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

Category: Society

  • Bank of whose America?

    I do most of my banking online, the down side of that is that when someone who is still living in the 20th century gives me a paper check, I have to cash it at a brick-and-mortar bank. Luckily that doesn’t happen often. But I got my tax money back Thursday from local government which is still mailing checks to people. Yesterday, I gave my wife my ID and signed the back of the check and she went to cash it at the bank on which the check was drawn while I was at work. When I got home, she told me that they wouldn’t cash it unless I was there, too, so off we went. They turned us away at the drive-up window and said we needed to come back when the bank is open.

    At this point I was getting pretty angry. I don’t like being treated as if I’m guilty before a crime has even been committed.

    So we went there first thing this morning, presented the check to the teller. He asked if we had an account there, I responded that we didn’t, but that the check was drawn on his bank. He then made us put our THUMBPRINTs on the check! I’d given him two government issued IDs, with signatures that matched the endorsement – but we had to put our thumbprints on the check. So you can imagine how I was beginning to seethe at this point, given my previous statement about being treated like I’m guilty of something. But in the interest of getting my check cashed, I kept my mouth shut – until I had my cash in my hands.

    The teller then asked me if there was anything else he could do for me. I replied “I’ve never, in my life, been treated as if I’m a criminal like I have since I tried to get this check cashed at your bank – a thumbprint, for pete’s sake?” He responded that it was bank policy, I said “You treat me like this with government-issued ID, yet you’ll open an account and issue credit cards to an illegal alien who doesn’t have any ID. Which America are talking about when call this the Bank of America?”

    Of course, the teller’s mouth dropped open, then snapped shut, speechless. Every customer’s head turned and watched me walk out of the bank.

    Of course, what I said was absolutely true, Michele Malkin has written about it, there’s even a Boycott Bank of America website. I just find it idiotic to force legal residents with legal US government identification jump through hoops while illegals without identification gets all of the perks we used to enjoy before they invaded.

    I’m not a xenophobe, heck, I’m married to a legal resident alien, I don’t oppose legal immigration, but the illegal immigrants are influencing the treatment of legal residents.

    Build the wall – yesterday!

  • [Fill in the blank] Against the War

    I had an email exchange with Thus Spake Ortner this morning (that’s right, IVAW, not everything I say about ya’all is public) that got me to thinking. He sent me a link of an IVAW member named PJSChicago who wrote about how the evil Army made him into a killer without him realizing it. He ends his wildly idiotic rant with;

    When I think back on what the Army made me capable of, I feel angry because I’m only figuring it out now. Duped again! 12 years of learning to hate and learning to want to kill people because it was kill or be killed.

    He joined the infantry and was assigned to an artillery unit, what did he think the Army wanted him for? Some worldwide meals-on-wheels program? But that’s not my point, actually. TSO wrote another piece on another IVAW goofball, Thomas J. Buonomo, a homey, actually, from Rochester, New York who spent four years in the Air Force Academy and then got tossed out of the Army for being an advocate for the impeachment of Dick Cheney.

    So what does PJSChicago and Inmate Buonomo have in common? The same thing alot of IVAW members seem to have in common – they’ve never been to Iraq but they’re in an organization called IRAQ VETERANS Against the War. Am I the only one who thinks this is disingenuous?

    Back a few years ago, I went to photograph the Code Pink Mother’s Day protest at the White House. There were about 8 ladies holding a twenty-foot long banner that read “Mothers Against the War”. After taking their pictures, I asked them how many were really mothers – they all pointed at one woman. I asked her if she had a son or daughter in the military. She replied her son was in the Army. I asked her if he was in Iraq or Afghanistan and she said ‘no’…then she confessed that her son had gotten out of the military ten years earlier.

    Out of eight women with a “Mothers Against the War” banner, only one actually qualified as a mother – and her son wasn’t in the military and not in danger of being sent to Iraq. So what was the point?

    What’s the motivation of joining an organization that claims to be something that it’s really not? And why should we believe anything else they tell us if their name is even a lie? Are you guys scoring hot, hairy-legged hippy chics and they didn’t seem taken with your first choice of names – Doofuses Against the War?

  • State tax on the internet

    New York retailers were positively giddy in this ABC article because New York was going to force internet retailers to charge state tax.

    At Chrono Tech Watches in White Plains, Jerry Nally is glad the clock is ticking on many Internet retailers that don’t charge New York sales tax. Nally says those so-called “e-tailers” steal his customers.

    “They’ll come in our store, look at our product, touch it, play with it, look at the warranties, then go back to the web and buy it tax free,” says Nally.

