Pontificating with Bartleby

Children

2008-08-04T19:52:00.002-04:00

I'm experiencing something that is quite puzzling to me. Whenever I speak to my children, it is both glorious and painful. The glory comes from being able to talk to my beautiful little girls, and the pain comes from not having seen them on that day. I feel like a bee that dips into each flowering life for just a little bit, enough to draw from it, but not to drink deeply from it. Alas, until I have a car, my ability to spend time with them is limited.

The good news is that I will have a car very soon, at which time, I'll also be visiting them as often as I possibly can. I see a lot of weekends spent camping, fishing, going to museums, and going to the zoo.

*fingers crossed*

-Bartleby

Settled in to my new digs

2008-08-02T18:43:00.003-04:00

So after a long and rough road traveled, I have settled in to my new digs. I'm staying with a friend in Fishers, Indiana, have gotten a new job (though it doesn't start for quite some time), and am otherwise doing quite well.

I'm done with IT and am going into insurance. I was curious about it for some time, and will now be getting my feet wet to see if I like it as much as I thought I would.

Over and out.

-Bartleby

Friends

2008-06-30T17:29:00.003-04:00

A friend is a person who, when your world is falling down around you, is standing with you helping keep things together.

I think I just found the meaning of this by losing one.

-Bart

Erick Wujcik Stands Before the Final Curtain

2007-12-24T02:36:00.000-05:00

Erick Wujcik - the gaming legend and all around great guy - has cancer.

Any and all who see this, please pray for him.

-Dennis

Women

2007-09-07T14:49:00.000-04:00

I have had a significant number of intimate relationships with women over the course of my life. Over time, all of the serious ones have devolved into abusive and evil situations where I am treated very badly by the woman I am with.

I am starting to wonder if the problem is in fact me and not the women.

I have a tendency to not want to fight with the lady I am with, so rather than fight, I accept garbage from her when she's angry. Over time, this results in her thinking she can be rude, mean, or harsh to me whenever she wants and not expect any response. That causes her opinion of me to sink lower and change her view of me into something secondary and subservient.

The problem here is that I am buying into these situations and allowing it to happen. I put most of the blame for that upon myself. I have heard it said that it is better to be the person who bought the Brooklyn Bridge than to be the person that sold it - but after the second or third time that you buy the Brooklyn Bridge (but this time it came with a deed and title insurance and everything!) it becomes your fault, not theirs.

It is because of this that I find myself wondering why I continue to allow myself to become intimate with women.

Currently, I am in the middle of a relationship that is collapsing. My wife cannot or will not bring herself to see the good aspects of my personality. She only sees the things she hates about me. She is consistently rude to me and tears me down with every chance she gets. I don't fight with her about it because I don't want to tear into her in front of the kids, but I fear that they will get the idea that this is how one treats one's spouse.

I do good things in my life. I'm supportive of her mother. I like her family. I used to buy her flowers a couple of times a week and used to bring her cards about once a month. I used to send her love notes via email. I adopted her three great nieces and welcomed them into my home after I got a vasectomy because I didn't want children (I have since changed my mind - the girls are fantastic and I want about ten kids now). I earn good money. I worked two jobs for a while, running my own business (full time) and working full time in an effort to make it so she could be a stay-at-home mom.

I stopped doing many of the things above for good reasons that I will not go into, but suffice it to say they're good reasons.

I am not so much mystified about why she acts the way that she does...she's selfish and only sees her perspective on things. What surprises is me is that I never see things like this coming after it has gone too far.

What has happened to this world where human beings act like this on a regular basis?

She has her own side of the story too and she has her reasons for being angry. I don't see her reasons for behaving hatefully to me.

-Bart

The Supreme Court

2007-08-25T11:52:00.000-04:00

I have been considering the basis of many of the decisions of the Supreme Court of late, and have realized the fundamental problem I have with most of the justices thereon.

They have seemingly reached the conclusion that The Constitution derives its power from them and from their decisions. This is, at best, erroneous and stupid, and at worst criminal. All of their power is derived from The Constitution and all of the Constitution's power is derived from the People. I think that until our government realizes this, there is going to be a significant disconnect between them and what they do and We the People, and what we appreciate.

So, to quote Clarence Thomas; "Something has gone seriously awry with this court's interpretation of the Constitution."

-Bart

I have learned many things...

2007-07-09T11:41:00.001-04:00

I have learned many things from marriage. Some of them good, and some of them bad. This weekend, a fire was kindled in my stomach. This fire is not unlike the fire I get in my stomach when I think of Dan Quayle or Al Gore appointing Supreme Court Justices.

This fire was kindled by more harsh words from the mouth of the woman who claims to love me. I hate lying, and realized this weekend that not only does she not love me, but she hasn't for at least five years. I wonder if she ever did - I wonder if her frequent jokes of, "At least I got my house out of it!" were not jokes at all, but were statements of fact that accurately describe what her goals were when marrying me.

Compromise on anything of significance is unknown to her. With an item of significance, it is an all or nothing proposition, and if she doesn't get her way on an order of completeness that is well over 90%, then you are trampling her, domineering, uncaring, and inflexible. Contrariwise, if you ask of her what she asks of you (ask for her to sacrifice something), you're bothering her and being unreasonable because it is clearly too much for her to do.

So, my lovely wife, when you told me, "It doesn't always have to be roses" when I brought home flowers, when you told me, "Call me and let me know what they say" when I was told to go to the ER for an emergency EKG, and when you told me that I create an aura of tension in the entire house by my very presence, you made things absolutely clear.

As I am peripheral to you and a blockade to your entire life, and all I ever did for you was provide you with a house, I'd like to present you with a middle finger. I'd like to thank you for having taught me to hate.

-Bartleby

Meeeee

2007-06-10T18:21:00.000-04:00

Scooter Libby and his ridiculous sentence

2007-06-06T10:11:00.000-04:00

So I'm going over the news and notice that Scooter Libby has been sentenced to thirty months.

OK - so he's busted and will have a rough time in the near future.

The problem is that part of his sentence comes from something he wasn't charged with, wasn't a fact admitted to evidence (in fact, the prosecutor specifically fought to keep it from being brought into evidence!), and wasn't established as a criminal act!

So let me see if I understand this correctly...if I get convicted of the crime of...say...stealing cars, and they decide that I've stolen more cars than I've been proven to have stolen, they can enhance my sentence? That's illegal and wrong!

Our country is slipping.

Badly.

To this slippage I say:

"Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the people's liberty's teeth."
-George Washington

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can excercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it."
-Abraham Lincoln

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
-Abraham Lincoln

"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
-Abraham Lincoln

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
-Thomas Jefferson

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
-Thomas Jefferson

Something needs to be done about the garbage we've been seeing of late. My suggestion is to vote out every incumbent in every office in every election until things start working the way they should...AS A WHOLE. I don't give a crap if the incumbent 'tried' to fix things...fix them or get out.

-Bart

Murder, war, and The Bible

2007-06-06T10:03:00.000-04:00

The Bible tells us, 'Thou Shalt Not Kill'. I have been told on more than one occasion that the more direct translation is, 'Thou Shalt Not Murder', which is a significantly different word with vastly different meaning than the first. It allows for killing in self defense, in war, and other situations as well.

It is because of that difference, that I have started to think that Mafia style gang wars do not qualify as murder in a Biblical sense. When these laws were written on the stone tablets, groups as small as families and tribes and as large as nations would go to war with each other. If families back then could go to war with each other, can no families today also go to war with each other? I submit that war was accepted as being a declaration of armed hostilities between two recognizable groups, and that functions of violence between them would not amount to murderous behavior. To commute that to modern terms, the current day crime organizations account as a confederation of people that can in fact declare war against each other and also act as a small scale governing body for the members. Furthermore, they can be said to be at war with our current government, as they have differing goals and are regularly in direct conflict with one another.

So, is a gangland killing a murder? I don't think it is in a Biblical sense, though it almost certainly is in a legal sense.

-Bart

Tommy the Soldier

2007-06-06T09:54:00.000-04:00

Clearly we've come a long way in our respect and honor of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, but we're also a bit lacking in our appreciation of them as well. Why are the salaries so pathetic that a corporal with two children qualifies for food stamps? Why are the retirement benefits being squeezed so much that it is detrimental to dedicate twenty or thirty years of your life to the service of one's country? Why are people who are disabled from combat or retired with a medical discharge being granted such pathetic monies for their sacrifice?

It is because of these questions I have that the poem that follows is in fact my favorite poem:

Tommy
By Rudyard Kipling

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away"
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me!
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! They’ll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside"
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap!
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind"
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

My desktop...

2007-06-04T11:15:00.001-04:00

I was asked what images I use on my desktop. Well, here they are:

Monitor 1:

Monitor 2:

Yes - I own the originals for both images. :P

/Sub

2007-06-01T21:52:00.001-04:00

My chosen character portrait.

Belkar. :)

Arguing with a friend

2007-05-25T16:07:00.000-04:00

I have a semi-friend that speaks of his child in less than glowing terms. He hates her, he doesn't like her, he thinks she should've been adopted or aborted, and so on.

I'd heard that he said such things to her in the past, but never directly from him.

Today I heard him actually say it, though not in her presence. I said I might call CPS about it. I then got the address of the house and called to find out if he's legally abusing her.

An associate of mine (I will no longer call him friend) ran and 'told' on me, and interestingly, I'm being treated as the bad guy here.

So here's my question...if you truly believe someone is abusing a child, is it wrong to report it? Also, should I expect people close to the situation to treat me as an evil person for my reporting it? I don't think I should have such an expectation and I am shocked...SHOCKED...that I am being treated as such.

I'm not the bad guy. The person telling his child that he hates her is.

-Bart

sigh

2007-05-21T12:03:00.001-04:00

Out from the depths I cry out to thee o' Lord.

My tattoos

2007-05-21T11:42:00.000-04:00

Basic disrespect

2007-05-21T10:35:00.000-04:00

I am losing my fucking mind.

My wife, who continually shows me disrespect in anything in which I disagree with her, is giving me more fucking shit. I have *HAD* it. I am not putting up with it ANYMORE.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

I am plenty sick and goddamned fucking well tired of her horseshit and it is going to stop NOW.

-Dennis

The Bitter Potion that is Divorce

2007-05-01T10:01:00.000-04:00

Well, the divorce is confirmed. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, where I'm going to go, or anything...

I keep realizing stupid things that really bother me. Last night, I realized I'm going to need to buy a fridge, and for some reason, that deflated me. I took a walk late last night and sat by one of the ponds by my house for a long time. I won't be able to do that much longer.

No more taking the girls to the zoo whenever I want. No more having the girls come up and give me a hug when I get home. No more taking them fishing whenever I want.

Divorce sucks big ones.

-Bart

Again I am saved...

2007-04-26T10:11:00.000-04:00

The last time I was extremely depressed, I was saved by three things.

1. God
2. Friends and family
3. The Beatles

I don't know why number 3 is on the list...they're commies AND hippies...and yet their music takes me places where healing can occur.

Anyway, thanks to God, Laura, Jim, Dave, Rick, Kevin, Lennon, McCartney, Starr, and Harrison.

I owe you more than I can say.

-Bart

I've got a surprise...

2007-04-25T13:20:00.000-04:00

I've got a surprise for a friend of mine. He should be getting it in about a week and a half. It's a piece of art that I had commissioned for him and is displayed below...

Thoughts, ideas, or comments?

-Bart

The Divorce Weight Loss Plan

2007-04-24T09:31:00.001-04:00

I've lost thirty or forty pounds in about a month. The divorce weight loss plan is pretty effective.

I don't believe...

2007-04-23T08:18:00.000-04:00

I don't believe in love anymore.

I believe in convenience, ease, untruth, and abandonment.

...but love doesn't exist.

-Bart

Life, love, and marriage

2007-04-18T01:33:00.000-04:00

My wife and I have been on rocky ground for quite some time. More particularly, things have been pretty rough for the past four years. I've tried and I've worked at it, but I cannot seem to make her happy.

She's done a number of questionable things during this time, and I'm finally worn out. As of now, I am sleeping in a separate room and cannot stand to be near her. It hurts too much to know that the person that should love me and cherish me can't even talk to me on the phone after a couple of weeks of not seeing each other.

So - my question is this:

What in the world is the purpose of marriage?

I've found it to be lonely, demanding, hurtful, depressing, and difficult. It's reinforced everything bad I've ever thought of myself and has brought out the very worst in me.

Life sucks.

-Bart

A (Mostly) Open Letter to Lucy Dalglish

2007-04-04T09:41:00.000-04:00

Recently the Roanoke Times published the names and home addresses of 135,000 people who have a license to keep and bear arms. Lucy Dalglish supports their 'right' to do so on the basis that people who are granted a 'privilege' in this country by a government body.

Following her logic, I should be able to publish her name, home address, and photograph, because she has a drivers license and driving is a privilege. Keeping and bearing arms is a right...so it's only rational to assume that her privilege to drive should allow for the same thing...right?

Here is my letter to her regarding this issue. I have omitted her work address out of consideration for her safety.

Ms. Dalglish,

I recently saw your commentary on the publication of the names and home addresses of people who exercise their right to keep and bear arms by acquiring a license to keep and bear arms.

