Let the Tea Bagging Continue

KIA, in responding to Becky C.'s post put it best:

If you were like me and real-world committments prevented you from attending the tea parties live, you can send an electronic teabag here:

http://teaparty.gop.com/

Nevermind the hypocrisy of the GOP now, go ahead and teabag the current leadership. It's never too late to try to make a difference.

I couldn't agree more. I know that the Republicans under Bush outdid what the Democrats had done in wasteful spending up until that time. I know that the Republicans under McCain would likely do the same. And I'm far from convinced that GOP politicians have learned anything from last election.

If the GOP is giving us a forum, though, to express outrage about taxes and spending I am not against using it. Just as if the Dems gave a forum to protest loss of civil liberties under a Republican administration, I'd use that, even though Dems are not much better, and arguably worse than the Repubs on that score.

I don't care who Fox News praises and the other networks ridicule or vice-versa. It's about the message, not the messengers. So I sent my postcard and you can too. It's a little late for tax day of this year but really, really early for next year! (And it would be great if the spirit of protest could be maintained year round).

Amazons Rankings are Rank

Say it ain't so, Jeff Bezos!

Amazon.com has been one of my favorite places to shop for a long time. Especially during the Christmas season when I try to avoid the malls like the plague. So I hope that this "glitch," or whatever it is, with Amazon Rankings is fixed soon.

Sure, there are plenty of other online stores to shop on, but I already have my name, address, credit card info., etc. on Amazon. I don't like to enter all that information in more places than I have to. So hopefully they'll fix whatever's wrong and issue a substantial apology to the injured parties, before I have to experience the pain of boycotting them.

As an interesting aside I was once sent an e-mail by Amazon telling me of several gay-themed books and movies that I "might be interested in" because I purchased a DVD of Airplane! Go figure.

Update: April 30, 2009 - I see that the "glitch" has been fixed. While it is regrettable that this happened in the first place, it is good to see that Amazon did respond when it's customers made their feelings known. With Mother's Day and my brother's birthday coming soon, I am glad I don't have to boycott them!

We Need More Eighteenth Century Men

Thomas Frank in his column this week in The Wall Street Journal Eighteenth-Century Man made a good point about the ridiculousness of fat-cat politicians who pretend to be down-home folks while they spew faux-populist rhetoric. However, he failed to prove that the main subject of this column, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, fit this category. In fact, he conceded that "Mr. Sanford's democratic idealism may be for real, but ... with ideals this bad, you don't need hypocrisy to go wrong." And what are those horrible, horrible ideals? Opposing deficit spending, seeking better ways for people to invest their Social Security money, and above all, refusing federal government handouts.

Now, I know that in times like these deficits "don't matter." We are all Keynesians, socialists, or whatever term will fly to justify the "temporary" increase in government spending to get us out of the latest emergency. Fine. Let's get all we need from "the rich," and who cares if those labeled rich for the purpose of soaking them at tax time may be anything but. Is there really no way to cut a $3.55 trillion budget? Is raising concerns about deficit spending really such a bad thing? I thought that one of the causes of the current economic crisis was people spending beyond their means - whether they were private individuals, corporate executives, or even those most virtuous of virtuous people - government officials.

How about Mr. Frank's take on Social Security? Well he does score some cheap points by saying:

Business, on the other hand, is an institution with almost magical powers of beneficence: were we to entrust our retirement savings to "conventional investments" instead of government, Mr. Sanford wrote in 2000, we could expect returns of 8% a year. (And that's why the Dow stands well above 20,000 today.)

Very good, except that an investment purely in the stock market has historically yielded close to 10% per year since 1926. So the 8% return implies a balance between stocks, bonds, and money market instruments as financial advisers have always recommended. With such a combination there will be fewer years with a loss and those years that do have a loss will be less severe. Even taking into account the really bad years like 1931 and 2008, long term investments in the markets almost always beat the below 3% returns offered by Social Security. Plus, markets do tend to go up shortly after their worst crashes (one of the best years in the market was 1933). After Social Security collapses we can look forward to the government printing more worthless bills. Of course, I can't blame anyone who can't trust the markets. But I can say that the money you send to the government for Social Security would be much better invested in gold coins, canned goods, bottled water (or water purification tablets), farmland, livestock, guns, ammo, etc. than to finance government waste.

