If You Needed More Proof

Turns out that Staff Sergeant (1) Simmance, lefty hero and Buffalo Occupier, is a big fat liar.  He claims that he served in Afghanistan, in the "Valley of Elah" (2), Iraq, and Gaza, (3) and was wounded by rocket fire (4).  Well, (1) he wasn't a staff sergeant, he was an E-4 Specialist (two grades below staff sergeant), (2) there is no Valley of Elah and he didn't correctly identify other places he fought (btw, turns out all the places he claimed to have fought are prominent in movies) (3) he didn't serve in any of those places (according to army records he spent three years in Fort Lewis, Washington), and (4) he wasn't wounded by enemy fire during his three years in Fort Lewis, Washington or anywhere else.  He has received no decorations indicating service overseas or in combat, and his "proof" that he served there is apparently passport stamps from the countries he claims. 

Passport stamps?  I did serve overseas, have the military records to prove it, and I have no passport stamps from any of the countries we visited.  I didn't even have to provide a passport to enter those countries, let alone go through customs and immigration.

Even his mother doesn't believe him.

Once again, the OWS movement is discredited.  Guarantee, however, that you won't see this story on the nightly news and if you bring it up in an argument you'll be accused of using isolated anecdotal evidence to discredit a popular movement.  How many "isolated anecdotal incidents" do we have to see before we accept that a pattern appears to be emerging?  Well, we hit 360 today and I don't know if Mr. Simmance is included since he might not have actually broken any laws.

Unexpected Results

Took a poll on National Review Online asking what my favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner was.  After much thought between Turkey, Stuffing, Gravy, Cranberry, and Pumpkin Pie, I realized that although I like all of them, I really like good stuffing the best.  Turns out I am among the 40% poll leading respondents who like stuffing the best.  Weird.  I didn't see that coming at all.

No Room to Swing a Dead Rat

So small group of children playing with something on the neighbor's sidewalk.  Looks like a dead rat.  Better check this out.  Yup.  Dead rat.  But it's OK.  "We have a pair of scissors so we aren't actually touching the dead rat."  "Where'd you get the scissors?"  "Mom gave them to us so we wouldn't touch the dead rat."  Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.

Did you even read the book?

Turns out that when they designed the cover for the DVD of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged they included the following helpful promotional line.

“AYN RAND’s timeless novel of courage and self-sacrifice comes to life…”

Self sacrifice?  A major libertarian philosophical ideal?  Really?  Oh, come on.

The producers are apparently chagrined, as they should be.

Too Much Time on My Hands

So for all I've been complaining about working too much, seems I struggle with the alternative.  For the last two and a half months my week has looked like this.

Monday through Friday 7:00 to 4:00 High School teaching
Monday: Web meeting 6:30 to 8:00
Tuesday: Tae Kwon Do 6:30 to 8:00
Wednesday: Web meeting 6:30 to 8:0
Thursday: Tae Kwon Do 6:30 to 8:00
Friday: Motorcycle work 4:30 to 8:00
Saturday: Motorcycle work 9:00 to 5:00

So today I don't have a web meeting cause we are about done and I walked into the house and thought "I have nothing to do" and it wasn't a good thought.  Maybe I've become institutionalized.



So here's a little blast from the past.

Two Swans a Swimming

Impressive how good the pictures are from a phone.  Full disclosure: HTC Thunderbolt Android with 8 MP camera.

Ignorance or Hypocrisy?

This is GREAT!

One of the few things that the #occupy useful idiots can agree on (other than up- and down- twinkles) is that corporations shouldn't have "person hood".  In other words, corporations should not have any of the rights of people such as the ability to file lawsuits, own property, make donations, etc. (I am assuming that if you remove their right of person hood absolutely, you can't then justify leaving them with any of the benefits or rights of being a person.  Just seems to me that it's one or the other, they are either persons with rights or non-persons without rights.)  Anyway, here's the good part.

"Occupy Sacramento" filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court challenging "The City of Sacramento"'s right to enforce park closing hours.

So a bunch of people who don't believe that "groups" have rights, filed a lawsuit as an "Unincorporated Association".  Apparently they only want to deny rights to groups who file particular paperwork with the state to incorporate.  Weird.

What is Free Speech?

Well, according to some protesters "tents are free speech" even if your tent is depriving everyone else of the ability to use public property, but "spending money on politics is not" even if it deprives everyone else of nothing since they still have the right to do their own research and make up their own minds about the issues at hand.


Well, it's a natural progression I guess, from policies that insist that the teaching of facts should be replaced with the teaching of feelings.  Hard to think critically if you have no facts upon which to base your critical thought.

Blank Blank Anonymous

So if you are an alcoholic and you have a drink, do you give up?  Absolutely not, you just start over agan.  Or do you pick up where you left off?  I know, AA says "One day at a time" so you aren't really counting, just going about your sober life one day at a time.

