George Washington would approve...

Newt laying it bare...a must watch clip, even for the moron swing voters who now regret drinking The ObaMessiah's tainted Kool-Aid last November...

If only...

Zombie Reagan Raised From Grave To Lead GOP

Saving the planet, Hopenhagen-style

Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges

Money Quote:

"We don't have any hybrids in Denmark, unfortunately, due to the extreme taxes on those cars."

Just f#*king priceless...

A poignant, rational assessment of the ObamaCare monstrosity lumbering through the Senate...Are you listening, California?...

My New Toy...

I’m forming a Mock Squad. Who’s with me?

I think it’s due time that we collectively, as a civil society, revisit the concept of shame and to whom shame-inducing humililation should be directed. I have come to this conclusion after having been dragged yet again to a U2 concert by my wife. No, I’m not suggesting U2 should be ashamed of their latest indulgent, hackneyed album, which is unlikely to spawn a single memorable hit despite glowing reviews by the fawning music critic corps. I’m referring instead to U2’s rapidly graying female fan base, many of whom are now in their mid-30’s to late 40’s, the prime bonbon-eating house-frau demographic.

Ladies, if I may speak frankly, I understand your natural temptation to tart it up for a special occasion, but a night out to see Saint Bono and his potato-eating minstrel show does not give you carte blanche to embrace your inner groupie whore and transform yourself into an offensive eyesore for the rest of us, particularly straight men. For the most part, we’re not winking at you; we’re whincing at the sight of you. We care not to gaze upon your saggy, braless racks swinging pendulously in your low, low tank tops. Those little butterfly and dolphin tattoos placed strategically somewhere on your now ample torsos have long stopped being cute and suggestive. Now they’re just creepy and sad. The low rider jeans you’ve donned were created with a specific body type in mind, and are not intended for mommies who still retain a good portion of their pregnancy weight. (Here’s a good rule of thumb: if it looks like bread dough is rising from your gut and hips, take them off.) Coping with aging is hard, but no amount of badly applied makeup and curiously unnatural hair dye will hide the fact that you’re not 22 anymore. Just accept it and present yourself accordingly.

Guys, you’re not entirely immune from some well deserved ridicule, either. Though you’re thankfully less prone to revealing flesh than your desperate housewifes, much of what you wear to cover that flesh on a night out has taken on a distinctly douchebag-ish tone. Can you please just stop with the superfluous Ed Hardy T’s, the shirts with the inexplicable eagle crests emblazened on them, the tight partially faded designer jeans, and the hipster Fedoras? (Here’s a good rule of thumb: if it looks like something Jon Gosselin has been photographed wearing, take it off.) Men look their best by keeping it simple. When they embrace ill-conceived style fads like a Eurotrash metrosexual, they are ripe for well deserved mockery.

In the old days, shame kept people in line and saved the rest of us from being distracted by the buffoonery of those trying way too desperately to relive their youth. Ah, what a lovely time it was. It’s up to us to end this lunacy and bring shame back with a vengeance. I’m forming a Mock Squad. Who’s with me?

Do you believe in unicorns?

I’m not being facetious; it’s a legitimate question that goes to the heart of the raucous health care reform debate in which the whole country is currently mired. I’ll explain.

Various incarnations of socialized medicine have been implemented in jurisdictions spanning the entire globe since the 1920’s. That’s over 80 years of accumulated empirical evidence we can examine to determine what sorts of government mandates and interventions in the health care arena appear to work, and which ones do not. For policymakers, the rational approach to reform would be to consider this evidence and advocate policies implementing the measures that are clearly beneficial and eschew those which have proven most consistently to be detrimental. Based on what is buried in the competing mammoth bills of what has thus far been labelled ObamaCare (or KennedyCare now that the senior Senator/murderer from Massachusetts has finally expired), it is abundantly clear that no such rational approach was taken in the name of "reform". It seems as more and more people actually take the time to read the bills and share their findings, more details emerge about how extensively the core of the Democrat "reform" effort emulates the failed policies of distressed and bankrupt socialized medical systems at home and abroad.

