Liberals strangely silent

Darfur, Tibet, Obama, Prop 8, etc. Ever since I joined Facebook, I've been pelted with persistent pleas of liberal activism. There's even some anti-war sentiment out there but it isn't across the board. But lately, there is a disturbing silence on Gaza. Suddenly, moral outrage is on vacation. Granted, the Israelis picked a great time to launch the attacks leaving us here in the USA distracted by food, booze and counting backwards from ten. What I don't understand is why all those energetic folks who changed their profile middle names to "Hussein" in defense of Obama's Arabic genetics from evil white racists, are suddenly bereft of solidarity when Hussein lives in Gaza. Why? I wish someone would explain it to me because you're all looking a little silly right now.

What's the matter? Is it because there are no SNL skits? Is there no opportunity to "stick it to the man"? You want to talk about human rights, hope, change, justice and equality but stop short on the shores of Gaza? Obama has no comment and neither do his supporters apparently. No comment. This kind of moral cowardice (calm down, McCain/Palin would have been cheering the bombing on tv) doesn't bode well and I'm losing what little hope I had. It is this kind of silent complicity (not too mention our tax dollars) that is the cause of Anti-Americanism in the Middle East. It isn't because Dubya pronounces it "nookular" that he was attacked with shoes. It is because we talk about "spreading democracy" around the world and then we nod approvingly as a democratically elected Hamas party leaders are targeted for assassination. We just shrug when hundreds of innocent people die in the process. "It's complicated.", I hear. Bullshit. It is black and white. But maybe I'm expecting too much. People still fail to grasp why the weak just won't stay down and be dominated by the strong. Can you accept this?

I don't understand anger against tax protesters

I myself was a tax protester during the 8 years of the Shrubya administration. I was against the war and I was going to do my part to withhold as much funding of it as possible. Consequently, I nearly had the jackbooted thugs at the IRS breaking down my door and carting me off to jail. At some point, I had to weigh my principles against the impracticality of dragging my lovely wife into this mess as well. I come to find out that there really isn't much proof that the 16th amendment was ever really ratified. I also watched Aaron Russo's America:Freedom To Fascism which is another eye opener. I eventually got right with the criminals at the IRS because what good is a freedom fighter in jail?

When Samuel Adams was staging his little tax protest in Boston 1773, I'm sure there were citizens who wished this troublemaker would stop his whining. "What's a little tax? I have to pay it, then so should you!" And this is before the tax rate was above 7%. SEVEN percent, people. If they just went home and stopped annoying people, we'd still be a British colony.

I don't understand the state of denial about the fact that the fed gov spends more than it takes in. Much more, in fact. For all the talk about environmental sustainability, WHY isn't the concept of economic sustainability discussed? THAT, my friends, is what the tax protesting is all about. SUSTAINABILITY. The system that is in place can not go on much longer. It is more dangerous than any climate change. It is more dangerous than any terrorist (foreign or domestic) or even pirates! It's not just the taxes. It's the borrowing.

So, I don't think that my "whining" about 35-40% (when you add state/local taxes, sales tax and fees) of my income being confiscated is without just cause. Throw in the fact that our children and grandchildren will pay even more, and I think those who AREN'T bothered about taxes are the ones who are the "nut jobs". Stop making excuses for government theft. And now I have to go to work.

Much Ado About Iran

Just a couple of thoughts (and incomplete sentences) as the coffee is kicking in. So I'm sure everyone has seen the video of Neda shot down in the streets of Tehran. The media is falling all over itself to turn this poor unfortunate girl into a martyr for democracy. The problem is that the Iranian protests (sometimes called riots, uprisings and revolutions here in the Western media) are anti-democratic. We kick the shit out of protesters here in the USA too. Hey, I didn't vote for Obama (or McCain) and I wasn't a sore loser. What if Democrats took to the streets in 2000 and 2004 when there was actually a case for vote fraud? You didn't see Ron Paul supporters with torches and pitchforks. That would have been cool, though. But we would have been shot. I'm sorry for poor Neda. She has been given the fast track to canonization. Rachel Corrie, not so much. Rachel Corrie was a 23yo American activist protesting the demolition of innocent Palestinian homes and was run over (then allegedly backed over) by an Israeli bulldozer. No tears for her. There was even a play written about her but somehow the productions can never get off the ground. Hmmm, maybe they should try Hollywood.

This Iran "revolution" is so 1953. Obama recently apologized in Cairo for the 1953 coup which led to the repressive regime of the Shah. This led to the Islamic revolution of 1979. Who is the media trotting out now? That's right, The Son Of The Shah Of Iran. Sounds like a horror movie. Ask the Iranians, it was just like Hostel.

Besides, this is just another is a string of George Soros and CIA-backed color coded revolutions. Yugoslavia (2000), Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), Kyrgyzstan (2005) and Lebanon (2005). They've experienced plenty of buyers remorse for these rainbow revolutions. Georgia's dupes tried to pick a fight with Russia and got their asses handed to them. It didn't take long for most people in these countries to realize that they were played and that their leaders are mere sock puppets for the global economic vampire class.

Iran isn't the US. It will never be the US. They will never have the kind of rights that we used to have until we gave them up out of fear. There's plenty to do right here in our backyard to fight tyranny, folks.

Cash For Clunkers Should Be Junked

BY: Rich Hill
I figured I'd stopping posting other people's writing as my note. It's lazy, I know. My Mom, always optimistic about Obama and the need for government programs in general, asked me if I heard about the new Cash For Clunkers program. Basically, this administration borrows money from the Federal Reserve (which is neither federal nor a reserve but a cabal of private banks-which creates money from thin air-which we have to repay with interest-which is another thing altogether) to give credits to people who buy A NEW CAR!!! The car has to have better gas mileage than the old car. That is the basic gist of it, anyone with details can add them to the comments. So, always looking to convert me to Government Worship (or maybe just Obama worship-and don't get me wrong, I was one of the original Bush-haters) so she asks me what I thought.

I'm against this for a few simple reasons.
1. If your family was losing income, would you run up the credit card? You don't stimulate an economy by borrowing and spending. It may look like better days but as has been happening since 1913, the purchasing power of the dollar continues to drop as inflation rises. The long term thinking involved is very short term in my estimation. They are thinking that voters have, at most, an attention span of a year and half (like the way dems forgot the betrayal after the 2006 election is a testament to that). So my first objection is fiscal.

2. Environmentally, this is a disaster. As is happening in Germany, who also implemented a similar program, the junkyards are filling up with old cars. This is raising the supply of scrap metal and lowering the price thus killing the incentive to recycle. Oops. In America, we're ambitious. Here, the junkyards are piecing together the discarded cars into barely functioning clunkers and using them to by a new car. The problem with a give-away is that someone will always find a way to take twice. Now the people who have a bright new shiny car with better gas mileage are going to drive more because they can afford more gas. For for all those who think that every mile driven is causing global warming, nothing has been gained.

3. Used car dealers (who are invariably a small business) can't even give away sexual favors to sell a used car. There are millions of people who have paid off their car and are free of that debt. They can either save that car payment money or spend it into the economy in other ways. Now, we are basically enticing people with the illusion of something-for-nothing (we're actually borrowing the money from our great-grandchildren) into GOING BACK INTO DEBT! Who benefits? Bankers. Wall Street Bankers. Who have perpetrated the damage to our economy? Bankers. Wall Street Bankers.

You can't say that we need to change our thinking and how we live (I think that's what all that change talk was about) and then go to great lengths to insure that we maintain the status quo! Taxation follows income not the other way around. If the denizens of the District Of Criminality wanted to stimulate the economy, lower taxes and cut government spending. Then the money goes back into our hands then back into their grubby paws eventually. They just need a little patience.

The Obama School Address Distraction

BY:Rich Hill
The idea that a president can preempt school and directly address our children smacks of dictatorship. It was wrong when Reagan and Bush I did it and it is wrong now. Just because Dems are a faux opposition party and didn't raise enough of a stink back then doesn't mean Liberty-minded citizens should stand for it now.

Granted, there is certain amount of hypocrisy involved from those who's minds are still programmed to run the ideological obstacle course know as the two-party system. In effect, it's essentially a one party system with two factions endlessly quarreling over who gets to borrow and spend and destroy the national character by systematically enacting laws which reinforce the idea that we can't take care of ourselves and Big Gov knows what's best. Simply put, both sides want to run your life as if you were a child. One like a nagging mother (with a tazer), the other like an abusive father(with a waterboard). I don't care how "inspirational" the message is, one needs to look beyond that to the principles. Children don't vote. Of what is he going to convince them? This tactic didn't work twice before. Why would it work now? If kids aren't going to be inspired to learn by their parents or their teachers, why would they be inspired by the president? Perhaps because of all the "rock star" treatment and adulation he has been given in the media as if he were the messiah, but all we're doing is encouraging the worship of of "dear leader", it lacks substance and it is wrong in principle.

