Quote Of The Day

On contemporary South Africa in the aftermath of Mandela's death:

"This government—our government—is worse than the apartheid government."

Desmund Tutu.

This is my "I'm shocked!" mask.



 

Wednesday Night Music

Holy Fuck.

Elecronica band from Toronto.

Declining American Small Businesses

American businesses closing down quicker than they're starting up.

Krystal Ball's Cracked Crystal

A curious new bad habit - among many - has infested the left-wing ranks. That is the habit of going back into history and reworking it into its own image. I don't want to call it revisionism because I'm not sure that it is. It's hard to figure out what's going on i MSNBC's n Krystal Ball's head (yes, this is her name).

According to her, Animal Farm is not about communism (which it is. It's not up for debate since Orwell was using Soviet Communism as his guide) but can be about capitalism.

It's stupid as it is ignorant and a flat out lie designed to deceive.

But I'd rather not quibble with her pointing out all the historical inaccuracies she commits.

Rather, a quick moment should be spent on the mindset leading to such inane conclusions.

In defending her position which you can read, this line caught my attention:

"In fact, if you read Animal Farm today, it seems to warn not of some now non-existent communist threat but of the power concentrated in the hands of the wealthy elites and corporations."

Read the above quietly. This is how rats try and confuse you.

It's not a "fact" and the use of the word 'seems' obliterates her 'factual' assertion.

You can pretty much go into history and apply this trompe d'oeil to any novel or academic work and pretty much make it into anything you want it to be. One communist boob at Rolling Stone magazine even went as far to attempt to turn Adam Smith on capitalism.

What they're trying to do, as far as I can tell, is to go back and pull out all the writers and thinkers that support modern libertarianism and conservatism (ie classical liberalism) and try and reinvent their works in a way that "refutes" contemporary supporters of such landmark achievements. They have to misinterpret history - or at least reinvent it - because for the most part, our classical liberal heritgae doesn't support their modern progressive thought process.

For example, Wealth of Nations really advocates "controlled capitalism" (don't laugh, I read someone say this). Or The Idiot is really an allegory to George W. Bush. And so on.

Again, don't laugh because this is what Ball is basically arguing.

She has defended herself, as all empty-headed morons do, by stating the 'right' are going crazy on her because they don't understand her argument.

Yes. They don't see the genius inherent in the idiocy.

In fact, if you read Animal Farm today

I'm guessing the last word is the key one. Some Lit Crit people argue that anything written can have multiple meanings include some which the author never thought of and which, may, be the opposite of what the author intended.

Last, and this ties to what I just wrote, the passage I pulled out has another key word we can focus on: "In fact, if you read Animal Farm today"

I've read people in academia argue that anything written - past or present or even in the future - can have multiple meanings. It leaves them open to all sorts of faulty premises, presumptions and ultimately projections where current views can be superimposed on an author's original intent. They will insert notions the author 'never thought of'. In other words, the opposite of what the author intended. It gives them quite the lee-way to run rampant on history doesn't it?

Ah, but the 'vast right-wing conspiracy' that was blamed for Bill Clinton's immoral affair remains at the heart of all left-wing demons.





 

Inequality Shadow Boxing

Empirically, no, income inequality doesn't matter.

For alarmists and those searching social demons, it does.

It's the politics of envy; not equality.

Video: Ghost Town USA

Bodie, California.

Pretty darn cool.

California: Insane Progiderp Gone Wild

The California Legislature is looking at a voluntary program that would tax motorists for every mile they drive.

KCAL9’s Bobby Kaple reports that Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, introduced a bill to test out the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax because the state’s gas tax was no longer bringing in the revenue it used to due to people driving more fuel efficient vehicles.

Oh. In case you didn't know, a Democrat came up with this.

I wonder if all those who voted Democrat will voluntarily pay their 'fair share'. I'm guessing no. Lefties are good at telling others what to do while they ignoring it.

Quote Of The Day

"We are socialists because we see in socialism, that is the union of all citizens, the only chance to maintain our racial inheritance and to regain our political freedom and renew our German state." 

Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propaganda minister. (Bold mine).

Asian Carp Offensive

Thank God for Democrats.

Fighting the good fight.

"The state Senate on Monday approved a measure that would rename the fish “invasive carp.” It’s a response to concern by some people that the current term casts people from Asian cultures in a negative light."

Minnesotan-Asians can all rest easy tonight.

If I were Asian, I'd write to these two dingbats and give them a piece of my mind.

I See Your $15 And Raise You $26!

California Democrats are something else.

It's like they have no business training.

At all.

When Britain Offered Inspiration

Sometimes you just need to...

It's a shame that a people who maintained a resolute posture against aggression could roll over so eagerly to tyranny and political correctness.  I lament the fall of a nation once committed to liberty.

Lojban: Language For All

Do you speak Lojban?

