Ron Paul Update

Ron Paul made an appearance on Bill Maher's dreadful program the other night. He may be the only human being to the right of Mao Tse Tung to be treated with respect and dignity by the unctuous and unlikeable Mr. Maher.

They spoke on a number of topics related to the bailouts and stimulus and whatnot. Nothing really stood out -- except that everything stood out. This wasn't a politician pandering to his core constituency. My guess is that the core constituency of the Maher show mostly wears Che T-shirts and votes Green Party.

No, this was a man of principle, speaking from principle, never deviating from his principles. Watch the video or read the transcript, and see what principle looks like. You certainly won't see it following the garden variety politician around.

Wiener of the Week

This was one of those weeks when WotW candidates were legion. But, in terms of raw, utterly gratifying, couldn't-happen-to-a-better-bunch-of-a**holes schadenfreude, there was ultimately only one Wiener.

New York Times Stock Now Costs Less Than Sunday Paper

Shares of NYT (NYT) dropped 29 cents today to close at $3.77. The Sunday paper goes for $4 at the newsstand.

Maybe they could save costs by printing the paper on their stock certificates.

Pardon me while I ROFLMAO.

Could there possibly be anyone more deserving of a financial beatdown than the anti-capitalist, anti-free market, anti-American New York Times?

NYT - you're the Wiener of the Week!

Vulture Droppings - Amateur Hour

Vulture Droppings is a semi-regular feature of this blog. It's a kind of "Random Thoughts" post in which I try to quickly summarize a particularly large event or series of events. Think of it being sort of like what a vulture leaves behind after devouring a horse. You don't get the whole horse, just highly processed leftovers.

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You may have noticed that Vulture Droppings has been more "semi" than "regular" lately. Mainly that's because there has been a dearth of the kind of seminal events that occasioned the creation of the feature in the first place -- things like political conventions, the 2008 election campaigns, etc. Hopefully, I'll be able to go to the 'droppings' well a little more often in the future. It is one of my favorite features.

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President Obama - "King Obama, the Media's Anointed One" is too large a moniker for regular use - has now been president for one month. It's been a scream. I speculated in the days after the election as to what kind of president Obama would be. I broke it down into four archetypes, each personified by a past president: Carter, Clinton, FDR, and Woodrow Wilson. Silly me! I left out Gerald Ford! If Mr. Obama's first month on the job is any indication, his destiny seems more Ford than any of the other four.

The ruthlessness I saw during the election cycle (Wilson) seems a thing of the past. The imperiousness and openly Socialist Obama of the campaign (FDR) also seem to be missing. The rush to do great things at the risk of overstepping (Clinton) has been there, but mostly via passive-aggressive hints and stealth riders in the phony Stimulus bill. And the pious holier-than-thou attitude and hubris (Carter) have been beaten down by Harry Reed and Nancy Pelosi, who seem to be poised to make Obama their bitch.

But Gerald Ford...ah, there's a match. So far the Anointed One has tried to exit a press conference through a window he thought was a door. He has banged his head getting into Marine One (Air Force One is the President's airplane, Marine One is his helicopter). I'm waiting for him to fall tuckus over teakettle down the stairs next, only to rise from the floor and proclaim, "Live from New York! It's Saturday Night!"

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President Obama's first month has been enlightening. As I mentioned earlier, it appears that Senate Majority Leader (and planet's biggest flaming a-hole) Harry Reed and House Majority Leader (and single most imperious, hypocritical, and corrupt politician outside of Hugo Chavez) Nancy Pelosi have set out to make Obama their bitch. The two of them wrested control of the Stimulus bill from the President and made it apparent through their actions that he needed to sit down, shut up, and let the REAL politicians handle this.

Obama needs to put those two in their place -- and soon -- if he wants to have any chance at all at a successful presidency. It will be a long 4 years if he doesn't.

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I am truly thankful that Obama has shown little of the Wilson-like ruthlessness I saw in him shortly after the election. That said, he and his Team Donkey cohorts seem bound and determined to ram a raft of socialist BS down our throats, recession/depression be damned!

There is also the little matter of the Fairness Doctrine. The Dems and the President seem to be taking baby steps -- mostly through veiled statements, hints, and posturing -- towards reimplementing this patently anti-First Amendment POS in order to shut out opposition voices. Will it happen? Sure! These people are not just ruthless, they're megalomaniacal. But -- and it's a big "but" -- I'm convinced that it won't survive a Court challenge...at least for now. If Obama can be patient and wait for one of the more conservative Justices to retire.........who knows? It's not like the Courts actually enforce the Constitution as written any more.