You said: “Who is licensed and who is given a privilege in this country by a government body is information that the public should be able to have.”

Following your logic, I should be allowed to publish your name and home address on a website. You almost certainly have a license to drive a car, and that is a privilege. We have the right to keep and bear arms just as much as we have a right to free speech and religion.

So – if I were to run a background check or title search (either are freely available on the internet) to find out your home address, would it be acceptable for me to publish it? As a media personality, I’m sure that you’ve upset some people in your time. I mean, your exercising free speech is as much of a privilege as the right to keep and bear arms…and if others can be exposed to threat for exercising their rights (what you call a privilege) then there should be a similar allowance for you as well, right?

I’d love to hear the logic behind your position. If you decide you’d like to reply, I can be reached at:

Thank you for your time,

Dennis Hughes

Children, school, and recess

2007-02-13T19:27:00.000-05:00

So I'm talking with my oldest daughter and she tells me about lunch at her school.

It starts at 10:40am.

She doesn't get home until 4:00pm.

Somehow this works out to be appropriate for her. Somehow she's supposed to go from 10:40am to 4:00pm without eating, and still be able to focus on her schoolwork.

Oh yeah - she has twenty minutes to eat.

Wonderful, isn't it?

My middle daughter frequently misses eating her entire lunch because she eats very slowly and 20 minutes is not enough for her to finish lunch.

It gets worse.

They get 30 minutes of recess every day.

Thirty minutes out of eight hours. That's how much they get to run, play, and get exercise until after school. Because their teachers pile homework on them to the roof, they're doing homework from the moment they get home until about 6:00pm.

*sigh*

My kids need more time to be kids, but I don't see how it can be accomplished.

-Bartleby

Happy Birthday Mom

2006-12-18T19:49:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday Mom,

Tomorrow will be your first birthday since the day you died. Two days later will be the first anniversary of your death. I still miss you terribly, and not a day goes by that I don't try to pick up the phone to give you a call and tell you something funny, ask your advice, or just see how you're doing.

I had to go to a funeral yesterday. A family friend had committed suicide. When I was listening to his family speak of him, I remembered my efforts to speak of you at your funeral. I'm sorry I didn't do very well, but I tried...and that was usually good enough for you.

I'm watching my girls grow up and watch their accomplishments with a level of awe that until recently was reserved for events such as when Moses spoke with a burning bush.

Anyway Ma, happy birthday.

I love you,

Dennis

A fine quotation

2006-12-11T13:23:00.000-05:00

“Democrats are talking about an increase to $7.25 an hour, and they’re promising to push it through in the first 100 hours of the Democratic majority rule. Bush has said he supports an increase, but won’t haggle about the numbers in public... Bush has said that he also wants to be sure that the increase is done in ways that won’t hurt small businesses. Which is, of course, impossible. Regardless of where you stand in the intense debate over whether increases in the minimum wage reduce the number of jobs available to low wage workers, an increase in the minimum wage will hurt small businesses. Do the math: Suppose you employ ten people, full time, at minimum wage. A two dollar increase will cost you about $40,000 a year. How would we react to a tax of the same size imposed on the same scrappy entrepreneurial grocer or clothing store owner?”

~Katherine Mangu-Ward

(Source: The Patriot Post)

North Korea plans tests of nuclear weapons in North Korea

2006-10-04T09:23:00.000-04:00

North Korea is reportedly planning tests of nuclear weapons within North Korea. George Bush says he agrees with the idea, and has similar plans to test nuclear weapons within North Korea.

Kim Jung Il is a madman, and must be stopped.

NOW.

I suggest that we put a price on his head and on that of each of his lieutenants. A billion dollars for him and a hundred million dollars for each of his lieutenants sound like nice round numbers that should result in a number of deaths and/or arrests that will hopefully convince the people that are acting like dangerous madmen to stop it.

-Bart

Growers are having difficulty hiring enough illegal aliens...

2006-09-28T10:52:00.000-04:00

BOO FREAKING HOO!

Apparently growers in California are having difficulty finding enough people to pick their crops because we are finally STARTING to enforce our immigration laws. They are whining at the government to allow them to break the law because it's inconvenient for them to pay enough to hire legal workers to do the job they're offering.

Well, I'm terribly sorry, but if you don't rely upon illegal labor, you won't have this problem. If you pay a wage that is equal to the job being done, you won't have this problem. If you have a job that is equal to what you are paying, you won't have this problem. The only time you have this problem is when the job and the wages do not have a comparable market value and the wages are worth less than the effort and knowledge that you are requesting.

So either you can raise the pay or ask for less. What I am shocked by is when you cry, bitch, and moan because you cannot hire enough illegals to do your work.

One of the jackasses in that article has the audacity to say that he is willing to pay up to $150/day for the services he is requesting. To that I cry bullshit. If he's willing to pay $150/day, the schmoes that are working at McDonald's would be quitting to go pick their fruit. It's more likely that the average wage is closer to $80/day, which isn't SQUAT in that area, in addition to requiring you to do back breaking labor in the heat of the sun.

So - if you can't find workers and are losing money as a result...pay more or quit bitching. You have to adapt to changing market conditions. Until you do, you will be in trouble on a regular basis.

-Bart

But they were CERTAIN that Terry Schaivo was unaware!

2006-09-08T09:30:00.000-04:00

It's interesting - people the world over screamed that there was no way at all that Terry Schaivo was at all aware of her surroundings. They INSISTED she should stop being fed. They pounded desks, sued, and went to court - all for the right to stop giving her food. They trumpeted that it was absolutely impossible for her to have any chance of ever hearing the voice of a loved one again, or to see the beauty of a spring rain or a winter snowfall.

Now - later - when we can't go back and fix it, there are findings that show that these folks were wrong...again.

More evidence that people in a persistent vegetative state are at least partially aware of their surroundings have come up. Despite this fact, the people who were wrong before are still sticking to their original position and are saying that the new evidence is bogus. I say that now that we have rational uncertainty, that we should NOT kill these people - with or without a living will!

We do not have enough information to know what is going on with these people, or enough to know whether or not they're having beautiful and vivid dreams of a world where such horrors as killing a disabled human being for the sake of...convenience...do not exist.

We've murdered at least one person who did not deserve it. Let's not make that same mistake again.

-Bart

God's views on killing

2006-08-29T21:50:00.000-04:00

As I understand it, The Sixth Commandment condemns the act of murder but not killing in and of itself, giving exceptions for self defense, defense of another, war, et al.

I've been considering this lately, because I'm not sure that it reflects that a state of war must exist between nations rather than between groups of like minded individuals. The Mafia wars within its ranks, as do tribes in primitive parts of the world, and there are civil wars and undeclared wars between nations. Also, one can have paramilitary actions against another nation, warlike behavior during a period that is otherwise peaceful, and may other things besides.

Here's the question:

Do privately declared wars - whether between families (feuds), businesses, organized crime families, tribes, or other subset that does not reflect a national organization - count as wars in the Biblical sense that the killing within the scope of said war is 'allowable'?

I mean, it's a virtual certainty in a mob war that you are killing in self defense, because sure as rain is wet, the other guy intends to kill you. Also - if you kill him before he sees you or even knows you're there, it's still defensive, because he fully intends to kill you. Furthermore - it is defensive if you kill him even before the war is declared between the families, because he'll surely be gunning for you in a few short hours/days/weeks, right?

So - is a war a war, or does it require a country and an official declaration of war?

/Bart

It's a beautiful world we live in...

2006-08-29T21:36:00.000-04:00

It's a beautiful world we live in...

...it's not for me.

How is it that such ugliness can live in such a beautiful world?

How is it that such beauty can live in such an ugly world?

The dichotomy of evil within a shell that radiates goodness and morality has me stumped right now. How can evil have a beautiful side? It's insidious, and it draws you in, while you believe that you are with someone good and right.

Then you see the corruption. The under-side. The filth.

We all have our quirks, peccadillos, and demons that haunt us through our day to day lives. It is acting upon them that makes the difference between being good and being evil. How is it that an otherwise nice person can do such horrible things - to children, the elderly, the helpless, or to those who are not smart enough to be able to protect themselves against the predators in the world?

Also - why is it that otherwise ordinary human beings wish harm and death upon those who have done evil? Is there no room for hope that this person may repent what they have done? Is there no forgiveness for those who are genuinely sorrowful for what they have done? I hear people that call themselves Christian calling out for the deaths of others for the crimes they have committed, and all too often, I do not hear the voice calling out to help them when their punishment is complete.

I have to battle and struggle to forgive my niece and nephew every day. I know that I can forgive them someday if I try hard enough; I have a hard time though - these beautiful children deserved better than what they got. Heck, they deserve better than me.

With that said; I hope I can forgive my niece and nephew someday. I hope I can forgive Steve Decker for his predations. I hope I can someday forgive those who have wronged me, much in the same way God has forgiven me.

It became clear to me how far from righteousness that I was when my brother told me in no uncertain terms that God was sick of me. I've been trying of late - mostly working on forgiveness and giving to others. I think I've gotten better, and though I know I'll never be good enough for Him, His forgiveness can help me.

Sorry for the stream of consciousness posting, but I've got a lot on my mind.

/Bart

Wonderful...

2006-08-27T02:49:00.000-04:00

This is absolutely horrible - I used to work with this guy and griped and told my stories of the horrible time I was having because of my kids, and now I find this:

http://www.kokomotribune.com/local/local_story_230141916.html

Man sentenced for child porn
By MIKE FLETCHER
Tribune staff writer

A Kokomo man was sentenced in federal court Friday to more than 10 years for distributing child pornography over the Internet.On March 13, 2005, Steven M. Decker, 31, became a target of a federal probe after he distributed computer images of child pornography to undercover agents through an Internet file server he configured and operated, said Susan W. Brooks, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana.

In May of last year, federal officials with assistance from Kokomo police seized computer equipment from First National Bank & Trust building in downtown Kokomo, where Decker had worked, and from his Kokomo residence, Lt. Donald Whitehead of the Kokomo Police Department said.

The probe was headed by agents of Immigration Customs Enforcement, which is under the direction of Homeland Security.
U.S. District Judge Larry J. McKinney sentenced Decker to 151 months imprisonment after Decker pleaded guilty to one count of distributing child pornography.

This case resulted from an investigation by the Indiana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Indiana State Police, the Kokomo Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, following a lead from the German National Police (BKA).

According to Brooks, Decker distributed the images in an Internet Relay Chat channel used by offenders to distribute images showing the sexual abuse of very young children as well as older children.

Forensic examination of his computer showed that 754 persons visited Decker’s file server and could access his large collection of child pornography. During a search of his Kokomo residence, law enforcement officers recovered 341 image files identified by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as showing actual known victims of sexual exploitation.

Steven D. DeBrota, an assistant U.S. attorney, and Jill Trumbull-Harris, a Trial Attorney with the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Department of Justice, prosecuted the case for the government. Judge McKinney also imposed a life term of supervised release following Decker’s imprisonment.

Decker also must register as a sex offender, must seek treatment in a sex offender program, and must not have unsupervised contact with minors. His use of any computer will also be subject to monitoring while he is on supervised release, Brooks added.

I worked with this jerk...I thought he was a great guy...I talked to him, liked him, and thought he was about the safest person in our entire department next to our managers, and now I find this! It's great that he was caught and stopped - but terrible that it ever happened in the first place!

What is the world coming to?

*sigh*

/Bart

Still more evidence of the MSM bias

2006-08-09T06:57:00.000-04:00

It is almost hilarious when one looks at the lengths that the MSM is willing to reach to make Israel look bad. Luckily, they were caught again. I admit though, that it could be just a complete bungle combined with an absolute liar/camera whore.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3288406,00.html#n

The woman below has been used in two different stories with photos taken two weeks apart at different locations for the same "tragedy" - namely, her house was destroyed.

Here's the first photo:

...and here's the second one...

Doesn't she look just a bit familiar? See the scar on her cheek? Well, it's on the same photo above as well. She could be a camera whore, but I think that she is really a person trying to make Israel look bad. Apparently there are many instances of this - here's the truth about the 'bombed ambulance' - apparently it's horseshit too...

http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2006/08/more_propaganda.html

There are other gaffes as well...more lies...

The above photo was reported to show an airplane shooting missiles. In reality it's dropping chaff and flares to EVADE a missile (presumably fired by Hezbollah). Not only that, but the top piece of chaff is identical to the bottom piece. Isn't that interesting? Yep - the same guy as before - Adnan Hajj got caught again.

So - these news companies are not only putting forth unbalanced 'news' - showing tons of pictures of Lebanese suffering while not even talking about the fact that Hezbollah started this fight, and showing darned few images of Israeli suffering - as if Hezbollah is not STILL firing rockets at Israeli civilians.

Scumbags.

/Bart

Happy Birthday Dad...

2006-08-07T14:04:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday Dad.

It's been 22 years now. Maybe you'll want to talk to me soon.

Bart

No bias in the MSM?

2006-08-06T12:04:00.000-04:00

Umm...there's no bias in the MSM? Yeah - right. I'm a bit late in the game on this one, but this is deliberate alteration of 'news' to further an agendum. Here's a before and after pic of a Reuter's photo:

This photo is before...