Finally, there is Mr. Frank's smug dismissal of Mr. Sanford's refusal to be a welfare queen:

Worst of all, his stand against the stimulus, while self-denying in the Sanford tradition, was taken against the loud protests of less Spartan citizens. Mr. Sanford's desire to strike his bold moral pose took priority over his state's need for relief.

Loud protests of less Spartan citizens? How many citizens protested against the stimulus package in the first place? Quite a few I know protested against the first round of Federal Bailouts (with letters to congresspeople - those protests were not very loud, I guess that's the problem). The point is, there will almost always be loud protesters on all sides of a controversial issue and if government officials never did anything because there were protesters opposed to it governments would never get anything done (which would be a good thing, but only officials of all ideological stripes paid heed to their protesters equally). In any case, in this era when it seems that every public figure, whether in government or private industry, has an outstretched hand saying "gimme, gimme, gimme!' does it not seem right to condemn the one who says "I don't need your charity." After all his "less Spartan citizens" can move to any of at least a dozen other states whose governors are begging Uncle Sam for bailouts like dogs begging their masters for treats, and whose legislators have already spent twice the bailout they hope to get.

It is true, Mark Sanford may not be the responsible citizen legislator he pretends to be. But it almost seems that Thomas Frank wishes he wasn't. Mr. Frank and his ilk can accept sleazy, lying politicians. What they can't accept is principled opposition to big and ever-expanding government.

Even the most reasonable radfem....

I learned of a challenge to find feminist porn from Nine Deuce at "Rage Against the Manchine." Though the challenge was initiated by another radical (read anti-sex) feminist, Nine Deuce was offering to bet anyone $100 to anyone who could win the challenge. I did not take the bet, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone with a passing familiarity with radical feminism (and if it's not obvious read on and it will become so).

Nine Deuce is one of the few radfems who will occasionally let people who don't kiss her ass comment on her blog, and even more occasionally she will post opinions of people who disagree with her, if only so she can personally attack them. So, I thought I might have a chance of getting my comment posted. WRONG! Why I do not know, but I suspect it is because of its mildly sarcastic tone. I should have known that 92 reserves sarcasm for herself and her groupies (of course their sarcasm is anything but mild and usually quite personal). Just goes to show that even the most reasonable radfem can be very arbitrary and unreasonable, and will impose double-standards at the drop of a hat when her fragile little feelings are hurt by someone attacking her worldview.

Anyway, here is the oh-so-offensive posting:

This seems like a rigged contest to me. When has an anti-porn feminist ever considered anything even slightly erotic to be feminist?

Photos of nude or scantily clad men for women's consumption? Male exotic dancers? They're not fulfilling women's real sexual fantasies, just the women's desire to be like men so they're ...MISOGYNISTIC! Women playing a dominant role in BDSM? Everyone knows that no woman really wants to participate in BDSM in any role; they only do it to please their male partners therefore it is ...MISOGYNISTIC! Lesbian porn? Always someone playing a male role and someone playing female role and playing the female role is always degrading. (Incidentally the exact same thing can be said about gay male porn). Now, I, personally, don't know what evidence there is to support the idea of all lesbian and gay porn having people playing opposite sex roles, or the reason that the female role is inherently degrading. But the high priestesses of radical feminism all agree among these points so they must be true. Therefore, of course all same sex porn is ...MISOGYNISTIC!

In fact all sex is misogynistic. All male masturbation is, too, because masturbating males are fantasizing about having sex with (and therefore violating) a woman, or fantasizing about having sex with someone they plan to treat like a woman. I don't know if female masturbation is misogynistic but I'm sure researchers in Women's Studies labs are working hard to determine that.

PS Congratulations to the Villanova men's basketball team on making it to the Final Four for the first time in 24 years! Thanks to you not all of the money I left in Vegas 2 weeks will stay in Vegas (and even less if you win the overall tournament). But whatever happens from now on, thanks for a great season.

MMM... Suicide!

It's hard to believe it's been almost three months since my last entry here. Largely it's been a combination of procrastination and having more pressing things to do. But also, there was the fact that while there have been many news items that piqued my interest I have had a hard time lately finding something to put a unique spin on. In matters from the stimulus plans to the War on Drugs, time and again Becky C. has said what I would have said had I thought of it first and had her eloquence. On the subject of the Octomom, Becky made some good points as well, though I think she glosses over extreme irresponsibility of both Ms. Suleman and her doctor to implant the 8 (EIGHT!) embryoes in the first place. Still, she's far from the only irresponsible parent, or the only person being rewarded for irresponsibility with taxpayer funded handouts. And while I think its in the best interest of all 14 of her children to be placed with people who don't see parenthood as a game, taking away someone's children should never be easy for the state.