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Political pundits make it a game to "grade" a President. "His grade for the first [n] days is...". I'm not going to go there...at least not in the traditional sense. I don't grade a President for "effectiveness", as Big Media (the BM for short) would. I grade a President on how his policies and leadership affect the lives and liberties of the American people.

For his first month in office, I give The Anointed One a D. His grade reflects the following negatives.

1. The feelers he's put out about the Fairness Doctrine
2. His (hijacked by Reed/Pelosi) phony Stimulus bill.
3. The new "Health Effectiveness Czar" position created in the Stimulus bill; it's the 'camel's nose' into the tent of socialized medicine.
4. His pre-selection of which White House reporters will be allowed to ask questions at press conferences.

He didn't get an F. Why? Because, as of the moment, he hasn't imposed any new enslaving burdens on the American people. It's something to hang your hat on, I suppose. He's ahead of King George the Dim, who gets an 8-year grade of F.

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Look for His Holiness to be more aggressive in the next month or so, as the "Amateur Hour" effect starts to dissipate. Who knows? He may shed Jerry Ford and take on one of the other four presidential personalities by then. I hope not. Jerry Ford I can live with.

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TSSA in the news

I know, it's been a while since I last went on a rant about the TSSA (no misspelling: you can't get the full effect of the American version of the Schutzstaffel without the second 's'). But you have to admit that they've kept a lower profile of late, with stories of TSSA abuses trickling down to practically zero. I'm not naive. I understand that this is mostly a product of last year's election and to the endless stream of news about the cratering economy.

But you just KNEW it couldn't last. Totalitarians never operate in total obscurity.

And now, like a poltergeist, they're baaaaaaaaaaaack.

For the first time, some airline passengers will skip metal detectors and instead be screened by body scanning machines that look through clothing for hidden weapons, the Transportation Security Administration said Tuesday.

An experimental program that begins today at Tulsa International Airport will test whether the $170,000 body scanners could replace $10,000 metal detectors that have screened airline passengers since 1973. Airports in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami, Albuquerque and Salt Lake City will join the test in the next two months, TSA spokesman Christopher White said.

The scanners aim to close a loophole by finding non-metallic weapons such as plastic and liquid explosives, which the TSA considers a major threat. The machines raise privacy concerns because their images reveal outlines of private body parts.

The machines raise privacy concerns? Why JUST the machines? Why doesn't the very existence of an agency that can pretty much make you strip naked on command not raise privacy concerns? We're talking about an agency that is exempt from illegal search-and-seizure laws. We're talking about an agency that wipes its collective ass with the 4th amendment. But, in the minds of most Americans, that's okay. It's the thought of someone seeing an outline of your body that's a "privacy concern".

At what point did I cross over into this parallel universe where all of this can happen in broad daylight with nary a peep from the sheeple?

Horrible and Ironic Ways to Die

There are news stories that cause you to scratch your head and go "hmm". And then there are stories like this one that can only elicit a response of "WTF?"

A married Chinese businessman who could no longer afford five mistresses held a competition to decide which one to keep.

But the contest took a fatal turn when one of the women, eliminated for her looks, drove the man and the four other competitors off a cliff, Chinese media reported.

Oh. My. God.

Somewhere in this story there's a moral. I just haven't figured out what it is yet.

Wiener of the Week

This week the WotW is all about stimulus. Phony stimulus. I mean, c'mon! REAL stimulus would involve putting money in the hands of businesses and consumers in the hope of jump-starting the economy, right? Instead, this steaming pile of legislation seeks to reward those who helped get them elected -- like voter registration fraud organizer ACORN -- as well as increase the size and power of government.

Perhaps the part of the stimulus bill that I find most vexing is the new Agency For Healthcare Research And Quality. This is the camel's nose in the tent, the first baby steps towards single-payer socialized medicine.

So, given that the stimulus bill is a steaming POS, who gets the Wiener? I'm going universal on this one.

1. The President, for failing to provide leadership
   
2. Congress, especially that moron Little Nancy Pelosi, for piling steaming pile after steaming pile of pork and largesse onto a bill that is supposed to be about rescuing the country from financial ruin
3. Big Media (the BM for short) for hiding the true nature of the legislation
4. The American public (for swallowing this steaming mess)
5. The nice but clearly misinformed lady who was handing out flyers in downtown Frederick at First Saturday urging our support for the stimulus bill

All of you, congratulate yourselves. You're the Wiener of the Week.

