"Choices"

People underestimate the power of choices. They do so for a wide variety of reasons; socialists deliberately undermine the power of choice, because people who believe their choices don't matter are much easier to convince that they should let the government "take care" of them. Those who advocate professional victimhood would have you believe that choices are unimportant, because if you can choose, then you're choosing to remain a victim.

But here's the thing. As a rational adult, the only thing you control in your life is your choices. You are not, and cannot be, responsible for the decisions and actions of anyone else; only your own. This same, incidentally, is why I reject wholeheartedly the notion of so-called "original sin." Holding me personally responsible for the actions and choices of someone dead for thousands of years before I was born is utterly ridiculous; the reason - if you buy the theory that they're not - that humans aren't equipped to deserve Heaven is that we're not omniscient, and therefore unable to understand, or comprehend, the Big Picture.

Interestingly, many of the proponents of the idea of original sin understand its illogic in other contexts; just not in religion.

For example: I'm white. In my lifetime, I have never owned a slave; never oppressed anyone; I don't make racist comments, or tolerate those who do; and yet, despite my personal convictions and beliefs, there is a significant movement on the part of people like Louis Farrakhan to demand - from the American taxpayer, in other words me - so-called "reparations" for slavery, because I'm white, and therefore supposedly responsible for the choices of people long dead - and their effects on people long dead.

I would willingly bet that many people, reading that paragraph, would agree that the notion is ridiculous, but turn around and accept, with gaping mouth, the fishhook of original sin: you need the church, because of something someone long dead did that's YOUR FAULT.

And people wonder how I can both have absolute, unswerving faith in the existence of God - and simultaneously hate and fear organized religion.

Back to my point about choices; "The Big Scary Controversial Religion Post" will be up soon enough.

You make choices every day; you have to. Even choosing not to make a choice, is a choice. There's no real escape from that; as a human being you have choices. And you're only responsible for yours; but, see, YOU are responsible for your choices. No-one else is, or can be.

Some of those choices are easy; some are hard; some of them will break your heart.

But ALL of them are yours.

I recently had an experience you've no doubt all shared to some degree; I wrote a blog post that turned into "the one that got away." When I read it - before posting - to my wife, she was sniffling before I was done, which is a sign that I'd really gotten it right.

Click "Post."

"Error - server is unavailable."

And just like that, because I had forgotten to copy it to Metapad first, *poof* all my eloquence, instantly gone.

I admit, I swore a blue streak.

But I couldn't fix it; my first post about choices, totally obliterated, because I made a choice to be less-than-careful with my backups.

Oh, the irony.

But the idea I was driving at is still there.

I posted a quote on my front page a few days ago; it's thought-provoking. Somewhat repackaged, it is: "I gave MY LIFE to become who and what I am today. Was it worth it?"

That's not an easy question, if you're honest about it. Give it a try. Go to your mirror, and look straight into your own eyes. Ignore your surroundings; ignore your appearance; ignore who you HOPED to be, and who you wanted to be, and who you dreamed of being, and look dead into the eyes of who you ARE.

Ask yourself that question.

Was it worth it?

Is who you are, right this minute, unflinchingly honest with yourself, worth every choice you've made to get there? Every dream you've set aside, hope you've abandoned, friend you've hurt - maybe even unknowingly - enemy you've made, tantrum you've thrown, every hurtful thing you've said or done, every action you've seen to be wrong in retrospect; was it worth that?

Looking into your own eyes, honestly, are you who you want to be?

Why not?

You have choices, always. There IS no such thing as a situation where you are without choices. There are situations where the choices are hard, even heartbreaking. But not making those choices is a choice, as well.

Do you think Terry Schiavo's husband was making an easy choice? I think it broke his heart. And I think it might well have hurt him so badly that he might never really recover. I know if I ever had to make that choice, it would utterly destroy me. I also know I would make the same choice he did.

A cancer patient makes choices; whether to fight, or simply die; whether to use it, and grow, or give up.

A drug addict, the same; treatment and help are there, and everyone knows it; someone who stays addicted chooses that, every time they get high. Is choosing treatment and recovery hard? Yes. Even heartbreaking. But it is a choice.

A person abused as a child grows up, eventually. And they have choices. I know. I'm one of them. And it colors your judgement; it adds a filter to the way you see the world. But you know why I'm not an abuser? Because you have a choice. When my wife irritates me, I choose not to swing at her, every time. I choose not to beat my son bloody for minor misbehavior, or send him to the hospital, as often as it happened to me.

We all have choices.

And the people who say you don't - the people who try to excuse a rapist, on the grounds that he was abused or molested as a child, are really saying, to everyone who's ever been abused and NOT turned into a rapist, that the reason they were able to make that choice is that they weren't abused enough.

I had a rough time as a kid. Lots of people had the same or worse. And yet they, and I, manage to get through it, because we made - and continue to make, every day - a choice.

If choice is meaningless, if choice is nothing, you're saying to every person who's ever beaten an addiction that they weren't addicted enough. That they only had those choices because they didn't smoke enough crack, or shoot enough heroin, to take those choices away from them.

And that's not true. Breaking the abuse cycle; beating addiction; staying strong under chemotherapy; those are all choices that are HARD. There's nothing easy about not giving up. But the fact that anyone can do it at all says that claims of victimhood are a lie.

I look at myself in the mirror, and I can answer that question, "was it worth my life, my hopes, dreams, and ambitions, to be who and what I am today?"

Who I am today, is someone who's beaten, and broken, the abuse cycle, and continues to do so every day.

Who I am today, is someone who has beaten alcoholism - I joke about it, but you can ask my wife - who has beaten smoking (fifteen years of three packs a day) and broken the addiction cycle, by making choices, and then sticking to them.

Who I am today is someone who's lost loves, and loved ones, sacrificed dreams, given away hopes and aspirations, and somehow, along the way, chosen to be content.

I work in a hard, low-wage job, that I'm vastly overeducated for, and stuck in because of my choices.

I drive a shitty car.

We never have the money to do spontaneous things of any magnitude.

I am estranged from much of my family.

I have few friends.

But the family and friends I have, I cherish; I have friends that - I don't think, I know from seeing them do it - would take a bullet, or bloody their hands forever, for me.

My own hands bear, from my own choices, stains of blood and pain that will never, ever wash clean.

But I got them in the service of an ideal that I see with steely-eyed clarity, even if you do not.

I got them because of a choice.

I chose to give up my home, many acquaintances, my job, my chance to be with my father in his last years, working on repairing our relationship, my environment; all to be with a woman my friends told me was so very wrong for me.

I chose to accept her love, and give mine, rather than search for a perfect fit; and somehow it turned out to be a perfect fit anyway.

And my choices have led me to a place where I can look into my own eyes in a mirror and answer yes.

It was worth it.

