Caturday Night Special, Episode XVII

Or, why I love The Onion

ПЕРЕМЕНА!

"No, there is too much, let me sum up."

Are you feeling cheated yet?

Caturday Night Special, Episode XVI

These might be the droids you're looking for

I'm sure they're nice people and all, but assurances do not a legal document make:

State officials say there’s no doubt Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.

Health Department Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino says she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama’s original birth certificate.

... She says state law bars release of a certified birth certificate to anyone who does not have a tangible interest in it.

I believe applying for a job as the President of the United States both gives any arbitrary voter reason to claim "tangible interest", as per Berg's case, and raises additional questions about how Obama obtained his current occupational position without said verification.

They're talking, but all I'm hearing is, "Stand aside, plebeians! We are on Imperial business!"

Caturday Night Special, Episode XV

A curious sort of libertarianism

According to Christopher Buckley, an overt Marxist will, upon taking the oath of office, magically transform into Captain America by virtue of an above-average intelligence and sense of social responsibility:

I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine. He is also a lefty. I am not. I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets. On abortion, gay marriage, et al, I’m libertarian. I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P.J. O’Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.

But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.

The Daily Beast. How appropriate. (Yes, I slipped that link into his blockquote.)

There won't be a backlash, blow-back or anything except the mild breeze of adulate praise to the Obamassiah if when he does accept the landslides of worthless American dollars into the war-chest. Special-interests will magically metamorphose into "groups of concerned citizens", and a crippling tax-rate will be instituted as "a necessary step towards economic equality".

Lick the jack-boots of your overlords if you must, Buckley, but do it honestly.

When in doubt, empty the clip

The title is especially pertinent this week; between economic agitation, academic wrangling, mathematical uncertainty, emergency preparation and good old-fashioned allergies, I have a full plate.

- Congress is unsure of how to alleviate our economic woes, as throwing wads of money at it seems to exacerbate the situation:

The Federal Reserve Board, with support of the U.S. Treasury, invoked emergency powers to lend as much as $85 billion to American International Group Inc. to save the firm from collapse. At the start of the week, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy. That followed the bailout of Bear Stearns Cos. in March, and the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac earlier this month.

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin said in a speech on the Senate floor that President George W. Bush isn't in a position to propose regulatory overhaul legislation because he is close to leaving office ``and the Congress is not in a position to pass it.''

Horse-shit. Congress is merely unwilling to do anything about it. Somehow, they managed to overwhelmingly (98-0) pass a resolution supporting any necessary force for eradicating terrorists, but they are "not in a position to pass" anything in this instance, as anything but standard operating procedure would mean relinquishing power over the markets. And they just can't do that.

At least someone was speaking out against it, but ~400:1 odds ain't that great.

- Speaking of the blame-anyone-but-ourselves mentality from our leaders, we're not alone.

- Possible blowback from the endless attacks regarding Palin; I'm still not voting for McCain, and I'm still not overly impressed with Palin, but I love how the Obama-zombies are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Either way, bread and circuses are guaranteed; pay no attention to the figures behind the curtains.

All aboard!

Surprise! But not really, since they "could not be allowed to fail":

Holders of the companies' common and preferred stock are ``very unlikely to come out of this at all happy,'' and the chief executive officers will be forced out, Frank said. Senior and subordinated debt holders will likely be protected, said other people who were briefed on the plan.

Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee almost half of the $12 trillion in U.S. home loans and the government had been leaning on the companies to help pull the economy out of the housing crisis. Instead, they got caught in the same slump that left the world's banks with more than $500 billion of losses since the collapse of the subprime-mortgage market last year.

Fact: the Federal government will not voluntarily relinquish any power it is not compelled to by the People, as it is antithetical to the nature of government.

Fact: the Federal government expects to spend its way out of a problem that it started by, you guessed it, spending. I'm looking at you, Keynesians.

Fact: the Federal government, like a drug-addled junkie, won't come to terms with its habit until it hits rock-bottom, and the excrement really hits the ventilation. A fundamental problem remains with the recovery strategies proposed for this recession: the money is still being printed at a break-neck pace, and that is devaluing the currency at such a rate that we may not be able to recover gracefully, or even unbloodied.

