Media Consumption

While the rest of the country is trying to figure out how the newly passed health care fiascobill affects their households, the Democrats seem to be getting easy to understand messages on how the health care bill affects THEM.

"Morelle said someone threw a brick through the double glass doors at the HQ, shattering one of them and spider-webbing the other. The weapon: A brick, to which a piece of paper bearing the message "Extremism is defense of liberty is no vice" was attached with a rubber band."

The Democrats here are quite fortunate. Even when Americans are very angry, and with good cause, they still exercise uncommon restraint. But that restraint isn't likely to last much longer. Next time, instead of bricks, it will likely be high-velocity rifle bullets. And they won't merely be breaking windows.

And she IS actually running for Congress... it looks like she'll fit right in there, if not even set a new low for speaking without a brain engaged. The amount of idiocy she displays in less than 10 minutes is positively astounding.
"In an August appearance on The Gallo Show she evinced some fairly exotic opinions on gun ownership. Such as: “I think the government has the right to know what guns are in the homes ….”"

Start hoarding nickels! I think the cleverest bit, is that since nickels have a face value, you're hedged from downside risk too, since as long as they remain legal tender, you can't lose your initial investment. So basically you can profit from all the upside, while limiting the ways you can lose. Sounds like a win-win.

In the event that you don't believe that a society run completely by women would be the ultimate in nanny-state hellholes, we have a little real-world example for your education:

"Delegate Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio , Vice President of the women’s caucus is leading 35 other delegates (all women) on a campaign for passage of HB 65, that would shockingly require Maryland men to submit their fingerprints and other background information before they can initiate communication with a foreign woman if they use an “International Marriage Broker”."

A TSA agent was arrested on January 3rd in Terminal One at LAX, a source told NBCLA. He had just gotten off duty and was behaving erratically, saying, "I am god, I’m in charge."

Haha. Obviously a classic case of absolute power going straight to his head. Practically the entire Homeland Security bureau is made up of this kind of person, and they get extremely inflated egos by being able to boss other people around, and taser anyone not subservient enough. After a long enough period of acting like a big man, with no one willing to slap some sense into them, it's not surprising that they might eventually think that they're the Big Man Himself, or comparable.

"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today signed into law a bill that requires buyers of handgun ammunition to leave thumbprints and detailed personal information with registered ammo sellers, as well as put restrictions on online bullet sales."

Well, it's been pretty obvious where California is heading, and it seems that they've only piled on more speed. Since this new law has set a new standard, you can certainly expect more and stronger restrictions to follow. Also, I do find it quite interesting that they've set the effective date out so far into the future. Why delay 'improving public safety' for nearly a year and half? Unless they want to spread out, or even delay, the outcry that will come from this law? Hmm.

"Americans with below average IQ’s should have lower income tax rates than their more intelligent fellow citizens because their diminished natural intelligence (DNI) makes it more difficult for them to earn a living. It’s just not fair to expect them to pay the same tax rate as Americans with IQ’s that are average or above."

When you start basing everything on what's "fair", you open yourself up to a lot of ridiculous ideas, as this sardonic article helpfully demonstrates.

"[I]f they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person. “You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, ... “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.”"

Beware the databases! And this is likely to cause headaches for prosecutors in current and future trials. Maybe old-fashioned police work isn't so outdated and useless after all!

"Amid a boisterous debate on health care reform, people flooded members of Congress on Thursday with so many e-mails that they overloaded the House's primary Web site. ... Ventura said new technology called "load balancing" is in place to try to handle spikes in volume. So far, the House Web site remains available to the public."

So Congress is just now using "new" load balancing technology? Figures. Everyone else was using it back in 2001, at the latest. A patent search shows that 1998/99 is around when it mostly started. One could possibly be excused for thinking that a major site and network with a fairly heavy consistent load, and coupled with enormous irregular load spikes, would have figured all this out sometime sooner than nearly 10 years later, or even been riding on the crest of the technology wave and been using and developing the technology from the very beginning. Oh, but wait. We're talking about government here. I guess with near unlimited resources, you can get away with the crude, brute-force approach, even though it's terribly inefficient and wasteful.

Hah, actually, only for what little remains of the year. And those grasshoppers will be back again next year, and from the looks of things, will probably stay longer too.

"In 2009, Cost of Government Day falls on August 12. Working people must toil 224 days out of the year just to meet all costs imposed by government - a full 26 days longer than last year. In other words, in 2009 the cost of government consumes 61.34 percent of national income."

