Swine flu? Silly me

Silly me, when I first heard news of a rampant swine flu, I thought they were talking about porkulus from Congress.

Inspiring news on Objectivism

Here's a post below on http://forums.4aynrandfans.com by a longtime Objectivist named Bill Bucko, who used to write for my Objectivist magazine Reality way back in 1993. What's as interesting as the strong interest in Ayn Rand's ideas is the high interest again in the best Founding Fathers' ideas:

__________________
Here's an update of Amazon's CLASSICS list, from http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books...ref=pd_ts_b_nav :

The top 8 on the list:
some bizarre something or other
ATLAS SHRUGGED
Common Sense, The Rights of Man etc. by Thomas Paine
ATLAS SHRUGGED - Centennial edition
The Federalist Papers
Who Is Mark Twain?
ATLAS SHRUGGED - paperback
Fahrenheit 451

followed by
12. THE FOUNTAINHEAD
15. Cliff Notes to ATLAS SHRUGGED
47. THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS
48. THE FOUNTAINHEAD - Centennial edition
64. The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates
70. ATLAS SHRUGGED - audio book
73. CAPITALISM: THE UNKNOWN IDEAL

As I pointed out in my report from the Troy Tea Party at http://forums.4aynrandfans.com/index.php?s...amp;#entry91982 , I found interest in Ayn Rand among participants was very high.

(And here's a post by James Paul on the list)

Not directly related to book sales but this weekend I participated in a 13-hour mountain bike race. I was taking a break while my team-mate was out on the course and overheard someone at the next campsite mention Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. I wandered over and joined their conversation. None of them had read the book but they had heard some of the basics. I had a copy of AS in my truck with a lot of post-it notes stuck in various pages. I flipped through the book and shared some of the more central points. I almost felt like a street preacher. I ended up giving away my copy of the book, notes and all, and noticed the rider reading it under a lantern later that night.

Achmed the dead terrorist

Check out this hilarious ventriloquist act. It's where I get the "Silence, I KILL you!" from:

"Avoid breathing" to prevent mosquito bites

I found a great web site that lists facts about mosquitoes, how to prevent bites, how to treat them, and all that.

Mosquitoes are attracted to the CO2 that we exhale (perhaps we should tell the Lefties, so they can ban mosquitoes), so one of the preventive suggestions on the site is to "avoid breathing" -- apparently not a tongue-in-cheek comment.

Anyway, there's lots of good stuff on the site, which I looked up because skeeters fricking LOVE me. It's obviously a love-hate relationship, and I'm getting the bloody end of the deal. I evidently do many of the things that you're not supposed to do: eat bananas, sweat, have stinky feet when I wear sandals, stay out past dusk, wear fragrances (uhm, macho ones, of course) and BREATHE.

Since I probably won't stop any of the above "bad" things, I will probably have to eat lots of garlic, slather myself with certain oils, start a bat colony at my house, use Skin So Soft by Avon (SILENCE, I KILL YOU!), wear a Bounce fabric softener in my belt, and rub myself with vinegar.

And never ever ever expect any woman in the world to come 100 feet from me!

Yeah, like THAT will be different!

Wow! Frumpy little Brit stuns talent audience

Here's a piece from YouTube on a middle-aged woman whom the audience was laughing at before she sang.

But not after ...

Delightful!

Time to separate the words "illegal" and "drugs"

I wrote a letter (below) to the Wall Street Journal today after it had the courage to print opposing viewpoints prominently in its "Weekend Journal" section today titled: "Drugs: To legalize or not."

______________________________
Steven Duke’s column on the necessity of legalizing drugs is spot-on – outside of its glaring omission of the primary reason for legalizing drugs: human beings have a natural right as rational animals to ingest anything they wish.

All of us who do or did drugs (as I did as a youth) know that you can acquire any drug any time, usually within minutes or hours of the desire. The only thing that ever changes is price, which, like all commodities, depends upon availability and demand. Each and every American knows somebody in his or her circle of friends who sells at least small amounts of drugs – whether that American may be cognizant of that fact or not.

But it is underground and it is lethal to many, as Mr. Duke says. Let’s bring it above-ground to the light of day and stop burying police officers and others below ground in a futile attempt at regulating human behavior.

I commend the WSJ for having the courage to bring this subject up in a major, public way. Now, let’s start talking rationally.

In defense of my dearest Shakespeare

The Wall Street Journal today printed five blistering rebuttals to Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens' ponderous musings about the authorship of Shakespeare's sublime works.

I'm proud to say that my letter was among those five, and I'm even prouder to say that the other four were witty, exacting and ridiculing of Stevens to the extent that I was -- and in areas that I couldn't cover because of lack of space. They made our case rounded and withering, provoking any candid observer to wonder at the mental faculties of one of the most powerful men in America -- a man who, arguably, makes more decisions upon the state of liberty than anyone outside his eight peers.

Thank you, my beloved Shakespeare, for provoking such commentary 400 years hence. We, your devoted, will not let injustice trample afoot upon your sweet grave. We have cursed he who tried to move thy bones.

