Only a Liberal…

50% Asian, 25% African

I am so sick of hearing people refer to Tiger as a black man. Does he have some African-American ethnicity? Yes, 25%. But he is 50% Asian (25% Chinese, 25% Thai). I don’t like people focusing on race at all, but I’ll be damned if I’ll sit idly by while the media pretends Tiger is a black man sleeping around with white women. HE IS ASIAN.

I chose to use the stereotypical color coding due to cultural familiarity. It would have been stupid to try to avoid this color-coding. If anyone wants to take exception with this, just know I would love to get into an intellectual discussion of craniofacial anthropometry, but just reading that phrase probably made a few people black out. The layman does not have time to learn the differences between Caucasoids, Mongoloids, Congoids, Capoids and other typically unknown scientific terms referring to ethnicity.

Stop referring to Tiger Woods as a black man. Yes, I recognize the significance of a darker-skinned man not only playing on a golf course but dominating it, which was prohibited well after the civil rights movement, but the time has passed. I find the whole characterization of his race in golf discussions as condescending. I find it despicable to even bring it up in regards to the drama of his tremendous infedelity. It is 100% IRRELEVANT. Its especially irrelevant to refer to his blackness as though it dominates who he is. He has mixed ethnicity, and the mix is mostly Asian. Did I mention he was Asian? HE IS ASIAN.

Robot Chicken did a skit about Tiger Woods being “Mostly Chinese” which is slightly inaccurate, but quite funny.

Tiger cheated on his wife multiple times. His infidelity is horrendous, and its even worse since there are two kids in the picture. His race doesn’t matter, but if you’re gonna talk about it, get it right.

The Army’s top officer, General George Casey, is such a far-cry from the likes of General George Patton that it is hard to measure.

Nidal Malik Hassan went on a shooting rampage, killing 13 and wounding many in a massacre not see in this country since 9/11.With evidence showing that Hassan is a radical Muslim, Casey made sure to celebrate diversity. That’s right. 13 military personnel were shot to death on American soil, and this General’s first concern is making sure the world is a rainbow. Last week, he said,

… As horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.

There are so many problems with this statement. Aside from the fact there is zero evidence diversity would ever become a casualty of anything in America, especially the military, the notion that concern for diversity is priority one at a time like this is ludicrous and insulting.

General Casey, Major Hassan fits a pattern, not of Muslim soldiers in the American military, but of religious radicals who justify killing citizens of a country they don’t like. I don’t care if he’s Muslim or Mormon. Your number one priority, NUMBER ONE PRIORITY, is to determine if this is part of a bigger plan. So far it does not appear to be, but the notion that making sure diversity is unaffected by this massacre ranks above a thorough investigation of the details of the case, and figuring out how to prevent future attacks, is preposterous. The fact that you brought it up is grounds for your ass being canned. I want your resignation yesterday.

More pressing concerns, General

General Casey, one of your main concerns should be how the hell violent Jihadism managed to kill Americans in America without foreign troops entering our borders. They didn’t even have to take a flight. They just planted the seed of hatred, and it grew in Hassan.

General Casey, another concern ranking over diversity is how everyone missed that this guy was about to go on a shooting rampage. In retrospect, the signs were fairly clear that Hassan had serious issues with our military occupation of parts of the Middle East, and he even said suicide bombers were justified in their actions. While everyone is entitled to freedom when engaging in their first amendment right to speech, they are not entitled to be active-duty military in the United States when their speech indicates they may side with our enemies.

The logic required to reach that conclusion is so basic, yet we have become such a politically correct culture that General Casey can get away with saying such tremendously stupid statements, and the country as a whole isn’t screaming for his unemployment. George Casey is a frickin General. This invertebrate joke belongs at the ACLU, not in the United States military.

Diversity of opinion on the battlefield gets people killed

American soldiers live and die based on how non-diverse their decisions are. Uniformity and obedience are essential in military training and battle tactics. I’m all for a diverse set of backgrounds in our military if the candidates are qualified. I have no beef with any race or gender. To have prejudice towards someone due to their skin pigment is stupid and accomplishes nothing. But to have prejudice towards a culture that hates us simply for existing and standing up for ourselves is sane and required. Diversity does not mean hiring anti-war activists to be soldiers. Diversity does not mean drafting midgets into the NBA. And diversity especially doesn’t mean allowing potentially violent Jihadists to remain in the United States military when they have shown signs of hatred for their employer.