What about SBA (Spotty Bloggers Anonymous)?  You don't go one day at a time, you set a goal.  To blog 69 days in a row.  So what happens when you miss a day?  Well, I don't know.  There are no meetings, there is no Big Book of SBA, there is no guidance or support.  I missed a day.  I don't know what to do.  Do I have to start over again at day 1 or can I just say a few mea culpas and continue as though nothing untoward ever happened?

For the record, today would have been Day 16.  Yesterday I didn't post a Cheong-bao ho-tze thing.  So maybe today is Day 1.  I don't know.  Now I'm tired AND my head hurts from all this math.

I'm Tired, So Tired

But not of what you Weezer fans might think. 

I work too much.  My own darn fault.  I have expensive tastes and my room-mate moved to Alaska, reducing my income by that much.  So here's the dilemma.  I don't want to have to deal with some stranger's s$$t.  How do I get a paying room-mate that doesn't drive me insane?  Last room-mate was a friend who I had known for about six years before he moved in.  I knew how he lived, he knew how I lived, not an issue.

Now I'm not unreasonable but I like things the way I like them.  I don't mind some dirty dishes sitting out overnight because dinner was late.  I expect them to be cleaned up the next day though.  A project sitting out for a few days while you find time to get it done, not an issue.  Piles of stuff lying around the house for weeks on end, an issue.  Finish off something in the fridge, let me know, I'll buy more.  If I get up in the morning and unexpectedly can't have a cup of coffee because you didn't tell me you used up the half and half, then I'm pissed.

See, I had this room-mate.  He was disgusting in his personal habits.  I didn't like to even see inside his room.  Fortunately cockroaches are not a problem up here, but if they were, we would have had them. Nice enough guy but in general not a great room-mate for someone who is at all fastidious. I don't want to go through that again.

So, how do I get what I want (income and therefore working less) without living the nightmare that is "the bad room-mate"?

The Tea Party is Violent, Part 213

In case you haven't been keeping track, the #occupy movement hit incident 213 today.  When I say incident I mean blatant lawlessness.  You may have seen the occasional story on the news but you probably aren't seeing them all listed at once to show the serious issues going on within the #occupy movement.  Contrast this to the fabricated stories put out about the violent tendencies and racist attitude of the Tea Party movement.

http://bigjournalism.com/jjmnolte/2011/10/28/occupywallstreet-the-rap-sheet-so-far/

PS Breitbart points out that he isn't even including collateral damage and law enforcement costs, and, in case you are wondering where the list comes from, he put it together from original news sources so no one can claim that these are fabricated reports.

We Wish You a Merry New Tax

So Scrooge President Obama apparently thinks that a) you have too much money, 2) if you buy a Christmas tree you make over $250,000 a year, c) what we really need around the holiday season is a new tax, and 4) anyone who celebrates a religious holiday is bitterly clinging to their religion and needs to pay some money for the privilege. (OK, I just threw that last one in since really Christmas trees have nothing to do with religion, but were an easy way to co-opt the celebration of the winter solstice).

Anyway, just in time for Christmas, a new tax of .15 per tree for, wait for it, a Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.  Really?  I don't know anyone who isn't Jewish who doesn't have a Christmas tree.  112 million households in the US, 2.2% of the population is Jewish so knock off a couple million households (remember this is a rough estimate) so 110 million people are going to buy a Christmas tree this and every year.  Do we really need a federal program (and a new tax) to promote this?  Unless, of course, their first act will be to create a brochure espousing the virtues of paying an extra .15 for that tree.

Win Some, Lose Some

Well, the State of Washington is finally out of the liquor sales business.  Finally we should get some reasonable prices and a decent selection.  Took long enough but obviously the voters saw past the lies of the opposition.

The thugs at the SEIU pulled out a victory though.  Once again, the only way the unions get membership is to force it on people, instead of letting them voluntarily choose.  The problem for the unions is that given the option, people are not joining unions.  They've got nothing left other than forced membership and initiatives that purport to protect people but really lead to required unionism.  The initiative just passed gives the unions $80 million of taxpayer money and provides it to the unions to run training programs.  No choice, just money to the unions.  Meanwhile, what do you suppose the chances of the training program including a big push to join a union.  All funded by you and me.  Great.

Grimm Brother's Fairy Tales (Not suitable for children)

The original fairy tales, that is, not this post.  As usual, my blog is fun family entertainment.

For those of you who don't know (people under 30 probably), the Grimm brothers started collecting Eastern European fables and legends and published a book in 1812.  It was not considered suitable for children due to its violence and sometime references to adult topics.  (Did you know that Rapunzel got pregnant in the original?)

A really crappy movie was made in 2005 called The Brothers Grimm.

A new TV show just started on NBC the other week and I finally got around to watching the first two episodes on Comcast's OnDemand.  So far it is excellent.  A cop finds out from the aunt who raised him that he is a descendant of the Grimm brothers, and that they have the ability to see the monsters living in society who are otherwise hidden to normal human sight, and a responsibility to hunt and destroy those monsters.

MINI SPOILER ALERT:

The kicker is that it turns out that not all the monsters are actually monstrous, they are just different and trying very hard to live right and not follow their monstrous instincts.

I look forward to future episodes.