This photo is after...

...after they got caught that is.

Do you see a difference? In the first one, more buildings are burning, there's more smoke, and the area appears to have suffered more devastation than in the second. They deliberately sensationalize the damage to Lebanon, while ignoring the damage to Israel, despite the fact that Israel didn't start this fight!

A second point to make: how many images of Israeli buildings are ever shown? How many images of the deaths caused by Hezbollah? How often is it reported that Hezbollah has been shooting rockets into Israel before Israel fights back?

How horrified does the MSM sound when they talk about Israeli deaths? How often do they speak of the terror of rocket bombardment by those scumbag terrorists? How often do they speak of the Israeli children dying?

Honestly - those Hezbollah scumbags are lucky I am not the prime minister of Israel. I'd have bombed them into the freaking stone age years ago!

-Bart

Innocent deaths in Lebanon

2006-08-04T16:18:00.000-04:00

All over the media these days, you will see photographs of dead civilians that have been killed by Israeli attacks against Lebanon. In many cases, the pictures will include captions that implicitly or explicitly blame Israel for these deaths.

I am dumbfounded by this position. It is Hezbollah that is actively selecting civilian targets. It is Hezbollah that is using 'Operation: Human Shield' as their prime method of fighting. It is Hezbollah that picked this fight. It is Hezbollah that chooses to hide in civilian buildings.

Also - many (if not all) of these 'civilian' buildings are owned, controlled, funded, or storage facilities of Hezbollah. Sorry Charlie, but if you decide to store weapons in a hospital, don't be surprised when said hostpital becomes a target!

I for one am sick and tired of the media's slant showing Israel as being evil. They write stories and print pictures talking about how horrible Israel is, and then they become very neutral or slanted toward praise when describing terrorist organizations. They go from being terrorists to 'government supporting militants' or 'resistance fighters'. HEZBOLLAH AND HAMAS TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS - STOP ACTING AS IF THEY ARE NOT!

Also - it is sickening how so many terrorist apologists say that Hezbollah is not *entirely* terrorist...that it has political and charitable arms. What in the world can they POSSIBLY be thinking? If you link yourself to a terrorist group, YOU ARE A TERRORIST! Consider - if you're an accountant for the Mafia, does that mean that you're not guilty of the crimes you've supported?

I can see it now: "Well, I'm a member of Islamic Jihad, but I'm a nice member! I don't blow anyone up! I just handle the books! The other guys in my building are the guys who blow up buses and schools!"

Sorry - it doesn't fly - if you ally yourself with terrorists, you're a terrorist.

Worse - if you ally yourself with france - they rub off on you too.

-Bartleby

Some of my art...

2006-07-16T20:21:00.000-04:00

I made a couple of purchases recently that I've had framed, and I thought I'd share them with everyone!

...here they are!

They're all originals (well, technically, two of them are original concept art)...one is Spider Man, as captured by the genius known as Scott Johnson. The other is the concept art behind the Rifts: Ultimate Edition cover...also by Scott Johnson. The one with the red border is an original by Keith Parkinson - it was a color sketch done for the cover of Haunted Mesa (a Louis L'Amour book). The one with the Monkey Boy (technically a chimp) is obvious and is from the Ramon Perez Rifter cartoon series (and yes, he changed the lettering for the strip, but this is the original).

They're all absolutely beautiful and I thought I'd share 'em with you!

Bart

Another Father's Day gone...

2006-06-19T22:00:00.000-04:00

Another Father's Day is gone.

Thankfully, this time it wasn't so bad. I am the dad of three beautiful girls on top of the kid who was abandoned 22 years ago, so I get to be the dad to these kids that I've missed out on for so long.

It was still hard.

Happy Father's Day...Don? Maybe someday you'll want to talk to me.

/Bart

Expulsion for a blog?

2006-05-25T13:03:00.000-04:00

The Plainfield High School in Joliet Illinois is apparently run by people who do not understand the basis of the Constitution or its guarantees of freedom. The behavior being displayed by them is cretinous at the least, criminal at the worst, and absolutely morally bankrupt. A student created a weblog that was sharply critical of the school and its disciplinary policy. Nobody was threatened, nobody was mentioned by name, and all updates were performed from his home.

Let's consider this - a student was critical of his school administrators on his own time, in his own house, using his own resources, without committing libel or slander, and without threatening anyone and their response is to threaten expulsion and suspend him?

I'd be shocked if this happened in some third world dictatorship. I'd be floored if this happened in some socialist Eurocracy. In fact, the only place this would not shock me is communist China.

So - we've confirmed that the enemies of freedom are active and present in Plainfield High School. Are these the same geniuses that demand higher wages every year and threaten to go on strike for 'the sake of the children'?

What has to be done to get this intellectual weaklings fired? To whom does one write a letter to have these worthless hacks rendered unemployable due to their reckless and ridiculous abuse of power?

I've read a few stories about people like this. They wanted to regulate every aspect of people's lives, restrict what they could say and do, prevent them from speaking out against abuses of power, ignored the rule of law, and otherwise pushed their rule upon others. They even sang songs that divided people into the privileged and the unwanted folks. One of the songs started like this...

Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,

The people that followed this beastly ideology behaved much in the same way as this scholastic organization.

A message to the school administrators:

What do you plan to do to me? Suspend me? Expel me? I'm not a student at your school. I don't even live in your state. That said; my personal belief is that you are pathetic and small minded people who desperately need to establish your personal importance by expanding the tiny amount of power that you have managed to accumulate in the failures you call lives. I do not state this as fact, but as my personal opinion. It is further my personal opinion that people like you should find yourselves a nice dictatorship in which you can legally participate, since your attempts to establish one here will surely fail.

What do I hope for you? I honestly hope that you see the error of your ways, laugh hysterically at how phenominally stupid your previous decisions were, apologize, and move forth with your lives. Barring that, I hope that you are terminated from your jobs with prejudice, and are found to be unemployable outside of the quick service comestibles industry (and only part time in those cases). Further, I sincerely hope that the kids whose rights you have abused sue you for every penny you are worth and that the amounts recovered from you are so high that you cannot ever recover from the impact thereof.

Bartleby

P.S. I bet it bugs you to no end that I can say this and there isn't a thing you can do to me. Isn't it sad to be a petty dictator?

I miss...

2006-05-03T16:54:00.000-04:00

For some reason, I sorely miss my mother today. I keep remembering things...but mostly, I just remember calling her every day as I drove home.

I'm still here Ma, and I still work hard to honor you in my life. Enjoy your time with Jesus. I will be sure to join you in fifty or sixty years. I'm sure I'll have some stories for you, and we'll laugh and have a good time like before.

I wish my girls had gotten to know you better.

Love,

Dennis

Adoption

2006-04-21T22:45:00.000-04:00

It looks like we might be adopting another child. This would be my three (adoptive) daughters' brother...my great nephew. His name is Johnathan Wolf Ruse, and if we adopt him, he'll become Johnathan Wolf Hughes.

I think my sister-in-law is going to adopt him, but I'm not sure she can fully keep up with him. If not, we'll take him and make him ours. He's a cute little tyke (just three weeks old now), and I'm sure he'll eventually light up my days the way my three little geniuses do already.

Sometimes, when God hands you something that seems tough, it ends up being something that is in fact a reward and not a trial.

My girls are just like that.

Bart

Palladium Books

2006-04-21T22:43:00.000-04:00

I am in absolute shock.

My favorite gaming company, Palladium Books, is in dire financial straits due to the actions of a criminal and is in danger of dissolution. This company has been many things to me over the years, and now they need help. I've given what I can, and will give more in the days to come. It looks like everything will work out if everyone pulls together.

If you know of and like Palladium Books, please consider dropping by their website and buying something or just donating a few bucks.

Thank you,

Bart

Massachusetts

2006-04-13T15:10:00.000-04:00

Massachusetts just passed a law requiring all people in the state to get health insurance.

This is a political blogger's dream. I mean, how many angles are there on this travesty of justice? I figure it ranges from, 'Let them eat cake!' to 'Spending your child's future, one day at a time.'

What are these idiots thinking? What's going to happen when our government goes bankrupt? When are we going to realize that entitlements cost money? When are we going to realize that introducing government into an industry has never lowered prices? When are we going to realize that increased regulation equates to increased cost?

This is pure and unadulterated idiocy. This completely justifies my pledge to never vote Republican again.

-Bart

Islamic Imperialism

2006-02-16T09:38:00.000-05:00

A common complaint I hear from the Middle-Eastern Muslims that are interviewed on television is that America is an imperialist country. I find this to be both idiotic and ironic.

First of all, the very religion of Islam is imperialistic in nature, requiring the conquering of all 'infidels', with conversion or dhimmitude the sole outlet for any 'infidels' who want to live. Both require the voluntary surrender on the part of the person in the custody of the Muslims in question.

Somehow, with all this, they feel the need to tell us that the USA is the imperialist devil.

I've got some news for the Islamic world; not only is Islam imperialist in nature and to its core, Mohammed was an apparent pedophile. The Qu'ran promises active pedophilia for those who make it to paradise (doe eyed boys wait for those who make it to paradise). The religion that I've heard many Muslims refer to is violent, full of hate, lacking in forgiveness, and otherwise vile and disgusting. In college, I knew many Muslims that were and presumably are fine people to this day, but the religion they follow is poisonous and imperialistic.

The apparent ambition of Islam is to force others into thinking and acting as they do. They seek to convert others by the sword. They subjugate their women. They outwardly eschew many worldly comforts, but behind closed doors they enjoy the full fruits of the world...if they're rich anyway.

Anyway, this is rather rambling, but Islam is a religion riddled with problems. These problems mean that Islam is incompatible with democracy, and as such, it will ultimately fail.

-Bart

Offensive Political Bias - Amazon.com

2006-01-13T15:39:00.000-05:00

I was searching for a book on Amazon.com today, and was able to quickly find it...and Amazon's obvious dislike for conservative thought (and as far as I'm concerned, conservative customers).

As you can see, Amazon equates conservative thought with disinformation. Other books listed as related searches include books that are critical of liberal thought and behavior, so it would seem that Amazon believes that conservative thought is disinformation.

Very interesting.

Seeing as they consider me to be a person who spreads disinformation (as I try and spread conservative thought as much as I can), I do not believe I will spend my money with this company ever again. Especially since they work so hard to keep people from getting their customer service telephone number (see: http://clicheideas.com/amazon.htm for more information on this).

I was annoyed by this enough to go and check out the definition of disinformation on Dictionary.com. What I found was as follows:

disinformation
n : misinformation that is deliberately disseminated in order to influence or confuse rivals (foreign enemies or business competitors etc.)

Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University

Please spread the word on this. So...I say let's NOT spend our money at Amazon.com! There are plenty of other booksellers out there that do NOT dislike us or use derogatory terms to refer to our the authors that agree with us! I wonder if they list the word 'kook' for books on flying saucer abductees!

-Bart

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

2005-12-21T23:05:00.000-05:00

For those who offered their prayers, I thank you.

Jesus decided He wanted my mother with Him now. He ended her suffering and took her into His arms today. She just didn't have enough left in her to fight anymore.

I will miss her wry humor, her sage advice, and her strong opinions.

God help me.

Please.

-Bart

Prayers Welcome

2005-12-21T08:25:00.000-05:00

I've not posted for a while. Sorry for that...things have been a bit rough for me lately, and I've not been able to give this blog the attention it so richly deserves. Also, I've tried to keep the posts in this blog political in nature...I'm going to break that rule now...I am not sorry for that.

Yesterday night when I was talking to my brother, he told me that if I want to see my mother again, I'd better get out to California to see her pretty soon. She has terminal bone and liver cancer, but what I think is going to kill her is her case of the flu she's fighting right now. Her chemo messes up her immune system and is hurting her ability to fight this illness.

Anyway, prayers are welcome and asked for.

God...I thought I was used to the idea...I mean, it's been over three years that we've known about this...but my Mom is dying. I can hear her dying when I call her. She's wasting away and there's nothing I can do, and even if I make it out there this week, I know I probably won't be there for her when she dies.

I haven't been a very good son to her. I've been a big disappointment to her in more ways than I can count. I guess this is just another way I'll be a disappointment...I won't be there for her in her hour of greatest need.

Sorry for the gloom. For some reason, I'm just not feeling so hot today.

-Bart

Dear Soldiers - Thank you.

2005-11-11T10:52:00.000-05:00

Thank you to all the veterans out there who sacrificed time with their families, higher paying jobs than what the military paid, blood, sweat, tears, restful nights, peaceful dreams, comfort, an easy lifestyle, and too many other things to count...for the job of protecting us...of protecting everyone. You stood and stand for all that is good and right in this country, doing your duty without complaint.

You have done a good job, and you do us proud by standing for us.

We have not...and cannot...earn the gifts you've given us or the sacrifices you've made for us and so many others. They are beyond price and their value is without description. It's not just freedom that you've given us, but the things that naturally come with it. Family barbecues, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, the national parks, and millions of other tiny things that aren't specifically thought of every day, but enjoyed by all of us nonetheless.

