The myth of America

Watched the History Channel's "The Story of Us," at least the episode on the American Revolution. It's a series. I wonder how many episodes. I missed the first one, and it seems they entirely skipped over the French & Indian War's role in laying the groundwork for the Revolution.

Oh well.  I don't think the series is targeted at hardcore history buffs. It seems intended to inspire. It hits all the major cliches -- "The shot heard 'round the world," Paul Revere's "The British are coming" (try saying that like you never heard it before), and the miserable hardship of Valley Forge.

The series also seems to pay particular attention to the number of blacks involved in colonial America -- not only as slaves, but the freemen of Boston -- and noted that Von Steuben was gay. I didn't know he was gay. I have a copy of his drill manual, though.

So what is this series all about? Reconciling US history with political correctness?

I don't mean to be harsh or overly critical, though. The first man who died in the Revoluion was a black mechanic, Crispus Attucks, killed in the "Boston Massacree."  And I have no problem with Von Steuben being gay. Do believe his drill manual was used up to an including the beginning of the Civil War in 1861. And possibly throughout the Civil War. The drill and approved conventions never did quite catch up to the innovations introduced during the Civil War, like really effective skirmishers and snipers armed with rifles, the use of railroads for logistics, cavalry with breach-loaded, repeating Spencers and Henrys, and telegraphic communications. Not to mention the iron-clads, land mines, and trench warfare.

Anyway.... "The Story of Us" appears to want to be inspiring, mainly. But they really kind of glossed over the whole idea behind the Revolution. They did quote the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" thing from the Declaration of Independence, and Newt Gingrich, as a commentator, noted that individual rights were, for the first time, claimed as coming from God rather than the government, and were "inalienable," or impossible to take away. And that's about it, as far as philosophy goes.

Maybe that's supposed to be enough. But it's really more myth now than reality in the USA.

In the ads for upcoming episodes, or maybe just an ad from sponsor Bank of America, a whole bunch of people from different backgrounds stand up and say "freedom" in different contexts. Like that's what it's all about.

That is what's all about. Or that's what it used to be all about. But I wonder if the word "freedom" has any real meaning anymore, or if it's just become some kind of nonsensical mantra for most people. Now it seems many citizens are much more concerned about getting their one-kind-or-another welfare check on time, getting surplus cheese or whatever, and complying with the beast-of-burden model of being forced to shoulder the expense of non-citizens who don't know anything about the USA, though they do recognize prosperity when they see it.

Like, I believe it was the AFL or the CIO or possible the UAW protesting "Wall Street Excesses" today. Honey, let me tell you -- that takes some nerve! Since those very same unions have extended unfunded and unfundable promises to their members about pensions and health care that they expect -- no, they DEMAND! -- that non-union citizens provide for them. I mean, after all, it's more important that the union leaders spend their own real and collected budgets on lobbying.

In Quncy, Illinois, on the Mississippi, and quite historic in some ways, too, the local cops called up a police Tactical Squad -- all dressed up in what looked like black leotards, like the "official" Jihadists in Iran -- to make sure no Tea Party person took a pot shot at the Comrade while he delivered one or another unremarkable load of bullshit to a hand-chosen choir.

Tell me when you see the "freedom" part of any of this.

Meanwhile, Mexico's official policy toward undocumented "immigrants" and "foreigners" crossing the border into their fine nation requires that the perpetrators be prosecuted and deported or spend up to a year in jail. But the Mexican government scolds us for trying to prevent their murderous drug-thugs from killing US citizens, let alone their "coyotes" defrauding and killing untold numbers of Mexicans by packing them into vans like cattle and shipping them across the border for non-existent jobs here. Mexico, also, has one hell of a nerve.

Apparently Mexico -- and apparently other nations along with oour own domestic liberals -- seem to be mistaking the USA for a cornucopia. That is to say, they regard the USA as so magically and everlastingly terrific, we can pay for every else's sins. We can "fix" everything for everyone.

