Video

Just keeps getting better.  Andrew Breitbart has a doctor give him a "sick slip" in Madison.  On video.

Somebody needs to get fired.  Does the word "fraud" have any meaning these days?

Ragin' Dave's Quote of the Day

Public schools are jobs programs for adults, not educational systems for our children.

Oh hell yes.

Found via SSP 2.0.

Disappointment

I can't make it to Madison today.  As much as I want to be there protesting against the union goons, it's just not going to happen.

Blah.  I'm actually kind of pissed off right now.  Ah well, I'll call and email the folks in Madison and do as much "rah-rah" stuff as I can from hundreds of miles away.

Going for a drive

I think I know where I'll be tomorrow.

Madison - Tea Party groups plan to show their support for Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill as they scheduled a rally for Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. at the State Capitol South Entrance.

The event was announced Thursday by American Majority, a conservative group headquartered in Virginia with offices in several states, including Wisconsin.

In a news release issued by state director Matt Batzel, the group said: "As the week has progressed, Wisconsin and the Nation have watched schools across Wisconsin close due to teachers participating in a 'sick out,' the unions busing people in from other states to inflate their rally numbers in Madison and legislators fleeing the state to avoid the vote on the budget repair bill. It's time the voices of the Wisconsin people are heard."

Tea Party groups have held several well-attended rallies in the past in Madison, usually on April 15.

It's time to stand up to the thugs, union bullies and Leftard asshats.  But I repeat myself.  If the nutless, gutless punk bitch Democrat American Communist Party wants to run and hide, fire them.  If the teachers want to call in sick and shut down schools, fire them.  Every last one of those greedy fucking cocksuckers who pull a public paycheck and who refuses to do their job needs to be fired.  Get rid of them, and hire people who will actually DO THEIR FUCKING JOB!

Idiots in Madison

So the Unions were out in force in Madison yesterday protesting Gov. Walker's attempts to keep Wisconsin fiscally solvent.  Since most Union members in Wisconsin are Leftists, they have no clue how an economy really works, and they're more than happy to watch Wisconsin go into debt rather than accept one iota of cuts to their public pensions.  Speeches and rallies have been predictable in nature - inane, bumper-sticker chanting and threats of violence to Walker and others.  Michelle Malkin has a round up of posts.  It's disgusting.  This state is billions in the hole, but the public labor unions can't be bothered to care about that.  They want their fucking money, and they'll gut this state to get it.  They want their fucking money, and they'll fuck over every private tax-paying citizen in order to get it.  Fuck them.  Fuck them with a chainsaw.

And what really chaps my hide is the teachers unions.  I guess about half the teachers called in sick in order to go protest, and more teachers pushed their kids to go protest, even though the kids don't even know what they're protesting for.  Given the state of Wisconsin schools and the "education" the kids get, I'd love to see every one of those teachers fired.  I can't remember where I saw it, but someone else pointed out that given the fact each child represents $10,000 per year in government spending, that means a classroom of 25, which is reasonable, represents $250,000 a year in spending.  One quarter of a million dollars.

Where the fuck is all that money going?

If you haven't seen it

Go watch Niall Ferguson absolutely destroy Obama's foreign policy in Egypt, as well as all the MSNBC tools who are trying to claim that Obama did a good job.

Again, this is what you get when you elected an overstuffed Marxist buffoon from the Chicago political machine to the Oval Office.  Obama would be out of his depth in a mud puddle.

Ethanol still sucks

And it's still not a good fuel to burn in your vehicles or small motor.  Alcohol is either for drinking or for sanitizing, folks.  Not for putting in your gas tank.

And the government is going to waste MORE money on ethanol subsidies.  Yay.

The Republican Killing Budget?

Ace is of the opinion that this budget could kill the Republican majority in the house, and make us lose seats in the Senate:

But be that as it may, someone has to lead the country, and as our Non-President just wants to fucking golf and talk about how awesome he is, I guess it's up to the people the Constitution doesn't nominate as national leaders to step into the Great Void of Incompetence and Cowardice left by the Bammy-Bam and do something for America.

Okay, here it is, everyone: We've long had a dispute about whether it's better to do the right thing, no matter how unpopular it is or fudge on doing the right thing to stay electable.

We're about to face this dilemma because the GOP is going forward with a plan to reform entitlement spending.

(emphasis in the original)

Me, I think that Ace is partially correct.  Obama is a gutless punk cocksucker who refuses to lead because that would be hard and he might get some schmutz on his neatly pressed and creased jeans by doing so.  And he's hoping that the Republicans get dirty cutting his budget.  But the fact that the gutless punk cocksucker pushed this fraud of a budget on the country can work in our favor:

Does this proposal look like the work of a man who’s drawn a lesson from his failures, economic and / or political? A president who truly means it when he says, “it's absolutely essential to live within our means” -- ?