Without you, billions of people would be under the thumb of dictators. Because of you, billions of people know hope and joy every day.

It is today that I say thank you for that. I know it's not enough, but nothing ever would be.

-Bartleby

Thus Spake Cedarford

2005-11-09T10:49:00.000-05:00

Says Cedarford in a comment on Vox Day's blog:

Feminists love the castration fantasy. An acquaintance was dating one at the time when Fox was the Laci Peterson Channel, and she was raging about castrating OJ, Scott Peterson and how she would love to do it personally.
I tried out an alternate fantasy. "Sounds OK, but for fairness do you have any objections to me taking a knife to kid-killers Susan Smith or Andrea Yates?"
She shut up and looked at me surprised.
"You, know, multilate them. Just their faces - 10, 20 strokes with a razor blade cutting them down to the bone - so they can't eat, or smile ever again - or evershow their faces...?"
The feminist got white-faced."That is the sickest, evilest thing I ever heard. You disgust me. And you are one stupid asshole if you think Andrea Yates was a murderer. She had post-partum depression and if Susan Smith was the one that drowned her kids in a pond she had real issues - like being abused as a child."
I nodded.
"You might be right about Andrea Yates. How about if we just cut her tits off as punishment?"When a feminist loses it, they toss drinks at you in lieu of having a castrating knife handy. Fortunately, it was white wine and didn't stain. My acquaintance was sensible enough to refrain from laughing and commiserated with her as she stormed out saying I was indeed a monstrous asshole....but only to get the pussy. He broke up with her a month later and said she was still bullshit on me equating castration punishment with face mutilation...the breakup was simply because she was stupid and boring....

Somehow, this woman thinks that it's OK for women to castrate men, throw drinks on them, or otherwise do violence to them when they're upset with them. Somehow, this same woman thinks that it's NOT all right for men to do the same thing to women.

This is the core of what is commonly known as feminism. Women want the right to hit, belittle, mentally abuse, and otherwise do violence to men, while not being subjected to the same indignities. Somehow this is viewed as fairness. They don't even subscribe to the fiction of equality of outcome. They want to be better than men in every way. It is because of that, that these ridiculous chauvinistic cretins will never have any credibility with anyone with a shred of sense.

Bartleby

Quote of the Day - On Raising Children

2005-10-13T12:50:00.000-04:00

Quote of the day:

Men have always shared in the responsibilities of raising
children, unless one redefines the activity as excluding the provision of food,
shelter and protection.

-Vox Day

Now, this doesn't mean all men, but it means men in general, and it's absolutely correct. The marginalization of fatherhood and its role as the provider and protector is idiotic and counter productive to keeping men around as fathers.

*sigh*

Bartleby

Liberals And Their Eat The Rich Mindset

2005-10-07T14:31:00.000-04:00

I started thinking about liberals and their 'eat the rich' mindset today and decided to do some checking on one or two of them. several houses in a different area, and let others live there rent free. I mean, charity is the way of the day, right?

I find this to be a common theme among celebrities where they will complain about wealthy people not doing enough...until it comes to their OWN personal sacrifice. Suddenly when personal sacrifice becomes the word of the day, mum's the word. How is it that I have this gut feeling that every single celebrity that talks about people paying their fair share still itemizes their deductions on their taxes? How is it that I know that every one of them squeezes that lemon until they get every legal deduction they (or their tax advisors) can find?

Jello Biafra lives in a house worth 1.8 MILLION dollars (approximate - based on comparable sales). OK - no matter how you slice it, he's in a nice neighborhood and has a lot of money. This same man complains about the rich people trying to screw the poor people. He complains about financial abuses of corporations. Interestingly, his own company, Alternative Tentacles, recently lost a lawsuit over allegations of unfair dealings and doing what I consider to be...ta-daaaaa...screwing the poor people.

So - do the wealthy owe the poor anything? Are the wealthy evil? Do they prey on the needy? Do they cheat people left and right.

I guess if you look in the backyard of liberalism, yes...that is precisely what the wealthy do.

Liberals need to get a clue. I don't owe strangers anything. A fair share doesn't increase in size when you make more money. Taxes do NOT need to be increased. Spending needs to be cut. I will give to the needy when I choose.

Bartleby

Feminism

2005-10-03T11:07:00.000-04:00

I had a discussion with a friend this weekend about feminism and have reached a conclusion that startled me. Feminism is strangling marriage and America. Prior to the advent of feminism, many things were wrong and hurtful to women. Those things needed to be corrected. The problem is that the feminist movement is what became the dominant force in addressing those wrongs. The feminist movement doesn't understand that equality doesn't have to reflect sameness...that two things can be different, but of the same value and desireability. In the past, women did not often work outside of the home. Unfortunately, a part of the reason for this was sexism, and that same sexism prevented women from getting jobs for which they were well qualified.

With all that aside, women gave up considerable authority and power by embracing what is called feminism. In the past, women held a position of great influence in the family - when the man came home from a hard day's work, who was first there to talk to him? Who was the greatest influence on making sure he could get up the next day and continue? Who molded the minds of young America? Who made sure that kids got what they needed on a day by day basis? Who made sure homework was done, and done properly? Who made sure that meals were nourishing? Who made sure that the children's entire day wasn't spent in front of the television? Who made sure kids had manners? Who made sure their kids learned things?

Women.

What have they exchanged all of that for?

Money.

One can argue whether or not the money was worth it (I do not think it's anywhere NEAR worth it). That said; I'd like to submit that the amount of money gained is neglibile if at all present. Earning power remained stagnant or dropped over the period after women entered the workforce, housing prices increased dramatically, and the costs involved in having both parents work (daycare, etc) are enormous. I cannot help but find the minor financial benefit of having both parents work to be nigh on worthless compared to the value of having someone stay home with the kids.

The sexual revolution gave women the ability to be...unwed mothers. The 'Murphy Brown' syndrome where men are called virtually useless and unnecessary in the rearing of a child is foolishness, but that foolishness is believed by many people. As a result, many women are left in the lurch by irresponsible and otherwise terrible men who do not want to take the time and energy to properly take care of their children.

So...women sacrificed a job of honor and worthiness for...money. While I agree that they have the right to work as they see fit, having the right to do something and it being right to do something are sometimes entirely different.

This is one of those cases.

Bartleby

*Note that I do not think that only women should stay home (though I think women are generally better suited by temperment for the rearing of children)...I say whomever makes less money should quit their job when children come along.

Jimmy Carter

2005-09-20T13:41:00.000-04:00

Until very recently, I was a big fan of Jimmy Carter. I thought he was a bit of a misguided fool, but that he had a good heart and did the right thing when he could.

Then I found out about the fact that he espoused segregationist views, courted segregationist groups, and avoided courting the black vote to appeal to the racist vote.

I tend not to care as much as most if a person is a racist. I view it as a stupidity very similar to being a Democrat or Socialist. None of those views are very smart, they all can hurt people, and any critical analysis of the belief systems in question results in a complete refutation of any possible (hypothetical) value they may have. What this means is that I may know people that hold these beliefs, and as long as they keep these beliefs to themselves (or be ready for a protracted argument where I will mercilessly pick apart their arguments every time they're mentioned), I can talk to them (partly in the hope that I can change their minds). In Jimmy Carter's case, I could not be his friend, because his support of racism was done for opportunistic reasons and not out of genuine belief. He was willing to dance with the devil to further his political ends. So he wasn't being stupid - he was lying his butt off (regardless of his 'pride' that he never lied to the American people).

Jimmy Carter courted segregationist groups when running as a candidate for governor of Georgia in 1966:

http://www.americanpresident.org/history/jimmycarter/

"He attributed this loss to a lack of support from segregationist whites, who had turned out in large numbers to vote for his opponent, a nationally known segregationist named Lester Maddox. In a bid to win their vote in the 1970 governor’s race, Carter minimized appearances before African American groups, and even sought the endorsements of avowed segregationists..."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/peopleevents/p_jcarter.html

"He wanted to appeal to the large middle class, blue collar type, predominantly white, and most of these people are going to be segregationists," says historian E. Stanly Godbold. "Carter himself was not a segregationist in 1970. But he did say things that the segregationists wanted to hear."

After winning the election, he declared the era of segregation over. So what? Sorry Charlie, but that's wrong no matter what you wish to accomplish.

Sheesh! ...and the Democrats call Republicans racist. Try again. They're willing to say, do, or hurt anything to win the fight. They care about power, not what's right.

Bartleby

True Colors

2005-09-19T13:30:00.000-04:00

America has many friends. Throughout the world, we've had people step up to the plate to help out in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Two countries very specifically stand out to me on this subject:

Kuwait and Qatar.

Kuwait gave $500,000,000 to help the victims of this disaster. What that says to me is that they are a true friend. Five hundred million dollars is no mere token of appreciation. That is a lot of money no matter who you are and how much you have.

Qatar gave $100,000,000. Again, this is not chump change. This is not some mere trifiling amount. This too is a lot of money, no matter who you are and how much you have.

I don't know if this money was requested by our government or not. I don't care if this money was requested by our government or not. What I see is a genuine outreach from two of our true allies.

To the people of Kuwait and Qatar, we of America thank you for your generous gifts and appreciate the spirit of brotherhood and genuine goodwill in which they were presented. As much as you remember your allies, we remember ours.

As my Muslim friends in college taught me to say...

Salam Alaikum,

Bartleby

I wonder why Israel demanded a buffer zone...

2005-09-16T14:45:00.000-04:00

My brother sent me this link: http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusintl/ap09-16-024206.asp?reg=mideast&vts=91620051118

It describes the kind and generous Palestinian people that were given at least some of what they've been demanding for a long time. Their response is to:

Smuggle arms
Smuggle guns
Deface the flag of Israel - while this should not be illegal it is rude.
Hold rallies to plan the destruction of Israel
Threaten the Palestinian Authority with violence if the try and disarm the militants

They also have people driving around in their cities with rocket and grenade launchers mounted on their vehicles, people firing guns into the air randomly, and other people deciding that the wait at a border checkpoint is too long and are simply pushing their way through.

The response of the Palestinian Authority is that Israel never informed them that they were pulling out. ...and? Don't ask for something and then gripe when you get it, Charlie. I think their point is being proven again and again by the behaviors of your glorious citizens.

Bartleby

Who really represents the common man?

2005-09-14T14:17:00.000-04:00

I have been watching Democrats bitch and moan about the red states and the rednecks therein ever since the first election. They call the people in the red states stupid rednecks. They say the people in the red states don't know what they're doing. They say a lot of things...

What they fail to realize is that the people in the red states and red districts...they're the regular joes. The only places that you see any blue voting...it's in big cities...where the elite live.

Yet somehow, the Democrats can call the regular joes who voted Republican stupid jerks, and then say they represent the regular joes. Let's be clear here - the Democrats are high dollar, rich person, party of the elites. I'm sick of them trying to say otherwise.

What I'd really like to know though...why hasn't anyone else pointed this out?

Bartleby

Give me $20,000!

2005-09-14T08:50:00.000-04:00

I have found a fine example of the welfare state and the sense of entitlement it has created. A man being interviewed in New Orleans described the buses as 'slave ships' and complained that he was only given $700 instead of the $2,000 he was expecting (from FEMA). His demand for what he thinks is fair?

$20,000 per person effected by the hurricane.

His reasoning?

"I would like for them to give us at least $20,000 apiece, so we can, you know, get our life together, you know. We didn’t ask to come on that that that bus slave…it’s like a slave ship, it’s like, you know, back in history, you know, they put us on a slave ship, they separated us from our family, they did it — You know, this is just modern day slavery, you know? Just give us what the fuck we deserve…"

Umm...let me see...hmm...how about...NO?!

This...this in particular illustrates what people think and why the welfare state is terrible. This man honestly believes that he deserves $20,000 without effort, without personal responsibility, and without anything other than he was effected by a disaster. Guess what Charlie...it doesn't work that way! If you want $20,000, I hope you have insurance...because if you don't, you're going to be really PO'd about what you're not going to get.

If this man was transported by bus, chances are fairly good that he didn't have a car. I imagine he'd say he couldn't afford one. Funny, but he was able to afford sunglasses that cost several hundred dollars. Also, since FEMA has been there, he has spent seven hundred dollars. Now, if my necessities were paid for, I'm having difficulty imagining how I'd spend seven hundred dollars in a few day's time when all I needed would be clothes and such. Could it be this person has a serious lack of impulse control? Could it be a lack of planning on his part that has him in a bad situation?

This goes full circle back to my original point. The only people I have sympathy for are the kids and the disabled who could not leave.

Hat tip: http://thepoliticalteen.net

Bartleby

How much do people read these days?

2005-09-13T10:48:00.000-04:00

I recently got a challenge from my daughter's school. The challenge was to read three thousand pages worth of books during this school year. This shocked me, because I average about 200 pages per day (estimated...I read most of a book a day, give or take...until last night I thought it was 300/day, but I gave it more thought and it isn't). That means that every...say...fifteen days, I read what they consider to be a valuable amount for a school year's worth of reading for an adult.

Am I reading obsessively, or do others not read enough? I couldn't imagine reading less.