They've been eating the same peyote buttons the Comrade is munching on.

So I find "The Story of Us" mainly very depressing. "Well, I used to love her, but it's all over now...."

If you keep dumping on US citizens, suppressing our inalienable rights, appropriating our property and the fruit of our labor, refusing to defend and protect us from foreign usurpers and invasion... eventually you do transform the nation. It becomes something like Mexico, or the USSR, or Zimbabwe, or Greece.

WE WORK FOR WHAT WE'VE GOT. TRY THAT. MAYBE IT'LL WORK FOR YOU, TOO. 'COURSE, IT IS A WHOLE LOT EASIER TO SIMPLY STEAL FROM US THAN TO MAKE IT ON YOUR OWN.

And making it "on your own" is what freedom is. It's not easy. It's not cheap. It can't be legislated. And apparently it can't be preserved or protected, either. At least not by the buttheads holding office right now.

Again with the Thomas Jefferson:  "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." We haven't been vigilant enough. Especially internally. The myth of America is not enough, when our own government is right now working so diligently to destroy its reality.

And my cat died, too. And the USPS has failed to deliver two checks due to me. Possibly the IRS has adopted a new policy to streamline operations and improve efficiency: skip the part where the citizen gets paid for his or her work and just seize all income before it falls into the hands of the person who earned it.

All in all, not a good week.

Congress cooking up more s***** deals?

Saw parts of congress interrogating Goldman Sachs yesterday. Apparently the feds retrieved an email that referred to the sale or attempted sale of bad mortgages as a "shitty" deal.

"So you try to sell people shitty deals?" asked congresscritter Carl Levin, trifocals balanced on the end of his nose.

Politicians subscribe to the theory that no matter how stupid or ignorant you are, if you get those weird glasses, and better yet, get them to perch on the tip of your nose, others will mistake you for an intelligent person. Clinton and Schumann (or whatever, the loud mouth from New York) do it too.

Anyway, my question to congresscritter Levin: "So YOU try to sell people shitty deals?"

Those mortgages are the ones congress and the feds compelled banks to make, with no down payment, to the unemployed and unemployable, etc. etc. Let's face it, those are shitty mortgages. If they weren't shitty deals -- almost guaranteed money-losing deals -- the banks wouldn't need the feds prodding and threatening them to extend credit to people who can't pay it back. Why wouldn't Goldman Sachs try to unload those mortgages? After all, isn't it the federally-chartered purpose of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to try to unload them? You can put ribbons and bows on those contracts, they're still shitty deals.

Seems Goldman Sachs -- or someone -- even used bundles of these mortgages in some kind of hedge fund deal. In a hedge deal, you borrow a stock (or something tradable) that you know is going to lose value. You BORROW it from a broker, you don't buy it -- and you have to pay something to borrow it.

Then you sell that stock to someone else. Who knows why anyone would buy it. Maybe looking for a loss to offset taxes or something? Maybe just ignorant? Anyway, you sell that stock to someone else for, let's say, $50.00 per share.

Then you wait for the stock value to drop. This is what you expected to happen; you've actually got fingers crossed that the value will fall. Bad quarter annoucement? Shitty mortgage deal? Something like that... and the value goes down.

Then you buy the stock back -- not necessarily from the guy you sold it to -- only you buy it back for maybe $40.00 per share. The seller is probably glad to get anything for it, because the value is going down.

So then you keep the $10.00 per share you made on your sale and buy-back, and give the BORROWED stock back to the broker. You've got to pay the broker something for use of the stock, and if the stock doesn't go down in value, then you lose money. Usually there is also a pretty tight time-frame involved in all of this -- you've got to do all these deals in a matter of days or weeks or so. You don't usually make a lot per share, either, which is why only people who can invest $50,000.00 or more even get involved in hedge funds. You've got to do volume trades or the deal probably isn't worth it (in other words, it becomes a shitty deal....)

