Just Finished Reading...

Conscience of a Conservative, and Citizen of the Galaxy. Next up is Liberty and Tyranny, and To Sail Beyond the Sunset.

I was disturbbed at how much of Conscience of a Conservative still applies to todays political and economic condintions.

Posting Here to Keep the Peace, FIJ

Someone Explain to Me Why...

Ms. California is being "black balled" by the media for her answer on the gay marriage question which happens to be the same answer that President B. Obama gave during his campaign.

Namely : I personally am against the idea of gay marriage. I believe a marriage is a commitment between a man and a woman. However, I see no legally justified reason for denying gay couples the legal protections of marriage under the name of civil unions.

Can someone who's on the left explain to me why it's okay for one person to advocate a posistion, but NOT another?

Oh...maybe it has something to do with the fact that Ms. California is a white woman and President Obama is a black man? Is it simply a race issue?

If you're white are you allowed to have an opinion?

Posting here to keep the peace. FIJ

If you Disagree with Me you are a traitor

According to Wanda Sykes anyone who disagrees with Preisdent Obama's desires is a traitor. She makes an arguement that Obama = America. She even goes so fae as to jokingly accuse that Rush Limbaugh is the 20th high jacker of the 9-11 flights because he disagrees with Obama.

So.

The "tolerant" liberal establishment believes that THEY are America, and anyone who disagrees with them is Counter-Revolutionar...sorry, I mean Un-American.

Remember when the Left thought we who lean right were "silly" to worry about Bill Ayers comments about "reeducation camps"?

Yeah...one more not in the countries dirge.

posting here to keep the peace, FIJ

You have to be kidding me!!!

Friday, May 08, 2009

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Hawaii votes for Islam Day
LAHORE: Hawaii’s state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill on Wednesday to celebrate Islam Day – over objections of some lawmakers who said they did not want to honour a religion “connected to September 11, 2001”. “I recall radical Islamists around the world cheering the horrors of 9/11. That is the day all civilised people of all religions should remember,” said Fred Hemmings. The resolution to proclaim September 24, 2009, as Islam Day passed the Senate on a 22-3 vote. The bill seeks to recognise “the rich religious, scientific, cultural and artistic contributions” that Islam and the Islamic world have made. daily times monitor

Allow me to be the first to say...WHAT THE F-CK???

Okay, so, if Hawaii can nominate an Islam Day, an no one have the right to complain, does that mean i can get Florida to pass KLEZMER AND KRUGELS to commenotate Jewish Traditions? Better yet, how about SANTERIA SUNDAYS!!! or SHIVA-DAY??

WHAT THE HELL?

Can you say Seperation of Church and State Boys and Girls?

Taliban to get Nukes?

Rumors have it that the Taliban is closing in on where Pakistan keeps it's nukes.

But we aren't going to do anything about it.

We're sure there is nothing to worry about.

riiiight.

Defiance

I'm off to see the movie , Defiance.

Between Velvet Assassin, some World War Two era Alt-Histories, such as Days of Infammy, I've been on a bit of a Nazi-bashing kick.

A News Story That Didn't Make Prime Time?

Has anyone seen this news story in the Maintstream Media?

