Little Red Riding Hood

Once upon a time, Little Red Riding Hood went visiting her grandmother. So Little Red Riding Hood put on her little red riding hood and set out on a dangerous hike on the winding paths under the gloomy canopy of trees, where the wilding wolves had taken many a jogger. Finally, after a perilous journey past the tree huggers, hippies, bums, junkies, and perverts of the forest, she emerged on Central Park West.

When she got to the tiny cottage at the end of the limestone canyon where her grandmother lived, she knocked at the door. "Granny, Granny, are you home? I brought you your favorite rugelach!"

But when the door creaked open, it wasn't her grandmother opening it, but a handsome, charming prince with a head of luxuriant blond hair, much like a golden pussycat.

"Why, what orange skin you have!" exclaimed Little Red Riding Hood in wonder.

"The better to stain you with!" the prince growled.

"What tiny, deep-set eyes, framed by pale circles, like a negative image of the raccoons in the woods, or a highwayman's mask, you have!"

"The better to ogle you with!"

"What short, vulgar fingers you have!"

"The better to grope you with!"

"What shiny big hair you have!"

"The better to seduce you with!"

"Uh, is my Granny home, sir?" Little Red Riding Hood timidly changed the subject.

"No, she very, very, very much isn't! And you'll really, really never see her again, you little red anchor baby! I deported your huge illegal alien grandmother to her ancestral homeland! Sad. Will you marry me, you huge little hater and loser?" the prince boldly changed the subject. "It's going to be amazing. Believe me."

"But why would I marry you, you who deported my Granny?" Little Red Riding Hood sobbed.

"Because you're a really, really hot piece of ass under that very, very, very silly little red riding hood, plus I really, really like marrying aliens. Because I'm the God Emperor Donald J. Trump, and I'm very, very, very rich. I'll give you $10,000,000! Because I'll make you great again, like everything I touch! Because I have huge, well-formed hands! Look, having God Emperor Donald J. Trump — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you're a conservative Republican, they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my, like, credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power, and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen, and he was right — who would have thought?), but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us. Oh, and otherwise, I'll have to deport you to your ancestral homeland. You'd really, really be a not smart person. Believe me. Sad."

By now, Little Red Riding Hood was deeply in love with the God Emperor Donald J. Trump, with his unwarranted self-confidence, his money, his power, his fame, his charm, his wit, his intellect, his handsome good looks, and his beautiful hair, like all women. Plus, he had freed her from her really, really not good, nasty, horrible, fat, old illegal alien grandmother with the face of a dog (who used to bleed from every possible orifice in her younger days).

And they lived happily ever after, if he didn't leave her for a younger woman. Sad.

A Fairytale of New York 

Happy 2015!

Happy New Year! Happy 2015!

Surfin' NSA

(With apologies to the Bitch Boys Beach Boys.)

If everybody was like Snowden

Across the USA

Then everybody'd be surfin'

Phreakin' the CIA

You'd see 'em breakin' out netbooks

Anarchic vandals, too,

With tablets, smart phones, and dumb Nooks

Surfin' NSA

You'd catch 'em surfin' at Langley (inside, outside USA),

Anne Arundel County line (inside, outside USA),

At the ports and bases (inside, outside USA)

Mediterranean (inside, outside USA),

All over Manhattan (inside, outside USA),

And on Doheny Drive (inside, outside USA)

Everybody's gone surfin'

Surfin' NSA

We'll all be crackin' us a router

We're gonna take real soon

We're bringin' down their networks

We can't wait for June

We'll all be gone for the summer

We're on safari to stay

Tell Obama we're surfin'

Surfin' NSA

At Feinstein's and Schumer's (inside, outside USA),

Pacific carriers base (inside, outside USA),

Foggy Bottom and Georgetown (inside, outside USA),

Outside the Pentagon (inside, outside USA),

All over the Beltway (inside, outside USA),

At Waimea Bay (inside, outside USA)

Everybody's gone surfin'

Surfin' NSA

Everybody's gone surfin'

Surfin' NSA

Everybody's gone surfin'

Surfin' NSA

Everybody's gone surfin'

Surfin' NSA

Yeah, everybody's gone surfin'

Surfin' NSA

Yeah, everybody's gone surfin'

Surfin' NSA

Why Men and Women Never Get Along

She just said, "Do you want to marry me?"

She thinks she said, "Do you want to be the father of my children and live with me happily ever after?"

He heard, "Do you want to give me half your stuff and pay me a pension once I leave you?"

