Where Did the Neanderthals Go?

Where Did the Neanderthals Go?

Easy. They went nowhere. They just kept hiding in our homes, behind furniture, all the time.

But now they come creeping out of the woodwork:







And that's the problem.

But this gentleman knows how to treat varmints like those:



Bob Barr. Keeping the Neanderthals from the door.

Spaceship 2, Government 0

Reason and Liberty Central extends its heartfelt congratulations to SpaceX on the launch of the first orbiting spacecraft not developed with stolen money.

A French Objectivist

Received wisdom has it that in collectivist countries like France and Germany, there are few Objectivists or Libertarians. Yet today I met a French Objectivist.

How do I know he's an Objectivist? He always kept going, "Roark! Roark! Roark!"

How do I know he's French? Well, he's a frog.

Quote of the Day

"I despise mediocrity above all things. I fear it, yet I know some of my performances have been mediocre. I also know that I have turned in half a dozen good performances. I call myself a bum; but I have been working hard most of the days of my adult life."

— Errol Flynn

Whatever Happened to Rosie O'Donnell?

Speaking of horror, fascists, and moronic gun control freaks… What's up with Rosie?

The ruins of her face somehow imploded further. I thought that was physically impossible.

Thar she blows:


Image courtesy of David Shankbone, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Serious self-tanner malfunction? (LOL, I just typed "elf-tanner." Obviously not a product Rosie would use.)

No, I guess she just crept into an oven to get at the cookie batter before it solidifies into cookies. So stick a fork in her: She's done!

Before, it was bad enough:



Image courtesy of Jason Chatting, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.

Now, no doubt due to the same hormone imbalance that caused her hoplophobia, she felt compelled to slap on ten times the amount. Clearly, this knocks her from a 2 down to a 1.

(Yes, of course I've seen a 0. I tried to take a photo of her, but she broke the camera. No joke.)

Or maybe she's such a hoplophobe 'cause every time she passes a mirror she's tempted to improve her looks and state of mind by shooting herself? Anyway, Rosie, you are not allowed to spook folks with that mug of yours, and if you do run around without your bag on, I think you should go to prison.

Man, it'll be a sad day in Heifer County when Kelli Carpenter decides to have her eyesight restored… 6+1= Major mismatch.

"I mean would you want to wake up next to that? … Would you want to kiss that face?"

— The Donald

True in 2006, twice as true now. The Donald rules.

His comb over, you say?

"I don't say my hair is my greatest strength in the world, but it's not terrible," says he.

I agree. That puts him head and shoulders over everybody's favorite gun control freak.

Now, you wonder, what could poor Rosie do to escape comments like these? In fact, there are two things.

First, she could eat less — about a ton a day. Second, she could stop making light of other folks' right to self-defense.

Gun Control Is Bad for the Environment

Gun control freaks will tell you that the lead in bullets is bad for the environment. But did you ever consider how many people that drive to work now would dare to commute by train if only they could get a carry permit so they know they can defend themselves when walking between the train station and their place of work?

Texas Annexed by Krautistan

The Texas state government seems to have settled on the dirty trick they want to use to deprive innocent people of the ruins of their properties.

Hundreds of people whose beachfront homes were wrecked by Hurricane Ike may be barred from rebuilding under a little-noticed Texas law. And even those whose houses were spared could end up seeing them condemned by the state.

…

Worse, if these homeowners do lose their beachfront property, they may get nothing in compensation from the state.

The reason: a 1959 law known as the Texas Open Beaches Act. Under the law, the strip of beach between the average high-tide line and the average low-tide line is considered public property, and it is illegal to build anything there.

Over the years, the state has repeatedly invoked the law to seize houses in cases where a storm eroded a beach so badly that a home was suddenly sitting on public property. The aftermath of Ike could see the biggest such use of the law in Texas history.

So the government can steal your land just because it happens to be under water now.

The former state senator who wrote the law had little sympathy.

"We're talking about damn fools that have built houses on the edge of the sea for as long as man could remember and against every advice anyone has given," A.R. "Babe" Schwartz said.

At least now we know what he thinks of his peons.

"And whether you like it or not, neither the Constitution of the United States nor the state of Texas nor any law permits you to have a structure on state-owned property that's subject to the flow of the tide."

