Welcome back to another…you know what? You already know by now!
Sorry. I just thought this new episode was, well, bleh! It wasn’t bad, just bland. But I’ll share with you the few parts I did enjoy. Without further ado, here are my thoughts on May The Best Pet Win!
• Opal coming out of the mutant pet’s mouth and scaring Rainbow Dash = Epic!
• Wasn’t thrilled by the song. It was good for the episode, but it was really forgettable. It didn’t have the ability to get stuck in your head like the other songs like “Winter Wrap Up,” “Cupcakes,” and “Art Of The Dress.”
• When the tortoise appear, it was pretty obvious he was going to be chosen at the end. Honestly, who didn’t see the ending by a mile away?
• Butterfly used Confuse Ray. Opal is confused.
• When Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” plays, you know shit just got real!
• Kind of ironic that none of the birds stopped to help Rainbow Dash when she didn’t stop to help any of them when they were stuck in the thorn bushes.
• Question: How did the turtle manage to catch up to Rainbow Dash in the gorge? Wouldn’t it have taken him longer to get there? (Obvious Answer: it’s a cartoon. If it was realistic, we would be here all day waiting for him!)
• Question: Where did the turtle get the bandages for Dash? (Better Question: How does a turtle administer First Aid?)
• Turtle helicopter? Nice! :D
ANTI-LIBERTARIANS CAN'T THINK - 24EvelJustin24
“This entire libertarian philosophy is just so incredibly stupid and insipid. I mean, who would buy this shit?”
My fourth target in the series is 24EvelJustin24, who believes libertarians like Ron Paul are stupid for distrusting the federal government and not buying the “deregulation destroyed the economy” narrative.
VIDEOS FEATURED:
Kicking Libertarian Ass by 24EvelJustin24
LINKS:
Link #1: The amazingly accurate predictions of Ron Paul
Link #2: Corporate Profits Not Actually At Record High
Link #3: 12 Reasons Companies Outsource Operations Overseas
Link #4: Did Deregulation Cause the Financial Crisis?
Link #5: The Myth of Financial Deregulation
Link #6: What Keeps Us Safe?
Link #7: Economic Milton Friedman Describes Hong Kong as an Example of the Free Market System
Link #8: Bank of America scraps debit card fee after consumer backlash
Link #9: The Free Checking Restoration Act
Link #10: Who Caused the Economic Crisis?
Link #11: Is Deregulation to Blame?
Link #12: The CRA Scam and its Defenders
Link #13: Economic Freedom & Quality of Life
Link #14: Bush's Regulatory Kiss-Off
Link #15: Did Deregulated Derivatives Cause the Financial Crisis?
Link #16: Ten Thousand Commandments
Link #17: U.S. Corporations Suffer High Effective Tax Rates by International Standards
Link #18: No Corporate Welfare
OTHER MEDIA:
Arguing with Idiots Theme Song
Music by Kevin MacLeod
Occupy and the Tea Party
There are a lot of angry peoplein this country, and although I generally try to avoid that emotion when makingdecisions, I can’t really say I blame most of them. Although I truly believeAmerica is a great country and will continue to be so for a long time, thereare, without a doubt, some things fundamentally wrong with the way things areright now.
The point of this post is not to gointo the details of what those things are, but a single example will help putthings in perspective. Today’s top hedge fund managers, such as John Paulson,are bringing home annual salaries in the billions of dollars. In 2010,Paulson’s $5 billion dollar salary set a new record. Now, compare thissingle-year salary to the single-year salary of the typical, working classAmerican family of $50,000. Given the roundness of both numbers, the math hereis a simple matter of moving the decimal point over a few spaces and we can seethat Paulson’s salary is 100,000 times that of the typical working class family.
But money is an abstract concept,really, and a difficult thing for people to value accurately. $2 to a child, ora Ugandan, has different value than it does to a middle-class American adult.And many people will say, when presented with this discrepancy, “Well, heearned it. It’s his money, he didn’t do anything illegal to get it, so what’sthe problem?” Point conceded (although some arguments could be made on the lastpoint, but that is outside the scope here.)
But money really isn’t the best wayto measure value; time is. Whereas a given amount of money can havesignificantly different valuation for different people, at different times, indifferent places, it is not hard to see that an hour’s worth of one person’stime is, in the abstract, equal in value to an hour of anyone else’s time. Solooking at our example above we can see that for a typical American family,let’s say of a self-employed carpenter and a school teacher, they would havehad to begin working 100,000 years ago, in the Middle Paleolithic, right aroundwhen modern humans began migrating out of Africa and displacing earlier homo species, if they wanted toaccumulate the wealth that Paulson acquired between the time the Yankees wonthe world series in 2009 and when the Giants won it in 2010. (Of course, if youare a Bible-literalist, this wouldn’t even be possible, since God wouldn’t getaround to creating the universe until about 10,000 years ago, or a fewmillennia after the Sumerians startedbrewing beer.)
How is it possible that thework-hour-value of someone who builds residences to keep people sheltered fromthe elements plus the work-hour-valueof someone who teachers other people’s children how to read and write is worthso much less, 100,000 times less, than the work-hour-value of someone who moveselectrons around in a computer? When you additionally consider that Paulson’swealth comes from short-selling subprime mortgages- i.e. he profits when thehouse that our middle-class family lives in goes into foreclosure because ourteacher has been laid off due to drastic state-spending cuts, and our carpentercan’t find work because the housing market is bunk- then the picture is evenbleaker.
It is easy, and tempting, for some,to look at this scenario, well, reality, really, and fall into the warm,comfortable trap of thinking that we should just have someone assign value to different tasks in oursociety. Sounds great, except time and time again it has proven to be anabsolute, unmitigated disaster. Communism is the ultimate fail. The only wayvalue can possibly be assigned is bythe market itself, because it is simply the height of human arrogance to assumethat any one person, or any group of people, could possibly have the wit andwisdom to perceive and predict the complex interactions of 7 billionindividuals. Only the market can do this.
But, as we saw above, the market canclearly become distorted. There are several reasons for this. But the major oneis that people don’t understand that there is a fundamental difference betweenmarkets in goods and services and markets in assets and capital. Ideologues onthe right look at how brainless bureaucratic interference in goods and servicesmarkets stifle innovation and wealth creation and wrongly assume that thisanalogy holds true in all markets andso they push for deregulation in allmarkets. Ideologues on the left see how deregulation in assets and capitalmarkets leads to endless cycles of boom (for some) and busts (for the rest) andwant to throw the baby out with the bath water and do away with capitalismaltogether. Both of these positions are moronic.
And right now the extreme voices ofboth the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements are presenting this as aneither/ or choice. Now, before we go any further, I should make it clear that Ihave deep sympathies with some aspects of both of these movements. Every time Isee an “End the Fed” T-shirt at a Tea Party rally, or a “Bring backGlass-Steagal” placard at OWS, I feel optimistic about the future of ourcountry. But what truly dismays me, what makes me slightly less thanoptimistic, is that these two movements seem utterly incapable of recognizingthat they are two sides of the same coin.
I think an analogy would be helpfulhere. Imagine you live in a city with a fair amount of mafia or gang influenceand an equal amount of corruption in law-enforcement, the legal system andpolitics. Now let’s say it comes out that the mob has been getting away withall sorts of shady semi-legal dealings for the past few decades, racketeering,election-rigging, monopolizing local markets in goods and services… the usual.Now, both parties, the mob-bosses and their bought and sold political lackeys,are profiting handsomely at the expense of the hard-working citizens of thisonce great city. Who’s to blame?
If we were to apply the arguments ofTea Party and OWS to this scenario, each would yield a different answer.According to the Tea Party, the political establishment, and only the political establishment, wouldbe at fault. After all, if the mob can buy politicians, and get them to bendthe rules in their favor, why shouldn’t they? This is America, baby! This iscapitalism! On the other hand, if we listen to OWS, we should blame thisprimarily on the greedy mob for not having the self-restraint to stopthemselves from getting away with something that was all-too-easy to pull off.Our spineless, gutless politicians had little to do with it.
Now, I recognize that this is anover-simplification. There are many Tea Party supporters who recognize the roleof corporations and finance in producing our current economic situation. Andthere are, I think, an even larger number of Occupiers who recognize the extentto which they were sold out by the people they put in office, including, perhapsespecially, our current president. But what I am saying is that I think, on afundamental level, Tea Partiers tend to think that corporations and banks, leftentirely to their own devices, will do little but good, while Occupiers thinkthat if it weren’t for those same corporations, our politicians could get backto the business of governing justly and fairly.
It just ain’t so, folks. Money andpolitics go together like ham and cheese. They always have and they alwayswill. The market for political influence is as old and pervasive as the marketfor sex, and it is unlikely either will disappear anytime soon. History is thestory of the struggle of the few to dominate the many. And if we were to tallyup a score at the end of each year, since the beginning of recorded history inabout 3,000 BCE, it would be roughly 5,000-to-zip. Of course, there have beentimes where things were better than others. At the founding of this Republicpeople were hopeful, having shaken off the tyranny of the Church and the inheritedaristocracy, that a new day of justice and equality was dawning- whilemeanwhile hundreds of thousands of Africans were held in slavery. The middledecades of this century saw a historically unprecedented distribution ofwealth, the greatest realization of power the middle class has ever seen- andmeanwhile the ancestors of those slaves couldn’t be served at a lunch counterin much of the country.
There will always be battles tofight, injustices to correct. And the energy of both these movements is a potentand necessary thing. But we can’t lose sight of reality. There are somefundamental truths we must maintain a hold of.