Every choice that led me here, from the inconsequential to the heartbreaking, was worth it.

And every day, I make a new choice; to improve. To grow, and learn, and become better, every day.

I believe that THAT is what God truly wants from us; not perfection, but our choices, or we wouldn't have so many of them.

I can look in the mirror and take ownership of who I am, who I've been, who I am choosing to become. I can look at the stains of my choices on my hands and accept that no-one else made those decisions for me.

I am proud of who I am; you don't have to be proud of me, or applaud, or even care.

But I can look in the mirror and say, "it was worth it."

Can you?

And if not, how long will you choose to remain someone who can't say that?

People can change; most of them don't.

And that's a choice.

You answer to yourself, only, and always; do so. If you can't say yes, if you can't be that honest, ask yourself why.

And then choose to become someone who CAN say that it was worth it.

You owe that to all the people you could have been.

Goddammit, I'm Sick Of This. You're Missing The Fucking Point.

Let me give you - ALL of you - a history lesson that a hell of a lot of you seem to have missed.

See, back in the day, the Founders fought the Revolutionary War, broke with their legally designated government, and established a new nation, based on three simple causes.

Unfair taxation.

Lack of self-governance and representation.

AND, GODDAMIT, RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION.

I am fucking exhausted with hearing people spout this incredible bullshit about how "separation of church and state doesn't mean this is not a Christian nation."

YES, IT FUCKING WELL DOES.

See, the Founders came over here in large part because THE LAW in England was that you would attend the Church of England, and if you didn't like that, there were legal consequences. They FOUGHT A FUCKING WAR to defend their right to worship - OR NOT - based on THEIR OWN PERSONAL CONVICTIONS.

Now, there's an issue that keeps ON and ON and ON coming up, as though there were any legitimate basis for argument about it.

So, knowing full well that this article will piss people off, and offend people - a fact about which, frankly, I don't give a fuck, because I'm tired of the retardedness here - I'm going to lay it to rest.

Just recently, in California, "the people" voted for a ban on gay people getting married. And some judges overthrew it.

I have heard a TORRENT of screeching about this, how the judges "broke with the Constitution," blah blah blah.

No. The judges were wrong, and I will explain why: because AT THE STATE LEVEL, that law can exist. The Constitution forbids that kind of thing - YES, IT DOES, AND I WILL GET TO THAT - but only at the federal level. It says NOTHING about the state level; for that reason, the law should have stood.

Now. The First Amendment to the Constitution reads, in part, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

There are two interpretations of this.

Either, as it seems clear from the history of this nation, the Founders intended to ensure that there could NEVER be an official "state religion," so that the citizens of their new nation would NEVER suffer from the kind of religious persecution that drove them to flee, in wooden ships, across thousands of miles of ocean to a new continent; OR, they intended to make sure that religion should forever remain unregulated in this country.

Here's the problem. If you honestly believe that definition number two is what the Founders intended, then MARRIAGE AS A LEGAL STATUS IN THIS COUNTRY CANNOT EXIST, PERIOD. Why? Because to define "marriage" regulates the ceremonies religions in this country can perform, thus violating the First Amendment.

The first definition - the RIGHT definition - is more interesting. See, there IS no definition in the Constitution of "marriage." Want to know why? Because the Founders knew that - REGARDLESS of their personal convictions (something people today, obviously, aren't able to ignore when making legal decisions) - to define marriage, in the law of the land, in concert with the requirements of ANY single religion is a DE FACTO DECLARATION OF THAT RELIGION AS THE STATE RELIGION.

And considering they just fought a war to escape just that very exact thing, they weren't ABOUT to let that happen again.

See, "marriage" is really two separate words, in this country. Consider them homonyms; they sound alike - and are even spelled alike - but mean two completely different things. Under the Christian religion - at least, most denominations of it - marriage is a religious sacrament, specifically defined as uniting a man and woman. As a religious sacrament, THIS DEFINITION CAN NEVER BE LAW.

As a legal status, however, it carries benefits; tax credits, power of attorney, inheritance rights, parental and property rights; and it is defined - nowhere. The reason for this is that the law CANNOT define it as a religious sacrament; it is SPECIFICALLY un-Constitutional, REGARDLESS of the definition of "separation of church and state" you believe.

Now, HAD THE LAW IN CALIFORNIA BEEN A FEDERAL LAW INSTEAD, the judges there would have been 100% right.

But it wasn't; California can pass that law, because it's NOT a federal law. And thus, the judges were wrong.

But in reality, attempting to encode a religious definition of a legal status into law, specifically to exclude someone from enjoying its benefits, is naked discrimination, and should be utterly repulsive to ANY of you.

I've heard some people offer the really, really dumb argument that if gay people can get married, why then you could marry a CAT. Or a TREE. Or your CAR. And then SOCIETY WOULD COLLAPSE, OH NOES!!!1!

Would someone care to explain to me how a gay person is different from a tree, or a cat?

Never mind; I will take care of that. They're not the same, because GAY PEOPLE ARE STILL PEOPLE. Even if you don't approve of their bedroom activities, which frankly is none of your goddamned business unless they're doing it on your fucking rug, that DOES NOT MAKE THEM INANIMATE OBJECTS.

It does not make them less human.

Take heed: the argument you make, when you cry out for a Constitutional amendment defining marriage in accordance with your religion, is that your discrimination against peoiple who have done nothing to you, is more important than one of the primary freedoms in this country; a freedom so profoundly important, so crucial to a free nation, that the Founders DID THAT FIRST.

You're choosing your personal bias against someone's bedroom behavior over our national religious freedom.

You have every right to shun gay people yourself, personally. In fact, you have every right to refuse to perform weddings for them, even in states where it's legal; you have a right to refuse to allow them even to enter your church at all.

But you don't, and never will, have a right to tell them they can't do it at all.

See, the underlying principle - the most fundamental element, at the core of ALL our rights - is that IF IT HARMS NO-ONE, ADULT HUMANS BEINGS ARE FREE TO DO WHATEVER THE FUCK THEY WANT.

You're perfectly within your rights to tell gay people they can't fuck on your rug. I would totally have them arrested if they came into my apartment and started screwing in my living room. BUT IT IS NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN BUSINESS what they do at home. And you have no right to exclude them from a legal status whose benefits you enjoy, period.

You want to do it right? Hmmmmmm? Want to indulge your prejudice - and that IS what it is - with impunity?

Pass a law creating a legal status of "domestic partnership" that has EXACTLY the same legal benefits as marriage.

At that point, you can freely consider anyone agitating for "marriage" to be simply trolling, because they're pushing - at that point - for a forcible entry into your religion, and they don't have a right to do that, because of exactly the same line in the Constitution that makes it impossible for you to outlaw it.