Scottish Objectivist Explains Benefits of Smoking

In this enlightening video, a Scottish objectivist explains the benefits of smoking: Smoking is where all the great ideas come from.

"My life was terrible without cigarettes. I did nothing with my time. I was like, 'Oh, where am I going? What am I doing?' Now my life is rich and true and good and strong."

It even is good for your lungs:

"It makes your lungs bigger 'cause you're sucking."



Here it is with subtitles:


SCROOGIN ON A GREG by willanderson0

A Simple Way to Control the Fundies

Here's a simple way to get the fundies and conservatives under control: Everything that is illegal for some group of people automatically becomes illegal for Christians.

Gays can't marry? Fine, Christians can't marry, either.

Teenagers can't have sex? Fine, Christians can't have sex, either.

Weed is illegal? Fine, so is altar wine.

Let's see how long they can stand their own medicine. 

US Doesn't Understand the Concept "Ally"

What do the Mongol Empire, the objectivists, and the US government have in common?

They have no concept of "ally."

The Mongols knew only three conditions of foreign relations: "enemies", "conquered," or "in rebellion." The concept of "ally" was foreign to them.

In 1245, Pope Innocent IV wrote a letter to the Mongols, expressing a desire for "peace." But in the Mongol language, "peace" is a synonym for "subjection."

Khan Güyük understood it the only way he could and replied with a demand for submission:

You must say with a sincere heart: "We will be your subjects; we will give you our strength." You must in person come with your kings, all together, without exception, to render us service and pay us homage. Only then will we acknowledge your submission.

As for the objectivists:

As advocates of laissez-faire capitalism, avowedly committed to the supremacy of reason, it seemed as if the Randians would be valuable allies.

But the Randians did not understand the concept of "allies": in their universe, you either agreed with all of their positions, or else you were consigned to the Outer Darkness.

As the Edward Snowden affair has shown, the imperial federal government is no different. It expects to get everything in return for nothing. It expects unconditional and absolute submission to the evil empire.

The US government believes it can spy on the citizens of its allies, without bothering to obey its allies' privacy laws or applying for search warrants from its allies' courts. But then it expects those same courts it contemned to extradite its fugitives.

It's either or. Either Hong Kong and Russia are the United States' allies, or they are not.

If they are allies, how can the US government dare to bypass their laws and their courts and to violate the rights or their citizens? If they are not allies, why should they comply with US requests?

It appears that for the US government, too, there are no allies, but only conquered provinces, which have a duty to pay tribute to the US, no matter what outrage the US has perpetrated against their citizens the day before.

Open Letter to Bill Nelson re Ed Snowden

In reply to "NSA Surveillance Efforts Are Effective, Limited, and Legal" by one Senator Bill Nelson:

General warrants for all the phone numbers there are are highly unconstitutional, no matter if they're "only" for the metadata.

If you believe it makes any difference if you're spying "only" on foreigners, you should not be surprised if your allies thus spied on stop being your allies and stop caring whether or not you get hit by another terrorist attack — and stop extraditing "criminals" to you, as well.

As for the alleged terrorist attacks your spying stopped: Pics, or it didn't happen.

Ed Snowden is an American hero. Your actions and thoughts, sir, are un-American.

It is you that betrayed the principles of your founding fathers, and it is you that is to blame that liberty is once more homeless on earth, as Lafayette would have put it. Shame on you.

Obama Snatches Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

Make my day and vote for Romney.

Why? Why should anyone care one way or the other?

"America is assured her independence, mankind's cause is won, and liberty is no longer homeless on earth." — Lafayette.

Don't let Obama undo this. Don't let him make liberty homeless on earth again. Don't let that socialist turn America into another European-style welfare state.

No honest person has anything to win from socialism.

Obama tells you he will take the money from the rich and give it to you. But the rich don't have that much money if you divide it among 300 million people. Particularly not if you first have to pay for multiple trillions of government waste.

You may think that you're not rich and that you'll get a share of the spoils.

But if your country goes down the road to socialism, if your government has bled the rich dry and killed the engine of productivity, your government will soon turn to you to confiscate your money to pay off those poorer than you.

Look at Greece. Look at Cuba. Look at North Korea.

Of course, socialism doesn't have to get that bad. Chances are that it will get stuck somewhere in the middle of the road.

Then you get a country like Germany, where you still have to pay the high taxes and comply with statist regulations, but find that your government — having killed off innovation and progress and having spent all the confiscated money on bureaucrats and wasteful projects that the free market rightly rejected as pointless — has no money to give you the freebies it promised.