One, we must recognize that justbecause something has been made “legal” that doesn’t make it right, or the waythings should be, or, to put that on more concrete footing, the way we, in ademocratic society, want things to be. If a group of pedophiles raised abillion dollars and lobbied Congress to make kiddie-porn legal, they wouldalmost surely succeed. (Do you really doubt that a billion dollars couldn’t buyyou anything in Washington?) Butwould that make kiddie-porn right? Ofcourse not. So just because banks canuse predatory lending practices, mislead their investors, and bet against theirown customers, it doesn’t mean they should,or that we, as citizens of the Republic, should accept that as the way thingsare, simply because they are still following the letter of the law (the letterof the law that they essentially wrote.)
Two, we must recognize our own rolein this. It is facile to say that “our society has become” lazy, indolent andcomplacent. No. People are lazy, indolent and complacent, whenthey lack the motivation to be otherwise. Let’s face it, folks, while it ispathetic to see a politician sell a multi-million dollar tax break for akickback of a few tens of thousands of dollars, we citizens have let it allhappen for a ticket to a 3D movie, the power to text-vote on American Karaoke, and a new Mrs. Fieldsat the mall (cause actually chewing achocolate-chip cookie is now too much work.) Just as most of us find itshocking that on our grandparent’s watch people of color still had to fight tobe served a grilled cheese at a white diner, our grandchildren will be shockedwhen they learn of the injustices that we tolerated on ours.
Third, and finally, we must recognize that no single “fix” is going tomake things right, forever and all time, or even a short while. Not neuteringthe federal government or reigning in greedy corporations. Getting nearly400,000,000 mammals to share a finite number of resources without killing eachother is a messy business. There probably isn’t a single other one (species ofmammal, I mean) that could even hope to pull it off. There will always becheats trying to game the system, and they will often end up with the reins ofpower. Those of us who want to live a simple, quiet, peaceful life, who have nointerest in benefiting from the pain and misery of others, must be constantlyvigilant, always ready to knock them off the cart.
As Occupy Wall Street and the TeaParty seem ready to do.
Now, if they just recognized theirenemy, our enemy, was one and thesame, thatwould be a force to be reckoned with.
And then those in power might realize that we're on to them this time around, and that we're not likely to keep playing a rigged game.
PP, SWEET PP
Casi nueve millones de españoles han invadido un país,
lo han destruido,
matado a doscientos mil civiles,
sembrado de uranio empobrecido,
alentado una guerra civil,
violado,
asesinado,
y torturado.
Sus votos
fueron las armas de destrucción masiva.
Su colaboración con banda armada
no será investigada.
Son buenos padres, amables vecinos,
cumplidores ciudadanos
que recogen del suelo la mierda de sus perros.
Sus manos estarán limpias, pero sus conciencias
reposan en la confortable seguridad de nuestro mundo
manchadas de sangre.
Antonio Orihuela. Todo el mundo está en otro lugar. Ed. Baile del sol, 2011.
Rape Doesn’t Exist?!
As anyone who follows my blog can tell, I don’t care for feminists. They have a tendency to see sexism where none exists, like how advertisements “objectify” women in order to allegedly keep them submissive to the patriarchy. Focusing on such menial issues tends to distract from real sexism.
For example, following the suicide of an 18-year-old girl who had chronicled on Twitter the sexual abuse she endured from her father, some sleazy Moron—excuse me, Mormon—blogger Michael Crook wrote the following about her on his blog:
Just let that sentiment sink in for a minute, then wipe the vomit away from your computer screen when you’re done.
Yes, apparently, rape doesn’t exist because all accounts of rape are really the woman’s fault for dressing or acting like a slut, and therefore, she deserves it.
I don’t care what religion you subscribe to, that’s just revolting!
Yes, I do believe that women should take precautions to protect themselves by avoiding dangerous situations, like dressing promiscuously to a bar, or accepting a drink from a stranger, or walking home late at night unescorted—but I would never have the audacity to say that they deserve what happens to them if they don’t take such caution.
But oh wait, IT GET EFFING WORSE!
When Crook said he doesn’t believe in rape, he links to this post where he says this:
And feminists complain that chivalry is sexist? Give me a break!
What makes this even worse is that Crook tries to sidestep his own tripe by claiming that it’s only his opinion. Yes, Crook, it is, and you’re entitled to it. As my blog’s name suggests, I believe everyone is entitled to free speech in order to express their opinion. So Crook has every right to say women deserve to be raped. But since free speech goes both way, I have every right to respond by saying that Crook is a sexist, chauvinistic, misogynistic pig who should castrate himself lest his genes contaminate the human gene pool!
Now if you excuse me, I’m going to watch Pinkie Pie sing Caramelldansen until I forget this blog post ever existed.
For example, following the suicide of an 18-year-old girl who had chronicled on Twitter the sexual abuse she endured from her father, some sleazy Moron—excuse me, Mormon—blogger Michael Crook wrote the following about her on his blog:
There are those who think she’s a victim. Not so!“I don’t believe rape exists”?
I don’t care what did or did not happen to her. First and foremost, I don’t believe rape exists. When there are incidents that are classified as “rape,” or names that are similar, what usually ends up happening is that the “victim” tends to “forget” to mention immodesty, flirty actions, or other conduct on their part that contributed to the matter. A woman who dresses immodestly must accept accountability for her choice of attire.
If, in fact, this girl was being molested or forced into prostitution as the media outlets say her tweets claimed, then it was her fault that it happened, and continued to happen.
Just let that sentiment sink in for a minute, then wipe the vomit away from your computer screen when you’re done.
Yes, apparently, rape doesn’t exist because all accounts of rape are really the woman’s fault for dressing or acting like a slut, and therefore, she deserves it.
I don’t care what religion you subscribe to, that’s just revolting!
Yes, I do believe that women should take precautions to protect themselves by avoiding dangerous situations, like dressing promiscuously to a bar, or accepting a drink from a stranger, or walking home late at night unescorted—but I would never have the audacity to say that they deserve what happens to them if they don’t take such caution.
But oh wait, IT GET EFFING WORSE!
When Crook said he doesn’t believe in rape, he links to this post where he says this:
However, I also believe that...a woman should fight to the death defending her virtue, if in fact she does not consent to the sexual contact. If she doesn't do so, then I would call her motives into question.Oh yes. You heard that right. If a woman doesn’t fight back, she’s obviously lying about her rape. If she had really been raped, she would have put up a fight and even died trying to prevent it. If she didn’t, then it’s all her fault!
And feminists complain that chivalry is sexist? Give me a break!
What makes this even worse is that Crook tries to sidestep his own tripe by claiming that it’s only his opinion. Yes, Crook, it is, and you’re entitled to it. As my blog’s name suggests, I believe everyone is entitled to free speech in order to express their opinion. So Crook has every right to say women deserve to be raped. But since free speech goes both way, I have every right to respond by saying that Crook is a sexist, chauvinistic, misogynistic pig who should castrate himself lest his genes contaminate the human gene pool!
Now if you excuse me, I’m going to watch Pinkie Pie sing Caramelldansen until I forget this blog post ever existed.
CARTA DE AJUSTE
El mundo
una selva,
la escuela, un desastre,
los sujetos, un caos.
El multiculturalismo,
un peruano vestido de sioux tocando una guitarra eléctrica,
la razón, un vertedero abandonado a las interpretaciones,
la identidad, un tío vestido de flamenco
conduciendo un 4x4 en el Rocío.
La democracia, un cartel de Rajoy
cada vez más alto, cada vez más lejos,
cada vez más rasos los mensajes,
cada vez más extraterrestres circulando por la izquierda.
Los hogares vacíos de vidas y afectos
pero invadidos por la TV y la informática.
Los padres virtuales de jornadas extenuantes de once horas
con hijos sobreexplotados con las extraescolares
y abuelos arrumbados, aislados,
dopados por médicos de familia,
Juan y Medio y Agustín Bravo.
El fanatismo ultra católico del brazo del racismo
y el autoritarismo tomando las calles para limpiar España
de débiles y afeminados.
El terrorismo político, social y laboral.
La desinformación, la incapacidad para percibir y pensar
al margen del adoctrinamiento y la manipulación.
Al sur los consumidos,
al norte los consumidores.
Al norte, perdidos. Al sur,
reventados.
En el reino de la productividad y la esclavitud
el viento de la revolución
ya inimaginable.
Antonio Orihuela. Todo el mundo está en otro lugar. Ed. Baile del Sol. 2011.
Think Progress Spins Story About Welfare Fraud
With a name like “Think Progress,” you’re sure to find news without bias or spin, right?
Think Progress recently posted a story with the following headline: “Mississippi Woman Receives Three Year Prison Sentence For Feeding Her Family.” The story, however, tells how the woman was convicted for lying on her benefits application in order to receive over $4 thousand in food stamps. She had previously been convicted of four felonies and one misdemeanor, which would have made her ineligible to receive food stamps. And yes, she did claim to have lied in order to help her family, but the fact still remains that she had been convicted of welfare fraud, thus making the story and its headline very misleading. Worse, the story compares the woman’s three-year prison sentence to a two-year sentence of a man who stole $3 million in mortgage fraud.
Should the woman have received such a harsh sentence? Probably not. A lesser sentence would have sufficed, though she was probably given the harsher sentence because of her previous crimes, all which were drug-related—thus making her defense of “feeding her family” rather dubious (she may have been using the money for drugs).
Should she have been given a harsher sentence than the man who swindled $3 million in mortgage fraud? Hell no! The punishment should fit the crime. $4 thousand in food stamps should receive a lesser punishment than $3 million in mortgage fraud, though both sentences were passed in different courts—albeit in the same state.
But that’s my opinion. I want to know what you all think: Were the two sentences unfair? What about the Think Progress story? Let me know in the comments below.