I'm making an educated guess that rather than cut unnecessary expenditures, something akin to this will occur. Combined with the documented lack of domestic control that the government has shown in natural disasters to date with copious forewarning, expect "domestic upheaval" on a scale previously unknown in this country.

Such being the case, I'm suggesting a new candidate for the White House, one that more accurately represents our American zeitgeist, one that can bring us to the train-wreck with unprecedented alacrity and trash-nouveau style: Paris Hilton.

Paris has the track-record we're looking for:

- Unrestrained spending on questionable, frivolous and otherwise useless items or services
- A Hollywood-shiny exterior with a petty, all-consuming soulless interior
- Room-temperature IQ, which should resoundingly trounce any notion of "elitism"
- Religiously-devout in the worship of Mammon
- "Full-transparency" in her private-life, which can be utilized in public schools for sex-ed; likely support for a "Soma"-type dietary supplement
- Utter impulsiveness, necessary for the current incarnation of our Foreign Policy
- A criminal record with corresponding jail time, for an instant 2.3 million-strong constituency; Paris can likely rely on Democratic support for reinstatement of the voting privilege right to felons

Clearly, she is the most qualified candidate, with more than twenty years of rigorous training. And considering the way that the public is eating up Palin's sex-appeal in spite of the numerous vitriolic attacks against her policies or association with McCain, I think the test-case for a shine-over-substance campaign is solidly established; the impulse to continue to worship at the altar of materialistic hedonism will trump any protests to the contrary.

I for one prefer the predictability of stupidity to the insatiable hunger for power in a Caesar. The former is less likely to create problems for the citizenry, whereas the latter causes no end of misery.

A Synopsis

When in doubt, empty the clip.

- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

- Two wrongs do not make a right, and the return of a "Fairness Doctrine" with a new application to the Internet is a disaster waiting to happen. The very idea makes me nauseous.

- Expect this to get slapped down in the name of the "new professionalism", as the police have clearly indicated that they had iron-clad evidence of wrong-doing... From their laser-guided government-ID scanners, with 150yd range, that run on rainbows and unicorn crap.

Why so serious?

Seriously:

In fact, it's so serious that I'd ask everyone to buy tire pressure gauges - available at sites like this -- because ultimately this is about our national security and our troops. Maybe John McCain wants to mock those things, but I sure don't.

Someone has to mock these things. It's a dirty job, but it has to be done.

Sir, as a resident of the Peoples' Republik of Kalifornia, I am quite used to having the Politburo dictate the dire need for saving energy by turning-off the lights, adjusting the thermostat beyond the comfort point, wearing a sweater, etc. Indeed, I've been Flexing My Power quite a bit this summer, thanks to our previous governor's indiscretions. Now, while I am against waste, the Politburo should remove the plank from its own eye before yammering about the speck in mine. I'll posit that the amount of Congressional spending directly affects the buying power of the dollar; the price of gasoline since 2001 has been relatively static when purchased with gold:



This would seem to indicate that rampant spending by the government has more to do with the current price of oil than OPEC and whether or not John Q. Public left the lights on when he went on a beer-run. To wit, CAGW (Citizens Against Government Waste) has a few things to report about the voting records of the candidates (I'm posting PRK's senators and Ron Paul as well):

- Senator John McCain (R, AZ)
Score for 109th Congress: 95% (Taxpayer Hero)
- Senator Barack Obama (D, IL)
Score for 109th Congress: 30% (Unfriendly)

- Senator Dianne Feinstein (D, CA)
Score for 109th Congress: 10% (Hostile)
- Senator Barbara Boxer (D, CA)
Score for 109th Congress: 19% (Hostile)

- Congressman Ron Paul (R, TX)
Score for 109th Congress: 95% (Taxpayer Hero)

(This is not an endorsement for McCain; his philosophy has not yet changed to fit mine.)

Even with a public-school education, 30% looks suspiciously like a boat-load of fail for a senator that wants the public to exercise a little discipline where he has none. So, to sum up: stuff your tire-gauges where the hopechange don't shine.

I would hope that Obama might change his spending habits, and take The Wicked Witches of the West with him.

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