Diversity as a priority is a luxury. I consider it a luxury that should exist in America, but at what cost? Again, I repeat, I have no prejudice towards any race. I only prejudge cultures that have an overwhelming tendency to be violent towards my culture, especially when my government hands them a gun and teaches them to use it. This notion that diversity is a priority… what about the safety of military Muslims? How high will General Casey rank diversity when a patriotic American Muslim gets fragged by some moron racist in our military? I am not even saying we should prejudge Muslims. Nidal Hassan should have been judged for his inflammatory speech. He wasn’t investigated BECAUSE of his “diversity.”

Making diversity the priority is exactly how this happened. You don’t throw diversity to the wind and only allow straight white males to enlist, but you surely don’t throw common sense to the wind in favor of diversity. This guy did not hide his kookiness. He wore it on his sleeve, but no one was willing to risk their military career to blow the whistle. Duty, Honor, Country is a thing of the past. Its now Career, Duty, Honor, Country.

Whoever gave Gen. Casey his talking points on the Fort Hood shooting should be ousted in the media. This kind of politically correct bullshit does nothing but embolden anyone who has a beef with America. 13 American military are killed in Texas, not Baghdad, but in Texas, and a United States General is falling over himself to make sure we don’t piss anyone off in the wake. It’s a fucking embarrassment.

We need Patton

I have only seen video of an actor playing Patton. But if the actor did an accurate portrayal, our first priority is that General Casey’s employment become a casualty of the Fort Hood incident, and we replace him with someone who has a pair. We need Patton.

Conservatives decided to engage in the intellectually dishonest debate tactic of taking a liberal out of context. Of all the times that Conservatives have been taken out of context, or been (falsely) accused of taking others out of context, they finally did. Whether the liberal outlets jumped on it, I don’t know, as they have in the past every time they have parotted the reports of Media Matters telling them Rush was a racist, with zero proof.

So follow the timeline… White House Communications Director Anita Dunn said this…

[T]wo of my favorite political philosophers, Mao Tse-Tung and Mother Teresa, not often coupled with each other, but the two people that I turn to most to most to basically deliver a simple point which is ‘you’re going to make choices; you’re going to challenge; you’re going to say why not; you’re going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before

Understandably, conservative pundits jumped on this, and rightly so. She compared Mother Theresa to Mao. Any intelligent person can see her point, but its like celebrating the ambition of Hitler. Mao killed millions. The fact that he was ambitious is not a reason to admire him.

But then the conservatives went too far. In an attempt to ride the “Mao Tse-Tung” wave, they jumped on another quote by an Obama appointee, Ron Bloom, from last year:

We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun

I agree with this statement. I agree with it the same as I would agree with Hitler if he said the earth orbitted the sun. Political power is similar to criminal power. People get what they want regardless of laws and ethics. The fact that Mao Tse-Tung thinks it and Ron Bloom agrees does not make Ron Bloom a communist. To pretend it does is childish and lowers conservatives to the intellectual level of most liberals: childish and weaponless. Ron Bloom is not a communist because he recognizes the reality of politics. He IS probably a communist because of the statement he said right before he mentioned Mao:

Generally speaking we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense.

Now this is the statement that Hannity and Beck should have focused on. Not the shit about Mao. I realize they were going with the Anita Dun/Mao theme, but I have no interest in themes. It was a stupid. This is the kind of shit Olbermann does. Ron Bloom is a moron, and likely a socialist or a communist with his anti-free-market nonsense, not his occasional agreement with a stopped clock (Mao).

Stick to the facts, and keep your good record going. You weren’t taking Jeremiah out of context so don’t start doing it now.

I wish I could take credit for thinking this up, but I have to attribute it to my father, who may have gotten it somewhere else. The White House has decided, since they’re getting killed in the polls about health care thanks to Fox News spending most of their time tearing it apart with analysis and video of town halls and tea parties, that rather than engage Fox in a debate, they will simply get Fox News to talk about something else. So Obama and his administration have blatantly started whining about Fox News, and Fox has taken the bait. Wall-to-wall coverage about how much the administration whines about Fox News, all the while spending less time on real issues.

