Sheenpocalypse Now

Roast of Charlie Sheen

You Can Say All of This. Really. You Can. It’s Actually Allowed.

Freedom means you can tell the world to bug off. It means that you can tell them that you don’t like their taxes, their “public-private partnerships,” their attempts to rig industries they like, attempt to Unionize the unwilling, and their social coercion, not to mention their attempts to construct a political monoculture.

If the present leadership’s idea of freedom doesn't include the freedom to tell them to be disagreed with without their media cheerleaders and outsourced social complex being put to work on it, then they don’t really believe in human freedom, and are just using the vocabulary they think merely common buzzwords in middle America as a prop to hide their authoritarian impulses.

If Mr. Obama really is all of America’s President, then he needs to respect and understand those who respectfully disagree with him. There appears to be no evidence that he and the subculture around him are capable of that.

Kicking the habit: Less soaring, more boring

Tired of reading the Economist's endless praise of Barack Obama and his supposed unequaled eloquence, Russ Ross of St George, Utah, writes a short and to-the-point letter to the editor:

SIR – I used to throw back a shot every time I read the phrase “soaring rhetoric” in an article about Barack Obama, but I eventually kicked the habit. Perhaps you should consider doing the same (Lexington, August 27th).

And so, the headline chosen for the item became:

Less soaring, more boring

The Proletariat Will be Transported in Comfort

The Jersey Girls method of argument: You can't disagree because of the sacred status of the questioner – or else we'll cry

I knew all along there was something wrong about the audience "booing a soldier" during last week's Republican debate, but couldn't put my finger on it (you can read some thoughts on gay marriage here). Fortunately, Ann Coulter stepped in:

…the audience was not "booing a soldier" during one of the video questions, as the media, president and vice president have alleged. The audience was booing the soldier's demand that Republican presidential candidates commit to not overturning a sleazy partisan vote taken in the twilight days of the heavily Democratic 2010 Congress.

In my job as communications director of Defenders of Republicans Unfairly Attacked by the Media and Then Immediately Sold Out by Their Fellow Republicans (DORUAMATISOTFR), I am required to point out that the question and audience reaction went like this:

"In 2010, when I was deployed to Iraq ..."

(No booing.)

"I had to lie about who I was ..."

(No booing – despite the fact that not talking about your sex life with your co-workers is not lying about who you are. In fact, many Americans manage quite easily to go days and days without talking about their sex lives with co-workers.)

"because I'm a gay soldier ..."

(No booing, although we didn't ask and would prefer that you not tell.)

"and I didn't want to lose my job."

(No booing.)

To recap: So far, a remarkably boo-free interaction.

Finally, we got to the question:

"My question is, under one of your presidencies, do you intend to circumvent the progress that's been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military?"

Then there was booing. And for good reason.

It is beyond absurd to demand that Republican candidates pledge not to consider altering a recent rule change overturning a military policy that had been in effect from the beginning of warfare until the last few weeks of the 111th Congress.

Of course there was booing for that!

At the time of the vote – five minutes ago – only eight Republicans in the entire U.S. Senate supported eliminating Don't Ask, Don't Tell. It's safe to assume that no one on the stage supported this sexualization of the military, except maybe one of the nut candidates polling at 3 percent.

This is not an anti-gay position; it's a pro-military position. The basic idea is that sexual bonds are disruptive to the military bond.

Soldiers, sailors and Marines living in close quarters who are having sex with one another, used to have sex with one another or would like to have sex with one another simply cannot function as a well-oiled fighting machine. A battalion of married couples facing a small unit of heterosexual men would be slaughtered.

That's why instead of pushing openly gay servicemen on the military, patriotic gays should come out against girls in the military. Fair is fair. (In 1994, the first year servicewomen were allowed to serve on naval aircraft carriers, 39 women assigned to the USS Eisenhower alone ended up pregnant.)

But liberals enjoy engaging in wild social experiments with other people's lives, safety and money in order to feel better about themselves. So now the next Republican president is going to have to repeal open sexuality in the military along with Obamacare.

Let's just hope the Germans don't start feeling militaristic before then.

What if, instead of asking Republicans to agree that gays should forevermore serve openly in the military, the soldier had asked Republican candidates for president to promise not to repeal Obamacare – or agree to establish Marxism in America? Would liberals demand that Republicans not "boo a soldier" in that case?

This is the Jersey Girls method of argument: You can't disagree because of the sacred status of the questioner – or else we'll cry.

Step Two is to demand abject groveling from all other Republicans, on behalf of people they've never met.

…The reason liberals have to engage in these bullying tactics in political discourse is that their ideas collapse whenever exposed to the warm breeze of logic. Their hysterical sobbing blocks reason.

Leftism = Coveting Thy Neighbor's Paycheck

I'm sure you've seen the endless drip of announcements and adulations. They give away Free cash money for free to put super-duper, earth transforming solar panels on you roof:

City, federal incentives make installing a solar panel a zero dollar investment

To whom, exactly is it of no cost?

So, if I understand this, $18,000 in tax money (coming from renters, for example) is going into putting in 4100 watts of capacity, which is sufficient to run a vacuum cleaner and a coffee pot when the sun is shining. Watts=amps x volts, so it's 37 amps, or one or two circuits in a household panel.