Education despot wants your children in "school" all year

The learning- and morally impaired (aka politicians) want your kids and mine in their propaganda camps all year to "compete with the Chinese and Indians." The despots got more cash from Obama Dead Eyes and have their swords at the ready to force parents to force their children into the enforced mental-labor camps year-round.

Here's the story (note how the lascivious lapdogs known as "journalists" refer to this mafioso): "The lanky former college basketball player and father of two speaks quickly, with remarkable energy in the face of daunting challenges."

Which got me to thinking: He wouldn't have so much energy if his testicles were removed, right?

If the despot had pulled out his shriveled dick, the media mavens would've pronounced it a thing of extraordinary proportion and striking in features (after they sucked him off, of course).

It may be about time for a revolution, but I'm in a bit of a quandary. Do I castrate the journalists first (assuming they still have balls, of course) or pursue the politicians?*

Ah, decisions, decisions!

* To all liberals who can't pull themselves away from reading this most erudite blog, the above references to castration were a joke -- kinda, sorta.

The Collectivist Threat and Capitalist Promise

The following is a terrific piece from an Objectivist who spoke at the Chicago Tea Party on April 15 and who is a regular contributor on Fox News:

___________________________
The Collectivist Threat and Capitalist Promise
By Jonathan Hoenig

Delivered at Chicago's Tax Day Tea Party Protest , April 15, 2009
Federal Plaza, Chicago IL

What an honor to be with you today! I'm the finance guy here, so let me clue you in on some truly frightening numbers. The US Government has pledged, promised or spent an unfathomable amount of your money over the last year. The total amount, as calculated by Bloomberg, is over $12.8 trillion dollars, which amounts to $42,105 for every man, woman and child living in America today.

It is 14 times the total amount of currency in circulation and approaches the entire GDP for 2008. It's enough to pay off every home mortgage in the country and still have two trillion to spare. To put it in perspective, twelve trillion is the number twelve followed by twelve zeros. To those who solely blame President Obama, remember that it was the Bush administration that expanded the federal budget by $1 trillion, passed the disastrous Sarbanes Oxley regulation and the Medicare Prescription Drug Program. Bush added more than $4 trillion to the national debt, a 70% increase.

It was Bush's administration who got the entire bailout orgy started. You might recall him telling CNN that "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system". If that's not doublespeak, I don't know what is.

But today's protests, being held in over 500 cities nationwide, aren't simply about taxes, rather the philosophy behind those taxes.

It has been described as socialism, fascism or communism. In various contexts, all are true, but let's refine it. From loans to the automakers to the bailouts for the banks, the taxation, spending and control, the primary philosophy that's powering the country now is collectivism.
Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights. Your life and the product of your labor now belongs to the group. If the group wants a bailout, heath care, green cars, low mortgage rates, a job, an education - anything at all, it now becomes your responsibility to provide it, whether you want to or not. You see it in taxes that take money from people who've earned it and give it to those who have not. You see it in the language itself. Phrases like "we're all in it together", "I am my brother's keeper" and "shared sacrifice" all speak to the same idea: you are here to serve. And unlike charity of volunteerism, the "will of the people" is implemented by force, not by voluntary trade.

This is a profoundly un-American ideal. From the original Boston Tea Party came the Declaration of Independence which put forth the morality of individual rights. In this country, you are born free, not with a duty to serve the King but with a moral right to live your own life. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" refers to your life, your liberty and your happiness. You do not owe society a thing.

For socialists, collectivists, and others who support a high tax, high spending, government controlled economy, sacrifice is an absolute. You're expected to sacrifice for your neighbor, your government, for AIG or Citigroup, or deadbeat homeowners or poorly run municipalities, whomever the geniuses in Washington decide deserves your money.

This is wrong. The Founding Father's view of government was that its scope was limited and clearly defined.

Is the purpose of government to own and run a car company? An insurance firm? A bank? A mortgage company? Of course not. We've become one of the state-owned basket case European economies we used to make fun of in this country.

This country was the once land of "rugged individualism."

"Individualism" is a term you might hear a lot. Fundamentally, what it means is that the individual, not the group, is what is important and valuable. Individuals have rights, groups do not, because groups after all, are only collections of individuals.

You want to help a needy deserving homeowner? Fine. Write them a check. Charity is a perfectly legitimate thing -- but government doesn't own you, nor does your neighbor, the needy, the children or anybody else. In America, there are no masters, there are no slaves.

In recent decades, and certainly over the past year, we've moved away from rugged individualism and toward a collectivist society that forces everyone to sacrifice for the group.

In a political context, individual rights means free market capitalism. AIG never cost me a dime until Tim Geithner put my hard earned savings into it. The financial crisis can be directly traced not from capitalism, but from a collectivist, interventionist government. The Federal Reserve, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, the Community Reinvestment Act, Sarbanes-Oxley, not to mention the $12 trillion bailout and stimulus efforts are not mechanisms of the free market.