The Legend of Deadeye

There is a new gunslinger in these here parts...and she's a crack shot. Yeah, that's right. I said she.

Mrs. Vulture surprised me with a special Valentines Day present - a day of target shooting together at an indoor range down in Gaithersburg. It was such a blast!

Mrs. V. had only shot once before, when we visited my brother out West. She picked out a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver as her tool of choice. Since I've had my mind set on purchasing a larger caliber weapon, I decided to try out the Glock 22 .40 caliber semi-automatic.

Since neither of us qualify as "expert" shooters, we had to shoot with an instructor, a very nice young lady who has been shooting since she was 12. Once she was satisfied that we understood gun safety and could load and handle our weapons properly, she turned us loose.

I really liked the Glock. I wasn't thrilled with my accuracy -- I tended to hit low and to the left when the sights were aligned, meaning I had to manually compensate high and right. Still, I was left with a positive impression of the weapon.

And Mrs. V. with the revolver? OMG!!! She was AMAZING!!!

After an errant first shot, she proceeded to hit shot after shot in the bullseye area. See for yourself! (Click on the images to view them full size)
To the left is the main grouping. Outside of a few strays that were 'only' in the 9 point circle, everything she shot was grouped in a 6"x6" area. Her head shots (to the right) were even more impressive. Again, everything was grouped within a 6"x6" area.

Did I mention that Mrs. V had only shot once before in her whole life? Once.

From this day forward Mrs. V shall be known by only one name in the annuals of this blog: call her Deadeye!

To see all of the target pictures, click this link. Note that mine, not to put too fine a point on it, are dreadful in comparison with Deadeye's.

All hail Deadeye, gunslinger extraordinaire!

For unto us a tyrant is born

On February 12th, 1809, the man who set our Nation on its course towards eventual governmental enslavement was born. The irony of the life of this man is that he's viewed by most Americans as the greatest American President. He was nothing of the sort.

Abraham Lincoln. Honest Abe. The Great Emancipator. The man who Saved the Union.

It's all crap.

Lincoln was a thug and a dictator. He took a situation that could have been resolved via diplomacy -- a group of States that were part of a voluntary union formed by our Founders who had decided to leave said union and form their own nation -- and turned it into the bloodiest war in this nation's history. His unconstitutional acts are legion: the suspension of Habeas Corpus, the coercion employed to "keep" Maryland in the Union against the wishes of the citizens of that State, the brutality employed against the Draft protesters in New York City.

Irony. His life is replete with it. How ironic that this racist bastard, who considered Blacks as little more than animals, should be remembered as the Great Emancipator, the man who freed the slaves.

His worst legacy, however, is the establishment of the Federal government as superior to the rights and wishes of the individual States. This set the stage for every anti-freedom assault for the next 150 years. Without Lincoln, the atrocities of Woodrow Wilson would have been impossible. Without Lincoln, the patently unconstitutional acts of Franklin Roosevelt would have been unthinkable. Without Lincoln, the freedom-sapping Great Society of Lyndon Johnson would have been nothing but a pipe dream. The actions of Bill Clinton and King George the Dim? Impossible!

Happy 200th, Abe. May you burn in Hell forever, MF'er.

The media cheerleading continues

This item is a tad late, but still relevant. It seems that Big Media (the BM for short) still hasn't put down the pom-poms after the election.

Earlier this week, WebNewser wrote about ABC and NBC releasing Inauguration-related DVDs in March.

Now CNN.com is getting in the Inauguration memorabilia game, with an entire section of CNN.com headline t-shirts about the event. The tagline: "Some of the most historic shirts money can buy."

Far be it for me to fault a brotha for trying to make a buck. But come on! "Obama raises hand, lifts a nation"? Go somewhere else to sell that school girl crush BS, you "objective" journalists you.

The wisdom of the common man

I have XM Radio in my car. If I didn't, I think I would blow my brains out. It's the only thing that makes my hellish commute bearable.

One of the advantages of XM Radio is being able to hear uncensored content. No FCC (don't bother to ask me what the 'F' stands for...you won't like the answer). And because I like to listen to the comedy stations on the way home from work, I stumbled upon an amazing new talk show starring Mojo Nixon. I'd tell you the name of it...but it contains a really offensive pejorative that, while an appropriate description of what/who politicians are, isn't acceptable for a "family" blog like mine.

The other day the topic was the stimulus package which, at that time, was rumored to be approaching more than $1.5 trillion dollars. There was a variety of opinions expressed - mostly references to where Washington could stick their "stimulus".

But one caller demonstrated the genius of the common man. His proposal: rather than spend all of those trillions of dollars on crap that just makes government bigger and more powerful, why not just send $1 million dollars to every American household, with this caveat on how the money must be spent:

1. Pay off your mortgage
2. Pay off all of your bills
3. If any money is left over, invest it in the stock market

Right there on the spot I shouted the word, "Brilliant!" You know, just like the guys in the Guinness ad. Why is this brilliant? Think about it! For about $200 billion less than the rumored price tag of stimulus at that time, we'd solve the whole crisis. No more bad mortgages. No more bankruptcies. A jolt of investment capital into the stock market, creating a bull market unlike any other. Without any bills to pay, people would start spending money on all of the things they've been leery about buying in a down economy, giving business a spur and creating new jobs. Within 6 months, everything would be just ducky.

Which is why it'll never happen.

Government only likes solutions that (1) perpetuate problems, not solve them, and (2) that empower government. Which, now that I think of it, is exactly what the phony "stimulus" package the Senate is considering now is.

Dumber than a bag of hair

If this woman were any stupider, she'd be comatose.

Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package, 500 million Americans lose their jobs

Uh, Nancy? The country only has a total population of 320 million!

This is what passes for 'smart' among the Left.

Wiener of the Week

This week the WotW could go to Team Donkey. The party of Tax and Spend has become the party of Tax Everyone Else and Spend.

They're up to three now. First it was Timothy Geithner and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (who is, IMO, a despicable, loathsome human being). Now we can add Nancy Killefer, the nominee for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Let's see. We have a Treasury Secretary who is a tax cheat. A now-withdrawn nominee for Health and Human Services who is a tax cheat. And now a OMB nominee who's a tax cheat.

Yeah, they COULD be the WotW...but they're not.

What really frosts my beak about this whole issue is that these people aren't being subjected to the draconian measures usually employed by the IRS against those who "make mistakes" on their tax returns. Contrast the kid gloves treatment employed against these scofflaws with the treatment to which the average Joe Taxpayer is subjected by the IRS. Liens. Fines. Attached wages. Confiscation and auction of property. Even jail.

But for the well-connected Team Donkey politician? Not even a slap on the wrist. Or am I missing the headlines proclaiming huge fines and penalties against any of the three?

The IRS was used during the Clinton administration as a weapon against those who opposed his policies or backed his impeachment. They've ruined the lives of ordinary Americans. But they don't seem to be interested in punishing Democrat politicians. Interesting, no?

For being tools (in every sense of the word) for oppression against the defenseless but friends of the oppressor, the IRS is the Wiener of the Week.

Update: add Al Franken to the list of Dems who skate on their taxes. Sheesh! The chutzpah of these guys!

Robert Redford: Enemy of the Poor

Every once in a while I come across a news item that really tickles my schadenfreude. This is one of those.

Hollywood's Sundance Kid is hurting poor people.

So say some East Coast ministers and conservative activists, who took to the streets in front of a downtown Salt Lake City theater on the eve of Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival to accuse the actor of holding down low-income Americans with his opposition to oil and gas drilling near national parks in Utah.

The protesters, led by the Congress of Racial Equality's national spokesman Niger Innis, suggested Redford should "relinquish his wealth" and live like a poor person. They complained that the filmmaker's anti-drilling stance could lead to higher energy prices for inner-city residents, forcing them to accept a lower standard of living.

The clergymen prayed for Redford "to see the light" and linked his environmental activism with racism.

"The high energy prices we're going to see this winter are essentially discriminatory," said Bishop Harry Jackson Jr. of the Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md., chairman of the High-Impact Leadership Coalition, a petroleum industry advocate.

ROFLMAO!

This is priceless. We have the racial grievance crowd protesting against the king of the Greens. We could call it: When Liberal Special Interest Groups Collide!

I can't wait for the sequel.

Someday my head is going to explode...REALLY!

Almost exactly a year ago -- on February 13th of last year -- I vented about how sick and tired I am of receiving Internet hoax emails from well-meaning people. So what's in my inbox this morning? You guessed it.

RE: Removal of Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, Charles Stanley, David Jeremiah and other pastors from the airwaves. This includes "The Spoken Word" with the Tabernacle Choir. An organization has been granted a Federal Hearing on the same subject by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington , D.C. Their petition, Number 2493, would ultimately pave the way to stop the reading of the gospel of our Lord and Savior, on the airwaves of America. They got 287,000 signatures to back their stand!

Sure, the general theme is a little bit different from the one I got last year. But the "Petition Number 2493" is right there, same as last year.

I could feel a steady build up of angry juices of the type that cause men's heads to explode. So I wrote the following in reply. I haven't sent it yet...I was hoping for a little feedback first from the general community before I flame the poor SOB who had the misfortune of sending it to me.

I love the Internet -- I really do! But when I receive the same MF'ing emails OVER AND OVER AND OVER -- emails about which I've already sent out blanket blasts of "No, this is a fraud, see Snopes for details" -- I just get so frickin' SALTY!

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/fcc.asp

Madeline Murray O'Hair has been DEAD FOR 14 YEARS. The atheists don't give a rat's ass about the stoopid religious broadcasts. Nobody -- let alone 287,000 people! -- cares enough about them to even listen to them, let alone sign a petition against them! They all pretty much universally suck. This is especially true for the programs of frauds "Doctor" James Dobson and Joel Osteen. And I'm saying this as a Christian!

Please, for the love of God, STOP SENDING ALARMIST EMAILS UNTIL YOU'VE BOTHERED TO CHECK ON WHETHER THEY'RE LEGITIMATE OR NOT!!!!!!!

GRRRRRRR!

So....am I being too harsh? Or is this just about right? Inquiring minds want to know.

Wiener of the Month - January

Sometimes the WotM just writes itself. This is one of those times. Check this out.

What happened
John McCain is returning to his unpredictable, often bipartisan form two and a half months after his defeat in the presidential race. In his first speech to the new Congress, McCain admonished Republicans for delaying Hillary Clinton as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state. McCain said the election showed that Americans “want us to work together, and get to work." (The Washington Post)

What the commentators said
It looks like McCain is Obama’s new best friend in the Senate, said Chris Cillizza in The Washington Post. The Arizona senator immediately and publicly praised Obama for announcing the closure of Guantánamo, and Obama has returned the favor with lavish praise for McCain. Maybe McCain sees himself as a bridge between Obama and Republicans, which could make him a “major player” in the fights ahead.

I have four words for all of you "lesser of two evils" Republicans who were lecturing me about McCommie last Fall: I TOLD YOU SO.

Congratulations, "lesser of two evils" Republicans! You're the Wiener of the Month!

Super Bowl XLIII

What a game! The only disappointment for me was that the Cardinals didn't win. "What?!?!?", you say. "You were rooting FOR the Cactus Wrens? A division rival?" Well, yeah. What? You think I was going to root for Pittsburgh to surpass the 49ers and their 5 rings. *sigh*

Now there is an undisputed king of the Super Bowl era. Pittsburgh has 6 rings. They stand alone. Bastards.

The game looked like it would turn into a blowout several time, and yet the Cardinals hung in there. Their 4th quarter comeback would have been the stuff of legend had their sieve-like defense been able to hold on at the end.

This game had everything, including a record 100 yard interception return by a "246" pound linebacker (Puh-lease! Dude weighs 270 if he weighs a pound!).

Kurt Warner, with the exception of throwing said interception, played an amazing game. Before the game the blathering heads were speculating on whether Warner is Hall of Fame worthy. I think that question has been answered. He now has the top three passing performances in Super Bowl history - 414 yards in Super Bowl XXXIV, 377 yards yesterday, and 365 yards in SB XXXVI. He led an amazing 4th quarter comeback that included a 64 yard precision strike to Larry Fitzgerald, who may be the best receiver in football right now. He had an amazing day.

Unfortunately, Warner doesn't play defense. That's where the game was lost.

One final thing. Was anyone besides the six people watching at my house puzzled that the Warner fumble in the waning seconds of the game wasn't reviewed? I swear I thought his arm was moving forward and it was an incompletion. Who was the referee? Dick Bavetta? (For the uninformed, that's a gratuitous slam at the NBA and their stealth referee, the 'fixer' who extends playoff serieses).