Think Progress recently posted a story with the following headline: “Mississippi Woman Receives Three Year Prison Sentence For Feeding Her Family.” The story, however, tells how the woman was convicted for lying on her benefits application in order to receive over $4 thousand in food stamps. She had previously been convicted of four felonies and one misdemeanor, which would have made her ineligible to receive food stamps. And yes, she did claim to have lied in order to help her family, but the fact still remains that she had been convicted of welfare fraud, thus making the story and its headline very misleading. Worse, the story compares the woman’s three-year prison sentence to a two-year sentence of a man who stole $3 million in mortgage fraud.
Should the woman have received such a harsh sentence? Probably not. A lesser sentence would have sufficed, though she was probably given the harsher sentence because of her previous crimes, all which were drug-related—thus making her defense of “feeding her family” rather dubious (she may have been using the money for drugs).
Should she have been given a harsher sentence than the man who swindled $3 million in mortgage fraud? Hell no! The punishment should fit the crime. $4 thousand in food stamps should receive a lesser punishment than $3 million in mortgage fraud, though both sentences were passed in different courts—albeit in the same state.
But that’s my opinion. I want to know what you all think: Were the two sentences unfair? What about the Think Progress story? Let me know in the comments below.
ANTI-LIBERTARIANS CAN’T THINK - franks2732
“Your ideology is the most disgusting and evil piece of shit put on this world.…Libertarians and anarcho-capitalists, this diseased neoconservative mind, is the reason why half the f***ing Western world, the English-speaking Western world, is f***ed!”
My third target is franks2732 who moans and complains about how mean and cruel libertarians and their ideology are.
VIDEOS FEATURED:
Anti Libertarian Rant by franks2732
Fucktard Of The Week: Kassiedill2 by Morrakiu
OTHER MEDIA:
Arguing with Idiots Theme Song
Music by Kevin MacLeod
AL VUELO
Yorgos Papandreu recibe la ovación de sus colegas de la
Internacional Socialista que le premian por haber conseguido la aprobación por el
Parlamento griego de un plan que traerá sufrimientos y miseria a su pueblo, en, dicen,
treinta años de recesión, pero habrá salvado las cuentas de resultados de los bancos ale-
manes y franceses que compraron deuda griega para hacer negocios; el primer dogma
de la economía política europea es garantizar los beneficios de las finanzas.
Entre quienes crearon falsas expectativas de negocios en Grecia, manipulando las
cuentas públicas, ocupa un lugar destacado Goldman Sachs, uno de los bancos salvados
de la bancarrota en 2008 gracias a miles de millones de dólares de fondos públicos y en
cuyo historial reciente figura un acusación de la Comisión Nacional del Mercado de
Valores de EE UU por fraude en el escándalo de las hipotecas subprime. Ni que decir
tiene que eso no es obstáculo para que siga operando y obteniendo cuantiosos beneficios
en medio mundo.
Un alto ejecutivo de Goldman Sachs, Mario Draghi, acaba de ser nombrado nuevo
presidente del Banco Central Europeo. En el curriculum de Draghi figura, tras su paso
por Goldman Sachs, el cargo de gobernador del Banco de Italia, uno de los puestos cen-
trales del entramado de la política de los negocios de Berlusconi.
¿En qué se diferencian política y moralmente Papandreu y Draghi? En nada importante.
Son por encima de todo cómplices. La política dominante en la Unión Europea no puede
entenderse sin la complicidad entre lo que uno y otro representan.
M.R. Al Vuelo. Viento Sur. nº 117. Julio 2011.
Feminazi: Penn State Proves All Men Are Rapists!
When you use reddit like I do as a source for news, you tend to run across the craziest stories and news articles, which is how I encountered this gem. Only feminists would be sleazy enough to spin a story like the Penn State incident to push their conspiracy theories about the “patriarchy” and “rape culture.”
Fortunatley, it seems that many redditors see this article for the bullpucky it is, as the following comments indicate:
Now is the time to point out that feminists have been describing this problem for decades, and while it’s always going to be a shock on some level to see how much social support rapists and those who cover up for them get, it’s entirely predictable if you’ve been paying attention. In fact, excuse-making for sexual harassment, intimidation, and assault is so common that feminists created a phrase to describe it: rape culture. For once when it comes to feminist terminology, Wikipedia is accurate, so I’ll refer to its definition.Rape culture? Good grief! Someone should inform the feminists that reported rapes against women in the United States have been in decline over the past 20 years.
Rape culture is a term which originated in women's studies and feminist theory, and describes a culture in which rape and sexual violence against women are common and in which prevalent attitudes, norms, practices, and media all condone, normalize, excuse, or tolerate sexual violence against women. Examples of behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, sexual objectification and rape apologism.
The only part which I would correct is to suggest that it’s not just rape and sexual violence against women that is excused in a rape culture. As the Penn State situation demonstrates---and as did the Catholic Church scandal before it and as does the ongoing inability of our society to take prison rape seriously---rape of men and children is also papered over, blamed on victims, or even condoned in our society. The form rape culture takes is tweaked slightly depending on the victim, of course. You don’t see young boys being told they brought this on themselves by dressing sexy, as female victims of various ages generally hear, but the general idea is still there. When it comes to rape, much of society thinks that the problem isn’t that rapists rape. They believe the problem is those who try to stop rape. When a rapist is outed, far too many people in our society think the person to blame for the chaos that ensues is not the person who started it all by raping, but those who blew the whistle. Even and especially when it’s the victims who blow the whistle.
Fortunatley, it seems that many redditors see this article for the bullpucky it is, as the following comments indicate:
• Rape culture? Seriously? What a bunch of trash!
It's more the bystander effect combined with people wanting to keep their job.
The entire concept of a 'rape culture' because of one man who did nasty things while 15 people didn't act out of a population of ~65,000 students/faculty/etc is sensationalism at its worst.
• I haven't heard any condemnation of the victims. The closest to "rape culture" so far is the Penn State riot over the firing of Joe Paterno, as well as the media's general unwillingness to thoroughly condemn Joe for his part in the scandal. The article seems to suggest that there is an active campaign by society to suppress what has happened. Quite frankly I don't see it.
• Typical feminist theory. Let's make this about violence against women even though the gender in question is male here. This is about sports and extreme worship of their program, not about a worship of sexual violence.
• Sorry, but the failure on the part of the people at Penn State was not due to a "Rape Culture" or thinking there was anything acceptable about a 60 year old man fucking a ten year old boy in the ass; but about money and keeping an untarnished image. They were scared of what exactly has happened, happening. They're going to pay dearly for this in the two areas that are most important to them.
Greed and ego overcame morality.
• I'd love to know in what sort of twisted universe feminists can somehow take credit for the coming out of male war rape victims (which incidentally outnumber women raped in war).
Need I remind feminists that for the better part of the 20th century they were probably the most aggressive agitators against male gay rights after the religious organisations?
Bachmann: America Should Be More Like China!
From the woman who claimed that Aladdin promoted witchcraft, that Lion King promoted homosexuality, and that carbon dioxide wasn’t a dangerous gas, comes one of the most retarded suggestions ever: America should be more like China!
Why is this woman a Republican presidential candidate again?
Why is this woman a Republican presidential candidate again?
Michele Bachmann made a curious suggestion during Saturday night's Republican debate.
Fielding a question about which social programs she would cut if president, the Minnesota Congresswoman said that China provided a good example of a society without a social safety net. The fact that China's government is resolutely socialist appeared to be lost on her.
Bachmann said that Lyndon Johnson's Great Society has "not worked, and it's put us into the modern welfare state...If you look at China, they don't have food stamps."
She continued, "They save for their own retirement security, they don't have AFDC (Aid to Families With Dependent Children), they don't have the modern welfare state, and China's growing...and so what I would do is look at the programs that LBJ gave us, with the Great Society, and they'd be gone."
Daily Kos Speaks Out Against Black Bloc Anarchists
While I don’t believe in anarchy, I do respect the opinions of anarchists like Stefan Molyneux, as they make cogent arguments against the state (though I disagree with their conclusions). I realize there’s a major difference between anarchists who make arguments against the state and “anarchists” who just want to smash things up, and as such, the black bloc anarchists at the Occupy movement do not represent the whole of anarchists and anarchy.
With that said, I can’t believe I’m sharing a Daily Kos blog post defending the Occupy movement:
With that said, I can’t believe I’m sharing a Daily Kos blog post defending the Occupy movement:
To the black bloc "Anarchists", I would like you to listen closely to the gentleman in this video at the 3:17 mark . . . he has something important to say . .
You can see people in this video trying to prevent the destruction of property, and my hat goes off to them.
And I use quotation marks on the word Anarchist for a reason, because real Anarchists believe in breaking up corrupt power structures, not smashing windows. Any mindless clown with a brick can smash a window, that doesn't make you an anarchist, just a vandal. Though I am NOT an anarchist myself, the anarchists I have met do NOT endorse this idiotic smashing of property, and nor does Occupy Wall Street. I denounce this type of bullshit. It has NO PLACE in our peaceful movement.
To the cowards in masks who just want to break shit, you aren't helping at all, in fact, you are making things worse for EVERYONE. I have no idea what you have to offer anyone, you basically have nothing positive to add to the conversation we'd like to have. In short, F U, because your idiotic acts of violence and senseless damage of property is certainly going to be used to smear every peaceful person in the Occupy Wall Street movement, so not only are you not adding anything positive, the only thing you are adding is negative.
ANTONIO ORIHUELA CANTÓ PARA EL 15-M
La voz de Antonio Orihuela, que sonaba a tiempo nuevo. A los oidos castigados con la propaganda diaria, se zarandeaban en las palabras que su poesía convertían en musicalidad inteligente, espabilaban las entendederas dormidas de los presentes. Acompañado por Augusto Yagüe, músico autodicata que demostraba instrumento tras instrumento que las pasiones de un ser humano no tienen límites. Y que la sensibilidad no la pueden enseñar en las academias y los libros. Que la llevamos en nostr.s mism.s y que tan sólo tenemos que prestarles atención y tenacidad.
