Here’s a fun thought exercise for you:

You have four children: Blake, Jake, Rod, and Beth. You’re leaving them at home while you go to work. Before you leave you tell all who’s listening, “You guys take care of each other. I’ll be back soon. And no cookies until I get home with dinner.”

Upon your return you open the door to find Blake hanging upside-down from the ceiling fan, dead, bled, and obviously having been tortured. Additionally, Jake and Rod are standing there side by side, proud as shit, and bursting with excitement. They apparently expect you to issue them everlasting cookies.

You: What in shit happened here???

Jake: Your will was done Father. Blake ate of the forbidden cookies.

You: What? You killed Blake? Because he ate a miserable cookie?

Rod: We both did. He refused your message and willingly transgressed against you. We tried to make him repent, but he refused to believe your message.

You: My message??? WFT??? What about my message with regard to taking care of each other?

Jake: Oh, Father. You will be pleased. We took exceptional care of our brothers and sisters.

You: Bull shit! You killed one!!!

Rod: Blake was no brother of ours. He denied the message, and refused to join the covenant of the cookies.

You: Oh no… Where’s your sister?

Jake: Our dear sister was martyred.

You: “Martyred?” What does that mean? Who invented that word?

Jake: I did. It means she died doing your work, or according to your will.

You: My will??? What’s wrong with you? Your sister is dead? How? Doing what?

Jake: Well… You see, Blake had gotten away from us again. I was trying to break his legs with a baseball bat and hit Beth in the face instead. She died instantly. We did not morn though, for we knew, having died as a result of the service of the Father, that she would be ushered into endless cookies.

You: So I leave the house for a few hours, and you manage to kill half of my children over something I muttered walking out the door, about cookies…

Jake: We also had to pluck out one of Rod’s eyes. He was drawing pictures of cookies.

Rod: My bad.

You: Wait one damn minute here… This jar was full of cookies when I left. More than one cookies has been eaten — they’re almost gone!

Jake: Well, we of course ate some cookies, but only officially sanctioned cookies eaten in your name and according to proper custom.

You: Whaaaat? I didn’t sanction any cookie eating…

Jake: I served as your representative while you were away!

You: *sigh* So you tortured and killed your brother because he ate a cookie, in the process killed your sister, half-blinded Rod for drawing cookies, at the same time were eating about two cookies per hour each, and are expecting some kind of everlasting reward?

Come to find out, after reviewing nanny-cam footage, you see that Blake was not intentionally undermining your authority. He wasn’t in the room when you hollered out your instructions, so all he had were Rod’s and Jake’s retelling, of which he was suspicious. His suspicion and otherwise disinterest made him unwilling to join the cookie covenant.

This frustrated Jake and Rod, pushing their beliefs further and further hard lined each time they discussed the issue between themselves. By noon, Jake and Rod were furious with Blake, were not allowing him near the kitchen even for water, and were calling him a non-listener. Blake was outspoken with his belief that Jake and Rod were outright liars, using the Father’s so-called commands as a reason to hog all the cookies for themselves. Beth was simply frightened and unwilling to eat cookies either way just to be safe, and willing to nod along with anyone claiming to follow her daddy’s rules.

Eventually Blake snuck into the kitchen and had a cookie. Maybe he was wantonly breaking the rules? Maybe he simply wanted a cookie? Maybe he wanted to spite his bossy brothers? Who knows. Regardless, Jake and Rod took the opportunity to brand Blake an official rule-breaker non-listener, and took their retribution – all the while chanting, “We love our Daddy. We love our Daddy.” During the assault on Blake, Beth finally spoke out, pleading for mercy on Blake. That’s when the accident happened that killed her.

I found a really great show. It’s called Whale Wars. It’s this environmental group that somehow got a shit load of financing and have all these fancy ships, a helicopter, and other equipment. They track down whaling ships and harass them. I’m watching episode 1 of season 1. It’s TOTAL armature hour.

Seven days out and they’ve already damaged their helicopter. One of the experienced guys was telling the new people over and over, “If you go overboard, even if we find you, you’ll be frozen to death.” Then, first thing, they dump 4 people out of a zodiac.