Tax Day Tea Party Protests are rallies against taxes, yes, but even more so against collectivism, that immoral notion your life, your energy, your wealth are Washington's property.

Look around at this incredible city. It wasn't a bailout that created the most prosperous country in the history of human civilization, but a society that limited the role of government and protected the individual rights of each citizen to live his own life.

A return to that philosophy is our only hope.

___
Jonathan Hoenig is managing member at Capitalistpig Hedge Fund LLC

Tea parties and brain enemas

If you've been watching TB (Lefties call it TV) coverage or reading rusepaper coverage of the Tea Parties, you've no doubt noticed how the Lefties pretend with dour countenance how the whole rebellion is Fox News ordained, and that we free-thinkers, by implication, don't have a revolutionary, independent-minded bone in our body and must be led by the nose into freedom rallies because, gosh darnit, stupid does what stupid says -- then you need a brain enema to cleanse yourself of Lotus-Lefty's offal.

Brain-enema preparation:
Grab a Lefty by his scrawny, pencil-dicked neck, turn him upside down (so that his ubiquitous frown becomes a smile) and, while he's screaming LIKE A LITTLE GIRL and kicking his feet LIKE A LITTLE GIRL, piss in his nostrils while making him recite the Declaration of Independence. (This is not officially the real preparation for a brain enema, strictly speaking, but it has the added benefit of making you smile, which can't be bad.)

Now, get a nice bottle of red, a cozy partner, a tube of KY (optional), a great movie (main character's got to have ATTITUDE), a photo of Nancy Pelosi and Obama Dead Eyes and Keith Oberman and Tom Brokaw, and then start the fun.

First off, grab the optional Lefty (I hope you didn't pass this up!), drag his scrawny ass outside and tie him to a tree upside down. Lube his mouth with copious (Get your mind out of the gutter! I didn't say "copulation") amounts of KY and stuff the photos of the four aforementioned rats into his mouth. Remind him that proper digestion requires at least 32 chews. We wouldn't want him to get heartburn. ... Silly me, Lefties don't have hearts. Ugh!

Then, grab your partner and take his/her fine ass over to the soft couch, open up the red, hit the start button -- and let the brain come awash in the sweet bliss of Lefty-free life.

(When making delicious coffee the following morning, don't forget to call animal control to pick up the piss-drenched rat by the tree in the morning.)

I love brain enemas.

Breathing and farting are against the law

As most of you know by now, the EPA has ruled that CO2 emissions (breathing) are now pollutants that can be regulated, as well as methane (farts), nitrous oxide (Laughing gas! So now we can't fart or use laughing gas to giggle!! Sacre-fucking-bleu!) and various other polysyllabic man-made goodies that make our lives better than they're allowed to be.

OK, so I'm getting hysterical. These things are not TECHNICALLY against the law, but when the fascists start outlawing substances that our bodies emit, you gotta wonder when the Fart Police and Exhalation Police will come gunning. They better beware! Caveat politzia! Because when I know they're coming, I'm gonna eat me a pot full of beans and methane-suffocate the bastards in their own squad cars.

The EPA (Egomaniacal Prisspot Asswipes), of course, is just doing Obama Dead Eyes' bidding on this, along with most of Capitol Swill, in their attempt to chain and rob U.S. corporations and have the common man pay for all of this grand larceny without actually telling the common man that he'll pay for it.

The level of fascism in this country is rising faster than a fart in a tornado. It's tea-party time. Turn on those CO2 burners, heat up some tea, grab your placards, and let's kick the motherfuckers back to the stone ages where they belong -- before they learned how to do CO2-emitting bonfires, of course.

Anti-Shakespearean elitism is against autodidacticism

The Wall Street Journal printed a front page story yesterday on the fact that Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has decided definitively that it is "beyond a reasonable doubt" that Shakespeare's plays were not written by Shakespeare. This is actually a subject that I've done quite a bit of research into for many years, so my letter on the subject follows:
______________________________
Anti-Shakespearean elitists such as Justice John Paul Stevens have been singing the same tune now for more than a century, but the lyrics keep changing. Their motley crew of candidates-du-jour to the Shakespearean throne includes Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson, Walter Raleigh, Christopher Marlowe, the Earl of Derby, the Earl of Rutland, the Earl of Southampton, the Earl of Essex – and now the Earl of Oxford. (Wish I had a buck for every upstart Earl the Stevens crowd crowed about.)

But what I and other autodidacts wish more is that the media wouldn’t give air time (print space) to Oxfordian elitists who cannot shed their contumely and prejudice against those of us who, like Shakespeare, were primarily self-educated and masters of intellectual material. We are an illustrious bunch, us: Thomas Edison, George Bernard Shaw, Steven Spielberg, Gottfried Leibniz, Benjamin Franklin, Socrates, Abraham Lincoln, etc. (Remember Mark Twain’s immortal line? “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”)

We find knowledge not to be an ivory sport or dusty rationalism. We took a kernel of learning, as Shakespeare did, and grew it exponentially along pathways of volition and hardscrabble life. We sought not artificial curricula or artifice. We understand Shakespeare viscerally and came to him naturally. We love him for the making of himself and for what he made. And we find it ironic that the academic crowd does mental gymnastics to claim a commoner for itself (the new “nobility,” that is).

