Man up

So this guy Snowden drops a dime on NSA's wholesale and indiscriminate collection of just about everything we all say and do, and then gets hisself off to Hong Kong. Okay, hero or traitor? Well, if he had manned up, stayed here and faced the music, then I'd be giving him a medal. But he didn't. He ran off, which is something a spy would do.

Now, I've been hearing some pundits and commentators saying things like "high school dropout" and "Top Secret clearance" in tones of incredulity, like the former obviates the latter. I am intimately familiar with the entire clearance awarding process, having spent many of my post-military years in da bidness, and, please, get a grip. Your level of education is not an issue in clearance awards; it's an issue in the job you're being hired to do, and if a high school dropout can do the wondrous computer administrative support tasks required by the job Snowden was hired by Booz Allen to perform at NSA, then well and good. I mean, Richard Branson was a high school drop out, too.

Clearances are a whole separate beast. The clearance process determines whether you are the type of person who can be entrusted with classified information, anything from the mundane level of Confidential to the stratospheric stuff which is protected under various code words. That usually goes to character, which can be snapshotted by a look at your spending habits, the people you hang out with, how well you play with others, and what kind of foreign connections you have, among other categories. And, obviously, Snowden passed muster.

But, waaait a minute, that PROVES the clearance process doesn't work!

Well, no. It actually proves the clearance system is working great.

Because, you see, the clearance investigation is designed to ferret out traitors to the United States, persons who are willing to sell out this country for personal gain or for ideological reasons. Snowden is not that kind of person. Au contraire, he fervently believes in the Constitution and the operating principles of this country. So, when he discovered the NSA was conducting operations directly against the Constitution, operations that are un-American and traitorous in themselves, he exposed it.

Just like any good American would do when confronted with a covert Marxist operation designed to destroy the country.

Okay, that last sentence may be a bit of hyperbole, but I can sympathize with Snowden's dilemma. In the course of his job, he discovers a powerful US government agency is waging a secret war against the populace. What do you do, especially when you discover everyone from the President on down, is in on it? You don't exactly have the best course of redress, like the IG and members of Congress, since, the moment you call them, you're a marked man. Right, IRS?

So, gotta give him credit, he went public. And not in any way that compromised US security, because even the dullest of terrorists knew we were tracking their phone calls. Unless, of course, you believe collecting information on every single American is a good, right, and proper security tactic. Which I don't. It's a fishing expedition, easily turned against us. Get off your lazy asses, CIA and FBI, and do some real investigating! You know, like following up on leads about some Chechen guy, or when one of your agents sends up a memo about some suspicious flight training.

But no credit for going to Hong Kong. Dude, that's treason.

Whose Fault Was It?

If you listen to Diane Feinstein and the rest of the insane left, Newtown happened because of guns. Adam Lanza brushed against one of his mother's [legal] weapons and was immediately possessed by the eeeevil Spirit of Gun-ness. Or, more on this side of sanity, if Mom didn't have all those eeevil guns, he'd only have killed 10 or 15 with an Evil Butcher Knife. So, it's the guns' fault.

No, it isn't. It's Barack Obama's fault. And Democrats. And all the rest of the Marxists.

What? What??? How is this Barry's fault?? He HATES guns! At least, in your hands.

Simple. Ideas have consequences.

Barry was  Chairman of the Chicago Annanberg Challenge, a "school reform" entity created by Bill Ayers with money from the Annanberg Foundation. The Annanberg Challenge was one more in a series of devastating body blows to the US public education system, like the self-esteem movement, the War on Boys, and the whole "learning disorders" craze. By the time the Marxist-in-Chief and his bomb-throwing pal Ayers had hijacked the Chicago schools, education was already reeling against the ropes. They kneed it in the groin, finishing it off.

And the result is a whole generation of boys, especially white middle-class boys, repeatedly hammered, each and every day, about how much of a threat and insult their manly instincts are to the real power in the world—girls. Playing cowboys and Indians at recess is proof of their innate racist and violent tendencies, making fart noises during Reading is evidence of severe educational deficiencies requiring large doses of cocaine in the form of Adderol, gayness is all the rage, manliness all the wrong, and girls really just don't need them. All the men on TV are befuddled arrested adolescents who only survive by the patient and condescending brilliance of their too-smart wives; football is brutish (oh my, you might get hurt!); weeping is good; a boy's very presence on the college campus prevents women from graduating and getting better jobs. His very presence in the workplace means the woman working next to him is automatically underpaid. His very existence is the source of all oppression.