Their leader is totally incompetent. He has his friend as second in command, the guy who dumped the zodiac by not keeping tension on the bow line which allowed it to hit the water sideways. Mr. Captain said it wouldn’t have happened if fewer people were in the zodiac. lol It’s like a little club full of self-righteous personalities, and the usual emotional tension, plus expensive equipment and a deadly environment.

Oh yeah. After they dumped the one zodiac, they tried getting a second one in the water to save the people. It wouldn’t start! LOL WTF? And they weren’t surprised it didn’t start. You’re in the arctic ocean and you’re not maintaining your vital equipment?

It starts back a few days ago when Bill O’Reilly was on The View, a show where women talk inanely about issues. [no, I'm not saying every woman in the world is on this show] The group was thoughtfully discussing why Obama is having so much trouble with the American people.

O’Reilly was making the point that there exists between Obama and the average Americal a huge proverbial chasm separating how they see the world. His example of this disconnect was the mosque controversy in NY. Obama approached the issue as though it were one of freedom of religion – while 70% of Americans see plainly that building a mosque so close to the 9-11 sight is inappropriate because [and here it comes] Muslims killed us on 9-11. This statement caused Whoopy Goldberg and Joy Behar to walk off the set (then walk right back on).

I’ve said before I don’t have a problem with “The Ground Zero Mosque”. And personally, I don’t like how Bill described his idea. I don’t think it actually offended any Muslims, but saying that sort of thing gives bitchy Liberals more little sticks to swing and unfairly further the crazy-O’Reilly-narrative with their Teabagger generalizing double-standard. He could have used better words, and the words he used distracted all the stupid people – the ones who need to listen – from the very true point he was making.

The fact is: Muslims did kill us on 9-11. There was a network of guys who pulled off an attack on our country and killed over 3000 people, and those killers did this based on ideas and motivations found in their sect of Islam. Also, one of the biggest threats to peace in the world right now is radical Islam. People know this. This is what people think. Bill said it too simply. He assumes American’s have good sense and don’t need crayons. He’s right. What other society would have had zero backlash against Muslims after 9-11?

The average American starkly sees why constructing a Mosque so close to the site of mass-murder by Muslims is offensive. These Americans aren’t interested in limiting the freedom of anyone’s religion, or keeping Liberal support for a political agenda. They just see this as common sense, best to avoid, find another spot, respect the victims’ suffering. The President has a different way of looking at the issue – apparently. That’s the point Bill was making before he stepped in it.

So since then Bill has been hashing over this whole big to-do, complaining about political correctness running a muck, how it’s wearing on the American people’s constitution for politeness. He is right. It is difficult to have this much needed conversation because everyone is expected to pretend that they don’t have any less-than-enlightened inclinations about Muslims – it’s just those other guys we have to reeducate.

So a couple days ago Bill is having a Factor debate, which includes a contributor representing either side. Juan Williams is representing the that-was-a-stupid-thing-to-say-Bill side, and someone else was representing the Muslim-problem side. Besides working as a contributor on Fox News, Juan did the same thing for NPR, until 36 hours after this debate. Here it is:http://video.foxnews.com/#/v/4381309/factor-debate-over-danger-from-muslim-world/?playlist_id=86923

Now, Juan is a really likable guy. He’s friendly and honest. He’s one of those guys who you can never count on which side of the issue he’ll fall – but you can count on whatever he says, it will be sincere and thought provoking. He’s not toeing anyone’s line, in other words, and makes great points and always adds to the conversation. He’s my favorite kind of contributor. He makes me think and question my ideas.

Right off Juan concedes that Bill is right about one thing: Political correctness is run-a-muck. He also added that this is a bad thing because an over-adherence to political correctness makes needed conversation impossible because it forces people to ignore reality. He then went on to describe an example of the problem, that he himself feels uneasy when he sees people dressed in Muslim garb boarding his plane. He wasn’t advocating such feelings, he was making a factual statement, highlighting a problem he himself is part of, and went on to argue against Bill’s use of words, because they could further this problem.

So 36 hours later, after receiving pressure from CAIR (a Muslim civil rights group), NPR abruptly cans Juan over the phone, an employee of 10 years. The fool president of NPR, Vivian Schiller, claimed the reason for the firing was that Juan, as an NPR contributor/corespondent, isn’t supposed express opinion.