But until, and as long as, domestic partnerships DON'T have the same legal benefits, responsibilities, and requirements - INCLUDING divorce law, unfortunately - as marriage, any attempt to prevent gay people from getting married is religious and legal discrimination, and you can't do it. Period.

But... IS It Fair? (Part 2, of hopefully 3)

One of my primary complaints about pundits like Rush Limbaugh is that while - at least in Limbaugh's case - they excel at pointing out problems, they fail miserably at either providing solutions, or alternatives, to the ideas they mock.

So, it is with the greatest chagrin that I report that apparently, i managed to do the same thing the other night. In the throes of my violent hatred of the economic scourge misnamed the "Fairtax," I totally forgot to advocate an alternative.

Mea culpa; here goes.

The notion of "fairness" in taxation is loudly bandied about, but hardly ever actually proposed. See, most people don't really understand how our economy works. They believe, really believe, that rich people each have a sort of a Scrooge McDuck vault, filled with the millions they've extorted from the poor, in which they gleefully swim while simultaneously signing over vast tracts of rainforest to their personal buddy, the unscrupulous land developer, and stepping carefully directly on the upturned, desperate faces of the downtrodden.

Um.

No.

See, I hate to break this to you, but rich people are the ones that hire poor people; they're the ones who start new businesses, or invest in others' entrepreneurial efforts. They also buy lots and lots of luxury goods, like Dodge Vipers and 60-inch plasma televisions, which require the labor - and therefore jobs - or countless poor people to produce. Tax the luxury sales, and fuck the poor with increased unemployment; that doesn't seem overly complex, but yet it gets proposed again and again, by people who want to SOUND like they're on the side of the working-class poor, while simultaneously making them ever more financially dependent on the government.

It's called socialism. But we'll get back to that. First, back up a bit. Before I really get started, let me say something about the concept of "fairness." The word has a meaning, and in the context of taxation, it means "everybody pays the same percentage." It does NOT mean - as the Left would have you believe - that the poor shouldn't have to pay at all (while still deriving benefit from the government, and maintaining the franchise, of course,) but the rich should get soaked until they don't have a pot left to piss in after they pay "their share."

In fact, not only is that about as far from fair as it is possible to get, it's STUPID; if you set a flat tax rate, and then make the rich people pay for the poor, the total personal fortunes of the rich will be completely exhausted in a single year, and the poor will still be poor - since they outnumber the rich about, say, 350 to one. Now there are quite a few rich people that make more than 350 times what, for example, I do - but a lot more of the so-called "rich" make maybe 5 times what I do, and there'd still be poor people left clamoring for a handout if you beggared every rich person in the country.

We'll come back to that, I promise.

One thing that the Fairtax advocates get right is the notion that doing away with embedded taxes will cause prices to fall sharply. That's absolutely true; replacing the often tiny embedded taxes with a much bigger, across-the-board embedded tax doesn't fix it, though - and that's what they're advocating.

The problem might lie - at least in part - with the fact that in our country, few if any, anymore, have read Mark twain's novel "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court." There's a great scene in that book in which the narrator - the titular Yankee - tries repeatedly to explain a simple economic concept to someone else. The someone else is married to an idea that's simply wrong, and clings to it despite facts, sense, and logic. In the novel, the narrator eventually resorts to simply knocking the idiot out.

I hope I'll have a bit more luck explaining the same concept.

let's start simple. What matters, in your paycheck, is NOT the number of dollars you take home; it's a question of what you can buy with those dollars. This is the notion of the strength of a currency; a strong dollar can buy more stuff, and is therefore worth more, than a weak one. So, in an economy with a strong dollar, you can earn numerically fewer dollars than with a weak dollar, and still buy more. Coming back to this, as well.

Right.

So: fairness in taxation depends on two factors: everyone must pay the same, and EVERYONE MUST PAY. As I've pointed out before, it's only a legitimate function of government if everyone who derives benefit from it also pays for it; and if eeryone who pays for it, derives benefit from it.

As a totally unrelated aside, that last is a big part of my beef with the Pennsylvania Amish; they use the roads, and let their horses befoul the roads, but pay nothing for the upkeep of those roads, or the cleaning costs for them. (The other half being that if you're on a freeway with a speed limit of 55, and you're doing 3, and you let 25 cars stack up behind you instead of getting off on the shoulder, you're a complete dick; this is something I see the local Amish do regularly, and they ought to get citations for obstruction of traffic.)

So; the only fair tax there CAN be is one that EVERYBODY pays, without exception; the second part of that is to eliminate from the federal budget entirely any program from which any single citizen does not derive benefit. (That, of course, is a project for "But... IS It Fair? Part 3" which will come along whenever I find the time to do the research into the federal budget necessary for such a massive undertaking.)

But, ok, everybody pays. Everybody must also pay THE SAME, or it's unfair to the people paying extra.

Here's where embedded taxes rear their hugly heads again, like a sadistic, "fuck the poor" version of whack-a-mole. See, embedded taxation openly fucks the poor; the embedded taxes behind making a Hyundai are basically the same as the ones for a Dodge Viper, but they sure add up to a lot higher percentage of the Hyundai's dealer price. This, in fact, is one of the many issues with the "Fairtax;" the replacement of the embedded taxes currently in place with a much more invasive and higher embedded tax, absolutely shanks the poor, and the Fairtax authors know it. Their solution is to resort to socialist income redistribution, to take (more!) from the rich, and give it directly to the poor, so they aren't as badly shafted by the Fairtax.

Here's a hint: if it were actually fair, you wouldn't need to do that.

So: to be fair, the embedded taxes need to go away.

Now, bear with me, as this next bit may sound counter-intuitive, but trust that I will explain.

What would both be fair, and ACTUALLY WORK - which seems important - would be a flat-rate, no exemptions income tax, at a rate sufficient to support the (revised and shrunken) federal budget, while simultaneously eliminating all other taxes in their entirety. Specifically, social programs should not be a federal function; currently, they're above 50% of the federal budget, which adds up to literally two trillion dollars a year that the American taxpayer would - not have to pay anymore. If those programs are really necessary - I don't believe they are, but who am I, huh? - let them be funded at a state or local level, where they belong.

Now, that may seem crazy; I mean, we'd be putting a high tax rate on our income, making us one of the most-highly-taxed nations on earth, right? that's just crazy, isn't it?

Not so fast, slick. See, we're ALREADY one of the most - if not the single most - highly taxed nations on the planet. this is thanks to embedded taxation; remember, your dollar is only worth what you can buy with it.

And without embedded taxation, you can buy a whole lot more, because prices will drop. You'll be amazed at the scale of it. When that happens, combined with the reduction in the federal budget, an income tax of maybe 30% - about equivalent to what currently comes out of my paycheck to FICA, Medicare, Social Security, and income taxes combined - will result in your actual tax burden DEcreasing, while your buying power INcreases. The cool thing about that? your increased buying power results in spending, which strengthens the economy and makes new jobs, which results in more people to spend money, which strengthens the economy, which results in new jobs...