Israel kills two in air raids aimed at tunnels
Gaza City
May 3, 2009
Two Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air strikes on smuggling tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip.
Jihad Abu Jarad and Hamdan al-Astal, both in their 20s, were killed in Rafah on the border with Egypt, and three other people were wounded in the strikes which targeted five tunnels, Palestinian medical sources said.
The air raids were the second in as many days to target smuggling tunnels along Gaza's border with Egypt and came after Palestinian militants fired mortar rounds into Israel, an Israeli army spokesman said.
On Friday, aircraft attacked two smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border, a day after Palestinian militants fired a rocket at Israel.
Militants in Hamas-ruled Gaza have fired about 200 rockets at Israel since the end of Israel's onslaught against the impoverished territory in December and January.
Palestinian sources say the Gaza war left more than 1400 Palestinian dead. Thirteen Israelis were killed during the conflict.
The latest confrontation came as Israeli media reported that a New York-born and Princeton-educated historian and commentator on Middle East affairs has been chosen as the country's next ambassador to the United States.
According to the online edition of the newspaper Haaretz, Michael Oren's selection by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman would be submitted to Sunday's cabinet meeting for approval.
Mr Oren is a senior fellow at the Shalem Centre, a conservative Jerusalem think tank. He is the author of several bestsellers, including Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East.
Born in 1955, Mr Oren immigrated to Israel in 1979 and served as a paratrooper in Lebanon. During the January offensive in the Gaza Strip, he volunteered as a military liaison officer, briefing reporters outside Gaza. He holds US and Israeli citizenship.
Mr Netanyahu's inner circle is engaged in a wide-ranging foreign policy review before his visit to the White House this month. His refusal so far to endorse the goal of an independent Palestinian state puts him at odds with US President Barack Obama.

200 mortars since the end of the conflict.

hmmm.

Wonder what that means?

The Killer Virus and Other Problems

Howdy Folks,

Well, a "killer pandemic virus" has come home to kill all of us under Obama's watch, and more than a couple of the lunatic fringe of the Right and Left (yeup, the Left: claim it's a left over of Bush's regime!) and it's killed ONE! Yeup, one freaking human being and even before this scurrying politicians were declaring state's of emergency (heading off any press claims they didn't overreact fast enough) and basicly acting as if a flu virus might actually harm their careers.

Well, to be fair it might kill a few, but to keep this all in perspective one must remember that the NORMAL flu will kill around 40,000 to 60,000 people a year!!! Thats right folks: more Americans than guns and the war in Iraq combined. Why don't you hear about this little body count? Heck, this is more than die from second hand smoke (or maybe not, no one can agree of that body count, for some reason) but everyone just considers it akin to dying in a car accident, a even more common event, and a lot less spectacular. Car accidents are indeed more spectacular, and old folks and kids dying in hospitals are icky) and kill more people (by about 10 to 30 thousand a year, depending on the flue season). So why is everyone so panicked about the swine flu? Because no one saw it coming, pure and simple. The CDC and others were all still waiting for the Bird Flu to mutate into the killer virus from hell and to reach our little patch of dirt and them"WHAM!" like a mysterious, masked, "man with no name"  Mexican wrestler comes this little gift from the south of the border. To the say the least, it does kill, and it does seem to be spreading fast. So, should it mutate as viruses do (and they do it fast) them it indeed COULD be a serious problem.

So, do we panic NOW? No. And closing the border is going to do damned little good at this point. Or lynching your local illegals either. Folks, IT'S HERE!!! That's right, at this point it's closing the barn door after the raging bull is out, in the pasture, and tearing up the fence. Not that viruses have ever been particularly law-abiding concerning borders anyway. If two dictatorships like Vietnam and China couldn't keep the bird flu in China, and with a MUCH shorter border, we're screwed in any case! Closing the border is both pointless and too late in any case. Unless you start shooting people, and every wild pig as well, crossing the border. Not even a Right Wing Whacko like me is going for that little bit of brutality.

So what to do? Sit back and the enjoy the bare-back experience? Yes and no. The virus is here and already a fully recognized citizen. If we close the border, quarantine ALL travel, and kill every pig in the US, we might contain it. If it does turn into another Spanish Flu or Black Death (in which the piggy-back flu from Hell did 90% of the killing) then this will be needed. At that point the nativists, those that survive the plague, get their armed border and shoot on sight borders. No point in making it any worse by letting in MORE potential carriers.

On a whole however, I don't think this is going to get that bad by any means. No, I'm being pollyanna either. It might kill a few thousand, even more, and thus be a tragedy, but in comparison to a normal flu outbreak, not all that bad. 

We are not the US of 1919.