I know, we're not used to acting on principle. In fact, anyone with principles and who acts according to them is pretty much considered "hokey" in this post-modern ethical wasteland we call 21st Century Amerika. So-called Christians call for more war based on lies (and torture to boot) and the killing of millions of civilians and it is fine with them because "Saddam killed his own people" or some other lame excuse (too numerous to mention them all). So-called tolerant liberals stomp their feet and screech "racism!" hysterically at the first sign of opposition to their dear leader. You see, for Democrats, the problem isn't tyrannical government power, it's that THEY haven't been in power to use all that tyranny for "good". But power corrupts. It's as basic as gravity.

It boils down to state-worship and worse, head-of-state worship. It is an exercise in indoctrination but not of "socialism". Too many faux conservatives are busy listening to "Pills" Limbaugh to know that we're already there! It just isn't complete yet. We're getting there, one bailout at a time. Faux "power to the people" liberals mostly wish to create a perfect, safe, non-judgmental, bias-free, fat-free world by regulating our actions, redistributing our income and limiting our choices. For damn near 100 years, the voters have been electing politicians who seem hell bent on destroying the nation's character. I'm talking about that which is based on the precepts set forth by our Founding Fathers. Try thinking on that time scale for a change. Proponents of Liberty are now called kooks. Adamant defenders of Liberty are now called domestic terrorists.

We wonder why many of our children act like spoiled brats, have no accountability and an overwhelming sense of entitlement? How are we going to teach our children to be ambitious, responsible and accountable when they watch us stomping our feet and demanding that government take care of us; or worse, whining and crying over it like eternal victims. Kids never do as we say but as we do.

Babe vs Charlotte's Web

I recently saw the updated version of Charlotte's Web on cable. Those of my age (38-ish) remember the animated version with Paul Lynn as the rat. This version was laid before us in the 70's and even into the 80's. The story was written in the 60's and I can honestly say that it shows. Those who had kids in the 90's may remember the movie Babe. It is "the other" pig movie. But not all pig movies are created equal. Let me give you the overview. In Charlotte's Web, Wilbur the pig learns about the hard realities of being a pig. He will end up as food unless he distinguishes himself among the farm animals. In a way, both movies are kind of Animal Farm-ish with a glaring exception. In Babe, the pig gains redemption from the socially procribed narrative of a pig's life (i.e. to end up as bacon or in toto as the Christmas feast of the human farmers. While Babe becomes aware of his default destiny, he is coached by the other animals, with varying degrees of helpfulness and relelvence, to become so useful to the farmer that he could not possibly butcher him for breakfast. He finds other uses for himself. He strives to join the ranks of the pig herding dogs. His unique approach turns out to be successful and the pig is spared from his usefulness as a main course and enters the world of the farmer in a dramatic fashion. The power of individual talent overcomes his destiny.

Charlotte's Wilbur gains redemption only by a series of interventions by an intelligent spider who feels it neccessary to take care of Wilbur. Now Babe was taken under the wing of "Ma" the dog also a child replacement as were the maternal instincts of Charlotte. But the two mother figures take different roads to their approach to their adopted child. "Ma" trains Babe to be a useful pig herder much to the dismay of the father figure who eventually comes around. Charlotte used tricks to convince the farmer to not eat the pig thus fulfilling his default destiny. I never understood how the farmer and the entire community could accept a supernatural specialness of Wilbur. Babe's specialness was denied by everyone accept the farmer who was the only one to see the potential of the little talented pig.
Everyone around Wilbur is essentially being convinced that he is "terrific", "some pig", "radiant" and "humble" because Charlotte says so. The message appears in the web and because of the implausibility of this act, it must be true. Everyone was so entranced by the medium of the message that no one ever questioned the premise that Wilbur was any of these things. He merely didn't want to die. He bemoans this fact endlessly until Charlotte, who knows how the laws of nature work, sets out to unsettle the natural order. It is because Charlotte could not stnad Wilbur's whining that she sets out on a mission of deception for essentially her own interests and amusement. Maybe she had a philosophical mission, but what of it? Wilbur is in fact no more useful at the end of the story but much more loved and doted upon. A good follow-up book would ask the question, then what? What becomes of Wilbur and his faux usefulness to the farmer. In Babe, the pig distinguishes himself with the talent for herding sheep like a dog. While some may attack this premise as just another attack on the natural order, look at the main differences between Babe and Wilbur. Babe learns skills to avoid his default destiny, Wilbur needs a creature to create his usefulness for him, and in the end it is all just smoke and mirrors while Babe becomes the famous sheep dog, "Pig".

