Green Socialism

I've tried a few times in the last couple months to do a political post, but I always get too mad and it comes out all incoherent, and I abandon it. I have to speak out about this, though. With a socialist in the White House, socialists all over are seizing the opportunity to push forward their agenda; and while Barack Hussein Obama may be ignorant of how the economy really works, he plays the political game very well.

People are worried about the spending in this stimulus bill, adding more to our country's debt than all other Presidents combined, ever, and that is troubling. The spending isn't the biggest problem, though; it's business as usual, just much much faster, and may have the good consequence of waking people up to the problem.  The bigger problem is that this spending represents the U.S. government buying up the private sector, and securing their control over it. The AIG deal is a perfect example of this. These bonuses received by AIG people were a bit of sleight of hand contained in the stimulus bill itself. That isn't to say they weren't deserved - bonuses for executives are like tips for waiters, part of the benefit that gets people to actually do the job - but they were taken out of the bill, then quietly put back in just before it passed. Those such as Geithner who are involved in all this knew about it but lied, and Congress says it was tricked. This results in a hilarious yet depressing CBS News headline: "AIG Bonuses Renew Call for Congress to Read Bills". Duh!

So the reason they wanted the bonuses in the bill was so that AIG can become the new scapegoat for the economy, the new whipping boy for Big Business. Congress says "it's immoral for these guys to get a bonus in this bad economy!" so they threaten to tax the bonuses at 90%. Fearing the government's power, many executives simply give up their bonus, instead of calling the bluff. It was a bluff; they've taken that idea off the table, but the damage is done. If we are so willing to just give up when the government threatens, how far will we let them go? Besides, if a company wants to give its executives big bonuses, what right does the government have to interfere? Even worse, the primary objective here was to shift public outrage to the AIG scapegoat, away from the real problem, which is Big Government. Big Government regulated and spent us into this mess, and so obviously the solution is to spend and regulate even more, right?

Plus, don't forget that despite the image people tend to have of "corporate fat cats" as something near Ebeneezer Scrooge, hoarding the money away, is not true. Those big bonuses work for executives a lot like tips do for waiters; they're part of what makes the job worth taking, and someone needs to take on the headaches and paperwork that come with those jobs. That money is spent, and pays the wages of car and boat salesmen all the way down to fast food workers. And punishing corporate executives who dare to take vacations, or business trips, or put on events to thank the high-profile clients they depend on to stay in business is not going to do anything to stimulate this economy, and if these activities stop for fear of criticism from our government, that's one step closer to living under a dictatorship.

A couple weeks ago the CEO of Strategic Hotels and Resorts was asked if his business is suffering because fewer companies are holding conferences or vacations. Here is his response:

"The hyperbole and rhetoric was notched up to gigantic levels during this recent political debate season.  The bookings of our meetings have cut down drastically.  We've lost an awful lot of major businesses, and it's not just those receiving government bailouts that are affected, but there's a general fear of criticism by people not only making the bookings but people attending these conferences so it's really got out of hand because the meetings and conference business is absolutely essential to this nation.  We lost 200,000 jobs last year.  We thought if things went the same way we'd lose 240,000.  This year, since the hyperbole got ratcheted up to these levels, we're on track to lose 350, 400,000 jobs.  The ripple through the economy is gigantic, lodging and tourism is the third largest retail business in the country"

Anything the government does to punish a corporation is only passed on to the consumer and workers, and accomplishes nothing but to slow the economy. The more the government "bails out" the economy, the more say the government has in how money is spent, and even if the government had a good record for responsible spending it is more power in the hands of the government than I feel comfortable with.

Which brings me to the other really scary thing about this spending. Again, the fact that spending is happening is business as usual for the government, but now we have more than three trillion dollars in the hands of a single man: Timothy Geithner. Even worse, this man is either a dishonest tax cheat, in charge of three trillion dollars, or he is a man too stupid to use Turbo Tax, and in charge of THREE TRILLION DOLLARS! Let's say your friend is going to pick up some fast food, and you hand him ten bucks and say "get me a cheeseburger and fries while you're out, will you?" and he comes back having gotten his own food, and he bought himself a new CD with your money. Do you hand him $100 and say "you must have been confused before, I'll trust you with this now."? Our country is in the hands of insane people.