 

True the press is going to salivate like rabid weasels over every hospital admission and the politicians from both parties will grandstand, rip into each other, and exploit this for all it's worth. And if the President Obama doesn't exploit this to push for universal health care, then he's a freaking IDIOT! I don't believe in such health care, but if I did, the Swine Flu problem going south would be a opportunity from God, so to speak.

I can guarantee two things: It will declared a pandemic by the end of May or when the death toll reaches a thousand (does mean the measles are a pandemic? I kills several thousand a year!), which ever comes first. Second, that this damned virus will dominate the news no matter the death toll for the same period. Oh yeah, the National Health Care initiative will be pushed through (successful or not) by the end of Summer thanks to this.

So wash your hands, stay away from people with the cough and sniffles, and get your flu shots, keep your wits about you and, likely as not, you'll live a long life. Unless you die in a car accident.

Swine Flu and Radio Punditry

Oh man, I am sooooooo scared. I just heard on talk radio that the swine flu is being let into the country by the Obama administration. The idea seems to be that if enough people get swine flu, and the administration can blame the Repulicants for it, that the Demoncrats will be able to force socialized medicine on us and raise our taxes even furthur. Worse, those Volunteer work forces that Obama was mentioning during the campaign are going to be changed into quaranteen camps, and anyone the administration doesn't like is going to be declared an infection case and placed inside. Grab your guns while you can America!!!

and if you believe any of the above bull crap then do us all a favor and move out of the country.

I remember we the Looney Liberal Left was claiming that George Bush was a Illuminati machevellian mastermind who was seeking to destroy the Constitution and extablish a Christian Facist State. Gay men, lesbians, socialists and Arabs beware!!

Now that George is out of office I get to hear the Roomba Recanting Right complain that Obama is secretly a muslim who is a machevellian mastermind bent on establishing a athestic facist state, Bible Thumpers, Gun lovers, Big Buisness, and Soccar Moms beware!!

Same crap, different wrapper.

The last Zogby poll I saw firmly states that bacteria are not on board with the Liberal Agenda, or the Conservative Agenda, in fact, Bacteria are preatty much on the agenda of making more bacteria, which they do with alacrity, fecundity, and in bocu amounts.

Yeah, that' s a french word there in the end, see, even us Redneck-lite Jews can be sophisicated and edumacated Jaenne G.

"But, this is a new strain of swine flu. It must be a conspiracy."

Staple that Tin Foil Hat on a little tighter. Bacteria mutate. They do it at an alarming rate, which is why there is no cure for the "common" cold, and we often have to devise new vaccines for common aliments.

It is no secret to the readers of this blog that I am not an Obama fan. I didn't vote for him, I encouraged everyone I came into contact with not to vote for him, and I will continue to be critical of his fiscal policies which I feel will be the death of our nation.

but

just because he has a naiive and incorrect theory of economics does not make him the epitome of our problems.

the epitome of our problems is that in modern American politics the parties have to play to their radical elements, and those elements get more face time and more 'grease' than the moderate bodies.

Sadly there is nothing we can do to fix this for the next two years. But two years from now we have a chance to fix it in Congress, and four years from now we have a chance to fix it in the Executive Branch.

Don't vote Liberal or Conservative.

Vote in the best fiscal, security, and economic interests of the country.

DARTH F I J

Ouch...another disillusioning moment.

Sadly, I have to withdraw my crush on Janeane Garofalo. For many years I've had a comfortable little fantasy that I could meet J-G. and we would simply agree NOT to talk politics.

But, after hearing this rant I have some doubts about her ability to reason.

http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=ydSU2GaG6U

So, essentially her arguement is that if I disagree with President Obama in any way, I am fair game to have the racist charge leveled at me.

Wow.

and supposedly conservatives are mean spirited.

What I feel people on the Left of American politics fail to understand is that we that lean to the Right, are on the Right, or are on the Right in name only ( Your average Republican Represenative in Congress ) have no problem with a black man being the president.