Maybe I think too much? Your comments are welcome.

Radical Traditionalism

A friend asked me today why I haven't posted since April. I replied that I haven't been cursing the demise of American Culture, I've been trying to do something about it. In 2007, my wife and I went to Portugal for a week. We stayed in Lisbon and stayed a few days in Sintra, a town with a lot of history about 30 km outside of Lisbon. During this trip, I took my laptop which runs my music notation software. After a long period of compositional malaise, I was finally filled with inspiration to compose an extended piece of instrumental music. I decided on a string quartet because I absolutely love the sound of it. It also fit in with the urge to do something radical.

For those who aren't well versed in the history of Western music, the 20th century was marked with a radical departure from the traditions of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. Without getting into a deep discussion on "tonality" basically, the agenda of many of last century's composers was to distinguish themselves as "modern" by a completely rejecting the rules of tonal music. Who knew there were rules in music? There certainly are. That's why Bach doesn't sound like free-form-jazz (sorry, Coltrane). These rules are what give the music its sense of structure and momentum. Certain chords are usually followed by certain other chords for purposes of aesthetic consistency. A piece of music is centered around one of the twelve major keys (or their corresponding minor key) and a piece of music can change its key at any time and there were rules for where the best "turns" could be made. Where these basic rules provide guidelines, the composer is expected to use his creativity to bend certain rules for the purposes of pleasant surprize. From around 1700 to 1890, the pace of the rule bending was actually quite slow and were slow enough during this period as to be defined as what we call styles (Baroque, Classical and Romantic). While these labels don't tell us anything about what these styles sound like, let's not get too technical. Over time, the rules of tonality became practically non-existent. The sonic effect of this lack of tonal center is music a kind of weightlessness. It is hard to describe because talking about music is like dancing about architecture. Speaking of which, there are parallels in architecture that show a marked break with the past. Architecture of the 20th century is deliniated by a reject of the previous rules of style. The effect in some of this modern architecture is widely varied but you get the point. Composer after composer would try and stake a claim in the frontier of sonic chaos. The results were as varied as architectual styles.

This doesn't include the American popular song, blues, early jazz and rock music which never strayed too far from tonality. To these composers, they realized that after one leaves the grounding of tonal centers, you leave the earth and are writing music for space aliens. A vast majority of people still want their tonality. Alas, a good deal of composing went on in the sealed ivory towers of universities. Since they couldn't find patrons such as monarchs and churches to pay for music which didn't inspire anything useful, they had to find themselves tenure in universities which were filling up with other likeminded folks who railed against tradition. These were the same folks who beheaded monarchs and despised religion anyway. The problem was that the only people who wanted to hear this music were their fellow hermits in the ivory towers. They would marvel at the complex mathematics involved in the compositional process. They would talk endlessly about their music. I don't think there was any dancing about architecture though. Professors are not known for their dancing. I was one of these composers at the end of the last century. I ran out of ways to be clever.

So, here I was inspired to write music again. I have spent the past fifteen years playing tonal music in various situations. While I was in college for music I studied the progression of "serious music" and thought that there was nowhere to go except not playing anything at all. But a composer named John Cage had already done that. Had all the clever ideas been taken? There was minimalism, which is easy to write, rehearse and perform but also boring as whale shit. It seemed like a cop out. Then there was Integral Serialism which is the most difficult to write and rehearse but no one can stand listening to it being performed except the composer and his composer friends. It sounds random and wildly improvised. I wondered why I should bother when I can ask the performers to wildly improvise and get the same effect. That too was a cop out. I was always a big fan of Frank Zappa's rock music and his orchestral music. To this day, I haven't figured out his secret. How did he reject rules of traditional tonality and at the same time write music which still maintains a coherence. One of his favorite terms was "conceptual continuity." If I undertook a years long detailed analysis of his music I could probably come up with what makes Zappa sound like Zappa. But I want to write music not talk about it. And I don't want to sound like Zappa. It turns out he borrowed heavily from the styles of Stravinsky and Varese anyway.

Since I was going to Europe and we were going to explore 11th century castles and be neck deep in history, I decided that the most radical thing I could do is to not try and be clever. The most radical departure from the 20th century would be to stop intellectualizing the music exclusively and to get to the heart of the music, what sounds good. If I were going to write a melody, it would have to be more inspired than a string of randomly chosen notes strung together to make the math add up. At the end of piece, the composer is holding his slide rule and the audience is left holding the ticket stub wondering what the fuck just happened. It turns out that the more discerning I was on the materials I chose to use, the better the music sounded. I had to be "judgemental" (to poke fun at political correctness...another useless vestige from my college days) in my approach. It's not "all good." Some ideas simply suck and few are even good enough to be considered for use in a piece of music. To hell with self-confidence. A little self-loathing goes a long way in the creative process. Nobody every complained that a perfectionists work was too fastidious. The wife of a perfectionist may have more to gripe about but that is another post entirely. The process took a year but by then I had a four movement work which should run about 14 minutes total.

