A Communist, Evil, Faithful, Deluded or Stupid

On Marketplace today there was a story,  An old friend of the party assesses China's new leaders, about an American member of the Chinese Communist party, or as I like to call them the "ChiComs", An old friend of the party, the First American member, assesses China's new leaders. Sidney Rittenberg is over 90 at this point and has spent more than a sixth of his life in ChiCom gulags. He is still a committed communist. That takes faith. After the Cultural Revolution he got out jail and was repatriated to the US. But he still believes.

The message of his life and Johnny Walker Lindh is that some religious/political conversions should be considered the equivalent of voluntary abandonment of citizenship. 

50 50 Florida

Screen scrape from Real Clear Politics election night coverage at 21:40 

Cheney Not Darth Vader - Mark Hamill

Here is Mark Hamill discussing which various Star Wars characters most resemble which various American political figures. He discounts any resemblance between Darth Vader and Dick Cheney, see previous post How Cheney Can't be Darth Vader. Hamill then suggests that Indonesian citizen Barry Soetoro most resembles Obi-wan Kenobi.

"Ben" Kenobi was a man in the figurative and actual wilderness. Obama on the other hand has not had a political career long enough to include time in wilderness, unlike Nixon and Churchill. Thinking back on those two, Winnie and Dick, history has proven that Communism and Nazism are both very bad ideas and those that appease or collaborate with the proponents of such political systems are traitors. Obama will probably be looked in disgust for his appeasement of jihad.

Fake Craiglist Ad About Barry Soetoro

(screen scrape of Craig list Ad)

Manure Spreader - $1 (Washington D.C.)

Date: 2012-10-02, 4:25PM EDT

wfwss-3311853951@sale.craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]

Fifty-year old manure spreader. Not sure of brand. Said to have been produced in Kenya. Used for a few years in Indonesia before being smuggled into the US via Hawaii. Of questionable pedigree. Does not appear to have ever been worked hard. Apparently, it was pampered by various owners over the years. It doesn't work very often, but when it does it can sling shit for amazing distances. I am hoping to retire the manure spreader this November. I really don't want it hanging around getting in the way. I would prefer a foreign buyer to relocate the manure spreader out of the country. I would be willing to trade it for a nicely framed copy of the United States Constitution.

Location: Currently being stored in a big white house in Washington, D.C.

From a link posted by revereridesagain in thread about the Muslim Brotherhood Congressman. Completely different than a story about the Muslim Brotherhood president.

Why Americans Don't Vote

Americans hate politics because the people who are passionately involved tend to be such contemptible assholes.

Philo Vaihinger in  thread

 Reza Aslan calls for fascist vandalism

 of AFDI pro-freedom ads.

Taxes Versus Charity

I was listening to NPR coverage of the US Republican convention, while playing Civilization V. In a speech by Mike Huckabee he contrasted Obama's and Romney's charitable giving. In Huckabee's numbers Obama gave 2% versus Romney's 16%. Admittedly in the tax returns that Romney released showed he pay taxes at a rate of 15%. More of Obama's income is "earned" than Romney. However the idea to replace public sources of welfare with private sources of charity is a nonstarter. It has already been tried in the 18th and 19th century, read Dickens et al. 

"Here in North America"

"We are blessed with energy resources"

Condolezza Rice at the US Republican convention glossing over the fact that not all North America resources are American resources.

A Kind of Respect/Fear

...the politeness you might observe when dealing with a politician belonging to a country that had nuclear weapons and a carefree approach to their deployment.

How Joshua Valienté

is treated after joining a powerful mega-corporation

 In The Long Earth

NPR News Host (Vacation Replacemnet) Doesn't Recognize Political Terms/Argot/Slang

RUDIN:...Eric Hovde and Mark Neumann backed by conservatives, Tea Party Express, Club for Growth, but they kind of split the anti-Thompson vote. Thompson's seen as kind of like a moderate, a squish - you know, squishy RINO, as some conservatives have called him. But he won the nomination narrowly, but he will be the Republican nominee against Tammy Baldwin, a very liberal congresswoman from Madison, Wisconsin.

DONVAN: Squishy RINO is - what's the allusion there?

RUDIN: Well, no, no, just the fact that he's not as strong. Like he backed some Obama stuff, he supported some...

DONVAN: He's not an elephant.

RUDIN: Well, he's a RINO not as in rhinoceros but RINO as in Republican in name only, not the rhinoceros.

How Ryan Will Shift Campaign Strategy In Florida

John Donavon is the summer replacement host at Talk of the Nation filling in for Neal Conan. Ken Rudin is a long term political editor at NPR.

Here is information on the Picard face palm meme from Know your Meme, part of the Cheez Burger Network.

Not Much of Difference Between Nazis and Commiess

(mugshot of Witold Pilecki taken in Auschwitz [1943])

(mugshot of Witold Plecki as taken in from Mokotów prison [1947])

While ambling around in Wikipedia I come across the story of Witold Pilecki, pictured in both sets of mugshots, before from his wiki page. A Polish career officer, he volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz, then escaped. After WWII he was killed in Soviet occupied Poland by the Soviets after being "convicted" by Polish Commies.