Al principio, nosotr.s (el público), avergonzado, frío, ausente, desencajado... aburguesado. Empezamos a dudar de nuestra “condición”. Teníamos a un poeta y un músico delante nuestra, que disparaban verdades bien dichas, que la música untaba en suaves ondulaciones hasta nuestros oidos, estos cada vez más receptivos.
La pasión, el calor, las miradas, los niños que asombrados dejaron de no prestar atención a esos monstruos raros, que son los adultos, se inmovilizaban con la mirada despierta y atenta de quién sabe otorgar autoridad a lo auténtico.
El poeta y el músico, el músico y el poeta. Delante el público que impaciente empujaba a ambos a recitar y recitar, tocar y tocar la música que tan extrañas parecían y tan claras se nos presentaban.
La política se convirtió en otra “cosa” que si comprendíamos. Y no eso que llaman partido político, sufragio universal o parlamentarismo. Se oía el dolor de nuestros problemas diarios, se oía el poder que tenemos y no utilizamos. Se oía la palabra exacta, en el tiempo oportuno para un presente que no teníamos. Porque nos engañan con un futuro, que es muerte, y los poderosos saben, que así, no lo conquistaremos.
El público se levantaba, aplaudía, se emocionaba. El poeta con su sonrisa, nos descubría que de ella brotaba eso que desconocemos; la Alegría.
Estaba alegre, Agusto acompañaba asombrado por la facilidad de tocar música con un poeta. Descubriendo que la poesía es para decirla a gritos, para cantarla entre hermanos, en fraternidad. Y que eso de que la poesía es algo íntimo, que no debe decir nada que moleste al poderoso, que es blando, cursi y de minorías Yagüe entendía que no era cierto. Una vez más nos habían engañado. Lo que sucede es que no quieren que la gente diga la palabra exacta, quieren prosas, prosas y más prosas. Palabras vacías que no digan nada, pero que vuelvan a repetirse sin pausa, sin medirlas siquiera.
Esa métrica que reclamamos los que deseamos un presente digno. Esa justa medida de las cosas que no la vemos hoy ni proclamada siquiera. Ese poeta y ese músico juntos, levantando al público combativo... (En: www.municipiolibre.org)
El peligro de la poesía, sobre todo para los poetas, es el riesgo de perderse en ella. Cuando la causa que persigue es tan digna y esencial, la visión última de un mundo libre con individuos libres y justos es tan lícita y se ve tan vilipendiada, que dan ganas de colgarse del sueño ya resuelto, más que de empezar a caminar o batallar para restablecerlo. No es este el caso, de quien este miércoles recitó, a petición del 15M de Mérida, para todo aquel que quiso escucharle.
Los poemas de Antonio Orihuela son conciencia, sentimiento, lucha... Una lucha como la de tantas y cada vez más personas, a la que Antonio ha querido dar la fuerza transcendental de la poesía donde arden ideales y emociones para convertirse en llama eterna, escapando a los derribos de lo material y situándolas en el plano donde las causas justas se hacen invencibles. En su creatividad Libre, intensa y espléndida, va el esfuerzo y el desgaste del hombre al servicio de lo hermoso de una causa comprometida con la libertad del individuo para fortalecerla, para hacerla crecer, para extenderla y despertar a los sonámbulos. Su poesía refresca pereza, argumenta la trama, recuerda el derecho y desenmascara culpables. Escribe para todas y para él mismo, porque todas somos colegas en continúo aprendizaje, de este oficio común que es la vida.
Gracias pues, Antonio, por tu aportación al movimiento 15M.
www.municipiolibre.org y M. Ranz Alonso. Crónica de un recital. Versos y Palabras para acompañar al movimiento 15-M. Mérida, 8 de noviembre de 2011.
Fotografía de Juan Sánchez Amorós.
Algunos de los poemas recitados de su libro "Todo el mundo está en otro lugar"
DEMOCRACIA VIGILADA
Un atentado llevó a Adolfo Suárez al poder.
Un atentado llevó a Felipe González al poder.
Un atentado llevó a José María Aznar al poder.
Un atentado llevó a José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero al poder.
Mientras tengan dinamita,
¿por qué van a fiarse de las urnas?
##########################
LA EXPLOSIÓN
De entre toda la palabrería
de autoconsumo pseudorrevolucionario,
me molesta, sobre todo,
cuando me dicen que soy una subjetividad.
No sé qué cojones de pasividad
hay en ese término,
no lo entiendo,
prefiero ser una intensidad,
una pasión,
un goce que estalla
o que podría estallar,
volver a comenzar,
dejar la resistencia pasiva,
el exilio interior,
la supervivencia…
podría volver a comenzar lo inaudito,
lo excepcional,
lo que nunca ocurrió podría llegar
en el ahora
cuando la sociedad
no es más que un argumento
con que justifican sus desmanes
los que dicen representarla,
en el ahora
cuando el movimiento obrero
no es más que un instrumento del Estado
para la desactivación de los trabajadores,
ahora
que la violencia estatal
se ha vuelto preventiva,
ahora
que la magistratura y la policía
hablan del derecho de injerencia
y los médicos de psiquiatrización
y medicamentosis social.
Nuestro tiempo es el ahora:
estallar
aquí
ahora
en donde estamos,
en el nombre de un vivir
que no tiene nombre
sino común presencia
de su cumplimiento,
aquí,
ahora,
cuando somos presencia,
desde abajo,
en lo local de esta globalización acabada,
estallar
anónimos, cualquieras, indistintos,
estallar en archipiélagos, constelaciones, colectivos,
cuerpos y cuerpos en acelerada e invisible circulación
de afectos conspirativos,
de ternura crítica que celebra
la huelga humana,
el fin del trabajo alienado,
el fin de las víctimas,
el fin de la guerra que nos hace
el Capital.
Vamos, volar no es imposible,
aquí,
ahora
estalla.
###############
¿CUÁNTO VALE EL TRABAJO?
Los cuidados recibidos durante el embarazo,
el amor de los padres,
la alimentación, el calzado, los vestidos,
la educación y especialización del trabajador.
Todas estas cosas, cuando entra uno en un trabajo,
¿cómo se miden?
¿van incluidas en el sueldo?
¿Entrarán en la próxima Reforma Laboral?
########################
SER DE IZQUIERDAS QUEMA
Es absurdo votar para que no venga el lobo
cuando lo único que viene es otra especie de lobo
que es malo porque este no es peor lobo
que el que viene.
##############
CAPITALISMO
Ganamos una carrera
y el premio es otra carrera.
Tenemos que salir de aquí.
#######
ESTADO DE ALARMA
Y ya puestos a considerar una violación de los derechos de los ciudadanos
el perder un fin de semana de vacaciones
y sacar el ejército para asegurar nuestros derechos constitucionales
y defender la libertad de movimiento de la gente.
¿Saldrá el ejército a defender nuestro derecho a una vivienda digna?
¿Impedirá también el ejército la destrucción del digno empleo,
el recorte de ayudas sociales,
el abaratamiento del despido,
la subida de los años de cotización
o los desahucios por impago?
¿Le seguirán
la ocupación de las sucursales bancarias?
¿Serán llevados los banqueros a punta de pistola
hasta sus bancos para que repartan créditos?
¿Irán a prisión?
¿Recibiremos indemnizaciones millonarias todos los afectados?
¿Los lincharan los medios de comunicación
mientras retransmiten hasta la extenuación
el dolor de tanta gente engañada, humillada, desahuciada,
parada y arruinada?
¿Adivinas la respuesta,
o todavía estás aplaudiendo a los milicos
en el aeropuerto?
############
PP, SWEET PP
Casi nueve millones de españoles han invadido un país,
lo han destruido,
matado a doscientos mil civiles,
sembrado de uranio empobrecido,
alentado una guerra civil,
violado,
asesinado,
y torturado.
Sus votos
fueron las armas de destrucción masiva.
Su colaboración con banda armada
no será investigada.
Son buenos padres, amables vecinos,
cumplidores ciudadanos
que recogen del suelo la mierda de sus perros.
Sus manos estarán limpias, pero sus conciencias
reposan en la confortable seguridad de nuestro mundo
manchadas de sangre.
######################
POLÍTICOS
El problema es que quienes se postulan
para resolver el problema
son el problema.
UNIÓN, PROGRESO Y DEMOCRACIA
Aquí los gatos viven de puta madre
Están gordos
De ello se encarga un tipo que es gestor de la estación
El mismo que el otro día fue denunciado
Por dedicar insultos racistas a un usuario del tren
El mismo que le largó una vez a una camarera lesbiana
Que lo que ella necesita es una buena polla
El mismo que acosa a chicas que podrían ser sus hijas
Y luego dice que es que van provocando
El mismo que le hace moobing al vigilante
Porque no maltrata a quienes el odia
El mismo que se marchó del PP
Porque de nada le sirvieron 20 años de lamer culos para trepar
El mismo que se presentó a alcalde de Manacor
En las pasadas elecciones municipales por UPyD
Me pregunto si
Las 143 personas que lo han votado
También serán amantes de los gatos.
poema de Patricio Rascón
This Week In Review (11/13/2011)
• Democrats won key elections in Ohio, Maine, Mississippi, and Arizona. I would say this was a big loss for the Republicans, but screw it: they brought this upon themselves! When they gained a majority in the House of Representatives last year, they promised they were going to create jobs. It’s been one year. How many jobs have they created? Zero! Zip! Zilch! Instead, they have been focusing on menial social issues like abortion. Don’t get me wrong, pushing back abortion is an important issue, but during harsh economic times, fixing the economy and creating jobs should be more important—especially when it’s the platform you ran on! As far as the economy goes, the most Republicans have done were make cuts to NPR and Planned Parenthood—not even a fraction of one percent of our budget (compared to defense spending, which makes up a lion’s share of 20%)! Let’s face it: the Republicans are the party of Epic Fail! They fail at creating jobs, they fail at fixing the economy, they fail at limiting the federal government, they fail at fiscal responsibility, and the just flat-out fail at being conservative. Let us pray that they’re replaced by the Libertarian Party as the country’s right-wing party.
