This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Society

  • Why newspapers are dying

    The Purple Avenger at Ace of Spades wrote a post yesterday about the editorial board of the Connecticut Post telling their readers which subjects they shouldn’t be writing letters to the paper about. PA writes that their number one complaint about the readers is the fact they constantly blame poor Barney Franks and Chris Dodd for the our current economic problems.

    Further down the piece, the board complains;

    This is a big one — socialism. Really? Did I miss Obama’s plan to nationalize the oil industry?

    Is that the only thing that would earmark the Obama Administration as socialists? He did have a policy plank that called for the nationalization of healthcare. That’s not socialism? Taking money from one group of people to fund another group of people’s poor choices isn’t socialism?

    The notion that the tens of billions of dollars we spend killing people in Iraq could be better spent on schools and hospitals in this country is not radical. Huge majorities in this country support a robust social safety net, so that people who experience a run of misfortune don’t lose everything. All other industrialized nations on the planet have some form of universal health care. None of this is controversial.

    Yeah, well, spending ten of billions of dollars killing “people” is what the Federal government is supposed to be doing. Spending money on schools and hospitals is not something the Constitution says the Federal government should be doing. See the difference? I think if “huge majorities in this country” knew what a “robust social safety net” was going to cost them, they wouldn’t be so huge.

    And those “other industrialized nations” really are socialist entities themselves. Some even put it right in the names of their majority political parties. And they’re beginning to realize what the costs of their follies are, and they’ve begun to cut back on their spending. Please pay attention.

    And helping people who’ve had a “run of misfortune” is why there are charities, but funding a multi-generational lifestyle of sloth is what a corrupt and lazy government does to buy votes for a particular political party.

    Maybe those correspondents who fret about our economic choices are happy with the fact that while this is the richest country in the world, there are 41 nations with lower infant mortality rates. At the same time, most workers in “socialist” Western Europe get four to five weeks vacation to start with. What are we supposed to be scared of again?

    Yeah, those countries that have four to five weeks vacation mainly do that as an accounting trick to reach higher employment. All of those nations have near-double-digit unemployment and lower productivity per worker per hour than the US and that’s why we’re the economic powerhouse we are. But that’s the part the Left wants to change.

    I suppose the Connecticut Post doesn’t want to discuss reality, and they don’t want their readers to be informed beyond the nuggets that the Post tosses them to keep them ignorant. And no one can figure out why the print news industry is failing.

  • In these times [Jonn]

    We have a global war against terror going on, we have severe economic problems, we have enemies trying to create nuclear weapons and point them at us, food prices are rising, fuel prices are unstable, huge American companies are on the edge of bankruptcy, banks have already folded. But what, according to Human RIghts Watch, should Barack Obama be focusing upon?  (Washington Times link)

    The nation’s largest gay-rights lobbying group is demanding that President-elect Barack Obama eliminate the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy covering military service members and immediately tackle a host of other gay issues to repair the damage they say he has done to his image by choosing conservative Christian preacher Rick Warren to deliver the inauguration invocation.

    The Human Rights Campaign on Friday asked Mr. Obama to adopt the group’s Blueprint for Positive Change, a “concrete plan for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) equality” that calles for fixing tax laws that shortchange domestic partners to making hate crimes illegal.

    “Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans,” wrote Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese in a letter sent to Mr. Obama this week. “By inviting Rick Warren to your inauguration, you have tarnished the view that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have a place at your table.”

    The gay rights people are idiots. Who you have sex with is a choice, it’s not a basis upon which you’re able to form an entirely new set of laws. What does Reverend Warren have to do with gays in the military, for Pete’s sake? Last I checked he’s not even a veteran let alone something to use as a bargaining chip.

    I’ve said it before: there is not a huge untapped reservoir of gays just waiting for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to be withdrawn so they can swell the ranks of the armed forces.  Neither are there hordes of gays waiting for the church doors to open for their marriage (except to rub most of America’s nose in it). Gay rights activists just want an issue to harangue donors over and a theme for their next parade.

    I have nothing against anyone who keeps their sexual behavior in their homes. But as soon as someone makes their choices public knowledge (whatever those choices are) I they lose my attention and support. This is not a civil rights issue – it’s a public deciency issue. If I made demands on the government based on my sexual proclivities, you’d feel the same way about me – like I said,  laws shouldn’t be written just to satisfy people’s choices in life.

    The military isn’t some grand social experiment in which Leftists and their attendent deviants are able to study the behavior of Americans. It’s a tool with which we defend ourselves. It’s like taking your home defense weapon and hanging strings of beads and glitter on it. It might make it more satisfying to own, but can you depend on it to work when you need it? It’s been working fine up until now, so why add stupid crap to it?

  • Love is only a click to a phony email address away![TSO]

    You guys friggin slay me.  Seriously.  Girls do not exist who like to frolic naked, make sandwiches and play tonsil hockey with other girls, and who also love lonely men dwelling under the dim lights of their basement.  Which was quite unfortunate for me until I hit jackpot with my girl who likes nerds.  (Not the candy, she’s young, but not quite that young.)

    Nonetheless, we have identified the young lady from Russia.  Actually, we identified her twice, but sources inside the media tell us that she is Anna Federova.  Other sources have suggested it is Katerina Azrekova.  All I know is that I think I can speak for all men here when I sincerely hope these women someday appear in Maxim Magazine saying Do Svidaniya to their clothing.  Unless it is like wolf or bear pelts or something which is totally hot.  (Isn’t Saran Wrap Russian?)

    Welcome Anna.  I agree with the commenter at Michelle Malkin who suggested that you would be the perfect replacement for Keith Olbermann.  Hell, even O’Reilly would switch channels during his own show.