"But we should also realize our system only works when the interests of voters and their government are in harmony. Unfortunately, recent evidence suggests that America's hard-working hometown legislators are feeling the pinch from a fickle and increasingly out-of-touch voter class who no longer serves our needs. ... And we're tired of getting pushed around the town hall by the likes of you, Big Voter."

To go along with the previous post: Yes, this is really how Nancy "I See Swastikas" Pelosi, and many of her cohorts, see the current town hall situation. So of course their solution is for them to stop holding town hall meetings, and for you to go home and mind your own business affairs while they, the "smart people", fix all the looming problems their own way.

"The passions of the protesters, on the other hand, are not a surprise. They hired a man to represent them in Washington. They give him a big office, a huge staff and the power to tell people what to do. They give him a car and a driver, sometimes a security detail, and a special pin showing he’s a congressman. And all they ask in return is that he see to their interests and not terrify them too much. Really, that’s all people ask. Expectations are very low. What the protesters are saying is, “You are terrifying us.”"

Hah. So much for 'democracy' in America. But what Nancy "I See Swastikas" Pelosi and the others in power don't realize is that these protests are all quite peaceful for right now. But frustrations have been building for quite a few people now, and if they are still being ignored by their supposed 'representatives', then I see it as quite likely that they will start making their concerns known by more violent means. Still, I doubt the congress critters who will be scurrying about trying to avoid the roving mobs looking to string up every bureaucrat they find will realize this even at that point.

"The staggered phase out of energy-wasting light bulbs begins on Sept. 1 in Germany. The unpopularity of the energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs that will replace them is leading consumers and retailers to start hoarding the traditional bulbs."

Are you watching this, California? Your turn is up next.

Is it just me, or does such heavy-handed tyranny, especially for enforcing arbitrary laws primarily for revenue collection, seem like it must eventually result in a blowback, a reaction, that results in police attracting real bullets wherever they go? Of course, on the other hand, the sheep will simply cower more, and jump faster when the officer says "jump".

"WASHINGTON—In a slight shift from his campaign trail promise, President Obama announced Monday that his administration's message of "Change" has been modified to the somewhat more restrained slogan "Relatively Minor Readjustments in Certain Favorable Policy Areas.""

Indeed.

"On Friday, we saw the letter ATF sent to FFL dealers in Tennessee telling them the Bureau was overriding the state's Firearms Freedom Act, and would continue to impose federal requirements in disregard of state law. They've done the same thing to Montanans."

It'll be interesting to see if this continues to be an issue. It seems like an opportunity for some brave citizens to defy and challenge the ATF and their 'interpretation' of the Constitution.

"This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned. But no, apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by this author from people’s Kindles and credited their accounts for the price."

Will people never learn? This is completely why I will never buy a Kindle, or a Sony Reader, or any other similarly DRM-crippled ebook reader. Unless someone clever figures out how they can be hacked, with open firmware or similar, in which case I'll consider buying a used one if it's cheap enough.

Politicians hanging from lampposts, and banker's heads on pikes. Those will be common sights in the near future. A future that keeps getting a lot closer, a lot faster.

"[Waxman-Markey] represents a worse abuse of the public trust and purse than the stimulus and the bailouts put together. Waxman-Markey creates a permanent new regime in which environmental romanticism and corporate welfare are mixed together to form political poison. From comic bureaucratic power grabs (check out the section of the bill on candelabras) to the creation of new welfare programs for Democratic constituencies to, above all, massive giveaways for every financial, industrial, and political lobby imaginable, this bill would permanently deform American politics and economic life."

"As you readers may recall from earlier postings, I had jury duty yesterday for King County Superior Court. You may also recall that back in January I emailed them, in good faith, a list of principles (you know, those freedoms us libertarian “terrorists” advocate for, despite government objections) I held that I thought would disqualify me from jury duty."

I, also, have concerns about potential jurors being asked, and forced to answer, invasive and privacy-destroying questions in open court. I haven't been there though, so I know nothing further, but this guy has the whole experience. I note also that, based on my observations, judges all seem to be petty tyrants who get quite miffed when challenged in their fiefdoms. One gets the impression that, if they could, they would be shouting, "Off with his head!" quite frequently.

Also known as the "All Barack Channel". "All Barack! All the time!"

"On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care -- a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm!"