This does not mean we autodidacts dismissed contention that Shakespeare was not Shakespeare. We, instead, probed and delved with the solitary power of independent minds and found the academic positions(s) wanting and evasive (dismissal of Jonson’s ode to his “beloved” Shakespeare; death of Earl of Oxford in 1604; at least 10 plays written after Earl’s death; Earl’s own poetry middling; Earl’s own style unlike Shakespeare’s; no mention by Earl of Shakespeare plays in droves of personal letters; no acting career; no patron; etc.).

To paraphrase Shakespeare, the academics have more hair than sense.

An intellectual Jihad, baby!

Sometimes someone says something that connects immediately and viscerally -- usually an insight or courage said so eloquently and concisely that your heart beats fast and your head nods.

Such was the case in reading the words of a recently deceased Objectivist who moved to America from India and has been donating to the Ayn Rand Institute since its inception in 1985. His name was Swapan Gupta. He died last year after a short but deadly illness, but his wife has set up a memorial scholarship fund at ARI in Mr. Gupta's name because she knew well his adamant defense of Objectivism and his love for his "beloved" Ayn Rand.

After the genocidal attack on America on 9/11, Mr. Gupta and his wife, Sumita, increased their donations to ARI, and Mr. Gupta wrote the following note to ARI:

"I have become fearless and totally intransigent in my views and in talking about Ayn Rand since the attacks unleashed on my chosen land. ... If it is a jihad that the barbarians want, they shall have it. I request that ARI continue the intellectual jihad on our behalf and in the name of our beloved and fearless hero Ayn Rand."

Indeed, dear Mr. Gupta, if it is a jihad that the barbarians want, THEN THEY SHALL HAVE IT!

It is said that a majority of Americans now live in some or a lot of fear of terrorists. May I suggest that they get a little jihad in their bones and turn that fear into vicious anger that would put the fear of Ayn in the Islamic filth?

Rest in peace, Mr. Gupta. Yours is no longer a world of jihad, but I thank you for the wonderful idea!

Memory lane and movies

I was looking through my DVD collection again tonight for a movie to watch in bed, and the usual struck: memory lane.

Almost each movie reminds me not only of a great hero and more, but also of a time in my life, as happens with most people, I imagine. More than a time in my life, each movie reminds me of where I was in my human growth, who I was with, and how I felt in that moment -- in a way that only music can do for me, but perhaps even more viscerally than music. Here are a few highlights for my life.

Spartacus: I'm sitting with my family when I'm 10 years old watching the wonderful Kirk Douglas play a man demanding his freedom against insurmountable odds and maintaining a dignity of spirit when the future seems dire. After watching the movie as a child, I feel like I can do anything, that nothing is impossible, that I can be great, that life is great for the great.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being: I'm with my friend Dan Puckett in a small theater watching the charismatic and enigmatic Daniel Day-Lewis parlay with the simmering Juliett Binoche. It reminds me of a time of burgeoning intelligence, of an abiding friendship, of grateful love toward a kindred spirit, of a life shared fully, of walking in the eternal peace of the moment, and of an expectation of an ebullient tomorrow.

Pride & Prejudice (1996 AMC version with Colin Firth): I'm with my ex-wife Kelly, and we are both crying with joy at its finish, as Darcy and Elizabeth at last complete their journey of overcoming false pride and easy prejudice and fall desperately in love with each other. Kelly is sitting on the couch behind me balling her eyes out, and tears fall in streams down my cheeks. We look at each other in wondrous ecstasy of acknowledgement of spirits.

Lawrence of Arabia: I usually watch this movie alone (at least twice yearly) because nobody I know likes it very much (I pity the fool!). The cinematography, plot and acting are absolutely splendid. Peter O'Toole is a god! Yes, Lawrence is a haunting figure and, yes, the ending is horrible. But for almost 3 hours, Lawrence is a riveting, charismatic character of grand proportions on desolate landscape. He is immutable. He is solitary. His actions are the embodiment of a will that all subordinates (even the great) must bend to. He is not the perfect man. He is the superb imperfect man made almost perfect. I watch him as I would the first man over the hill in combat, as Dagny Taggert solid upon her train, as the stern businessman dismissing the politician, as the lone figure standing down the tanks in Tienanmen Square, as William Wallace shouting "FREEDOM!" He reminds me of the greatest in me and those I cherish -- and all I must do is turn off the movie five minutes before it ends.

My relations with some of the people above (and the hundreds of others I've shared great movies with) is different, but I shall never forget those moments and never wish to. They are my life, and those friends will always be dear to me, not just in memory lane, but also in kindred spirit.

Give me liberty or ...