What is the saying? "In America everything is permitted except for what is prohibited by law. In Germany everything is prohibited except for what is permitted by law."

Isn't that patently un-American? What's become of "a government of limited and enumerated powers"? Looks like it took only two hundred years to turn into a dictatorship where people have only limited and enumerated rights.

This is exactly what those Founding Fathers who opposed a Bill of Rights feared: That some future government running amok would turn it into a finite list of the few rights the government has granted to the people.

Of course, no constitution can ever be a final arbiter. Even if a constitution did grant a government the power to pass a fundamentally unfair and cruel law, that wouldn't make that law right. It would only make that constitution wrong.

And what if some flood deposits sediment on a public beach? Do local landowners get to keep the land so created?

No? The law doesn't cut both ways?

As always: rulers and peons, rulers and peons.

Go Get the Guilty Government Goons!

Re American International, Stalin, no, Hitler, no, Roosevelt, no, congress critter

Barney Frank, the influential chairman of the House financial services committee, told the New York Times: "This is one more affirmation that the lack of regulation has caused serious problems. That the private market screwed itself up and they need the government to come help them unscrew it."

As I said before:

Early twentieth century: Fed cuts rates, causes stock market bubble of the roaring twenties, bubble bursts, renowned power brokerage Roosevelt, Hitler, Stalin & Co. claims capitalism has failed and needs to be saved and/or replaced by their plans advertised as "The New Deal," "Fascism," and "Communism."

Early twentieth-first century: Government forces lenders to lower lending standards, causes housing bubble, which bursts into subprime mortgage crisis, big government moon bats claim the free market has failed and needs more government regulation.

Am I saying that American International should have been allowed to fail? No way.

But it should not have been bailed out with taxpayer money. The money should have come out of the personal fortunes of Bush, Bernanke, Frank, and all those politicians and bureaucrats who are responsible for the existence of the Fed and for trying to micromanage and regulate (read: centrally plan) the economy.

If, for instance, a central bank arrogates itself the power to regulate the money supply, those responsible for the central bank should be held responsible for the actions of said central bank, including a too high or too low money supply distorting markets, and any bubbles and bankruptcies resulting from that. Of course, those monies should have been taken from said culprits as simple damages, without giving them any AIG shares.

Lesson: The Moscow communists could not centrally plan the economy of the Soviet Union, Washington cannot micromanage the US economy, and the Fed cannot replace banks and the free financial markets in supplying money.

Sheeple and Heroes

This speaks for itself:

True Grit: well I never doubted that Mrs. Isaacks at 81 would show that. I asked her granddaughter, now that we know she is ok what do you think she doing? She said... she out helping to clean up the mess… and sure enough that's what you tell us in your report. I had the pleasure of being her guest last summer on High Island. I saw the damage from Rita, she had just completed putting her house back on its foundation. What a difference from what I experience here in Marshall at the shelter. These people lay around all day on cots, demanding service and complaining that nobody is helping them take care of their children. They better be glad Mrs. Isaacks isn't here. She would have them organized and working to help themselves. The WalMart employees are telling me that these evacuees are rude to the staff, they come into the store on busses and go thru the store like termites… buying [cosmetics] and complaining about the shelter being nasty. Hey... wait a minute, who making it nasty? You can't keep up… these people are slobs and they wont' do the simplest things for themselves. They complaining that by now FEMA had already given them their $2000 checks… and on and on...while on High Island Mrs. Isaacks and her neighbors are simply cleaning up and trying to stave off a government determined to remove them permanently from their Island. Who do I admire? the High Island people. But who does our government honor? the lazy slugs laying up in the convention center complaining.

A Deal with the Devil

It looks like reason and liberty are prevailing on the Bolivar Peninsula — for now.

"We can get through this; we have for many storms, although this is probably the worst," said firefighter Orbin Thompson, who along with EMS coordinator Robert Isaacks, persuaded authorities Tuesday not to force residents off the island.

...

Isaacks said the deal with the higher authorities isn't without caveats.

"If we leave, we can't come back," he said.

That means no one can go out to get supplies.

"We're working on a plan to address that," he said. "We got gasoline today and we're pooling resources for food. We'll find a way."

