You keep using that word...

To paraphrase Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride, though, I know that it doesn't mean what you think it means.

Socialist.

A former colleague of mine actually used the word...to describe me.

Here's the context.  My colleague comments on seeing this "clever" bumper sticker, which I've previously commented on.  I point out the silliness of the logic behind the bumper sticker:

My gearshift doesn't have a "D" on it, *****. Besides, you can drive forward off a cliff :-)

Prompting this comeback:

Yes,*** , it is a good idea to protect the masses from driving off a cliff. I didn't realize you were so compassionate. Are you turning into a socialist?

Wow, right there is an insight into my colleague's viewpoint:  They're not people, they're masses.  Guess who else referred to them as "masses"?

Religion is the opiate of the masses

--Karl Marx

And apparently, compassion has suddenly become the purview of the Left?

Hardly.  I have plenty of compassion for people and for animals.  My colleague demonstrates how little he knows about me.  I don't go around broadcasting all of my volunteer work or the things I've done for complete strangers.  Why not?  Because I don't do it for recognition.  I do it because of values instilled in me by my family and friends.  Because at the end of the day, I can look in a mirror and acknowledge that I inconvenienced myself to help somebody else's day, knowing that some day I may rely on the kindness of a stranger to improve my day at the cost of his or her convenience.

But my compassion is tempered by what I've seen of some people in this world, who feel entitled to my unwilling compassion in the form of money.  They are able-bodied individuals who've never worked a day in their life.  Over the past 40 years, they've been inculcated to believe they are entitled to my money, that it's my job to take care of them.

To quote Judge Smalls from Caddyshack, the world needs ditch-diggers too.

But I digress.  Asking if I'm turning into a socialist because I care about what happens to this country?  No, of course not.  My colleague mistakes patriotism and motivated self-interest for near-worship of the State.  Doubtful that he's lived in a socialist country.  I have, by the way.  And let me tell you closet socialists that the reality never works as great as the theory.

So to it round it off, I shut down my colleague's feeble attempt at name-calling with this brief reply:

No need for name-calling, *****. I won't thread-jack *****'s status further, so anytime you feel like verbal jousting, my wall's available.

UPDATE:

So my colleague posted the following on his wall:

Easter canceled, they found the body.

Really?  What a prick!  What is it with these anti-Christian liberals and their need to tear down the Church?  It's not enough to exercise your right to not believe in a Supreme Being, you've got to demean and belittle people of faith.  Why is that?

My theory:  Liberals are control-freaks.

Think about it:  They think government controls of the economy is the way to prosperity.  They think speech codes on college campuses is the way to go.  They think we should throw our entire way of life into upheaval to try to counteract global temperature increases predicted with models based on severely flawed data.

I know in their mind, being jerks towards those of faith is their way of trying to drag "the masses" out of "superstition" and into "reason".

Just one question:  Who the fuck asked them to do this?

Oh, I get it:  They know better than us.  Riiight.

Next time one of these liberal pundits claim we conservatives are being melodramatic about the "War on Christmas" or the "War on Easter", point out all the "tolerant" atheists who insist on being dicks during the two most important times of the year for Christians.

Now, I expect to see similar "tolerance" shown for the Muslims during Ramadan.  Come on atheist pricks, let's see some consistency!

Logic for dummies...

So I heard 14-year-old speaker Tricia Willoughby at the recent Madison Tax Day Tea Party was drowned out by protesters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXnJKc337Ic&feature=player_embedded

Here's what the teenager actually said:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFpeF4X7Ubo.  Yeah, really extreme stuff.  Really deserving of being called a "brat".

One commenter named willonomous, with an obvious learning disability said:

Also, for petes sake, if she's 14, she can't vote, yet it's okay to make her stand upto people telling them her views? If she's mature enough to have a unbiased view, she'd be allowed to vote. But she's not, because she's 14, so isn't

* Face-palm *

God, please tell me this commenter's not a teacher of anything that requires mastery of logic.    If he/she/it is a teacher, let's hope it's something harmless, like art.

Or journalism.

Let me see if I get this right:  She's 14.  The government says because she's 14, she can't vote.  It doesn't matter how "mature" or "unbiased" she could become in the eyes of willonomous (in other words, how much her opinion meets his/her/its approval), she still can't vote.

Perhaps if willonomous had been able to hear the speech instead of the protester's mouth, he would've realized that her speech was about how the reckless spending of the federal government carries a price borne more by Tricia's generation than the loud-mouthed buffoon shouting at her.