And even that uneasy truce, that semi-socialism, where you pay and get nothing back, can only last if whatever productive people are left are altruistic enough to pay the high taxes to fund the waste. It seems to work, badly, in France, Germany, and Scandinavia.

It doesn't work in Greece. I doubt it will work in the US.

Look at their two respective deficits. Does it look like anybody is willing to pay for the welfare state?

Don't go there. It is not a nice place to be.

The only ones that profit from the welfare state are politicians, bureaucrats, and corrupt "businessmen." Look at Solyndra.

The needy are better off with private charity, even though that means they will have to say "please" and "thank you" when they want help, as they should, instead of demanding that the non-needy be their slaves by birthright. And no productive person has any use for a government that takes a dollar from him to give him fifty cents back.

No honest person has anything to win from the welfare state. Go for a standard to which honest men can repair.

"America is assured her independence, mankind's cause is won, and liberty is no longer homeless on earth."

Don't sell this for a handout you'll never get.

Lance Armstrong Backdraft

The single item in common for these is that people outside the involved communities are astounded that anyone could care enough about the issue to get in any kind of argument about it at all, much less a big argument.

I'll never, ever understand the (anti?-)concept of spectator sports. It's fine if someone does sports to stay fit or because he enjoys it.

But I'll never understand how anyone can enjoy watching sports, let alone get excited about sports or get in any kind of argument about sports, or about any athlete cheating or taking drugs to cheat. Or how anyone could call in the pigs to convene grand juries, investigate, and enforce judgments at the point of a gun.

If anyone brought a case involving any sorts of sports to me to judge, I would consider any breach of contract, cheating, or doping in sports de minimis and beneath the dignity of the court.

The only sane judgment in a case involving sports is, "Kids, be nice, go back to the playground, and don't hit each other."

If anyone wants to ruin his health to cycle faster, that's his problem. If you want a fair competition free of doping, you want something that never was and never will be.

The war on drugs failed, and so must the war on doping.

Get a life, and find something worthwhile to do with your time instead of watching sports and threatening the use of lethal force against people for cheating at an activity that's inane to begin with. If you want to push human capacity to the limit, cultivate your brain, not your brawn. 

Take the Bohemian Test!

Now I know why that hipster test didn't work out: because I'm not a hipster, but a bohemian.

The Wikipedia article describes me to a T:

Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic, or literary pursuits. In this context, Bohemians can be wanderers, adventurers, or vagabonds.

This use of the word bohemian first appeared in the English language in the 19th century to describe the nontraditional lifestyles of marginalized and impoverished artists, writers, journalists, musicians, and actors in major European cities. Bohemians were associated with unorthodox or anti-establishment political or social viewpoints, which were often expressed through free love, frugality and — in some cases — voluntary poverty. A wealthy and privileged, even aristocratic, bohemian circle is sometimes referred to as the haut bohème ("high bohemians").

The term Bohemianism emerged in France in the early 19th century when artists and creators began to concentrate in the lower-rent, lower-class gypsy neighborhoods. Bohémien was a common term for the Romani people of France, who had reached Western Europe via Bohemia.

And you? Are you a bohemian?

Take Alex' 100% Accurate Bohemian Test!

Tea Party vs. Flea Party

Insanity is… this. Sigh. The fleabags need a padded cell more than they need to get maced.

So, I corrected it. I guess they can be glad I didn't grade it, too.

Tea Party	Flea Party
(Grassroots movement)	(Astroturf)
Most events ignored by the media, except by Fox News.	Left-leaning mainstream media cheer looters on.
Participants revolt against the sick and poor who use need as a claim.	Participants provide free food, healthcare, and emotional support to everyone present, then claim they cannot pay their student loans and call for another round of looting.
Anti-union, anti-moocher, anti-looter, anti-government, anti-Obama ("racist"); I grant you bigoted and xenophobic — the fundies insisted on tagging along.	Strives for inclusion and participation of every moocher, looter, and rotter in the world, but xenophobic when "American" jobs are "exported," as if America or any country collectively owned jobs.
Funded by the Koch brothers. Avoids leaders — decisions made by the market, i.e., by the people who worked for their money.	Funded by Buffett and Soros. Decisions based on consensus imposed by Ivy Starnes and her comrades.
People show up with "assault rifles," shout and spit at members of congress (boy, do they deserve it), and the police take no notice. Why should they?	People show up committed to looting and violent overthrow of capitalism, and get maced and beaten by the police, as they deserve.
THIS IS WHAT LIBERTY LOOKS LIKE. DON'T TREAD ON ME!	THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE. THIS IS WHY THE FOUNDING FATHERS EXPLICITLY REJECTED DEMOCRACY.
Benefits the 53%.	Benefits the 47%.

