Monday, December 23, 2013

Anarchy Does Not Equal Anarchy

Anarchy means chaos. A truism that most folks on both sides of the aisle will gladly agree on. But does it really, or is it, as this gent points out, just a way to shock us all into fear and submission?

Anarchy refers to a society without a central political authority. But it is also used to refer to disorder or chaos. This constitutes a textbook example of Orwellian news-speak in which assigning the same name to two different concepts effectively narrows the range of thought. For if lack of government is identified with the lack of order, no one will ask whether lack of government actually results in a lack of order. And this un-inquisitive mental attitude is absolutely essential to the case for the state. If people were ever to seriously question whether government actions are really productive of order, popular support for government would almost instantly collapse. The identification of anarchy with disorder is not a trivial matter. The power of our conceptions to blind us to the facts of the world around us cannot be gainsaid.

--John Hasnas, Professor of Business and Law, Georgetown University

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Still Here. Still Pissed.





I used to think limited government was the answer. Now I think NO GOVERNMENT is about the only logical next step.


Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Still Pissed

Affordable For Whom?

Not just California. It's everyone I know. EVERYONE. Being dropped and being forced to pay more for less.

Biggest scam ever.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Haiku Monday: Bare

It seems like years since I've played. But Rafael called, so who can help but heed his requests?

Prada platforms flung,
toe curls extrude warmth and wet.
Mud stuck pedi cure.

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Liar Liar Pants on Fire



"If you like your private healthcare plan, you can keep your plan. Period. Nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have."

Really? Then how come mine, a perfectly good, affordable plan that provided me with everything I needed and nothing I didn't was just canceled? Why am I now being forced into another plan whose premiums have tripled and my deductible doubled, and I have no idea what it covers because it doesn't tell me? (Although, they were awfully proud to tell me that I now have full coverage for maternity and mental health meds.)

A couple weeks prior to Obamination Care coming down, my Facebook feed was lousy with people yippee-skippying for this travesty. That stupid cartoon, remember that one? That explained to us idiotic, uncaring souls just why Obamacare was so gooooooooood for us? People thumping me on the head for not showing any compassion, for not caaaaaaaarrring that millions of people could now have insurance.

For days now, however, nothing but crickets chirping.

Dear America: how do you all like your shark-skinned savior now?

I'll check back in a couple months to check in with all you True Believers.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

The Insanity Begins

 
 
Received via email today:

"Thank you for being a Presbyterian Individual HMO Plan member. We have some very important news that will require action on your part. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) healthcare reform law requires all health insurance plans to meet new requirements. Because of these new requirements, your current Presbyterian Individual and Family Plan will no longer be available after December 31, 2013."

New. Requirements. According to WHOM? A bunch of bureaucrats who know better than I do what my health care needs are?

Goes on to explain that I will only have two options from which to choose: A plan that includes maternity, a plan that does not. That's it. And, of course, no mention of costs. Those they'll spring on me when I'm forced to make the phone call to choose my plan. 
Oh, but the good news is, I get a health club membership AND free behavioral health meds along with whatever plan I choose. Which I suppose is a good thing, because I will need those meds when I go all Walter White on their asses . . .

In the meantime, I should expect a "packet" in the mail very soon explaining what the government now thinks is good for me, whether or not I actually want—or even NEED—that coverage or not. Bye-bye high deductible $90 a month plan that has always done exactly what I need it to do without putting me in the poor house.

Hello . . . God only knows what . . .

Monday, September 30, 2013

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Less Despairing of our Future

This in a public education music class? I'm impressed.



Monday, August 5, 2013

Haiku Monday: Reflection

-->

Sentimental gaze
conjures too much woe. Dylan
nailed it: Don’t look back.

* * * 

Serendipity is our hostess with the mostest this month.
Drop on by and play, why don't you?


Thursday, July 25, 2013

Pigs From a Gun



Liberty is the default. Always. It's just not negotiable.


Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Pray for Oklahoma

My heart goes out to Pam, Kym, and their families, friends, and everyone in Oklahoma City, Moore, and it's surrounding communities. So many people in that region have helped make S.B.'s company the success that it is, and we consider Oklahoma a second home. We are thankful that everyone we know there is safe, but so many others have suffered devastating losses. Please consider donating money to viable local charities and to the Red Cross to help these good folks try to piece their lives back together.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Insert Appropriate Who Lyric Here

Noam Chomsky: Obama's Attack on Civil Liberties Has Gone Way Beyond Imagination


Chomsky nutshells Obama perfectly:

"What it is is the same kind of commitment to expanding executive power that Cheney and Rumsfeld had. He kind of puts it in mellifluous terms and there's a little difference in his tone. It's not as crude and brutal as they were, but it's pretty hard to see much of a difference."

The right wing votes those who make them feel superior, the left votes those who make them feel good. Neither are in power to help; just to perpetuate more power. Unless and until we have a third alternative, a party that leaves us ALONE, we're doomed.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Definitions Matter

According to Merriam-Webster:
Hero • he-ro, noun. 
plural: he-roes

1 a. mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability
   b. an illustrious warrior
   c. man admired for his achievements and noble qualities
   d. one who shows great courage

2. a. the principal male character in a literary or dramatic work
    b. the central figure in an event, period, or movement

3. a. an object of extreme admiration and devotion: idol 
* * * 
Dear Mainstream Media:

Quit overusing the word. Just because something happens to people, and they survive, does not make them heroes. Just because a person happens to walk into his back yard and discovers something completely by accident, does not make him a hero. In fact, it's insulting to those who truly ARE.