Still, it looks like government agents are making life hard for the heroes of Bolivar, instead of helping them. Of course, 250 residents driving to buy supplies in 250 trucks on a highway already half blocked by debris might interfere with a cleanup. Yet, what harm can one man in one truck do if he drives out for supplies, to sell, trade, or gift them to his neighbors?

How much of the government bureaucrats' obstructionism is due to wanting to go ahead with the cleanup, and how much is due to the sadistic pleasure of using force against people, while being able to appease the world and their own conscience: "I'm doing it because it's in their best interests"?

Public Health? You're Insane.

If the fascists try and force the heroes of the Bolivar Peninsula from their homes, it looks like their stratagem, their commerce clause, their — literally — dirty trick will be an argument from "public health."

The sliver of land is just too damaged for residents to stay there, and the population must be cleared so that recovery can begin, officials said. With no gas, no power and no running water, there is also concern about spread of disease.

So what if diseases like cholera spread from contaminated water? Those who are afraid of catching cholera are free to leave the peninsula voluntarily. Those who stay because they don't care whether they catch cholera endanger nobody but themselves.

And don't try and tell me that the shit of 250 people is enough to trickle down to some aquifer. By that "logic," shitting in national parks would have to be illegal, too.

The only valid public health issue is somebody infected with a contagious disease that can be spread from person to person running around in public. Only against such a person, who negligently endangers others' health and life, force may be used.

Forcing the heroes of the Bolivar Peninsula from the ruins of their homes is as legitimate a public health issue as incarcerating everybody who's infected with HIV. Mind you, I'm not trying to legitimize incarcerating anybody infected with HIV, unless he or she has unprotected sex with someone in the dark about their condition. I'm showing you how insane the "public health" argument in the Bolivar case is.

If Judge Yarbrough is worried that the people out on the Bolivar Peninsula have no safe drinking water, he should get his fat, bureaucratic ass moving, load his car (no doubt paid for by tax money) with water bottles, and drive out to said peninsula.

The only public health that is in question is the mental health of those government clowns that dare to resort to such sophistry.

What Kind of a Person Are You, Judge Yarbrough?

What kind of a person would abduct innocent people, people who lost nearly everything, from the remains of their homes, robbing them of the rest of their property? Who out there believes that if those people are "permitted" (as if they needed a permit) to return to their homes, anything of their property will be left?

Will it be the first time in recorded history that law enforcement officers succeed in protecting an abandoned neighborhood from looters? If they do, how many homes will have been bulldozed with everything in them because government agents declared them unsafe?

Even if neither of the above outrages happens, does it make any difference? Initiating the use of force is wrong per se.

Whenever one person initiates the use of force against another person, the result is disaster. Committing such a crime "to help" the victim even adds insult to injury.

Every individual values things differently. No man can make a decision for another man, much less enforce it.

As I'm writing this, 250 innocent individuals on the Bolivar Peninsula are desperately trying to save what can be saved of their treasured possessions. Instead of helping them, their government schemes to kidnap or murder them.

Now you may say the government will give those people money towards rebuilding their homes. Tax money, by the way.

Bear in mind that nobody, particularly no government, has the right to take anything by force from anyone to give it to someone else. If individuals want to donate money for rebuilding, that's fine. But there can be no right to hurt one person to help another.

Nevertheless, for the sake of the argument, let's ignore the fact that it's tax money. So the victims of the hurricane and of government aggression will get money from said government. Does that make any difference?

Imagine some dude trying to move his, well, uh, say, his stuffed lizard collection to higher ground. Now some jackbooted thugs drag him from the remains of his home "to help him," "for his own good," "because it's in his best interest," "to save him from himself." After all, it is obvious to every collectivist on earth that he should not be risking his life for his stuffed lizard collection.

The actual motives of the collectivists may vary. The worst fascists among them truly believe his life belongs to "the people," that he should not be allowed to "throw away" his life, because his labor is needed to benefit his fellow man. Less extreme collectivists may believe they have the right or even the duty "to save him from himself" if he does something they regard as insane and suicidal.

Yet the facts remain: Even if the jackbooted thugs don't murder that dude for "resisting" them, his stuffed lizard collection will have been spoiled by mold by the time he's allowed to return to his home. If it hasn't been bulldozed in the first place.