The worse things get in this economy, or the worse the media can portray them, the more eager we seem to be to give Obama power to fix things. He knows this, and is using this to put more and more power into the hands of incompetent/dishonest Geithner. AIG/Big Business is the scapegoat, and now it's time to give ultimate power to the government to save America:

"US came into this crisis without adequate tools to manage it effectively.  And as I discussed before this committee on Tuesday, US law left regulators without good options for managing the failure of systemically important, large, complex financial institutions.  To address this will require comprehensive reform, not modest repairs at the margin, but new rules of the game.  And the new rules must be simpler and more effectively enforced." - Timothy Geithner

Surrender your freedom and liberty and let the government take care of everything. They're having similar issues in England, but there they have people willing to speak out. I have a new hero:

Time for an American politician to really stand up to Obama.

While socialism is beginning to come out in the open in America, the back door route it had been taking before has also picked up new steam. The environmentalists are on the march more than ever. The environmentalist movement was long ago hijacked by displaced socialists who saw it as an opportunity to play on our fears and our guilt and dictate how we live our lives and spend our money. This has never been more apparent than it is now.

Mr. Obama has a brilliant new idea to save the economy by creating a few temporary jobs for electricians while at the same time taking away your freedom to set your own thermostat:

"We could set up systems so that everybody in each house have their own smart meters that, uhh, will tell you when to turn off the lights, when the peak hours are, can help you sell back energy, uh, that you've generated in your home through a solar panel or through, uh, eh, other mechanisms.  All this can be done, but it also creates jobs right now.  Our biggest problem, we don't have enough electricians to lay all these lines out there."

That was Obama from his virtual town meeting. It's going to happen, too; some of the stimulus money is going to help Google develop a "smart grid" that does essentially that. The idea has been suggested before. California has played around with the idea of a thermostat that can be controlled remotely "in case of emergency", i.e., global warming. Will it save the Earth, or make any difference? No. It will give government more control over our lives, though.

Speaking of California, they are trying to ban black cars. No joke. Apparently black cars get hotter when left sitting on sunny days, meaning when you get in your car you run your air conditioner more, resulting in more carbon emissions. So to save the Earth, buy a white car. That'll do it!

Oh, yeah, England is putting up a spy plane to find out who is wasting energy, so they can send people to investigate. No government should have the right to spy on its own citizens to find out how you're spending your energy. Also, it's ironic that to reduce carbon emissions they'll send up a fuel-burning airplane. Again, it's not about the environment, it's about control over our lives.

The big one is the new version of the Kyoto treaty. It's called the Copenhagen Accord, and just like Kyoto, isn't at all about global warming but about transferring wealth, trillions of dollars in this case. Again with the trillions! Since when did numbers get so big? This is ridiculous. The main force behind the green movement has never been about the environment but about taking down capitalism and securing power, and now that there's someone friendly in the White House all pretenses are off. They even want to reduce the population of the world, since humans are obviously a plague. They are preying on the guilt and fears of those who want to feel good about themselves, like they're really making a difference, and they are kept complacent with insipid symbolic events like Earth Hour, and they use brain-dead actors as spokespeople, because they'll say whatever they're told to (Zoolander didn't have it far wrong, haha).

Earth Hour is something sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund. They're the ones that put untalented actors on TV to perpetuate the polar bear lie. Now they've got Edward Norton and Alanis Morissette on TV urging people to turn off their lights from 8:30pm to 9:30pm local time tonight, March 28th, to save energy. They're saying this is a movement equally symbolic to the civil rights movement. It won't accomplish anything but to make people feel good about themselves while turning them into sheep. Then you're supposed to take pictures or video of yourself observing Earth Hour and upload it to their site. If what they say about using www.blackle.com instead of www.google.com is really true, then this will undo the energy savings as people touch up their photos, edit their videos, upload them to the internet, and view everyone else's. It's pure symbolism without any substance.