Sullen, repressed, unhappy, guilty boys, frustrated, blamed for everything.

And you wonder why they massacre.

Buy more ammo

There is so much going on that I, truly, don't know where to focus. Not wanting to use a much-overused metaphor these days, but it's extremely difficult to pause and reflect when the car is on two tires, the brakes are on fire, and you are tumbling over the cliff side.

 

It should be very apparent to everyone by now that Barack Obama is an enemy of this country, and is absolutely intent on breaking the American economic system. That's why he came to Washington, as the front man, the vanguard of the proletariat, the culmination of a 25 year plan to bring America to its knees. It's a movie script. It's a thriller by Vince Flynn. And it's true.

 

Now, before you go off and scream "Conspiracy theorist!", let me tell you I'm not much of a believer in conspiracies. If there's one thing the Mafia has proven, two guys know a secret, then the whole world does. So, an active, plotted, conspiracy conducted over decades? No. But, an idea, people dedicated to an idea. And the damage an idea can do.

 

That idea is, of course, Marxism, which holds as its basic premise that all everyone really, really wants to do is get up before sunrise, stretch and go, "Oh boy! I get to work 18 hours today sickling wheat, and then give every bit of it to the guy in the next town! And expect absolutely nothing in return!" Uh huh. On what planet, Marxists?

 

So, you have a ridiculous idea backed by a flawed premise, that economics is the driving force of humanity, and what happens? Mass graves. We all stand here in amazement, wondering how anybody in their right mind would even entertain Marxism, yet there are whole countries (I'm looking at you, Russia) dedicated to it. And we have an administration imbued with it, a stupid, stupid idea that has proven its bankruptcy in decade after decade, country after country, slaughter after slaughter. Yet, 51% our of population voted for it. Why?

 

Simple. Because the real premise of Marxism is not economics. It's power.

 

Power over everyone, the power to tell everyone what they can do, what they can say, what they can eat, what they can watch, drive, own, think. That's what everyone really wants. It's downright sexual, and Barack Obama sits in his office, rictus grin on his face, self-righteous rage careening through his heart, gloating that an idea, a mere idea, can so corrupt an education system, a monetary system, a system of governance, that 51% of the population will, willingly, vote for their own enslavement.

 

Go to the range. Practice.

 

Commander-in-Thief

These reports of voter fraud in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida are making me wonder:

Is Barack Obama the President of the United States? Or did he just engineer a coup?

Profound implications, this. And I'm wondering if anyone is doing anything to resolve the question, because...

If you won the Presidency by fraud, Barack, then you ain't the President. And your administration has no legitimacy. At all. And anything you order is unlawful, and we can, with no qualms, ignore it.

 

That's not good. Not good at all.

America Died Last Night

It may not look it. The corpse seems viable, breathing, still full of life. But, trust me. It's dead.

There are now more people who expect things than there are people who earn things. There are now more covetous people than honorable ones. The Obama voter smirks at the Romney voter and sneers, "Payback! Now you're gonna get yours!"

Actually, they're going to get theirs, when the gas and electricity and food go through the roof, and the jobs and prosperity through the floor. But, then, Obama will blame the oil companies and the electric utilities and George Bush, and Hilary Clinton will win the next eight years, and Governor Cuomo another eight beyond that, with one or two Congressional Republicans from some district in Texas kept around for sport.

The grand experiment is over. We are Lee's Army at Appomattox. We lost. We will not rise again. Conservatism is relegated to the ash heap of history, along with the primacy of the individual, inherent rights, and government as servant. The individual will diminish, rights will be determined on a case-by-case basis, and a political and corporate elite will rule you.  

But that's all right. You'll have American Idol, marijuana, sex with anything you want, and an assigned job and apartment. You'll be happy.

Just not free.

Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, in the beginning, which wasn't a beginning (okay, about four years ago), the King of Everything was golf-carting across the land, blessing the peasants and children with his beneficence, allowing them to bask in the brilliance that was him, when he chanced upon a sad little peasant. "My son," the King said gently, "why the downcast expression when I, your Lord Leige and Illuminator, am among you?"

"Oh, great King!" the peasant wailed, "I am without direction and interest, finding myself here, in the middle of this mud field, without any idea of what to do."