See, you're not RAISING taxes; you're bringing them out in the open, and since the new tax rate would be set at a rate determined as revenue-neutral with the SMALLER federal budget, you would actually be cutting taxes significantly. Historical fact: no tax hike has ever helped an economy, in any country anywhere in all the world through all of history; and in all that time and all those places, no tax cut has ever FAILED to help.

It may seem counterintuitive on its surface, but unlike our current 23,000 (!) page tax code, it would actually work, which our current system manifestly does not.

Helping things along would be two small amendments to the Constitution - a balanced budget amendment, requiring ALL Congressional spending be accounted for, and refusing anything that goes above revenues, and an amendment to revoke "Congress shall have the power to levy and assess taxes..," that same being one of the very few things i think the Founders honestly got wrong. (They had just come from a war largely fought for religious freedom and freedom from abusive taxation; they may not have realized we'd try the tax abuse again as soon as their bodies were cold.)

See, fairness is this: someone who makes 450 times as much money as I do, pays 450 times as much in taxes as 450 people at my wage. This only happens - can only happen - with a flat tax.

So, if you're advocating anything else, you're NOT advocating fairness.

Just So My Fellow Vista Haters Know...

...Microsoft has confirmed Windows 7 will hit retail in 2010, so you only have to hang onto XP for 2 1/2 more years.

The story's here; frankly, I have strep throat and therefore am not going to spend much more time on this article, but the original post has 17 screenshots from the new Windows interface, by which I would be far more impressed if it didn't look like - a LOT like - the Beryl interface for Ubuntu Linux.

Here's a video which will give you the idea what the Beryl interface looks like - contrasted with the lame-ass attempt that is Aero for Windows Vista - and when you compare it to those screenshots, the similarities are striking. Hopefully, Microsoft will bring down the hardware requirements, along with the redesign; I don't hold out much hope of that happening, though. Anyway, take a look at Beryl for Ubuntu Linux:

Actually, because Beryl is friggin' cool, take a look at this: this guy's running this on a GeForce 4 Ti4200 graphics card, nowhere NEAR the hardware requirements for Vista with Aero. (As a matter of fact, the Ti4200 is nearly 7 years old.)



And here's another demonstration of the amazing capacities in Beryl... that Windows doesn't have, even on far more advanced hardware.



I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that if Microsoft is gonna steal from someone, they could do worse than to steal from Linux, since Linux actually works.

Ok, Here's A Secret; Don't Use This Power For Evil.

I know sometimes you have to deal with Customer Service.

Most of the time - at least in my experience - they can, and will, resolve your problems. This is because most of the problems that happen, happen often enough that they have pre-scripted solutions in place to deal with them.

But you and I live in the real world. And we all know that sometimes it comes off the rails. Sometimes, the CSR's can't help you; sometimes they COULD but their supervisors don't want to hear "there's a problem and I can't fix it" from them.

So, I'm here to tell you how to deal with that.

First, make ABSOLUTELY SURE you have UTTERLY EXHAUSTED the company's normal channels for dealing with problems. Companies keep records of CSR transactions; if you do what I'm about to tell you, and they check the records and it turns out that you haven't gone through channels, this tactic will not only not work then, it will never work for you with that company again. This is because if and when they find out that you did NOT go through channels, they will simply ignore your antics in the future, and likely not attempt to solve your problems, no matter how legitimate the problems may be.

Second, at every stage of dealing with Customer Service and going through channels, take notes; maintain all records, documents, transactions, as well as a list of each interaction with any element of the company at all. The more evidence you provide them that something is screwy, the more likely it is that they will actually try to solve your problem.

Once your avenues of assistance have been exhausted, you write a letter. Preferably typed; your crayon and coffee-stained paper may look passionate to YOU, but to the people who are going to be looking at it, it looks like you're a nutjob, and that counts against you.

Spell-check it. Have your friend who majored in English proof-read it.

In that letter, detail exactly your problem; describe your interactions with Customer Service. Be accurate; lies will be found out. Describe your exact desired solution, and be reasonable. If your cell phone breaks, you're not going to get a year's free service from them; but it's perfectly reasonable to expect your phone to be replaced (as an example.) BE POLITE. Swearing will get your letter rejected. You can call them ignorant fuckmonkeys on your personal website; not in your letter, if you want to be taken seriously. They will be a lot more helpful if you don't call them names.

Supply them with enclosed copies of all your documentation; xeroxed if you're going to do this the snail-mail way, or scanned and attached as .jpgs if you're going to go the email route.

Once you've collected all your evidence and written your letter, it's time to think about targeting. For email, this is relatively easy; go to the company's website, and hit the "Contact Us" or "About Us" page; look for the email addresses of the contact people. usually, it looks something like "lastname.firstname@ourcompany.net" or some such. Once you've got that, hit Google Finance, and Yahoo Finance, and find out the names of the top execs.

THIS is where you use the CC: option in your email. When you've compiled your email, including your letter of complaint, your documentation, the attachments, everything, SEND it to the highest-ranked person on the list, with copies to everyone else whose names you can get your hands on. Particularly the Public Relations people; they CARE - because they're paid to - about what makes the company look good. It also helps if you send a copy to your local Better Business Bureau representative, at the same time: they WILL see that, and want the issue resolved right away, even if only so they can report to the BBB that it was fixed.

The snail mail version is to look up their actual mailing addresses; addressing the letters to their corporate jobs is ok, but finding their actual home addresses is better.

Send your letters.

This is what's known as a "Carpet Bomb," and make no mistake; it IS the "nuclear option" for dealing with customer service. Don't make threats about it - they will be noted in your file - just DO it. But ONLY do it after normal channels have been exhausted, because otherwise you will get labeled a crank and ignored, even if later problems crop up that are far more serious.

The only thing you can do that goes higher than this - the court of last resort, so to speak - is, if this option does not work, and your problem is NOT resolved, to send a copy of the letter and its attached documentation to your Congressman, along with the date you mailed it to the people in the company involved, and who you mailed it to, and the fact that it has not been resolved.

Bear in mind, at every stage here, that if they look at the record and find out you jumped outside channels, you will get labeled a crank and ignored; this is the option of last resort. It takes time, effort, and dedication on your part to get it right, which is one reason it works; the fact that you consider the matter serious enough to warrant this kind of attention weighs heavily in your favor when the executives have to decide how to deal with your issue.

Some valuable resources to aid your search for names and addresses:

Who'sWho Online
Yahoo! Finance
Google Finance
BetterWhoIs
The United States Securities And Exchange Commission
CorporateInformation.com This one is for-pay; you can get a complete report on the company in question for $25.

As I said in the title, don't use this power for evil. It is a LAST RESORT; use it as such. If it gets overused, it will become less effective, and we don't want that.

