Hilarious SNL routine on Obama Dead Eyes

Y'all have GOT to see this hilarious skit on Oba-mao done by Saturday Night Live, which has, of late, been deliciously roasting the occupant of the Ovum Office.

Take a peek and get ready to belly laugh!

The greasy Malthusians and Mother Earth's oil

The eternally pragmatic and often wretched conservative columnist George Will finally nailed a good one.

You remember Thomas Malthus, right? He's the early 19th century guy who predicted that the Earth's population would soon outpace agricultural supply, and human beings would be forced to return to an agrarian/subsistence Medieval/primitive living. He proved embarrassingly wrong when the inventive mind of man and the concomitant industrial revolution allowed for excessive agricultural supply, far exceeding the pace of population -- and still doing so with 6.5 billion voracious human beings.

The Malthusians weren't limited to just agriculture, however. From early in the oil-production era, the Chicken Littles raised hue and cry about the alleged apocalypse of a vanquished Earth, siphoned of her rich oil reserves. Mr. Will gives a brief accounting of this lunacy, correctly connecting the hysteria not to rationality, but to big-government types seeking to aggrandize political machinery by fiat environmentalism and scare tactics.

Each generation since the 1859 oil discovery in Pennsylvania has had its prognosticators of doom, predicting a final depletion of oil and gas within a decade or so. Each time they've been grossly mistaken, and each time they do not learn from earlier doomsayers and the evident wonders of capitalism. They do not wish to learn, of course, because they seek to shackle corporations and liberty.

With recent technology, huge discoveries have been made in Northeast America, the Rockies, Canada, the Gulf of Mexico, near Australia and many other places, with current estimates on supply going out well over 100 years (and probably much longer in reality since the middle oceans and much of dry land haven't even been touched yet). Giant oil companies are now building $1 billion "capture" ships that make it possible to pump oil and gas directly onto the ship instead of having to lay expensive pipeline, thereby opening up vast expanses of ocean that until recently lay beyond the viable reach of man.

It is an exciting time for exploration -- if we can keep the Malthusians and their political keepers at bay in Copenhagen, Kyoto and beyond.

The dearly departed and his genius

After having vented my wrath upon the irrational (see previous post), it's time I moved to a more soothing and venerated subject: great men and their unfortunate recent passing.

Albert V. Crewe died recently. He was the physicist who invented the high-resolution electron microscope, allowing the world to get its first glimpse of the atom!! Mr. Crewe stunningly never won the Nobel prize for his work, for whatever political reasons, but he revolutionized entire scientific fields by giving scientists and engineers in computing and biology a powerful new tool to understand the architecture of everything from living tissue to metal alloys.

Mr. Crewe was not known for wearing baggy pants halfway down his butt crack. He was not known for car-jacking, home invasions or convenience-store robberies. He was not known for doing drugs. He was not known for seeking handouts on street corners. He was not known for demanding food, shelter or free health care.

He was known for a grand work ethic, total dedication to tasks, inventiveness, clinical reasoning, improved lens and detection technologies, designing enhanced electron sources, revolutionizing the world of the minute that had, till then, been the object of correct supposition going back 2 and half millennia.

His name should be known by all humans above all presidents. He is venerated by a small community of thankful scientists. He was a genius and got complete satisfaction in doing his work, never complaining about prizes not awarded.

I'll give him the greatest compliment I can give.

He was a man.

The nouveau "addicts" and volition

Into your lexicon of drug addicts, alcohol addicts, gambling addicts, sex addicts, lying addicts and TV addicts, please add "car phone addicts."

Yes, they simply CAN'T put down their cell phone in the car -- and they "admit" that they must be forced to do so.

So says Dede Haskins, the fricking chief executive of a software company in Washington! She cannot personally alter her behavior, so she and others have signed up for something called ZoomSafer, a free service that uses her phone's GPS sensors to determine whether she's at driving speeds, and then disables her cell phone until she stops the car -- whether she likes the invisible nanny's decision or not.

How are we to have a revolution, folks, when even the chief executives of our country's businesses seek a personal Big Brother to suppress their irrationality, along with the government Big Brother they vote for? If ostensively efficacious individuals do not have a clear understanding of their own volition, reasoning powers and efficacy, then we cannot expect their indignation at intrusive government.

If they can relegate their behavior to "uncontrollable addiction" or "ADD" or whatever, then their minds are pure mush, and their wills are stuck in the mush, and they are obedient automatons marching to the currently fascist tunes.