That's hedge trading. That's how George Soros made his millions. Or trillions. That's what funded the Comrade's presidential campaign and is supporting his regime.  So why don't they have George Soros -- king of the hedge fund traders -- in front of congresscritter Levin?

Anyway, so apparently Goldman Sachs was playing with Freddie and Fannie mortgages in the hedge market. Well, that's one way to make some money off the shitty mortgages. Otherwise, the mortgages are just a total loss, right?

So congress made this mess, then when their house of credit cards started falling apart in 2008, they set up Goldman Sachs to try to recover ANYTHING from the shitty deals. So Goldman Sachs did their best, and now congress is nailing them to the cross for it.

On Fox last night, Charles Krauthammer commented on this by pointing out how if the Incas had a crop failure, they'd pick a citizen and do a blood sacrifice to the gods.

He got that right. Thanks to TARP, Goldman Sachs is still "too big to fail," so they become the fall-guy. Apparently CitiBank, about the only other "too big to fail" that survives, instead of using hedge funds to recover their losses, has chosen to gouge their consumer credit customers. I suppose they'll be next in the Hot Seat.

Nice going, congressional buttheads. But you're not fooling anyone.

I love it when idiot do-gooders in congress jerk business around with price limits, stupid regulations, etc., that cost money. Congress seems to think the money will come out of the profits of business. ROFL. (Rolling on the floor laughing.) No. they just pass those costs on to consumers -- or they do things like hedge funds to try to make some money.

Businesses are not charities. They don't have a lot of money laying around to funds congressional castles-in-air. If business doesn't make money, it folds it tent and steals away -- unless they can get a TARP bailout. And who pays for that?

And God, does reality ever piss off congresscritter Carl Levin, among others. No free lunch? What a frickin' nightmare!

Save the republic -- vote the bums out.

The president should resign

Very interesting last couple of days.

Apparntly the Comrade, Harry Reid, and Pazzo Pelosi are really counting on the bogus votes from illegal aliens, be they murderers, theives, drug traffickers, white slavers or whatever.

Hell, those three clowns just forced through congress a massively expensively bill that will bankrupt the US just to provide free health care to anyone who can swim across the Rio Grande. That's their voter base, apparently -- non-citizens. Surely no one who can actually speak English and who understands anything but "gimme," would vote for these fools.

So Arizona passed a bill that says they'll deport anyone they find to be illegals. The illegals call it profiling. The police will be stopping Mexicans who look suspicious. Well, gee, who else might be sneaking across the border with Mexico, carrying drugs and weapons, shooting ranchers, etc etc. The feds won't defend the border because the dems want the votes. They're inviting illegals -- dangling all kinds of freebies, like free major surgery -- to attract them. So Arizona is sick of the drug trafficking, kidnappings, and home invastions, and tried to act like responsible citizens to preserve their corner of nation.

Then the illegals go wild! What is it, now four days of what looks kinda like riots in Phoenix. Vandalizing public buildings, throwing rocks and bottles at the cops, running like frigging maniacs through the streets.

Hey, you know, based on these "demonstrations," I don't want these people in the country, either. They're showing us why they don't belong in civilized society.

And the Comrade? Didn't he call upon them to rise up and continue to vote for him, or something like that? Yeah. His constituency:  the worthless, the unmannered, the unemployed looking for free handouts for themselves and their families.

And heaven knows, other liberals are all ablaze with cries of injustice and whatever.

You know what, illegals have no claim to the protections provided by US law. They're... well, illegal. They aren't citizens. They've ruined their own country, now they want to ruin ours.

But hey, as far the Comrade, Reid, and Pelosi are concerned -- this is their voter base, the people they cater to.

So, tell me again what a threat the Tea Party protesters are. If I could watch Chris Mathews without puking, or Keith Olberman, it would be interesting to see how they twist this.