The first movement begins quite traditionaly and tonal and the treament of the melody follows an old tradition of theme and variations. I couldn't completely repress the urge to be clever however. There is a sytem of composition where notes are turned into numbers (again I won't get too technical) but our trip to Portugal was for my wife's birthday which is 04/25 so embedded this four note motive (0,4,2,5) a number of times within the first movement. Bach did this with his name (B = Bb and H = B natural) in at least one piece that I know and Shostakovich did something like this also(DSCH where S = Eb) so I wasn't being extremely creative and it isn't my name. The piece is dedicated to my wife anyway for her birthday. The second movement is a slow moving hymn which struggles between many tonal centers while the melody tries to accomodate. The third movement is playful and is played entirely pizzacato (plucked strings) which I come to enjoy watching the old Warner Brothers cartoons and the genius of Carl Stalling. The melody isn't explicity written is is arrived at by the highest notes played by all four players at different times. While not entirely tonal it is pleasant, fun and lighthearted. I wanted the fourth movement to be a tango. I had been listening to Astor Piazzola for a little while and felt inspired by the tango rhythm but I didn't want to sound like Piazzola. While Piazzola wrote "tango nuevo" I was writing "tango gringo" and felt no guilt about it. The main theme of the movement starts out in imitation of the first movement in that it begins like a theme and variations but then an extended development section begins before the music comes back around to the last few variations of the main theme thus rounding off the movement. Beethoven was big on development sections and I had been reaquainting myself with his music recently as well. Development can be described as taking a theme and breaking it up into fragments then repeating and varying those fragments to take the music into sometimes surprising places. In any event, I will update on the progress of the rehearsals and post the recording. Finally, some culture on this stupid blog.

Live Action Role Playing Game Of Life

It's known as LARP (Live Action Role Playing).There is much to be said for dressing up like a wizard and tossing tennis balls at fellow players yelling "magic missile magic missile!". There is so much to be said about this. I meant to say "sad about this". Even nerds like myself and my friends who continue to play some form of role playing game every two weeks to keep our brains thinking creatively, have a few beers and a lot of laughs. These live action fellows however make us role our twenty sided eyes and sneer, "Dorks!" What? So now irony isn't funny anymore?

Isn't it all role playing? Some of us don't play any more and they now exclusively game in the elaborate Live Action Role Playing Game Call Of Suburbia? This innovative and dynamic game was designed by our exceptionally cruel elders and participation, while not mandatory, is highly encouraged unless taking the Vagabond Class. Let's take one of my friends as an example. He's a dual class 8th level Husband/5th level Father and his alignment is Chaotic Good. I'm only a 2nd level Husband. I lost levels in the divorce due to the Life Drain spell my ex-wife's lawyer/necromancer cast on me. But I'm a 17th level Father which gives me a plus +4 to save vs crying. That's key, except when there is no save. I like long walks in the park and consider myself solidly Chaotic Neutral.

A couple of evil young Orcs attacked a 6th level Starbucks Manager in a Philadelphia subway. Sadly, he failed his save vs heart-attack. I was shocked to hear that the city's keystone constables actually apprehended them. The towne criers and towne whiners babble on about how the orcs are such good students and that this is a travesty of justice and an accident. Those of us who make their save vs bullshit see this as Ye Olde Hate Crime. It's not just for whitey anymore! But the towne criers and whiners want to call it random. I try to stick to the countryside where the orc and troll population is less dense. There are troglodytes out here, nowhere is paradise for humans. There is always a danger somewhere. The troglodytes usually inhabit darkened corners of suburbia and can be recognized by their backwards baseball caps and unintelligible barking speech. They are relatively harmless except to themselves and their own kind. I don't visit the city much anymore. Having grown up there, I was smart enough to leave. The frequency of orc attacks keeps going up. I have concluded that the constables are only useful after a crime and I must find an alchemist to sell me a +3 Glock with Ammo Of Stopping Power. If I'm attacked by orcs, I will be the subject of the towne criers bleating. However, I will not be the deceased. Isn't about time we took the Firearms Skill?