So, don't be "that guy" that has to screw it up for everyone by doing so much of it that they end up passing a law saying we can't anymore.

Even A Stopped Clock...

...is right twice a day.

Now, personally, I find MSBNC's Keith Olbermann to be ill-informed, politically mistaken, and generally unlikeable, and wrong.

But even a stopped clock can be right twice a day.

So, since he finally managed to say something I agree with, here's what he said, regarding Senator Clinton's remarks, which implied the notion that she's in the race - still - because she's hoping that Senator Obama will get shot, thus leaving her the candidate by default.

Senator Clinton, you've managed the nearly impossible; for once, I think Keith Olbermann is right on the money.

Funny, I Would WANT It Back...

So, Boeing just announced a successful test of their new ATL system.

What's ATL?

Well, first, it's a bad acronym; but that's not important right now.

It stands for Advanced Tactical Laser, which might - or might not - ring a few bells. It used to be called LEOS, which you might remember me writing about in 2006. Well, it's time to talk about it again. The idea is simple: a flying Laser Death Ray. They built a huge, overpowered LASER cannon, and then, rather than mounting it on a shark's head, they instead mounted it on a C-130H transport plane.

Now, the C-130 is a venerable, reliable platform, not only as a transport; it's also the platform for the monstrous gunship known as SPECTRE. But here's the thing; in both cases, SPECTRE and the ATL system, they've never been employed against a modern military.

See, Anti-aircraft missile technology hasn't stood still, since the C-130 was released in 1956. It's gotten better by leaps and bounds.

And the problem with THAT, is that the C-130 is slow, unstealthy, and easily killed by a single modern shoulder-fired missile. Considering the incredible cost - not merely in dollars, but in our servicemembers' lives as well - we might want the ATL to come BACK from combat deployments.

This is a weapon system perfect for destroying - as an example - mobile nuclear cruise missile launchers, such as the ones North Korea has been trying to build for decades.

North Korea has the most extensive anti-aircraft defense network currently existent on this planet. Their farmers starve, so they can buy more antiaircraft missiles, to defend against the godless imperialist running-dog oppressors. (That's us, by the way.)

And we might want those planes to come home.

Now, almost 2 years ago, when I wrote about this the first time, I suggested using the B-2 Stealth Bomber as a platform, instead of the C-130. Similar lift, much stealthier, plus more defenses, range, and airspeed; it would be far more survivable.

Of course, it would also be more expensive, but it's worth it, if it comes back.

Now, personally, I think ATL is a shitty acronym - that's when you smush letters from something's proper name together to make a word, but that's not important right now - and I would instead call it ATLAS - "Airborne Tactical Laser Assault System" - but a bad acronym's not a good reason to let millions of dollars, and multiple servicemembers' lives, get lost to the enemy.

Maybe call it GTA-LAC (Ground-Targeting Airborne Laser Assault Cannon?) Or, FELL-HOUND (Free-Engagement Line-of-sight Laser - High Focus Optical Unrestricted Nuclear Deconstructor) or "Roosevelt" for FDR - "Flying Death Ray." Hell, miniaturize, then put the thing in a big unmanned drone, and call 'em CHUPATHINGYS (Cannon: High-altitude Unmanned Point-to-point Assault Tactical High-energy Ionized Nuclear Ground Yield System.)

For that matter, once miniaturized, put the damn thing in a fighter jet, instead of a minigun and missiles; all computer targeted, so the pilot can point and click; call it WHACK (Weaponized High-energy Assault Cannon Kit) or FLATHEAD (Flying Laser Assault Tactical High Energy Aircraft Destroyer.)

The possibilities are endless.

ATL? Lazy-ass.

Try, say, VIPER (Variable-Intensity Phased Energy Ray) or ANGEL (Airborne Nuclear Ground-targeting Energetic Laser) or VIOLENT-A (Vapor-Ion Orbital Laser Energetic Nuclear Tactical Array, for satellites) or DAVINCI (Defense Airborne Very-high-temperature Incited Nuclear Cannon: Ion) or BARRAGE (Balanced Array of Rotating Radiation Airborne Ground-targeting Emitters) or EAGLE (Energized Array of Ground-targeting Laser Emitters) or BLISS (Ballistic Lased-Ion Subduction System) or (my personal favorite) HELLRAZOR (High-Energy Line-of-sight Laser- Ranged Airborne Zeroed Optical Ray.)

Of course, those are all too serious; why not call it DIAPER (Destructive-Ion Armor-Penetrating Energy Ray) or EDIBLE (Energetic Disruptive-Ion Balanced-charge Laser Emitter) or ENEMA (Excited Nuclear Energy Multiple Array) or CHICKEN WING (Cannon: Heavily Ionized Capacitor-Keyed Energized-Neutron Weaponized Iterative Nuclear Gun?) Or maybe RETARD (Refocused Energy Tactical Array of Radiated Destruction) or FUCKOSAMA (Flying Unrestricted Capacitor-Keyed Optical Set of Attached Multiple Arrays) or DIE AHMADINEJAD (Defense Ion Experiment - Airborne High-energy Multiple Array of Disruptive Intense Networked Energy-Jar Assault Deconstructors) or (since I have too damn much of it,) SPARE TIME (Set of Phased Array Refocused Energy Tactical Ion Multiple Emitters.)

Why don't they hire ME to think up better names for this kind of thing than "ATL?"

...Well, maybe it's because of DIAPER, ENEMA, RETARD, and CHICKEN WING, although I remain convinced that there's a research project somewhere that would be proud to sport FUCKOSAMA.

But... IS It Fair?

Since this came up recently, let's talk about the so-called "Fairtax Initiative." Created by 3 Houston businessmen - by which I mean the owner of the Houston Texans, for example - it is purportedly an attempt to replace our nation's convoluted tax code, and overbearing tax bureaucracy, with a fair tax, thus the name. It was popularized by Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder, who co-wrote "The Fairtax Book."

Specifically, it is a proposal to eliminate the IRS (huzzah!) and simplify our tax code (hurray!) by replacing the entire current tax system (woohoo!) with a flat-rate, (yes!) across-the-board, (right on!) no deductions or exemptions (go tell it on the mountain, brother!) sales tax. (Wait... BOOOOOOOOO!!)

A fantastic idea, except for those last two words. See, current and existing sales taxes don't work the same way as the Fairtax; they're bad, but passable. Fairtax is neither passable, nor an improvement. Get ready for a blizzard of numbers.

First, when you or I buy something that has a sales tax now, it works like this:

Item Price: $14.99
Sales Tax: 6%, or .06
Final, after-tax total: $15.89 ($14.99 + .89 in tax)

Right, that's simple enough. That's not how the Fairtax works. See, the advocates of the Fairtax claim it will be set at a rate of 23%. Yeah, a quarter. But see, they don't do math like everyone else does. If the Fairtax were in fact calculated this way, a purchase of $100 would end at a price of $123; $100 + a 23% tax. Instead, they count the Fairtax as a percentage of the FINAL, AFTER-TAX price; the actual rate of the Fairtax is 30%.