The reason I see them as the same is because they killed/kill and jailed/jail in similar ways. They had/have the same enemies. They made/make the same enemies. In this case they jailed the same man.

Nazism is totally discredited today. Its only adherents the twisted stupid and the dumb violent. Communism in all its doctrinal and regional varieties is able to attract some good, intelligent, sincere, people who believe in the virtues of Communism. It is the some individual commies personal virtues that blinds us to the sickness of their political philosophy.

It is time that people treat communists with the same mixture of disgust and pity that neo-nazis are treated.

And communists, communist movements, communist terrorist groups, and communist governments  are still killing people today.

Nixon - "He May Not Be Perfect"

"...but do we really want some unknown new guy. I'll stick with the evil maniac I know."

Dr Zoidberg,

 neatly illustrating the benefits of incumbency,

 Futurama S07E03

Too Many Cameras

Remember the Monty Python skit about a collector of of the boiled eggs of birds watchers, see here for bad camera pointed at TV screen. The problem is the observer effect. I long time ago I came across a definition of family from the south pacific: father, mother, brother, sister, anthropologist. Maybe there needs to be less observation and more theorizing and synthesis. Read here about an Austrian Pol who ran a foul of cameras set up to track wild life.

The Care and Feeding of Lawyers

This fake ad is actually from a business lobby group, Center for Consumer Freedom. In American conservative circles, I mean business lobbies, one of the rallying calls is against trial lawyers. Trail lawyers are defined as members of the bar that sue corporations without suing on behalf of corporations. That is lawyers who are not employed by business interests to further business interests. They need a better argument. This ad is funny but shallow.

Obama = White Guy in Blackface

Obama...basically a smart, middle class white guy with dark skin and an unusual life story who reinvented himself as a black guy for reasons of political opportunism and self-fulfillment. 

anonymous 

Neopagans and Ancient Pagans

I came across an essay by a Germanic neopagan, Asatruar and Tattoos. Personally I don't get tattoos. However the article had some good points some explored the blog. There was a link to a group called Occupy Heathens. There a Mikkel was complaining that heathens need to stay away from the Occupy Movement.

Not trying to start a war here but the OWS movement has been making itself look very unsavory as of late, I really think us Heathens and Pagans should separate ourselves from their failing movement. They do not represent what we stand for. Their camps have proven to be filthy, disease infested, crime ridden, and wasteful. They are not self-sufficient individuals as Asatruar and other heathens are supposed to be, they want hand-outs.

In Tacitus's Germania there are numerous passages that describe the ancient Germans in similar manner. The quotes from below are taken from the English translation at Gutenberg.

During the intervals of war, they pass their time less in hunting than in a sluggish repose, divided between sleep and the table.

Their thirst for liquor is not quenched with equal moderation. If their propensity to drunkenness be gratified to the extent of their wishes, intemperance proves as effectual in subduing them as the force of arms.

Then they proceed, armed, to business, and not less frequently to convivial parties, in which it is no disgrace to pass days and nights, without intermission, in drinking. The frequent quarrels that arise amongst them, when intoxicated, seldom terminate in abusive language, but more frequently in blood.

Ötzi The Biker

This image is from Album: A New Face for Ötzi the Iceman Mummy. It is part of an article/slide show about Ötzi the Ice Man. Found this link in a Fox News (horrors) article about Ötzi, 'Iceman' mummy holds world's oldest blood cells.

The comments for these pictures are uses a facebook app. Because of that the comments are more pop cultural than scientific.

OMG... IT'S KRIS KRISTOFFERSON!

William R Warren Jr

Looks like he was born to ride.

Dennis Ray Wingo

Just a small mild irredendist comment. Ötzi was found 92 metres inside Italy. Or to say 92 metres inside Italian occupied Austrian South Tyrol. Don't tell me that the issue is resolved.  The Gruber–De Gasperi Agreement was signed in 1946, not a time when the Austria had a lot of diplomatic leverage and was still occupied by the Soviets among  others.

All Hail Our Glorious Leader Stephen Harper

(from a link by Joesph K. at Ah.com)

What Do We Do Now? - Seen This Movie Before

And let me remind you of Obama’s ideas of success in the presidency:

“…if Barack was going to run, he had to decide quickly, a point the group made by laying out primary schedules and game plans for fund-raising and building an organization. Insights were offered from around the room.

It was Michelle, Axelrod remembers, who stopped the show. “You need to ask yourself, Why do you want to do this?” she said directly. “What are hoping to uniquely accomplish, Barack?”

Obama sat quietly for a moment, and everyone waited. “This I know: When I raise my hand and take that oath of office, I think the world will look at us differently,” he said. “And millions of kids across this country will look at themselves differently.””

From a link in the comments at PJMedia.

Rick Santorum Promotes Heavy Metal to Today's Teens

News reports, actually one blogger,  have him denouncing heavy metal as "satanic".  He goes on to condemn "new' bands such as Black Sabbath (founded 1969). This is probably satire, highly plausible satire. However Santorum (NSFW) is known for taking extreme positions. 

This is the best thing that has happened to Heavy Metal for a long time.

Friends and Allies

Are we to be friends then?

Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham

We are allies, my dear. Which can be a good deal more effective.

Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham