Officially Meaningless

This is the Liberal/Conservative FAQ for the Thinking Person

Q: How can you make politics not only easy news but also completely meaningless?
A: Use a univariate liberal/conservative scale to assess even the most complex of things.

Q: How do you use this scale to your own ends?
A: Accuse others of being whatever the dumb people you're trying to woo think is evil.

Q: So what is a liberal?
A: Whatever self professed conservatives call evil.

Q: And what is a conservative?
A: Whatever self professed liberals call evil.

Q: Is there an overlap?
A: Yes, only due to the inanity of it.

Q: Is this crap unique to politics?
A: No. A similar thing happens as when a New Englander tells a Southerner that Maryland is in The South, or a Southerner tells a New Englander that Maryland is in The North. Even Marylanders can't get a grip on the idea of The Geographical Middle, and geography, unlike politics, actually has only one north-south direction.

Q: So, who wins from this?
A: Those who stay the course, unless you're a liberal.

Q: And who wins if you're liberal?
A: Those who bring about a time of change strangely reminiscent of the time before change.

Q: Does it matter that this sort of thing means nothing because it is to simplified?
A: Yes, because people think it has meaning. Social reality is, for better or worse, reality.

Q: Should we move to Canada over it?
A: No, they do the same fricking thing there. Hosers.

Fred's Out

Yep. Fred's out. I guess the race just got that much more cheery.

Would Somebody Win Already?

Look, I've been hearing Hype '08 since about November 9, 2006. It's time for it to be over. Unfortunately, as with meat products, the total processing time in politics is longer when the ingredients contain more scraps. And that's what we have now, scraps. Seriously. The slate is

"My dreams need not become reality to give hope" Obama. Vision. Hope. No future.

"I'm going home to see mom so give me my football" Thompson. Way to sell yourself, big boy.

"I saw a UFO" Kucinich. Feh.

"I'll turn around our economy as I destroy the rest of the government" Romney. Just what we need.

"Hey, remember me? I was a vice presidential candidate once" whatever his name is. Get a cheaper haircut.

"Want to see my old newsletters?" Paul. Crazy old coot has no appeal.

"Older than dirt" McCain. This living personality cult now comes in Baptist.

"We've got to take back America for Christ" Huckabee. After all, Jefferson and Jesus were America's finest leaders, and they were Baptists too.

"Me and Monica have at least one thing in common" Clinton. Hey, she sucks.

"I was mayor of New York fer Chrissake, so why am I getting so few votes in other places" Giuliani. Um, because you suck, too?

I hope I'm not forgetting anyone. They aren't all that memorable, really. When I go to vote in PA in April and it means absolutely nothing because some drone is already going to win in November, I'll be looking forward to a brand new four years of competence, security, and good living in America.

$100 why not $1000 a barrel oil?

Newsweek Magazine for January 7 had an article, titled "Why We Can't Stop $100 Oil". The contents are what one might expect given the lengthy babble about our dependancy on oil and why prices will still climb even higher. Of course I am no economist, but I never did buy into the idea that oil prices will ""even themselves out" and the market will stabilize. The new twist that the article inserted into the text, just after the standard "It about supply and demand..." was the word "Globally". Oh boy, dont even go there.

this whole oil situation reminds me of the WAMU Banking commercial in which a herd of old bankers are penned in and subjected to young, hip, new, WAMUs ideas like free checking and free ATM withdrawls, etc. The old boys being so set in thier ways have gotten fat and lazy and simply have become complicit in letting "the way things are" happen. No new developments, no cutting edge revolutionary ideas, yet they still want the proffit due them.

Getting back to oil and the article, the piece contends that pupblic outcry will become so loud that the government will have no choice but to tap the reserves in Alaska. Of course this brings about a slew of problems of its own. Here's the snag - who exactly do you think will be granted the "ownership" or production rights over the new supply? Of course, big Oil companies. the same fat lazy old boys club big oil that hasnt seen a new refinery in decades, the same big oil companies who pleged to lower oil prices at the pump, and the same big oil execs who see 10 figure salaries plus benefits. Yeah, that'll work well. NOT!

As a conservative, I am honor bound to point out, that the idea of big business, while very republican in nature (though I contend Reagan would be turning over in his grave to see this bull****. I'd better go check on him...), was not designed to functionin this way. Conservatism as it affect business is meant to support industry as a stable backbone of American infasturcture and economics. What has happened in actuality is that since the time of Reagan and government hands free, is that simple human greed has outweighed the public bennefit. Now lest I digress in to socialistic thoughts, I am neither aruging FOR increased government intervention, NOR am I going to kick and scream to have my way at the pump.

As a conservative, I am advocating that truely smart people find ways around the oil game, and go off the grid. Not for paranoia of govenrment, but to no longer be individually dependant on oil. Besides my new year's resolution is to loose weight. time to get walking. See you around the planet!

Epire States of America

Recent Literary adventures brought me in contact with a work of (thankfully) fiction by Orson Scott Card. Card is the author of Ender's Game, Children of the Mind, and various other works. The work that I read was actually an endeavor of his into the socio-polticial spectrum and was geared toward an alternate History (in the near future past) of the USA. Card's premise was that a small group of highly determined, higly edcuated minds, were able to colaborate to create a near second civil war scenario where the line were figuartively drawn between the "red and states".