And the Comrade -- my God, what a disaster. He'd done nothing so far but nationalize industries and inspire and promote class warfare -- including inventing the classes. Divide the nation, getting us all hating each other and hating the government.

The mother fucker needs to resign while there's still something left. He's not only completely incompetent, but hell-bent on destroying America. However, I'm quite sure the son of a bitch has neither the honor nor sufficient respect for the USA to do the right thing.

Save the republic.

Surprise! Socialized medicine already increasing costs

I'm shocked! Shocked!

Health and Human Services, or whatever that nasty meddling fed bureaucracy is called, has reviewed the socialized medicine legislation just passed, and has concluded that it will cost $311 BILLION more than congress admitted to. So far... Maybe they've only read halfway through it.

I wonder, too, if they're calculating the cost of the salaries, benefits, and pensions of those 16,500 IRS henchmen that will be hired to make sure citizens are actually swallowing the crap they're shoving down our throats... And/or the salaries, benefits, and pensions of all of those who will populate the 150 or so additional agencies and bureaucracies who will occupy federal jobs otherwise related to shoving this crap down our throats.

Anyone actually surprised that socialized medicine ALREADY costs billions of dollars more than stated? And the legislation isn't even in operation yet.

Wait, I promise you -- there's a whole lot more coming.

I can't afford it. The feds have priced health insurance out of the market. Put me in jail, buttheads. I'm sick of working for the man already anyway.

MORE UNHAPPY NEWS:

I'm an American history buff, and I'm especially interested in the Civil War. I don't dress up or anything, but I've gone to re-enactments, and I have absolutely no idea how many battlefields I've visited.

I love Gettysburg. It's very cool because the way it's laid out, Gettysburg is almost a textbook for military tactics. It's also very pretty in some places, and very peaceful -- now. If you have as much imagination as I do, you hear the cannons roar, picture the fields covered in smoke and blood, appreciate the truly foolish valor and determination of both sides engaged.

So next year, 2011, is the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. I've heard the National Park Service invited a marxist communist to speak there next year.

Dear God. Ruin that for me too.

Save the republic.

Financial "reform"

My favorite quote from Thomas Jefferson goes something like this: If a man is not fit to rule himself, how then can he be fit to rule others?

The b.s. coming out of the dem-dominated congress is astounding. They established this farcical "blame" for the financial crisis as "banks behaving badly," then propose a huge government-run bureaucracy to fix that behavior.

First of all, it was largely CRA legislation -- congress's requirement that banks make bad mortgage loans. During the Bush Administration, with the Dot-Com Bubble collapsing followed by 9/11, the economy began to tank. So the Fed (the bank authority, that is) set prime rates close to zero to "stimulate" the economy.

Net Result: Pumping lots of hot air into the housing market. Then shunting all those bad loans into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac funds -- federally guaranteed. Thus, all that very bad paper got "redistributed" into financial markets all over the world.

All the mortgage foreclosures, falling property values, and all of that is the market correcting itself. It will continue to do this -- on its own -- no matter what the government or individual financial institutions try to do about it. This whole government-created disaster is what can be called a "rolling readjustment" of hype and over-bidded value of real estate.

The government pretends it has something to do with hedge funds. And maybe it does. Mostly what I know about hedge funds is that George Soros (radical communist financial backer) is the master of them, and that they only make money in a down market, or on falling stocks. I do understand how a hedge works, but it's too damn hard to explain here. (Look it up.)

At any rate, it looks like some kind of perfect storm. The housing and financial (read mortgage) markets were shoved to the edge of a precipice through legislation and excessive regulation, and someone -- maybe Soros, he's done it before; he's destroyed the economies of two nations that I know of, and maybe more -- pushed the market over the edge. Soros, after all, makes money on hedge funds, which work only in a down or collapsing market.

So who benefitted from this?