    Sounds like your problem is not with retailers, Jerry, it’s with your customers and your sales staff. Doing the happy dance over someone being forced to pay taxes is just childish. many of your customers probably paid more for shipping than they would have in sales tax – but they preferred to pay shipping. I do – I’d rather put a coupla bucks in UPS’ pockets than in Marty O’Malley’s. It’s better for the economy, too.

    New York just raised their state sales tax – did you do anything about that Mr. Nalley? It seems to me that if tax free shopping appealed to your customers, you’d be opposed to the tax hike. But I’m betting you voted for Democrats who inherently raise taxes – expecially on businesses.

    But the new rulings aren’t sitting well with the Internet giants. Amazon, the largest Internet retailer, is objecting to the decision, saying “this is the wrong time to increase taxes on New Yorkers.”

    “You will drive people away. People are not going to want to shop online anymore,” says Cantin.

    Nally is hoping online businesses will comply, however, telling CBS 2 “it’s about time!”

    I’ll tell you what it’s about time for, Mr. Nally, it’s time we stopped depending on government to to tax and regulate our competition to “even the playing field”, whether it’s electronics or cars, and do a better job of competing for our customers’ money.

  • The real questions about Obama

    This morning, the tag team of Charles Krauthammer and Peggy Noonan take on Barack Obama and the questions he won’t answer. From the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan writes a piece entitled “The View from Gate 14“;

    Main thought. Hillary Clinton is not Barack Obama’s problem. America is Mr. Obama’s problem. He has been tagged as a snooty lefty, as the glamorous, ambivalent candidate from Men’s Vogue, the candidate who loves America because of the great progress it has made in terms of racial fairness. Fine, good. But has he ever gotten misty-eyed over . . . the Wright Brothers and what kind of country allowed them to go off on their own and change everything? How about D-Day, or George Washington, or Henry Ford, or the losers and brigands who flocked to Sutter’s Mill, who pushed their way west because there was gold in them thar hills? There’s gold in that history.

    John McCain carries it in his bones. Mr. McCain learned it in school, in the Naval Academy, and, literally, at grandpa’s knee. Mrs. Clinton learned at least its importance in her long slog through Arkansas, circa 1977-92.

    Mr. Obama? What does he think about all that history? Which is another way of saying: What does he think of America? That’s why people talk about the flag pin absent from the lapel. They wonder if it means something. Not that the presence of the pin proves love of country – any cynic can wear a pin, and many cynics do. But what about Obama and America? Who would have taught him to love it, and what did he learn was loveable, and what does he think about it all?

    Another challenge. Snooty lefties get angry when you ask them to talk about these things. They get resentful. Who are you to question my patriotism? But no one is questioning his patriotism, they’re questioning its content, its fullness.

    And in this corner, Charles Krauthammer, writing “Obama’s Distractions” in the Washington Post;

    Because Obama understands that the real threat to his candidacy is less Hillary Clinton and John McCain than his own character and cultural attitudes. He came out of nowhere with his autobiography already written, then saw it embellished daily by the hagiographic coverage and kid-gloves questioning of a supine press. (Which is why those “Saturday Night Live” parodies were so devastatingly effective.)

    Then came the three amigos: Tony Rezko, the indicted fixer; Jeremiah Wright, the racist reverend; William Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist. And then Obama’s own anthropological observation that “bitter” working-class whites cling to guns and religion because they misapprehend their real class interests.

    In the now-famous Pennsylvania debate, Obama had extreme difficulty answering questions about these associations and attitudes. The difficulty is understandable. Some of the contradictions are inexplicable. How does one explain campaigning throughout 2007 on a platform of transcending racial divisions, while in that same year contributing $26,000 to a church whose pastor incites race hatred?

    Obama claims the questions that have been put to him the last few weeks are “trivial”, but they’re central. Maybe his past missteps are fine for a Senator whose promises get diluted among the 99 others in the Senate, but we’re electing a president, a person has to LEAD the country, sometimes solely by the force of his will without caving into interests or personal preferences. A president has to do the right thing – every time. And how should we make the selection of that leader when his only discussion of himself has been limited to vacuous platitudes about “change” and “hope”?

    Obama’s supporters are only interested in what Obama can do FOR them, with total disregard of what it’ll cost the rest of the nation. They’re no different from the Big Oil interests or the NRA or the myriad of other special interests headquartered on K Street. And he’s poised to fullfil all his promises to them. But the rest of us, the grown ups, what to know what he’ll be doing the rest of the time he’s not pandering to the mind numbed Obazombies.

