The Violence Worker!

Bill Maher Isn't Funny

I don't know who decided Bill Mahar was funny or even entertaining.  I can't say I ever liked his brand of humor.  Funerals are probably funnier and more entertaining.

Maher's joke was about as funny as heart attack. - or maybe a rape.

He shows he knows nothing about the military or the world situation over the last 60 plus years.  And that reminds me of something I was taught years ago by old Wendell Honsinger.  Mr. Honsinger was my band teacher from 7th grade on through high school.  A few of us in 7th Grade band were playing around with the music while he ducked out.  Our little "improv" was rudely interrupted by Mr. Honsinger upon his unexpected return. In no uncertain terms, he let us know that we were in no way ready to do things like that (and he was right, we sounded horrible) and it was only those who were professionals with years of experience that could make it sound good.  The lesson was that before you can play off the sheet, you need to know what you are doing.  Let me say that I am married to a professional musician who happens to be very good at improvisation and taught it.  Maher doesn't know what he's doing.  Mr. Maher's limited experience with things military is what led him to try and make such an idiotic attempt at humor.  Maher operates from the premise that the military somehow condones rape and therefore it is a common occurrence.  Whatever the case, he wasn't funny.  It's probably in the same class of humor as Obama's jab at the Special Olympics.

Mahar hates God, belittles those that believe in God and thinks the average soldier is a trained rapist.

Unfortunately, the military is not exempt from occasionally having a criminal in their ranks.  The vast majority of us who served are embarrassed when a military person commits a major crime. 

I don't know who thinks the guy is entertaining enough to have show.  I do hope that eventually, this asshat will be looking for job.

VW

The F Word

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No, not the vulgar epithet, I'm talking about Fascism.

Most people have no clue what Fascism means.  If you ask them, if they answer at all, they will say Right-Wing Extremists or Nazis or even just Republicans.  It's a scare word anymore. Most people have absolutely no clue, they just toss it out there to sound like they know what it is.  Most of them wouldn't recognize a fascist if one goose-stepped up to them and slapped them.  Fascism has pretty much become its own epithet.

A lot of folks on the left throw the F word around and they really liked to try and hang it on Bush.  They are still calling him a dictator even after he left office after his second term.  Dictators usually try and hold on to their power.  They don't normally walk away after a second term.

I'm not going to call the Obama Administration fascist.  However, I will quote the definition and leave you to draw your own conclusions.

FASCISM:  a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

Obama demands the firing of the GM CEO.  He says he is for the nation or society over the individual and there is severe economic regimentation taking place upon the banking, investing and the auto industry.  I haven't seen forcible suppression of the opposition yet save that full court press against Limbaugh and now, I hear, the "guns" are turning from him to Sarah Palin

You make up your own mind.

VW

UPDATE March 31 @10.00 AM:  This is the first thing I saw this AM:

But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the "Pay for Performance Act of 2009," would impose government controls on the pay of all employees -- not just top executives -- of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

The purpose of the legislation is to "prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards," according to the bill's language. That includes regular pay, bonuses -- everything -- paid to employees of companies in whom the government has a capital stake, including those that have received funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Hat Tip:  Michelle Malkin      Permalink here

Earth Hour

Last year, I was in Belleville, Ontario Canada, living in a hotel room for two months during the last so-called Earth Hour.  I did nothing out of the ordinary and I wrote that I would not go gentle in to their dark night.  I still won't and I intend to burn every light in my house during that time frame tomorrow night.

This whole idea is ridiculous.  Think of it.  Turning your lights off for one lousy hour will do absolutely NOTHING for the earth.  Let's take it further.  If one hour a year is good, why not two hours a year?  Maybe we should do it once a week or better yet, just turn the damned lights off permanently!

It's a useless exercise in feel good.  Oh, I turned my lights off and burned a candle (which probably outputs more carbon than your light bulb) and I helped save the earth! 

I'm going to be blunt.  If you think you are saving anything but a few cents on your electric bill, you are a very stupid person.  You don't have two brain cells to rub together.  It should be painful to be that stupid.