At any rate, what I can gather about proposed financial "reform" legislation is that is puts tighter governmental controls over banks and other financial institutions. The good news is that officers from banks and other institutions get to sit on the regulatory board. The bad news is that the federal government has almost autocratic authority over the board's decisions, and can even circumvent the board if it feels the need.

I guarantee, the Comrade and the merry marxists will "feel the need."

Additionally, the proposed regulations don't touch Fannie and Freddie, which were the primary sources of all the problems to begin with.

So it looks kinda like this bill is yet another attempt of the socialists in the White House and the congressional majority to seize control of institutions that right now are already w-a-a-a-y over-regulated. The bumbling and short-sighted regulations were the cause of the problem to begin with.

These self-proclaimed financial experts in the federal government keep claiming that the 2008's financial disaster was caused by "irresponsible" and "reckless" activities perpetrated by private financial institutions. George Bush gave them free rein to run rampant on Wall Street. Bull shit, you know? Although we should credit the Fed with a strong assist.

So the government caused the initial problem and is now working very hard to tighten its control over financial institutions, which know their industry much better than the blockheads in the federal government.

What's wrong with this picture? Sorta like the lunatics running the asylum?

'Course the icing on the cake is the feds now proclaim that their bail-out pet, Goldman Sachs, has been indulging in bad behavior. "See," they say, "you can't trust anyone on Wall Street." I never trusted Goldman Sachs. It was Geithner and the feds who trusted them, wasn't it?

But you know what? I trust Wall Street a lot more than I trust Washington. Wall Street only wants to make money. Nothing wrong with that. A genuinly free market is self-regulating -- they screw up, they go bankrupt. They screw customers, they go bankrupt. They over-extend, they go bankrupt. And good riddance. Let them fail. Failure clears out the deadwood and makes room for newer, better companies.

On the other hand, Washington wants power and control -- and in order to get it, they have to take it away from us. And based on recent history, they don't know what the hell they're doing in regard to the financial industry.

So remember: If a man is not fit to rule himself, how then can he be fit to rule others?

Save the republic.

Demonizing... salt

A few weeks ago, this Hispanic politician from Brooklyn, NY, was on Fox, saying how since he and his fellow travelers won the battle on banning transfat (?), getting restaurants to put calories on the menu (?), or some other weird kind of nanny-statist intrusion into our personal lives, now he's spearheading the drive against.... salt.

Sorry for profiling, but I'm not being bigoted when I say the guy's a Hispanic. I have no idea where he originiated, but he did have a rather noticeable accent.

My question: Why did he come to the USA? Too much freedom here? We desperately need some blockhead to step in and control our diets?

Asked what business it is of his how much salt anyone eats, he responded with "The government is paying for healthcare now." Not quite yet, pal. There may be a few Supreme Court cases and mucho legislative wrangling before that actually happens.

On the other hand.... Toldya so!! Na-na-na-nana!! Give the government an inch, and they take a lightyear.

Anyway, the FDA or someone, apparently having LOTS of free time on their hands (at taxpayer expense) and just looking for something new to regulate, has hopped on the bandwagon. They're making a list and checking it twice of how many illnesses and disorders can be related to salt consumption to terrify us all. Then when they've convinced us that french fries are silent killers, they'll move into determining just exactly how much salt a citizen really needs in his diet.

'Cause we're all exactly the same, see? We all have the same tastes, the same metabolism, the same requirements for everything in life. It's up to the feds to figure out exactly how much of everything all us cookie-cutter slabs of flesh need to survive, then they'll dole that all out to us in tightly-regulated, approved amounts.

And we should thank them.

So then we'll need a prescription to buy salt? And it will be available only in amounts appropriate to your age, height and body weight?

Actually, the FDA or whomever is targeting food processors on this -- at least for now. Seems they plan to go to Campbell Van Camp and probably Frito Lay and tell them that they can't use salt anymore. Or dictate exactly how much salt they can use. Let's hope the FDA at least hires a chef. Hey, it's an excuse for them to spend more money on stupid projects that no one wants. I'm sure they'll get right on it.