I have to give the White House credit. Its a brilliant tactic. No one can doubt the political talent of the Obama team. They are many things, but political ignoramuses they are not. Why bother debating Fox News about issues when you can get Fox to change the topic of discussion by playing on their own vanity? Genius, pure genius.

The flip-side is that while Obama and Axelrod and Emmanuel and Anita Dunn spend their time playing Fox like a fiddle, they are not spending time running the #$%&* country. The right thing to do would be to argue with Fox News about the merits of nationalized single-payer health care, which all evidence shows is their goal. Obama wants single-payer… he has said so before. If they had outdated stuff like “facts” and “logic” on their side they could simply debate Fox News and win the debate.

How is it that the greatest politician in recent history, Barack Obama, is unable to debate simple Fox News reporters on an issue he so adamantly supports? If its so “clear” that a government run plan is the right way to go, why is he so incapable of convincing the masses?

On top of all that, Obama pretends he won’t deal with Fox News because they’re not really news, but he invites Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow to briefings. Olbermann, who nodded agreeably when Janeane Garafalo said those who protest higher taxes are racist, and Rachel Maddow who furthered the racist quotes FALSELY attributed to Rush Limbaugh. Its a free country… you’re allowed to be partisan, but Mr. President, don’t sell us a bag of crap and tell us its full of daisies. We can smell it.

The modern demagoguery of BIG pharmaceutical or BIG oil or BIG insurance relies heavily on the disturbingly common misconception that really high profits are an indicator of criminal activity (with rare exception such as the profits of companies run by Al Gore). Otherwise intelligent people will by the pernicious nonsense put forth by politicians about their opponent du jour. No one laments when Exxon has a bad financial quarter, but god forbid they have a record-breaking quarter. Almost on cue, politicians will come out of the woodwork talking about windfall profit taxes and investigations and hearings PURELY based on the amount of profit without a shred of evidence.

If a crime is being committed, it can be found at the transactional level. If you look at the transactions of the company and find they are legitimate, then you have no quarrel. But if BIG oil makes billions of these transactions, thereby multiplying their profit margin by the number of transactions, their final profit will be substantial. I suspect most people who understand the concept of profit margin would be flabbergasted to learn how low it is for some of the richest companies in the world, especially in the oil and medical industries.

I wrote about it last year… while politicians routinely attack BIG oil for its high profits, the same politicians are silent about the highER profit margins of Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. For every dollar Exxon keeps after paying their bills, Google keeps $3. Exxon is attacked because they sell more units than Google, but in reality, Google is keeping more of the customer’s money. Politicians don’t concern themselves with this kind of stuff, because Google is very popular with the electorate, and oil companies are not. A large enough proportion of the population has been convinced oil companies are hurting the planet, so demonizing their large profits is easy.

MSNBC - “The cost of crude oil accounted for about 47 percent of the cost of a gallon of regular gas in 2004, the latest figures available from the Dept of Energy. Federal, state, and local taxes accounted for about 23 cents of every dollar spent at the pump. Uncle Sam gets about 18.4 cents per gallon and state and local taxes average about 21 cents — though state taxes vary widely.”

At the pump, only about 4% of the price represents oil company profits. So if you wiped out all oil company profits, the price of a $3 gallon of gas would become $2.88. If you confiscated ALL profits, you would save 12 cents a gallon. When gas was $4 per gallon, Exxon got 16 cents from that gallon, while 60 cents went to taxes. You’re mad at oil companies? You should be mad at the government.

Health insurance profits

This slide shocked me when I saw it… for every dollar spent on health insurance, the insurance companies keep THREE CENTS. It is a terrific illustration of how difficult it is to run a medical insurance company.

So all this nonsense about insurance company profits and executive compensations driving up the cost of your health care is all total and utter nonsense. Is it annoying when some Yahoo gets millions of dollars in bonus even if the company does terribly? Hell yes it is, but taking it back will only fuel your need for schaudenfreude, not increase the weight of your wallet. You take all the insurance company profits back, and your health care costs go down a fraction. Use your head.

Just came across an article on Yahoo about a white model who did a 14-page pictorial in blackface

Aside from the fact that models of many nationalities have gained a greater presence in the fashion industry and should have been used in this magazine, today in 2009 we should all know that white people dressing in blackface is offensive.