Item Price: $14.99
Sales Tax: 30% of Item Price, or in this case $4.50
Final, after-tax total: $19.49
The voodoo they then perform to call it 23%: $19.5 * 0.23 = $4.49, making the $4.49 in taxes 23% of the AFTER-TAX price.

So, that's at best misrepresenting things a bit. (I would call it lying, but hey, who am I, huh?)
But just wait, this gets more creative. CNN's Money Magazine concluded that the claims that the Fairtax would allow you to keep all of your paycheck, pay the same price for goods and services, and still have a functioning government are... Well, hell, I'll just quote their article; they won't mind.

We'll explain this bit about "embedded taxes" in a moment. But first, let's consider what Boortz and Linder appear to be saying. Prices at the store are the same. Your boss stops taking all that money out of your paycheck. Uncle Sam is sending you money instead. And, oh yeah, the government is still up and running.

This just can't happen. "It is practically and logically impossible for the government be collecting the same amount of money as before and have everyone suddenly be better off," says Daniel Shaviro, a tax law professor at New York University.

See, the thing is that the Fairtax is misrepresented at several levels. First, its proponents make claims that are overtly impossible; second, they use voodoo math to attempt to claim that the rate is lower than it actually is, so that Joe Schmoe won't blow a gasket at the notion of paying an extra THIRD on top of his purchase price for taxes alone (and I will note that FactCheck.org's economists estimate that to break even, the Fairtax would have to be 34%, not 30%,) and third... well, third, Boortz and Linder are outright lying about how embedded taxation works.

Since I'm never one to leave well enough alone, let's dig into the concept of "embedded taxation."

See, when you buy a product, you pay taxes on it, whether you know it or not. This is because any taxes incurred along its route to manufacture are added into the cost, which passes directly along to you. So, for example, when you buy food that came from somewhere other than your garden, part of the cost of that food is the gasoline tax paid by the driver who brought it. Maybe a tiny fraction, but it's there.

Here's the big lie. Boortz and Linder are claiming that the Fairtax eliminates all those embedded taxes, which will cause prices to drop. The problem is that the Fairtax will REPLACE all those embedded taxes with an across-the-board 30% tax on everything, even items not now taxed directly; your gasoline tax, right now a fairly believable 18.4% at the federal level, will jump to 30%; EVERYTHING will cost more. Raw materials; finished goods; food; luxury items; everything. Now, this is "fair," in the sense that it's wholly dependent upon the purchase price, and it's voluntary to a degree, in that you can choose not to purchase a particular item, and thus not pay the tax for it.

But its actual effects in practice would destroy our economy virtually overnight. Don't worry; I will illustrate how this replaces the current price system with a hideous snakepit of embedded taxation.

First, repetitive taxation of the same goods is inherently abusive. Second, the economy depends on people buying things, which they will try like blue blazes to get out of if prices go up as much as the Fairtax will make them increase; and third, the cost of living will go through the roof. (I note here that the Fairtax advocates claim the government can save the poor from utter destruction here by rebating to them all taxes paid on anything up to the poverty line, a year. They will do this presumably with the money they take from everyone else. Socialism, don't you love it? There's ALWAYS gotta be income redistribution involved, somewhere.)

As an aside, before I begin the breakdown here, understand that the first thing to know about taxation of any kind is that ALL taxes come directly out of the pocket of the American consumer. Businesses CANNOT pay taxes; a tax on a business directly equates to an increased price of their product. American consumers bear 100% of the tax burden of any tax imposed on businesses. I am constantly amazed that people understand this concept when it comes to "windfall" taxes on the oil companies, but fail to grasp that the Fairtax plan is the same thing, only vastly more so.

It is neither an accident, or a mistake, that consumer items cost much more in states with high state sales taxes, than they do in states with lower - or no - sales tax.

To address repetitive taxation, cost of living, and people's spending habits all at once, let's talk about Burger King. Even if you don't eat there, you know basically what they serve.

Some parts of their food seem - on the surface - easily accounted for. Lettuce comes from the farmer, and is taxed when BK buys it. But wait: lettuce needs fertilizer to grow, and farm equipment to harvest it, both of which are taxed when the farmer buys them. But wait: farm equipment needs to be assembled from parts, each of which is taxed when the manufacturer buys them; each of which is made from raw materials that were taxed when the parts manufacturers bought them. Each of these successive stages of taxation adds 30% to the price of the single leaf of slightly wilted lettuce that BK sees fit to give you in a Whopper (™, BK) sandwich. The tomatoes and onions receive the same treatment; good thing they don't use much of those, either, hmmm?

Mayo - made from eggs, soy oil, vinegar, and a host of other ingredients - goes in each burger. (Other condiments follow the same path, so bear with my use of mayo as an example if you prefer, say, mustard. Weirdo.) The eggs are taxed when the mayo manufacturer buys them; they come from chickens that ate grain that was taxed, raised by farmers with fertilizer and equipment that was taxed, made with parts that were taxed, made from raw materials that were taxed. Each of the ingredients follows the same Fairtax model, being taxed at each recursive step at a rate of 30%, and thus the cost of mayo goes far higher than ever before; thankfully, BK skimps on that, too.

The same for the bun; wheat, millk, eggs, each taxed recursively, each jumping by 30% in cost at each stage on its way to BK. Cheese, taxed at BK, and at the cheesemaker, from cows fed with taxed grain, grown with taxed fertilizer and equipment, milked with taxed machines, made from taxed parts, made from taxed raw materials.

Beef, from cows taxed at the slaughterhouse, taxed at BK, fed on taxed grain raised with taxed fertilizer and taxed farm equipment, made from taxed parts, made from taxed raw materials.

Now, make all that into a Whopper, and tax it one final time when you order it - and you have successfully raised the cost of that burger by an unbelievable amount.

Understand that every piece of equipment used along the way - from the mining equipment used to dig up the raw materials for the machine parts for the farm equipment, to the foundry that made the rolled steel for the frame of the tractor-trailer rig that brought those ingredients to BK in the first place - will undergo the same process of embedded, nightmarish abusive taxation.

Understand that our cost of living will SKYROCKET under the Fairtax.

But wait, it gets better.

See, it's not just fast food. Fairtax taxes EVERYTHING.

"Luxury" purchases will also get far more pricey, and since they're less necessary, more and more formerly middle-class people will opt to simply avoid purchasing them, rather than pay the tax on a TV that's suddenly 80% - at a wildly optimistic guesstimate - more expensive.