• Rick Perry forgot the third government agency he wanted to eliminate during the GOP Debate Wednesday. “It’s three agencies of government when I get there that are gone: Commerce, Education, and the, um, uh, what’s the third one?” Good grief! I want to say that Perry is just like Bush, but at this point, that would be an insult—to Bush! Perry is like him, only without the integrity or the intelligence—or rather, what little Bush has in the first place!
• Former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky was arrested and charged with sexually-abusing eight boys over a 15-year period. At this point, I don’t know which is worse: the coach raping a boy in the locker room showers, the assistant coach Mike McQuery witnessing the rape but not reporting it, or the thousands of students rioting because their beloved coach was fired and arrested. Don’t get me wrong: the coach raping the young boy is obviously worse, but the other two were no better.
• Bill Clinton released his new book Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy. Democrats and liberals love to brag about how the economy was all sunshine and lollipops under Clinton. But as with other liberal legends like FDR and his “New Deal” or LBG and his “Great Society,” Clinton and his “Golden Years” is just that: a legend—more specifically, a myth!
• Congressman Joe Walsh was caught on camera yelling at a constituent. During one of his “Cup Of Joe With Joe” events, Walsh was confronted by a woman who asked him about the banks’ responsibility for the economic crisis, to which he responded in a heated tirade. “It’s not the private marketplace that created this mess! What created this mess is your government which has demanded for years that everyone be in a home, and we have made it as easy as possible for people to be in homes. All the marketplace does is respond to what the government does. The government sets the rules. Don’t blame banks and don’t blame the marketplace for the mess we’re in right now. And I’m tired of hearing that crap!” As am I! Look, I think Joe was uncouth and uncivil in his response (and as a politician, that’s no good), but in the end, he was absolutely 100% right!
• A government mandate requiring tobacco companies to post graphic warning labels on their products was blocked by a federal judge. This comes as a sigh of relief, considering that the past week has not been a good one for common sense within our government—what with the US Court of Appeals declaring it constitutional for the federal government to force Americans to buy health insurance, the Senate striking down an attempt to repeal the Orwellian Net Neutrality, and the Supreme Court deliberating whether or not police need a warrant to slap a tracking device onto a vehicle. But seriously, did anyone really believe that those ridiculous graphic warnings would have deterred people from smoking? Somehow, I don’t even think the people pushing for the warning labels believed that!
• Grand Canyon National Park scraped its plans to ban the sale of plastic water bottles. As with the graphic tobacco warnings, did anyone honestly believe that this ban would have worked? Even if they banned the sale of bottled beverages at the park, what’s to prevent tourists from bringing their own? Either way, litter is still being created. On a side note, this ban came immediately after park officials had spoken with officials from Coca-Cola—a major donor to the park. Both parties deny that their conversation influenced the blocking of the ban.
• Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain said they would reinstate waterboarding during the GOP Debate Saturday. New Rule: Politicians like Bachmann and Cain who think waterboarding is not torture should volunteer to be waterboarded themselves, and then decide afterwards whether or not it’s torture. Pretty sure they would be singing a different tune.
• Justin Bieber denies being the father of a 20-year-old woman’s baby. Is he or is he not the baby daddy of Mariah Yeater? Better question: Oh my God! Who the hell cares?
• Rick Perry forgot the third government agency he wanted to eliminate during the GOP Debate Wednesday. “It’s three agencies of government when I get there that are gone: Commerce, Education, and the, um, uh, what’s the third one?” Good grief! I want to say that Perry is just like Bush, but at this point, that would be an insult—to Bush! Perry is like him, only without the integrity or the intelligence—or rather, what little Bush has in the first place!
• Former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky was arrested and charged with sexually-abusing eight boys over a 15-year period. At this point, I don’t know which is worse: the coach raping a boy in the locker room showers, the assistant coach Mike McQuery witnessing the rape but not reporting it, or the thousands of students rioting because their beloved coach was fired and arrested. Don’t get me wrong: the coach raping the young boy is obviously worse, but the other two were no better.
• Bill Clinton released his new book Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy. Democrats and liberals love to brag about how the economy was all sunshine and lollipops under Clinton. But as with other liberal legends like FDR and his “New Deal” or LBG and his “Great Society,” Clinton and his “Golden Years” is just that: a legend—more specifically, a myth!
• Congressman Joe Walsh was caught on camera yelling at a constituent. During one of his “Cup Of Joe With Joe” events, Walsh was confronted by a woman who asked him about the banks’ responsibility for the economic crisis, to which he responded in a heated tirade. “It’s not the private marketplace that created this mess! What created this mess is your government which has demanded for years that everyone be in a home, and we have made it as easy as possible for people to be in homes. All the marketplace does is respond to what the government does. The government sets the rules. Don’t blame banks and don’t blame the marketplace for the mess we’re in right now. And I’m tired of hearing that crap!” As am I! Look, I think Joe was uncouth and uncivil in his response (and as a politician, that’s no good), but in the end, he was absolutely 100% right!
• A government mandate requiring tobacco companies to post graphic warning labels on their products was blocked by a federal judge. This comes as a sigh of relief, considering that the past week has not been a good one for common sense within our government—what with the US Court of Appeals declaring it constitutional for the federal government to force Americans to buy health insurance, the Senate striking down an attempt to repeal the Orwellian Net Neutrality, and the Supreme Court deliberating whether or not police need a warrant to slap a tracking device onto a vehicle. But seriously, did anyone really believe that those ridiculous graphic warnings would have deterred people from smoking? Somehow, I don’t even think the people pushing for the warning labels believed that!
• Grand Canyon National Park scraped its plans to ban the sale of plastic water bottles. As with the graphic tobacco warnings, did anyone honestly believe that this ban would have worked? Even if they banned the sale of bottled beverages at the park, what’s to prevent tourists from bringing their own? Either way, litter is still being created. On a side note, this ban came immediately after park officials had spoken with officials from Coca-Cola—a major donor to the park. Both parties deny that their conversation influenced the blocking of the ban.
• Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain said they would reinstate waterboarding during the GOP Debate Saturday. New Rule: Politicians like Bachmann and Cain who think waterboarding is not torture should volunteer to be waterboarded themselves, and then decide afterwards whether or not it’s torture. Pretty sure they would be singing a different tune.
• Justin Bieber denies being the father of a 20-year-old woman’s baby. Is he or is he not the baby daddy of Mariah Yeater? Better question: Oh my God! Who the hell cares?
Pony Saturday: The Cutie Pox
You know what day it is? That’s right: Pony Saturday! And today, I’ll be posting my thoughts on today’s newest episode: The Cutie Pox.
• Question: How can ponies bowl if they don’t have any fingers? Then again, how can ponies do anything without fingers?
• Bowling Dolls = Charlie’s Angels! :D
• And any bowling episode isn’t complete without a Big Lebowski reference. Did you catch it? (It was right when Scootaloo kicked her bowling ball all over the place, and it zips by three familiar faces—or at least three familiar faces in pony form.)
• One of the ponies in the bowling alley looks a lot like Rarity’s mom from the last episode.
• Apple Bloom bites into her bowling ball. Um, bleh!
• I believe this is the fourth episode to feature Zecora—one of my favorite ponies who isn’t one of the main characters.
• Did anyone else think of “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” while listening to Apple Bloom with a chipped tooth saying she wanted her cutie mark now?
• Yes, Zecora, just leave Apple Bloom alone with the flower you told her grants one’s desires after she told you how desperately she wanted a cutie mark.
• Nice to see another appearance from Twist, not so much Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon.
• Apparently, class can be dismissed if someone has a really special talent like loop-de-hooping.
• Yay! Apple Bloom turned into Miles “Tails” Prowler!
• Twilight’s mane transformed into Rarity’s with Apple Bloom’s loop-de-hoop! (And I guess Spike must like Rarity for her hair, since he was quick to become infatuated with Twilight.)
• Apparently, Apple Bloom knew what Apple Jack wanted her to do with the pie and plates she threw at her.
• Seems like we’re seeing more of Granny Smith in this season.
• Question: Why was Apple Bloom suddenly unable to control herself once she received her third cutie mark? See was able to control herself with the first two. Do your talents suddenly become uncontrollable at three?
• LOL! One of the diseases mentioned in Twilight’s book is “The Trots”!
• Question: Since Equestria is obviously in an alternate universe with geography unlike our own, is there seriously a French language, let alone a France, in that universe?
• Better Question: How will they translate that scene into French? She’s obviously not going to be speaking French!
• Continuity Error: Apple Bloom and Apple Jack visited Twilght Sparkle during the night, then they decide go to Zecora—in the day?
• Nice to see Lily, Daisy, and Roseluck reappear in this episode. (The horror! The horror!)
• Apple Bloom becomes Taz! :D
• Question: If the Seeds of Truth grow when someone tells the truth, shouldn’t they have grown when Pinkie Pie spilled the beans about eating Mrs. Cake’s corncakes? (Obvious Answer: Because then we wouldn’t have the moral of our story from Apple Bloom).
• Question: Did Zecora really disappear, or did she simply leave while no one was looking?
• And Apple Bloom got to write to Princess Celestia.
• Question: How can ponies bowl if they don’t have any fingers? Then again, how can ponies do anything without fingers?