That part of somebody's electric bill probably amounts to $250 a year, at most. The return in the government's "investment" comes in 72 years, assuming that the panels don't get damaged in a hail storm within 5 years.

More importantly, knowing that there is a subsidy for it, what's the panel manufacturer has no incentive to keep his price down. Knowing that the $18k were being given away out there, they'd most likely ADD at least $9000 of that back into their price.

Since the average income earner's median income produces about $5000 in tax revenue a year, putting 4.1 kw of solar panels on one person's house is equal to the entire annual federal tax revenue generated by more than 3 people, and that's assuming the government does absolutely nothing for them, including using a border crossing, an interstate highway, or calling a government agency with a question.

And who is this lucky chap who chose what was behind curtain number 3? The man mentioned in the article is one Peter Bahor, an Environmental Protection Specialist at the EPA, whose income is subsidized up to 100%, and 140% considering retirement and other benefits. He has a highly scientific degree, a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies specializing in "Community and Social Planning", as if we were living in a managed, collective society. Apparently this qualified one to do science as an Environmental Protection Specialist. Variably, he is listed as a specialist in dealing with clean water, and issues related to the use of concrete in construction. In other words, his job is (or has been) to frustrate the price-viability of construction, a sector of industry which is presently near death, and one which accounts for virtually all of the extraordinary unemployment facing Americans right now since the beginning of 2009.

Oddly enough, reflecting on life in East Germany, one had this sort of state managed and collectivized society, all of which meant to see people as production units and socially and politically compliant fixtures. They also had a quietly disliked class of people who, through connection and position were receiving benefits that they weren't paying for. To think we left that behind for all of this.


It's absolutely hilarious when I think about it, because it would be cheaper to pay the man's entire electric bill for approximately 10 years.

Next time you look at your pay stub, take a good look at it, America. Add your FICA, state, and local taxes, and add them up. Don't include the withholding for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Take $18,000 and divide it by that sum. That's how many pay periods you will be working to pay off Bahor's solar panels.

Remember, you might think it's your income, but it's somebody else's irrelevant fun house.

Jammed with Government Cheese

Toilet explodes at GSA building, injuring at least one employee

An internal memo issued to building employees warned them not to even attempt to go to the bathroom at work.

“DO NOT flush toilets or use any domestic water,” read the memo, first reported by WUSA News Channel 9. “Due to a mechanical failure, there is high air pressure in the domestic water system that resulted in damage to toilets.”

Actually, it sounds like a failed Pressure Reducing Valve. The really pathetic thing is that GSA contracts-out and oversees the construction of Government buildings.

Don’t Give them One Red-Eye Abe Lincoln

The plan, which would aim to build a "firebreak" around the indebted eurozone countries, emerged at the IMF annual meeting in Washington where global leaders united to demand urgent action from European politicians.

They should have just called it the “EMF” to begin with. The rest of the developed world will be made to pay for Europe’s addiction to welfare.

The head of the IMF has warned that its $384bn (£248bn) war chest designed as an emergency bail-out fund is inadequate to deliver the scale of the support required by troubled states.

Just a reminder: the EU is the single richest nation-state entity on earth, and yet it’s the Europeans who have used the IMF more than any other region on earth in the history of the institution.

Now you know why they push this “we’re so globally minded” trash.

Unity, If it Means Anything, Means we are Reduced to Gesticulation

And to think we missed this festive occasion:

The first European Day of Languages, celebrated in 45 countries, was held in 2001 at the initiative of the Council of Europe. It aims to raise public awareness of the languages used in Europe, to promote cultural and linguistic diversity and to encourage people to learn languages.

45 countries, my friend! I’m sure those Rwandans and Mauritians were all for that first European Day of Languages, if it commanded a small fee.

"The benefits of speaking a language other than your native tongue are easy to see. Whether you're working abroad in Germany, studying in France or on holiday in Cyprus, it's a huge advantage to be able to communicate directly with the local population. Languages broaden the mind, open up new horizons and will increase your employability," said Commissioner Vassiliou.

I doubt that there will be much change of mind-broadening going on. After all, how does a Greek intelligibly tell a German “cough up your milk money poutsokefalo!”

The Che-mobile is in Good Company

They see the world as a demolition derby anyway.

What’s Mine is Mine, and What’s Yours’ is Mine

‘Free’, ‘open’, and especially ‘transparent’ are the buzzwords that have been shaping the platform of the Pirate movement since it first took shape five years ago in Sweden as a party born out of the struggle against existing copyright laws.

Only in Europe could you guarantee that this mutates into hypocrisy: meet the world’s neediest “Libertarians”

The emphatic concept of freedom put forward by the Pirate Party appears throughout all society to be more realisable than the hair-gel-and-tie-liberalism of the FDP.

The party principles and the electoral programme of the Berlin Pirate Party, including points such as free public transport and the right to an unconditional basic income.

In other words, “freedom” in Europe means “Free Stuff” from other people.

This is their brain trust. They think copyrights on music are a form of oppression.

Someone PLEASE tell them that there is no such thing as an “Entitlement Libertarian”.