I had to laugh though,  On their site they want you to twitter, take videos or live blog the time you spend in the dark.  Yeah, use your electronic devices to show how you are saving electricity.  Even battery operated devices will need to be recharged by plugging them in.

Just like last year, I will not go gently into your dark night.  This is not 1809.

I plan on posting a video tomorrow showing all our lights on!  We'll be having a bit of fun with it, for sure!

VW

The UN Will Destroy The US If They Get The Chance.

While you are being distracted by the kabuki theater of AIG outrage, guess what is going on at the United Nations:

A United Nations document on "climate change" that will be distributed to a major environmental conclave next week envisions a huge reordering of the world economy, likely involving trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of job losses and gains, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes — all under the supervision of the world body.

(Go here to read the UN Document - but only have a strong stomach.)

What this does is essentially stop the economies of developed nations in their tracks and send them backwards about 75 years.  In the mean time, it transfers the wealth of those nations to the poorer nations.

In the same bland manner, the note informs negotiators without going into details that cap-and-trade schemes "may induce some industrial relocation" to "less regulated host countries." Cap-and-trade functions by creating decreasing numbers of pollution-emission permits to be traded by industrial users, and thus pay more for each unit of carbon-based pollution, a market-driven system that aims to drive manufacturers toward less polluting technologies.

The note adds only that industrial relocation "would involve negative consequences for the implementing country, which loses employment and investment." But at the same time it "would involve indeterminate consequences for the countries that would host the relocated industries."

In other words, industrialization would be severely limited.  If a manufacturer moved to a more hospitable country, it's exports good be limited by high tariffs.

Not part of this note, but certainly an important influence is this from Nicholas Lord Stern, an ex British treasury official:

In an influential but highly controversial paper called "Key Elements of a Global Deal on Climate Change," British economist Nicholas Lord Stern, formerly a high British Treasury official, has declared that industrial economies would need to cut their per capita carbon dioxide emissions by "at least 80% by 2050," while the biggest economies, like the U.S.'s, would have to make cuts of 90 percent.

Stern also calls for "immediate and binding" reduction targets for developed nations of 20 percent to 40 percent by 2020.

To meet Stern's 2050 goals, he says, among other things, "most of the world's electricity production will need to have been decarbonized."

The only way most of the world's electricity generation could meat that goal is to turn off the power plants.  Unless there is some immediate replacement  on the horizon, we will never make that goal in 40 years.  It certainly won't be by wind power.  You couldn't build enough towers at 1 to 2 megawatts each to replace the existing carbon based plants. 

This has little to do with the environment and everything to do with Socialist wealth redistribution.  If this treaty is implemented by the United States, we will become a third world country with no jobs, no hope and a despotic leader.  We may even devolve into separate regional banana republics ruled by war lords.

Whatever the case, the communists will have won and America will have ceased to exist in any recognizable form.

VW

Involuntary Servitude For The Masses

There is a bill wending its way through the Congress that if passed, and it looks like it might, will be the first step into real servitude.  It's the very antithesis of what it means to be an American.  It begins the process of setting up a program that can only be found in Fascist and Communist governments.  If you wanted to see what his program intends to do, you need look no further than `about 100 miles southwest of Key West.  If you want an extreme example, Pyongyang North Korea would be a great example.

It's a bill that greatly expands Americorps.

To begin with, the legislation threatens the voluntary nature of Americorps by calling for consideration of “a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people.” It anticipates the possibility of requiring “all individuals in the United States” to perform such service – including elementary school students. The bill also summons up unsettling memories of World War II-era paramilitary groups by saying  the new program should “combine the best practices of civilian service with the best aspects of military service,” while establishing “campuses” that serve as “operational headquarters,” complete with “superintendents” and “uniforms” for all participants. It allows for the elimination of all age restrictions in order to involve Americans at all stages of life. And it calls for creation of “a permanent cadre” in a “National Community Civilian Corps.”

You will not have a choice.  You will "volunteer".  You will serve and you will like it.

Wake up people, you are being led down the garden path of totalitarianism! 

It seems to me that something like this is clearly contrary to the the 13th Amendment which reads:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Neither slavery or INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE shall exist.  What they want to do in this bill is make serving mandatory for all citizens.  It is involuntary servitude.