You should.

We all should.

Mind you, although I'm functional in three languages, I think I possess a weak linguistic gene.

Chaldean Patriarch In Iraq Speaks

"The head of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq has said the Church in his country is "ruined" eleven years after the US-led invasion of Iraq.

“1,400 years of Islam could not uproot us from our land and our churches, while the policies of the West [have] scattered us and distributed us all around the world,” Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako said.

The patriarch, who has governed the Eastern Catholic Church since February 2013 said, “intervention by the West in the region did not solve the problems" but instead "produced more chaos and conflict.”
“Democracy and change come through upbringing and education rather than through conflict,” he added. 

Russian Orthodox Chant

Red Neck Zombies

Chuck Berry IS Rock And Roll

El Hierro, Spain

First island to be powered by wind.

Interesting.

Our Future Is Here

Demolition Man
Brazil
1984
Brave New World
My Grandmother

These are must see or read movies or novels for they have foretold our present state of affairs. It's where we're at, man. When someone justifies government power over the individual by saying things like "if you have nothing to hide, you nothing to fear" you know it's game over.

Art is imitating life and warning us about the inefficient and inconsistent application of power of the bureaucracy. Funny how politicians never talk about the inherent unfairness built into Top-Men Towers.

Personally, I think it's too late since we haven't been listening. We're already fucked.

Extremists!



This is the world nannies, interventionists, socons, progressives and regulators are creating. How many parts of the bureaucracy are unelected officials writing up policies again?

"Fake" Benghazi Scandal Won't Go Away For White House

"Recently revealed White Houseemails suggest that the Obama administration may have attemptedto mislead the American public by placing the blame on an Internetvideo and not Islamic terrorists, which would have raised questionsabout Obama's foreign policy strategy."

I think that was pretty evident from the get-go. The excuse was so unbelievably sophomoric it instantly shed light into the level of arrogance and disdain the administration had for the public. Anyone - and I mean anyone with a half-functioning hunch and remedial grasp of history in the region - should have been able to read right through the bull shit.

A fucking obscure video led to coordinated attacks on an American embassy.

Riiiight.

Alas, what difference does it make at this point?

A whole lot. A damn whole lot.

Former CBS investigative reporter Sharyl Attkinson - enemy of the state and cult of the derps:

"As one whistleblower put it to me: things have never been worse for people who try to speak the truth inside the government about illegalities and wrong doing. In their view, and I tend to agree, every administration is more clamped down and closed than the one before it. And the next one starts at the finishing point. It's very hard to make it go backwards. There are rules being implemented now against journalists and the type of work that we do that I think will be very hard to unwind." 

Anti-Communist Film From Early 20th Century Restored

My Grandfather (1929) is a satire film about the Soviet bureaucracy that would run - surprise - afoul with the communists and was banned. A practice we're not above today as we seek to cleanse and censor other opinions.

From Project Muse:

"In 1929, a Soviet Georgian actor-turned-director, Kote (aka Konstantin) Mikaberidze (1896–1973), made his first film, My Grandmother (Chemi bebia, Georgian/Moia babushka, Russian), a cutting satire of Soviet bureaucracy. Stalin’s Cultural Revolution (1928–1932) was well under way. This Cultural Revolution had two major components: the social and the artistic. In social terms, Soviet society was dedicated to ridding itself finally of the remnants of the old regime: people, practices, and ideas. An important part of the attack on antiquated practices was the campaign against bureaucracy, which had been the bane of tsarist as well as Soviet Russia. Mikaberidze had every reason to believe, therefore, that he was making a “politically correct film.” He was wrong. The film was banned, not to be screened again until the Georgian film studio restored it in 1976 because, according to the introduction to the restored film, “even today, it will be able to combat certain shameful practices still present in our society.“ Composer and musician Beth Custer has added a lively musical sound track and an English-language narration of the Russian intertitles to this crisply restored version from a copy held by the Pacific Film Archive, who commissioned her to write the score with the support of an National Endowment for the Arts grant.

The plot of My Grandmother is simple. The executives of the “TORK” trust laze about all day, shuffling papers, smoking and eating, playing with toy trucks, and shooting paper airplanes. The business manager, who commits suicide when a typist (with fashionably bobbed hair) refuses his love, is replaced by another unnamed man. The new business manager (Alexander Takaishvili) strongly resembles his predecessor, both physically and in terms of his complete uselessness." 

Wallowing in absolute obscurity, it was never to be seen again until nearly 50 years later (restored with added music from Beth Custer)- when the original director - and likely most of everyone associated with the film were dead. It's ironic, for me anyway, that it has found a new audience in these days where bureaucrats have much power and control. It seems even back then people were calling bull shit about communism. Unfortunately for the film makers, their lives were likely changed under Soviet control.

Video will redirect to youtube.