"Ah," the Wise King said, "a man of no productivity. Let me fix that." And the King stretched forth his mighty hand and, invoking the magic words, "StalLenin!", cast a spell. Suddenly, a blinding light issued forth from the earth, a choir of heavenly angels sang a single note of "Aaah!" and erupting from the raw materials of the world there sprang forth interstates and sewers and street lights and municipal waste management and electrical power and wires (no solar or wind power yet. Even magic has its limits) and policemen and trucks and DMVs and City Councils and zoning and industrial might. And the King saw that it was good.

The peasant, though, remained sad faced and wailing. "My child," the King said gently, "I have given you great gifts of infrastructure. Why do you remain downcast?"

"Oh, Great King," the peasant wailed, "I am most astonished by your wondrous gifts to me and the rest of the undeserving, but I still do not know what to DO with such bounty."

"Ah," the Great King nodded wisely and stretched forth his hand and uttered, "All Linsky!" and there arose among the magnificence of the infrastructure schools of the elementary, with comely golden-haired teachers to impart knowledge of the King's Wisdom, buildings of great high schools to teach the wonder that is government, and universities of sage wizards where is imparted the truth for the moment. And the peasant was whisked away on the backs of the Dispossessed and was bathed in the Sense of the Court and whirled back to stand before his Lord and Leader. "Oh, Great King!" he cried, "I now know what to do! I shall...become a plumber!"

"And I!" said his wife, "shall drive large trucks across the roads you have built and give you tithes through my union membership!"

"And I," said the peasant's brilliant son, "will invent the internet and give everyone Facebook and porn."

"And I," said the equally brilliant peasant daughter, "shall build hospitals where only those less than 55 years old may be treated." And there was much dancing and rejoicing.

But then a dark cloud covered the sun and a wind of terrible reaction blew and lo! there appeared the evil Witch of the Right, Sarappalin. And the peasants were sore afraid. "Now, hold on here just a minute, bub," she spoke with great disrespect at the Lord King, "we've actually had these things for a lot longer than you've..."

"MSENBEESEE!" roared the Great King in his terrible wrath, and a hurricane of Correctness picked up the horrible witch and blew her to the land of Bitter Clingers. And she was never heard from again.

And there was much dancing and rejoicing.

Much Ado About Nothin'

Paul Wiseman of the AP is just all a-giggle about the rebounding, roaring, expanding economy.

Excuse me?

Methinks, Paul, thou celebrateth too much:

a. “The job market is healthier.” Do tell. Maybe one of a socialist/Marxist/centralized-planning bent is so convinced, but the 8.6% rate over which you dance gleefully is freakin’ dismal. You can do the happy dance once it reaches 4.5%, the unemployment rate inNovember 2006, you know, when the Democrats took over Congress? By the way, the unemployment rate climbed to 6.8% by November 2008, after two years of Democrat congressional control.  Correlation is not causation, I know, but, looks mighty suspicious.

b. “Americans are spending lustily on holiday gifts.” And Nero fiddled while Rome burned.

c. “A long awaited turnaround for the housing market may be under way.” The watchword here is “may,” and the facts you cite aren’t ones to spur champagne breakouts:

(1) “Home construction rose more than 9% in November from October, driven by apartment building.” Which strongly indicates an urge to rent and not buy, doncha think?

(2) “The existing homes sold at an annual rate of 4.4 million- well below the 6 million that would signal a healthy housing market.” You make my case for me.

d. “Falling prices at the pump have freed more money for consumers to spend…” Oh, please. Let’s say the government increases my taxes by 75%, then, six months later, drops that to 70%. I guess that 5% “increase” in my take home pay should have me out buying a new house, huh? Or maybe renting one of those new apartments. When a gallon of gas drops back to $2.18like it was in November 2006 (you know, before Democrats were elected?) get back to me.

e. “Stocks are higher.” Again when we get to 14,000, you know, like we did under Bush, get back to me.

Paul, seriously, knock it off. No amount of spin is going to cover up the fact that Comrade Obama has  completely screwed the economic pooch.

And if you weren’t working for Pravda, you could actually say that.

Statement

Dudes and dudettes of the Trespassing…er, Occupy Wall Street gang: unless your wardrobe consists of a Hefty Bag with strategically cut arm and head holes, your diet a half cup of oatmeal a day, and your bedroom a steam grate, you are the oppressor.