Our Founding Fathers had liberty in their mind -- and, therefore, in their blood. If the following quote does not stir your blood in true tea-party fashion, then none will. God, I love our Founders! They were REAL men. Not the prancing pusses that adorn the modern political fashion shows.

Samuel Adams:
"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men."

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."

Ah yes, crouch down and lick the hands that feed you, silent Americans! Crouch and be like the sniveling Christians who seek a master for their impoverished spirit!

Give me liberty or give me death!

Letter printed on GOP

My letter to the editor on the GOP was printed in the AJC yesterday. It got top position, so that was nice.

Rehab for Ahab

We're all born with a blank slate -- zip, zilch, nada on the mental blackboard. Infants and young children then seem to have an insatiable curiosity and a joy for life. The blackboard morphs into a blossoming spring tree. As children's rationality kicks in, each aspect of existence (a flower petal, a creeping caterpillar, a facial expression, a speeding car, a word) is a learning experience and a part of their benevolent existence. They love life. The play with it. They kid with it. They touch it. They sound it out. They talk about it. They move on with even greater anticipation amid the panoply of life.

It usually takes a horrible upbringing, years of adult oppression and, eventually, a mental cowardice for an adult to change from those early years and become an Ahab. (Remember Melville's immortal ship captain and his fatalistically haunting desire for destruction, for killing the spectre in the shape of a giant white whale?)

There's little argument among readers of Moby Dick that the whale represents the personification of Ahab's own subconscious turmoil, his gargantuan malevolent fury, his uncontrolled, emotionalistic worldview. He is fighting himself. His life has become a Twilight Zone of bizarre occurrences and unexplained events. He sets upon everyone around him with his rage. He believes that others are simply tools for his own agonized purposes.

And so we have the modern Lefty -- the modern Ahab who inhabits politics, journalism, Follywood, and virtually every office and household in America. (To be fair to Lefties (argh!), the Righties are the same, but they are mostly just unctuous, religionizing toads who want basically the same thing.) They have all made of themselves both murderers of the American spirit and vultures who feed upon the carcasses. They vote with their subconscious. They deride the beauty of work and wealth; they praise poverty and the poverty of the spirit prevalent in their "publicly educated" America. It is no irony that these malevolent monsters (forgetful of their halcyon early youth) prey upon our children first to make of them Ahabs who will become blind to their Ahab tormentors' puerile ways.

What the modern Ahab needs is Roto-Rooter for the rational mind. He/she needs rehab -- Objectivism Rehab. Rational Rehab. Reality Rehab.

Rehab to take back early childhood and to take that wonderful, effervescent jolly and understanding forward into the green pastures of solace, serenity, security and resolve. What a great place it is when you know what you think, why you think it and what you will do with it. What a tremendous relief it is to know that each of life's occurrences can be explained and fit into your own princely worldview. Nightmares vanish, monsters are vanquished, and there is no longer the alleged need for the veneer of confidence. You are simply just confident.

Life is not complex. It is simple. Everything is connected and categorized, so that you may go about your daily activities knowing that Moby Dick is fictional, not lying beneath, not ready to rear its frightful head and eat away at your mind and those around you.

Such is Objectivism, that lovely synthesis of mind and body.

It's time for Ahab's rehab.

Making money when you shop online

If you, dear readers, want to know how to make money while you and others you know shop online, comment on this blog entry or send me an email.

It doesn't cost anything to join the company, and you can make an average of 8% off of each purchase made by you and those who join under you.

Join the fun!

Boston Tea Parties and the Ayn Rand Center

The Ayn Rand Center (ARC) in Washington, D.C., is promoting videos that explain the moral argument behind the current "Boston Tea Parties." The short YouTube videos are dry (those guys need a comedian like me!), but they get across a message. You can find two of them HERE and HERE.

Also, the head of the Ayn Rand Institute, Yaron Brook, was on the Glenn Beck show in February to discuss the Road to Socialism. Yaron was fairly good (but showing his tendency to say "absolutely" without actually listening to his interlocutor and making humorous or witty segues of his comments) and got across some good points.

There's another Boston Tea Party planned around the country on Wednesday. I plan to be at the one in Atlanta. Hope to see you there.

God is caught whacking off again

Let's pretend for a moment that you are the omnipotent ruler of the universe and allegedly know when all things will happen and can stop them from happening or, better yet, simply don't allow things to be in a situation where cause and effect tragically occur.

OK, yeah, so you are "GOD"! Now, what the hell are you doing when natural disaster strikes -- like the earthquake in Italy on Monday that murdered (remember, you could have stopped it) almost 300 people? Huh? Huh? Huh?

Uhuh, you're whacking off (if you're a man) or you're using The Rabbit (if you're a woman) or both (if you're androgynous). ... (I hear that once a woman uses The Rabbit, she never goes back to men, so I've decided to adopt a nickname -- yeah, you guessed it: "The Energizer Bunny." Hope it helps.)