Even if the federal government were to turn over its entire multi-trillion dollar budget over to him, there's no way he could buy another stuffed lizard collection like the one he lost. Well, he has the money. But maybe he liked his stuffed lizard collection better than all the money in the world.

Maybe he loves his stuffed lizard collection so much he will risk his life to save it. Who are you to make that decision for him, you fascists?

Many, if not most, of you so-called human beings out there may believe that no man should value his property above his life. But who are you to tell anybody what to do with his life, what value to assign to what entity?

It's his property, not yours. It's his life, not yours.

How would you like it if I were to make decisions for you there in front of your computer? If your wife were trapped in rising water, and you're setting out to save her — how would you like it if I forced you at gunpoint to stay and watch her drown, because I believe you should not value your wife's life above your own?

Open Letter to Judge Yarbrough

Delivered via email

James.Yarbrough@co.galveston.tx.us

Re: Forcible Evacuation of Bolivar Peninsula

Judge,

Just a short note to remind you that another person's life is not yours to dispose of.

Regarding your plans for a forcible evacuation of the Bolivar Peninsula residents, you are being quoted: "I'm doing it because it's in their best interests."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26695458

Did you ever hear, "all men are created equal, … are endowed … with certain unalienable Rights, … among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"?

So because you don't believe in those folks' idea of the pursuit of happiness, because you believe it's risky and maybe suicidal, you are proposing to deprive them of all three.

You are aware that any legal action is a threat of lethal force, aren't you? If your agents aggress against those people, they may end up killing innocent individuals.

If you go ahead with initiating the use of force against innocent folks who are harming no one except maybe themselves, I hope some freedom-loving individual in your neck of the woods will get himself elected to office and then force you to do something he thinks is good for you.

Finally, you are being quoted: "I don't want to do it."

Interesting. You are the first person I heard of who doesn't have free will. How can you be qualified to be a judge if you lack free will?

If you agree, additional letters would be appreciated. By me (and probably by the residents of the Bolivar Peninsula), not by the judge, of course.

James.Yarbrough@co.galveston.tx.us

Fascists Are at It Again

"Ike Holdouts Told to Leave Ravaged Area — or Else"

The few hundred holdouts on Texas' ravaged Bolivar Peninsula will be required to leave in the next few days, and officials said Tuesday they are ready to use emergency powers to empty the barrier island scraped clean by Hurricane Ike.

The threat came as the death toll in the Houston area rose by six, bringing the number of people killed in Texas to 17. The new deaths, all after Ike made landfall, were tied to carbon monoxide poisoning, a home fire and falling tree limbs. Ike has claimed 47 lives in 10 states as it spread inland.

In the Bolivar incident, Judge Jim Yarbrough, the top elected official in Galveston County, said the roughly 250 people who defied warnings they would be killed if they rode out the storm in the rural coastal community are a "hardy bunch" and there are some "old timers who aren't going to want to leave."

The Texas attorney general's office is looking into the legal options available to force the remaining residents leave, Yarbrough said. Local authorities are prepared to do whatever it takes to get residents to a safer place.

"I don't want to do it," he said. "I'm doing it because it's in their best interests."

I'm not a guy who goes, "I told you so," but I told you so.

Hey, if they resist arrest, why don't we shoot them dead "for their own good"? Will teach them bastardly individuals a lesson to never disobey the authority of the fuehrer, uh, the collective, uh, the police, uh, the people, uh, whoever.

I mean, what is that Yarbrough clown thinking? Nothing, probably.

Not one thought in his whole life. That's the way you do it, that's the way you get elected.

The sheer horror.

Hey, why doesn't some freedom-loving individual in Yarbrough's neck of the woods try and get elected to office and then force Judge Jim to do something he thinks is for Jimmy-boy's own good?

Top Ten Reasons Gun Control Freaks Are Insane

To really believe in gun control, you have to believe these nifty little lies:

(10) That guns are not an effective means of self-defense, which is why police carry them.

(9) Washington, DC's low murder rate of 80.6 per 100,000 is due to strict gun control, and Arlington, VA's high murder rate of 1.6 per 100,000 is due to the lack of gun control.

(8) That a hijacker could easily take a gun away from a pilot, but the hundreds of passengers aboard would then be unable to take the gun away from the hijacker.

(7) That if there'd been a gun aboard American Airlines Flight 11, someone could have been hurt.