Violence abounds

A shooting occurred at a grocery store I used to frequent before moving to IA.


Will the event deter me from going back to the store?  No.

First off, this wasn't some random act or robbery gone bad.  It involved three of the grocery store's employees.  It was a love triangle.  Unless you were a participant in the triangle or unfortunate enough to be in the line of fire, you weren't in very much danger.

Know what I'll do next time I'm in the neighborhood of that grocery store?  I'm going to go shop there.

Why?  Because I inherited something from my mother called "spite".  I refuse to live my life in fear of what might happen to me in a place already touched by violence.  If I did, the purveyors of violence and evil would win.

It's similar to a gang-related shooting that took place a few miles to the south a number of years ago at a movie theater.  Despite the high cost and lower quality of the cinemas, I and and a co-worker went to the movie theater out of spite.

Interestingly enough that some hack at the University of London has produced a study that sampled from 90 college students who "self-identified" themselves as liberal, moderate, or conservative.  I've posited what I think of journalists who self-identify themselves as "moderate" when their bias betrays a pervasive liberalism in their thinking.  Anyway, the researcher claims a correlation between an enlarged amygdala (the "fear" center of the brain) and a propensity toward conservatism, while denser gray matter (where conflict resolution occurs) may leads towards a person being more likely to be liberal.

Yeah, I rolled my eyes too.  These lefties will stop at nothing to not win the debate, but merely overwhelm it with diversions and distractions.  Conservatism's a disease.  Your amygdala's too big.

Anybody peer-review this guy's findings?

Unsurprisingly, the fingers point to Glenn Beck.  I listen to the man's radio program and occasionally watched his television program.  I'm not sure it could be characterized as fear-mongering.  A more apt description would be that he is encouraging his fellow citizens to be vigilant of what their government's doing, or what some people are doing with the government's blessing.  Since when did a healthy distrust of one's politicians become paranoia?  Never forget, they are contractually-obligated employees.  The contract?  The U.S. Constitution.

Alas, I've decided that the brouhaha about enlarged amygdalas and Glenn Beck dovetails nicely with how every act of violence directed against politicans, members of law enforcement, or "immigrants" (where the media conveniently drops the "illegal" adjective is the result of a mindless right-wing drone whipped up into a "violent frenzy" by the "hate speech" from talk radio.

Of course, point out the well-documented trail of violence from the Left, and you get described with some "colorful" adjectives in lieu of debate.  After all, liberals are more nuanced thinkers.  Or so they keep telling us.  Meanwhile, they're also telling us civilization as we know will come to an end if the government shuts down.  Or public employee unions losing some of their power is the first step on the road to indentured servitude.  Or questioning the allocation of funds to the EPA means that Republicans want to poison the earth, air, and water.

Um, who's the one fear-mongering again?

Back to the study.  Dense gray matter correlates with the likelihood of being liberal?  Consider the fact that many young people start out as liberal until their rampant altruism collides with the reality that

• there is no money tree from which a government can pluck T-bills in hopes of solving all of society's ills
• trying to help someone improve their station in life can backfire because you have taken an incentive away
• the money comes from others, many of whom have figured out how to be self-reliant, begging the question of why the person being helped cannot also help themselves.

 at which point they become conservative.  Does the gray matter transform into an enlarged amygdala overnight or something?

Oops, I just realized I used the word "self-reliant" above.  Let me translate it into liberal-speak:  "selfish".  After all, acting in your own self-interest is never to the benefit of others.  Unless your successful business venture means jobs for your community and increases your ability to donate to charity.

Yep, selfishness (ability to care for yourself and others), paranoia (ability to recognize a threat to your way of life and be vigilant), and violence (ability to kick said threat in the ass it doesn't leave your way of life alone). 

Sign me up.

The GOP blinked

That's my feeling.  The Democrats, whom never met spending they didn't like, aside from funds allocated to the DoD, pushed the GOP to the wall over $61 billion in cuts to a budget that grew by $1 TRILLION the past two years!

If that's all the cuts we could find, the government needed to shut down until our elected representatives could find better accountants!

Last year's trouncing of the Dems in the mid-term elections demonstrated one thing:  The much-maligned and oft-underestimated Tea Party is growing in strength.  People are sick of endless and reckless government spending with OUR MONEY!  Yes, the U.S. has a revolving debt, paying off the debt-holders from time to time by borrowing from other debt-holders.  This economic system has survived for generations because of the confidence of the debt-holders in the continued existence of the U.S., and it's continued ability to pay its debts.