I heard a better idea. Tonight I am going to celebrate Human Achievement Hour. Instead of living like it's the stone age, I am going to turn on every light in my hotel room to celebrate the triumph of human ingenuity. I'm going to find something good to watch on TV, and if there's nothing as is likely, I'll watch the latest episode of The Office, or Terminator online. Or maybe play a video game. Instead of turning off my lights to show how evil man is and how much better it would be if we weren't here, I am going to take advantage of all the achievements we've made over the centuries, and I urge you all to do so as well. If you read this after Earth Hour, then take advantage of Human Achievement Hour whenever you feel like it to compensate. I think I might even run the hot water for no reason other than to celebrate that we have such a thing in civilized society.

America, stop giving up your freedom and greatness and grow a spine!

Okay, rant over.

Maybe next time I'll upload some pictures I've taken out here. I keep procrastinating.

St. Patrick's Day 2009

Not the best ever. For one, those of you who have followed this blog from the beginning (there might be two of you), or those of you who actually know me (includes anyone who actually follows this blog regularly), Kate and I got married four years ago today. That makes today tough, especially for Kate, since we're spending this anniversary 2400 miles apart. Hopefully this is the only time that happens. The other thing is that I'm back in an area that really appreciates St. Patrick's Day, but there'll be no drinking for me! It's a good thing Kate keeps me on the right path, or eventually I'd let my curiosity get the better of me, and that would be no good. Curiosity killed the cat, but for awhile I was a suspect.

I did do something cool, though. Last week I was in Wheeling, West Virginia, an area with a lot of Irish heritage, and I went to a Celtic festival with a coworker (I got myself a Pepsi so I'd have something in my hands and not be tempted to wander toward the wine tasting table). I forgot my camera in the car, but there wasn't a whole lot to take pictures of anyway. I did pull out my phone to take some shots of the pipe band they had. They were pretty average as far as pipe bands go, but fun to hear, and they had a solo piper who was very good and only fifteen years old. Also, they played a medley of American tunes that included the Marine Hymn, which was very cool.

I also bought a ring and some ear-rings and a couple t-shirts to send to Kate since she couldn't be there. Not expensive stuff, just cool stuff that she likes. One of the shirts had a funny "toast" on it I hadn't heard before:

Here's to the WELSH, who pray on their knees and on their neighbors.

Here's to the SCOTS, who keep the Sabbath and everything else they can get their hands on.

Here's to the IRISH, who never seem to know quite what they want, but are always willing to fight for it. And....

Here's to the ENGLISH, who consider themselves a self-made nation, & thus relieve the Almighty of a dreadful responsibility.

I'm sure some of you have heard it before, but it was a new one for me and it made me laugh. So I bought it, of course.

How did I spend the actual holiday? I spent a lot of last night and today looking for good Irish and Scottish music on YouTube. Guess what? I'm going to share it with you. Only because I find you guys somewhat tolerable. I'm putting a lot of stuff in this post, don't be overwhelmed. It's a variety of different Celtic music, so there's more than likely at least something for everyone, and don't feel like you have to watch it all at once. I hope you all enjoy at least some of it, though.

First, I recommend you go to my blog playlist on the right side of the page, and listen to Anúna. Their name is an easier to pronounce version of their original name, An Uaithne, which is a term describing the three ancient types of Celtic music: Suantraí (lullaby), Geantraí (happy song), and Goltraí (lament). They are best known for their work with the show Riverdance, and are my favorite choral group. Their membership varies somewhat, but they usually perform with between twelve and fourteen singers, and have a very pure sound with tight, interesting harmonies. I have three of my favorites in the playlist: Eiri na Greine/The Rising of the Sun, Innisfree, and Siuil A Riun. Eiri na Greine has some very fun bagpipes near the end, and is a catchy tune. Innisfree is very interesting in that the lyrics are passed back and forth between the soloist and the choir, and the soloist is sometimes singing a melody and sometimes a counter melody. It's also a great example of Michael McGlynn's composition style, which blends traditional Irish melodies with contemporary dissonant, almost jazzy harmonies. Siuil A Riun has been recorded dozens of times at least, and this is by far my favorite version. The choral harmonies are great, the soloist is amazing, and I love the guitars and fiddle. It's just perfect.

A few of Anúna's soloists have recorded solo albums as well, but my favorite is Méav, who is also a member of the group Celtic Woman, which is pretty good. I found one of her solo pieces to put in the playlist as well, a sad song called You Brought Me Up. This is not to be confused with that irritating usurper of the Londonderry Air melody known as You Raise Me Up. Méav has an amazingly clear voice that I could listen to forever. Too bad there's not room in the playlist for more of her music.