(6) That we should outlaw bullet proof vests so criminals can't use them, and private citizens should be then proud to be killed in the crossfire, knowing they are doing their part for society.

(5) That a baseball bat is good protection against a burglar, provided his gun fires baseballs.

(4) That it's safer with less guns, which is why lunatics shoot up schools instead of gun shows or police stations.

(3) That an intruder will be incapacitated by tear gas or oven spray, but if shot with a .44 Magnum will get angry over your retaliation and kill you.

(2) That firearms in the hands of private citizens are the gravest threat to world peace, and China, Pakistan, and North Korea can be trusted with nuclear weapons.

And the best reason gun control freaks are insane is:

(1) That guns are the gravest threat to society because 83,000,000 gun owners didn't commit a crime yesterday.

For more reasons, read this article:

"Forty Reasons to Support Gun Control"

And for even more:

Michael Z. Williamson, "It's Amazing What One Has to Believe to Believe in Gun Control" (Apparently the original, from which this and the other article are excerpted.)

Don't Use THE Force

Recently, New York

Governor David Paterson "made a bold statement" in support of the construction of Moynihan Station when he announced conditions related to the future of Moynihan Station at New York Building Congress forum. He emphasized the critical importance for the project to emphasize infrastructure improvements and to that end announced that the Port Authority of New York would be taking over the project.

Scare quotes mine; apparently, everything politicians say is bold.

"By any measure the 20th century was the New York Century. We entered it as a burgeoning metropolis and we left it as the greatest and most powerful city in the world. We can make the 21st century the New York Century as well, but only if we invest wisely in our infrastructure."

Paterson said the Federal government must put together a plan for the nation's infrastructure so we may reduce our dependency on fossil fuels and avoid catastrophic disasters like last year's bridge collapse in Minneapolis. He also decried the Federal government's "starving" of Amtrak and reduction of slots at the city's airports. The Governor said that we must bolster the rail options between Washington DC, Boston and other cities within 300 miles of New York City. Rail is the most fuel-efficient way to move people, and it is critical that we lighten the loads of our airlines and on our highways.

…

"If we are to realize our full potential for growth in the 21st century, then we must look to increase our rail capacity."

(Thanks to Dave for forwarding.)

I agree wholeheartedly that rail is the most efficient means of transportation and that the Tri-State Area's infrastructure needs investment badly for New York to remain competitive. But why should the state be doing it?

Originally, building railroads was principally funded by private investors. As for Amtrak, privatize the Northeast Corridor and ax the unprofitable rest.

But is that the end of the line? Far from it.

In the first place, passenger rail was destroyed by government subsidies for highways and airports. If all highways and airports are privatized, and distorting subsidies removed, establishing many more intercity passenger services between cities outside the Northeast Corridor will become profitable once more, thanks to the unrivaled economy of railroads.

Railroads will dominate commuter markets and mid-haul intercity travel. Airliners will dominate long-haul travel, where a train would take days. Automobiles will dominate rural markets that cannot support railroads or airports.

Besides, making passengers pay the full price of their actions will result in less commuting and less traveling. Once people realize how much it costs to drag their asses from place to place, much more business will be done via the internet.

Now, socialists will say that the government has the duty to provide "socially desirable" services the market fails to provide because they're unprofitable. Never mind that even if 299,999,999 people deem a service "socially desirable," that doesn't make stealing from even only one man right.

But let's for the sake of the argument ignore the fact that taxes are theft. What "socially desirable" benefits do commuters get out of indiscriminately subsidized plane, train, and automobile mileage?

Families can afford to move out to suburbia, where their dollars buy more square footage. But what kind of square footage do they get? They trade an admittedly cramped apartment in a reinforced concrete high rise or a brownstone walkup in Manhattan or a similarly pricey downtown for, say, a wooden house in a brush-choked canyon or a single-story house on a floodplain in hurricane alley.

They may want their kids to attend suburban schools perceived as better than inner-city schools. (In my experience, there's no such thing as a better government school. If you have to have children, home schooling is the only option.) They may hope to be safer from crime in the middle of nowhere, and be glad to pay the price of cultural anemia.

Of course, people who really want to pave over a swamp or move their families into a wildfire or a hurricane should by all means be free to do so, but they should not be subsidized with tax money. Why should suburban sprawl be subsidized with money taken from taxpayers by force?