OK, God, if you're not whacking off or smoking a Cuban or playing a celestial piano or watching the Red Sox or cavorting around Cassiopeia or drinking a Bud on your starry couch, then you must've been paying attention and could've stopped the Italian genocide but decided not to because you just wanted to see the little gargoyle called The Pope give you lots of grief-attention when he tells the hapless Italians that their God is now "moved by their pain."

Feeling lonely, God? Having a tender moment of "I'm here, I'm here, don't forget me. Even God needs a little attention every once in a while, even if it means I have to kill off a couple of hundred of you wretched little earthworms. ... Now get on your knees, you pathetic little credulous fucks and pray that YOU won't be the next I visit mayhem and destruction upon. ... Oops, sorry. Kinda lost it there. Feeling isolated. I didn't really mean it. ... Like hell, I didn't mean it, you sorry lowlifes who think I really exist. Ha! Jokes on you!"

Now, KNEEL, believer!

The shit-brick known as Billy Bob Thornton goes psycho on radio

If you want a peek into the Lefty-Lotus bubonic soul, check out this insulting, sniveling little shit as he DOESN'T talk about his new band with a polite Canadian disc jockey.

How could they be so right and, yet, then so wrong?

Galileo Galilei is rightly considered the father of modern science. Thomas Jefferson is rightly considered one of the fathers of modern individual rights. Isaac Newton is rightly considered the father of modern physics.

The readers of this blog know that the name of this blog is taken from Galileo's revolutionary scientific publication expounding on the heliocentric theory (taken from many telescopic observations of Jupiter's moons and other data), which eventually overturned the primitive church-expounding theory that the Earth was the center of the universe. I have equal reverence for Newton and Jefferson. These three men are worthy of sincere worship and veneration on par with Shakespeare in the literary realm. They are the beloved. I love them and what they stand for as the best in human endeavor and accomplishment in one short human lifespan.

And yet ...

And yet Galileo was a devout Catholic, a believer that comets were simply apparitions of light, a harsh critic of Kepler's moon-caused tides, a denouncer of Copernicus' elliptical planetary orbits and more.

And yet Jefferson was a slave owner, a believer in the inferiority of some human races, an advocate of government intervention into individuals' lives to some degree, a believer in a higher being.

And yet Newton was an alchemist and theologian, a believer in astrology, a writer of many religious tracts.

What gives? How could men of such immense rationality and definitive interpolation of facts and the abstract hold such views, encapsulate such enormous dichotomies? How could a man who pioneered modern astronomy and physics and a man who pioneered individual hegemony and a man who pioneered work in calculus and gravity and optics hold views that rejected the very foundation of their great work: reason?

The long answer is that they did not understand fully what reason was. They did not have a methodical and explicit realization of the theory of concepts, a theory of the nature of man (rational), a theory of metaphysics and epistemology and ethics and politics. They did not hold in their minds the wonderful and awesome understanding of their own thought processes. They used the processes well most of the time, but they were almost clueless about the mind-machine.

The short answer? Objectivism.

These great and wonderful men were, in short, primitive in their view of human beings and the rational process, hindering their ubiquitous commitment to rationality in ALL matters of life. This led them to dishonesty in their search for truth -- meaning they averted their eyes from the facts and didn't revisit false cultural presumptions. They, in fact, became strident on issues in which they were wrong, indicating a subconscious understanding that they were not being true to their normally rational scientific endeavor.

Ayn Rand changed the way we now see the human mind. She herself said she may have not been able to create Objectivism if it had not been for such men as Galileo, Jefferson and Newton, whose blazing intellects showed the world how utterly magnificent and awe-inspiring the human mind is and can be.

So, as we approach the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first glimpse of Jupiter's moons through his man-made telescope, I wish to take a moment to gratefully thank him and his two intellectually kindred spirits for their stalwart and courageous work -- and I wish to thank Ayn Rand for taking their example and creating a philosophy that allows us no more dichotomies, that allows us unabashed happiness, that allows us control of our universe and a daily life filled with the joy of knowing we will never make the mistakes that great men before us made.

We can be right and know how not to be wrong.

Hapless hippies and The Bohemian Crapsidy

Obama Dead Eyes is the hippie without the happy. His borderline-psychotic unemotional dourness contrasts with the frolicking long-hairs of the 1960s and '70s. They wanted government to get out; he wants government to get in.

Or ... is that true?

When you look at footage of the hippies of yore, their faces were indeed lifeless and their "dancing" was languid and addled. They looked like willow trees with open sores. They didn't just look mad when they were mad; they looked mean, high-handed, preachy, dishonest. (What better adjectives to describe our current Uterus-in-Chief?)

The hippies wanted government out of Vietnam, wombs, drug parlors and sex houses, but outside of those four sacred establishments, the hippies were all about Big Government. They wanted the government to give skin-colored people extra benefits and "rights"; they wanted government to give certain people health care, housing, food and more. They wanted government to get more involved in the day-to-day of business. They wanted taxes, taxes and more taxes -- and they wanted "privileged" Americans to pay for it at the point of the guns that the hippies so detested.