Three Headed McClintobama Monster

Behold the three headed McClintobama monster. All three of them have their own creepy reverend guy to call their own. Obama's had the gaul to infer that our foreign policy actions may have had unintended consequences. The CIA calls this "blow back." Anyone with any kind of familiarity with the history of shady cloak and dagger operations knows this is a reality. We can't have that kind of reality infecting the electorate. Obama had to betray his spiritual pocket preacher and denounce him because we couldn't have him agreeing with someone who might say something truthful. The Rev, of course, mixed this reality in with a generous helping of "get whitey" which always makes for an energetic revival-style backdrop. There's nothing like the sound of abdicating personal responsibility. "Accountability" is so 19th century. Although the TV/Radio/Print news media is awfully quiet about Hillary's back-pocket-preacher. This guy molested a seven year old girl. At least he didn't say that she had it coming due to her foreign policy position. Then there are all those seedy folks still hanging around K Street in D.C. leftover from Bubba Clinton's reign. McCain has the most colorful piece of the collection, the always treasonous John Hagee. Rev Hagee couldn't be more pro-Israel if he personally picked up a sniper rifle and joined the IDF in blowing the heads off of Palestinian children. Not only that, Hagee is foaming at the mouth to send Amerikan citizens off to the Middle East for the next 100 Years War (which, with budget overruns, is expected to run 138 years). So much for spiritual leaders. No matter how you slice it, all of these candidates are dedicated to the empire.

Now the electorate can get on the approved hamster wheels and we can play another game of red state-blue state as if there are any differences between these traitorous wretches. I, for one, don't get all choked up over Obama's hope or Clinton's steely gaze or McCain's snarl. I sat through an Obama TV commercial this morning while he lied about how he isn't getting any money from lobbyists or special interest groups. Silly Barak, tricks are for kids. Only one candidate could claim that and that's all I have to say about that.

They only stand to remind one of the political illiteracy that abounds in the Land Of The Home Loan, Free Of The Brave. Warfare, welfare and the supremacy of the state are the only allowable topics for discussion. There will be much water cooler discussion over the lesser evil and the nation will be schizophrenic until November, completely divided and easily conquerable. No matter how you slice it, all you have to do is follow the money. "Follow the money" and "cui bono" (who benefits?) are the first things a detective learns. Apparently, these candidates are immune to this logic. People STILL believe that their CNN and their Fox news programs are doing their duty. People STILL don't recognize that 90% of the media content they ingest everyday is a carefully prepared meal by the Elite top chefs. I guess people still have hope and faith. Those who question the steady pablum are publicly branded as cynics, malcontents, dissidents or (worse) domestic terrorists. Amerika's good little consumers regurgitate the bullet points from the night before and everyday more of my fellow citizens are convinced that I must be one step closer to a terrorist. I am reminded of John Adams' impatience with people who did not see things as he did. All I can do is stand up and make my case as best I can. Many will oppose, some will abstain and few will agree. It is the few that give me real hope.

I think that the reason many people vehemently oppose my "crazy" point of view is that they are upset that I am smudging the lenses on their rose-colored glasses. I'm just negative. I'm just an angry curmudgeon. I used to be an angry young man but I'm getting grey now and that label doesn't make much sense anymore. I'm sorry. When I was in school my self-esteem was not more important than the grasp of the subject matter. I wasn't brought up to believe that we create our own reality with positive affirmations. There are winners and losers. There are smart people and dumb people and most are somewhere in between. To steal from George Carlin's recent act, if everyone is special then the entire concepts loses all of its meaning. Even though I was lucky enough to be born with some smarts, I feel I should be doing more with them than whipping it out in public every Tuesday night for Quizzo at the local bar so I can feel superior to everyone else without having to do any real intellectual heavy lifting. In many respects I am a loser too and have sometimes not accepted my shortcomings with dignity and grace but this improves with age. There are probably many of my elders who could say that I've had it too easy and they're probably correct. But I feel it is my duty to try and arouse people from their hypnotized state. Having a black man or a white woman or yet another old sweaty white guy in an ill fitting suit as president will not suddenly make it all better by the fact alone. Not THESE clowns! What you see before you is a dog show. Correction, some of those dogs have more skills and behave better in public. The dog show contestants show more loyalty that's for damn sure. Feed these political mongrels your vote and watch them bite your hand as soon as they step into office.