We have a problem with the presidency advocating the fiscal death of the nation.
Because the fiscal death of the nation will lead to the real death of the nation.
Racism has nothing to do with it.
Economics has everything to do with it.

Well, this is one less celebrity that I can fantaize about comfortably. J-G. ends up going into the pile of other actresses / starlets that once tickled my fancy, but sadly I can no longer dream of. I must lay her pictures upon the same pyre that I placed Madonna, the Dixie Chicks, Natalie Portman, and Tyra Banks.

-sigh-

Well...there is always Tammy Bruce. Yes I know she doesn't 'bat for my team', but a man can dream, can't he?

In this era we are entering, dreaming is all we may soon have.

-Darth F I J

Surprise Birthday Party Bushwacking!!!

So tonight we are bushwacking my buddy Daggs with a birthday party.
Star Trek cakes and buddies abounding!!!

Tea Party : Sorrysota And the Lack of Coverage

I realize that I do not have a degree in journalism.
I realixe that I have never run a news service, or been heavily involved in media.

BUT

over a thousand people show up for a Tea Party and the local news services AREN'T there?

Cowboy pointed out that only the Bay News 9 van showed up. Where was my local TV channel?
Where were the reporters for the Herald?

A Sign of Impotent Protest, But a Sign of Protest Just the Same

There is a Tea Party gathering in my area on April the 15th, Tax day.

The idea is that we the people will gather to vent our disapproval ( some would say despair ) that the government's elected officals will notice our discontent and disaster will be averted as they bend to our will.

Which if you think of it is kind of oxymoronic.

If our elected leaders listened to us, we wouldn't have to throw the Tea Party in the first place.

So I'm under no illusions that my involvement in the Tea Party is going to solve anything. No poltician is going to care about the protesters who gather, who have no legal power over the elected offical, and have no money to bribe...sorry, I mean lobby them with.

But, it will keep me sane.

Posting Here To Keep The Peace, Darth F I J

Sea Chanties and the Lost Concepts of Culture

I was singing Santy Anno as I was walking along the beach front. Two men that owned a boat asked me what the tune was and where I had heard "such a wierd country tune."

Oy vey.

But that's what happens, as cultures grow they shake off the little traits and customs that once gave them meaning and take on new ones, leaving historical and FRPG players such as myself to remember the tradition.

Sea Chanties were repetive choral arrangements, often sung accapella, where a troop at work would sing the chorus and then break for the soloist to sing a verse. It eased hard physical labor.

Can you see a pack of cubical dwelling salary-slaves suddenly bursting into song as they labor away compiling code or making cold calls?

And this brings me to the point of my post. Work used to be a communal experience. It required many hands to move a ship, till a field, or build a shelter. Work has no become a singular experience, so much so that when you see work crews today laboring at the side of the road they aren't singing themselves. They are simply wokring along to the drudgery of the day or at best they are listening to music played by someone else blazing from a radio.

In short, work has lost it's soul. No one feels like they have done anything worth doing at most of our labour anymore. Don't get me wrong, I am not looking at the back breaking montony of past labour with romantic glasses, saying "Oh if only we could have arderous, knuckle cracking, life ending labour like before!" Work has become easier, and with that we produce more and live longer and safer lives.

But along the way we lost the perceived value of what we do.

Think of the terms we use today to describe labor. The Grind, The Rat Race, The Cubical Forest, Salary-slave, Wage-Slave, the Yob, Dead-end Job, McJob.

We work, we are taxed, we have ( if lucky ) enough to pay for our shelter and needs, and if very lucky we have enough for the circuses given us in the form of video-games and media.

And we hate it.

Eariler I mentioned the Dennis Praeger Show's post on the Four things that give meaning, and perhaps it's just that compelling arguement worming it's way into my brain, but I'm beginning to wonder if some of our problems as a culture could be fixed if we re-enforced the contribution of our labor, even at seeminingly dead-end jobs.

I fear that the malaise of it spreads not only to our finances, but our self-esteem and appreciation of what our ancestors struggled for.