And they to all this with a straight face, or worse, the superciliousness of the converted.

Hackers uncover global-warming charade

Hackers recently broke into the email system of a British university and stole emails exchanged between climate scientists and allegedly found incriminating evidence suggesting that the scientists used "tricks" to doctor data in favor of alleged anthropomorphic warming.

I don't know yet whether the institution was a government one, thereby making the theft perfectly moral, since such fiat entities are buttressed by the confiscation of citizens' cash. If it is a private university, then the hacking is immoral and illegal, and the assailants should be jailed.

Either way, if this breech exposes the climatologists for what they are, scoundrels, then let's just say one bad turn deserves another -- an eye for an eye.

The happy conspiracy to take my money

Just when I've giddily enjoyed my iPhone for more than a year, Verizon has to come out with the Droid, which surpasses the iPhone on many levels and has me salivating at a time of budget-consciousness!

Damn these producers and inventors and wicked capitalists and their tantalizing gadgets designed to separate me from portions of my checking account! I hate them! Oh, how I hate them!

Reminds me of a time in 1995 when I was a journalist at a N.C. newspaper. I was getting off of work around 6 p.m. "What are you doing tonight, David," I was asked by a co-worker. "Going to stand in line," I said. "Stand in line? Where? For what?" he said. "For Windows 95. It goes on sale at midnight," I said with a smile, knowing what was to come from him and the co-workers around us. They mocked me and had some fun with me, and I did them in turn. I got my Windows 95 and stayed up to 4 a.m. installing it and exploring it. What glorious bliss!

The following weekend, the editorial page chief ran his usual "enlightenment" column. This time it was on the "foolish" who selfishly stand in line at midnight for new electronics purchases when there are more important things in the world to think about. He would not let me write a counterpoint column, so I emailed him that he was a benighted, soul-less creature and other choice things (I was younger then and, um, more candid).

Anyway, I long for the Droid. I'm grokking. I'm lustful. I must have one!

Damn you, capitalist conspirators! How can you keep doing this to me?!

Raise hand if Sarah Palin is "blessed"

Sarah Palin has a child who has Down syndrome. Sarah Palin can't put two coherent sentences together. Sarah Palin goofy-grins when discussing serious subjects. Sarah Palin has the gravity of an interstellar dust particle.

But, folks, she's "blessed." Her whole family is blessed. "We're blessed." Just read her novel, she says, and you get the truth and see that her family is "blessed." Yes, just ask her kid with Down syndrome about being blessed, and I'm sure you'll get a goofy grin (at least he has a good reason for it). He's been blessed with little or no introspection capability, little or no conscious control of complex action, little or no ability to plan for the future, little or no capacity for judgment -- in other words, little or none of what we know makes us human, sort of like liberals.

But, those around him are "blessed" to have him. Their god has particularly honored them with a retarded child to help them understand the importance of not being retarded.

The mystic mind is a fascinating and macabre thing of wonder. A vice presidential candidate for the most powerful nation the world has known thinks that her life is guided by ET, without the cute big eyes and the long fingers. The dude in the sky with a big cigar, a galactic easy chair and a big fucking wide screen TV for Monday Night Football is not just paying attention to her squealing, whining, soporificating and nasalising, but has anointed her, blessed her -- even above the football players pointing toward the easy chair in thanks for a nice pass. "No prob," the god says. "I wasn't too busy allowing a million rapes to occur during the game so that a million families could be blessed with knowing how good it feels to NOT be the ones raped."

The toxic mistress with a big do had better be glad that there is no proper heaven. Otherwise, Thomas Paine would let loose of a thunderbolt, and she would be a crispy cunt on the speaking-tour dais.

Then we'd all be blessed.

Beating or wounding sinusitis

I've gotten sinusitis at least two times a year since I was a kid, once in the fall and once in late winter or early spring, and sometimes an extra time or two a year. I've been experimenting with methods to prevent this for four years now and have found out a lot. Here it is.

First, the solutions to prevention: keep the humidity in the house between 50% and 55% year-round (though some specialists recommend 45%- to 50%, I've found that higher is better). Second, use a Neti pot (or something similar) to flush the sinuses when necessary (I'll elaborate on "necessary" in a moment). I've been using the Neti for four years now and, with that, have been able to reduce the number of sinusitis incidents, but it still bedeviled me until I installed enough humidifiers in my house to maintain proper humidity levels. (I use two Vicks humidifiers sold at Bed, Bath & Beyond. Each humidifier is at each end of the house.)

