No, didn’t think so.

My worry is that people see this and call upon the government to legislate “bad foods” away when doing that is just another form of the laziness people show when buying the food in the first place.  As Christopher Kimball wrote, “We could, through different purchasing decisions, change the food industry overnight.”  However, by also saying, “But are we up to the task of saving ourselves? I doubt it,” he’s saying that people can’t make their own “correct” decisions, so they’ll have to have their decisions made for them.  Scary.

Personally, I don’t like the Daily Kos.  The blog is too left-wing fringe for me to take it seriously.  Their agenda in this post that LGF is commenting on is not something I agree with at all.  I think Israel is the only sane power in the region, and to not help them is to seriously hurt ourselves.  So when dKos talks about:

“But to me the biggest issue now is pressing for an open discussion on the State of Israel, and how the Israel lobby influences our elected representatives.”

I’m thinking he’s a complete moron.

*So you’re agreeing with LGF?*

Yes and no.

While LGF is against dKos on this policy, I’m with them.  However, saying dKos is antisemitic because he thinks Israeli politics have too much influence on our government isn’t really correct.  While dKos may be antisemitic, anti-jew and/or anti-Israel, he’s only commenting on policy.  I’m sure his opinion is heavily influenced by the disgusting misreporting from all over the Middle East, but he’s talking about policy, and just because it’s against Israel doesn’t mean he’s antisemitic.

Semitic is all arabs, anyway, and dKos seems to be pro-palestinian, so it’s incorrect.

I know, picky picky.  I’m just saying, accusing someone of antisemetism when it’s not technically true (a conservative ploy) is just as bad as accusing someone of racism when it’s not necessarily true (a liberal ploy).

That’s just the way I see it.

Big Whoop.

Little Green Footballs goes apeshit over it, calling it: “the dead end of the “progressive” ideology—young people with no sense
of history, no pride in their own heritage, and no moral center”.

Well, no, not really.  They’re doing the college thing, wearing berets like Che, acting out, simple stuff.  Remember, this is for their own meetings, not for the school or campus or anything big.  A sense of history doesn’t come from a much-modified Pledge of Allegiance to a flag.  Pride in your heritage doesn’t come from a much-modified Pledge of Allegiance to a flag.  Moral center doesn’t come from a much-modified Pledge of Allegiance to a flag.  No matter the flag, no matter the pledge, it won’t instill history, pride in yoru heritage or moral center.

One of the kids even speaks truth about the pledge:

“That (’under God’) part is sort of offensive to me,” student trustee
Jason Bell, who proposed the ban, told Reuters. “I am an atheist and a
socialist, and if you know your history, you know that ‘under God’ was
inserted during the McCarthy era and was directly designed to destroy
my ideology.”

Guess what, he’s right.  “The last change in the Pledge of Allegiance

Further:

Bell said the ban largely came about because the trustees didn’t want
to publicly vow loyalty to the American government before their
meetings. “Loyalty ought to be something the government earns through
performance, not through reciting a pledge,” he said.

How dare he insist that government should earn trust.  He’s a socialist, the government is always right to a socialist.

As for me, I think his words are correct.  In our society, a capitalistic republican democracy with a limited government constitution, the government DOES have to earn the trust of the people.  Every day, in word and deed.  It hasn’t been doing so well lately (and the democrats are going to make it worse, just as the republicans would’ve if they’d been kept in office).

So, the kid ain’t so bad.  LGF, however… a bit nutroots on that one.

Another cause of crime is clearly the breakdown of the family, the absence of fathers, and an increased toleration for the abandonment of mothers and children while men move on in search of more fulfilling sexual relationships. The almost total breakdown of the traditional family is a dominant feature, perhaps the most dominant feature, of high-crime, “underclass” areas in the West.

When a family breaks up, it’s a sad thing, but the stats of fathers leaving the family may show something that isn’t obvious.

Why does the father leave?  Mr. Humphrys says it’s because “men move on in search of more fulfilling sexual relationships.”  I have to disagree.

I say that the fathers leave because they are expected to leave.  That’s what men have to do when the home life isn’t bearable.  Women and children stay in the environment that was created for their security and comfort, while men are expected to move on, to have the resilience to recreate their life outside this comfort and security.  Men are expected to be wanderers and are expected to be strong enough to survive without social life support until they can create a new home for themselves and another mate.

So we blame men for leaving when it’s actually what we expect of them.  While the movie “The War Of The Roses” is a comedic farce, the reason the story works is because the situation is just wrong: a man and a woman, having lost whatever bond they tried to create, cannot stay in the same place.

But let’s not overlook a possible root cause of the breakdown of the union.  A societal issue that seems to be coming more and more to the fore: men can’t trust women.

Ooooh, sounds mysoginistic, doesn’t it?  Of course if I said, “women can’t trust men”, everyone would take that as fact.  Of course they can’t, men are lying cheats and evil.  Nope, sorry.

It is my contention that that too many women don’t know how to be comfortable in a relationship.  With all the TV shows telling them how to act, all the magazines telling them how not to act, and all the music telling them what they are, they’ve simply lost any real base; they don’t know what to be.  Further, they don’t know how to treat men because of all the conflicting information shoved into their heads.