As a side note, the 200 pages per day is only fiction. It doesn't count blogs, news, essays, or opinion pieces I read during the day in short breaks from work. If that is added in, it's another 150/day or so.

So - how much does the average Joe read per year? Is it really so little?

Bartleby

Watcher's Council

2005-09-13T07:05:00.000-04:00

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher's Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around... per the Watcher's instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

9/11/2005

2005-09-11T20:47:00.000-04:00

Today is a day that will forever live in infamy. This was a day that our entire way of life and our principles of living were challenged by an amorphous foe that actively hates our freedom, our individuality, our success, and our efforts to spread the same throughout the world.

This foe will never go away. Terror and sneak attacks are the way of the enemy. Their motives and beliefs are not poison...poison does not grow...they're a cancer, and they spread and infect other flesh, killing and infecting as they go. Only by excising this cancer can humanity continue as God intended us to, free and without restraint on our individual growth.

It is on this day that I stand back and remember that we once had two shining symbols of American ingenuity and love. Two towers that used to stand tall, showing everyone that each person can grow to be as tall as they...that in America, anyone can be rich...anyone can be President...anyone can be anything they like.

We no longer have those towers. A group of evil men decided that without our symbols we are nothing. They were wrong. That which is America is not contained in a building. It is not contained within our flag, our founding documents, or our monuments. It is contained within the hearts of all right thinking people. That which is fundamentally America is not even confined to people in America. Those exceedingly brave people who voted in Iraq and Afghanistan, the people who work tirelessly to rebuild countries torn by war, and the people who stand up to be counted as against the dictators of this world...all of them possess the fires in their hearts that Americans do. No words that I have can honor the people who stand up in such a manner.

That aside, regardless of their geographic location, I name them American. I say this not as a compliment, but as a simple statement of fact.

I think that we should declare a national holiday to honor all people who stand up against dictators and other evil. We lost nearly 3,000 people in a wake-up call that let us know that evil remains, and that some will never let good know peace. More lives have been lost letting evil know that we will never let it know peace.

In the end, what I wish is not that the people who oppose us would die, but that they would be convinced. That they would realize the error of their ways...that would be wealth beyond measure. I realize that this is not likely, but a man can dream.

Until then, I extend the olive branch of love and respect to all who stand against evil.

Honor those who went before us.

I believe I will end this with a quote from Kipling:

"Yes, making mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep" - Rudyard Kipling

-Bartleby

Welfare State

2005-09-08T14:11:00.000-04:00

I just got done reading a genius article on the welfare state (linked in the title), and I'd like to elaborate on the theory presented therein.

If you work hard to achieve, struggle to get what you want, and finally save and earn until your desires are satisfied, you take care of what it is that you've worked for. Phrased differently; when you have worked your ass off for something, you don't want it to go to shit.

When someone gives you something for free, and you know that more will be forthcoming regardless of your behavior, you don't give a rat's ass about it. It's not yours, you didn't have to earn it, and if you destroy it you will be given a new one.

This is why the welfare state is as terrible as it is. People are given goods, services, and money for absolutely nothing. Rather than tell them to get off their hineys and work for a change we encourage their lazy and destructive ways. We subsidize their housing (thereby artificially increasing the price of housing as well as encouraging their sloth), we subsidize their substance abuse problems (welfare), we glorify their asinine lifestyle on television, and we then act surprised when they act like children.

Morality doesn't come from threat of prison - especially when the cretins think incarceration is cool. It comes from self reliance, responsibility for ones own actions, and consequences for stupid behavior. The welfare state provides for none of these, and instead rewards the idiots who have unprotected sex at a young age and reproduce. I say CUT THEM OFF! Make them sink or swim on their own merits!

Bartleby

Liberal Mindset

2005-09-08T13:11:00.000-04:00

I have watched events in New Orleans unfold with an ever increasing morbid fascination. Looting, murder, rape, and other violent crimes openly took place in the streets without intervention from police officials. Governmental response was pathetic, disaster plans were not followed, secondary (governmental) intervention after the fact was slow and ineffective, and refugees remain stranded.

After all that, what is the solution proposed by liberals? More reliance on governmental intervention.

How does that work?

If an organization fails me when I need them most, I don't increase my reliance on them...I *FIRE* them! I get a new provider for my goods and services!

What is it about liberals that they always see a government solution to a problem?

My advice for people who live in flood plains, hurricane zones, hailstone alley, tornado alley, or any other place prone to natural disasters is to BUY INSURANCE! If you cannot afford insurance, I suggest you move somewhere less disaster prone! There are people that act surprised every single time their house is destroyed by the flood that happens every six to ten years. I bet they're the same people that as children touched a hot stove more than once.

I have sympathy for people caught in this situation, and I've given to the cause of trying to make things better for these people, but I have limited patience for my hard earned dollars being extorted from me (i.e. taxed) and then redirected to the rescue of people who are in trouble because they were stupid. I have even less patience for my money being spent on (adult) people who are stranded when they were ordered to evacuate, but did not do so. Don't tell me you can't afford to evacuate - I don't buy it. I've been poor, and had my town been under threat of natural disaster, we'd have called friends, relatives, or neighbors for help and gotten the hell out of Dodge.

If I have little to no sympthy for the idiots that refused to evacuate and that intentionally lived in a coastal city that is below sea level, who do I have sympathy for? Where do my sympathies lie? They lie with the kids. The kids whose parents were too stupid to evacuate. The kids whose parents were too stupid to make arrangements for some method of egress. The kids whose parents chose not to make good decisions. The kids that have to live with the crappy decisions others made. I saw a picture of a kid who was wearing rubber bands and cardboard boxes for shoes - I sat wishing there was some way his parents could be jailed for it. I heard of the seven year old that was raped and murdered in the superdome. I blame not only the rapist, but her parents. Would you like to know why?

BECAUSE SHE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE! SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN SOMEWHERE SAFE AND WARM!

So - who was at fault for most of this disaster? I'd call the government a peripheral problem. In all reality, it is the idiots who STAYED that are at fault.

Bartleby

True Heroism

2005-09-06T15:20:00.000-04:00

This is in the news everywhere - Deamonte Love, a six year old boy, took care of and led six smaller children out of the chaos that is New Orleans. This brave little boy was separated from his family with six other children when the evacuation helicopter that came to help could not carry any more people and their parents decided to let the children ride to safety.

I am unsure how these brave kids left the custody of responsible adults, but they were found walking down Causeway Boulevard holding hands, with Deamonte looking out for them all.

In the middle of chaos and destruction, this young man kept his cool, made good decisions, and went amazingly far and above the call of duty for a six year old. In the middle of everything that was happening, he made sure the babies were cared for.

Would that all adults knew the sense of responsibility this boy has. Does anyone know how to set up a 503c fund to help pay for this kid to go to college? If he stepped up to the plate like this at age six, the mind boggles at what he'll be capable of when he's twenty or thirty.

A kid like this could grow up to be president.

Bartleby

The Changing of the Guard

2005-09-05T10:04:00.000-04:00

An American hero has passed, and I am deeply saddened by his passing. William Rehnquist was a fine man who honored the court with his presence. I can only hope that we can find someone big enough to fill his shoes.

I think Clarence Thomas would be a fine fit for those shoes.

Scalia is the obvious choice, but he's not quite as clear on Constitutional jurisprudence as Thomas. Scalia has, from time to time, exhibited an ability to legislate from the bench. To my knowledge, Thomas has not. Giving Thomas that responsibility would honor his intellect, his knowledge, and his commitment to strict constructionism.

The new nominee for the Supreme Court should be as close to Clarence Thomas as possible. Calm, cool, collected, and a voice for what is good and right.

Bartleby

Evacuation

2005-09-05T09:43:00.000-04:00

The governments of New Orleans and Louisiana have taken the Bush administration to task for not responding quickly enough to the emergency they are facing. While I am no sing-song Bush follower, I think that this position is absolute balderdash and needs to be examined.

These idiots completely failed to plan for a disaster that was local to them and bound to happen. They were the ones who knew the lay of the land. They were the ones who knew where the population centers were. They were the ones who knew which buildings could stand up to the storm. They were the ones who knew which roads were high enough to avoid the flooding. They were the ones with the local resources necessary to effect an evacuation (school and city buses, state vehicles, emergency crews). They were the ones who chose not to root out corruption that extends its roots from the topmost levels of the state and local governments down to the local police officer working the streets.

They were the ones who failed.

Bush cannot administer every level of every function of every state and municipality of the country. There comes a point when the local administrative personnel become responsible, and the levees were one example of this. FEMA had identified the problem on the state's behalf. The state requested that the levees be built/modified to fit a greater level of preparedness. If this issue was of such obviously critical and pressing importance, the state should have taken immediate steps to correct the situation themselves once their federal request was refused.

Think of it this way: A person sees child in danger, and they yell for help. When no help is forthcoming, do they stop yelling and sit and watch? No! They make significant effort to alleviate the danger themselves. They don't assume that it's not their problem because they already asked for help.

Well, that's what the state and local governments of Louisiana and New Orleans did...and now it's somehow someone else's fault.

Idiots.

As far as I know, every other state that is subject to disaster has a disaster recovery plan. California plans for quakes. Florida plans for hurricanes. Other states plan for tornados, hail, or other disastrous conditions as is appropriate.

Why didn't Louisiana?

Bartleby

Colin calls Bush to task...

2005-09-05T09:10:00.000-04:00

Colin said:

It's one thing to put city tasks in the hands of cities and another entirely to cut the Army Corps of Engineers budget down to 20% specifically for building these levees when the city requested them. FEMA had identified a hurricane in New Orleans as one of the top three worst disasters likely to happen this decade. The whole country suffers with New Orleans thanks to our global economy. I don't pin this on Bush nearly so much as the whole anti-government, pro-privatization crowd he and his ilk have brought into power.

This argument has several basic problems.

It is not under the federal jurisdiction to provide for local disaster prevention. That is up to the cities and states. The Army Corps of Engineers budget for this should have been cut down to 0% and not 20%. The 20% was overgenerous.

FEMA compiled data that called this a threat. Your response is to blame the feds instead of the state. I think it was awfully nice for the feds to pay for a threat assessment for nothing for Lousiana.

Also...at what point is the state responsible? At what point is the city responsible? At what point do they become responsible for having a disaster plan? From what I understand, New Orleans is a city of about 500,000 people. Cities of that size dot the California landscape...should it be up to the feds to provide a distinct disaster plan for each of them? Each city is different and will have different needs...there's no way that the feds would be as good at monitoring what those cities need as they or their state counterparts would (they could perhaps provide advisory information on what sorts and quanties of emergency supplies to have on hand).

Following your argument to its logical conclusion, what you're proposing is that the federal government be held responsible for virtually every facet of governmental intervention in American life. This is completely antiethical to what we're about. Power is reserved to the states, and then given to the federal government only within the scope of specific powers granted to it by the Constitution. Beyond that scope, the federal government cannot legally act. Such is the case with the levees in New Orleans. They can no more legally build (or upgrade or repair) a levee system for New Orleans than they can forcibly take my land for use by a private land devel...err...than a state can pass a law taxing goods from another state. It's outside the bounds of their jurisdiction.

Privatization is not inherently bad and in many cases is most excellent. For example, I remember a story on the history channel about a nuclear reactor that went bad and irradiated a HUGE area. The army was called in, but eventually it took General Electric to come in and fix it. Most private organizations don't have the idiotic and insane bureaucracies that government organizations have. This slims down costs and helps prevent the enormous cost overruns that are typically displayed by government organizations. In addition to the above reasons for privatization, there is again the issue of jurisdiction creep. In every endeavor that the government takes, their first question should be, 'Is this directly within the scope of my jurisdiction?' If the answer is 'no', then they should stop dead in their tracks.

Last but not least, the city asking for the levees does not mean that the federal government is supposed to supply them. I don't care if New Orleans needed the levees - they asked the wrong organization for them. This is like asking your plumber to replace your breaker box and getting mad when he doesn't and your house has an electrical fire as a result. It's not his job or his function to manage breaker boxes. There are others that hold that job, and they are the ones who should have taken the initiative to make sure that was taken care of.

Ultimately, the existence of a problem is not indicative of the need and jurisdiction for a governmental solution to it.

Bartleby

A cretin speaks

2005-09-02T16:33:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine directed me to this blog. This man is a cretin, through and through.

I quote:

It is reported that black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive. Four days after the storm, thousands of blacks in New Orleans are dying like dogs. No-one has come to help them.

Let me see if I understand this. After four days, people have decided to eat other people. This is somehow the fault of those who have not come to help them.

Oh, wait...nobody has come to help them?

Funny, but the Red Cross and countless other charities have been funnelling money, food, blankets, and other supplies into Louisiana and the other impacted areas as fast as they can. There are huge land trains of trucks, buses, and vans that are bringing supplies and help. Canada sent emergency management personnel, who promptly left because they were being shot at by the looters!

Further - this man's concern is not for the people in New Orleans. It's for the blacks. I'm worried about the babies and little kids stuck there. I'm not worried about any particular race of kids or babies...I'm just worried about kids and babies. I'm worried about people being shot for the food they legally acquired. I'm worried about cholera. I'm worried about death. I'm worried about hunger.