But we are fast approaching the point where the federal debt will be 90% of our GDP.  Unless we can increase the growth rate of the national economy, it becomes increasingly more difficult for that debt to ever hope to be paid off.  Debt-holders lose confidence in the U.S. economy, and become more reluctant to lend us money.

What sort of math are they teaching in schools?

rwhitten

11:11 AM on January 22, 2011

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore rwhitten. Show DetailsHide Details

There are questions about whether ethanol is actually carbon neutral, but it is probably better than oil. The problem with ethanol is that the government is choosing the alternative energy to supplement fossil fuels via subsidies.

A better solution is to gradually increase tax on fossil fuels at the point of consumption and rebate the proceeds equally to everyone. This is a revenue neutral scheme proposed by Dr. James Hansen, renowned NASA climate scientist from small town Iowa. The result is that those who conserve fossil fuel use are rewarded and those who waste are punished. The market place would respond by making more energy efficient devices and investing in alternatives that wouldn't yet be viable. The market place would choose winners and loosers, not the government. The market place can respond more quickly to changing technology than can the government.

This comment was posted on a recent article about the coming introduction of E15 to fuel pumps in Iowa.

Um, rwhitten, people who conserve fuel are already awarded and people who waste it are already punished.  It's called the Free Market.  When I drive my SUV, I'm punished more by having to visit the gas station more often than when I drive my sedan.  What is so complicated about this?  Instead, rwhitten cites Dr. James Hansen, the balanced individual who thought climate skeptics should be tried for "high crimes against humanity".  A revenue-neutral scheme?  With many things liberal, it sounds good in theory, provided that theory is surface level.  How much will it cost to collect the extra taxes at the pump?

Am I psychic? Or are these anti-nuke morons that predictable?

The no-nukes crowd haven't surprised me.

The Japanese are still fighting a valiant fight against a reactor that threatens to melt down, possibly at the cost of plant workers' lives, and these limp-wristed panty-waists are ever so ready to say they told us so.

Really?

I listened to a liberal guest on Hannity's radio program this evening argue against building more nuclear power plants in the U.S., citing the drama going in Japan right now.  Never mind that the power plant was hit with a 9.0 Richter scale earthquake followed by a tsunami.  Not something that happens every day.  Hannity wisely framed it in the context of risk versus reward.

It seemed as though his guest, however, prefers to live in a world where everyone is safe all the time.  But that world doesn't exist.

I've never understood why the global warming folks aren't behind nuclear power.  Pound for pound, it has the smallest carbon footprint for the most energy produced.  Beyond the machinery used to build the power plant and the mining of the uranium fuel, the plant has no carbon footprint.  The cloud of vapor you see coming out of the nuclear power plant's cooling towers?  That's gaseous dihydrogen monoxide, a lethal chemical referred to in the Bible as having nearly wiped out mankind in the days of Noah and his ark.

It seems liberals have unrealistic expectations when it comes to many forms of alternative energy:

• Solar power requires sunshine, lots of it, to generate low current.  For somewhere like Arizona, it's ideal, provided you can convince the environmentalists to give up hundreds of square miles of desert to power a small town.
• Wind energy is great provided you live somewhere that's windy.  But ironically, the wind turbines are stopped and the blades feathered in strong winds to prevent damage.
• Geothermal energy is by far the most sustainable, but we're limited by where we can drill to relatively shallow depths, because the deeper you drill, the longer it takes for the investment to pay for itself.  Geothermal advocates say the energy can sustain civilization for centuries.  It may take that long to pay for itself.
• Hydro-electric energy is good.  Hoover Dam can meet the electricity needs of the American Southwest, but again, there is location and cost.

Sure, we could switch to these technologies tomorrow.  What do we do in the meantime?  Without on-demand power generation like coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear, our civilization will starve.  Its development will be retarded.

Hannity's guest also commented on he wanted to see our energy consumption stay where it's at, alluding to adoption of the Volt as a way to do that.

*face-palm*

1. The Volt costs around 80k to make, Government Motors sells it at a loss for 40k.  Consumer Reports wasn't impressed.
2. If a majority of Americans buy the Volt, we will double the load on the electric grid.  Where are we going to get the extra electricity to supply that power?  Windmills?  No, we'll have to burn more fossil fuels.  In fact, after factoring in the step-down transformers between the power plant and your wall outlet, even using optimistic figures for the efficiency of the transformers, you'll probably burn more fossil fuel per year than if you just got a non-hybrid gas car.