    If he can’t answer the questions we have over the next seven months, how can we consider him for the job?

  • Our national malaise

    I was reading Karl Rove’s missive in the Wall Street Journal this morning entitled “Is Obama Ready for Prime Time” that basically goes through the dreary accounting of the Democrat delegates.

    Mrs. Clinton’s problem remains that she’s behind in the delegate count, with 1,589 to Mr. Obama’s 1,714. Neither candidate will get to the 2,025 needed for nomination with elected delegates. But the Democratic Party’s rules of proportionality mean it will be hard to close that margin among the 733 delegates yet to be elected or declared. Mrs. Clinton will need to take 58% of the remaining delegates. Thus far, she’s been able to get that or better in just four of the 46 contests.

    Her path gets rougher. While Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and Puerto Rico are good territory for her, Oregon and Montana may not be. And Mrs. Clinton will be outspent badly. She entered April with $9.3 million in cash, but debts of $10.3 million. Mr. Obama had $42.5 million but only $663,000 in unpaid bills.

    Well, I know there are bloggers out there, and readers as well, that understand all of that stuff. That’s fine, everybody needs something they’re good at. But honestly, I could care less. And most of America probably cares even less than I care. We still have seven months before the election…seven frickin’ months, f’pete’s sake.

    We’ve been suffering through 17 months of this presidential campaign…and look at our choices for President. It took us 17 months of millions, nay, billions of dollars, endless debates (of which I’ve watched not a minute), speechifying, fingerpointing, crap slinging, baby-kissing, swooning, crying, waitress-snubbing, waffle-chewing drivel. And our choices are probably the worst in our history.

    Why? What has brought us to this point? Because, simply, the parties’ heirarchy has decided that the best candidates aren’t the best leaders (the president’s main job is leadership, not someone who’ll “fight for your rights”) but the person for whom they imagine both sides will vote. That’s why the Democrats can’t decide – they’ve got two candidates that should shame voters into voting for them exclusively (because, I guess, we Republicans can’t resist showing how non-racist and non-sexist we are), they’re just not sure which can shame us more.

    But the Republicans did the same – except that we had all pale white guys to choose from, so the “maverick” who ignores all of the conventions of the stodgy GOP was an easier choice to make. However, we arrived at our choice because we’re not looking for a leader, we’re looking for a candidate for whom the Democrats will cast their vote.

    So there you have it – we’ve reached the point of a national snooze-fest. Do I support John McCain presidency? Given the alternatives, what choice do I have? Yeah, I’ve got the pretty buttons on my blog that proclaim my affiliation. Yes, I’ve given money to the McCain campaign. Yes, I’m sure my candidate will win given that the other two are complete idiots who remind me of the tigers in the Little Black Sambo story who chase each other the base of a tree in which LBS is hiding until they turn into butter. If there was an equivalent fable about a little white kid hiding from tigers in a tree or a fricken turtle, or a lizard, I’d have used that one. I’m no racist and that comment wasn’t aimed at any candidate. Chill out for a minute.

    Nothing about any of these three candidates gets anyone excited – other than the fact that everyone is sure the opposition will vote for them. A sure-fire recipe for a disastrous four years.

  • The peaceful Left

    I received this in my email this morning;

     The AAR for Saturday’s Iran-mobile counter in Meadville will be delayed.  Our video camera has been confiscated by the Edinboro PD.  We had a counter protest today in Edinboro.  It was an Iraq war protest put together by Richard McVay.  He was not present but there were about 10 college students, a couple professors and a group of Hillary supporters.

    Anyways, Andrew went to the their protest site to videotape a couple odd displays they put up.  They were beginning to get aggressive with Andrew simply because he was recording their protest.  Jason and I went over to make sure he was ok.

    Long story short one girl attacked me which turned into 2 girls attacking me.  Jason pulled one off of me and then he was attacked and held down by 4-5 people getting punched in the head.  Meanwhile Andrew pulled the other girl off me and then she kicked me in the head with a great big boot.  I called the cops and while we were waiting on them the girl that kicked me in the head went over to Andrew(14 years old) and punched him right in the face.  My 12, 9, and 7 year olds were standing across the street witnessing the whole thing.  Here’s the kicker.

    The cops watched the video at the scene and no arrests were made.  One of the cops was very aggressive toward us.  The girl later spit on Jason right in front of the cop and nothing was done about it.  Amazing!  Right now I have a huge headache and knots coming up all over my head.  Jason has scratch marks on his face not to mention someone stomping on his glasses when they fell off.  Andrew has a red cheek.  So we’ll get a AAR for this event and Saturday’s maybe tomorrow night after we get our camera back.

