Sympathy for the Devil

[Published on: Aug 27, 2011 @ 21:32]

Blaming Obama is a popular pastime around here. Around my keyboard, that is. Yes, he’s a Marxist, no he’s never accomplished anything, and maybe his anti-Americanism is manifest, but perhaps it’s merely latent. His economics are disastrous and unyielding, his foreign policy is disastrous and always yielding, and he either does not understand how to protect America or does not care to do so. His obsequious bowing and kowtowing will be remembered long after his “historic” status is forgotten.  Someday a black President who doesn’t hate blacks will be elected by Americans who don’t hate America. He is nothing.

[pullquote]America deserves Obama.[/pullquote]The real problem is America itself, and we fool ourselves by thinking that electing a majority here, taking the executive chair … Continue reading

Fatwa Against Ron Paul

[dc]I[/dc] direct your attention to the excellent and overlooked article  The Case Against Ron Paul by Gregory Hilton.  He goes to some length puncturing the inflated claims and exposing the outright falsehoods made by the Ron Paul crowd.

Make no mistake, among other complaints, Ron paul is:

  • a third-party spoiler
  • an isolationist
  • a protectionist
  • an open borders advocate
  • anti-Israel

Don’t take my word for it.  Read the backing facts on Hilton’s blog.

Ron Paul subscribes to a number of conspiracy theories, and has a snake-handling literalist’s view of the Constitution.  I’m a staunch originalist, but that does not mean I view the only valid means of defending our country to be the issuance of “letters of marque and reprisal”.  To Ron Paul, that’s exactly what it means.

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Gibson Guitar Stamp Act

[dc]T[/dc]his is tyranny, folks. 

Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson’s chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company’s manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. “The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier,” he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.

It’s not enough to know that the body of your old guitar is made of spruce and maple: What’s the bridge made of? If it’s ebony, do you have the paperwork to show when and … Continue reading

On Refusing Orders

[dc]Y[/dc]ou need a lot more justification than this:

A service member who refused to report to duty earlier this month because he doubted President Barack Obama’s citizenship is to be discharged from the Air Force, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
Staff Sgt. Daryn Moran, 41, of Omaha, Neb., an ophthalmology technician with the 86th Airlift Wing at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany also had called for Obama’s arrest in statements on websites. He said he didn’t consider his orders valid because he doesn’t consider Obama’s presidency valid.
–Politico

Frankly he should have been jailed. A simple discharge is too good for him. We cannot run a military if administrative matters are eligible for review at every level of the chain of command. If an … Continue reading

Debt Deal: Arranged Defeat

[dc]I[/dc]t’s the grift that keeps on grifting.  They dodge responsibility and fund our destruction in the short term, while deferring even worse decisions to a “bipartisan” group.  I am proud to have opposed this arranged defeat, the debt ceiling compromise bill, here , here , here , here and here, among other posts and places.

Ann Barnhardt is quite focused on how bad this deal was:

I stand here in abject stupefaction.  The so-called “right” or “Tea Party” in this republic is being so thoroughly rolled and defeated that I am struggling to come … Continue reading

What, No Zoroastrians?

[dc]G[/dc]et this:   The descendants of slave-holding Native American plantation owners (yes, that’s right) have ejected the descendants of the African-American slaves from the tribe.

The Cherokee nation voted after the Civil War to admit the slave descendants to the tribe.
But on Monday, the Cherokee nation Supreme Court ruled that a 2007 tribal decision to kick the so-called “Freedmen” out of the tribe was proper.

So there’s that. The problem comes in when people start calling this “21st century apartheid”, when the whole point of a federal tribal system is to protect Native Americans and not other sorts of Americans.
On the other hand, there’s a good argument that the “Freedmen” have earned a place in the tribe:

Some 4,000 Indians died during the forced march, which … Continue reading

Debasing the Language with PC BS

[dc]H[/dc]ere’s an innocent enough quote, the source of which I will not reveal.  It’s from the training materials for a large company’s products.

A brainstorming session with another person is often useful in this phase, particularly if that person is capable of constantly providing alternative viewpoints during discussions. (In many countries, this person would be described as being good at playing the Devil’s advocate).  The analysis phase often benefits from two types of people, one of whom has excellent technical knowledge of the product, and another that constantly requires the first person to justify their thoughts and to think both logically and laterally.

This is just awful.  See how many layers of wrapping there are on the phrase “Devil’s advocate”?   Here’s the simplest correction; call this the … Continue reading

Tea Party the Real Enemy

[dc]O[/dc]h, it’s on.

“Let us all remember who the real enemy is. The real enemy is the Tea Party — the Tea Party holds the Congress hostage. They have one goal in mind, and that’s to make President Obama a one-term president,” Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) said at a Miami town hall with constituents.

Rep. Frederica Wilson blamed “racism” for the high black unemployment rate on MSNBC yesterday.

Yes, the Tea Party is the real enemy.  Not because you’re black, and not because you’re a Democrat.  Because you are a Marxist, race-baiting, hazard to the freedom of all Americans, black or white, Republican or Democrat.

Search the rubble left by every “austerity” program in the developed world, from Greece to London, and you’ll find burning cars and riot … Continue reading

I Am Fine

For those who might find me here first, I most definitely felt it, with no ill effects.  It was quite noticeable.  I am about 30 or 40 miles from the epicenter.  I was in a 3rd floor office building, and of course wea ll got up and walked to the window to see what was going on.  There was a low ominous rumbling, and the building shook rapidly in a strangely restrained way, for a long, long time.  Perhaps over a minute of constant shaking, which is an eternity when you’re waiting for the real quake to begin.

Everybody kind of figured it was an earthquake, but it really kept seeming like a large vehicle going by, uh, down the hallway.  A bit of disorientation, until we finally … Continue reading

Political Judo

[dc]W[/dc]hat if the president finds it agreeable to guarantee the safety of his programs by installing an apparently moderate Democrat?  If Obama steps aside, we Republicans fling ourselves at the wall.   Would he be able to transform his own personal unpopularity into yet another weapon for whacking the slow-footed and timid GOP?  We need to be prepared for the staged emergence of a moderate Democrat to deflate all our puffed-up rage at the Communist incumbent.

Think it couldn’t happen?  Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and President Obama have all demonstrated their willingness to sacrifice much for their progressive goals.  Obama has already spokenopenly, several times, of being a one-term president.  The way in which he does so is not familiar to … Continue reading