As the market for those luxury goods dries up - and I don't just mean Ferraris and big screens; I mean ANYTHING that's not directly related to survival - manufacturers will either go bankrupt, or be forced to move overseas, as will retailers and service operators. It's tough to convince someone to pay extra - LOTS extra, after Fairtax - for broadband internet or cellular service plans, when they can barely keep food on the table.

When those jobs dry up, unemployment will grow massively, and each new unemployed person will be an additional drag on a system now supported entirely by purchases - with fewer and fewer people able to make those purchases.

See, Fairtax is predicated in the notion that because the USA has a $14 trillion-per-year economy NOW, that it always will, as though we have some sort of "right" to remain fabulously wealthy.

We don't. We got there, and stay there, by virtue of hard work. And Fairtax eliminates those very elements in our economy that make it a resilient, $14 trillion-per-year economy in the first place.

In actual facts, Reaganomics WORKED. Since Reagan's trickle-down policies, we've been - as a national economy - reaping the benefits of those policies, over 20 years or so, just as Reagan said. But bad economic decisions - and bad economic policy - trickle down, as well, and in fact do so more quickly than good ones; people are slow to trust, and quick to fear, and investor confidence is a huge driving force behind our economy.

To see this in effect, look at the effects on food prices caused by the use of corn for ethanol production.

See how wide they've been?

Now, imagine price increases of 30% on every good, every service, every raw material, every part, every item for sale, and imagine the staggering impact of that.

Enacting the Fairtax will destroy the U.S. economy within a matter of months.

But that's fair; we'll all be bankrupt peons together, without a pot to piss in between us, and that's certainly better than what we have now, isn't it?

Isn't it?

The Real Reason...

Speculation is running rampant about Hillary Clinton's motivations. The damage she's doing to the Democratic Party should, at this point, be obvious, even to her; there's simply no way after this long that Howard Dean will be able to "Yeeaaaaarrrrrrgh!" his way to a unified party in time to win the general election. So, what's her real reasoning? What motivation could be powerful enough to make a rampant ideologue like Hillary Clinton feed her party to the jackals? (I'm tired of things getting thrown under buses, dammit.)

Well, to find out, let's examine the last few months of the Democratic campaign. The funds expended by Hillary's campaign have, by and large, not been restored by donors; the cost of beating out Edwards and the other major candidates thus far has been, for Hillary, an erosion of her funding support that she's thus far been unable to stop.

So, you might ask, how did she keep her campaign rolling? How did she find funding to persist as she has? Well, fortunately, the answer to that, and the motivation that overpowers her party loyalty, are one and the same.

See, a while back, (specifically, in 2002,) John McCain co-sponsored a campaign finance bill, one of the provisions of which states that if a candidate drops out of the presidential race, they're not allowed to raise funds after the nominating conventions to pay back any personal funds they expended in the race.

I trust a light is dawning, as yet perhaps faint, but nonetheless there?

See, Hillary's been keeping her campaign going off the $11 million she's loaned it from her personal funds. Now, granted that, having essentially never held a real, non-political job in her life, basically all her "personal funds" are in reality your tax dollars, it's in fact not so much hers, as yours and mine, but she still feels ownership of it. And she's not ABOUT to write off $11,000,000 without a fight - especially since, if she gets the nomination, the DNC will then contribute matching funds to her campaign, allowing her to pay herself back the funds she took from you once, with more funds she took from you.

So: it is as simple as this: the motivation more powerful than her agenda, more powerful than her party loyalty, more powerful than her political aspirations, is GREED. Good, old-fashioned, lust for money. I hope she chokes on it.

Brace Yourselves...

The plant I work at might be getting a sudden surge in business.

Why?

Well, I'll tell you.

Today, our biggest competitor, Agriprocessors Inc., of Postville, Iowa, got raided by ICE.

And - not indicated in the article, but my speculation - I suspect the plant is gonna get shut down. Let me explain.

ICE says they expect a total of approximately 700 arrests from the raid; 300 people were arrested outright during the raid for a variety of charges, and approximately 80% of the plant's 968 line employees have been detained for questioning and examination of their records.

Among the highlights:

According to sources, there was a methamphetamine lab being run INSIDE THE PLANT.

Employees regularly brought weapons to work.

A supervisor disciplined one of the illegals by duct taping his eyes and then hitting him in the face with a meathook.

One supervisor reported to ICE that he had gone to the human resources manager when he found three of his employees using the same social security number, and she laughed at him openly.

At least one employee was hired with no documentation whatsoever, and when her first paycheck had a different name on it, the plant illegally cashed the check for her.


...So, yeah, Agriprocessors, Inc., is gonna go away.

But we still make good chicken and turkey, right here at my plant!

"Manufactured Hysteria"

Manufactured hysteria is a phenomenon in which someone, usually someone with a vested interest, loudly and openly - and often - proclaims that some otherwise irrelevant event actually carries huge significance and tries - almost always successfully - to create a bandwagon of craziness for everyone to jump on.

We've seen several of these in recent months, and I want to talk about a couple of them, as they illustrate both the differences and similarities between the right and left political groups in America.

First things first; let's talk about Miley Cyrus. She is Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter; reputedly musically talented in her own right; I can't personally attest to this, but I will give her the benefit of the doubt; fifteen years old; reasonably presentable; and far better known for the Disney character - Hannah Montana - that she plays on TV. She's also been in Vanity Fair magazine, and here's where things get weird.

OK. A while back, another Disney actress named Vanessa Hudgens caused a bit of a scandal for Disney when some photos of her, completely naked, obviously posed, and clearly authentic, showed up on the internet. Now Miss Hudgens was of age, so while there is something clearly not good for Disney here, there's nothing inherently wrong with it, and fairly quickly, it went away.

Miley Cyrus is fifteen. Recently pictures of her have been causing a ruckus as well, but there's a critical difference. Miss Cyrus is, in every photo so far, either fully clothed, or decently covered. So, what's the problem? Someone's trying to manufacture hysteria, that's what.

In the first set of photos, Miss Cyrus appears, wearing a crop top and shorts, lying across the lap of her then-boyfriend. Here's the picture:

Indecent as all hell, that; how dare she embarrass Disney, by liking her boyfriend?
Second, she has pulled her top down enough to reveal the top of a green brassiere.
This one - here it is -


- to me seems far and away the most risque of the photos, but really, despite some half-hearted moaning and groaning, no-one seemed to care very much. Maybe this is because she's decently covered, and nothing's showing that you wouldn't see if she went to the beach.

But THEN there was Vanity Fair. And in a photo session attended by her manager, AND HER FATHER, the photographer took a picture of Miss Cyrus, topless.

The world exploded.

Or, at least, that's what Disney would have you think. They're accusing Vanity Fair, and the photographer, of exploiting Miss Cyrus, and making noises saying they might replace Miss Cyrus entirely.

...hmmmmm...