The 10% Rule

While reading about political parties in Germany, I found out that their system is quite interesting. Since Germany has a parliamentary system, it allows for more than two parties to take part in the process since it isn't reduced to an all-or-nothing choice as it is here in the U.S.S.A. But I did find an interesting similarity. Here in Amerika the political landscape is dominated by two wings. There are those who mistakenly call themselves "conservative" who believe in the supremacy of a strong central government inasmuch as it forwards their dream of a worldwide Amerikan Empire, endless government contracts for them and their buddies and a Christian theocracy (fascists), and those who mistakenly call themselves "liberal" and believe in the supremacy of the a strong central government inasmuch as it forwards their dream of a gun-free, smoke-free, fat-free, insult-free, inequity-free and mostly choice-free technocracy while never really doing anything substantive to stop the war-for-terror (communists). These are the choices that the media regularly force feeds the Amerikan people. Any other choice is ridiculed and marginalized. This is no conspiracy, I've personally witnessed and made note of this atrocity.

Back to Germany and the 10%. It seems there are three major parties in Germany. There are "conservatives" and "socialists" and then there's the Free Democratic Party. These folks are essentially the Libertarians of Germany. After judging the results of the primaries here in the U.S.S.A. I've determined that only 10% of the voting population will ever really vote for Ron Paul (unless there is massive vote fraud and that is just unimaginable, right?). In Germany, the FDP only ever gets around 10% of the vote but in a parliamentary system, this is enough for attaining the seats necessary to act as a bulwark for either major party. The socialists can't be the ultra-nannies they'd like to be and the conservatives can't rape the entire land for the sake of the elite. The FDP stands for individual liberty and when either side of the ideological spectrum wishes to trounce upon liberty and freedom, they do their best to minimize the damage. We don't have that here. For the past 100 years, we've suffered through these mood swings to the point where there is essentially no difference between the two parties. They both covet the power of the state even though they are different flavors of tyrants, they both represent tyranny.

Am I saying we should emulate the parliamentary system here in the U.S.S.A. No, not at all. The people in this country are so easily manipulated by mass media that full fledged democracy would be the end of freedom and liberty once and for all here. We are a Republic. And in a Republic, the representatives are supposed to protect our rights and freedoms no matter what the tyranny of the majority says. But over time, these representatives have betrayed the people and the founders of this country. In theory, it is a good thing that the elected leaders disregard a populist outcry when it is detrimental to rights and liberty. However, they have perverted this concept. The people cry out for their rights, liberties and freedom and the elected officials do what their benefactors pay them to do. When told that over two-thirds of the country opposes the war, he says, "So?" Half of our income appropriated to pay for wars that pump up his Haliburton stock and are of NO BENEFIT to the people of this country and he says "So." I would gladly live in a Monarchy if the rulers could show their beneficence to their subjects not the utter contempt for their rights as human beings. There is a reason the king of France lost his head. But then again, they didn't have TV in the 18th century.

Given the shitty choices my fellow countrymen continue to make, I must therefore conclude that only 10% of any given population has the capacity to conceive of liberty and freedom. Only 10% of the population are truly individuals. The other 90% are slaves and they embrace and even enjoy their slavery for they would be lost if they had to take responsibility for their actions. Is this number shrinking over time? It sure has shrunken since 1776 that is for damn sure.

Pictures From Iceland

The Icelanders just adored the George Michael and Wham! dinner theatre review. So much for the macho Vikings.

Iceland Is Expensive

My wife is a travel consultant for one of the big Amerikan corporations and every year she must travel to one or more exotic destinations so that she can properly sell vacations to the leisure class. Without trying to sound bitter about the leisure class (I'm a recovering ex-Marxist...clean for 10 years now), I'm just jealous that my job doesn't send me on vacations multiple times per year. I've always wanted to visit Iceland and this year, my wife was going.

Please see "Absurdity Of Hope" below for the earlier reference to Iceland. Being fed up with the current presidential primaries, I've been getting serious about being an ex-pat. Rather than do the standard whine about moving Canada ("And I mean it this time!") I figured abandoning the continent would be more dramatic. At the same time, I'm very practical and it takes an inordinate amount of deliberation before I make most decisions and act. The process usually works like this: Inner Voice provides "first instinct" intuition, then the idea is passed through mental contraptions where I weigh the pros and cons and possible outcomes, then precious time has passed and I realize I should have gone with my first instinct. If I can eliminate the mental contraptions, I'd eliminate a great deal of wasted time but such is life. That being said, I've spent many hours researching Iceland.