What is offensive about blackface makeup? I understand that painting your face black and then furthering extremely inaccurate stereotypes about black people could be offensive to some, but what is offensive about a woman taking pictures in blackface? Men used to be the only people who could be actors, so men dressed up as women and often acted ridiculous playing women’s parts. Men still dress in drag and don’t properly represent women, but no one cares. Its funny. Therefore, I find it hard to believe that ALL uses of blackface are offensive by definition.

Is whiteface offensive? Dave Chappelle did it multiple times on his show, as have many other black comedians. Is their representation offensive by definition? Of course not. Its comedy in a free country. If a black person is painted white and does a 14-page pictorial, that’s not necessarily offensive.

Hypocrisy

Recently Harry Connick Jr. got mad at some Australians who performed in blackface on a show he was judging. The problem is Harry Connick Jr. performed in blackface on Mad TV in recent years. The reason he took offense at it is because he thought he should take offense at it for some reason. Perhaps he has a lot of black friends and didn’t want to be on their bad side, so he had a knee-jerk reaction embodying the height of hypocrisy.

Calling all instances of blackface makeup offensive is irrational and stupid. Its as though so-called civil rights activists think that if they don’t prevent any and all portrayal of a minority group, suddenly the country or the world will revert back to pre-Civil War policies. It’s patently absurd.

I don’t know why French Vogue decided to do it, and I don’t care. Anyone who is offended by it needs thicker skin. YOU are the one with the problem, not French Vogue.

Replacing multiple semi-corrupt competing bureaucracies with one, very corrupt, monopolized bureaucracy is not logical. The govt is the most corrupt, lease efficient corporation in the country. Not to mention if they do end up running health care, they’ll just hire the insurance executives to manage it, as govt employees. You can’t escape corruption, you can only police it.

Discussing the morality of greed in the market is like discussing the morality of gravity. Its irrelevant, you just have to deal with it. It will always exist… you just have to have laws that prevent criminal activity. Profits are not criminal, despite popular belief.

I simply can’t take it anymore. I cannot stand one more Energy.gov/tink commercial. The government is using Disney as propaganda for indoctrinating our children with green-ness. Here’s a list of some of the most ridiculous things I have heard or seen lately from the mainstream environmentalist movement:

• Incandescent light bulbs will not be allowed after 2012… Thanks George W., you jackass.
• Using soft toilet paper hurts the environment
• Flying too much will cause humans to go extinct in 2055 (New documentary called The Age of Stupid, whose premier featured Gillian Anderson, Moby, Heather Graham, perhaps others)
• Emails that say “Please consider the environment before printing this”
• Using a metal water bottle instead of plastic to prevent landfills from getting bigger

Never mind that the “new” lightbulbs are more harmful to the environment. Never mind that toilet paper is such an insignificant source of waste in the world, and that it is essential to the general health of a society. Never mind that every single person who made the documentary and attended its premiere got there on a jet. Never mind that worrying about the effect of printing an email will have on the environment is like worrying whether your next fart will start a tornado. Never mind that you have to use chemicals to efficiently clean and reuse that new water bottle. All that matters is that YOU CARE. You agree that the environment is a sacred thing. We can’t survive without the environment, right? So anything we do to hurt it, however insignificant, is a crime. You don’t actually have to care about or effectively protect the environment. You just have to go through the motions, and that will make you a good person.

The vanity of eco-insanity is breathtaking. There have been hoaxes and scandals in the past, but never have I seen such a widespread psychosis as the Green movement. Otherwise intelligent people actually believe they can do something as insignificant as not printing an email, and they feel better about themselves. Self-worth has never been so cheap. It used to be you had to produce something, now you can just avoid doing something that some socialist told you would save the environment. No, I’m mistaken… it’s worse than that. You can just say you oppose something, and never actually practice what you preach, and media outlets will praise your activism. You don’t even have to change your behavior… you just have to say that everyone but you should change theirs. What a fantastic deal!

New sources of pollution

Otherwise intelligent Americans have been convinced that buying a Hybrid or electric car will help save the environment and also screw those evil Middle-Easterners and oil companies. Never mind that switching fuels is not all positive. Switching to electricity simply switches pollution from oil-based to coal-based. Half of America’s electricity comes from burning coal. And lithium fuel cells come primarily from the countries of South American dictators. You know how you can tell environmentalists don’t give a shit about the environment? How do we stop using oil and coal tomorrow? Nuclear power. They oppose it vehemently. Because of a meltdown they say, and the resulting radioactive fallout. Never mind that modern nuke plants use an enrichment level where that doomsday scenario is a thing of the past… they still oppose it. Why? Because they don’t oppose pollution. They oppose capitalism.