I found some Anúna on YouTube, but just so you know, they can come off kind of... intense... live. Almost creepy in some cases. I don't blame you if you hit play and just listen without watching. I recommend listening, though.

This is the song Home and the Heartland from Riverdance, sung by Anúna with Katie McMahon as the soloist. I wanted to include Méav singing Lift the Wings, too, but her version isn't on YouTube, and other versions just don't do it for me.

This live version doesn't have the fiddle, but it has tight choral harmonies in its place, and the guitar is still there.

This is a song about the seaweed. This is how I first heard of Anúna, because we sang this song in choir in high school. The dude's intense stare creeps me out, though.

This song is about death.

Ignore their weirdness, and enjoy the music. My favorite part is right after the female solo, at the 2:47 mark.

I'm including this one mostly because it's so fun to hear him sing Gaelic so fast.

Now some other stuff:

Just Méav singing a nice melody.

The group Celtic Woman singing Harry's Game by Clannad.

Celtic Woman singing another great version of Siuil A Riun.

The Corrs are a modern Irish group, and they have several very good contemporary versions of traditional Irish tunes that I like:

The actual song starts 45 seconds in. This is fun, because you can see the Gaelic lyrics and hear them sung at the same time.

I couldn't resist posting this, an Irish interpretation of my favorite Jimi Hendrix song. Definitely not as good as Hendrix, but still cool for sure.

Another great group most people have heard of is The Chieftains. They've recorded with dozens of guest artists with some pretty cool results. You must hear this, it's too cool. Ziggy Marley, son of Bob Marley, singing my favorite Bob Marley song, Redemption Song, with traditional Irish instruments to back him up:

I also really like this collaboration between The Chieftains and Joni Mitchell about The Magdelene Laundries, which were asylums for "fallen" women, who had worked as prostitutes. It was found out that at some of these asylums the women had been abused, and this song was written in memory of that. It's a great song, and even though smoking has changed it a lot, I still love Joni Mitchell's voice:

The Chieftains also recorded my favorite version of The Foggy Dew with Sinéad O'Connor. The song is about the Easter Rising of 1916. Even if you don't like Sinéad O'Connor, I recommend this song. I'm not her biggest fan, but her voice is well suited to a traditional melody like this:

Speaking of Sinéad, she also recorded what is by far my favorite version of another traditional song, She Moved Through the Fair. This version is featured at the end of my favorite historical movie, Michael Collins, which I highly recommend. It's like Braveheart, but not overrated, and actually historically accurate for the most part. A better movie all around. I don't think it's a spoiler to tell the end of a movie about a real event, but if you don't want it spoiled just hit play and skip the rest of this paragraph. Michael Collins dies at the end. This version of the song leaves out some sad verses, making it a more hopeful song, which just adds to the tragedy of the end of the movie. Michael Collins was shot by some of his own men who were upset that his rebellion wasn't as thoroughly successful as they'd hoped. At the end of the movie, we see the woman Michael was to marry (played by Julia Roberts, the one unfortunate thing about the movie) preparing for the wedding, while at the same time we also watch Collins' motorcade ambushed and Collins himself dies. All the while this song is playing. It's a very well crafted scene. The soundtrack and this arrangement are by my favorite composer, Elliot Goldenthal:

That song is also in the blog playlist.

I looked for a long time for some good bagpipe stuff to put here, but it was a difficult search, surprisingly. Any good song I found I wasn't happy with the recording, or vice versa. I did finally find some fun stuff, though. This is worth watching, and about four minutes in they let a random little kid from the audience join in and play a drum:

Anyway, I need some sleep, and that's a lot of music. It's already not St. Patrick's Day anymore here in Pennsylvania; I'm just glad I'm finishing this post while it still is in Idaho!

The Unfolding

You might think I've done nothing this past week, since I've posted nothing. You're almost right. But in addition to nothing, in my free time I visited some very old architecture here in Moundsville, West Virginia (where I've been for the past two weeks), visited a Hare Krishna temple (more on that soon; I took pictures), and I've seen more movies and done a lot of reading during slow times at work. During my shift this morning (I've been working midnight to noon) I went to one of my favorite websites, NASA's Astronomy Photo of the Day archive, and downloaded several dozen amazing images. I imported the photos to iMovie, and also a song by Lisa Gerrard, and made a slideshow. This could have been done in two minutes, but since I'm a perfectionist with time on my hands, it took a couple hours. I uploaded it to Facebook, but I'd like to share it here, too.