Privatize all means of transportation, and if the Trans-Hudson Express (THE) Tunnel project is profitable, let the free market fund it. Incidentally, fewer people moving out to suburbia would not only increase demand for apartments in Manhattan, but also bolster New York City's tax base, which for so long had been suffering from white flight to suburbia (assuming you believe in taxation).

Hurricane Is Lesser Evil

A mandatory evacuation order was in place, but there were no signs anyone was being forcibly removed.

"We're not going to drag them out of there and handcuff them," Davison said. "They've made their decision."

Wow, fascists being generous. Well, to answer that, what's the appropriate saying? Too little, too late.

The very idea of dragging someone from his own land "for his own good" turns my stomach. Anyone who even just entertains a monstrous idea like that disqualifies himself as a human being and should hand in his application for the gestapo.

Hey, if they resist arrest, why don't we shoot them dead "for their own good"? Will teach them bastardly individuals a lesson to never disobey the authority of the fuehrer, uh, the collective, uh, the police, uh, the people, uh, whoever.

As for those fascists handing out markers to scare heroes, asking them to write their social security numbers on their arms for identification purposes, my knee-jerk advice would be to hurl the marker right in the face of that jackbooted thug. But come to think of it, that would be exactly what they want: an excuse to arrest you.

The best course of action is to write on your arm, instead of your name or number, "Fuck you, fascists!" Best worn with something short-sleeved.

This, by the way, is one of the situations where it's good to have no family for whose sake you'd want to be identified. Why make work easy for those Quincy wannabes?

When you're dead you're dead. An unmarked grave is as good as any other grave.

At By George Automotive repair shop, owner George Elizondo and others in Freeport gathered to grill chicken leg quarters, shoulder steak and tortillas with pico de gallo. Coolers from the nearby grocery store sat filled with soda and beer.

The hurricane block party tradition began with Hurricane Rita in 2005, when Elizondo and others stayed behind to offer mechanical help to anyone those heading out.

Well, rock on! More power to you!

"If my stuff is going to get washed away, I'm going to watch it get washed away," Norton said.

That's the spirit. I couldn't have summed up the moral any better.

Yet, that was where things started to decidedly go south (excuse the pun).

Many of them evidently realized the "mistake" too late, and pleaded with authorities in vain to save them overnight.

(Scare quotes mine.)

Some emergency officials were angry and frustrated that so many people ignored the warnings.

"When you stay behind in the face of a warning, not only do you jeopardize yourself, you put the first responders at risk as well," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said. "Now we're going to see this play out."

Steve LeBlanc, Galveston's city manager, said: "There was a mandatory evacuation, and people didn't leave, and that is very frustrating because now we are having to deal with everybody who did not heed the order. This is why we do it, and they had enough time to get out."

Of course, anybody who stays should equip himself to be self-sufficient: food and water for several weeks, fire extinguishers, maybe an inflatable boat if you live in a single-story home on a floodplain. Nothing is as disastrous for the cause of liberty as getting picked off your roof by the same fascists you told to go fuck themselves the night before.

After all, the fascists' sophistic reasoning is that they should have the power to drag people from their homes — and murder them if need be — because otherwise they would be responsible for rescuing them during or after the hurricane, risking the "rescuers" lives. Never mind that no man can ever have a duty to save another man.

As always, the fascists are intellectually dishonest. After all, the city government of Washington, DC, went all the way to the Supreme Court to secure a ruling that cops are not responsible for protecting victims from an armed burglar, even though the government disarmed the victims in the first place, even when the cops are physically able to help and just decide they prefer to fight some donuts.

Obviously, the fascists can't have it both ways. Either they are responsible for saving civilians, or they are not.

In Surfside Beach, retired carpenter and former Marine Ray Wilkinson became something of a celebrity for a day: He was the lone resident in the town of 805 to defy the order to leave. Authorities found him Saturday morning, drunk.

"I consider myself to be stupid," Wilkinson, 67, said through a thick, tobacco-stained beard. "I'm just tired of running from these things. If it's going to get you, it's going to get you."

He added: "I didn't say I had all my marbles, OK?"

Oh yeah, man, you do, you sure do. The only reasonable thing to do in such a situation. ^5

You're Cavemen, Too!