But anyway, what finally brought me back to blogging was the discovery of a blog called Suicide Food. (I don't want to publicize the blog that led me to this, but you'll find if you look up anti-sex spinster cunt aunt). As a dedicated omnivore, I find the SuFoo site enjoyable in a way the author probably doesn't intend. See, while I understand that while creatures wanting to be eaten do not reflect the reality of today, I do hope that genetecists can make that happy vision a reality some time in the future. Interestingly enough, SuFoo's author, Ben is, like me, not only aware of but also a fan of the Ameglian Major cow from Douglas Adams' The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. While it does seem that Mr. Adams created the Ameglian cow mainly for satirical purposes, it is obviously more moral to eat a creature that clearly wants to be eaten than a vegetable or fungus that we assume has no feelings. Broccoli and mushrooms don't appear to have feelings but neither do clams and mussels (two of the few animal species I have harvested with my own hands).

This does, of course, present a dilemma, sure the Ameglian cow could scold Arthur Dent, and the rest of us, for eating a salad against the wishes of the vegetables but what did he eat (yes the creature was male and was called a "cow", not a bull or a head of cattle; Douglas Adams wrote that not me - so deal!) Even assuming that the cow ate other animals somewhere down the food chain something had to eat something that got its energy from photosynthesis. And, I would find an all an meat diet almost as unappealing as a vegan one. So I hope that someday some bioengineer will come up with plants that can express their wish to be eaten. And they should be able to express joy for having their embroyes eaten unless we never eat peas, corn, nuts or any kind of beans, including the vegan favorite soy beans (is it too much to ask for biotechnology to create plant embroyoes that could express their own desire to be eaten, obviously not all should have that desire since some we will want to grow into the next generation of plants). Otherwise eating seeds, or eating fruit containing seeds that one throws away, is just as immoral as eating eggs. Incidentally, the issue of eggs raises one of the biggest questions I have about the animal rights movement: There are people who are against eating meat and people against abortion. There are people who are against both. Generally I can respect all of their opinions, and can understand why people in the third category would be against eating eggs. But there are also people, from what I can tell a very large percentage of self-proclaimed vegans, who believe there should be no restriction on aborting human fetuses, but consider it immoral to eat the eggs of a chicken. Am I missing something, or am I justified in my desire to feed the people in this last category to the lions?

Well, since these ethical dilemmas have no solution in the foreseeable future, I guess the best that I can do is try to make sure whatever species my food comes from is treated as ethically as possible. To that end, I have decided to link to the Animal Welfare Institute (as for why I am so emphatic about making sure that people know I am not supporting PETA, the reasons are many, though here is a good place to start). I have also decided to link to the site of Temple Grandin. In addition to being one of the best self-help advisers for her fellow autistic people, Dr. Grandin has probably done more to improve the lives of farm animals than all of the people who have tresapassed on farms or broken into labs to "liberate" animals combined.

On the bandwagon

No not Obama's; my feelings about him haven't changed since the election. I'm talking about the Philadelphia Eagles. I use that title because I am not usually that much of a sports fan, my main interest in spectator sports comes from betting on them. My top 5 favorite athletes of all time are horses: Seabiscuit, Secretariat , Smarty Jones, Curlin, and Cigar (and I'll be damned if I can name their jockeys without looking them up, though I do remember that Seabiscuit's jockey was played by Tobey Maguire in the movie!)

Still as a lifelong resident of Montgomery County Pennsylvania it is hard not to get caught up in the excitement. It was similar when the Phillies won the World Series three months ago; an event that I wanted to mention here but never got around to at the time. True, the Eagles still have two playoff rounds to go before getting to the Superbowl never mind winning it, but I have followed the Eagles at least slightly both this season and in the past whereas I hardly knew the Phillies existed in recent years. The point is in both cases there is/was celebration in the air, a good cure for both post-holiday blues and the grimness of other events dominating the news of the day.