The White House is in the hands of a socialist. His policy preferences are unchanged from 2009. He refuses to acknowledge that the nation has repudiated his direction. Either he thinks himself so much smarter than the rest of us that he cannot possibly be wrong, or his ego is too large to allow even the harshest chastisement from reality to deflect him from his chosen course. Or both.

I tend to think that both Mr. Porretto and Ace are correct:  Obama is a gutless punk cocksucker with a massive ego who is a hard-core dedicated Marxist and who refuses to admit when he's wrong.  There, that was easy, wasn't it?

In all seriousness, the budget that the House of Representatives comes up with is going to go a long way in determining whether or not this country stays on it's feet for the next decade.  Folks, Obama's budget is perfectly rational when you understand that it's all part of the Cloward-Piven strategy to topple America.  But yes, spending has to be slashed, the adults will have to do the slashing, and I expect that the Democrat Gutless Punk Cocksucker Party will use that to their advantage in 2012.  But this isn't a repeat of 1994, no matter how many people try to make that comparison.  This time we actually have people who are willing to say "Look folks, we do not have the money.  Period."  And judging by how many states now have Republicans or Conservatives running their state governments, I think that America is probably in a better position to listen to that message than they were in 1995 or 96.

Thank you to my dear wife

For not only being a hot, sexy babe, but for reminding me exactly why we no longer have a TV in our living room.

Folks, throw your TV out.  Just do it.  Trust me, your lives will be improved.

The Obama Budget

Fail.

Ah well, fiscal insolvency and spiraling deficits combined with crippling levels of debt worked so well for Ireland and Greece, didn't it?  Time to see just what the Republicans are made of this year.

From Sondra K - 15 Tax Hikes hidden in Obama's budget.  BOHICA!

* Raising the top marginal income tax rate (at which a majority of small business profits face taxation) from 35% to 39.6%.  This is a $709 billion/10 year tax hike 

* Raising the capital gains and dividends rate from 15% to 20% 

* Raising the death tax rate from 35% to 45% and lowering the death tax exemption amount from $5 million ($10 million for couples) to $3.5 million.  This is a $98 billion/ten year tax hike 

* Capping the value of itemized deductions at the 28% bracket rate.  This will effectively cut tax deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, property taxes, state and local income or sales taxes, out-of-pocket medical expenses, and unreimbursed employee business expenses.  A new means-tested phaseout of itemized deductions limits them even more.  This is a $321 billion/ten year tax hike 

* New bank taxes totaling $33 billion over ten years

* New international corporate tax hikes totaling $129 billion over ten years

* New life insurance company taxes totaling $14 billion over ten years

* Massive new taxes on energy, including LIFO repeal, Superfund, domestic energy manufacturing, and many others totaling $120 billion over ten years

* Increasing unemployment payroll taxes by $15 billion over ten years

* Taxing management capital gains in an investment partnership (“carried interest”) as ordinary income.  This is a tax hike of $15 billion over ten years

* A giveaway to the trial lawyers—not letting companies deduct the cost of punitive damages from a lawsuit settlement.  This is a tax hike of $300 million over ten years

* Increasing tax penalties, information reporting, and IRS information sharing.  This is a ten-year tax hike of $20 billion.

More taxes!  Enjoy!  And the best part is he's going to claim that he isn't raising taxes!

The Obama Budget - Spending the Future!  And after Obama is done fucking this country over, we won't have a real future to worry about, as we'll be just another third-world shithole.

Food preservation

So Serenity talks about wanting to preserve food.  The Ragin' Mrs. and I already preserve quite a bit, although we could probably preserve a lot more if we wanted to.  And we probably SHOULD preserve more.  Grow it or get it while it's cheap in the summer, and can it.

"But Dave, why do that when I can go to the store and buy it?  Why can green beans when I can get them fresh, even in January?"

Because of Glow-bull Warming, of course!

The extreme freezing temperatures hit a very broad section of major growing regions in Mexico, from Hermosillo in the north all the way south to Los Mochis and even south of Culiacan. The early reports are still coming in but most are showing losses of crops in the range of 80 to 100%.

Even shade house product was hit by the extremely cold temps. It will take 7-10 days to have a clearer picture from growers and field supervisors, but these growing regions haven’t had cold like this in over a half century.

This time of year, Mexico supplies a significant percent of North America’s row crop vegetables such as green beans, eggplant, cucumbers, squash, peppers, asparagus, and round and roma tomatoes.