All of the above is the lie, of course, to the hippie protestation of hating government. Like many former citizens of Communist countries, the hippie cherishes government, as long as he has control over it and has it do his bidding. They love communism; they distrust freedom because they distrust people and have a skepticism for the human capacity for self-direction and honesty. "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to do."

So, in stalks short-haired Dead Eyes with his long-haired, Bohemian credo, with subsidies for everyone under the sun except for those of us who truly work hard and deserve the fruits of our labor. In walks the toothpick communist with his hippie bona fides, aiming to put liberty on DefCon 5.

He is intellectually hapless, like his predecessors. They were monsters, but they didn't have the power. He has the power, and the crap this monster is shitting may bury liberty as we've known it in America -- unless we do something about it.

And, much to my surprise, a few U.S. states may be doing something about it under the 10th Amendment, which grants states rights not enumerated for the federal government in the Constitution. I'm giddy with anticipation. More on that news in another blog. To be continued ...

Let's see if the GOP can walk the liberty walk

A column today by a GOP lawmaker in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was terrific at exposing the Obama Dead Eyes shenanigans, but the lawmaker and his GOP buddies have a history of the same shenanigans. Here's my letter in response to his column in the AJC:

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Rep. Lynn Westmoreland’s column on the Obama charade was a dose of welcome sanity on the AJC opinion pages.

But here’ a little sanity for Mr. Westmoreland: For a decade, the GOP has simply been Democrats Lite. They have spent too much, sponsored too much porkulus, cow-towed to big business bailouts, paid farmers not to grow crops, not restricted runaway welfare, not pushed for restrictions on environmental regulations, not pushed for nuclear power, not opened up the oceans and forests to oil discovery, allowed even more land to become “national parks,” and insisted on some tariffs to allegedly protect American businesses from proper competition.

Until Mr. Westmoreland’s GOP hits the books and learns what our Founding Fathers wanted a federal government’s task to be (protecting individual rights and money), the GOP will simply be Democrats without fangs.

Let’s see if Mr. Westmoreland & Co. can walk the liberty walk and stop TALKING!

Those wacky-zany-fatalistic French are at it again

French workers (pardon the oxymoron) are in full-blown tantrum again. In an attempt to recapture the lusty allure of murdering their king and queen and any rich person they could find during The French Revulsion more than 200 years ago, workers at 5 companies have kidnapped their bosses and issued the following demand: (Warning, to feel the full effect of being a Frenchman, the following sentence is to be read aloud in your best whiny voice while kicking your feet wildly and shaking your arms to the side and thinking of those greedy, selfish capitalists) "We want more money and we want it NOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW!"

Yes, they are UNION personnel (Ha, didn't catch me saying "workers" again, did ya?). They won't let the bosses leave the facilities until the union thugs get what they want: A Rousseau hardback, a bottle of red, a lump of cheese, a loaf of bread, and a lifetime supply of nothingness and complaining and elan.

In case you think I'm being too harsh on the Gauls (shame on you), almost half of the French public approve of this hostage-taking. It's the same half that would gladly take it up the rear for Obama Dead Eyes -- and then proudly put it on YouTube. The French do love their ejaculations.

America is losing its religion

Two authors wrote a lengthy column in the Wall Street Journal today trying their damnedest to dispute recent survey figures showing that 24% of Americans are now atheists, agnostics, non-religious or deistic (with 12% of those being outright atheists). Here's my letter to the editor at the WSJ on the column:

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Contrary to the protestations and fact-denials by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, America is losing its religion. This country began as a refuge for those wishing to practice faith without persecution, and virtually every person in early America was religious.

For the authors to drop red herrings such as “83% of taxpayers by 1683 confessed to no religious identification” is absurd in its suggestion (many people kept their “identification” to themselves back then) and to use the verb “confessed” implies strong feelings about not having a religious affiliation – when, in fact, the feelings were quite the opposite.

Yes, modern churches have become bastions of social fun-making and the Dr. Phil-ification of the pulpit for practical life endeavors, but these acclimations by a once-stodgy church have simply been an emergency means to stanch the inevitable bleeding that occurs as we make a slogging exit from the Age of Faith that has darkened the last 4,000 years of man’s civilized existence.

Many millions of people in this country are beginning to see that morality and religion don’t mix. Religion requires obedience and a mind-numbing (bending?) acceptance of the unprovable and absurd. There can be no real comfort during good times or bad with a make-believe escape from the facts of reality. So, many of these millions are turning to reason, merited self-esteem, honesty, integrity and an enjoyable day’s work as the true means for happiness – and they are not pretending that somehow, some way, the ephemeral becomes the eternal.

Life is short. It takes guts to acknowledge and enjoy that fact.

We should have a president whom Europe loathes

Columnist Peggy Noonan wrote in a column today in the Wall Street Journal that she was glad that Europeans didn't protest Obama Dead Eyes and that ODE is now being clearer about what he thinks and wants. Here's my letter to the WSJ in response:
_______________________________
Peggy Noonan said it was a “welcome relief” that anti-capitalism riots in Europe during the G-20 conference were at least not “anti-American.”