It all started with Tricare

For those of you who spent your lives bad mouthing your country and smoking dope, you probably don’t know what Tricare is. It’s the military health system that replaced that godawful CHAMPUS and, I gotta say, it’s purty good. Puzzled the Schlub why Baracula didn’t just expand it to the entire US population, thereby avoiding the rise of the Tea Party in reaction to his Marxist takeover of medicine. Premiums are low, you get pretty good coverage and choice, so, what’s not to like?

The website.

It is the worst constructed, convoluted, incomprehensible concoction of unrelated kerap ever conceived. Don’t let the appearance fool you, don’t let the ease of access take you in- it is of the Devil. Why?

Passwords.

Someone who hates the military conceived the password system, which requires, nay, DEMANDS an incomprehensible set of numbersletterscharacterscapitals dependent on what day of the month it is and WHICH CHANGES EVERY FREAKIN’ THIRTY SECONDS!!! And don’t EVEN try to use different iterations of a previous password, bucko.

A few days ago, I had to go in and make some changes to providers. It was like entering the fifth circle of hell. I had not used the website for months, due to their insane password policy, and discovered they had, somehow, made it even worse. Because, not only did I have to get my new password (which required a special key code they could only mail to me, not use internet, doncha know) but I also had to initiate a similar but even more diabolical password for my Tricare provider, the baby-eating Health Net Federal Services (by the way, this page comes up when you click on 'I'm a Beneficiary. You have to manually switch the page to English. How PC)

That’s when I discovered the DoD Single Service Login.

The SSL is the new method by which we retirees now have to access our retirement accounts, medical information, VA stuff, what have you, and it is more successful than any previous Russian attempt to subvert and demoralize the US military. Somehow, while negotiating the minefield that is Tricare, I managed, unbeknownst to me, to activate an SSL with the username for my military finance account. I have no idea how this happened, and only found out about it when I tried to enter my account using what I THOUGHT was my login, you know, the one I had actually set up the account with about ten years ago?

Two Help Desk phone calls later to Brandon (who is the best Customer Service rep in America, bar none, and I have no idea how I managed to keep getting through to him. Only guy working yesterday, I guess), here’s what I found out:

a. The DoD decided to completely bollix up retiree’s logons by creating brand new, spiffy Basic and Premium account levels for access to your finance, military and medical records. They didn’t happen to mention this to anyone, of course, just did it one day.

b. You can access both accounts through your old login…unless you made the fatal error of trying to log in to Tricare which, somehow, has signed a contract in blood with DoD to completely bollix up any subsequent login attempts by switching out your user name without you knowing it. So your account locks up in 1.5 tries, ya know?

c. The system will offer your security questions- 3 at a time. Not one at a time. And they’re security questions from ten years ago, so you don’t remember if you gave full answers or the one-word lower case answers experience taught you was the only way to match what was on file. Three at a time. Do you know how many iterations of answers you have to go through for favorite teacher favorite movie favorite book worse food on three questions? It’s a number even bigger than the national debt.

So, Brandon had to cancel my SSL. Which means I now have to wait for a password through the mail, which should get here sometime in December. That’s for the basic account. To get the premium account, I have to show up at a VA Regional Office in person with all of my military documentation to prove that the guy with the basic account is the same guy standing in front of your desk, Mr. VA Administrator, so I can now get access to my own retirement and medical records, which I used to access with a simple login.

My nearest Regional Office is 250 miles away. Only open 9-4 M-F.

Or…you can get a Basic AND Premium account by calling the VA’s 800 number. Cool!  So, seven menus later, I get, “Unfortunately, we cannot take your phone call at this time. Goodbye.”

Just take me out back and shoot me.

West of boro

The Supreme Court has, once again, made an incredibly stupid decision that will, once again, flush another portion of our Constitution down that long sewer pipe they, and the rest of the gummint, seem intent on sending it. But, BUT, Schlub says, as with most postmodern legal decisions designed to free us from the oppression of our little bourgeois shopkeeper minds and impose the longed-for civilization of peace and love and humbuggery, there be some unintended consequences a brewin’.