And this is where the fun begins. I swear, it’s like NPR forgot my birthday, just remembered, and felt guilty and got me something REALLY good.

1. Juan wasn’t expressing opinion. He was stating a fact, a helpful fact in countering Bill’s MuslimsKilledUs argument, and a necessary fact in the Muslim-American discussion.

2. There are numerous other correspondents and contributors for NPR on record making all kinds of offensive opinions at all kinds of venues. None have been fired.

3. Juan was holding up the pro-Muslim side of the Factor debate. So it’s obvious that those ninnies on NPR and the jerks at CAIR ignored the context of the statement, or didn’t even bother to read the whole transcript, and imprudently fired a very respected journalist in order to further petty political ends. They’ve been looking for a reason to cut this Fox guy out. Juan Williams, a black man on FOX, a FOX/NPR contributor, harms the Faux News narrative they try to spin.

Vivian Schiller then goes on TV and says that Juan’s opinions should be shared with his psychiatrist and publicist, not as an NPR contributor. Juan was also the ONLY black person on NPR – lol.

Now EVERYONE is pissed – across the spectrum. ALL the ladies on the View think NPR made a mistake, those morning idiots on MSNBC say NPR should hire him back, Bob Beckel [liberal political annalist] is forgoing his yearly donation to NPR in honor of Juan Williams, and the Fox people are PISSED their buddy Juan got screwed and are having a hard time keeping it professional [I love Megan Kelly]. The only non-anti-NPR report I read was a Times piece trying to present the controversy as a FOX-opinion-journalism vs NPR-fact-journalism debate… please… The Times and I stand in line together for food stamps…

Now it’s apparent that NPR REALLY stepped in the warm sticky shit. People are advertising their funding sources. A movement has started efforts to remove NPR’s Federal funding. It’s fund raising week – lol. And this whole thing has proven that NPR is a Liberal organization and has totally undermined their credibility.

Now I understand many don’t feel NPR is unfairly Liberal. That was my sentiment as well. I was kidding myself of course, just like you, but I can’t stay convinced any longer, not with this idiot Schiller at the helm, not with George Soros giving them 1.8 million dollars, not with this blatant double-standard, not with this obviously politically motivated knee-jerk vilification of a good man. And seriously – this was just a plain stupid move. It’s blown any credibility I personally had in the organization’s editorial choices – the opposite of the stated intention.

There’s more to come I’m sure. Schiller is going to get canned I bet. She may have ruined NPR. They might have to stoop to capitalism, or worse yet, STOP PLAYING PRAIRIE FUCKING HOME FUCKING COMPANION, or tone down their minimum three shows a day focus on something about homosexuals.

Happy Birthday to me.
NPR’s up a tree.
ACORN their funding dear congress.
He he he he he he.        

British Petroleum’s busted well in the Gulf of Mexico is still leaking. “Top-Kill” didn’t work (thankfully). Originally what happened was, for whatever reason, the drilling platform exploded, dropping the mile long pipe into a messy pile down below. On top of the well, right near the floor of the ocean, was a device specifically designed for this occurrence. It was supposed to clamp down on the pipe and cut it or otherwise crush it shut. It was triggered but it didn’t crush the pipe shut.

PB’s next idea was to post-hast manufacture a big steel box to lure down onto the wreckage, with the idea that the leaking oil would be captured inside, allowing it to be leisurely pumped to surface ships. However, loads of natural gas is also spewing out of the well, which crystallized everywhere and clogged things up.

The next idea was Top Kill which involved forcing mud into the well through special ports in the shutoff device. But the pressure was too great and people started to get worried about corking such a high pressure well. If you plug this hole it might come out somewhere else, or a lot of places. It could have compromised the well and caused a serious gusher. That idea almost seems stupid now…

Today they managed to cut off the messy pipe for their next idea, which is to seat a larger diameter fitting around the well and draw the oil up to surface ships. This would hopefully last as long as it will take to get a relief well drilled, as early as August, which will – hopefully – draw the unreasonably high pressure out of this ill fated shale.