Au contraire! Europe is predominantly socialistic and should rightly hate us, despise us – and we Americans should welcome this hatred as a sign of our own liberty-loving capitalism.
It is a disturbing and unfortunate sign of who our current American president is and what he stands for (collectivism, as Sen. Tom Coburn correctly labels it) that we are now largely adored across the socialistic world. The Oval Office occupant grins and winks secretively at his friends across the pond when he offers an alleged mea culpa for American industry’s role in the economic collapse.

He is not apologizing for bad deeds only; he also apologizes for capitalism, which is the only economic system that gives liberty to private commerce and not to politicians such as himself. What is more disturbing than a president who disdains free markets is an approval of him and his policies by 56% of Americans. He is, as Ms. Noonan almost suggested, the shady figure who speaks in parables and nuance when not in power and then removes the glossy cloak to reveal a spirit that loathes private enterprise – private anything!

This is a watershed year – and us lovers of liberty, unbridled wealth-making, meritorious ambition and private business-dealing must watch as many of our neighbors support a man who 100 years from now will hopefully be excoriated in the same breath as such ilk as FDR, Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter. Sacre bleu!

As bad as it is here for homeschoolers, at least it ain't Germany

If you thought it was bad for homeschool parents to fight off public-school jack-booters here, just read this article on a German couple who had to emigrate to the U.S. to keep their children and to stay out of jail.

The idea that the state has ultimate authority over ourselves and our children is becoming much more commonplace now that Obama Dead Eyes and his cabal have overthrown the U.S. government.

The government should not know you exist

What's your number?

No, not your cell. Your "Social Security" (gotta love that euphemism) number.

Mine's 4-- -- ---9. Can't tell you cause you may not be nice, but the government has my number -- and it sure as hell ain't nice. In fact, it will jail me if I don't have it or never got it (not a luxury for parents anymore since hospitals are required to report your birth).

I mention the dreaded SS# (hereafter referred to as the CC# -- concentration camp number) because it is a symbol of where we have got to as a nation: living at Big Brother's behest and approval and notice instead of living for ourselves in gloriously blithe anonymity.

The psychological implications are manifest, turning most of us into cowering sheep instead of brazen individualists. You actually hear Americans say such abominations as "you should pay your taxes" (instead of "fuck you, government; I'll voluntarily give you money when you do what you're supposed to do and NOT do what you're not supposed to do") and "public service isn't so bad if it teaches kids respect for others" (instead of "public service is fascist and authoritarian, so go fuck yourself, and, by the way, just for thinking up such an atrocity, we will spill your blood, as liberty-loving Thomas Jefferson said all revolutionaries must").

How much longer will you and your American spirit allow such transgressions as Driver's License numbers, as License Plate numbers, as CC#s, as Tax ID numbers, as "public service" quotas, as property tax IDs, as seatbelt laws, as car insurance laws, as building permits, as schoolkid attendance, as business regulations, as environmental laws on your emissions, as drug laws, as drinking-while-driving laws, as Green Cards, as fishing or hunting licenses, as gun permits, as Passports, as carbon permits?

We should be able to go through our entire lives and not give one single thought as to what the government allegedly wants from us -- outside of the courts helping to resolve disputes with our fellow citizens. All of our energies should be focused on ourselves and what WE want from our lives. We are not numbers. We are minds, mindful of our own existence and hegemony. If this makes government's job more difficult when trying to find true criminals, so be it. That is one of the prices of liberty.

You should be able to drive down the road in the middle of a "school" day with your kids, without a license plate and with an end-of-workday beer in your hand and your seatbelt off -- and look over at the cop driving next to you and nod and smile in your happy-wappy co-existence.

In such a case, you might say to the cop, "Beautiful day, today, huh?" He might smile benevolently and say, "Sure is, have a nice day."

Instead, what you might want to say now is, "Go fuck yourself and the nanny/fascist government you rode in on, goddammit! Point your guns at the politicians and those who voted them into their immoral and intrusive power. Join us in overthrow!"

Viva la revolucion!

"I can fart with my mouth"

Livy is suddenly into farting jokes and kidding around -- mainly because of a friend who is a neighbor of mine, and you know who you are, CHRIS!

So, this morning, after she got up, we were playing around and she farted twice while sitting in my lap and was trying with all her might to get more farts out, so I stopped up her butt by putting my hand down there and proclaiming, "OK, NOW you can't fart on me anymore!"

Uhuh.

So, she shouted, "I can fart with my mouth!" And she proceeded to "fart" with her mouth until the end of the universe was, I'm quite sure, close at hand. My explanation of the fact that a person can't technically fart with her mouth held absolutely no water in her mind and was dismissed as if I'd said, "Chocolate tastes bad!" And so she "farted" so much with her mouth that I finally surrendered my grip upon her bottom and welcomed the real thing gladly.

Gawd, kids are fun!