The problem is that no one has probably read this bill. Although some of the more offensive language was taken out of the bill, it could very easily be reinstalled:

Between being first officially "reported" to the House and being voted on by the full House, bill managers stripped one whole section of the measure that created a Congressional Commission on Civil Service, thus removing the section that contained the language cited above concerning "a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people" and a possible requirement for "all individuals in the United States" to perform such service. The section could be restored during the Senate-House conference committee meeting. A new, separate bill containing that language has since been introduced in the House.

Be afraid - BE VERY AFRAID!!!!!

VW

He Was a Pedophile

It's not considered polite to speak ill of the dead.  We understand the grieving process and we also understand that everyone wants to be remembered for the good things they said and did rather than the bad things. 

That said, I'm going to speak ill of the dead.  George Weber was a long time ABC radio freelance newsman in New York City.  He was brutally murdered last week.  He was found at his apartment, bound with tape and brutally stabbed to death.  Mr. Weber was 47-years-old.

Everyone that knew Mr. Weber spoke highly of him and of his work at ABC.  But George Weber had a dark side it seems.  It was that dark side that ultimately got him killed.

He liked sadomasochistic sex.  He apparently liked his partners young and male.  After examining the evidence to include his computer and cell phone records, they found his killer.  The suspect is a 16-year-old boy who confessed to the crime.

From the NY Daily News:

Cops found the suspect by combing through Weber's e-mail and Web browser history and tracking calls he made from his cell phone, sources said.

The teen answered Weber's ad on craigslist, an Internet Web site. The two met in Brooklyn early Friday evening and then returned to the newsman's Carroll Gardens brownstone apartment under the premise of engaging in sadomasochistic acts, sources said.

And this at the end of the article: 

"Jordy loved New York and its people, particularly his Carroll Gardens neighborhood. The outpouring of support by his friends and neighbors is a blessing to us and a testimony to his character." (emphasis added)

Let me first disabuse you of the notion that he had any kind of character.  He might have been the salt of the earth in public, but this guy was a nutcake pedophile.  I would love to have seen that Craig's List add he placed.  He then meets the kid and then takes him back to his pad for some wild and crazy, perverted sex which was, as the article states, "fueled by drugs".

I'm sorry the guy met such a bad end.  Naked and taped up on your bed is not a dignified way to die - not that there is any real dignified way to die.  He was into some pretty weird stuff and he liked to do it with teenagers.

Sorry, but he was a pedophile.  Instead of doing radio, he probably should have been doing time.

VW

Newspaper Bailouts

You had to know this was coming.  Newspaper bailouts have been bandied about here and there, but not much has been done toward that end.  That's all changed now.  A bill was introduced today in the Senate to provide a form of bailout for newspapers.  It's not exactly a cash infusion like AIG, but it does offer them a lifeline of sorts.  From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks.

"This may not be the optimal choice for some major newspapers or corporate media chains but it should be an option for many newspapers that are struggling to stay afloat," said Senator Benjamin Cardin.

A Cardin spokesman said the bill had yet to attract any co-sponsors, but had sparked plenty of interest within the media, which has seen plunging revenues and many journalist layoffs.

So much for a free and independent press.  It's not like we've really had that in awhile, but this would certainly be the death knell to an industry already choking on their own effluvium.

A newspaper owned by a larger company would be ineligible unless the newspaper was sold to a non-profit to run.  Once run as a non-profit, some different rules would apply.

Cardin's Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies.

Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements.

Somehow, I derive little comfort from that part of the bill.   Reporting can often be slanted and facts either left out, or distorted just enough to make your side look better.  The fact that they would be barred from making endorsements is a minor impediment.

Gone would be any pretense that the newspapers were some kind of a watchdog over the government.  My dog is a good watchdog, but he won't bite me and presumably the press would not bite the hand that was feeding it the tax breaks it needed to survive.  All it would take would be an accusation of impartiality and a prospective loss of tax-exempt status and the watchdog would quietly remove its teeth.