What I'm not worried about is race. From what I can see about this man's (I use the term loosely - real men don't act like this...child) perspective, all he sees is race. The book he mentions on his blog is entitled: The Debt –What America Owes to Blacks. While I disagree that America owes anything to blacks, I'm astounded that this guy somehow found merit in an idea that the disaster that is New Orleans is about racism!

Here's another interesting point:

Who is it that the people blame about New Orleans (and the other stricken areas)?

Do they blame the french (I refuse to capitalize that word), for building a coastal city that is 20' below sea level? Do they blame the local government, for not utilizing the school buses that were freely available to transport these people out of the city? Do they blame the state government, for not properly planning ahead and leaving their own backyard exposed? No, they blame George Bush. Bush, who does not sit around studying the individual needs of every city in the USA, but rather evaluates the needs of the entire country.

A message to liberals:

THE PRESIDENT DOES NOT EXIST TO MICRO-MANAGE THE ENTIRE COUNTRY! HE IS HERE TO EVALUATE AND RESPOND TO GENERAL THREATS TO THE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE AND NOT TO INDIVIDUAL CITIES! IT IS THE *STATES* THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO DO THAT!

I am not uncompassionate. I've sent what money I can, but cannot go and help them myself. I do what I can, where I can, when I can. What I don't do is attach race to everything I see in life. I wish to hades others would stop doing so as well. Sometimes...usually...a disaster is just as disaster, and it's not about race.

Bartleby

Time to dig deep...

2005-09-01T14:46:00.000-04:00

September 11 is a day that will forever live in infamy in the American mind. Let's make September 1 be a day of beauty, giving, and help.

A hurricane has devastated a city of five hundred thousand people. In response, the world has responded with support, well wishes, and relief effort. If the world can help us, surely we can help ourselves. It's time to dig deep my friends.

There are many outlets to donate money to help in this endeavor. Dig deep my friends, If you wish to donate money to the cause, the Red Cross has created a special website dedicated to the relief effort here.

In the spirit of many other bloggers (hat tip: Dolphin), I will donate a dollar per commenter that has also donated up to $50.00 (that's all I can afford after my initial donation). If you've donated money, please post a comment, and I will add a dollar to my next donation. If I've already surpassed my stated maximum, please post anyway for solidarity to others.

Please people - donate anything...anything at all. Time, food, clothing, blankets, bottled water, money, and batteries are good starting points. Diapers, baby wipes, baby bottles, bottle liners, baby food, air mattresses, children's books, books for adults, waterproof ziplock bags (large), water purification tablets, and if you're close enough, a hug and a hot cup of coffee or hot chocolate would be good things as well.

If it'll help you justify the expense, here is a link to a webcam that is maintained by a hosting company that is still functional in New Orleans. It'll show you the state of the city. It'll show you the people. It'll show you the devastation and the misery. It'll show you...the collapse.

Pay up my friends. There is a cost to living in a society full of wonderful and loving people - that cost is the voluntary giving of onesself to help those who are in dire straits. There is no legal requirement that you give - there is simply an internal compass that guides us all, and we all have to look ourselves in the mirror every morning.

To those who call this God's punishment against a wicked and sinful city, society, or country...think again. He said He would not do that again; His heart has softened to us and His way is mercy and love. Rather than take this time to hate, instead take this time to love and help. I cannot help but think that Jesus would not be taking this time to point fingers; His hand would be put to use as a helping hand, rather than a harming one.

Psalms 23:
1 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul:
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me;
Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
Thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Also:

Luke 3:11: He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.

This is the time to show your mettle America. The readers of this blog may not all be Christians, but I think the message holds true for all religions...so maybe the bearer of that message isn't terribly applicable to you, I think that the message should be.

Bartleby

What should I buy next?

2005-08-31T13:14:00.000-04:00

OK, I either have, or have available to me for immediate use, the following firearms:

12 gauge Winchester Defender - home defense shotgun
12 gauge New England Pardner - hunting shotgun
.380 Bersa pistol - carry weapon
.38 Taurus revolver - carry weapon for my wife
.40 H&K USP - carry weapon when I'm not working
.45 Magnum Research/IMI - secondary carry weapon when I'm not working (and the wife wants the .40)
.22 Ruger 10-22 carbine - plinker and lots of fun
7mm Remington - cannon for hunting outside of Indy
7.62mm - AK-47 - recreational shooting

Any recommendations on what I should set up for my next purchase? I'm considering the following:

9mm semi-auto (a Glock maybe?)
.460 revolver
Semi-auto 12 gauge
Over/Under 12 gauge
.270 rifle
.243 rifle
.22-250 rifle
.458 rifle
.308 rifle
.30-30 lever action rifle

I'm open to other ideas as well, but those are the ones I'm chewing on right now.

Ultimately, other than a class 3 weapon, that's my whole list of what I want to own. Does anyone have any suggestions of what to get next?

Bartleby

"Practical Joke" and Bigotry

2005-08-26T13:40:00.000-04:00

There was a post on this site yesterday linking to an email I had sent somewhere. What I didn't know when I posted that link was that I'd left my computer unlocked and a coworker added a racist line of text to the email (that I stupidly sent without checking to make sure it said what I wanted it to) that was eventually published.

I deleted the post linking to it once I found out, and have debated since whether or not to mention it here. I have decided that there are people I respect that come to this site and I need to make something clear.

I am not a bigot of any stripe. I have friends and former intimates of many different cultural backgrounds and ancestry and make decisions about the people in my life based upon their behavior, beliefs, and how they treat me. I don't care how much melanin is in someone's skin, how well they speak my language (beyond the ability to communicate with them), or where their ancestors came from. Moreover, I resent that I even feel the need to defend myself.

Ultimately, I'm a bit of an odd bird when it comes to bigotry. It isn't so much that it enrages me so much as it is a red flag that the person practicing it is unlikely to be terribly intelligent. It is because of that I tend to avoid bigots. If I (ever) meet one that is smart and doesn't act like a cretin to otherwise unoffending people or let loose with a steady stream of asinine remarks, I may actually talk to them.

If that ever happens, I'll probably post it here, as it'll be very surprising to me.

I think I'll do another post on bigotry in the near future. I've got clients in Europe who tell me it's about as common there as apple pie and ice cream are here. Are (nearly) all cultures so xenophobic that when someone who looks different is introduced therein, they are automatically rejected as inferior? Are none strong enough to accept that a difference may add strength?

These are ideas worth considering. More on this later.

Bartleby

This bears repeating

2005-08-23T11:36:00.000-04:00

This marvelous post describes precisely why I think the war was just and good:

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/2005/08/message-to-cindy-sheehan.html

This person had to deal with Saddam. This person experienced the terror imposed upon his country. He loves the fact that we're there.

Some people are outraged that almost 2,000 soldiers have died. I am proud that they volunteered to stand tall for what is right. I am praising God that millions of lives have been saved. I am praising God that basic human rights are finally being introduced into Iraq. I am hopeful that the seed of democracy will grow, blossom, and spread throughout the region.

Bartleby

Watcher's Council

2005-08-23T10:24:00.000-04:00

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher's Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around... per the Watcher's instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.
Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

Al Franken laughs...

2005-08-23T08:28:00.000-04:00

When the big corporate scandals came down and we found out that some companies had behaved criminally, conservatives were outraged along with everyone else. The liberals blamed us, but we were hurt and saddened at the crime and its damage as much as anyone. Now, when we have proof that scumminess is not limited to the conservative side of things, the liberals (choose one):

Choke on their outrage.
Call for immediate investigation and prosecution of those involved.
Laugh
Call it 'boring'
Both 1 and 2
Both 3 and 4

Ladies and gentlemen, the answer is 6!

There was an organization set up to help kids named 'Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club', and it got screwed by a man named Evan Cohen to the tune of almost $900,000. Al Franken thinks it's funny. Evan Cohen is the former Development Director for 'Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club' and the former chairman of...you guessed it...Air America.

Al Franken was interviewed about the scandal - the theft. During this interview, after he rightly calls Cohen a crook, he laughs when describing the theft. Why in the hell is he laughing about it? Is he nuts? No matter how I look at this, I do not see a subject for laughter.

I wonder what would have been said had a conservative that was involved with the companies in question laughed about Tyco, Enron, or WorldCom. I am not implying that Franken was involved with the crime - as far as I can see there is no evidence whatsoever that he was; I am saying straight out that he was involved with Air America (which is at the core of the scandal) and that it is HIGHLY inappropriate for him to laugh about this.

Now - taking this a step further...

Liberals consistently prove themselves to be vulnerable to the crimes they continually accuse us of.

In his book, 'Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" he distorts the truth (and does so in a way that to me has to be deliberate), which to me is...a lie! When you deliberately seek to obfuscate by telling the truth in such a manner as to make others believe that something that is untrue is true, you've lied. Also, does Franken include BILL CLINTON in his book? If he's discussing liars, he might as well get the world champion liar on the table! Somehow, I doubt Clinton figures prominently in Franken's writings.

Liberals accuse conservatives of being opportunists. I think the scandal above proves that liberals are opportunists. I think that Clinton selling us out to the Chinese show that they're opportunists. I think that their electoral crimes prove them to be opportunists. I think their class warfare strategies prove them to be opportunists.

Liberals accuse conservatives of close-mindedness. Try and get a liberal to accept that bilingual education doesn't work (despite the evidence). Try and get a liberal to accept that there is no evidence that gun control has any effect on crime rates. Try and get a liberal to accept that the welfare state has hurt and not helped poor people (Remember the gloom and doom predictions when Clinton moved toward correcting welfare? Funny how none of the predictions proved to be accurate, isn't it?). Heck, try and get a liberal to admit that global warming and evolution are only theories! They won't do it!

Liberals accuse conservatives of being uncaring of the plight of the suffering. I'm sorry, but was that a baby you murdered? I know you call it aborted, but to me that word is window dressing; it's kind of like calling rape a violation of one's reproductive rights. So I'm uncaring when I refuse to subsidize an alcoholic welfare burger and you're the most caring person in the world when you murder a baby? Is that how it works?

Liberals accuse conservatives of not standing up for the little guy. The size of the average donation to the Republican party is right around $50. The Democrats refuse to release that information and call it 'proprietary'. Anyone care to wager whether or not they'd release that information if it was helpful to their cause (i.e. less than the Republican amount)?

Sorry liberals, but you lose.

Bartleby

Immigration

2005-08-22T13:59:00.000-04:00

Immigration has been a hot topic of late. I try and be a nice guy about such things, but this is getting really old. Federal authorities are simply not enforcing immigration law, and it is proving to be a financial drain as well as a security threat to our country. Because of this, many states are writing legislation to help curb the levels of illegal immigration into their borders.

A judge recently ruled that using criminal trespass charges against an illegal immigrant pursuant to their status as an illegal immigrant is unconstitutional. OK...let me see if I understand this; the judge effectively said the following...

There is no concurrent jurisdiction for immigration law with local authorities.
Any law that acts in concert with a federal law to restriction particular behaviors is unconstitutional.

What this tells me is that all state drug laws are now unconstitutional. It also tells me that laws against murder are unconstitutional. Laws against theft are unconstitutional. Laws against battery are now unconstitutional. The first is directly covered by federal law, and the rest are covered as civil rights, which is of course under federal jurisdiction for those rights (other rights that are guaranteed by individual states (but not by the federal government) may be protected by the states).

Ultimately though, what this tells me is that the judiciary has gone completely insane. How did a jurist like Clarence Thomas arise from this septic tank of legal chicanery? This woman just invented law out of whole cloth!

My ideas for what could be done to help this country immensely:

Make public referendum available on a federal level.
Allow for the impeachment of judges through popular vote.
Ban all executive level departments that are not expressly allowed on a Constitutional level (So long EPA! See ya Department of Education! Hasta la vista Department of Energy!).
Initiate a flat tax as described by the Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax
Begin the restoration of state level power, by correctly phrasing my sentences as follows (when appropriate): 'The United States are...' That would be the first step in making others realize that the states are Constitutionally the real powerhouses (as far as government goes).
Repeal the 1986 gun ban.
Put the army on the border. We are being invaded. The army is the organization to stop that invasion.

Our country is sliding into the ocean, and all the liberals want to do is spend, spend, spend.

Bartleby

Border Security

2005-08-18T08:40:00.000-04:00

For some reason, our genius President has decided that border security with Mexico should not be a priority. I can only assume that this is because a large portion of his constituency is Mexican or of Mexican descent. While I can understand his desire to maintain a foothold with a core voting bloc, I do not understand his willingness to ignore a titanic breach of national security.

Our darling officeholder has ignored this for too long. In fact, he has ignored it for so long, that even Democrats are getting upset about it! I realize that it’s sneaky and underhanded of them to go so far as to do the right thing to win an election, but the Republicans (who already lack relevance these days) had better get on the stick, or they’ll lose the next election.

Anyway, ultimately, I’ve had enough of this. Drugs, weapons, and people are pouring across our borders with only minimal intervention, and the President is doing nothing about it. In fact, instead of helping, he’s hindering, and descries the actions of the Minutemen who are quite legally keeping an eye out and calling the Border Patrol when they see illegal aliens.