• Bowling Dolls = Charlie’s Angels! :D
• And any bowling episode isn’t complete without a Big Lebowski reference. Did you catch it? (It was right when Scootaloo kicked her bowling ball all over the place, and it zips by three familiar faces—or at least three familiar faces in pony form.)
• One of the ponies in the bowling alley looks a lot like Rarity’s mom from the last episode.
• Apple Bloom bites into her bowling ball. Um, bleh!
• I believe this is the fourth episode to feature Zecora—one of my favorite ponies who isn’t one of the main characters.
• Did anyone else think of “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” while listening to Apple Bloom with a chipped tooth saying she wanted her cutie mark now?
• Yes, Zecora, just leave Apple Bloom alone with the flower you told her grants one’s desires after she told you how desperately she wanted a cutie mark.
• Nice to see another appearance from Twist, not so much Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon.
• Apparently, class can be dismissed if someone has a really special talent like loop-de-hooping.
• Yay! Apple Bloom turned into Miles “Tails” Prowler!
• Twilight’s mane transformed into Rarity’s with Apple Bloom’s loop-de-hoop! (And I guess Spike must like Rarity for her hair, since he was quick to become infatuated with Twilight.)
• Apparently, Apple Bloom knew what Apple Jack wanted her to do with the pie and plates she threw at her.
• Seems like we’re seeing more of Granny Smith in this season.
• Question: Why was Apple Bloom suddenly unable to control herself once she received her third cutie mark? See was able to control herself with the first two. Do your talents suddenly become uncontrollable at three?
• LOL! One of the diseases mentioned in Twilight’s book is “The Trots”!
• Question: Since Equestria is obviously in an alternate universe with geography unlike our own, is there seriously a French language, let alone a France, in that universe?
• Better Question: How will they translate that scene into French? She’s obviously not going to be speaking French!
• Continuity Error: Apple Bloom and Apple Jack visited Twilght Sparkle during the night, then they decide go to Zecora—in the day?
• Nice to see Lily, Daisy, and Roseluck reappear in this episode. (The horror! The horror!)
• Apple Bloom becomes Taz! :D
• Question: If the Seeds of Truth grow when someone tells the truth, shouldn’t they have grown when Pinkie Pie spilled the beans about eating Mrs. Cake’s corncakes? (Obvious Answer: Because then we wouldn’t have the moral of our story from Apple Bloom).
• Question: Did Zecora really disappear, or did she simply leave while no one was looking?
• And Apple Bloom got to write to Princess Celestia.
RECITAL POÉTICO/MUSICAL
Esta semana hemos tenido la oportunidad de disfrutar en Mérida de dos acontecimientos culturales de primer nivel, uno poético y otro poético/musical, el primero se celebró en el Parador Nacional y fue ofrecido por el poeta Eladio Orta, que nos embelesó con su poesía directa, desenfadada y critica.
Eladio Orta.
lo lograste
me dice
premios literarios
felicitaciones de delegados culturales
antologías varias
críticas en los suplementos
culturales más influyentes
presunta joven novia
…
mamón rozas el poder
te has convertido en el arquetipo
de gilipollas literario
(Leche de Camello)
hasta ahora mis libros
han sido pequeñas bromas
y a partir de ahora
mis libros van a seguir
siendo pequeñas bromas
(+ De Poemas Tontos)
no elegí nacer en la sal y la arena
la retama y el fango
pero si nací en la sal y la arena
en la retama y el fango
debo defender la sal y la arena
las retamas y el fango
(Antisonetos)
En el segundo acto intervinieron el poeta Antonio Orihuela y el cantautor Nacho Dueñas, ambos nos ofrecieron un recital poético/musical colmado de poesía social, poesía de la buena y canciones llanas, canciones del pueblo y para el pueblo.
Antonio Orihuela:
INCONSCIENCIA
En la hoguera del mundo
nos lavamos las manos con gasolina,
después, para que se nos calienten,
las acercamos al fuego.
(De aserrando corazones…)
POLÍTICOS
El problema es quienes se postulan
para resolver el problema
son el problema.
(De Todo el mundo está en otro lugar)
La poesía es un incendio,
por eso no da para vivir
da para arder,
no escribas,
arde en ella.
(De Todo el mundo está en otro lugar)
CAMPAÑA TSUNAMI SOLIDARIO (¿?)
Si todos estamos
con el agua al cuello
y llega un tsunami
SE SALVAN…
Los bancos que abrieron cuentas solidarias
que nadie sabe nunca
cuándo ni por dónde se cierran.
Ya digo, sí, todos estamos con el agua al cuello,
pero cada vez que llega el tsunami
SE SALVAN
los mismos
de siempre.
(De cómo ser un buen ciudadano…)
Nintendo GameCube Commercials Montage
I love it whenever a new video game console is released, especially with the advertising behind it. I love to see how the new consoles market themselves, and somehow, they always seem to inspire you to jump out of your seat and rush to the nearest Wal-Mart in order to buy one.
I especially love watching old-school video game commercials. Though the games and systems themselves are outdated, the commercials still make them seem brand new and innovative.
In honor of the Nintendo GameCube’s tenth anniversary, the following montage of GameCube commercials was created by user CyberWolf087. Man, I remember these commercials well!
I especially love watching old-school video game commercials. Though the games and systems themselves are outdated, the commercials still make them seem brand new and innovative.
In honor of the Nintendo GameCube’s tenth anniversary, the following montage of GameCube commercials was created by user CyberWolf087. Man, I remember these commercials well!
Welcome To The Police State!
Should the police be allowed to slap a tracking device on your vehicle without a warrant? Obvious answer: No! Would such action be unconstitutional? According to the Fourth Amendment: Yes!
But hey, folks, this is post-9/11 America! We don’t take kindly to our own Constitution (especially the Fourth Amendment) around these parts. We need to actually deliberate such scenarios at the Supreme Court.
Hyperbole, you say? As of now, the police have the power to break down your door without a warrant if they suspect you’re destroying evidence, search the contents of your cell phone during a traffic stop, pepper spray protesters for no real reason, and arrest people for victimless crimes like growing vegetables in their front yard and feeding the homeless in a public park.
But hey, at least there's one thing the police can't do. They can't be videotaped! Such a violation of the police's right to privacy can land you 75 years in prison. When the police have more of a right to privacy than the average law-abiding citizen, you know you're living in a police state!
But hey, folks, this is post-9/11 America! We don’t take kindly to our own Constitution (especially the Fourth Amendment) around these parts. We need to actually deliberate such scenarios at the Supreme Court.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court invoked visions of an all-seeing Big Brother and satellites watching us from above. Then things got personal Tuesday when the justices were told police could slap GPS devices on their cars and track their movements without asking a judge for advance approval.At this point, is anyone really shocked? Ever since the Patriot Act was passed, allowing for warrantless wiretaps and record searches, our Constitutional rights have been decreasing, and after ten years, we’ve transformed into a full-blown police state straight out of 1984.
The occasion for all the talk about intrusive police actions was a hearing in a case about whether the police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects. The outcome could have implications for other high-tech surveillance methods as well.
The justices expressed deep reservations about warrantless GPS tracking. But there also was no clear view about how or whether to regulate police use of the devices.
The justices were taken aback when the lawyer representing the government said police officers could install GPS devices on the justices' cars and track their movements without a warrant. To get a warrant, investigators need to convince a judge that there is reason to believe a suspect is involved in criminal activity.
"So your answer is yes, you could tomorrow decide that you put a GPS device on every one of our cars, follow us for a month; no problem under the Constitution?" Chief Justice John Roberts said.
Not only that, government lawyer Michael Dreeben replied, but FBI agents wouldn't need a warrant either if they wanted to rummage through the justices' trash, use a low-tech beeper to track them or tail them around-the-clock with a team of agents. Dreeben said the court has previously ruled that people have no reasonable expectation of privacy in those circumstances.
Justice Samuel Alito captured the essence of the court's concern when he said, "With computers around, it's now so simple to amass an enormous amount of information. How do we deal with this? Just say nothing has changed?"
Justice Stephen Breyer alluded to George Orwell's novel "1984" when he said surveillance in the past depended on human beings and their sometimes flawed memories. But computers don't have that problem, he said.
"The question that I think people are driving at, at least as I understand it and certainly share the concern, is that if you win this case, then there is nothing to prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24 hours a day the public movement of every citizen of the United States," Breyer said.
Hyperbole, you say? As of now, the police have the power to break down your door without a warrant if they suspect you’re destroying evidence, search the contents of your cell phone during a traffic stop, pepper spray protesters for no real reason, and arrest people for victimless crimes like growing vegetables in their front yard and feeding the homeless in a public park.
But hey, at least there's one thing the police can't do. They can't be videotaped! Such a violation of the police's right to privacy can land you 75 years in prison. When the police have more of a right to privacy than the average law-abiding citizen, you know you're living in a police state!
Somalia Vs Free Market
Why is it that the stupidest talking points also tend to be the most heavily repeated? If I had a dime for every time I heard Somalia used as an example of libertarianism or free-market capitalism, my fortune could possibly rival that of Bill Gates.
Somalia has no form of government. That means it’s under anarchy. Libertarians and free-market capitalists do want government; they just want to limit its power over the people, especially the market. Therefore, Somalia is not an example of either libertarianism or free-market capitalism.
Unfortunately, such logic does not pervade the minds of libtarded moonbats like Sam Seder, who recently claimed that the best way to debunk libertarians is to simply let them talk.