A note on the song. Lisa Gerrard is best known for her vocal contributions to movie soundtracks such as Gladiator (which is where I discovered her), and from her hippie band Dead Can Dance. Her voice is amazing, very deep and surreal. The song I used is called The Unfolding, from her album Duality. It's probably my favorite of hers, and every time I hear it I see the vastness of space in my mind, so I thought the NASA images would be appropriate. I can't get enough nebula pictures! This song is in my blog playlist, as well as a song that didn't make it into the Gladiator soundtrack calledRome Is the Light, which is listed under Hanz Zimmer but features Lisa Gerrard's voice. I hope you enjoy it; let me know what you think!

UPDATE: A friend of mine offered me some space on his iDisk (Apple's online storage service, which is very nice but I'm not prepared to spend $99/year for) to upload the high quality original movie file of this slide show. The file is 128MB, and the resolution is 960x540, so much better than it looks here or on Facebook.

Click here to get to my buddy's iDisk, and download The Unfolding.m4v. Quicktime or VLC should play the file no problem, and of course iTunes, since that uses Quicktime.

Also, Facebook took the video down because WGM apparently doesn't take kindly to people using their artists' music without permission. It's understandable; I mean, they probably lost millions of dollars because I made that slideshow. Seriously, Lisa Gerrard is a really well-known musician, and now thousands of people who were planning to buy her album won't because they can just play this video. Surely there's no one out there who would never have heard her name if not for that video who might now be curious about her music, that would never happen because they all know her from Gladiator! No, that would never happen. There's no way this might turn out to have been free advertising for an artist signed by WGM.

Resentful sarcasm aside, you can still watch it if you download the original file, which I recommend anyway.

If you download it, leave me feedback; I might give obscure artists more free advertising like this in the future!

The Last Man Standing

"The Last Man Standing" is a nickname Rush Limbaugh has given himself for being the only prominent public figure still preaching true conservative principles. He's half right; very few of our elected representatives are willing to be a voice for conservatism, since they've all become addicted to the positive media attention they get when they break party lines. The best example of this is John McCain, who loves the praise he gets from the media for his eagerness to criticize fellow Republicans. Rush isn't quite the last man, though; we still have a few conservatives such as Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal, and there are other conservatives in the media such as Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. What Limbaugh is, however, is the most eloquent, persistent proponent of conservatism, and now more than ever the true leader of the conservative movement. He criticizes Republicans, too; he won't get any praise from the media, though, since he criticizes spineless and traitorous Republicans who undermine conservatism, claiming it must be redefined to embrace Big Government, since they think that's what America wants and that's how we'll win elections. Limbaugh is such a threat to the Left and the mainstream media, that more and more the Left campaigns against Rush rather than the Republican on the ballot. There's even an effort to get an anti-Rush billboard put up near Rush's home in Florida. They're taking suggestions for the slogan, you can submit yours at www.democrats.org.

I can't think of a gesture more symbolic and futile, or one that could be any more successful at achieving the opposite of its intended effect. I hope they come up with a good one, so Rush and the Florida Dittoheads can have a good laugh as they drive past it every day.

Recently Rush has created quite a stir with a speech he gave at the Conservative Political Action Conference. It made the liberals in the mainstream media really mad, so it must have been a great speech. I finally got around to watching it on YouTube a couple days ago, and it was awesome. I've embedded the YouTube videos of the entire speech at the end of this post, and I highly recommend it to everybody. If you are a conservative Republican, this will be a breath of fresh air for you, and some good ammo. If you're a McCain "Republican", you need this more than anyone. If you're a Democrat, I can't think of a better way to understand your opponents than to listen to this speech. I don't expect it to convert you, but I do think it is important to understand the other side if you expect to be effective in debating the issues.

The speech was supposed to last about twenty minutes, and Mr. Limbaugh went an hour overtime. Every minute overtime was worth it, and I wish he'd talked longer. Of course, he talks for three hours every day, and there's never a minute wasted, so this is par for the course. Again, please listen to his speech; but if you really don't want to or don't have time, I'll cover a few things here.