    Anna Fedorova is an Entertainment Presenter

    Anna covers all aspects of the entertainment world, although personally she has a special interest in installations, graffiti, flash animation and the fashion world. She loves water sports, which she swaps for snowboarding in winter.

    Anna, who spent five years of her life in Australia, graduated from the International University of Moscow where she majored in Linguistics and International Communications. But later her deep and long-lasting interest in the Arts brought her to journalism.

    She speaks English, French and Italian.

    If I were a single man (Hi honey!), I would love to teach her to also speak Braille, but of course I am not, so…

    You must go look at the pictures brought to you by Naira Oganesyan who may be the best photographer in the world.

    I believe Jayne Cobb said it best in the TV show Firefly:  I’ll be in my bunk.

    BTW- What is the most click through used most here the past couple of days you ask?  (Nah, you don’t really need to ask)

  • Talk about your fortuitous timing! [TSO]

    I just got an Email from PETA.

    Are You the Sexiest Vegetarian Next Door? Enter Now!

    Vegetarianism has become synonymous with sexy, and Hollywood has taken notice. Stars such as Casey Affleck, Joaquin Phoenix, Natalie Portman, and Alicia Silverstone all follow a vegetarian diet, which keeps their bodies looking hot and helps them sizzle on the big screen. Frontman Anthony Kiedis and sultry songstress Leona Lewis took top honors by being named the hottest of the hot in PETA’s 2008 World’s Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrities poll.

    But it’s time for the celebrities to step aside, because now we’re looking for the sexiest vegetarian “boy and girl next door”—and this year, we’re sending the winners to Hawaii!

    Since I have been receiving copies of all emails sent to Anna, I am submitting this TAH reader, pictured here eating a Tofu burger.  I think he best represents all that is sexy about this blog and our readers.

    No need to thank me ladies.  This is your beefcake for the day.

  • Apropos of absolutely nothing…

    And since “someone*” screwed up Jonn’s “Yes, we did” post, I’ll repost the Hope and Change video;
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  • Unrestrained consumerism claims two (Updated)

    Drudge links to a Daily News story that claims two people were killed at a Wal-Mart in Nassau County, one an employee, the other an unborn child, in a mad rush for the savings the hundreds of shoppers expected to find in  their local Wal-Mart. Two more Wal-Mart shoppers were struck by a car in the parking lot of Wal-Mart in Missouri. Our big WTF moments.

    I don’t know who started this Black Friday crap, but it’s got to be the biggest gimmick ever started and perpetuated by the idiot local news stations. Every year, expecting my local news anchors to tell me what has happened in my area, my senses are assaulted by the images and interviews with obese, jobless morons who would normally be stretched out on their well-worn couch with crumbs of what used to be a potato hanging from their scraggly beards, but instead decided to be the subject of a “news” report about other obese, jobless morons who camped out all night to get a few pennies off of things they probably can’t afford at any price.

    Here we are less than a month from Christmas, and these folks suddenly decide they need a discount so bad that they’ll brave the elements and shove and push their fellow shoppers to the ground to save five bucks on a $100 item. If someone offered them a job to stand outside in a line for the amount of money they’ll “save”, they’d quickly turn the offer down.

    Is it any wonder that folks who spent time in the military would look down upon their fellow citizens when they witness disgusting displays like this?

    Michelle Malkin says “Reason number 99,999 to shop online.”

    UPDATE: AP reports that the pregnant woman and the child are fine.

  • Stupid moonbat pranks (and the dolts who fall for them)

    If you read Army Sergeant’s comment below about the “Yes Men”, you’re probably wondering to what she referred. Our buddy, DanNY wrote about it a few days ago. Well, these goofballs “Yes Men” printed a fake New York Times (odd, but the fake NYT is virtually indistinguishable from the actual newspaper in appearance as well as content) with this headline;

    There were also stories about a national healthcare system approved by Congress, news that some international organization will try President Bush for war crimes, an end to corporate lobbying, pay caps for CEOs, and a myriad of similar fake stories. Then the “Yes Men” went out on the street and interviewed the dolts who “knew change is coming, but I didn’t expect it so fast”. The video;

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  • Obama’s Dignity Battalions

    I picked this up from Hot Air, by way of Ace of Spades. It’s a three minute interview with Rahm Emanuel in which he discusses his perception of this Civilian Defense Force.

    Now, I’m no conspiracy theorist, but Emanuel seems pretty focused on this concept of a civilian paramilitary force. He tries to make it sound innocuous, but you look at the pool of people from which he wants to draw this force (college kids), it’s almost as if he wants the cultural opposite from the people who enlist in the military. People more ideologically aligned with Democrats trained and armed. These are the same Democrats who opposed the draft for our military, but see it as useful tool for building a civilian force with the same amount of training, the same weaponry, the same skills. To “teach them what it means to be American”, in Emanuel’s words.

    Now for those of you too young to remember the Dignity Battalions, it was a trained paramilitary force in Panama who owed allegiance to Manuel Noriega. Noriega shuttled them around the country during elections to vote multiple times in May 1989. When the election didn’t go the way Noriega wanted it to go, he sent Dignity Battalion members to beat the crap out of the President-elect Guillermo (Billy) Ford with lead pipes. The attack was so blatant, the Dignity Battalion members so bold, so fearless, that a CNN cameraman captured it and beamed it around the world.

    Hugo Chavez has his own Popular Defense Units, civilian supporters of Chavez, trained in military techniques, who have been used to quell protests in Venezuela, some using gunfire on unarmed civilian opponents.

    The Left admires Chavez’ brand of socialism, his ability to shut down opposition media and now his solution to crush dissent. I’m just sayin’….

    I thought ya’all’d like to discuss this one.