...Doesn't Miley Cyrus cost Disney an assload of money, now that she's popular?
...Hasn't she been making noises about wanting to move on from Hannah Montana?

...hmmmmmmm...

So, I got to wondering. How did Vanity Fair get away with it? I mean, I haven't heard about any arrests for kiddie porn, which topless photos of a 15-year-old certainly are, under the law, so what's up? Could someone, somewhere, be misrepresenting something?

...hmmmmmmmmmmmm...

So, I looked up the picture.


...Striking, isn't it, the way her body is completely covered, except for - again - parts anyone could clearly see in public if this girl were to go to a beach?
Her father was at the shoot; the fact that he didn't pitch a conniption fit about it AT THE TIME, should clue you in that something here smells like bullshit.

See, what's really going on here is that this gives both Disney and Miss Cyrus exactly what they want: a chance to go their separate ways without culpability, because they can both conveniently blame Vanity Fair. Freedom for Miss Cyrus, to pursue her career in any direction she chooses, and freedom for Disney, from having to pay her exorbitant amounts of money. As she's in breach of contract, Disney can let her go without paying extra, and in six months this will be totally forgotten, thus having little to no impact on Miss Cyrus' post-Disney career.

The only person seriously hurt here is the Vanity Fair photographer, Annie Leibovitz, who might lose her job, despite this being essentially a truckload of horseshit. I will get to the political bits of this after my second example, promise.

The second example, here, is the U.S. economy. (Thanks to Jesi for her post, both for inspiration to talk about this, and for the facts and figures she dug up, thus saving me the Googling.)

The U.S. economy is - even now - STILL in the midst of the longest period of sustained economic growth in the history of this country, yet the media insists, endlessly, that we are in a recession.

In fact, their only support for this insane notion is that the rate of U.S. economic growth for the first quarter of 2008 is "only" .6%. Now, let's figure out what that means. Of the U.S. economy, which is currently about $13.9 TRILLION, that .6% comes out to about $100,000,000,000 - so, what's that mean?

Well, for starters, it means that our economy grew, in three months, more than the total value of the complete annual economy of all but 55 of the other countries on the planet; to continue to put that in perspective, that means that that single 3-month period saw more economic growth in this country than practically every developed nation on the planet sees in a year.

In other words, we're the richest, and one of the fastest-growing, economies in the world.

At this point I will inject a needed aside; this is usually the point when someone who doesn't understand how our system works, says something like "but what about the national debt?" or maybe "but what about the deficit?"

Well, both of them - in their entirety - are issues of, and for, the federal government; neither of them has a single blessed thing to do with the economy.

See, the federal budget - home of deficit spending and loans from foreign governments, who in turn owe us loads of money as well - is completely, totally separate from "the economy."

So, basically, if your claim is that the economy is bad because of deficit spending and national debt, you flatly have no idea what you're talking about, and need to go take an 11th grade economics and government class.

Right.

So, what's the deal? Why is it that the world's single richest, strongest economy is constantly under siege in the "court of public opinion?"

Politics. See, the media has - correctly - understood that the market can be influenced by people's confidence in it; and they also understand that most Americans still believe that the media basically tells the truth.

They don't.

The constant economy-bashing is an attempt to elect a President, pure and simple. I will explain.

See, if the economy begins to slow - which it is - because investors are getting careful - which they are - because the media is telling them they should be - which they are - then the Republicans look bad, since it's their boy in the White House.

The media understands their power; they know that all they have to do to reverse the damage they're doing to investor confidence is to, after the election of their chosen candidate, immediately begin an endless drumbeat of POSITIVE stories about the economy. investor confidence will rebound, and things will pick up again almost immediately - in fact, too quickly for any economic actions of the new President to have had any actual effect.

Watch closely - should they FAIL in their king-making attempt, the negative drumbeat will continue, as they look forward to the next Congressional election, instead.

Of course, the longer the negativity lasts, the more serious and lasting the damage they will inflict; but what do they care? They're far more concerned with their agenda than with the ultimate effect that agenda will have on the nation.

Now, as promised, what does this say about right and left, and what the hell does it say about the Cyrus family? Well, when the Vanity Fair photo session became a scandal, and it was revealed that her father was tehre, most of the people upset about it jumped to the conclusion that Billy Ray Cyrus is a bad, exploitative father, rather than give him the benefit of the doubt and assume the hoopla was bullshit.

See, conservatives tend to believe that personal character is important. They'd rather someone "iffy" go away, maybe wrongly, than allow them any authority, because a basic lack of character demonstrates a lack of leadership as well. Liberals, on the other hand, tend to dismiss character flaws, so long as the person in question can advance their agenda.

This is why Ted Kennedy, a known drunk and murderer, is still in Congress - and Tom DeLay, who was associated with a crooked lobbyist, isn't.

So, what's the similarity between right and left that this whole thing demonstrates? Both sides can be easily decieved with the vigorous application of the correct kind of bullshit.

A Convenient Guide To Stifling Dissent

One thing I've always found fantastically amusing about the left is the way they "defend" their nonsensical arguments.
The other day, I commented on a blog post; a previous commenter had said something utterly ludicrous, so I said that it was - I believe my exact words were "load of garbage" - and gave facts and figures to disprove their silliness...
...And was immediately, in very passive-aggressive fashion, accused of stifling dissent.
I'm noticing this as a growing trend among lefties, to attempt to stifle dissent, by accusing everyone who disagrees with them of attempting to stifle dissent. There's a trick to weathering this little technique when it crops up, and that is to call them on it. See, it only works if you DON'T call them on it; if you let them put you on the defensive, you not only undermine your argument, but you also lend credibility to their claim that you're attempting to stifle dissent that it simply doesn't deserve.
You might try, instead, something along the lines of, "Did you honestly think accusing me of something clearly and obviously untrue would constitute a refutation of my argument? Sorry, no. All you accomplished was to accurately reflect the situation - you can't prove me wrong, so you're trying to force me to shut up."
For those of you who really need the handholding explanation, here's a handy "stifling dissent" guide:

• "You're not allowed to comment here anymore!" = stifling dissent.
  
• "You're wrong and here's why:" IS dissent.
• "I'm deleting your comment because you're a poopyhead." = stifling dissent.
• "Explain to me why you think _______, because it's wrong." IS dissent.
• "Shut up." = stifling dissent.
• "Here's a flaw in your idea." IS dissent.
• "You're just commenting to stir up trouble!" = stifling dissent.
• "No, I just feel like proving you're an idiot." IS dissent, but inappropriate in logical discourse.

See the distinction?
So, if you're telling liberals to shut up, deleting their comments, or ordering them to stop commenting, then you're stifling dissent; if you're confining your remarks to the substance of their arguments, then what you're doing IS dissent.

This has been another episode of Rights Liberals Think Should Only Apply To Them.