This confusion leads to a very poor home life for any man, often from the dissatisfaction of the woman.  If you can’t please her, and she can’t please herself, it’s constant strife.  Most men want nothing more than to make their woman happy; a happy woman is a happy home, and a happy home has less stress.  A happy home is an oasis from the soothsayers and naysayers who prognosticate from “on high” somewhere.

Also, a man has to be able to trust his woman.  She can’t be a blabbermouth or his community standing is diminished, along with hers for being a gossip.  Please, women of the world, you have to be smarter, more emotionally secure, or the happiness we all are looking for is never going to grow.

On a side note, love usually doesn’t last… well, not the love that you feel when you two first meet.  The giddy euphoria of new love will fade, but it needs to be replaced by something else.  That something else has to be mutual respect and trust in one another.  Without new love growing into lasting love, there’s nothing but a void. [Men, of course, need to earn the trust and respect of their woman, too.]

To conclude, the breakdown of the family has many causes, but some instances — more and more, it seems — are caused by unsatisfied women.  If a man can’t trust his woman, then he doesn’t have a woman at all.

(Taken from the Glenn and Helen Show, November 5, 2006, podcast)

Yes, your vote affects the world.  The entire planet.  How BILLIONS of people will live.  People who have no voice here are deeply and personally affected by your political choices.

It was off and on rain in central Florida today.  Overcast, warm (of course), and not at all pleasant.  As soon as I opened the door to go to vote, I thought to myself, “People aren’t going to vote because they’ll complain about the rain, how bothersome it is to go through some sprinkles to do this chore, and they’ll opt out.”

I’d say most of the people I know don’t vote.  It’s sad, really.  I’m the responsible one in my group of associates, both real and digital, and that kinda frightens me.  Hell, I cuss and rant and say super rude things online, how did I get to be the smart one?  This is bullshit!

All “big fish in a small mental pond” thoughts aside, I’ve debated about going to vote or not.  I dislike most of the candidates, and finding info on the other candidates besides democrats and republicans isn’t exactly one-click easy.  However, I always try to get out when an election is set.  I consider it a duty, a civic obligation, a trust placed in me by men of wisdom and foresight whom I’ll never meet but proudly call my founding fathers.  In other words, it’s important.  Shirking this duty leaves me feeling bad about myself.  Sometimes I wondered, “Why bother?”

Those Irish journalists succinctly put that question to rest.  Why bother?  Because what I think does affect the world.  My political actions help to decide the fate of men.

Voting as a citizen of the United States of America is not just a chore that has to be done every once in a while, it’s a responsibility to the billions of people on this planet.

It’s important.

No, it’s THUNDEROUSLY IMPORTANT.

If you skipped out on voting today, you should feel shame.  You’ve literally let down your fellow man… every single one of them.

They are lying to you.

The money is always there, but you don’t have to take it.  Blaming money for how politicians act during campaigns is like blaming testosterone for rape: “Gee, your honor, if I didn’t have all this testosterone running through me, I wouldn’t have a need to rape someone!”  No, you don’t rape someone because it’s wrong to violate someone else, to aggress against them for your own satisfaction.

Slimeballs act poorly, and I don’t know a single major political candidate who doesn’t act poorly.  Make these bastards exercise a little personal control.

In Florida, go here: Candidate Tracking System.  Then choose:

Election Year: 2006 General Election
Office: All
Status: Qualified
County: [pick your county]
Candidate Last Name: [leave blank]
Then click the “Submit Query” button.

There you’ll find a list of candidates suited to your area.

Not sure which district you’re in?  Go here: District Map.  Don’t let it fool you, it says it’s for the Senate, but if you use the search box on the bottom left that says “Find Your Legislators” and put in your Zip+4 Code, you’ll get all the district numbers you need.

Do a little research.  I know, it’s late in the game to give this info, but better late than never, right?

For the candidates that came up that I knew nothing about, I simply copied the name and put it into Google, tacking on an “FL” at the end, maybe putting the full name in quotes.  Usually the pertinent info will come up.  The more unique the name, the easier it is to find.

So I find the candidate’s website, check out the position points (which are usually on the home page) and see if they match with my point of view (or as close to it as possible).  None of the major party candidates satisfy my point of view of how our government should be run, so I search for a candidate that has a Libertarian bent (less taxes, fewer services, less government in general), but I have to weed out the whackos with agendas to “get people” or who think in utopian terms.  I’m looking for someone with a mature attitude, a solid philosophy of how to make decisions if elected and facing legislation, and no alarmist talk (i.e. vote for me or the other people will fuck us all up).

Okay, so this morphed from campaign finance reform into how to find the people running in the election and who I look for to vote.  Hey, it’s a blog, it’s my opinion, and if you didn’t want me to blog all over your lap then you wouldn’t have stayed to read this.

Sorry about the mess.  I’ll get the dry cleaning bill.