The biggest thing everyone is talking about is how Rush Limbaugh in his speech "redefined bipartisanship". I saw the quote of his definition a couple times on the news, and never once did anyone put the quote into context. All they quote is "To us, bipartisanship is them being forced to agree with us after we politically have cleaned their clocks and beaten them." That sounds pretty inflammatory, and doesn't sound very bipartisan, does it? Well, it was supposed to be inflammatory, and of course it isn't bipartisan, and that's the point. The point Rush is making is that bipartisanship is a false premise. It doesn't exist. Here's the full quote:

"Bipartisanship occurs only after one other result, and that is victory. In other words, let's say as conservatives that we be bipartisan with them in Congress. What they mean is: We check our core principles at the door, come in, let them run the show and agree with them. That's bipartisanship to them. To us, bipartisanship is them being forced to agree with us after we politically have cleaned their clocks and beaten them."

The "us" in this quote is true conservatives, the ones who are tired of the McCain-types "compromising" their conservative principles and signing on to Big Government bills in the name of bipartisanship. Where is the compromise there? Who really wins? Not conservatives. If the compromise between growing government and reducing the government's role in our lives is growing government less, the government still grows and becomes more intrusive. That is not compromise; the Big Government liberals win every time. What Limbaugh is saying with this, the most controversial quote of the speech, is that it's about time the scales tipped the other way, and the conservatives won for once.

Rush goes on, and it's even more profound as he asks "Where is the compromise between good and evil?" I'm not going to say liberals are in general evil, because I believe that for the most part, (with the exception of our elected officials, many of which I do believe are evil) liberals are well-intentioned but misguided. But if I truly believe I am right and you are wrong, how principled would I be to compromise? There are many conservatives like myself who are sick and tired of those we elect to represent us compromising our beliefs for a bit of positive media attention, and for many of us the nomination of John McCain was the last straw. If a true conservative isn't nominated for 2012, many people, including myself, will likely leave the Republican Party. I joined the Republican Party because at the time it was the most powerful proponent of conservatism. It still is, but if those at the top keep ignoring us who elect them, it won't be for long. Obama's presidency is a direct result of the lack of conservative leadership in the Republican Party.

I'm getting off-topic. Oops.

After some jokes, Limbaugh opened his speech by explaining how conservatives view the world.

"When we look out over the United States of America [...] we see Americans. We see human beings. We don't see groups. We don't see victims. We don't see people we want to exploit. [...] We believe that [a] person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path like onerous taxes, regulations and too much government. [...] We don't want to tell anybody how to live. [...] We look over the country as it is today, we see so much waste, human potential that's been destroyed by 50 years of a welfare state."

For all the accusations of racism during the 2008 election campaigns, the only racism I saw was on the left. Limbaugh talks about that, too, how no conservative questioned whether Obama was "authentically" black, whether he had slave blood in him. Liberals are fighting battles that were won 40 years ago. It is conservatives that live in a truly post-racial world, but if a black man gets ahead and happens to be a conservative, he is accused of selling out. I talked about this when I ranted about the inauguration ceremonies. Conservatives, especially Rush, are accused of being hate-mongers, but the hatred I see is on the Left.

Limbaugh takes a swipe at Obama's insane spending as well:

"President Obama is so busy trying to foment and create anger in a created atmosphere of crisis, the is so busy fueling the emotions of class envy that he's forgotten it's not his money that he's spending. In fact, the money he's spending is not ours. He's spending wealth that has yet to be created. And that is not sustainable. It will not work. This has been tried around the world. And every time it's been tried, it's a failed disaster."

It could be worse, we could live in Zimbabwe, where inflation is estimated at 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000% (not kidding! it's at the end of this article, and here are some photos you have to see to believe), but anyone who thinks we can save our economy by spending money that doesn't exist is delusional at best. Of course, Zimbabwe's problem is different from ours, but I wanted an excuse to link to those photos. They're seriously crazy.