The free market does not exist. There is no unencumbered market.…Maybe in Somalia.…That’s what a free market is. It is feudalism. It is who has got more guns…or swords, and arrows. They’re the ones who are going to…accumulate the most wealth. Capitalism can only function properly with strong government controls that protect consumers and workers from the excesses of capitalism. It’s not even the excesses. It’s the operation of capitalism.I love how he assumes that libertarianism or free-market capitalism is about allowing whoever has the most guns the right to rule, even though both philosophies reject the use of force through the non-aggression principle. As one person said in the comment section: “Well, if that's his concern then it makes no sense to grant the state exclusive monopoly on the use of the biggest, baddest guns in society, does it?”
But Seder is half-right about the free market. There has been no true free market, as all markets have had some level of regulation, which is necessary to an extent. However, there are markets which are freer than others, the perfect example being Hong Kong. From Wikipedia:
As one of the world's leading international financial centers, Hong Kong has a major capitalist service economy characterized by low taxation and free trade. The currency, Hong Kong dollar, is the eight most traded currency in the world as of 2010. Hong Kong was once described by Milton Friedman as the world’s greatest experiment in laissez-faire capitalism. It maintains a highly developed capitalist economy, ranked the freest in the world by the Index of Economic Freedom for 15 consecutive years. It is an important centre for international finance and trade, with one of the greatest concentrations of corporate headquarters in the Asia-Pacific region, and is known as one of the Four Asian Tigers for its high growth rates and rapid development from the 1960s to the 1990s. Between 1961 and 1997 Hong Kong's gross domestic product grew 180 times while per-capita GDP increased 87 times over.Hong Kong is but the leading example. The remaining Top 10 freest economies are Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Ireland, Denmark, the United States, and Bahrain. As for Somalia, it isn’t even listed on the Index of Economic Freedom World Rankings. So much for it being a libertarian free market paradise!
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange is the seventh largest in the world, with a market capitalization of US$2.3 trillion as of December 2009. In that year, Hong Kong raised 22 percent of worldwide initial public offering (IPO) capital, making it the largest centre of IPOs in the world and the easiest place to raise capital. Hong Kong's currency is the Hong Kong dollar, which has been pegged to the U.S. dollar since 1983.
The Hong Kong Government has traditionally played a mostly passive role in the economy, with little by way of industrial policy and almost no import or export controls. Market forces and the private sector were allowed to determine practical development. Under the official policy of "positive non-interventionism", Hong Kong is often cited as an example of laissez-faire capitalism. Following the Second World War, Hong Kong industrialized rapidly as a manufacturing centre driven by exports, and then underwent a rapid transition to a service-based economy in the 1980s. Since then, it has grown to become a leading center for management, financial, IT, business consultation and professional services.
Race Realists are Sneaky STATISTS
“Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.” – Ayn Rand
If you believe in grouping people into collectives based upon their skin color, you have no right to call yourself a libertarian. If you believe one group of people has more rights than another, you have no right to call yourself a libertarian. And if you believe people of different races should remain separate, you have no right to call yourself a libertarian.
You simply cannot have racial segregation without a state enforcing it. TheTruePooka explains:
If you believe in grouping people into collectives based upon their skin color, you have no right to call yourself a libertarian. If you believe one group of people has more rights than another, you have no right to call yourself a libertarian. And if you believe people of different races should remain separate, you have no right to call yourself a libertarian.
You simply cannot have racial segregation without a state enforcing it. TheTruePooka explains:
And please don’t put forward fantasies about everyone volunteering to merrily segregate into different cities and states according to race. Because that’s not going to happen. Putting forward such a premise is an absolute copout, a weak and feeble attempt to sidestep the issue and the fact that, even under the best of circumstances, a significant amount of force is going to have to be exerted to enforce this voluntary segregation. The only way they kept the population segregated prior to the civil rights movement was by reducing the rights of one group—black people in this case—so that they could justify and get away with force against them. You think it’s going to be any different now, you think that a city or state coded for black or white only population isn’t going to have to reduce the rights of the racial population that all of a sudden finds itself in the “shit out of luck” seats? Please! Either you people are very stupid or very naïve.…[S]egregationist ideology ends up being in direct conflict with one of the most basic principles of libertarian philosophy: that you don’t use force against others and infringe on their individuality. From a right-libertarian position, even using the slightest force to cause segregation, it is unacceptable. There’s just no way around it.Having apparently struck the nerve of so many race realists, Pooka’s video was spammed to the point where he was forced to place his video in private. In fact, one person even flagged his video. Pooka points out the irony:
This dimbulb made use of the apparatus of our “state” here on YouTube, Google administration, to try to silence me and destroy my channel.
(sarcastic handclap)
Thank you. Thank you so very much for actually proving my point. It took one or some of you less than 24 hours to run to our internet version of the state for help, thus giving me the concrete proof I need to show without any doubt that my argument has strong merit.
Demotivational Poster: Michael Moore
On Nov. 3, Occupy Oakland protesters forcibly shut down not only the Port of Oakland, the fifth busiest port in America, but also several surrounding businesses and banks. The peaceful protests turned violent as protesters began smashing windows, spraying graffiti, and tossing Molotov cocktails. This resulted in dozens of protesters getting arrested and at least four being hospitalized.
When liberal filmmaker Michael Moore was asked on Piers Morgan Tonight what he thought of the violence, he simply answered, “there’s no violence coming from the Occupy protesters. This is a non-violent peaceful group.…They’re not destroying any property.” His response received applause from the studio audience.
Nearly a week earlier, Moore had appeared on the same show where he insisted that he was not part of the “one percent”—despite having made millions from his documentaries (which ironically berate the system from which he profits). To Moore, it did not matter that his income placed him in the same bracket as those he has been protesting, he did not consider himself part of the one percent because, as he put it, “even though I do well, I don’t associate myself with those who do well.” (This is sort of like saying he’s not overweight because, even though he’s fat, he doesn’t associate himself with those who are.)
At this point, is anyone really surprised that Moore lied on the exact same show twice? This libtarded moonbat has made his living peddling lies through his propaganda films—excuse me, “documentaries.” (On second thought, never mind. “Propaganda” best describes his films. Just search the dictionary and you’ll find his picture under “Propaganda.”)
In his first documentary Roger and Me, Moore portrays the negative impact that resulted from General Electric shutting down several plants in his hometown of Flint, Michigan. Moore had messed with the chronology of events in order to fit his narrative, thus presenting a distorted and inaccurate one. Paraphrasing a review by critic Harlan Jacobson, New York Times critic Richard Bernstein wrote, “The film compressed events that actually took place over a long period of time and altered the sequence of some of them. The 11 plant closings affected 4 states, not just Flint. The 30,000 jobs lost in Flint were lost over 12 years, not the far shorter span suggested - though never explicitly stated - by Mr. Moore in ‘Roger and Me.’”
In Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore featured several video clips of George W. Bush and his administration, including Condoleezza Rice, who was shown saying, “There is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11.” The clip suggested that Rice was claiming that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, thus justifying the invasion of Iraq. However, the full context of the quote reveals that the “tie” she was referring to was not Hussein, but radical Islam: “It’s not that Saddam Hussein was somehow himself and his regime involved in 9/11, but, if you think about what caused 9/11, it is the rise of ideologies of hatred that lead people to drive airplanes into buildings in New York....[This] has perverted Islam from a peaceful religion into one in which they call on it for violence. And they're all linked.” (Ah, quote mining at its finest, or rather worst!)
In Sicko, Moore accompanies a group of Americans to a Cuban hospital in order to receive free healthcare. He claims that the treatment they received at the hospital was the exact same treatment every Cuban citizen received. In reality, the hospital they visited was actually reserved for the privileged elites. Poorer citizens tend to visit more rundown clinics with poorer, filthier conditions. In fact, the film’s portrayal of Cuba’s healthcare system was so exaggerated that it was banned in Cuba in fear that it would create “a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them.”
And these are only a fraction of the lies Moore has made in his documentaries. (The website Michael Moore: Exposed provides a plethora of lies and distortions Moore has made in film and real life.)
Aside from being a pathological liar, he’s also a massive hypocrite. He profits from capitalism by making films against capitalism—and then he has the nerve to appear on television and claim he’s not part of the same “one percent” he and his fellow moonbats are protesting on Wall Street. Speaking of which, Moore is infamous for claiming “I don't own a single share of stock!” (And guess what: that’s a lie, too!)
At this point, calling Moore a liar is like calling him fat: it’s blatantly obvious, and anyone who doesn’t see it is blind (or liberal, or both)!
HACER NEGOCIO CON EL DETERIORO AMBIENTAL Y PROFUNDIZARLO CON LA TECNOLOGÍA EFICIENTE
Actividades que consideramos respetuosas con el medio ambiente: la lectura de un periódico on line, el envío de gran cantidad de información vía e-mail o colgar vídeos en Youtube, tienen también su coste energético y medioambiental, aparte del económico. Algunas de estas actividades se suponían que iban a ahorrar por ejemplo consumo de papel, pero el derroche de papel a escala global no ha hecho sino aumEntar de forma imparable en la era de la sociedad de la información.
... Se ha llegado a valorar, p. ej., que la lectura de un periódico on line utiliza 10 veces más energía fósil y dos veces más residuos que un periódico tradicional... Este hecho choca con la cultura del gratis total que promueve internet, y que muchos manipulan y magnifican, pues no hay ninguna actividad humana que sea gratis en términos energéticos y ambientales.
De esta forma, la sociedad de la imagen y la información ayuda a ocultar aún más la gravísima crisis ecológica que enfrentamos.
Ramón Fernández Duran. El Antropoceno. La expansión del capitalismo global choca con la biosfera. Ed. Virus. Barcelona, 2011.
Fotografía: Juan Sánchez Amorós.
