Naivete shattered

They believed in him.  They REALLY believed.  He was going to ride into Washington on a white steed and undo all of the evil things perpetrated by their enemy, King George the Dim.  He was their candidate.  He was their guy.

Funny how "change" (or, as I called it during the election cycle, the DoublePlusGoodHopeChange) didn't change a thing.

The Justice Department's decision to subpoena a New York Times reporter this week has convinced some press advocates that President Obama's team is pursuing leaks with the same fervor as the Bush administration.

James Risen, who shared a Pulitzer Prize for disclosing President George W. Bush's domestic surveillance program, has refused to testify about the confidential sources he used for his 2006 book "State of War: The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration."

"The message they are sending to everyone is, 'You leak to the media, we will get you,' " said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. In the wake of the Bush administration's aggressive stance toward the press, she said, "as far as I can tell there is absolutely no difference, and the Obama administration seems to be paying more attention to it. This is going to get nasty."

Waaaaa! The nerve of Il Duce!  How dare he and his dastard administration investigate a member of the Fourth Estate for something as petty as the exposure of classified information!

It's no secret that I am no fan of Il Duce.  But he scores a win here.  I've been waiting for years for SOMEONE in Washington to take leaks of classified information seriously.  It started with Daniel Ellsberg and The Pentagon Papers and has continued unabated since.  And never, EVER, has the Justice Selective Prosecution of Only Those We See Fit to Persecute Department had the cojones to prosecute.  If you or I...you know, the mundanes, as William Grigg has aptly named us....were to leak classified information, we'd spend the rest of our lives in Leavenworth sharing an intimate cell with a guy named Bubba who considers himself our "boyfriend".

But the press, the Sainted Protectors of our Nation, THEY can leak classified information with impunity and, rather than receive punishment, they become famous.

I, for one, hope that has changed.  Congrats, Duce.  You got this one right.

And, to Big Media, let me just say, "Bubba says hi."

Sean Hannity has no sense of irony

As I recently lamented, my morning commute is a poorer experience since the stuffed shirts and empty heads at Fox Sports Radio replaced Steve Czaban with Screamin' A. Smith.  Today I hit the perfect storm of commuter radio hell: all of the usual radio shows I listen to went to commercial break simultaneously.  I punched my way up the XM radio dial until I came to America Right.  They were playing a replay of yesterday's Sean Hannity show.

Now, normally I wouldn't listen to Hannity on a dare.  But, because of the commercial break syncronicity, I decided it was better than listening to Viagra ads. 

The segment I caught was vintage Hannity.  The questionably Constitutional new law in Arizona regarding illegal aliens was the subject du jour.  I find myself somewhere in the middle of the continuum between Hannity's cheerleading for the measure and William Grigg's excoriation of same, though, in truth, I'm much close to Will Grigg's viewpoint than that of the simpleton, Hannity.

As Hannity's unabashed cheerleading screed droned to a close, he welcomed a guest with whom he wanted to discuss the measure: none other than Scamnesty cheerleader John McCommie!

To my utter amazement, Hannity and McCommie discussed the bill for several minutes without once mentioning that McCommie is the leading proponent tool supporting Scamnesty.  To Hannity's credit, he DID ask McCommie at the end of the interview if he (McCommie) had any second thoughts about having supported Scamnesty during King George the Dim's regime.  But he spoke to McCommie for at least 2.5 minutes -- an eternity on radio -- without acknowledging McCommie's immigration stance.

Not only is Hannity intellectually challenged, he is completely untouched by irony.  Who else would fail to see the irony of a segment in celebration of a crackdown on illegal immigration that features John McCommie?

I feel dumber for having listened to that segment.  That's 5 minutes of my life utterly wasted.  Utterly.  Wasted.

Harry Reid is a retard

I apologize to all retards out there right off the bat for my post title.  It is an insult to retards to equate them with Harry Reid.  They're much smarter than he.

Why the shot at Nevada's pox on our nation?  It is the result of this pin-headed statement.

“The most important thing we've done for the country and the world is health care,” he said.

The most important thing.  Not entering WWII and defeating the march of Fascism.  Not staring down the great Soviet Bear.  Not the achievement of our Founders in creating this country from a ragtag group of colonies.  Nope.  It was health care.

How did Nevada ever elect this mentally deficient product of inbreeding?  I just don't get it.  I just plain don't get it.

Congrats, Harry! You just won a Wiener Award!

Draft dodging? Not me!

yodaddy, probably remembering my epic tirade from last year, asks:

WELL!!!!!! I await with bated breath for your comments on the 49ers draft.  I fear that they really have made strides to displace the Cardinals....oh well.

Your evaluation is correct, father. The 49ers DID make strides to displace the Cardinals. That, and the retirement of Kurt Warner, make the 49ers the favorite in the weak-ass NFC West.

So how do I evaluate this draft.  I.  Am.  CISED!!!!!!!   This was a very productive draft in terms of addressing "need" that the team has had in years.  Compared with last year's draft, when "need" went completely unaddressed, it makes the case that Scott McGoobrain was part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Here are the picks.

Round 1 - Anthony Davis, OT, Rutgers
Round 1 - Mike Iupati, OG, Idaho
Round 2 - Taylor Mays, S, USC
Round 3 - Navorro Bowman, LB, Penn State
Round 6 - Anthony Dixon, RB, Miss State
Round 6 - Nate Bynam, TE, Pitt
Round 6 - Kyle Williams, WR, Arizona State
Round 7 - Phillip Adams, CB, SC State

To paraphrase Jerry McGuire, you had me at two offensive linemen in the first round.  No BS prima dona wide receiver this year.  Nope, we got the meat-and-potatoes down-in-the-trenches big nasties that this team has been lacking for over a decade.  That means no more Chilo Rachal getting absolutely no push on running plays in 2010.  This means Frank Gore in the running for the rushing title like in 2007.  This means Alex Smith isn't buying time with his feet, but is able to settle in the pocket to find secondary receivers.

These guys are monsters, particularly Iupati, who may be the best offensive guard to come out of college since Steve Hutchenson.  Our entire offense just improved anywhere from 50 to 100% on those two players alone.

As for the rest of the draft, the choice of Taylor Mays is kind of a head-scratcher.  He was the fastest player at the combine - hey, how 'bout that - but he's not a ball-hawking center-fielder type of safety.  He's more of a linebacker-in-safety-clothing man-in-the-box safety.  But Coach Singletary likes him, so I'm at least partially sold.

Navorro Bowman was an exceptional college player.  He's fast and can play inside or outside.  But he had some "character" issues.  A coach like Singletary is ideal for him.  He's projected to be the future replacement for aging Takeo Spikes.

Anthony Dixon was a good pick up as a change of pace for Frank Gore.  He's huge (233 lbs).  He was one of the most prolific rushers in the SEC last year.  Good catch.

Nate Bynam provides depth at Tight End.  Kyle Williams is a long-shot at WR.  Philip Adams?  Who needs a slow Cornerback?

Overall, this draft rates an A.  And after last year's bizzaro draft, that's a very good thing.

The trouble with elephants

I approach this post with a little bit of hesitation.  I don't want to look like I'm picking on a fellow blogger and singling him out as being...how do I say this delicately?...easily duped.  But the posts of this blogger go a long way towards proving a point I've been trying to drum home for some time now.  Please indulge me a little on this one.

The blog to which I refer is called Elephants in the Blue Grass.  Now, I'm sure Mr. "Grass" is a nice enough fellow.  But he needs to cut down on his Kool-Aid intake.

Mr. "Grass" has a real issue with Rand Paul, Ron Paul's son and candidate for the Senate from Kentucky.  I am aware that "Grass" is touting another candidate for Senate, Trey Grayson, who I'm sure is a swell fellow.  And far be it from me to get my panties in a wad because an individual supports a candidate other than the one I would favor.  But I can tell when someone has gone beyond hyping their candidate and "downing" the opponent to a nasty place from which they can only produce hyperventilated girly smear.  You know, the stuff we usually get from Team Donkey.  Thank I'm kidding?  How would YOU characterize his calling Mr. Paul "part of the blame America first crowd."

Mr. "Grass" is quite unhappy with the desire on the part of Mr. Paul (and his dad, I might add) to scale back the mission of the US military to that of....wait for it...defending the nation.  You know, abandoning the Bush doctrine of War Without End.  This causes Mr. "Grass" to lapse into fainting spells. 

He's also just a wee bit butt hurt that Mr. Paul has vowed to vote to repeal the Patriot Act.  Personally, I can think of nothing more patriotic than repeal of the Patriot Act.  But I'm more concerned with personal liberties than in creating an All-Powerful Staat in the image of the Team Elephant Pax Americana pipe dream.

I hate to pick on the guy.  I really do.  He's done nothing to wrong me.  But his wrong-headed jihad against Paul is just baffling.  Rand Paul sounds to me like exactly the kind of guy the Tea Party folks are trying to get elected.  But Mr. "Grass" and the Team Elephant elites are fighting him tooth and nail.

And therein lies my point - the point I've been hammering on like a jackhammer on steroids most of this year.  If you're a person who believes in the principles of the Constitution as written by the Founders, a person who wants to live in the nation they envisioned, you need to leave the Republican party.  Team Elephant is not your friend.  Team Elephant does NOT represent small government, personal liberty, and fiscal responsibility.  They represent intrusive Überwachenden-style snooping, War Without End, and spending til the cows come home...just spending on different stuff than the Donkeys want to spend money on.

A party that thinks Romney-Palin would be a swell ticket for the Presidency is a party in need of euthanasia.  And those who put their faith in such a party need to get used to the idea of serfdom.

A wolf in Caribou Barbie clothing

Those who were reading this blog way back around the time of the 2008 Presidential election (both of you) are aware that I was quite taken with Sarah Palin at that time.  I remarked that, of the four individuals on the major party tickets, she was the only one with redeeming human qualities.

But over time she started to wear on me.  I think the final straw for me was her whiny performance when Rahm Emmanuel dared to use the word "retard" to describe Congression Democrats.  Personally, I can't think of a better word to describe them.  And whining about words is not what freedom fighters do.

And yet, even from that previous low, she has managed to reach a new one.

Conservative superstar Sarah Palin opened the door yesterday to joining forces with Mitt Romney for a 2012 White House run - a hot ticket that has some Republicans licking their chops at the prospect of unseating President Obama.

“Sounds pretty good,” Palin declared at yesterday’s Tea Party Express rally on the Common when asked about pairing up with the former Bay State governor - giving the idea a big thumbs-up as she left the stage after her headline speech.

Last night, as Palin stopped for cannoli at Mike’s Pastry in the North End, she said she was “serious” about the idea.

“I have a lot of respect for Mitt,” she told the Herald.

You have a lot of respect for Mr. Taxachewsetts health care?  You would accept the second-banana role on a ticket under Mitt "I have no principles" Romney?  Madam, have you no shame!

Tea partiers, beware.  Anyone trying to sell you "Mitt Romney, Conservative" is no friend.  That she would do so exposes her as a fraud.  Do not trust her.  Do not put your confidence in her.  Find other, more principled leaders for your movement.  She is not one of you.  She is one of them.

So where DO we go for leaders?  Have they all been compromised, save for one 74-year-old man, marginalized by his own Party, actually hated by some Conservatives, and ignored by Big Media (the BM for short)?

I'm not optimistic for the future.  Who can be?

Stop me if you've heard this before

A woman is killed.  A likely suspect is found.  Cops zero in like a laser beam on this one lone suspect, seeing only that suspect and no one else.

Eventually a case is assembled and presented to prosecutors.  Prosecutors, those pathologically ambitious bastards, have no problem proceeding with the case.  To prosecutors, winning is everything, so key exculpatory evidence is withheld.  The suspect is convicted and condemned to a lengthy prison sentence that will consume most of the remainder of his life.

Later, the exculpatory evidence is unearthed, and, as it turns out, that evidence, along with new advances in DNA analysis, prove categorically that the convicted man is innocent.  Absolutely innocent.

Say hello to Tim Masters. What I just described was his reality.

The state confirmed the Dutch DNA results, and with that, the prosecutor takes bold action, instructing his deputy to move for Tim's immediate release. With that, the hearing abruptly ends. The states' witnesses never even testify. And, after more than nine years, Tim is suddenly a free man.
[...]
Three days after his release, the state drops all charges against Tim, but prosecutors still won't officially clear him of Peggy's murder. "They still have him on a leash, I mean even though - just because your case is dismissed nobody’s ever come out and said, 'Tim Masters did not commit this crime,'" Liu says.
[...]
The Colorado attorney general now has the Hettrick case, but won't comment on it.
[...]
If the original prosecutors are upset, they're not talking. Both were publicly reprimanded and fined for failing to disclose information to the defense.
[...]
By then, they had been promoted to judges. But Tim doesn't blame them for what happened. "It's pretty obvious who did this to me. It was one detective, Jim Broderick."

Aside from the obvious, there are some troubling things that jump out at me and should jump out at everyone.

• The prosecutors, notwithstanding the weight of the evidence, will not drop the bone.  The guy is free, his conviction vacated, but those foul bastards still won't say the words, "He's innocent".


• The original prosecutors were reprimanded.  Reprimanded.  Are you effing kidding me?  An innocent man languishes in prison for nearly a decade and they get an MF'ing slap on the wrist?!?!?!  THEY should be in prison, minimum sentence the 9 years served by Mr. Masters.  Short of that, each of them should be summarily kneecapped.


• Prosecutors, continued.  They were promoted to judges.  Again, are you effing kidding me?  These rapacious, soulless devourers now administer the justice they denied Tim Masters.  God help us all!


• Mr. Masters blames one detective for his plight.  But is Detective Jim Broderick really different from other detectives?  What he did happens every single day.  Every single MF'ing day.  He locked in on a single suspect and couldn't be bothered to exercise his "Body by Dunkin' Donuts" physique or his torpid mind to look anywhere else.

Detective Broderick, in his own defense.

Broderick, the man who pursued Tim over the decades, is under investigation. Looking back, he makes no apology for his actions. "I believe that I followed the evidence, OK? And the evidence pointed to Tim Masters."

"They find the ex-boyfriend's DNA inside her underpants, on the cuffs of her blouse," Spencer points out. "Does that not give you any pause?"

"Well, you can find DNA evidence and it may have an innocent explanation," Broderick says.

Are you effing kidding me?  Are you effing kidding me? DNA evidence from an ex-boyfriend has an innocent explanation.  In the name of all that is holy please tell me how ANYONE with an IQ above room temperature could believe this?

Our legal system is broken.  Beyond broken.  Guilty people with connections walk.  Innocent people lacking connections languish in prison, victims of lazy cops and soulless prosecutors.

This is American Justice.  Pray you never fall into its gaping maw.

The lapdog growls

This is truly a "man bites dog" story.  Okay, I'm being snarky.  What it really is is a bunch of whiny snivelers griping because their hero isn't as nice to them as they are to him.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs met with a delegation from the White House press corps for 75 minutes on Thursday in an effort to improve frayed relations between the two sides.

Ed Chen, a White House correspondent for Bloomberg News who is president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said he asked for the meeting “to clear the air because in my 10-plus years at the White House, rarely have I sensed such a level of anger, which is wide and deep, among members over White House practices and attitude toward the press.”

Stop, please! I'm laughing so hard I'm about to wet myself! "Anger" at the White House and its attitude toward the press. Child, please!

I'll grant that the press has been disrespected by the White House, particularly the little incident on April 10th when Il Duce took off for a "soccer game" and ditched the press.

But COME ON!  For this bunch of ass-kissers to whine about their "treatment" by the White House is beyond laughable.  Write a story that's actually critical of Il Duce once in a while, and then I'll take your "grievances" seriously.

Pompous douchbags.

Tone-deaf, patronizing, and mendacious

Il Duce finds it amusing that American citizens were out in the streets protesting the absurd level of taxation to which they are subjected by our overbearing government.

President Barack Obama said Thursday he's amused by the anti-tax tea party protests that have been taking place around Tax Day.

Obama told a fundraiser in Miami that he's cut taxes, contrary to the claims of protesters.

"You would think they'd be saying thank you," he said.

There are a couple of problems with Il Duce's reaction and his assertion that he cut taxes.

1. Tax cuts?  WTF?  Did I miss some major piece of legislation in the past year and a half that provided for a smaller tax burden for the American people?  And why does the media let him get away with dropping whoppers like this?


2. By preventing the parts of the Bush tax cuts that expired in 2010 from being extended, he assured that the taxes of virtually every American will rise for this tax year.  Paint it as you will, but that is hardly a "tax cut".
   


3. The first wave of Obamacare begins soon.  No one has identified just how much taxes will rise in the next few years to support that abortion, but rise they will.


4. We ARE overtaxed...and, no, it's NOT funny.


5. The fact that a sitting President of the United States would express amusement at the concept of Americans assembled in protest of government policies is mind boggling.  It's further proof that he doesn't give two shits about the wishes of the serfs and is only about acquiring and wielding power.

Did I miss anything?

Il Duce's mind-blowing disdain for ordinary Americans is beyond comprehension.  Were it not for a complacent lapdog media and a tuned-out populous, this guy would be rode out of Washington on a rail!

Will the sheeple EVER wake up? 

Another truism transitions to falsism

I've been in Information Technology as a computer programmer for close to 30 years.  I've seen fads come and go. (Hey!  Anyone remember Easel?  It was the next great thing back in 1991.)  I've also seen every manifestation of over-the-top system and computer security.  It seems that security administrators have learned that if you don't let anyone do anything, nothing will break.  Of course, nothing will be accomplished, either.

One of the truisms of computer security for the past decade is the importance of "strong" passwords that expire within short intervals -- some say 6 months, some a year.  My company says 3 months.  I hate it.

Why the hatred?  It's not bad enough that I have to change my password every 3 months.  No, the really irritating part is that I have to go to HQ to change it.  This means I have to schedule time off from the client site (which I usually make up by working til the dark hours) just to perform this meanial and -- we learn now -- pointless task.

You were right: It’s a waste of your time. A study says much computer security advice is not worth following.
[...]
Many of these irritating security measures are a waste of time. The study, by a top researcher at Microsoft, found that instructions intended to spare us from costly computer attacks often exact a much steeper price in the form of user effort and time expended.

“Most security advice simply offers a poor cost-benefit trade-off to users,” wrote its author, Cormac Herley, a principal researcher for Microsoft Research.

Particularly dubious are the standard rules for creating and protecting website passwords, Herley found. For example, users are admonished to change passwords regularly, but redoing them is not an effective preventive step against online infiltration unless the cyber attacker (or evil colleague) who steals your sign-in sequence waits to employ it until after you’ve switched to a new one, Herley wrote. That’s about as likely as a crook lifting a house key and then waiting until the lock is changed before sticking it in the door.

I knew it!

I always suspected that changing passwords was a complete waste of time. And now it's official.

You can bet that my next new password will contain an editorial message. Bank on it.

A genuine tragedy

This past weekend a plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, the Polish Defense Minister, and a number of other Polish government officials crashed in Russia en route to the 70th anniversary commemoration of the Katyn massacre.  All aboard were killed.

This is a genuine tragedy.  Lech Kaczynski was truly one of the good guys.  He was a fervent anti-Communist in the 1970s at a time when being an anti-Communist in Poland was an act of genuine courage (or insanity).  Kaczynski's activism landed him a stint as a political prisoner.  He was a member of Solidarity almost from its inception.

This man stood bravely in the face of the ultimate destroyer of men - Totalitarianism - and came away a winner.

He was active in Polish politics from that nation's liberation from the Soviet Bloc until his death.

Genuine men of courage like President Kaczynski are to be honored, not just in death, but in all times.  They endure persecution and prison so that others might be free.

Godspeed, President Kaczynski!

Ron Paul as Rodney Dangerfield

I tell ya, he just don't get no respect.

Almost as interesting is that Ron Paul only lost to Romney by a single vote. It looks like the Paulistas continue to infiltrate these GOP conferences and demonstrate outsized influence.
[...]
Maybe it just reflects a fundamental split. A quarter just want someone who can win, a quarter want to completely overhaul the GOP in Paulist direction, and half are split up among various socially conservative long-shots.

Sorry, but no. You're completely wrong, wrong, wrong.

There are, in fact, a number of schizophrenic camps masquerading as Team Elephant.  But the breakdown (and boy do I mean breakdown) is more like this:

• Rockefellerite elitists
• All war, all the time Neocons
• Big government in our image Republicrats
• RINOs
• People who want to blow up the GOP and start over

Everyone from the first four categories hates Ron Paul.  H-A-T-E-S him.  Hates him to the point where they'd vote for a liberal Mormon who advocated a Massachusetts health care debacle before they'd vote for him.  Hates him to the point where they disparage his supporters as Paulistas (like some sort of insurgency) who "skew" the results of their precious straw polls.

But you "conservatives" just go ahead and continue to waste your votes on these creeps.  I'm the crazy one, because I walked away from Team Elephant when I realized that they didn't give a rat's ass about anything but the acquisition and exercise of power.  You know, just like the "bad guys", Team Donkey.

One final note on the SRLC.  Ron Paul upset the assembled Elephants by speaking the truth regarding the economic policies of Il Duce.

Republicans and tea party activists are fond of accusing President Barack Obama of being a socialist, but today party gadfly Ron Paul said they had it wrong.

“In the technical sense, in the economic definition, he is not a socialist,” the Texas Republican said to a smattering of applause at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.

“He’s a corporatist,” Paul quickly added, meaning the president takes “care of corporations and corporations take over and run the country.”

Gadfly. There's that "no respect" thing again.

For those of you a little unschooled in economic systems, Corporatism is the official name of Fascism.  Fascism is the name that gained popularity as the description of the Corporatist economic model in the 1920's due to the success (to that point) of the original Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, in making it work.

But Team Elephant would rather Red bait than speak the truth, so Socialism it is.

Feeling like a jackass

Once upon a time a community of wild mules, donkeys, burros, and jackasses roamed free.  They lived in complete freedom.  But there were problems.  They were susceptible to predator attack.  There were no rules preventing mules from abusing donkeys (or vice-versa).  There were no protections against feeding ground encroachment.

So they formed a Pact.  This Pact established common defense against predators and rules to protect against abuses and feeding grounds violations.  Most importantly, the Pact gave assurances to each and every one of the assembled that their freedoms would never be violated.

The Pact established leaders who would represent the animals.  These leaders would have a special wagon to be pulled by the other animals from place to place so that the leaders could perform their duties.

At first, because the wagon was small and the leaders and wagon workers few, it took but a few of the beasts to pull the wagon.  This responsibility was shared by all.  The burden was light, and the demands few.

But over time the leaders started to feel that the Pact restricted them too much.  They became convinced that they could do "amazing things" if those limits were, well, limited.  They were engulfed in an awful hubris.  The "amazing things" they wanted to do were more important to them than the freedoms promised by the Pact.

The leaders were shrewd.  They knew that any overt attempt to break the Pact would result in rebellion.  So over time, bit by bit, the leaders chipped away at the Pact.  By making rules that bordered on violating the Pact without actually doing so, the leaders set precedents that made other rules that DID violate the Pact seem okay.  It was an incrementalist approach.  It was brilliant.

The leaders engaged in a "divide and conquer" strategy.  A number of the new rules were designed to create "favored" classes.  Mules had been greatly wronged in the early days of the Pact.  The leaders used this fact to make rules that allowed many of the mules to ride in the wagon with them.

Then animals without sufficient grazing lands were deemed a "favored" class and were beneficiaries of rules that allowed them to ride on the wagon as well.

The new rules required making the wagon bigger - a whole lot bigger.  Now there were large numbers of animals on the wagon - leaders, wagon workers, and "favored" classes - and many animals were required to pull the wagon.  No, required is too nice of a word.  They were compelled to do so.

Some of the animals - particularly the donkeys and jackasses - began to resent the leaders and the demands placed upon them.  They were branded as uncaring, bigoted, and evil by the leaders.  Those on the wagon certainly agreed.  And, unfortunately, there were enough donkeys, burros, and jackasses who believed the leaders were simply trying to help the "less fortunate" to prevent the donkeys and jackasses from pressuring the leaders to rescind the new rules.

More rules were created.  Some rules limited the amount of feeding ground a beast could have.  Others forced animals to cede some of their feeding ground to animals on the wagon.  The amount of time animals spent pulling the wagon was then linked to the amount of feeding ground they controlled.  More and more animals began to climb aboard the wagon, some as wagon workers, but most as "favored" classes.

Large numbers of burros began to enter the area.  Some pulled the wagon, as had the burros who had been there at the start of the Pact.  But some cried for "favored" status, and were granted seats on the wagon.  Many - WAY too many - simply took over feeding grounds and avoided pulling the wagon.

Over time the situation worsened to the point that there were nearly as many animals on the wagon as there were pulling the wagon. 

Most of those pulling the wagon were jackasses.

What prompted this little parable?  This.

Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it's simply somebody else's problem.

About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That's according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization.

Wait, it gets better.

The bottom 40 percent, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government sends them a payment.

"We have 50 percent of people who are getting something for nothing," said Curtis Dubay, senior tax policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

Feel like a jackass yet? If you don't, you're probably part of the problem.

Lucid Truth

About a week or so ago my favorite Aussie, Bingbing, announced that his blog, James Board, had been accepted as a featured blog by LucidTruth.com.  Since I'm an attention whore of the worst kind, for whom the words "Me too!  Me too!" have been life's subplot, I decided to submit my meager little blog for consideration.  Imagine my surprise when they accepted my request!

So I not only join the legendary Bingbing as a featured blogger, I join Instapundit, Vox Popoli, Atlas Shrugs, The Other McCain, Ace of Spades HQ, Human Events, Michelle Malkin, Power Line, La Shawn Barber, Town Hall, and other big-time blogs.

So go out to LucidTruth.com and check out the scene. Better yet, cast your vote for The Vulture Lurks and visit the site by clicking the 'Click to Vote' button in the widget to your right. The more votes the blog gets, the more attention it gets.  And the more attention the blog gets, the more attention the ultimate attention whore, me, gets.

The case for a third party

There is a particular litmus test I have for whether or not someone is serious about restoring this country to its former state as a Constitutional Republic.  That test is this: are you opposed to the creation of a third party whose purpose is to elect candidates committed to a return to the Constitutional rule of law?  If the answer is "no", then you've shown yourself to be yet another duped sheeple drinking that Team Elephant Kool-Aid.  I cannot in good conscience take you seriously.

Many blathering heads take umbrage with my stubborn insistence that the current political parties are totally co-opted and cannot be reclaimed.  They quote Ronald Reagan, who said, waaaay back in 1977:

I have to say I cannot agree with some of my friends—perhaps including some of you here tonight—who have answered that question by saying this nation needs a new political party.

I respect that view and I know that those who have reached it have done so after long hours of study. But I believe that political success of the principles we believe in can best be achieved in the Republican Party. I believe the Republican Party can hold and should provide the political mechanism through which the goals of the majority of Americans can be achieved. For one thing, the biggest single grouping of conservatives is to be found in that party. It makes more sense to build on that grouping than to break it up and start over.

Rather than a third party, we can have a new first party made up of people who share our principles. I have said before that if a formal change in name proves desirable, then so be it. But tonight, for purpose of discussion, I’m going to refer to it simply as the New Republican Party.

At this point they follow up with a rather childish, "See? See? The great Ronald Reagan said it! We need to stay Republican and save the Party."

There's only one problem with that illogic: Reagan failed.

For all of the accomplishments of Ronald Reagan as President, he was unsuccessful in his quest to fundamentally change the character of the Party.  Look at the last four candidates for President in the post-Reagan era:

• George H. W. Bush, Rockefellerite
  


• Bob Dole, Big Government true believer
  


• George W. Bush, Neocon
  


• John McCommie, RINO
  

That's not the slate of candidates a party espousing individual liberty and small government foists upon its followers.

"But Vulture!  The Republicans have changed!  They've really changed going in the 2010 elections".

No, no they haven't.  They haven't changed one bit.  You know how I know that?

• Michael Steele is still the RNC chairman
  


• John McCommie is being pushed by Party elites over J. D. Hayworth because he's "more electable"
  


• Party elites are still pushing for Mitt Romney to be the standard-bearer in 2012
  

Here's the rub.  We know that Team Donkey wants power to implement their vision of Big Government.  But the same is true of Team Elephant - they want power to implement their vision of Big Government.  Neither gives a rat's ass about you or your personal freedoms.

A strong third party will offer a chance for real change in Washington, if done correctly.  It can be a haven for small-L libertarians, small government conservatives, and independents, as well as for current members of Team Donkey fed up with the Fascist takeover of their party by the toxic 60's generation.

Perhaps even more import is the impact it would have on the two big Parties.  Both would be forced to move from their current entrenched positions - either further to the Left or drawing back to the Right - in order to attract voters away from the new party.  For the first time since Reagan, libertarians and conservatives wouldn't have to hold their noses to vote.  That alone is reason enough for me.

Think I'm full of it?  Hit me with your best shot.  I'm dying to see where you think I'm "wrong".

Happy Easter all!

He is risen!  He is risen indeed!

Radio Wasteland

It's been four months since the stuffed-suit programming geniuses at Fox Sports Radio canned Steve Czaban.  I knew it was going to make for a worsened morning commute.  I had no idea how much worse.

The local radio options are spotty at best.  Elliot in the Morning?  Good gawd no!  The last thing I want in the morning is a cackling moron.  The Sports Junkies?  Yeah, they're awesome.  They're also on a station whose signal is so weak that I'm 20 miles into my commute before I can pick up the signal.  They also, unfortunately, have the longest commercial breaks of any radio show I know of.

But wait!  Vulture, you have XM radio!  You have options!  Eh, not so much.

Rawdog comedy is fine for the commute home...but sometimes in the morning I'm not in a comedy mood.  The music channels?  Again, great for the commute home.  But I can't do music in the morning any more than I can do cackling morons in the morning.

What about Czaban's replacement, Steven Screamin' A. Smith?  Child, please!  His act was tired at ESPN.  I wouldn't listen to him on a dare.

So I'm left with the "other" talk show options XM has.  They're a little thin.

There's Coast to Coast, Art Bell's old program, where you are "enlightened" about UFOs, aliens, various government cover-ups, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers, etc.  Not exactly my cup of tea.

There's alleged conservative "intellectual" William Bennett.  Intellectual.  Right.  The last time I listened to him...and I mean the last time...he went on a three minute rant that can be summed up in two sentences.

• Both political parties are venal, corrupt, and compromised.
  
• That's why it's so important to vote Republican this Fall and not waste your vote on a third-party candidate.

If your response to this "brilliance" was "huh?" or "WTF!", you understand how I felt as portions of my brain melted at the sheer illogic.

So I'm pretty much left with Quinn and Rose.  They're okay in small doses.  But they, like most "conservative" blatherers, are still drinking that Team Elephant Kool-Aid.  Once they start in with the "only Republicans can save us from Obama's communist agenda" nonsense, I have to switch stations.

It used to be so easy.  Get in the car.  Make sure XM-142 is on.  Listen.

Eff you, Fox Sports Radio.  Eff.  You.