But here's the dirty secret. Obama knows this isn't going to work, and it's not his intention for this to rebound the economy. It's about acquiring control. More from Rush's brilliant speech:

"George Will once asked Dr. Friedrich Von Hayek, tremendous classical economist, great man, 1975, George Will, 'Dr. Von Hayek, why is it that intellectuals, supposed smartest people in the room, why is it that intellectuals can look right out their windows, their own homes and cars and look at their universities and not see the bounties and the growth and the greatness of capitalism?' And Von Hayek said: 'I've troubled over this for years and I've finally concluded that for intellectuals, pseudo-intellectuals, and all liberals, it's about control.' It's not about raising revenue. You think Obama has any intention of paying for all this spending? Folks, if he had any intention of paying for it, he wouldn't do 90% of it because we don't have the money."

Reagan's tax cuts in the 80s clearly demonstrated that lower taxes on the rich result in higher tax revenues for the government, as well as increased charitable giving, yet still Democrats insist on raising taxes. It's not about raising revenue, it's about "fairness", and the only way the government can achieve fairness is by cutting down those who are successful. It's about controlling the money they earned. In order for Obama's power grab to succeed, in order for this "bailout" to succeed, he needs an economic crisis so bad that everyone looks to the government to fix it, even though the government created the crisis in the first place. This is why Obama keeps claiming this is the worst economy since the '30s, even though that is an outright lie. Limbaugh covers this in detail near the end of his speech.

I think that covers the highlights in more detail than anyone ever asked me for. I'll leave it at that, and invite comments from the liberals who read my blog. I have to be nice, though, because most of those liberals are in my family and are pretty cool people; you guys just happen to be cool people I disagree with. Speaking of which, I think there might be nearly a dozen people now who regularly read my blog. I even have a reader/sister-in-law who lives overseas, so I have a truly international audience. The scope of my influence knows no boundaries!

Enough of my analysis, watch the speech! Seriously, watch it.

Don't Blog When You're Tired!

Well, I'm in West Virginia now, and it's pretty cool so far. The rig wasn't drilling all yesterday, which meant free time, so I hung out with the two mud loggers I'm working with at a local bar and listened to some halfway decent local band perform classic rock songs while they got drunk. It was fun; I only wish the kitchen at the bar hadn't already closed that late, since I was kind of hungry. At least they had potato chips and Pepsi. I'll blog more about West Virginia later, hopefully after I can get some good pictures.

I'm totally kicking myself, though, because when I posted about the one year anniversary of this, the interweb's most interesting blog, I completely forgot one of the coolest thing I meant to mention: the fact that this blog has been noticed and commented on by two celebrities! If you're thinking Clint Eastwood and Edward Norton, you're very close. If you're thinking Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan, you're very closer. If you're thinking Jane Novak and the Tron Guy, you just nailed it!

Yeah, Jane Novak, author of the blog Armies of Liberation, commented on one of my 9/11 posts. Jane keeps a blog commenting on current affairs in Yemen, criticizing the Yemeni government and calling for free speech and freedom of press in that country. I don't know anything about Yemen, but Jane's blog is apparently effective enough that it is banned by the Yemeni government, and she is routinely vilified by the government-controlled press there. Not bad for sitting at home and blogging while the kids are at school. And she liked my 9/11 post, which is awesome. I bet soon I'll be banned in Yemen, with middle-eastern government officials demanding my head.

Oh, right, and Tron Guy. This is where I learned my lesson to not be too outspoken about other people without thinking, because you never know who might be reading. While ranting about the annoying and stupid ad campaign Microsoft ran a while back, I made some offhand comments about Jay Maynard, the Tron Guy, that were a bit harsh. Turns out the guy is pretty cool, though I would never be comfortable enough with my nerd-ness to actually make a Tron suit and be seen in public. Jay has handled it pretty well, actually; once this sort of thing gets going, press coverage and all, you can't live it down, so he's running with it and accepting his identity as the Tron Guy instead of hiding in embarrassment. Also, being much more tech-savvy than I am, he's set up his computer to let him know any time he's mentioned on the internet, and he goes to check it out. That's how he found my blog, and commented, and we had a bit of an interesting exchange in the comments on that post. It was pretty cool. I never imagined when I started this blog that it would lead me to carry on a conversation with the Tron Guy. Come to think of it, once I press "Publish Post" he'll probably get an alert, and read this post. Think, while you read this, Tron Guy could be reading, too....