Far be it from me to impugn the motives of liberal Democrats as sinister. So, short of that, what am I to conclude from the approach they have taken in drafting their proposed "reforms"? I’m left with only one other explanation as to why they would ignore the lessons of history and drive forward so vigorously with such flawed proposals. Albert Einstein once said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a new result." Ergo, the sanity of The ObaMessiah, his acolytes in Congress, and the 30% of Americans who still strongly favor his version of health care "reform" is suspect. If you can convince yourself so thoroughly that adding 47 million people to the health care system will not only cost nothing, but actually save $1,000,000,000,000, then you are certainly capable of believing fictional characters are very real and walking amongst us.

So, if you support The ObaMessiah’s health care "reform" agenda, I ask you, deep down...honest to God...no kidding around...for reals...Do you believe in unicorns?

Zeke’s eye and some thoughts on ObamaCare...

Zeke, my six year old Beagle/Retard mix (see profile pic), punctured his right eye last Monday chasing a bunny through some thorny brush, which prompted a trip to the closest animal hospital with a 24-hour emergency room. As I sat in the waiting room with the furry moron, it occurred to me that I was smack dab in the middle of a pure market-driven, fee-for-service medical operation, albeit for veterinary care. It was a bonafide working model of a system that is far more efficient and desirable than anything His Holiness The ObaMessiah was pitching on his ABC infomercial in typical snake oil salesman fashion.

Granted, I wasn’t overjoyed about shelling out $166 for an emergency exam and some eye salve, but Zeke did receive prompt and professional care from a skilled and courteous vet staff. Had I purchased pet health insurance for him previously, it might have been preferable to my own coverage. Unlike me, Zeke is unemployable; he does not have opposable thumbs, a brain larger than a kiwi, or the ability to speak. Consequently, his range of insurance options is defined by the marketplace, not by his employer, and is mostly free of onerous regulations. His insurance would not be subject to artificial inflationary pressures from state-bound coverage mandates or bureaucratic meddling with reimbursement and rationing. Lucky, care-free little bastard. I haven’t decided if I’m actually going to buy him some insurance in case his next bunny hunt goes horribly awry. If he gets hit by a cement truck in the process, I can always have him euthanized.

My trip to the animal ER also reminded me of a story about a former boss of mine (a committed liberal of the 60’s hippie variety) who once paid $10,000 for a series of surgeries to save a stray cat that died a few months afterward. He was also a huge proponent of single-payer universal health care. I don’t think the rationale behind these threads are unrelated, as they offer a glimpse into the pervasive empathetic reasoning that has obscured rational assessments of socialized medicine’s true cost. The mainstream news media and Hollywood have worked diligently the past two decades to push hard for the universal care agenda by playing the empathy card to a society that seems increasingly swayed by feelings and imagery over substance and reasoned argument. By exploiting exaggerated medical horror stories in a two-pronged approach, they have consistently demonized HMOs, the insurance industry and greedy doctors, and lauded the supposed greatness of socialized medicine in other counties while conveniently ignoring the substantial drawbacks. The true source of America's healthcare problem, government, is never labeled as such; rather, government is invariably celebrated as a benevolent provider to the ever-ailing masses.

Ultimately, the inflation and inefficiencies that plague the US medical system stem from market distortions caused by Ponzi-esque government programs and burdensome regulations that pervert the price mechanisms necessary for a viable and free health care marketplace. In spite of this rather obvious fact, here we are, 15 years after the death of HillaryCare, on the cusp of adopting myriad radical changes at the federal level which would distance us even further from a free market solution, with guaranteed disastrous fiscal and medical consequences. I can't say I'm entirely surprised. This is, after all, just the sort of “change” His Holiness promised to deliver. Sadly, we've drifted far from the days when less bombastic presidents could speak openly about affirming the limits of federal power without being considered a cruel heretic. It was Silent Cal who once said, “Government should not assume for the people the inevitable burdens of existence.” Now that's the sort of “change” I can believe in. Yes, I can!

An old friend of mine recently texted me to say my Facebook profile pic (see right) was coming off "a bit creepy". This was the cyber equivalent of earnestly taking someone aside at a dinner party to politely inform them they are embarrassing themselves in mixed company. I replied that the pose I struck was quite deliberate, a form of performance art, really; a hyperbolic caricature that reflects what my urbane friends (mostly Canadians) think about Americans who cherish their 2nd Amendment freedoms. Bluntly, we're all insane zealots.