But first, this: allowing Westboro to continue spewing their over-the-top toilet stained crap (lots of sewer references today, but, hey, consider the material) at mourners attending funerals of loved ones who died defending this country is proof that a legal degree and years of making judicial decisions turns you into an idiot. See, it’s like being a sewer (see what I mean?) worker- after awhile, the whole world looks like crap. When all you do is stare at legal writ all day, you think it's, well, real. Holy. Inscribed some hitherto midnight on walls by disembodied fingers or something. And you imbue it with an absoluteness which means those scrawls on parchment are inviolate and apply to every single situation in the universe all the time with absolutely no exceptions regardless of the circumstances they just do so shut up. Result? Judges making completely asinine decisions while saying things like, yes, well, the Westboro people are a vile group, wot? but the purity and divinity of the First Amendment means that people who have come to say goodbye to their young child who was killed fighting crapheads who want to put us all in bags and then behead us, well, they’ll just have to listen to Westborites screaming that America is a fag nation and sonny boy deserved it. That First Amendment is soooo holy that your right to say goodbye to your son just isn’t as important as Westboro’s right to gloat over his death.

From where does such absolutist, legalistic, patristic thinking come from? Why, post-modernist philosophy, of course, which declared God is dead and so is common sense and we are a nation of laws (rules) and you peasants, subsequently, bear watching. Is the source, it is, of the recent rash of unbelievably stupid bureaucratic reactions to stuff, like - this. Kid gets suspended because he recognized a situation and acted with good common sense. Ain’t gonna have that, no we ain’t. There are rules. RULES. And they will be obeyed. All. The. Time. You peasants.

And the same thinking that led to the kid’s suspension led to the Westboro decision.

BUTT, and it is a big but, the SC 9 may have just unleased a rather gigantic bucket of worms. ‘Cause the decision means (drum roll, please)- there are no longer such things as fightin’ words, speech codes, hate speech, politically correct expressions. You may now call a black man the n word* if you wish, a homosexual a faggot** a Democrat a Marxist or Nazi***, carry signs of Obambi with Hitler moustaches, and post banners outside Justice Steven’s house declaring his wife has AIDs. And you can’t be arrested for it. And the news media can’t get the vapors. It’s the law, sonny boy. The SC 9 has just made decent behavior illegal.

It also means prayer is back in school and Ten Commandment tablets are back in court rooms. Because the First Amendment, which is actually written into the Constitution, trumps “church and state separation,” which isn’t.

Fun times, fun times.

*I don‘t much like that word, as Sheriff Langston said, so I don't use it. But you can

**I prefer the term ‘pole smoker’

*** Six of one, half dozen of another

They be riotin' in Madison

And can you blame them, those cruelly treated, horribly abused, beaten, enslaved public school teachers, who have to endure such terrible hours, you know, 9 to about 4 o’clock, with the summers and all holidays and snow days and planning days off, and their retirement paid for and their health care paid for and their schooling paid for and all their days off paid for, too, while never having to worry about being fired? Governor Snidley Whiplash and his Republican Brotherhood of Evil. If the teachers have to pony up, oh say, 4-6% of their income as contributions to their health care and retirements, how are they going to spend that extra week in the beach house towards the end of August? They’ll be much too grumpy when school starts back up, and the children will suffer, oh yes, they will. Citizens of Wisconsin are just going to have to forego their own retirement and vacations and a better car and maybe a bigger house to ensure their little sweetikums are not permanently traumatized because Miss Brooks didn’t get enough of a freak-on during her well-deserved three months off. Might end up naked in a car with one of her 16 year old students or something. And it’s not like Wisconsinites aren’t getting bang for buck. Just look how well Wisconsin schools are doing.

Yeah. Just look.

C-. Good job, teach.

The NFL is the Obama Administration

That's right. Complete and utter disregard for the working man while doing everything possible to impoverish you. Yesterday, 1:00 game. What could we see? Washington versus Kansas City. That's it. No game on Fox, just some silly crap while the GIANTS and the SAINTS were playing. Yeah, no interest in that game anywhere in the world, nooooooooo. More galling, only about half the seats at FedEx were filled (gee, I wonder why?). So, you know, blackout rule? And then there's the whole thing with Rush: the integrity of the NFL is one so pristine and holy a guy with a lot of money who could possibly turn around a failing franchise is denied because gasp! he says controversial things. It's a BUSINESS deal, for cryin' out loud!

That's it. Watching college only. Except when the Iggles are on (but, oy, if they keep playing like they did against Oakland...)