Motorcycle for sale

Hey, maybe this is cheating, but I'm trying to sell a motorcycle for a customer and figure why not here?

http://bellingham.craigslist.org/mcy/2686694041.html

Plus it covers my post for the day since I'm headed down to Seattle to go to the Huskies' football game tonight.  Last game in the old stadium (which they last renovated while I was attending UW in the 80s).

Go Dawgs!

Down Twinkles

Remember ACORN? No? Corrupt left wing organization, taking millions of federal dollars to support left wing causes and Democratic politicians? Broke up and renamed most of their affiliates after they were exposed.

So what are they doing now?

Yup. Paying homeless people to show up at the OWS protests. Apparently the protests aren't meeting expectations and need some help.

Upside Down Cake

The world is upside down.  Here are two scenarios.  You decide.

Group one blocks streets, trespasses on private property, litters and destroys public property, then riots and smashes storefront.  During their weeks long protest people get raped and robbed.  The cost to taxpayers is in the millions.  When asked what they are protesting for, the answers range from "Destroy Capitalism" to "Pay for my college".  They have no coherent philosophy and appear to be focused on the destruction of the free market and in favor of implementing some sort of Socialist/Marxist system. When challenged they scream epithets and chant over their opponent.

Group two stands on street corners, carefully avoiding blocking traffic. They hold up signs protesting excessive spending by government and call for spending cuts and lower taxes.  When asked about their philosophy they point to the Constitutional limits on the federal government and suggest that we should return to the limited government that was laid out by the authors of our founding documents.  In spite of numerous claims to the contrary, there is no documented evidence of any racist or violent behavior.  When this group finishes their protest they clean up all the garbage, leaving the site of the protest cleaner than it was before they arrived.  Finally, they organize themselves politically, back a variety of candidates across the country, and elect fiscally responsible people to Congress.

Which sounds better to you?  Destroy public and private property while intimidating the public or peacefully protest and elect politicians who you believe will do a better job advancing your goals?

Well, turns out that the latest polling data, while showing the OWS crowd losing support, still has only 39% unfavorable versus the Tea Parties 45% unfavorable.  In case you are wondering, OWS is the first group, the Tea Party the second.  There is something seriously wrong with this picture and I have trouble understanding what it is.

Christmas Shopping

Was a time when I had all my Christmas shopping done in September.  Never made a list, either.  Went to the mall downtown and just wandered through stores.  I'd look at just about everything.  At some point, I'd see something and it would say "Alice" and I'd buy it.  One down, eight or nine to go.  It was a good time.  Now I am just another last minute shopper, trying to figure out what people really want.  I need lists now.  No, NOW!

Hypocrite, n: One who professes virtues that she does not respect

Unless you are a real news junky you may not have heard of Fast and Furious. No, not the movie, the federal operation run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE) where they leaned on gun dealers to allow sales to buyers connected with the Mexican cartels. The idea was supposedly to build a case against cartel members but no one was ever arrested or charged and the program became public due to a whistle blower after a Border Patrol agent was killed with a Mexican drug running wielding one of the guns. So now you are up to speed. You haven't read about it on the front page of your local paper because it makes the Administration look particularly bad.

Why am I bringing it up now? Well apparently Dianne Feinstein, Senator from California doesn't think the problem is that the federal government shouldn't be allowing gun sales to Mexican cartels. Instead she think that the real problem is that we don't have tough enough gun laws on us regular folk. Yup, that's right. The feds break the law and the problem is that our laws are too lax.

So, how does that relate to the title of my post? Dianne Feinstein is one of the few people in California with a Concealed Pistol Permit. As a former mayor and current Senator, apparently she has more rights than the rest of the people in California.

Lies, Lies, and More Lies

So the people that don't want the sale of liquor to be inexpensive or convenient in Washington state are running an ad which is one giant lie. They claim that kids will be able to go to convenience stores and buy liquor just like they (apparently) go to convenience stores and buy beer and wine.

Well, first of all, the initiative, which they should probably read before they spend money running ads opposing it, specifically states that only large stores will be able to sell liquor (over 10,000 sq feet if I remember correctly) so there won't be a convenience store in the state selling liquor.

Secondly, if it is so darn easy to buy beer and wine and convenience stores, why the heck aren't these people out clamoring for better enforcement?

The reality is that stores that routinely sell to minors get their licenses taken away and pay hefty fines.

I don't mind people bending the facts to fit their side of the argument just a little bit, but outright falsehoods? Really? I don't know why I still expect better, but I do.

Update: Here's a video by from Washington state Attorney General Ken Eikenberry.

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tgKVXTFvV_Q?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Parties are NOT Fun

Apparently. Because the same people who brought you "Fun Size" candies (ie hardly anything at all) also have giant bags called "Party Size". "Fun" is four or five M&Ms, a "Party" is almost two and a half pounds. You make the call.

Hahahahaha edit: Went to the M&M website to get some pictures for this post, and they asked me for my birthdate to ensure that they were marketing their product responsibly. Really? Chocolate filled candy shells? There's an appropriate age? Hahahahahaha!