Open Letters to Two Fleabaggers

(1) Fleabagger complains that Ayn Rand stylized murderer William Edward Hickman into a Nietzschean superman for his sociopathic qualities, i.e. for his standing against society.

How is Ayn Rand's idealization and idolization of William Edward Hickman any different from you all's idealization and idolization of Che Guevara?

That was short and sweet. BTW,

Rand also wrote, "The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious rage of a whole society against one man. No matter what the man did, there is always something loathsome in the 'virtuous' indignation and mass-hatred of the 'majority.' … It is repulsive to see all these beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal…"

Sounds familiar, you lynch mob?

Now for some of your fleabagger sound bites:

"There's something deeply unsettling about living in a country where millions of people froth at the mouth at the idea of giving health care to the tens of millions of Americans who don't have it, or who take pleasure at the thought of privatizing and slashing bedrock social programs like Social Security or Medicare."

Yeah, how dare those who are forced at gunpoint to pay for those programs to froth at the mouth.

"It might not be so hard to stomach if other Western countries also had a large, vocal chunk of the population that thought like this, but the U.S. is seemingly the only place"

So if all Western countries have a democratic vote on it, it's OK, whatever it is?

"where right-wing elites can openly share their distaste for the working poor."

One thinks that if the "working" poor gang up to loot, distaste is the least they deserve from productive individuals. So you'd like us better if we concealed our distaste?

"It turns out, you can trace much of this thinking back to Ayn Rand,"

Who had the temerity to tell productive individuals that they have a right to the wealth they produce.

"One reason most countries don't find the time to embrace Ayn Rand's thinking is that she is a textbook sociopath."

Newspeak for individualist = sociopath. And of course Rand isn't popular in the socialist peoples' states.

"…including the key architects of America's most recent economic catastrophe…"

The key architects of the "recent economic catastrophe" are you, the looters and moochers, who clamored for and got free money from criminal governments Republican and Democratic.

(2) Fleabagger wants to be friends with Randians.

You reach out to us to live in your community, yet in the header call our beliefs "nonsense" and in the second paragraph, our viewpoint irrational. Looks like we Randian loners still have better social skills than you fleabaggers.

Anyway, it is your viewpoint that doesn't make rational sense:

"Why are you so obsessed with being separate from everyone?"

We are only obsessed with being separate from looters that rob us at gunpoint.

"we must also live in community with others, care for others and participate in a dynamic and nurturing society."

A society you expect us to build for you, at the point of a government gun, at no cost to you. Build your own society, if you can. We're on strike. Drop dead.

"You have no morality."

We have the best morality in the world, the one that recognizes that we have no obligations to looting, mooching scum. "Hakuna matata: a problem-free philosophy."

"You can be lazy."

You are the lazy ones. We build things for ourselves, for our friends, and for those who ask us for our help. You build nothing for no one, but demand that we help you, without a word of thanks. If we give you something, all we get is ingratitude and a mob that comes back to demand more.

Get lost. The party is over. Get a job, or start your own business, if we find you unemployable.

"Please help me understand rather than attacking me the way those who have a Rand fixation often do."

Said the skilled networker that started hurling insults in the header.

"Together, my friend, we are greater than the sum of our parts."

I am not your friend since the header. Plus, we are great and you are the parts/tools.

"I'm honestly trying to understand"

No, you're not. We already covered that. You start hurling the insults, you're intellectually dishonest by definition.

"why you feel it heroic to cast aside morality,"

Because the only purpose of your counterfeit morality is to permit you to steal from us, to enslave us, and to murder us if we don't comply.

"renege on your obligation to others"

We have no obligations to looting scum, slave drivers, and jackbooted thugs.

"and, most of all, lose out on all the benefits of community."

Your community has nothing to offer to us. You're intellectually, morally, and financially bankrupt. Get out of the way. Drop dead.

"Why do you waste your life so?"

Et tu, brute?

"Step out into the warmth of the sun, into the warmth of community and LIVE."

We are in the sunlight. It is you that is benighted. We neither need nor want the fug of your community. We are alive. You are mindless, lifeless zombies.

"Life's too short to be stuck in an invented narrative."

Life's too short to be stuck in your dream, uh, nightmare world. Life's too short to be your slave.