I had read that it was expensive, being an island and all I expected this, but my wife called me from Iceland and was standing at the checkout counter with a $20 bag of Doritos. This may have something to do with the falling dollar and that the Dorito-boat arrives infrequently but it did not bode well. Apparently, alcohol is so expensive in Iceland that the Icelanders drink at home (a bit cheaper at the store than the bar) before they go to the bars and clubs. There were other Amerikans at this conference and one made the mistake of buying round after round of shots for his table. When told that he could pay with US dollars he stopped swiping his credit card. The price of a round of shots? $75. He dropped a car payment on drinks. Live and learn I guess.

There is also a tendency for Icelanders to get "fall down" drunk. I enjoy a good drink, I may even enjoy quite a few drinks over a period of time and I may even get to the point where my body gives me subtle hints that it is time to lie prone until the alcohol works itself out of my system. This, I hear, is much too subtle for the Icelanders. These are descendants of Vikings. So, not only will we find it hard to buy food, I won't be able to keep up with them.

I'm a big fan of European history and when we travel we usually get to some sort of centuries-old architectural treasure. My wife tells me that all she could find was a pile of Viking stones from the year 800. There isn't much to see unless you are totally fulfilled by the sight of snowy mountains, which are beautiful but the effect starts to wear off after a day or so.

Then there is the highly regulated and heavily taxed aspect of European countries. Right now, I'm getting robbed of almost 50% of my income and getting almost nothing in return except wars without end and declining currency (thanks Republicans and Democrats! You both suck). In Europe, they've done the "empire thing" hundreds of years ago and they know how it eventually enriches the small group of parasites and leaves a country's people impoverished. They'll pass on 1 trillion a year in "defense" spending. But, I'm looking for the real "land of the free" where one isn't taxed at anywhere close to 50%. Still looking, I'll let you know if I find anything.

In short, it is an interesting place to visit for a weekend on the way to the rest of Europe. Many thanks to my lovely wife for keeping it real. That's why she's so good for me. What about Ireland? Wait, she will be going to Argentina in May. Beautiful Buenos Aires sounds like GREAT ex-pat destination. I've been relearning German but I could easily switch to Spanish. Wait, what about Germany?

Is There Anybody Out There?

I started this blog mainly as a creative outlet. My mistake was to use the Google analytics and obsessing over my lack of traffic. This led to spotty posts. After ignoring the blog for months, I looked at the analytics again and realized that I actually have had visitors. Not only that, I've had return visitors. I feel that I now have an obligation to make everyone's visits more interesting. When I'm surfing my favorite blogs, there's nothing worse than having nothing new to read.

The Absurdity Of Hope

With the first two primaries down the tubes and numerous accusations of vote fraud, can one blame me for losing what little hope I had for America? The deck is so stacked against Ron Paul that I almost have to laugh when I think of the audacity of having hope. Alas Barrack, your wimpy book's title was misunderstood.

So, what's the plan? What's the next move? Where do we go from here? Maybe Iceland?

Since it is obvious now that the U.S.S.A. is firmly in hands of its elite owners and freedom and liberty are now vestiges of a long lost American past, I have yet to find a nation on this Earth that could be a light at the end of the tunnel. While I have such fondness for my European heritage, that continent fell to the enemies of liberty early in the 20th century and its peoples manipulated into either the "1984" model (for those nations with uppity citizens who still have some fight left in them) or the "Brave New World" model (for those nations with a more compliant populace). Think Britain or Hungary for 1984 and Brave New Denmark (or Sweden). Either way, increasingly meddlesome authority is the wave of the future.

For the entire 20th century, the world was given the choice (by the end of a gun) of fascism or communism. Russia stands a good chance to revive liberty but then again, that part of the world is not known known for their propensity for liberty and freedom. The "non-integrated gap", which is code for all lands that aren't completely controled by globalists, are in areas where a European-American is not exactly a welcome site even if he has tourist money is his hands. So what then?

You could look to some countries that don't have a central bank system that isn't tied to the cabal of international bankers that financed fascism AND communism at the same time (you know, Rothchild, Rockefeller, Warburg, Schiff, etc). Wait, that is a short list. North Korea, Cuba and Iran. Not exactly bastions of liberty are they now?

While Iceland is pretty much a socialist nanny state, they haven't invaded anyone in about 800 years. It is close enough to Europe to be European but isolated enough to not be in the European Union proper. Their population still has some fight in them. They are the descendants of Vikings, they had better have some. Who knows? My wife is going to Iceland in three weeks for work so I'll at least be able to get an inside look by proxy. Besides, if she hates it, I'll have a hard time trying to convince her to relocate there, right?

One can only, dare I say (dare...dare)... hope.