“Earlier this month the Prime Minister Tony Blair said that he wanted to see the details of as many people as possible stored on the database, insisting those who had not done anything wrong had nothing to fear.”

Creepy.

Any politician who utters those words (or words similar in meaning) should be taken out behind the shed and put down like Old Yeller.  It is a sign that this man has been in politics for too long and feels the state is the only righteous power and should control all aspects of its population.

England’s already a statist nation with all the surveilance cameras and fingerprint IDing for drinking at the pub, so maybe there’s no hope there.  However, people who believe in personal liberty should be mindful of these words.  The state is not your mommy and/or your daddy.  Here in the U.S., the governement needs to stay “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”  The citizen is the master, the government is the slave, and that’s the way it better stay.

Last December 4 [2005], Kerry told Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation: “And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women…”

Kerry’s not talking shit about soldiers, he’s talking shit about policy.  This is like me saying “no-knock searches are unconstitutional, and U.S. citizens should not be terrorized by police officers in the dead of night” and then people saying I’m shitting on the cops.  No, I’m shitting on the policy that the cops are enforcing.

While running for president, Kerry put forth the self-contradictory proposition that Bush unilaterally took America into Iraq to lead a multilateral Coalition of hapless fighters.

Kerry trying to show the poor bastards of other countries that have to fight along side us in Iraq have been hoodwinked.  Nothing about American soldiers.

On September 6, 2004, Kerry trivialized the international boots on the ground that march right beside ours. He called this “the phoniest thing I’ve ever heard.” At that time, 124 foreign soldiers had been killed in non-phony combat in Iraq.

In terms of men on the ground in Iraq, coalition parters have given a “trivial” amount of help.  While the life of each man is not trivial, going by the non-personal numbers only can lead anyone to say such a thing.  But again, nothing against American soldiers.

In September 2003, Kerry said, “This President’s pride has brought us a coalition of the few, barely willing to do anything at all: 160 Mongolians, 43 Estonians, and 83 Filipinos isn’t a coalition; it’s a cover-up.”

Still nothing about American soldiers.  Compared to something like 155,000 American troops, yeah, that’s a very small amount, not a big help to us.  The problem comes from interpretation of the numbers.  Each number is a life, and sometimes that’s hard to understand.  The callous way these numbers are talked about is the tragedy, but the anchorpeople on the nightly news do it every single night.

On March 13, 2003, Kerry described the then-46 nations supporting America’s liberation of Iraq as “a coalition of the coerced and the bribed.”

He’s describing nations, not our soldiers.  What the fuck?  Talk about reaching, Deroy.

The rest is about Vietnam…

“We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of Orientals.”

That’s what combat is about.  If you think the people pointing guns at you across the way are human, you might not shoot.  Best to dehumanize, feel the pain later.  Here Kerry is talking about “America,” not necessarily “American Soldiers”, but even if it was just about American soldiers, dehumanizing the enemy is part of war.

Kerry decried what he called “war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command….”

Did war crimes occur on a daily basis?  I believe that’s been shown to be true, and Deroy admits atrocities happened:

“Despite limited American atrocities in Vietnam [...]“

So Kerry really isn’t shitting on the troops in this one, is he?  He’s talking about officers turning a blind eye to war crimes (something we try to avoid, but I personally don’t see how to not commit “war crimes” in a time of war).

Kerry embraced the pronouncements of Vietnam War veterans at the so-called Winter Soldier Investigation in Detroit that he helped organize earlier that year. As Kerry put it: 

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

Again, talking about war crimes, not all the American troops as stupid, dumb or idiots.

So these examples showing how bad John Kerry is to our troops are a bunch of bullshit.

I think this whole situation is disgusting, that Kerry’s remarks were taken out of context, and it’s a big deal for nothing.  This does not mean that I support John Kerry for President or any other elected office.  I don’t think he’d help America simply because he has no founding philosophy upon which to base decisions.  He just decides by the seat of his pants, as most politicians do, and hope the bread and circuses keep the masses amused.

I’ll tell you “what the fuck.”

International Aid is “what the fuck.”

The U.S. took Internation Aid after hurricane Katrina, and I’m just now remembering it.  Seriously.  We got money from other countries for Hurricane Katrina.  Where did it go?  Beats me; probably into someone’s pocket.  However, it’s the galling fact that we took the aid which eats me up.

A list of countries that helped can be found at intlcenter.tamu.edu.

Now, you can see that (the) Maldives — yes, (the) MALDIVES — gave us $25,000 dollars.  Fuck me in a cross-wind.  C’mon, that’s like your neice coming up to you and saying, “I know you’re having a tough time, even though you’re the riches’ person I know, so here’s part of my allowance.  I hope it helps you.  Love ya, Unka Sam!”

Something like that would leave you shamed, feeling like a pile of steaming social dogshit.  You would consider yourself useless, and others who knew about it would look down on you for it.  Rightly so.

It’s infuriating and embarrassing that the United States, the richest country on the whole friggin’ planet, took some other country’s allowance money.

The fact that we took ANY money is unacceptable, but to take $25,000 from (the) Maldives… Fuck.  Just hang your head in shame.