Kevin Traynor 4-for-3

At the moment, all books of the first Kevin Traynor trilogy are part of the Amazon.com 4-for-3 promotion. Buy all three Kevin Traynor books plus another book (how about Democracy Society?) and get the cheapest one for free.

Here the qualifying editions:

Torch in the Night

Phantom Train

Mysterious Boat

How about Democracy Society as the fourth book? If you like Traynor, you're probably gonna like this one, too.

Debacle: Failing to Rebuild the Twin Towers Out Now

Friends, Americans, civilized humans, lend me your eyes; I come to praise the WTC, not to bury it. The evil that men do lives after them; the good should not be interred with their bones: nor should it be with the bones of the Twin Towers. The vile Caesars have told you the Twin Towers were ambitious: If it was so, it was not a grievous fault, but their noblest virtue. But grievously hath Caesar answered it.

World trade means world peace… The World Trade Center is a living symbol of man's dedication to world peace. Beyond the compelling need to make this a monument to world peace, the World Trade Center should, because of its importance, become a representation of man's belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his beliefs in the cooperation of men, and through cooperation, his ability to find greatness.

— Minoru Yamasaki

Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window — no, I don't feel how small I am — but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would like to throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body.

— Ayn Rand

Those awesome symbolic towers that speak of liberty, human rights, and humanity have been destroyed. They have gone up in smoke.

— Osama bin Laden

Ten years ago today, murderous terrorists crashed jetliners into the Word Trade Center Towers, realizing their plan that the Twin Towers that stood for rational man's achievement, capitalism, freedom, free trade, and world peace should no longer grace the New York skyline, aiming to extinguish the twin beacons of liberty and enlightenment, so that the forces of darkness should rule the world once more.

The terrorists have failed, as rule by faith and force must always fail. They have not brought about another Dark Age. But they murdered 3,000 human beings, wrecked four jetliners, prompted people to sacrifice priceless liberties to fear, caused economic damage in the trillions of dollars, and destroyed two landmark building complexes.

Some of these battles are battles for another day and not the primary subject of our book. But on September 12, 2001, there was little doubt as to what had to be done about one of these points. The landmark complex less completely destroyed, the Pentagon, was quickly restored. To this day, people from around the US and the world are shocked to learn that what is built at the WTC is not new Twin Towers, taller, stronger, and safer.

For ten wasted years now, the worst of contemporary politics has made sure that no towers of comparable stature are rising at the WTC, thus kept the killers' legacy intact and respected their wish that New York and America be cut down to size, never to rise again.

Groups that favored drastically different philosophies of urban design, groups that saw professional opportunities for themselves, and groups that saw any pool of funds dedicated to relief of the needy as best devoted to their own priorities swooped in to claim they spoke for all.

Allied to this was the most vocal proportion of those who had lost loved ones in the attacks, casting about in their grief for solace. Whether seeking to blame someone for their loss or seeking maximum public recognition of their loss, they made pleas of a kind rare in previous historical disasters that often amounted to leaving the site as the killers of their loved ones had desired rather than permitting it to be reclaimed for the purposes to which and for which their loved ones had given their lives.

To the vulture-like opportunists seeing an opportunity to remake the city, and to the emotionally devastated seeking to see its unmaking left as a tribute to the victims, the officials listened. To the wider nation anxious to see the restoration of what could be restored, they paid no heed.

— Louis Epstein, World Trade Center Restoration Movement

WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein has been determined to rebuild the office space, but lacks the vision and vigor to rebuild the towers he had once said he lusted for, towers he could only buy, but not create. He prefers the bulk of the iconic Twin Towers to be broken down into a bunch of buildings each half the size of a Twin Tower, to be built at a pace that minimizes his economic risk.

Moreover, he won't permit any new building at the WTC to have nearly as many occupied floors as the 110-story Twin Towers, as he now believes he has to protect the people who would work there from themselves.

All new WTC buildings now planned or under construction are much smaller and shorter than the Twin Towers, with the exception of the antenna on the new One WTC, which will be slighter taller than the old antenna. Thanks to officials' incompetence, there will not even be a new Windows on the World restaurant.

While politicians made sure that the public was never offered a poll pitting the stunted designs preferred by the interests they catered to — victims' families, urban utopian planners, and Silverstein — against restored Twin Towers, any poll there was soundly rejected the official offerings, which never managed to beat "none of the above" and usually took a shellacking from "none of the above."