Does your neighbor who preaches Greeniness oppose capitalism? No probably not. The followers of the Green movement are just ignorant saps. The leaders are the anti-capitalists. They prey on general ignorance to form movements.

Earth plus plastic

I highly recommend watching George Carlin talk about environmentalism… while he is quite liberal on many topics, environmentalism is not one of them.

Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We’ve been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we’re a threat? That somehow we’re gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that’s just a-floatin’ around the sun?

The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles…hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages…And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet…the planet…the planet isn’t going anywhere.

Read the whole transcript here. My favorite quote is about plastic…

The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice towards plastic.

Environmentalists would have you believe that plastic bottles sitting in a landfill not degrading is a threat to life on this planet. Let me get this straight… plastic just sits still, does not degrade, and takes up space. Will someone explain to me the difference between a plastic bottle and a rock? The planet is covered with rocks, yet no one would suggest they are a threat to the environment.

From Pajamas Media… an interesting analysis of the branding of Barack Obama… this is wonderful exercise for the brain.
The Power and Danger of Iconography

I find it particularly interesting that Obama uses his own logo more than the exclusive Presidential seal.

Every few years, some liberal mentions the Fairness Doctrine.

The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was (in the Commission’s view) honest, equitable and balanced. (Wikipedia)

All points of view are welcome on the various media, so the fairness doctrine simply conflicts with the First Amendment. The reason liberals want the Fairness Doctrine is because conservative talk radio and Fox News are so effective at attacking their policies. They want to shut conservatives up.

When Joe Wilson yells out “You lie” in a joint session of Congress during a speech by President Obama, the left wants him punished severely, censured, whatever they can do. When Alan Grayson says Republicans’ health care plan is for Americans to die quickly, the right wants him punished the same way. So what’s the difference?

While the left would do anything they can to shut Wilson up, most on the right would elect to give lunatics like Alan Grayson their own radio show. The reason the left wants Wilson to shut up is because while he was rude, he was 100% accurate, as I covered in another post. I am a political libertarian, but when it comes to free speech, I’m a right-wing nut. When it comes to the truth about issues, I tend to side with the right, mainly because their policies don’t infringe on my freedoms nearly as much as the policies of the left. Republican politicians have reacted to Grayson for political reasons, but they don’t want to shut him up.

Shut up, unless you agree with me

The left wants to shut Rush up. They want to shut Hannity up. They say they’re liars, right-wing extremists. On the other hand, Rush and Hannity don’t want to shut up their competition. Give Alan Grayson his own show, PLEASE, they would say. Here’s a headline from Limbaugh’s web site:

Don’t apologize, Grayson. Please keep talking.

Hannity constantly offers to have any leftist on his show. He welcomes it. What a stark contrast! If Rush and Hannity were spouting as much nonsense as the left would have you believe, why wouldn’t they want him to continue? If Rush is ostensibly “destroying” the Republican party, why wouldn’t liberals celebrate this? Because he isn’t. He’s destroying the Democrat party.

Rush wishes  Grayson, Jeremiah Wright, Van Jones, and any other nutjob on the left had their own show. Why? Because their lies and racism and other nonsense only helps the causes Rush supports.

Back to Alan Grayson

If Republicans actually wanted Americans to die quickly, and there was evidence in a bill they had proposed that they supported quick deaths, Grayson’s statements would be extremely effective, and would hurt the right-wing. His statements were so ridiculous that all they did was hurt Democrats. While I despise Hannity’s sycophancy of the American military, and other partisan stuff he does, I have to wholeheartedly agree with him on free speech being 100% free (save yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, etc.).

If liberals want to continue believing that conservative talk radio just spouts lies all day to succeed, observe the career of Alan Grayson over the next few years and see where fallacious hyperbole gets you. Conservative “hate” speech succeeds as a business because its generally accurate. If leftist liberals dislike this, start telling the truth more, and Air America will succeed. I welcome their potential future success.