Demotivational Poster: Moral Majority
CHRISTIAN, n.: One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin. (The Devil's Dictionary, Ambrose Pierce)
Why is it that politicians who espouse Christian “family values” also tend to be the most immoral sinners? Sarah Palin’s daughter had a baby out-of-wedlock. Larry Craig was caught soliciting gay sex in an airport bathroom. Mark Sanford had an affair with an Argentinean mistress. And now Herman Cain has been accused of sexually-harassing two female employees. And he still remains ahead in the polls!
So let's get this straight: if you're a Democrat who tweets his junk, you get forced to resign; if you're a Democrat who receives head from an intern, you get impeached; but if you're a Republican who harasses two female employees, you remain ahead in the polls? And Republicans are supposed to be the Moral Majority?
For the record, I could care less what Cain allegedly did to his female employees. American politicians have been involved in sex scandals ever since Thomas Jefferson. Don’t hate Cain because he’s a sexual pervert. Hate him because he’s a Federal Reserve shill! (No need to audit the Federal Reserve? Bullshit!)
ANTI-LIBERTARIANS CAN'T THINK: atticana
"What always strikes me about libertarians...is that they are invariably white and middle class."
My second target in my series is atticana, who believes that libertarians are only morally-deficient atheists.
VIDEOS FEATURED
"Libertarians = Morally Deficient Atheists" by atticana
"We're not racists, BUT ..." by ZOMGitsCriss
OTHER LINKS
Economic Freedom and Quality of Life
Myth of the Robber Barons
Minimum Wage Equals Minimum Jobs
OTHER MEDIA
Arguing with Idiots Theme Song
Music by Kevin MacLeod
White Nationalism Is Like Favorite Ice Cream Flavor?
New Rule: If you group people into collectives based upon their race, or defend people who do likewise, then you have no right to consider yourself a libertarian.
In his video Worst Argument Ever, Coughlan000 destroys "libertarian" greenghost2008 for defending “race realist” HeyRuka by claiming that White Nationalism is like having a favorite ice cream flavor.
How the hell is White Nationalism like having a favorite ice cream flavor? As greenghost explained: “It’s simply preferring people just like you. In this world, that very well has a racial context.”
Good grief. The problem with White Nationalists like HeyRuka, as Coughlan points out, isn’t that they prefer people of the same race: it’s that they consider their race superior to all others, want to maintain the purity of their race, and desire to eliminate everyone else of a different race. That’s like someone liking vanilla ice cream and wanting ice cream shops to serve nothing but vanilla ice cream.
But hold on, folks! It gets worse from here.
Coughlan released a second video in which he responds to the many responses he received from the first video, including one unintentionally lulzy personal message from a self-described racist.
In his video Worst Argument Ever, Coughlan000 destroys "libertarian" greenghost2008 for defending “race realist” HeyRuka by claiming that White Nationalism is like having a favorite ice cream flavor.
How the hell is White Nationalism like having a favorite ice cream flavor? As greenghost explained: “It’s simply preferring people just like you. In this world, that very well has a racial context.”
Good grief. The problem with White Nationalists like HeyRuka, as Coughlan points out, isn’t that they prefer people of the same race: it’s that they consider their race superior to all others, want to maintain the purity of their race, and desire to eliminate everyone else of a different race. That’s like someone liking vanilla ice cream and wanting ice cream shops to serve nothing but vanilla ice cream.
But hold on, folks! It gets worse from here.
Coughlan released a second video in which he responds to the many responses he received from the first video, including one unintentionally lulzy personal message from a self-described racist.
If a white and a black have a child, not only their skin color mixes, but also their IQ. If one person has an IQ of 120, and the other has an IQ of 80, the end result is 100.Coughlan gave an appropriate response: facepalm!
This Week In Review (11/06/2011)
Since so many things happen over the week for me to create individual blog posts, I decided to create a weekly digest of the week’s events (along with my snarky commentary). And yes, I plan on doing this every Sunday.
• Nearly 650 thousand consumers have switched to credit unions over the past four weeks. This movement was in support of Bank Transfer Day yesterday, created to protest the debit card fees levied by big banks such as Bank Of America—fees which are the result of the costs created by the Durbin Amendment in the Dodd-Frank Law, which places restrictions on debit card transactions (and therefore the fault of big government, not big business). The protest has been largely successful, as Bank of America has since dropped its $5 debit card fees. In my opinion, this is the CORRECT way to handle big business: if you don’t like what a business or corporation is doing, take your business elsewhere! That’s how the free market works.
• Occupy protests forcibly shut down the Port of Oakland. The peaceful “protest” turned violent when protesters began smashing windows, spraying graffiti, and tossing Molotov cocktails. This resulted in dozens of protesters getting arrested and at least four being hospitalized. Look, I despise police brutality as much as the next libertarian, but when your protest degenerates into violent chaos, you’re pretty much asking for tear gas—especially when your actions (violent or not) actually hurt the people you’re trying to help!
• Herman Cain remains ahead in the polls despite his sexual harassment allegations. A Washington Post/ABC Poll shows Cain at 23 percent, below Mitt Romney at 24 percent and above Rick Perry at 13 percent. So let’s get this straight: if you’re a Democrat who tweets his junk, you get forced to resign; if you’re a Democrat who receives head from an intern, you get impeached; but if you’re a Republican and you harass a female employee, you remain ahead in the polls? So much for Republicans being the moral majority! (For the record: I don’t hate Cain because he allegedly sexually harassed a girl. I hate him because he’s a Federal Reserve shill! No need to audit the Federal Reserve? Bullshit!)
• ‘In God We Trust’ was reaffirmed as the National Motto by the House of Representatives. Yes, screw the fact that our economy is circling the drain, that we’re trillions of dollars in debt, that our entitlement programs are on the verge of bankruptcy, and that we’re currently engaged in perpetual war overseas. Our top priority should be affirming that our National Motto is ‘In God We Trust’—a motto that wasn’t added to our currency until 1957! Don’t get me wrong: I have nothing against the motto or its appearance on our money. But this is not the time to be concerned about it. We have more pertinent issues to attend to. Good Grief! And Congress wonders why it has such a low approval rating!
• Ron Paul won the Illinois straw poll. As a Ron Paul supporter, I should be happy about this. But let’s face it: with the media ignoring Paul and pimping candidates like Romney, Perry, and Cain, I know he isn’t going to be the Republican presidential candidate. Don’t get me wrong: I’m still voting for him, and I urge everyone else to do the same, but the stark reality is that he’s unelectable in the Republican Party, considering he’s been against most of its agenda. Too bad he doesn't want to run as an Independent.
• Warren Buffet’s wife Elizabeth was called a “Socialist Whore.” In other news, the sky is blue!
• Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from her husband Kris Humphries only 72 days after their wedding. A celebrity couple getting divorced? This has never happened before! I would say “who cares?” but I don’t even care enough to say “who cares?” (Yet apparently I care enough to mention it. Sheesh. This is a slow news weeks!)
• Nearly 650 thousand consumers have switched to credit unions over the past four weeks. This movement was in support of Bank Transfer Day yesterday, created to protest the debit card fees levied by big banks such as Bank Of America—fees which are the result of the costs created by the Durbin Amendment in the Dodd-Frank Law, which places restrictions on debit card transactions (and therefore the fault of big government, not big business). The protest has been largely successful, as Bank of America has since dropped its $5 debit card fees. In my opinion, this is the CORRECT way to handle big business: if you don’t like what a business or corporation is doing, take your business elsewhere! That’s how the free market works.
• Occupy protests forcibly shut down the Port of Oakland. The peaceful “protest” turned violent when protesters began smashing windows, spraying graffiti, and tossing Molotov cocktails. This resulted in dozens of protesters getting arrested and at least four being hospitalized. Look, I despise police brutality as much as the next libertarian, but when your protest degenerates into violent chaos, you’re pretty much asking for tear gas—especially when your actions (violent or not) actually hurt the people you’re trying to help!
• Herman Cain remains ahead in the polls despite his sexual harassment allegations. A Washington Post/ABC Poll shows Cain at 23 percent, below Mitt Romney at 24 percent and above Rick Perry at 13 percent. So let’s get this straight: if you’re a Democrat who tweets his junk, you get forced to resign; if you’re a Democrat who receives head from an intern, you get impeached; but if you’re a Republican and you harass a female employee, you remain ahead in the polls? So much for Republicans being the moral majority! (For the record: I don’t hate Cain because he allegedly sexually harassed a girl. I hate him because he’s a Federal Reserve shill! No need to audit the Federal Reserve? Bullshit!)
• ‘In God We Trust’ was reaffirmed as the National Motto by the House of Representatives. Yes, screw the fact that our economy is circling the drain, that we’re trillions of dollars in debt, that our entitlement programs are on the verge of bankruptcy, and that we’re currently engaged in perpetual war overseas. Our top priority should be affirming that our National Motto is ‘In God We Trust’—a motto that wasn’t added to our currency until 1957! Don’t get me wrong: I have nothing against the motto or its appearance on our money. But this is not the time to be concerned about it. We have more pertinent issues to attend to. Good Grief! And Congress wonders why it has such a low approval rating!
• Ron Paul won the Illinois straw poll. As a Ron Paul supporter, I should be happy about this. But let’s face it: with the media ignoring Paul and pimping candidates like Romney, Perry, and Cain, I know he isn’t going to be the Republican presidential candidate. Don’t get me wrong: I’m still voting for him, and I urge everyone else to do the same, but the stark reality is that he’s unelectable in the Republican Party, considering he’s been against most of its agenda. Too bad he doesn't want to run as an Independent.
• Warren Buffet’s wife Elizabeth was called a “Socialist Whore.” In other news, the sky is blue!
• Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from her husband Kris Humphries only 72 days after their wedding. A celebrity couple getting divorced? This has never happened before! I would say “who cares?” but I don’t even care enough to say “who cares?” (Yet apparently I care enough to mention it. Sheesh. This is a slow news weeks!)
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