What I’m ultimately hoping for is that the states enact laws that make it illegal for an illegal alien to be present within their state and then deputize people throughout the state to make arrests for such an incursion. That would make the use of force to effect an arrest legal.

I don’t know if this is true or not, but in an article I was reading it was stated that there is federal law prohibiting people from threatening illegal aliens, so the feds are doubly hog-tying us. As I said, I don’t know if that’s true or not, but if I experienced the same problems those people had, I wouldn’t just be threatening, I would have opened fire.

Read below:

At 11:30 a.m. on April 22 this year, a Mexican helicopter landed in the Robinsons' backyard. Arivaca resident R.D. Ayers had driven to the ranch that morning to visit his injured dog, then under Dr. Robinson's care.
Ayers describes stepping outside the house to see what he describes as "a military Huey-type helicopter" circling, at the same time that a truck from the Tucson Fuel Co. was pulling into the yard. The Tres Bellotas gets its power from diesel generators, and that fuel has to be delivered.
As he approached the chopper, Ayers says six men in black, commando-type uniforms stepped out. Five had ski-type masks over their faces, and they wore body armor and carried automatic rifles. On their sleeves, Ayers saw the word, Mexico.
They stood in a defensive posture around a sixth man, their leader, who identified himself as a member of the Mexican police. He pointed aggressively to the fuel truck and asked what it was doing there. Ayers, in Spanish, told the man he was in the United States, not Mexico, and that he had no business in this country and needed to leave.
But the commander refused to listen and began walking toward the truck, at which point Ayers placed himself between the commander and the truck, again telling him to scram. After a few minutes, the tense confrontation ended when the commander ordered his troops into the chopper, and they split back across the border.
Ayers suspects that the Mexicans--one of Robinson's cowboys identified them as federales, Mexican federal police--were escorting a drug shipment to Tucson, and wanted to haul it in the fuel truck. Or they wanted to steal the fuel. The chopper had followed the truck much of the way down Tres Bellotas Road.
If someone came to my home like that, I’d have done two things:

I would have called the police and any other organization I could think of. This poor fellow can’t have reliable telephone service because the drug smugglers keep blocking his cell and satellite phone use, so this would not be an option for him.

I would have had my employees cover them with rifles and I would have had at least a pistol in my hand to make it clear that I plan to defend my home and my country. This just doesn’t happen…especially if they do so under the color of authority of another country. As far as I am concerned, those men were invaders of my state and my country. Luckily, the Indiana state Constitution allows me to use force to defend my property and my state.

If I were George Bush I’d have allowed that to happen once.

Once.

Any further incursions of the sort would result in a pile of wreckage that was formerly a helicopter. I would shoot it down without a second thought.

Further, with the idiots that are plotting to kill more citizens of the USA through terrorism, I’d start a ‘shoot to kill’ policy on the border. If you’re trying to enter illegally, you’re hostile to the best interests of the USA. If you’re hostile to the best interests of the USA when trying to enter the country, you’re invading. If you’re invading, you get shot. I wouldn’t be saying this, but the Mexican Foreign Ministry has created a booklet to help illegal aliens get into the USA and not be caught when so doing!

A translated version may be found here: http://www.amren.com/mexguide/mexguide.html

So, the Mexican government has printed documentation that officially assists illegal aliens in coming to our country. That’s the last straw. I don’t mind immigration and I don’t mind Mexicans. What I do mind is that we have a border that’s leaking like a sieve, a neighbor to the south that is actively promoting those leaks, and a President who is doing nothing about it.

Bush – do something about this, or I’ll vote a solid libertarian block from here on out.

(Hat tip: RhymesWithRight)

Bartleby

Finding WMDs

2005-08-15T15:52:00.000-04:00

O.C. said...
In the summer of 2003, construction workers in China accidentally dug into a cache of chemical weapons left behind by the retreating Japanese army in '44 or '45, resulting in fatalities, lawsuits, and much hard feelings between the two countries.

That same summer, construction workers in Berlin accidentally found an underground Nazi-era bunker that had been hidden since 1945, which contained bombs, ammunition, and several intact, armed, and fueled aircraft.

The point is, chemical and biological weapons take up very little space, and unless you know exactly where to start looking, a hidden underground bunker can remain hidden for a very long time. Besides making "Iraqi Backhoe Operator" the most dangerous job description in the world for the next few decades, this also means that it is *way* too early to declare that Iraqi WMDs never existed.

Just ask the French, who are still digging up live and lethal mustard gas shells from World War I.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I do believe that Mr. Original has hit that nail squarely upon the head! We have no idea what's out in the vastness that is Iraq. Considering the fact that we've already found some WMDs, that we've found things that were buried in a hurry, and have people formerly of the administration saying they're out there, I'm putting my money on the fact that they're out there somewhere.

Bartleby

There are no WMDs?

2005-08-15T10:27:00.000-04:00

The media and liberals in general have been complaining about our presence in Iraq, continually saying that Bush lied about the WMDs. In my post immediately preceeding this one, I included several links that showed that there were several instances where WMDs were in fact found and/or used in Iraq since the invasion. We also have standing evidence that Hussein had used WMDs against the Kurdish population of Iraq.

In addition to the WMDs we've found there are also the items we've found underground. We have found between thirty and forty advanced Russian aircraft, an eleven acre underground complex in central Iraq, and massive amounts of heavily radioactive material. The Iraqi army was able to hide things, and hide them well.

Links:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/06/05/iraq.main/
http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/sandplanes.asp#photo01
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31966

So - with all of this evidence that the Iraqi army and Hussein had WMDs and items that were in direct violation of the cease fire, what do the liberals do? They whine and complain that we shouldn't be there. They gripe that we've lost 1,900 people in Iraq. While any loss of life is terrible, I find myself wondering why they are not also lauding the benefits of what our brace solders have accomplished. Why don't they ever sing about the fact that millions of lives were saved? Why don't they ever dance because people are much freer than they were before? Why don't they cheer because small children no longer live under the threat of the secret police?

What we have here is significant evidence of the possession and use of WMDs, but the position of the modern day liberal is that unless we find 10,000 tons of WMDs, Iraq didn't have them. Me? I have a sneaking suspicion that if we were to use the same torture techniques on Saddam that he used on the Iraqi people we'd find out pretty darned quick what happened to all the WMDs. My guess is that they weren't turned over to the UN in a 'no questions asked' program. Despite the vast evidence against their position, liberals continue to insist that the WMDs don't exist.

I wonder what would happen if Hitler were to rise today. Would they only decry his atrocities when he started torturing people they knew? Is it OK for someone to be tortured if they're not American or a terrorist (but it's not OK to torture terrorists or Americans)?

Bartleby

Cindy Sheehan

2005-08-11T08:57:00.000-04:00

Cindy Sheehan is angry with George Bush. Why is she angry with him? Because her son got killed in Iraq.

Let me see if I understand this. Her son voluntarily joined the military knowing he would go to war. He didn't do it knowing he might go to war. He did it knowing he would go to war. Further, when you join the military, you sign up to go where the President says to go. That's part of the gig. Even if you don't like what you have to do, where you have to go, or why you have to fight, you do it.

Casey Sheehan is due honor and respect for doing what many cannot or will not do. He stood tall for America in the most direct way possible. I cannot speak highly enough of our soldiers - my best words fall far short in describing them. This post isn't about him though. It's about his mother and her disgusting opportunistic abuse of his name and sacrifice.

This woman is griping not because her son joined the military, not because her son chose that career, not because her son did what he was supposed to do, and not that he volunteered to do what he did. She's mad...well, because she doesn't like Bush.

I have every sympathy in the world for her as a parent. I would be devastated if I were to lose one of my children. What I would not do is try and attach blame as she has done. The person at fault is some jerk in Iraq that hit him with an RPG as he tried to help this idiot's country out of a cesspit corrupt dictatorship.

From what I've read of this genius, she has the following complaints and/or topics of discussion:

We didn't have enough international support for a war.
There were no WMDs - any talk of them was a lie.
"I want to ask the President, why did he kill my son?"
She wants to ask the President what noble cause her son died for.
She wants to ask the President why his daughters aren't there.

I am not George Bush, but will respond to these comments nonetheless. Since she has chosen to politicize and otherwise make public her complaints and anger, I will choose to answer her comments publicly.

We don't need international support for a war. We are an independent country and we do as we please. This includes the invasion of a country that we find to be threatening. This balderdash about getting 'consensus' is of recent origin and doesn't hold water with me. We don't need to ask permission to do these things, but even if we did, permission was explicit in the CEASE FIRE that said if Saddam did certain things the cease fire would end. Well, he REPEATEDLY violated the terms of the cease fire, and now he's learned what happens when someone does that to us. In addition to that, the reason we didn't have your vaunted 'international support' is because the countries that refused to support us in our endeavors WERE ILLEGALLY SELLING ARMS TO IRAQ DURING THE EMBARGO!
There are and were WMDs. Here are some links for you: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120268,00.html ...and... http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1120720,00.html ...and... http://www.blogsforbush.com/mt/archives/001134.html http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1449176/posts ...and that leads me to ask how many WMDs will be enough before you admit they're actually there?
You want to ask the President, "Why did he kill your son?" I want to ask you why you think that the millions of people that would have been murdered by Saddam Hussein and his compadres aren't worth saving. I want to know why you think your son didn't sign up for this war when he knew perfectly well he was going to Iraq when he RE-ENLISTED AFTER FINDING OUT HIS UNIT WAS GOING TO IRAQ!
You want to ask what Noble Cause your son died for? I can think of several. To protect freedom. To protect the lives of innocent people. To further the rights of women. To help expand religious freedom in a repressive country. To help establish a representative democracy in Iraq. To protect us from possible WMDs in Iraq.
Why aren't George Bush's daughters there? Because they didn't volunteer for it. Your son did.

I have some questions for you now:

Why do you think the people of Iraq are any less valuable than our American soldiers? They lived under tyranny and oppression for years, and only our intervention has removed it.
Your son volunteered for his duty. George Bush did not force him to join - he did that on his own. Why can't you accept that?
Clearly your son felt that his job was honorable and noble and that the war was a worthy action. Why can't you accept his decision to go to war?
If you think Bush is so bad, why don't YOU run for President? You want him to back up his claims by sending his daughters in to harms way. It's equally reasonable for you to put yourself up to show what a fantastic job you can do!
Why didn't you complain about your son joining the military when all you saw were direct benefits to his doing so?
How many people have to be saved by our military before it will be considered 'worth it' by you? Several million aren't enough, so it must be a very large number.

Am I being callous? You're damned right. I'm absolutely disgusted and appalled at this woman using her child's death for political gain. She's parading him down the middle of the street in an effort to push forth a political agendum. She's polluting her son's noble sacrifice by playing stupid games with it.

Bartleby

Abortion

2005-08-05T09:27:00.000-04:00

Many libertarians believe that abortion should either be left to the states or should be an issue of personal choice. I fail to see this viewpoint as being consistent with rational thought and freedom.

Before I continue, let's define what abortion is: abortion is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy by means other than delivery of the baby.

The following is probably the best description of an abortion (from dictionary.com):

Main Entry: abor·tionPronunciation:
&-'bor-sh&nFunction: noun1 : the termination of a pregnancy after,
accompanied by, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus;
especially : the medical procedure of inducing expulsion of a human fetus to
terminate a pregnancy

Source: Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, © 1996
Merriam-Webster, Inc.

Another definition that is quite interesting:

a·bor·tion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (-bôrshn)n. Termination of
pregnancy and expulsion of an embryo or of a fetus that is incapable of survival

Source: The American Heritage®
Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

Following that logic, does that mean that if the fetus or embryo is otherwise capable of survival, then it's murder? Of course, I think that abortion is always murder, except in the case where it will kill the mother to let it gestate to viability, in which case I cannot call it murder because it is a choice of who will die rather than a choice between inconvenience and the death of a baby.

Yes, this means that I am against abortion in cases of incest, rape, and deformation that would not lead to the death of the baby. In cases of incest and rape, the last time I checked, the child is not at fault, so why do they get the death sentence? If the sight of the child causes you unhappiness, put him/her up for adoption, as I am sure there are a lot of parents out there who would be glad to adopt her/him. In the case of deformity, I'll use a personal example to illustrate why I think it's bad. My nephew Michael was among the most horribly deformed children I have ever seen. He had spinabifida, underdeveloped lungs, underdeveloped digestive tract, hydrocephalism, epilepsy, significant paralysis, brain damage, and every time he had a seizure his memory was erased. He lived for almost three years like that. Had he not been fighting, and fighting hard he would have died long before. He could easily have given up at any time, but despite his difficulties, he fought to live. The chance to fight should be given to every person. If the fight is beyond them, they'll go soon. If it's not, then they'll stay alive as long as they can. My nephew only died because someone else screwed up badly and he didn't get appropriate care that could not give himself.

Anyway, back to abortion - it's wrong. It's the deliberate taking of the life of not just a human being, but a baby. The person due the least blame in the entire world is being murdered out of a sense of convenience!

What's worse than this though is partial birth abortion! What kind of psycho can possibly think this horrible travesty is a human right? They take the baby, perform a deliberate breech birth that stops at the head, and then jam seven inch scissors into the skull of this baby, holding its legs so it doesn't kick. If you say this isn't murder I'd like to know what world you live in!