Thanks,
Moi

Friday, April 19, 2013

Cone of Silence, Please


Eye on the TV
'cause tragedy thrills me
Whatever flavor
It happens to be like.
Killed by the husband
Drowned by the ocean
Shot by his own son
She used the poison in his tea
And kissed him goodbye
That's my kind of story.
It's no fun 'til someone dies.

Don't look at me like
I am a monster
Frown out your one face
But with the other
Stare like a junkie
Into the TV
Stare like a zombie
While the mother
Holds her child
Watches him die
Hands to the sky crying
Why, oh why?
'cause I need to watch things die
From a distance.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Hard Week's Month

Or something along those lines. I have no excuses. I've been busy, work piled up like dominoes, dog and family duties, and now Maddie in surgery for a series of tendons she busted running hell bent for leather after a coyote a couple weeks back. The surgeon guaranteed us an outcome that will have her back to her lil' ol' pistol self.

But not after 8–10 weeks of recuperation. In a crate.

Yes.

Shoot me now.

And Louie is certainly not going to be happy.

"Until the day I can once again play Doggie Smack Down with my sister and double team the squirrels with our ferocity, I will lie here in protest and refuse to move. But make sure I still get my snacks, okay?"


Typical Maddie. Always wants Louie's toys, sneaks in to get them, then walks away once she does. He don't care. He just wants her to looooooooooovvvvve him!

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Monday, March 4, 2013

Haiku Monday: Forgetfulness



Mem’ries buried deep,
conjured suddenly. My name?
Grandma can’t recall.

* * * 
Miz Boxer is hosting this week, since she won last week's hot and heavy competition. Check it out. Don't forget now, you hear?

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Happy to Work on Maggie's Farm

If, as Paul Simon asserts, every generation throws a hero up the pop charts, what does that say about our generation?

For the first time in several years I watched the Grammy Awards from beginning to end, and the next morning bitched to S.B. about the alarming lack of passionate, middle-finger-to-the-establishment protest music emanating from today's youthful musicians.

Apparently, Nick Gillespie of Reason Magazine pondered the exact same thing, concluding in this piece that for the first time in popular music history, our youth—and youthful musicians—are embracing the status quo, rather than rebelling against it.

I don't hear any outrage emanating from the airwaves, that's for sure. No "California Ăœber Alles" for the 21st Century, no NWA, no Clash, no Guns 'n' Roses, no Rage Against the Machine. Hell, we don't even have a Bob Dylan. About ten years ago, Ministry put out a brilliantly raging, anti-George Bush diatribe masquerading as speed metal. But ever since Obama came into office, crickets have done nothing but chirp. Instead, all I hear are over-inflated Pot Tarts screeching different versions of the same old love-gone-wrong laments and belly button lint contemplating guitar slung crooners reveling in the kind of post-teen ennui that involves a lot of pot and mom and dad's basement. For rock music we have, what, Coldplay? Train?

Sure, there has always been pop music, the kind of no-brainer stuff that's simply meant to be catchy. I'm fine with that. I own a lot of ABBA and I think Kelly Clarkson is the bomb. But they are not rock and roll. Rock and roll, by its very nature, is supposed to flip off the establishment, not suck at its teat.

Am I wrong?

1. Yes, you are wrong. Obama has ushered in the Grand Age of Shiny Happy, and because everyone is going to be taken care of, there is no reason to be angry.

2. No, you're not. Obama has ushered in the Age of Dependence, and our youth, instead of seeing authority as something to rebel against, sees it as a means by which they get to pay the rent without getting off the sofa.

3. I have no idea. All I wanna do is dance.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Fuzzy Math

Gary Johnson's statement regarding the Obamanator's State of the Union Address:

"What we didn’t hear tonight was a President telling the truth about the real state of the Union: that we are broke -- and that he and the Congress are succeeding only in digging us deeper into a financial hole that is, in reality, the single greatest threat to the nation’s well-being.

“Rather, we once again heard the tired argument that the challenges we face can somehow best be met by more government that costs more and taxes more. We’ve tried that. In fact, we’ve tried it so hard and so long that we have a debt totaling more than $90,000 for every worker in America.

“And while he spent an hour laying out a mind-boggling list of things the government should do, from ‘investing’ in infrastructure, technology and energy to helping parents pick the best college for their kids, he assured us his plans will not increase the deficit by ‘a single dime’.

“That is absurd on its face, and could only be based on the same arithmetic that has given us a $16 Trillion debt.

“Once again, we witnessed a great political performance wrapped around promises that shouldn’t be made in the first place, and that we certainly cannot afford to keep.”


'bout sums it up, I'd say. 

Monday, February 11, 2013

Haiku Monday: Business




Libertarian
Creed: Hands off. Ask first. No one’s
business but our own.

* * * 

The ever enterprising Czar is hosting this go-round. The theme is broad, the possibilities endless. So give it a thought and a go.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Haiku Monday: String


* * * 
 
-->
In out, out in, OUT!
Faster, higher, clap the beat.
Chinese jump rope rules.

The theme is endless in its possibilities.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Haiku Monday: Triumph of Nature


Damn unwanted seed!
Aloft upon wind and wing.
Graces no man’s land.

* * * 

For more natural triumphs, head on over to hostess Fishy's Place and play!




Sunday, January 20, 2013

Haiku Monday: Speed

Decayed dinosaur
ooze fuels dying desire.
Where’s my flying car?

* * * 

Serendipity is this week's Haiku Monday hostess. Take a spin by her place and see who's playing this go round. And maybe even take a shot at one of your own.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money

Yup, looks like we're off to a cracking 2013. Alarmists who want to regulate inanimate objects, a bloated tax and spend congress, and a Fourth Estate that is not just asleep at the wheel when it comes to holding an incompetent government's feet to the fire--it's comatose. Yee-haw!