you are perhaps unreasonably high. I expect that you will do what you can do, when you should, as well as you should. I try not to be too hard on you when you fail to meet that standard. If you need help, and don't ask, you likely will not get it. If you need help, and ask, you will likely get it. If you *want* help, and I know you can do it, and it is safe and painless for you to do it (even if it takes longer) I will let you do it by yourself, perhaps with constructive commentary from the sidelines. I will try to avoid letting someone get hurt doing what they obviously cannot.

For my family, this manifests itself sometimes in a percieved inability to please me. Mostly this is because I am constantly tired, busy, and occasionally grumpy. I want my children to be well-behaved, and my wife tolerably pleasant. The dishes can wait, and I won't kill anybody if the laundry sits one more day, especially if they go out to do something fun/educational, or are feeling tired.

How this relates to me:
I expect the best out of myself, for something I care about. Generally -thank God- I am competent enough at everything I have

to do, that I don't care about, that I can be unmotivated and half-ass it and do work that is satisfactory to the assigner thereof. If I care about something, I will probably take excessively long to do it, but it will be done well. The triggers on a couple of my personal firearms are fine examples of this.

How this relates to you:

If you tell me you will be there, I should be able to expect you to show up.
If you tell me you will do it, I should be able to bank on it being done
If you tell me you can do it, I should be able to leave it to you.

Unless you strike me as not worthy of such esteem, you will be trusted to do what you are assigned, the first time. If you don't git 'er done, there may not be a second time, or there may be a supervised period until you are trusted to do it alone again.

If you let me down because of ignorance, that is irritating, but forgivable. Expect to have your ignorace eliminated to the best of my ability. I will try not to be grumpy that you have failed, especially after the first minute or two after you tell me you did.

If you let me down because of incompetence, I will try to train you if it can be done reasonably quickly. If not, expect not to have that task again assigned to you

If you let me down because of laziness, I will be disappointed and you may have just lost a billet.

If you let me down because you are a worthless sack of [deleted] for any of a thousand reasons, you are fired, and I may be mad at you for a minute. I will very likely not loose my cool at you. After you leave and the door closes I will likely still keep my cool.

If you come at me with malice, and act towards me out of spite, feel free to anticipate anything up to and including cold, calculated violence directed at you. This may not be physical. You might lose a billet and never trace it to me. You will be very hard-pressed to get me to loose my cool even in this case. Genuine Anger is something (you may have seen a pattern developing) that I don't express very often.

If you come after my family, God help you.

That is all.