You can accurately measure relative humidity with a hygrometer that's accurate to within 5%. Here's the one I bought and am very satisfied with. By watching your hygrometer regularly, you can adjust your humidifiers' output accordingly for while your asleep by how much you expect your heater or A/C will turn on during the night and dry the air. I've gotten to where it's almost a fun challenge for me before bedtime. I tend to err on the side of too much humidity than too little.

The reason for this is that dry air irritates and inflames sinuses, thereby making them more susceptible to infection and less efficient in filtering pollutants: voila, sinusitis! Also, humid air stalls the proliferation of dust mites (they dig dry air), whose dung creates allergy symptoms, which creates mucus, which can lead to sinusitis. There are ways to check the level of dust mites in your house and to kill them. Here is a web site with the products for that. Pets and stuffed animals are havens for dust mites, as well as bed sheeting, beds and carpet. Here's a good web site for controlling dust mites.

If you get allergies regularly, it's important that you use the Neti pot at least once a day during allergy season, and several times a day if you're outside. Use it several times a day as soon as you feel allergy symptoms coming on. This will reduce your symptoms dramatically and perhaps forestall sinusitis. Also, when you get a cold or the flu, be sure to use the Neti to cleanse your sinuses several times a day to prevent or shorten a sinusitis infection. Be sure to use the Neti, too, after cleaning you home because of irritating chemical pollutants and the temporary increase in dust mite offal in the air.

I've found that staying vigilant in the above has helped me stay healthier and enjoy my life more. Good luck. Respond to this post if you have any questions.

Only "corporate responsibility" is profit-making

The Wall Street Journal published a series of articles on Nov. 19 on the alleged good of corporate "social responsibility" and concomitant "corporate responsibility." I wrote the following letter against such altruism to the WSJ today:

________________-

The Journal’s Nov. 19 stories on corporate “social responsibility” made me want to Google for companies engaging in such irresponsible “responsibility” and refuse to do business with them.

The one-and-only responsibility any company has is to make profits. It is to make and offer a quality product that consumers value so much that consumers wish to withdraw funds from their checking accounts to acquire that product. Such actions enrich the company, its employees, its shareholders and the lives of its happy consumers. *That* is “corporate responsibility.” Engaging in such corporate work and doing it honestly are the only ethical responsibilities any corporation has.

Any other activity (including unethical “social responsibility”) is an immoral diversion away from productivity, thereby reducing competitiveness, proper focus and quality – and it is an attempt to assuage guilt in our altruism-gone-rogue culture, in which giving good service and product is allegedly not the equal of the sordid “giving back.”

It is high time that the moralistic vipers of altruism and political correctness stand down – and for corporate leaders to stand up for the highest achievement in human life: hard work.

Jane Austen, how I worship thee

A culture critic in the Wall Street Journal wrote a piece on Saturday on his love of Jane Austen and how she is a guide for his morality. I wrote the following letter to the WSJ on my own love of Austen but on how novels represent one's own morality and do not stand as guides.

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James Collins had me worried in his “What Would Jane Do” essay on Jane Austen’s moralizing. But it turns out Mr. Collins (not the one in Pride & Prejudice, of course) has sense and sensibility.

Mr. Collins’ visit down the tree-lined memory lane of Austen’s works was delightful for those of us who virtually worship Ms. Austen and her insight, perfumed elegance, sensitivity, morality and sensibilities. Her works are romantic and the best representations of high-mindedness, with characters speaking their inspired thoughts eloquently in honor of themselves and their interlocutors. Her novels are a sublime tapestry of expressed self-knowledge and dramas unfolding into further self-knowledge.

My only contention with Mr. Collins’ views is that a reader cannot use Ms. Austen (or any author) as a guide for morality. Novels are *representations* of morality. You either connect with them or you don’t, depending upon your own morality. I, for example, am an Objectivist (philosophy of Ayn Rand) and believe that humans can rationally run their own lives and give ultimate honor to others who do the same. In Austen’s novels, I find that honor between the best characters, and I see these characters correcting their false pride and prejudice or mistaken consumption of false mores, thereby achieving happiness. Ms. Austen’s morality, therefore, reflects my own. I do not learn from her. But I do worship her for representing the best in humans and savor her well-earned moments of moral encompassing.