Something I think about every time someone asks me why they should study history, "Because what have those dead people ever done for me?"

So, until the time that we can fix this problem I see, I'll sing the chanties and dance the jigs...

Way Haul away, We'll Haul away for Rosie-O!

Posting Here To Keep The Peace, - Da FIJ

Bush and Obama Now Have Something In Common.

They both have bowed to a king.

listening to the flap that started about Obama taking a bow one would have forgotten that Bush did the same thing.

oh well

I'm not happy about either one of them bowing. See, I'm of the opinion that a country that kicked out it's royalty should always treat 'royalty' with an aloofness. Not rudeness, but a cold reminder that royalty is a thing of the past and we will be no one's serfs ever again

But then I remember whom we have just elected to office, and I prepare myself for the wake.

T-Shirts Compared to Over 10,000 Acts of Attempted Murder

Posting this here to keep the peace.

Recently John Juan pointed out video and text articles about Israeli soldiers wearing T-shirts that were inappropiate. Most of these stem from the recent Israeli military action in Gaza, coded as Cast Lead.

Yes, the T-shirts are offensive, vile, and shouldn't be made/worn.

Over 10,000 individual mortors, rockets, and acts of viloence preciptated the Israeli action.
Each one of those attempts was not an attempt to commit vandalism, it was an attempt to commit muder. The Israeli operation was an attempt to take away the ability of Hamas' goons to commit those murders.

Critics will say that the "attitude" of the T-shirts is what they are worried about.

I'm more worried about the bullets and bombs.

The critical report of Al-Jizeera imples that any nation willing to allow it's soldiers to act this way must be evil, vile, and seeking the destruction of it's neighboring states. To give AL-Jizeera credit they did report that some soldiers had been disciplined for wearing the shirts, but they also report that some others had gotten away with it.

So, I wonder, if I can apply the standard that T-shirts = evil people who should be punished to anyone that is wearing a shirt I may not like, does that mean the Israeli's have the same right to demand this kind of treatment to those wearing shirts or holding up media (signs) that have the same "kill them all" attitude. Can they demand this kind of justice from Hamas?

Oh wait, Hamas' charter says it will destory the state of Israel and it's televsion stations routinely run shows encouraging children, women, and young men to die in the glorious destruction of the Jewish State.

Hmmm.

Oh, and the Israelis, at least of late ( Lately being any year after 1963 CE ) tend to engage in military actions only after they've been shot at. Where as Hamas, PIJ, and Et. Al. tend to use rockets, mortors, homicide bombers, and terrorists whenever they can and as often as the can.

There is no question that the T-shirts are inappropiate and any soldier wearing one should be disciplined.
There is also no question that qassam missiles, hand grenades, mortor shells, and ak-47 fire are a hell of a lot more deadly than a T-shirt, and are used more often by people willing to attack rather than talk.

Posting Here To Keep The Peace, Darth F I J

The Four Things That Give Meaning

I'm currently listening to a podcast from the Dennis Prager show. His guest is putting forth a theory that their are four things that give our lives meaning. They are one's Vocation, one's Family, one's Community, and finally one's Faith. The guest then states that the modern drift towards a "European Model" of government drastically effects these four needs in a negative fashion.

When government is given the power and responsibility to raise children, provide income, dictate community standards, and craft aspirations and opinions about what is worth living for it ends up robbing us of the vitality to enjoy life and put forth our effort.

The argument is very compelling, and sad to say I see the United States beginning to embrace it's seductive and destructive allure.

Modern Sense 2000 +

These are the times that try mens' souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives every thin it's value. Heaven knows how to pit a proper price upon it's goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial and article as freedom should not be highly rated. Thomas Paine, The American Crisis.


This blog is a place to converse about effective personal, community, and philosophical action. Much of this stems from the circumstances that we Americans now find ourselves in. Satire, "snarkyness", and other forms of debate and articles may be used that offend you.

that doesn't make them any less true.

you've been warned.