Go out, get canning jars, find the Bell Blue Book of food preservation, and stock up during the summer. We just had corn with dinner last night that we had canned back in August, and the smell of it was heavenly.  We can our own tomato sauce.  Hell, we canned chicken that we still need to use.  We can our own chicken stock and pork stock.  Have you seen all the extra crap they put in Chicken stock these days?  YEAST extract?  Why the hell do they need to put yeast extract in chicken stock?  Screw that crap, we'll make our own.  We have a few jars of our home-grown carrots downstairs in the pantry as well.

And I'm thinking that this year's garden is going to be based quite a bit on what we'll be able to can.

And yes, anyone who still believes that Global Warming is going to cook us all is a fucking idiot.  In fact, it's one of those self-identifying traits that make it easy for me to ignore someone.  "WE NEED TO SAVE THE PLANET FROM GLOBAL WARMING!"  Oh we do, do we?  Tell ya what, why don't you go over there and shout that.  The adults are busy insulating the house and preserving food for the wintertime, which seems to be heading further and further south every year.

This explains Nanny Bloomburg

Kevin Baker links to a post called Moral Communism, that explains how the Marxists first make a behavior immoral, then pass laws to ban it.

So finally I get back to the Moral Law. Moral Law in anglosphere societies has, in the past, been fairly limited in scope, addressing a limited range of “vices” generally inherited from the Christian moral code. There was remarkably little even of that prior to the nineteenth century- it was the Church’s job to look after our immortal souls, not the secular law’s job. Prostitution was generally legal, beer was unregulated, you could gamble as much as you like, and so on. Henry VIII introduced the Sodomy Law, inherited from canon law when he nationalised the Church, but that seems to have only been really used against egregious pederasts. Even Oscar Wilde was only persecuted because he was blatant, foolish, and The Marquess of Queensberry’s other son was being buggered by the Prime Minister Lord Rosebery, who was beyond the infuriated Queensberry’s grasp for obvious reasons.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Reformers and Progressives began expanding the Moral Law sphere. Temperance laws, obscenity laws, and so on. But in the past few decades we have found entire new spheres of human activity come under the Moralist system. Our interactions with other people; what we may say to them or about them, how we may generally treat them, the treatment of animals, the treatment of homosexuals (protected) and paedophiles (damned). Smoking, of course. And, in emulation of non-Christian religions, even the foods we eat or how fat we may be. And of course, that huge new moral sphere, “the environment”.

NYC bans Trans-fats, smoking in public, salty foods.  California bans smoking and a host of other things.  Taxes on tobacco.  "Soft drink" taxes.  How many things have been banned or taxed for "our own good"?

So instead, they go for a two stage process. First of all, they persuade people that some Damned Thing is immoral. Then they show that the free market allows or encourages that immoral thing. Then they can say, “well, we wish we didn’t have to do this, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to intervene in that part of the economy, to stop the Damned Thing, sorry”. This leaves the free marketeer floundering around having to try to justify the continuance of the Damned Thing in the name of some nebulous “liberty”. And then they say, “so your selfish desire for “liberty” means this Damned Thing must go on?” and you lose the argument in public, because most of the audience have been persuaded that there is a moral crisis that must be addressed, and you are a heartless asshole who just doesn’t care.

And Bingo.  I've had the "heartless capitalist" argument used against me more than once.  It was effective until I pretty much became heartless in the context of the "pore 'n starvin", having dealt with them far too often when I lived in Seattle and found out that they're poor and starving because they refuse to hold a job, or they're strung out on their drug of choice.

The only way I know of to counter this argument is to show the Marxist as a hypocrite who doesn't give a damn about the "damned thing" at all, he only wants more government control.  And that's not an easy thing to do.

Earworm

I don't know why, but this song has been in my head quite a bit recently.



I've kind of had this neo-Celtic longing going on, and this woman's voice, and the beat of the song just remind me of that.  Hell, I haven't been happy with much of modern music for a while.  It's like the same fucking bubble-gum crap producers that inflicted Britteny Spears and the Backstreet Boys on us have now taken over the entire music industry, including country.  I know there's good music out there.  But it never seems to hit the airwaves these days.  Songs like this:



I know that Allison Krause is NOT the only voice out there.  But all we get these days is the same no-talent crap that turned me off from "rock" music.  I listened to Keith Urban play his show before the Super Bowl, and I was disappointed.  It seems he relies on his studio to make him sound good.  And that bugs me.  When I went to my last concert many moons ago, Brooks and Dunn sounded just as good live as they did off their album.  That's how it should be!  If you have to rely on a soundboard and a computer to make yourself sound good, then I don't want to buy your music.

Blah.  I'm turning into my father.  But is it too much to ask for the artists being dumped out of the studios for our display to have the talent we're told they have?