Before discussing this any further, I need to get three things out of the way first.

1. All of you engineers, scientists, and otherwise expert non-oil-worker idea-men (hence forth referred to as stupid people) – STOP CALLING RADIO STATIONS AND POSTING ONLINE ALL YOUR INGENIOUS IDEAS! This is one area where open-source community solutions are useless and irritating.

Seriously. The crap being proposed either includes impossible to manufacture equipment (ok, maybe possible with a few years of lead time), a gross misunderstanding of the magnitudes involved, or, even in the most rational cases, miss one or more of the big harry primary or secondary problems/consequences. Problems like temperature, pressure, secondary reactions, distance, currents, and so on. And reactions like brittle steel, expanding water-ice, leaks, and God knows what else.

It’s like that old riddle about how to get a fox, duck, and bag of corn across a lake in a small row boat. You can’t leave the fox with the duck, he’ll eat it, likewise the duck with the grain, and there’s only room for one thing in the boat.

2. All you idiot Conservatives who give the rest of us a bad name, when Obama does finally take over this disaster and take control of the US subsidiary of BP, don’t cry Socialism.

3. All you idiot Liberals who have been worrying your yourselves about those cries of socialism, and you idiot Liberals who like to pretend you’re smart by trying to dress up Conservative views to look contradictory – they want small small government until something happens then all of a sudden they want big government action – shut the hell up and think things through for 15 seconds.

No one with a brain is calling it socialism for the Fed to take over a multi billion dollar company that has caused amulti billion dollar disaster any more than they’ll call it socialism for the fire department to take over a burning building in an attempt to save the whole damn neighborhood.

And this – this – is the type of thing Conservatives like to keep government reserved for. Disasters are similar to war in that way. Do you call Conservatives big-government-lovers when they call for a big strong military? No, of course not. You call them baby-killers, war-mongers, and racists.

Conservatives think government should only do the things only government can do or can certainly do MUCH better. This is one of those things. Running health insurance isn’t. Running banks and factories ISN’T. Telling us what to eat, where to live, and how to invest ISN’T. As a matter of fact, this whole disaster more than likely would have been prevented if currently existing regulation had been properly implemented. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t because that whole bureaucracy, like all bureaucracies, is inefficient. They’re never capable of the lofty challenges we assume they can are.

Ok, with that out of the way let’s talk political strategy. Everyone is worried/hopping that this is Obama’s “Katrina”. And, of course, it is. Presidents get blamed for the problems fair or not. So, in this case, is it fair?

I’ll tell you one thing that is fair. Obama took every cheap shot he could at Bush over Katrina. It’s fun seeing someone get his Karmactic retribution in the current life. Hey Barack, how do you like whinny Liberals now that YOU’R in charge???

Bush didn’t realize how bad New Orleans was right away. When he did, it didn’t matter right away because the disaster area was under state domain, and once the Fed did get involved FEAMA was useless and the only guys doing their job was the military – and even with their incredible efforts they couldn’t – like – rain down bottles of water, tepees, and lunchables anyway.

Likewise, Obama couldn’t have imagined this clusterfuck. He laid low at first, as he usually does, pondering the best symbolic presentation of himself and positive angle for his agenda. And, he had just uncharacteristically supported off-shore oil drilling in an attempt to win Republican support for Cap n’ Trade. So I bet he was hoping BP would do a quick fix before people started asking what he was doing about what and when and who and how much and why, why not and where.

Since then Obama’s strategy has changed direction multiple times, sometimes oddly. Holder is preparing a criminal case. First BP was bad – then they were good, then bad again. But in Obama’s press conference he did make two things clear.

1. He was with the crisis from day one: On day one he had a meeting and the cost guard was in the Gulf. Of course, he has a meeting every day about everything in the news. And the cost guard – they were in the Gulf on day -1.

2. He has been doing everything possible to fix the problem: Of course this is crap. He and BP have been incrementally increasing their response this whole time as the scale of the problem has become more and more apparent.

Currently Obama is on the attack. In his last speech he was giving guff to everyone on the list and sighting the crisis as a reason to pass Cap n’ Trade. That’s probably the best strategy for him now. It’s so hard to say though. In the game of democracy, the arbitrary flow of public opinion shifts with the oil plum. Think how hard Obama would be hammering Bush if Bush were in Obama’s place doing the exact same things – minus the poetic speeches of course.

Seriously though, I’ve got the feeling this is one of those things that changes society. You never see those coming. They start small and seep into life.

Here are the three best live feeds of the oil leak. They’re rather interesting to watch – soothing yet terrifying. 47 days, 50 million gallons.

PB’s own feed

The military suicide rate has always been lower than the civilian rate. Only until recently and I think during part of the Vietnam war has it been greater. As of February 4, 2009 the military rate was 20.2 per 100k and the civilian rate was 19.5 per 100k. LOL And I got that from World Socialist Web Site wsws.org. Wow hu? What’s the military doing to people that makes them .0007% more likely to kill themselves during two controversial wars?????? Such a crisis!!! Whoa is us – whoa – is – us!!!

The thing about the military is you are part of a team – it’s like a big extended family. You’re part of a much larger and greater system, which is fulfilling generally. Yeah, one in 14 in a shooter and they have to deal with killing. That’s their job and honor. Others give up as much freedom in becoming a doctor and other professions. These professions don’t require a legal contract to serve but you don’t have the support system either – and you have a SHIT LOAD of debt (student loans).

The reason the Fort Hood shooting was so bazaar, besides the whole Islam possibility, is that a primary part of training is working together regardless of color and creed in one cohesive unit. In other words, you have to be a real ass-wrinkle to not get along socially in the military, because you have to. When you’re forced to rely on the character of your team mates you start to forget about everything else.

And half the offensive stuff we get away with in civilian life ends a military career. Take part in discrimination, show racism? Boom – permanent current rank. Have sex with a co-worker? Crack – permanent current rank. And that’s at best. You very well might be discharged. Regardless, when someone needs to be promoted, and there’s a complaint on your record about you calling someone a camel-jockey, you’ll likely get passed over. So the frat-house idea of the military is just one more of those hippy ideas people tend to propagate.

I love the media’s excuse they were making up for this asshole at the time though: Contagious PTSD. LOL

Some were saying when this happened that if there were more Islamic fundamentalist terror attacks in the military, that they would start baring Muslims. I disagree with this. More Islamic Fundamentalist Terror attacks within the military won’t mean baring Muslims. That’s ridiculous. We need the type of people that are usually Muslim now more than ever. We’ll just have to stop being so damn shy about screening people’s backgrounds. And well have to go about those screens in an unobtrusive enough was as to not discourage Arabic and Farsi speaking Muslims from joining our all volunteer army and defending their home from enemies not only trying to destroy their society, but who are also destroying the image of Islam in the world’s eyes.

Indeed, people got flustered, “Those drones do kill families all the time.” So I know Bush would have been scorned by the self righteous boohoo anti-war wanks.

The joke it’s self wasn’t the problem. It’s how Obama tells jokes that makes them weird.  He starts smirking before he even tells it, anticipating all his little podium bunnies will chuckle along regardless. And he keeps smirking – with a cadence making it obvious he’s attempting a joke – as people patiently wait for him to stumble it out.

That joke was similar to Brown’s joke about his daughters. It embarrassed everyone. But Obama went on to add something about the most controversial weapon in the arsenal – which the President actually does kill people with. If the Iraqi invasion was illegal drone strikes are assassinations.

Wow, Tom Hanks is really stupid, or possibly just one more delusional Hollywood Leftist. He’s done a lot to teach history by acting in several great movies, but listen to what he said in a Time Magazine interview talking about the HBO series he’s in, about WWII in the Pacific.

“From the outset, we wanted to make people wonder how our troops can re-enter society in the first place,” Hanks says. “How could they just pick up their lives and get on with the rest of us? Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as ‘yellow, slant-eyed dogs’ that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what’s going on today?”