As expected, I’ve had more reaction to this nifty self-portrait than to anything I’ve ever posted on Facebook or written on this blog, including the time I wrote pseudonymously as an intelligent person trapped in a mongoloid’s body (this was way before Down Syndrome suddenly became all the rage after the Palin pick). The reactions were decidedly mixed. Some people were on to the spoof and laughed along. Some were mildly alarmed and jokingly questioned my sanity. Some said I likely torched any lingering aspirations for a political career. Some congratulated me on the purchase and wanted to go shooting with me. Some wondered why I would ever want a handgun in the first place because, "you know, guns kill people". Some, perhaps envisioning an imminent rampage, expressed concern for my family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors. Some chastised me to varying degrees, the most extreme of which I found quite hilarious. One person, with whom I have not spoken in nearly 20 years, added me as a Facebook friend for the express purpose of sending me a blistering private message. In a nutshell, they said they always knew deep down I was a disturbed individual destined for the electric chair, then immediately de-friended me.

Needless to say, the more absurdly over the top reactions were exactly what I had hoped for. Perhaps it’s a perverse pleasure, but I love drawing out the real loons that walk among us. The routines, banalities and courtesies of everyday life tend to obscure nuttiness. In general, that’s sort of a good thing; nuts are destabilizing entities that tend to provoke nutty reactions from the otherwise sane in return. Personally, I’d rather out the nuts and take my chances, if for nothing else but to know who to avoid. Thanks to my inspired self-portrait, I now know there are a couple of acquaintances I should maintain a safe distance from in case they once again become completely unhinged about something as trivial as a picture.

Eddie asked if anything was up with me since June. Truth be told, the past 4 months were marked by protracted periods of profound boredom, interrupted by some seminal events and the realization of long anticipated achievements:

1) I attended my sister's wedding in Vancouver. For the record, whoever is in charge of Vancouver's transportation planning division needs to be executed, slowly...

2) I visited my brother-in-law's new digs in Seattle. Now I have to listen to my wife's incessant pleas to sell everything and just move up there because she's a water person, pronto.

3) I attended my grad school ceremony at The University of Phoenix football stadium and listened to Stedman Graham give the keynote address. Who knew Oprah's concubine was also a motivational speaker? See more of Stedman here.

4) I took the American citizenship oath, along with 1700 other immigrants from 107 countries in the largest naturalization ceremony in Arizona history. Yes, it was promptly followed by a sing-a-long to Lee Greenwood's Proud to be an American. I think even natural-born Americans would have found this to be over the top, but nobody seemed to mind in the least.

5) I registered to vote as a Republican. Alas, my ballot will probably be for naught, as an ObaMarxist White House and an emboldened Democrat Congress appear ever more likely with each passing day.

6) I went through a brief bout of mild depression as I came to realize that not only do I hate my job, but the entire technology field I've built my career upon for the past decade as well. If it wasn't for the decent paycheck, I would have chucked it all and embarked on a 3 month roadtrip by now.

7) I witnessed my adopted country lurch disturbingly towards socialism as its leaders passed historic financial "bailout" legislation to avert an economic meltdown. I can feel a slight whirring vibration as many dead Austrian economists spin in their graves.

8) I continue to root on Harper's Conservative Party of Cuba North as it systematically destroys the once venerable Liberal Party under the leadership of a feckless and incomprehensible Stephane Dion. Though a Harper majority may be barely out of reach next Tuesday, I think it's safe to say Dion's political career will be officially over.

9) I watched many movies since June, practically all of the new ones. Most of them were crap, but the trailers were awesome. Case in point, the Coen's Brothers' Burn After Reading had an awesome trailer, which featured a couple of cool tracks (check out Elbow's Grounds for Divorce). The movie was only so-so, just like the overrated No Country for Old Men. I've come to the conclusion that a great trailer can make for a decent opening weekend, even if the film is awful. The moral? Check out TrailerAddict.com before going to the theatre on a whim and judge the clips critically.