Nuclear reactors continue to get safer.  Newer pebble-bed reactors use impermeable laws of physics rather than electro-mechanical devices to control the reaction.  The Fukushima reactor is 40+ years old.  I'm reminded of how environmentalists stopped construction of the Big Stone II power plant in Minnesota.  It was a coal power plant that had newer, more efficient scrubber technology that would've actually resulted in more efficiency and less pollution than staying with Big Stone I alone.  But environmentalist dogma trumped facts.

It's getting to be a mantra around here:  "Don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up."

Silly me

Silly me, expecting logic and rationale in a "debate" where neither were invited.

I routinely read White Noise Insanity, a VERY liberal blog.  I don't go there to educate myself about the other side's viewpoint.  I go there to check and see if the other side's viewpoint has a foundation in facts and logic.

I keep looking.  So far, nothing.

In the wake of the U.S. House of Representatives voting to defund NPR, a Democratic Congressman who thought he was being clever (Who am I to pull him out of Dream World?) proposed pulling funding for advertising on Fox News Channel in retaliation.

KayInMaine at White Noise Insanity made a post about it, commenting "Let the reich wing hissy fits begin!"

Well, hardly.  We evil conservatives don't rattle easily over some so trivial as federally funded advertising on a cable news ratings giant that gets plenty of money from other advertisers.  I politely pointed this out:

I doubt Fox News Channel would miss the ad revenue much, even though that advertising is largely recruiting commercials for the U.S. Armed Forces. Advertising on the cable news channel with the highest ratings just makes good business sense, especially when trying to drive enlistments. If you accept the premise that most members of the military are politically conservative, it’s an even more sound business decision, because it’s a target audience.
But if we’re to deny government funding of advertising on news outlets on the basis of those outlets’ bias, then should any of them get any money?
Why should I, as a conservative, see my taxes go to fund NPR or PBS when their own executives admit to a liberal bias? You wouldn’t want Limbaugh, Beck, or Hannity to be subsidized with your taxpayer dollars, would you?

KayInMaine with this talking point:

 As a liberal, why should my tax dollars pay for wars that I don’t support?

OK, slight difference:  The Armed Forces are for supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States of America.  In fact, the Constitution also mentions providing for the common defense as one of the reasons the States originally formed a "more perfect union".  To answer her question, even though she didn't really answer mine, providing "for the common defense" is actually in the Constitution, and federally funding politically-biased media is not.

KayInMaine's writings indicate her consistency in being anti-war, especially in light of the most recent actions against Libya.  I'm unsure what we're doing over there myself, but while we may not support this war or that, people like her voted for Mr. Obama, and he's the one executing the orders as Commander-in-Chief.  She and her fellow voters entrusted him with that responsibility from 20 Jan 2009 until 20 Jan 2013.  Now on Libya, I question the constitutionality of Mr. Obama committing troops to a military engagement with the approval of Congress, but that is a another topic for discussion.

Some fact-challenged commenter named cliff then scribbled this out:

"Advertising on the cable news channel with the highest ratings just makes good business sense, especially when trying to drive enlistments."

Among senior citizens who are the majority of the Fake News delusional audience, yea that stupid comment makes sense to a conserv-o-tard.

Nice.  Remember how I said I was polite?  Why did I waste my time?  Something tells me cliff's bravery in implying I'm a "conserv-o-tard" would vanish if he had the opportunity to say it to my face.  Mind you, name-calling amuses me, since it tells me the other guy just lost.  Just so we're clear, brave ol' cliff has nothing to fear in physical violence from me.  After all, I'm not a union sympathizer!

As for the argument cliff was trying to make, the median age of Fox News Channel viewers is around 67.  For those who are mathematically declined, a normal, or Gaussian distribution includes a wide variety of ages, including twenty-somethings.  Interestingly enough, if we re-visit the demographics five years from now, that age will hardly shift at all.  Why?  The older people in the standard deviations to the right are dying off, but the younger crowd in the left standard deviations is moving towards the center, and being replaced with others.  Another way to read the distribution is to acknowledge that many young people are "changing their spots" as they age.

Most likely, cliff probably thinks I'm an old fuddy-duddy.  Wouldn't surprise me, since cliff has already so much as declared "Don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up!"