As we know the last elections showed a huge diversity in voting trends whereby the greatest metroplois in many states out weighed the rural populous by nearly 3:1 in some places. Cards ascertion, backed by actual trending information draws on the idea that major metros lean Liberal, and the rurals lean conservative.

Media manipulation and educational influencing by liberal institutions and educators are also a resounding theme as Card builds a national web of conspiracy. Irony and eerie realism can be closely seen directly and indirectly originating from current events. This read was fun, fast paced, and down right frightening if you dont trust the government. Oops - we probably just got flagged on the NSA watchlist. LOL. [Knock, knock]

Gotta go, Big Brother just showed up.

star wars: a new hampshire

I love craigslist.

Something Scary

Thanks to a friend for pointing out this gem to me.

Small Town USA

2 blocks down the street from my home, is a subsidized housing progam dwelling. Inside this cubical debacle are persons of questionable character. This is not opinion, but rather fact, as said homosapiens stupidious were observed by my wife and myself dealing drugs in order to finance more bling, more things, and of course keep the Ganja flowing. THE Ganja must flow! He who controls the Ganja controls the universe! (Thank you Frank Herbert) These acts were duly reported to the local athorities who did absolutely nothing - love those tax payer dollars going to worthy working (heh-hem) govenrment employees.

Ironically enough, depite the repeated calls for enforcement to be enacted, two weeks prior to Christmas, a group of young thugs staged surveilance from this said establishment on the Local High End Jewlery Store, half a block further down the street. I know this, like the general Public all knows this, yet the authorities cant recall this -becasue the vehicle used as the getaway car after the armed robbery took place, was seen in front of the local drug house. Infact, the getaway vehicle almost hit a coworker of my wife, and they gave chase to the car, calling it in to 911 comm center, only to be told "do not engage in non-authorized activity". Of course the locals didn't locate the car for 48 hours after the good samaritans called the description in.

My Point is this - your physical security is in your hands. What happens in your neighborhood IS your business and you DO have a responsibility to report it to the appropriate authorities at the very least. However, do not count on the uniforms to always come through - your ultimate well being is yours to master. Consider this a small lesson on civil responsibility.

A Couple of Things for Contributers

Do any of you have any updates for the people of interest list on the sidebar? Post a comment if you have a name or a link you'd like to see there.

Speaking of links... they aren't hard. In the main post writing page, you can just highlight the text, click on the link button, put the URL in the pop-up box (beware of doubling the http://), and you get a link in your post. Comments don't have that option, so you need to put in the links by hand. I can edit posts to fix your bad links, but not your comments, so get 'em right.

Also, do any of you have an e-mail account that can have a filter to forward copies of selected incoming e-mails? Right now I don't have any of us getting comments in their e-mail because Blogger allows only one e-mail address per blog. I could just go buy a domain name and probably get something that way, but I'm too cheap and lazy to do that.

Needing No Introduction From Me...

I'd like to have you all give a big welcome to ProLPconserve. He and I go way, way back to the dark ages of the late 1980s... back when my parents were just over our current age and I called them cave people for it. Lucky for us, we here at this party have no Samson complex, and so our drive and initiative does not depend on our hairlines.

ProLPconserve is a hunting, gun carrying, pro-life, family values, meat and potatoes kind of guy. I'm sure he'll have things to say here about all of that except the meat and potatoes! (Sorry to all who thought this place was a recipe exchange.) He helps keep you liberal loonies from pulling me straight over the edge of sanity, so I'm sure we'll all get along just swell.

Play nice, everyone.

Ross, Ross? Anybody seen Ross Perot anywhere? Where is the little older than dirt chart maniac when you need some reall interesting TV? The candidates are boring, drival, pointless and uninformed. The high and mighty elitist class still believes that the minority rule the majority. Join me my union brothers and rise up against the apartide.

Sorry, had to get that out. Somtimes my communistic indoctrinations by a "liberal" arts college take over. Thank you to Nate for the invite, and I look forward to contributing some truely insightful commentary in the near future.

quiz time

I know there have been sites like this for previous elections, so here's this year's dugg up personal candidate analysis quiz: GlassBooth. I have to get back to dig around the site and see if I can get down to actual candidate statements on the issues, but I think their methodology makes sense. At least it's more subtle than the usual online poll.

My result: Gravel/Clinton/Thompson was eerily on target.

Also, if you click on the "Another Candidate" dropdown, notice that Ron Paul is first on the list.

Edit: Silly me! I forgot to accept cookies, so I took the quiz all over again. The REAL me: 76% Obama / 74% Chris Dodd / 71% McCain.

I guess I'm too close to call, except that since McCain has a snowball's chance in hell of getting the Republican nomination, I'll almost certainly be voting Democratic on my (first) Presidential ballot.

Quickie

I thought this was worth noting.

[Editorial Note from Nate: Hey, people, the primary season starts in two days! I think it's time to get this blog moving again.]