Results on Imagine New York (the LMDC's official poll):
Libeskind: 205 votes / 26%
THINK: 260 votes / 33%
None of the above: 323 votes / 41%
Total: 788 votes

Results on NY1:
Results since February 4, 2003
Libeskind: 6,853 votes / 21%
THINK: 4,615 votes / 14%
I don't like either of these plans: 20,892 votes / 64%
Total: 32,360 votes

Results on CNN:
Which of the two finalists' designs do you prefer for the World Trade Center site?
Libeskind: 33,050 votes / 32%
THINK: 34,867 votes / 34%
Neither is good: 35,747 votes / 34%
Total: 103,664 votes

The incompetent and intellectually bankrupt officials have seen their WTC plans fall apart again and again for ten years because they treated the WTC rebuilding as a random office development with a memorial plopped in and failed to heed the most fundamental advice for great architecture:

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will themselves not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die.

— Daniel H. Burnham

The human beings we lost were bold. These people deserve majestic new towers as bold as they were. One of the best ways we can honor them is to carry on their work. Safer, taller towers will be a living testament that complements our memorial and helps make it one of the seven modern wonders of the world. We need a skyline that does justice to the wonderful people we lost. We will not sell these people short.

— Jonathan Hakala, tenant, One World Trade Center

In the words of New Yorkers from all walks of life, Debacle: Failing to Rebuild the Twin Towers chronicles their love of their city and their towers, their hopes for rebuilding, their experience with the corrupt official rebuilding process, and the blueprints that can still restore tall Twin Towers to the WTC.

Debacle: Failing to Rebuild the Twin Towers is now available for Amazon Kindle. Dead tree edition coming soon.

Bahama Republics

AKA Banana Republics (John Galt Edition)

(With apologies to Jimmy Buffett.)

Down to the Bahama Republics,
Down to the tropical sun
Go the ex-patriotic Americans,
Hopin' to find some fun
None of them go for the sailing,
Caught by the lure of the sea
They know too well what is ailing
Livin' in the land of the "free"

Some of them are running from ex-wives,
Leaving no forward address
Some of them are running from their drug terms
Most are running from the IRS

Late at night you will find them
In Freeport hotels and bars
Hustling the blond turistas
While they dance beneath the stars
Spending those renegade pesos
On a bottle of rum and a line
Singin', "Give me some purpose to live for
"Or another chick to wine."

First you learn to lie to customs
Soon to dodge a tax law or two
You know that you cannot trust Sam
As Sam knows he can't trust you
Ex-patriotic Americans
Feelin' disgust for Sam
Telling them sheep the same lies
That they told before the lam

Back from the Bahama Republics
Things aren't as free as they seem
None of the looters is getting
Any second-hand American dreams

In Detroit you will find them
With el cheapo meth dubbed malt
Hustling the two-bit hookers
While they ask, "Who is John Galt?"
Spending those renegade pesos
On a bottle of rum and a line
Singin', "Give me some purpose to live for
"Or another chick to wine."

Down to the Bahama Republics
Down to the tropical sun
Go the ex-patriotic Americans
Hopin' to find some fun

Unselfish People Are Most Selfish

Today it struck me that of all the people I have met, the unselfish ones are the most selfish. (In the traditional sense, not Ayn Rand's reframe.)

It's the most "liberal," left-wing, avowedly meek and tolerant moon bats, unselfish by their own accounts and only out to help others, that are most intolerant (of everything but left-wing stuff), opinionated, pushy, arrogant, touchy, resentful of criticism, entitlement-minded, greedy (for donations and tax money for their pet causes), and the first to call for a law that attempts to exterminate any of their pet peeves with psychotic violence. The same is true, to a lesser degree, of the wing nuts and Jesus freaks. (Maybe it seems to me to be to a lesser degree just because I never go to Utah or Mississippi and slum with the hardcore Jesus freaks.)

It's the people that in your face are warmest, friendliest, kindest, and most mild-mannered that will explode into a fireball of rage once you scratch the surface and question the beliefs they take for granted and regard as universal. Let's call it the Mother Theresa syndrome, after the bitch that believed that for helping those who were dying in agony find Jesus (instead of giving them medicine) she was entitled to free flights, at the expense of airlines.

It's not so much the objectivists (except for Rand herself) that defriend people for disagreeing with them. It's the moon bats, and to a lesser degree, the wing nuts. And while the objectivists / Rand fans I know can be jerks, just as Randians reputedly are, they pale in comparison with the moon bats.