I do wonder if I'll still root for Philadelphia area teams when I move to New Hampshire, something I plan to do as soon as financial and job market conditions permit. Of course, in college sports I will still support my undergrad alma matter Villanova - I usually follow basketball there, especially close to and during NCAA tournament time, football not so much, though it is interesting to note that a school with a division I basketball team and a division I AA football team, should see its most successful graduate athlete be a professional football player (I mean no disrespect to Kerry Kittles by suggesting that Brian Westbrook has been a more successful pro-athlete than him, and I would certainly be willing to listen to someone who wanted to argue otherwise). As for my MBA college Drexel, its basketball team has occasionally been a contender and I would probably take pride if any of its teams did gain the national spotlight, though, I have not generally been inspired to root for those teams. I have had other fleeting loyalties to college teams but I'll save that for another post.

Getting back to New Hampshire, I do believe there are some college teams the locals root for but I don't know the details. There are the "New England" Patriots but honestly they are mostly a Boston team, a team that despite their name represents a place that is the antithesis of everything I love about New Hampshire. Anyway, while I do feel more of a sense of identification with the members of the Free State Project than the people who I share a location with by accident of birth in Southeastern Pennsylvania, my fellow FSPers to the extent that they are sports fans are just as likely to be fans of teams from the areas from which they originated as fans of NH area teams. Still, I have a dream of bringing pro-sports teams to New Hampshire in stadiums that are entirely funded by private money. Of course, this would require welfare queen team owners to agree to terms that might allow them to profit immensely but without ripping off the taxpayers which they believe is their birthright. One possibility would be to allow gambling within the stadiums and allowing private stadium owners and team owners to share that revenue. Of course, the sanctimonious pro-sports leagues would no doubt oppose that on empty moralistic grounds (officials in the MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL are, after all, in the pockets of organized crime, much like the politicians who make the laws regarding gambling, prostitution, drugs, etc., making sure those activities are kept underground where gangsters can take their cut; as for NCAA well, again, it will take another post to deal with the scum who run that vile organization).

Anyway "Go Eagles!", if for no other reason than I would like to see if Andy Reid can manage to grow a decent beard by Superbowl Sunday! (I do sympathize, I've grown beards twice before in my life, and when its in that scruffy state the itching it causes would most definitely constitute torture if it was not self-imposed).

PS This post like my last one was at least partially inspired by Renegade Evolution. As such, I have decided to add what appears to be her pet organization - Sex Workers' Outreach Project to my (so far very small) list of links on this blog. I will also be sending them a donation. I know it's not a whole lot but I figure it's a start, and I am giving SWOP priority over other causes I support besides the Free State Project, for now.

By the way, now that football has (or at least had) become a topic of blogging again, I wonder if this will bring any new blog entries from Jill Brenneman. I see she did comment on Ren's post on the subject. It is always good to hear from her. I once exchanged comments with her when she was known as Jill Leighton and was running a radical feminist site known as stopprostitution.org. Even then she seemed very nice and was able to disagree quite agreeably. Of course, a much more hardline antisex radfem chimed in and behaved the way that you would expect a hardline antisex radfem to behave. But Jill while not outright condemning or distancing herself from her vicious colleague made it clear that she did not speak for her. I was pleased, but not surprised when I learned that Jill had left the dogmatic world of antisex feminism behind her.

Sad But True

via Renegade Evolution

IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY?
Yes! We Have No Bananas - Spike Jones

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Everything You Know is Wrong - Weird Al Yankovic

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Rescue - Eve6

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
Bathtub Gin - Phish

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight - Spinal Tap

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Fool in the Rain - Led Zeppelin

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Sick Again - Led Zeppelin

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Crawling - Linkin Park

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Scarlet Begonias - Grateful Dead

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Loser - Beck

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Godzilla - Blue Oyster Cult

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Volare - Dean Martin

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
The House That Jack Built - Metallica

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Jamming - Bob Marley

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Creeping Death - Metallica

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Peace of Mind - Boston

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Freewill - Rush

WHAT’S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Man in the Box - Alice in Chains

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
Nitemare Hippy Girl - Beck

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Only Solitaire - Jethro Tull

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
Cash on Delivery - Spinal Tap

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
You're My Home - Billy Joel

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
Run to the Hills - Iron Maiden

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Rocks - Primal Scream

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Us and Them - Pink Floyd

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Big Balls - AC/DC

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Sad But True - Metallica