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/john-nolte/2010/03/09/tom-hanks-america-wants-annihilate-terrorists-because-they-re-different#ixzz0hqLjDEmT

That’s just plain stupid. The Japanese were set on building an empire, which required consolidating Pacific Asia, which meant controlling the Pacific, which meant removing the US and Allied Navies. Their plan was to deliver one mighty blow at Perl harbor – one that would cripple the US forces in the Pacific bad enough that we couldn’t recover. But the screwed up. All the aircraft carries weren’t in port yet. Within days we had many of the sunken ships floating again. And the attack lit a fire under America’s ass which had her turning our war ships to fast to name.

The reason we called the Japanese racist names is the same reason we’ve given names to all our enemies: It makes killing them less personal – which isn’t bad. Calling German boys “Krauts” didn’t remove some moral block that caused death. Calling German boys “Krauts” just made it easier for our boys to stomach what they had to do, which was rescue a foreign land from a sadistic tyrant by killing his followers.

Because we live differently??? FFS Tom, WWII was about two empires taking over their regions of the globe while the greatest empire stood around watching. Few things in history are as clear cut as the causes of WWII. You’re buddy FDR kept us out until we HAD to go in all the way. If we would have thrown in with the British after old Adolf strolled into Belgium – the term “World War” would mercifully be a fictional phrase – you stupid ass.

This is a particular frustration for me: these new insincere definitions society is giving to words. We’re so comfortable and safefeeling that we can treat a word like Patriotism as an opinion indicator. We get to pretend we are pacifists – intellectually and morally superior to the ignoramuses who think war is ever needed – and associate hurt feelings to the word Patriot.

Wars happen because of aggressors – people willing to kill for what they want or feel is there’s. If we didn’t have patriots willing to kill aggressors, no University or pacifist could exist. By the very nature of the pacifist, it will be overcome quickly by the aggressor – if not for the patriot willing to do the pacifist’s killing for him while he reads anti-war books and releases torture memos.

That senseless rallying of people to hate, that’s necessary too if you want to keep your progressive society. No, we can’t be like Europe and have a civil-service equivalent of a military – because we don’t have a US to depend on for defense. Even is you happen to disagree with a particular decision, you still have to value the fact that we have patriots willing to carry out that decision.

Sorry you got hurt feelings over being called unpatriotic Dr. Dove. But shake it off and respect the people who did all the killing that secured this world you’re such a master of – by at least keeping their description. What else can you call them? Contingency reducers extraordinaire? Don’t let the media and popular culture pollute everything! It’s like “torture” and “massacre” – words that get used to invoke a feeling rather than describe something aligned with their actual historical or logical meaning.

There are plenty of words to describe an idiot who is in complete support of a regime, and usually names specific to regime. What would we call the soldiers right now deploying to Afghanistan who voted for McCain? They’re not patriots? Hell, most the soldiers I’ve had conversation with have a list of problems with the Administration (Clinton, Bush, or Obama) – or just don’t give a shit – but either way do their damn job.

Patriot are the people that made this free world of ours. I doubt many of those boys that climbed into those damned Higgins boats and ran out onto the beaches of Normandy under fire from MG-40s did so because they agreed with some asshole in Washington. They knew what was going on. They saw Germany taking over Europe. They could have stayed safe at home and dealt peacefully with Hitler, kept selling him shit. You know, plenty of people wanted to do it that way. But we had plenty of young men willing to go all the way over there, train up, and go fight even after puking on their boots and shitting in their pants. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t in order to achieve self actualization, it wasn’t blind allegiance, it wasn’t for pay or reward – it was their duty to their loved one, free society, and the loving God.

And Divinity Dove, I’d say you are living in one of the few societies at one of the few times when you can be a true Christian and a true patriot – because our nation was founded on principles that include the free practice of religion, and many other core Christian values (not killing and all that, as long as you get your head out anyway).

So, with Denmark promoting Lutheranism, and the US pushing sanctions, I’d say a Patriot could easily appose such sanctions in the regular way – voting and e-mailing Bill O’reilly. It would be so illogical that all patriots would have to say something! Seriously, what if we put sanctions on all the Islamic countries for “promoting” Islam? LOL

But then, what if Denmark were imposing Lutheranism on its citizens. Then I think you would be a good Christin and patriot to support sanctions against them, especially since any such move would almost certainly have some stupid political motivation behind it, and not be anything approaching the will of God, and could soon see regime change along with a new religion imposed contrary to Christianity.