True, there is quite some repudiating going on, but that's nothing against what happens if you question the principles of a liberal. And it's not because my opinions are closer to objectivists and libertarians than to moon bats and wing nuts. I've fought with all of them, and it takes much less to provoke a more psychotic reaction from a moon bat than from a libertarian.

I'd say I'm selfish (in the Randian sense of caring mostly about my own affairs), and that entails some of the above qualities commonly considered negative, like arrogant, opinionated, intolerant (of intolerance), greedy, etc. But compared with the unselfish people, I'm Gandhi (as are most objectivists and libertarians).

So while selfishness in the Randian sense can turn someone into a major jerk, that's nothing against the unselfishness of the moon bats. Given that observation, it's little wonder that the state is so ready to threaten and use lethal force to "protect people from themselves." The unselfish, the moon bats and the wing nuts, make sure of that by voting the way they do, for fascists like Obama and the shrub. Unselfishness is preached as a virtue, and observe the results.

And no matter how controversial Rand's reframe of "selfishness" is, she was right. Unselfish people are indeed no good.

The unselfish may be saccharinely friendly in your face (at first), give to the poor, and volunteer for the community, but if you disagree with their socialism and/or Jesus crap, at best you're dead to them, and at worst they call for a law to send you to a concentration camp. In fact, I think I can formulate that as a general rule: If someone I meet is unbearably saccharine, chances are she will explode into a fit of psychotic rage the first time I disagree with her.

This rule can be expanded beyond moon bats and wing nuts to include all second-handers, even libertarian ones. As a second-hander bases her self-respect on the number of her friends instead of on her own achievements, she will try to ingratiate herself with everyone she meets. But if her second-hander beliefs are questioned or once she is frustrated by the unworkability of second-handedness, she will react with all the negative qualities that are stereotypically associated with the straw man of the selfish person, although a truly selfish person has much less of them than an unselfish person.

The meek shall destroy the world. It makes sense: As there is no way their delusions can be defended rationally, flight and psychotic violence are their only weapons in an argument.

Objectivists, compared with the moon bats and wing nuts, you are gold! (You may want to copy and paste and treasure this one, as I'm not going to say that often.)

Quote of the Day

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

— Ferris Bueller

God on Railroad Timetable, Camping on His Sword

I mean, even if you believe in god and rapture and stuff, how can you believe that such a jealous, ancient god would schedule his apocalypse according to time zones drawn up by nineteenth-century railroads?

In other words, when we get to May 21 on the calendar in any city or country in the world, and the clock says about — this is based on other verses in the bible — when the clock says about 6 p.m., there's going to be this tremendous earthquake that's going to make the last earthquake in Japan seem like nothing in comparison. And the whole world will be alerted that Judgment Day has begun. And then it will follow the sun around for 24 hours. As each area of the world gets to that point of 6 p.m. on May 21, then it will happen there, and until it happens, the rest of the world will be standing far off and witnessing the horrible thing that is happening.

As I'm writing this, the rapture after party is winding down, and the birds are singing outside. Yet life is not good for the fundies Harold Camping defrauded.

"My mentality was, why are we going to work for more money? It just seemed kind of greedy to me. And unnecessary," she says.

And so, her husband adds, "God just made it possible — he opened doors. He allowed us to quit our jobs, and we just moved, and here we are."

Now they are in Orlando, in a rented house, passing out tracts and reading the bible. Their daughter is 2 years old, and their second child is due in June. Joel says they're spending the last of their savings. They don't see a need for one more dollar.

"You know, you think about retirement and stuff like that," he says. "What's the point of having some money just sitting there?"

"We budgeted everything so that, on May 21, we won't have anything left," Adrienne adds.

Nothing, except for the fervent hope that all of them will be raptured.

The Haddad children of Middletown, Md., have a lot on their minds: school projects, SATs, weekend parties. And parents who believe the earth will begin to self-destruct on Saturday.

The three teenagers have been struggling to make sense of their shifting world, which started changing nearly two years ago when their mother, Abby Haddad Carson, left her job as a nurse to "sound the trumpet" on mission trips with her husband, Robert, handing out tracts. They stopped working on their house and saving for college.

Last weekend, the family traveled to New York, the parents dragging their reluctant children through a Manhattan street fair in a final effort to spread the word.

"My mom has told me directly that I'm not going to get into heaven," Grace Haddad, 16, said. "At first it was really upsetting, but it's what she honestly believes."

Thousands of people around the country have spent the last few days taking to the streets and saying final goodbyes before Saturday, judgment day, when they expect to be absorbed into heaven in a process known as the rapture. Nonbelievers, they hold, will be left behind to perish along with the world over the next five months.