Abortion is murder.

Bartleby

Union Workers

2005-08-02T16:36:00.000-04:00

I recently read a gripe by a teacher who said he works long hours, has to constantly maintain certification, meet obligations that are secondary to his primary work (coach sports teams and the like), work many 12 hour days, and otherwise spoke of many other problems that are attendant to being a teacher.

I understand that being a teacher is a hard, thankless job, that is really tough and doesn't pay as well as many would like. I also think they have a seriously over-idealized perspective of what life is like outside of teaching. I'm going to describe what the rest of the world has to do.

I work in the field of advanced technical support, as does my wife. I work eight hours a day on most days. Sometimes though, I work 48 hours at a stretch. I work with people who are incredibly tense. Our metrics have our clients losing an average of a million dollars for every eight minutes they're fully down, and they're on the phone with me when that's happening. I regularly take phone calls at 3:00am on weekends. On Thanksgiving, I'm taking calls from clients. Christmas? That's for clients too. I may have to fly off at a moment's notice to get to a client site and help calm things down. I truly hope you don't think my kids understand why daddy is working so often. They don't. Let's talk about my wife. She's 37. She had her first heart attack this year. They're very common in our industry. Did you know that?

Let's talk about construction workers. They work on the hottest days of the year, sweating and sunburned, to pay their bills. In many states they can't work during the winter, it's too cold; so they work insane hours during the nine months of the year that it's safe to do so and hope they can make the money stretch.

How about cab drivers? They work in constant fear that some psycho is going to put a gun to their head and rob them for the few dollars they manage to squeeze out of their cab per day. From what I understand, most of them work 12 hours a day and fight for every penny they make.

Let's talk about lawyers. They're famous for working 100 hour weeks. In many states, the pay for being a lawyer is so bad, they are driving cabs! You can read above about what a great job that is! In Indianapolis, a public defender starts at around $30K/year. That's the wage for someone with a JD (that's Juris Doctorate for the non-lawyer types out there)...good wage, isn't it?

Let's see what else we have here. How about title officers? They work long hours and have long weeks and they make little. Their jobs are highly specialized with lots of risk and stress, with little pay.

Amazingly, not a single job mentioned above has tenure or a union defending them from ever being let go or laid off.

I'm not saying being a teacher is easy...God knows it isn't...but don't tell me it's the hardest or worst job in the world. It's not. The pay could be better and the management of it could improve greatly, but it's a good job with tenure, a union, longevity, and respectability. So don't scream and whine like you've been robbed of life. If you don't like it, try delivering pizza or driving a cab for a living and having a gun held to the back of your head while you're made to beg for your life.

Until then, try and realize it isn't the worst job in the world.

Bartleby

P.S. Oh yeah, did I mention that I also have to take Tums in quantities roughly equal to my intake of oxygen.

Generalizations

2005-07-28T08:42:00.000-04:00

What is it that causes people to think that you cannot make decisions about large groups and then make individual decisions about individuals within the group? In the middle of a discussion with someone today, I made a generalization about a group of people. I was reprimanded for doing it with the usual claptrap about how generalizations are terrible and blah de blah de blah.

You have to make generalities in life. When walking on a beach, you cannot check each grain of sand to make sure it won't hurt your feet. You remember that most sand in the past has not hurt your feet and that it is unlikely that this sand will hurt your feet, and you walk across it. Similarly, if you see a large group of nicely dressed people speaking quitely about a merger or IPO, you can assume they're businesspeople. You might be wrong - maybe they're all machinists fresh from the funeral of a friend that happened to leave them some money that they plan to invest.

No harm is done either way, and when presented with alternate evidence, the rational person will change their views to match the evidence they are presented with. If after hearing these people speak of the IPO and merger, the listener then hears them talk about having to go back to work on the metal lathe, drill press, and bar folder, he would then revise his beliefs to include some sort of metal fabrication industry for their employment.

So - please world - quit griping about generalities. They work just fine, and unless misused or abused, they are quite effective in helping us go about our lives.

Bartleby

Supreme Court Justices

2005-07-20T10:08:00.000-04:00

I've been watching the liberals scurry left and right with the pending appointment of a new Supreme Court Justice and the prior judicial appointments. They seem to be operating under the impression that they should have final say on who is appointed to the bench.

I have a message for you liberals out there: a particular party holding a majority in the house and senate and holding the presidency indicates that said party has a solid mandate from the people of this nation. That means that they are not beholden to you as to who they appoint to the bench.

Get it straight - Republican house + Republican senate + Republican president = Republican Judicial nominees. Don't cry about it. You got to appoint your loose constructionists (Ginsberg), and we get to appoint our strict constructionists (Thomas - who by the way, is the greatest genius on the court today).

Something you should take from this loss of political clout - there is a reason why people are moving away from your party. You're soft on defense, you're for murdering babies, you lie in our faces on a regular basis, you tax everyone to oblivion, you want to legislate everything from what words can be said to what can be done in the office, you try and control the media with bias and legislation, and you freely associate with evil people.

Suggestions:

Quit selling secrets to the Chinese government
Quit crying about the war - terrorism is real and it can hurt us if we don't stop it
Quit acting like the courts are your playground where you can change law (or worse, the Constitution)
Quit trying to tell us what we can and cannot say
Quit trying to ban guns - it is ineffective in crime prevention and is a violation of our rights
Quit acting like you can take our property away without our permission (i.e. Kelo decision)

Bartleby

Guns

2005-07-18T15:45:00.000-04:00

I've started saving for my MAC-10 submachine gun and have gotten a lot of complaints from some people I know who found out about it. Their complaints are:

You don't need a machine gun!
That should be illegal!
The Constitution doesn't say you can have that!
You're going to kill someone with that and go to jail!
All people who want guns like that are criminals!

What is it with Democrats (and in some cases, Republicans) anyway? Any time they don't like something, it equates to others not being allowed to have or do it. That includes weapons, ideas, speech, behaviors, and many other things.

Something that apparently needs to be spelled out to the people of the world:

You are not owed a life free of insult or offense! If I want to be a rude cretin, I'm perfectly allowed to be one! That includes a desire to be a small minded bigot, a sexist, a religious zealot, an anti-religious zealot, a person who hates particular religions, a person who hates particular races, or a person who hates just you! I can do any of those things and can spew my hatred and spite as much as I like, so long as I do not push you, hit you, impinge on your property rights, or otherwise invade on your existing rights in some way (among which is NOT a right to be free from offense).

So please liberals - grow up - accept that life is not perfect. Accept that some people will be jerks. Accept that some people simply do not desire to work with others. Accept that you cannot legislate courtesy (God knows liberals don't use any!).

Bartleby

Ward Churchill

2005-06-28T13:52:00.000-04:00

Pirate Ballerina has reported on Ward Churchill making new ridiculous and outrageous remarks. This time around he has exceeded his former glory by having sympathy if not good feelings toward a person who opposes the war but rather engages in mutinous murder by rolling a hand grenade under their line officer.

While I don't think he is typical among liberals, I notice that few if any liberals are denouncing him as a cancer on society. His words are evil, and his only intent appears to be to stir violence and hatred between the varied segments of society. This behavior is typical among liberals.

Liberals regularly identify not with the similarities they see in their fellow man, but in the differences. Ward Churchill seems to think that people who disagree with him are evil. Some may point out that I call Churchill's words evil, but I am not making blanket statements about faceless masses; I am speaking of a specific man who says specific things. I equate him with the people support the murder of abortion doctors; they both support evil in the name of what they believe to be good.

Calling this cretin evil will turn maybe a head or two, but people will go on, content with their lives. In our sick and jaded society, it takes more than suggestions to commit murder to get people out of their chairs...and if someday, Churchill is found at the center of a Helter Skelter situation, he'll be changed into some psycho that never received any support from the left, despite the fact that he remained employed and was frequently hired for speaking engagements by people on the left.

Bartleby

Modern "Man"

2005-06-28T10:51:00.000-04:00

In modern society, with our obsession toward equal rights, a group that has in recent years been viewed as the 'oppressor' has in fact been significantly marginalized. That group is of course, men.

At what point did it become a woman's job to define masculinity? A man who tried to define what is and is not feminine would be drawn and quartered! Why are women who commit this offense not subjected to the same scrutiny and rage as men who do the same thing?

Wages...if one wishes to compare salaries for women as a whole versus salaries for men as a whole, you'll see differences based on what jobs women choose. A significant percentage of women choose jobs in fields that simply tend to pay less. Additionally, many of the high paying jobs in the world are sales jobs, and while this may result from socialization, the woman to man ratio in sales organizations tends to be low. Furthermore, women who make the same sacrifices as men generally make about the same amount of money as men. Rather than a difference of twenty-five cents on the dollar, it's closer to four cents on the dollar, and though it's terrible that there is any difference, it's significantly less when the same sacrifice is made. Isn't that what a wage is? I exercise my skill and sacrifice my time and freedom and in return am given money, right? What successful men sacrifice is simple: they sacrifice weekends with their family, spend many late nights at work, work while ill, work through vacations, take crappy jobs that involve distasteful, dangerous, or difficult physical labor, and otherwise sacrifice anything for the almighty buck. When women are confronted with this option for 'equality', they grow angry and want to have the same money without the same sacrifices.

That brings us to the truth of what the feminists call 'equality.'

A goodly number of women and self professed feminists do not want equality. They want preference. They want men to hold the door for women, to give them ladies first access, and want the same jobs, at the same pay, with less sacrifice for it. They want to be rude to men, but want courtesy in return. They want to be allowed to slap or hit men when frustrated with them, but a similarly violent response to her slap is reprehensible, because it's against a female. Somehow violence against men isn't as bad as violence against women.

Do you notice a bit of a self-serving dichotomy? I do.

I believe in equality, but there is no room for this kind of manure in the realm of equality. Equality means that there is equal opportunity for equal effort. It means that there is equal treatment in response to equal criteria.

Bartleby

The Second Amendment

2005-06-25T22:46:00.000-04:00

There is a tendency among Democrats and liberals to try and do intellectual gymnastics to make the Second Amendment into something it isn't. They try and make it into some sort of 'collective' right. They try and make it into something that is reserved for the states. They try and make it into the National Guard. In rare cases, they try and make it that it somehow reflects the Army.

Rarely do they address the provable fact that this is in fact an individual right that belongs to every American and that it gives them the right not just to sporting or hunting arms, but to military grade and militarily usable firearms. I am speaking specifically of firearms that are designed with the specific intent of killing human beings.

The last time the Supreme Court weighed in on the Second Amendment, they ruled that a sawed off shotgun could be banned because it had no conceivable military value (this was pre-Vietnam - a sawed off shotgun has immense military value in a jungle). Note that they did not rule that it could be banned because it didn't have sporting value - quite the opposite; it was military value that was the determining factor as to whether or not the item could be banned, and if it had military value, it couldn't be.

Let's explore this a bit more.

In the United States of America, there is no such thing as a collective right. Our country's name is not abbreviated with CCCP...we are not a collectivist unit. We are a country of individuals, and our Constitution grants specific and individual rights to individual people. The Second Amendment is no more a collective right than is the Fourth Amendment or the First Amendment. That is to say, not at all. Each person individually holds each right ennumerated by our Constitution.

The states don't have rights. The feds don't have rights. They have powers and they have responsibilities. Within the scope of the Constitution, only people have rights. This is consistent throughout the entire document and requires no intellectual contortions to see. Examine the document and you will find a regular and applied use of the word 'rights' with respect to people only.

The Second Amendment does not apply to the National Guard, Army, or any other governmental agency except as a preventative device to stop interference from said agencies. As stated above, no branch of the government has rights within the Constitution. Only the people do. When they choose to relinquish that right through Constitutional means, it is even then only a power or responsibility of the government...never a right.

So...if you hate the Second Amendment, don't try and make it into something it isn't. Be a man...be an adult...and say you want to change it.

Bartleby

Government Property

2005-06-24T14:20:00.000-04:00

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the only ownership American Citizens have over private property is at the sufferance of the government, and should the government decide they have a better use for it, it can be taken away with the only recompense being payment at what they consider to be current market value.

Of course, this has always been true...taxation shows their arrogance and destructive position against private property, but it's never been so directly stated. There are other problems with this though...

What if this property is in the path of development? The value could be much higher in a few short months or years, and yet there is no recompense for that. What if the property has sentimental value? There is no recompense for that either.

Instead, the government has determined for itself that it has the right to determine that you should not own something any longer because they can make that same thing more valuable. What if this were determined to apply to other property? Maybe the government gemcutters could make cuts to enhance the quality of your diamond. Maybe they could more efficiently pump the oil off your property...so they pay you for the value of it with your current pumping capacity, despite the fact that you were in negotiations to add better pumps with deeper capacities.

At what point do we cease to be slaves and become self ruling citizens? According to the current Supreme Court, that'll only happen if we step up and make it happen. Ladies and Gentlemen, I suggest that any and all people who read this stand up and raise Cain with your representatives over this ruling and make absolutely sure that this is changed. If it requires a Constitutional amendment, so be it.

Bartleby