    Just last month our own buddy, Skye from Midnight Blue was attacked by anti-war protesters and Free Republic members were attacked in front of the Army Recruiting station in downtown DC. Out of all of these incidents, only Skye’s attacker was arrested. The attack at the recruiting office was even witnessed by police – at least one officer was struck with a bottle of paint – yet no arrests were made.

    There is a disturbing trend of escalating violence from the Left, probably stemming from their frustration that they’re losing the argument and they’re being proved wrong,  in terms of our national security. They’re coming to the realization that they don’t represent the majority of Americans like Nancy Pelosi and Medea Benjamin told them last year.

    But, I blame this trend of violence on authorities who coddle the protesters fearing lawsuits and taking a beating the media. The longer authorities allow this behavior to continue, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. The more crimes the Left can get away with, the more they’re going to attempt until someone finally dies (that’s what ended the Vietnam War protests). The Left are like insolent children who will continue to push the limits of the law until the law starts pushing back.

  • “Why I Left Greenpeace”

    greenpeace-activists-fly-a-hot.jpg

    The Wall Street Journal celebrates Earth Day with a column by Patrick Moore, former co-director of Greenpeace entitled “Why I Left Greenpeace“;

    I observed that none of my fellow directors had any formal science education. They were either political activists or environmental entrepreneurs. Ultimately, a trend toward abandoning scientific objectivity in favor of political agendas forced me to leave Greenpeace in 1986.

    The breaking point was a Greenpeace decision to support a world-wide ban on chlorine. Science shows that adding chlorine to drinking water was the biggest advance in the history of public health, virtually eradicating water-borne diseases such as cholera. And the majority of our pharmaceuticals are based on chlorine chemistry. Simply put, chlorine is essential for our health.

    My former colleagues ignored science and supported the ban, forcing my departure.

    Now he writes that the self-centered Luddites at Greepeace are targeting DINP which makes plastic more flexible;

    Commonly used phthalates, such as diisononyl phthalate (DINP), have been used in everyday products for decades with no evidence of human harm. DINP is the primary plasticizer used in toys. It has been tested by multiple government and independent evaluators, and found to be safe.

    Despite this, a political campaign that rejects science is pressuring companies and the public to reject the use of DINP. Retailers such as Wal-Mart and Toys “R” Us are switching to phthalate-free products to avoid public pressure.

    It may be tempting to take this path of least resistance, but at what cost? None of the potential replacement chemicals have been tested and found safe to the degree that DINP has. The Consumer Product Safety Commission recently cautioned, “If DINP is to be replaced in children’s products . . . the potential risks of substitutes must be considered. Weaker or more brittle plastics might break and result in a choking hazard. Other plasticizers might not be as well studied as DINP.”

    The hysteria over DINP began in Europe and Israel, both of which instituted bans. Yet earlier this year, Israel realized the error of putting politics before science, and reinstated DINP.

    But that’s just par for the course for the entire Left. Everything is a political football to toss around, a way to sucker some more chumps out of their money – regardless of the consequences.

    Does anyone think that Al Gore wants to save the world from global warming and give up his hot gig as some sort of speaker extraordinaire?

    Does Code Pink and the IVAW really want to end the war and end their cash flow? No. They all need the drama. I’ll concede that maybe there are some that do want to end wars and global warming, but the organizations are pulling in cash hand-over-fist. They’d have to either retool their organizations or find real work.

  • Zawahiri; Ahmadinejad is FOS

    al Qaida’s number 2 guy, Zawahiri is upset that the Joos are getting credit from Iran for the attacks on New York City in 2001 (AP/Yahoo link);

    Osama bin Laden’s chief deputy on Tuesday denied a theory that Israel carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and blamed Iran and Shiite Hezbollah for spreading the idea to discredit the Sunni al-Qaida’s strike against the U.S.

    The comments in a recording posted on an Islamic Web site reflected the increasing criticism by al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri against Iran. Al-Zawahri has accused Iran in recent messages of seeking to extend its power in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and through its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.

    He also claims that Iran is aiding the US in Afghanistan and Iraq;

    “The purpose of this lie is clear — (to suggest) that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no else did in history. Iranian media snapped up this lie and repeated it,” he said.

    “Iran’s aim here is also clear — to cover up its involvement with America in invading the homes of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said.

    This ought to be a blow to the “truthers”, but somehow I doubt it.

    Update: Charles Johnson points out that “Onion scoops Zawahiri“.