Well, it's the fundies that will perish now, starve to death, as they deserve, one might say. Or one might blame Camping for fueling their delusions.

While Ms. Haddad Carson has quit her job, her husband still works as an engineer for the federal Energy Department. But the children worry that there may not be enough money for college. They also have typical teenage angst — embarrassing parents — only amplified.

"People look at my family and think I'm like that," said Joseph, their 14-year-old, as his parents walked through the street fair on Ninth Avenue, giving out Bibles. "I keep my friends as far away from them as possible."

"I don't really have any motivation to try to figure out what I want to do anymore," he said, "because my main support line, my parents, don't care."

His mother said she accepted that believers "lose friends and you lose family members in the process."

"For those who were invested in this prediction, their world did end Saturday," said Rev. Jeremy Nickel, the minister at Fremont's Mission Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation. "They thought they were going to heaven, and they didn't. They may have donated all their money. They're going to be in a world of hurt."

Billboards guaranteeing the end of the world Saturday were almost as ubiquitous as Starbucks outlets in the Bay Area and the world and just as galvanizing to followers, who donated more than $100 million over the past seven years and drove RVs all over the United States to alert people of the coming rapture. Oakland-based Family Radio, with 66 radio stations across the globe, was uncharacteristically quiet Saturday, its website down.

…

"Here's the takeaway," said Richard Hodill of San Mateo, who staffed the registration table at the atheist convention. "Learn to be a discriminating and critical thinker. Base your life on evidence-based reasoning. Religion exploits people to their detriment."

Others had risked a lot more on Camping's prediction, quitting jobs, abandoning relationships, volunteering months of their time to spread the word. Matt Tuter, the longtime producer of Camping's radio and television call-in show, said Saturday that he expected there to be "a lot of angry people" as reality proved Camping wrong.

Tuter said Family Radio's AM station in Sacramento had been "severely vandalized" Friday night or Saturday morning, with air conditioning units yanked out and $25,000 worth of copper stripped from the equipment. He thinks it must have been an angry listener. He was off Saturday but planned to drive past the headquarters "and make sure nothing's burning."

The retired MTA engineer poured his life savings — $140,000 — into an NYC Transit ad campaign. The signs reads: "Global Earthquake: The Greatest Ever! Judgment Day May 21, 2011" and is now plastered on bus kiosks and subway cars all over the city.

Because of those delusions, people quit jobs, wasted their last money, and what is worst, ruined their kids' social lives. It has been asked, "What should Camping do now?" In my opinion, he should do like Varus did and fall on his own sword. Suicide is the best option for him. Well, he's 89 years old and ugly like 110, so he'll probably be dead soon, anyway.

Why is it actually that the government can regulate interior designers, but not false prophets? The Second Amendment has been regulated well nigh out of existence, so the First Amendment could bear some regulating, too. After all, human sacrifice and (falsely) shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater is already banned, in spite of free religion and free speech.

There's all kinds of regulations of Wall Street, presumably to protect investors, but fundies may prey on the gullible at will. And why is it that gambling is banned or regulated, because people cannot make their own decisions about betting all their money on 13 black, but they may spend their life savings on fundie nonsense? Gambling would give them better odds.

At the very least, Camping should be forced to give all his money to indemnifying his credulous, faithful (a tautology, of course) victims. Then again, it's hard to commiserate if (fundie) scum is exploited by worse (fundie) scum. I'm just sorry for the kids.

So beware of false prophets. Hint: They all are.

If those people had donated their money to science instead of religion, maybe a cure for aging would have been found, eliminating people's need for the crutch of religion.

PS: Being left behind rocks!

PPS: Did you know that Camping was originally from England and was born Harold Tenting-Ground?

From Hammerspace with Love

Poor Newt Gingrich. He tries to please everybody and everybody hates him.

"I believe that creation as an act of faith is true and I believe that science as a mechanical process is true," Gingrich said at an afternoon session that preceded a more formal address. "Both can be true. I don't think there is necessarily a conflict between the two."

Now both the mystics and the scientists hate him.

"When he talks about god in government, then I believe if he's a godly man he should say that 'I believe god created the heavens and earth because that's in the bible.' "

For the fundies, he's not godly enough and likes the ladies too much. (I feel your pain, Newt.) For the liberals, he's not gay enough full of hate and likes the ladies too much.

Apparently, when you end up caught between all stools, the heavens hammerspace opens and showers you with glitter. Nice.