Another one for my horror file:

"Honor Killings Persist in 'Man's World' "

Looking over the comments, most of them appear pretty reasonable and enlightened, condemning the murders and calling for a harsh punishment for the criminals (death penalty in my book, BTW). At first glance, you guys and gals out there seem to be more rational and less politically correct than I would have thought.

Yet, how enlightened are you, really? Even the Western world is barely out of the Dark Ages yet.

Some decades ago people here began to acknowledge the fact that daughters aren't the property of fathers. But that's as far as it goes.

Most of you still seem to believe your spouse or your significant other is your property. You believe you are entitled to your property's, to your slave's undivided attention — and that you have a god-given right to prohibit him or her from loving, kissing, or fucking anybody else besides you. If your or your god's commandments on that matter get broken, you feel as "dishonored" and "disrespected" as those tribalist fathers.

Yes, in the Western world, we are a lot more civilized. Even the jealous control freaks among us are too civilized to bury their victims, uh, spouses alive.

They only beat them up, or their cars, or they shoot them with a shotgun, or they go for the "civilized" method of letting the government initiate the use of force in their name. Can you spell "alienation of affection lawsuit"?

Either way, every time you beat up your boyfriend's car with a baseball bat for "cheating" on you, every time you slap your girlfriend for "being a slut" sleeping with ten other guys, you're being one of those cavemen. Don't be too proud of yourselves for not burying that "errant" spouse of yours alive. That's only a very thin veneer of civilization barely covering up the same Bronze Age morality.

As always, you've been a lousy audience.

Word of the Day: Random

Random (ran' dəm), n. the totality of everything Ayn Rand: With Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand founded Random House. [Ayn Rand + -dom]

Terrorists 1,380,000, America 0

No, today I don't want to talk about the government morons' failure to rebuild the World Trade Center seven years and counting. No, I'm not talking about the failure to complete that useless mega-memorial in time for some arbitrary anniversary, either.

(When people are dead, there's nothing you can do for or against them anymore. That's why everything humanly possible should be done to prevent innocent people from dying. Anybody who advocates wasting money on memorials to "honor" the dead ought to have their head examined. Whether a memorial may make people remember the past so they don't have to repeat it is another story, but today's politically correct memorials couldn't deliver in that respect anyway.)

What I want to talk about today is how you — yes, you there in front of your PC — are Bin Laden's best propaganda tool.

Now, 1,380,000 — that's the number of results you get for a Google search for "September 11 attacks." I didn't even want to try and search for "ground zero" or "9/11" because it would be hard to tell how many hits would refer to the terrorist attacks and how many to the legitimate meanings.

Every time you liken the World Trade Center site to a nuclear wasteland by calling it "ground zero," you make it a little less likely that someone will sign a lease for rebuilt WTC towers. Every time you do it, you help the terrorists make sure that what they destroyed stays destroyed. I hope you're proud of yourself.

Every time you refer to the World Trade Center site as "ground zero," you might as well send Bin Laden a dollar. Every time you refer to the destruction of the World Trade Center as "9/11," you set aside a day for Bin Laden, help entrench a terrorist holiday the magnitude of the Fourth of July.

Sure, casually referring to the WTC as "ground zero" may be cool. But so is shooting somebody in the face just to see him die. Dou you really believe either is a good idea?

Sure, "the terrorist attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon" means investing a little more breath than "9/11." But if you advocate airport "security," spending money extorted from taxpayers on the war on terrorism, and maybe reinstating the draft, you should be glad you can make such a tiny little contribution of your own.

It would be funny if it weren't so sad. You people elect fascist governments because they promise they'll protect us, their slaves, from terrorists. You don't mind being herded through airports like cattle in a Chinese fire drill charade of "security." (Despite the concentration camp style "security," folks keep wandering onto planes with guns they forgot to check.)

Dishonorable mention for the PC among you, who won't use any words that might offend anyone, but don't mind aping terrorist propaganda.

Apparently, seven billion "human" beings don't have more than two brain cells between them. (Present company excepted.) If you wish to consider yourself a human being, don't ever again use the words "ground zero" in any other context than that of an exploding nuke and "9/11" in any other context than that of one of 365 days in the year.

Otherwise, go and celebrate your terrorist holiday. You've been a lousy audience. :P