There are a lot of reasons why newspapers are failing and although I've speculated as to the cause of death, my guess is probably as good as anyone's.  If there was a better guess as to the reason for failure, one would think the owners would be be fixing the problem rather than shutting down the presses.  Even if this abomination passes, I think it's only postponing the inevitable. NPR is not all that popular and making a newspaper into some kind  of print version is not going to save the industry.

No respectable newspaper should even consider something like this.  It goes against everything a free press stands for.   Hmmmm...check that, they shed that respectability cloak years ago.

On the other hand, ACORN will soon be flush with a few billion from the stimulus bill.  One might speculate that purchasing the Seattle Post-Intelligencer woul be something they may want to look at.  If you can control the news, no one will notice you are rigging the vote.

VW

They Can't Handle The Truth!

Apparently, Washington state Democrats do not want to be told that the effects of their tax and regulate ideology is not good for business.  Not only do they dislike it, they intend to make it illegal for a lobbyist to tell them if they pass a stupid bill that the company may move.

From House Bill 2316:

A person required to register as a lobbyist under this chapter shall also have the following obligations, the violation of which shall constitute cause for revocation of his registration, and may subject such person, and such person's employer, if such employer aids, abets, ratifies, or confirms any such act, to other civil liabilities, as provided by this chapter:

   (g) Threaten any legislator, or any government official, with the relocation of manufacturing jobs including, but not limited to, jobs involving commercial airplane manufacturing, based upon the outcome of any pending or proposed legislation.

Can they do that in this country? 

I've seen the result of hostile laws to manufacturers.  Pontiac, MI all but ran GM out of town.  Every Pontiac car on the road came out of that old factory between Baldwin and Joslyn Avenues.  It's been years since even one car has rolled out of there.  I think the last one was the Fiero.  Pontiac told the city to lay off or they would shut it down - they warned them and the city persisted.  They closed it down and moved out of town.

It's common knowledge that the Big B (the only airplane manufacturer around hereabouts) has threatened to move out of the state.  They moved their headquarters to Chicago a few years back.  I suspect it's only a matter of time until they do if WA  keeps beating on them.

VW

Hat Tip:  Sound Politics

Highway To Hell

The Financial Times is reporting that China's Central Bank is calling for a "reserve currency".  It would be a currency not from an individual country, but one managed by the International Monetary Fund or IMF.

In an essay posted on the People’s Bank of China’s website, Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank’s governor, said the goal would be to create a reserve currency “that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies”.

Oddly enough, this is a Keynesian concept and the ironic thing about this idea is that it's Obama's Keynesian economics that is causing the Chinese to explore this idea. 

Analysts said the proposal was an indication of Beijing’s fears that actions being taken to save the domestic US economy would have a negative impact on China.

“This is a clear sign that China, as the largest holder of US dollar financial assets, is concerned about the potential inflationary risk of the US Federal Reserve printing money,” said Qu Hongbin, chief China economist for HSBC.

This should scare the blue-living hell out of you.  If this doesn't worry you, then you are either completely devoid of any common sense, or your transportation to and from school was primarily the short bus.  I have a 15-year-old Autistic son and I can tell you, he has little understanding of money.  He doesn't get it it.

If the economic forecast goes as the Congressional Budget Office is now predicting, we are in some serious trouble.  The debt we are incurring is unsustainable.

The new Congressional Budget Office figures offered a far more dire outlook for Obama's budget than the new administration predicted just last month -- a deficit $2.3 trillion worse. It's a prospect even the president's own budget director called unsustainable.

What that means is that we are on the road to bankruptcy as a nation.    We will no longer be the preeminent power in the world.  We may not even be a power and worst case scenario is that the United States of America may very well cease to exist as we know it.  For certain, our currency will become worthless; requiring trillions of dollars just to buy a loaf of bread - if you can find one.  It's a superhighway to chaos.

This may please some of you more rabid anti-American types, but trust me, you aren't going to want to live in a world without a strong and stable United States.  If there is any post-apocalyptic books to be written about America's last days, Obama's name will be like a curse word.

Change we are getting, it's the hope part that seems to be severely lacking.

VW

Where's The Fire?

At Cooking With Violence, I talk about a brew pub just up the street.

VW