And then KayInMaine rounds out the thread with this "pearl of wisdom":

I’ll never forget the time WHITE NOISE INSANITY was mentioned by Sean Hannity on his Fox News program a couple years ago. Guess how many hits I got to my blog after he said it, Clif? Not even 200! LOL I guess those who are watching Fox are at LEAST 80 years old and don’t own a computer! 

Another possibility is that those under-80, computer-literate Hannity viewers don't need nor want to waste time on visiting your hateful little blog.  Go ahead and draw your self-deluding conclusions.  Me?  I thrive on chaos.  I love watching you lefties nourish yourselves with your hatred.  It's cute.  And nothing you say will ruin the perverse pleasure I derive from your fits of impotent rage.

*evil maniacal laugh*

Ok, my curiosity got the better of me.  I just had to see the context in which Sean Hannity would give free traffic to White Noise Insanity.  Here's the link: Katy Abram Responds to Liberal Attacks.

Sean Hannity quote:  And that's not all the left-wing blogosphere went in overdrive accusing Katy of everything from stupidity to racism. Now the blog White Noise Insanity argued, quote, "With a black man in the White House she's just feeling like the founding fathers would be livid because they wanted white power to the end."

Yeah, hard to believe they didn't stampede over to your blog, KayInMaine, with racist drivel like that.

UPDATE, 23 Mar 2011,0155 GMT

Ah, we have another contestant.  Grant in Texas wrote:

The military is made up of MANY Latinos, blacks, and poor whites from UNION families who at least grew up in Democratic homes. Since my partner was from a Democratic family he enlisted in the US Navy as a “Democrat” at age 18. He now realizes that over the years he had been brainwashed to be a conservative by his OFFICERS. He started voting straight Republican due to his commanders’ influences. He had heard over-and-over the BIG LIE that liberals “hate” the soldier and sailor. Since retirement, his mind has opened again and now realizes that the REICH actually cares little about the “boots on the ground”….even VA benefits for the retired. The GOP mostly cares about the rich, fat-cat MILITARY/Industrial contractors! Wearing a flag pin, wrapping up in a flag at a NASCAR opening ceremony or Country Music awards show is not really “supporting” the real military.

OK, Grant may not know this, but you can be a conservative Democrat.  They do exist.  More often these days, they prefer to be called "libertarians".  The line about Grant's partner amuses me:

...he enlisted in the US Navy as a “Democrat” at age 18.

Really?  I'm unfamiliar with that rank.  Does that outrank a seaman?

...he had been brainwashed to be a conservative by his OFFICERS.

Brainwashed?  Really?  They had to force Grant's partner to embrace things like small government, reduced spending and taxation, and family values?  You know what this means?  He is/was either weak-willed or saw something interesting in the political viewpoints.

He had heard over-and-over the BIG LIE that liberals “hate” the soldier and sailor.

Curious, I've never heard this, I'll have to check the connections on my terminal bringing me feeds from the Evil Conservative Network.

* wiggles wires*

Ah, loose connection.  Ah, here we are:

Code Pink defaces Berkeley military recruitment office
Military recruiters, confronted by crowd, leave campus job fair / Anti-war protesters at university block doors to building
ROTC, Military Recruiters Off Campus Now!
Protestors lay seige to US Capitol, smash window at military recruiter

Hmm, must be my fellow evil conservatives posing as unhinged anti-war leftists!  Those wacky guys!

Since retirement, his mind has opened again and now realizes that the REICH actually cares little about the “boots on the ground”

Funny that your partner is so open-minded that he's with a bigot like you, who refers to the GOP as the "REICH".  Hope he's not much more open-minded:  His brains might fall out.  Oh, and the right doesn't care about the boots on the ground, eh?

Bush Makes Surprise Visit to Troops in Baghdad

The GOP mostly cares about the rich, fat-cat MILITARY/Industrial contractors!

You know, the contractors providing high-paying jobs designing and building new technologies that save American lives and actually cost fewer enemy lives because of their decisive impact in warfare.  That darned selfish GOP, trying to save the lives of American citizens!

Wearing a flag pin, wrapping up in a flag at a NASCAR opening ceremony or Country Music awards show is not really “supporting” the real military.

Curious how liberals are always telling us how not to support the "real" (vs. fake?) military, but do they ever tell or show us how we should support the military?

Never mind, they've already showed us.