I bought a can of salt-free chicken broth one time to use in making tetrazzini. The dish came out fine, after I dumped about a half-cup of salt into it.

And you know, human beings need salt to live. Just like we need cholesteral. If you don't eat cholesteral, your body manufactures it. And your body just might be manufacturing the "wrong" kind -- the kind that blocks your arteries. Oh my God, what a horror story! Gene-betrayal.

So, anyway, salt is cheap right now. But expect to see the feds laying some ridiculously high tax on it to discourage its use and to help pay off the mind-boggling and unsustainable debt this congress is accumulating.

So begin hoarding now. You'll need to collect enough for your lifetime. Or at least until we can vote these idiots out of office. And keep it a cool, dry place... the salt, that is. The bureaucrats should probably put out to sea on an iceberg.

Save the republic.

Liberals all astir as April 19 approaches

For the last couple of days, starting with some totally irresponsible remarks Bill (can't-keep-it-zipped) Clinton -- balancing Ben Franklin spectacles on the end of his bulbous nose -- made about the bombing of the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, the liberals have been twisting their panties all in a bunch over their manufactured fear of some violence from the right. The Murrah buildng was blown up on April 19, 1995. Clinton implies that it was angry words that drove Tim McVeigh and friends to blow up the Murrah buildng.

No. Really, it wasn't angry words.

I've never seen or read McVeigh's confession, but what I've heard about it is that he did the bombing -- and more specifically did the bombing on April 19, 1995 -- in response to the FBI and ATF assaults on the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, which killed many in that group, and which ended in flames on April 19, 1993. Seems Clinton has forgotten how badly he and his blockhead Attorney General, Janet Reno, bungled the whole Branch Davidian situation.

The Branch Davidians had been a rather strange and fringe-like religious group that practiced a number of questionable things, but they were never a threat to anyone until the FBI and ATF -- in black masks and jack boots -- tried to knock down their front door. Eventually, after a seige that lasted several months, the FBI and ATF burned down the Branch Davidian complex, frying everyone who was still inside. I think that was close to 70 people, many of them women and children.

Nice going, Bill and Janet! If I was you, I'd try to forget that part, too.

McVeigh apparently also referenced an incident that was known as Ruby Ridge, where a guy named Randy something refused to become an informer for the FBI. Randy was also religious, but he'd actually refused to join what the FBI suspected was a militant group; the FBI wanted Randy to attend the meetings and rat everyone out. Randy refused. So the FBI framed him on a minor gun violation, then while trying to arrest him, an FBI sniper missed his target (we hope) and killed Randy's wife and an infant child. According to the government, this was all Randy's fault, of course, because he wasn't willing to just go along with the FBI's program.

These actual events had more to do with Tim McVeigh's bombing the Murrah building than did any angry words.

So Bill (can't-keep-it-zipped) Clinton's real message seems to be: Just shut up and comply and everything will be fine.

And what's funny is, as a Tea Party sympathizer, I've actually been more inclined to meditate on mid-April being the beginning and end of the Civil War and marking the assassination of Abe Lincoln, than pondering Waco, Ruby Ridge, or Tim McVeigh.

Liberals just don't get it. The Tea Party is all about restoring the USA, not destroying it. Rather, it appears that in some part of the liberals' fevered and twisted little brains they're aware of how badly they're screwing the American public and they apparently expect some kind of violent retribution as their due.

Liberals are, after all, hag-ridden by neurotic guilt. They seem to be able to paste any name they want on that guilt -- their own latent racism, their own proclivity to cheat on their taxes and swindle their trading partners, their own willingness to kill and maim in order to gain political control... Apparently this is what drives them, so they assume it's what drives everyone else.

But their accusations are, frankly, quite insulting.

And just pointng out, there hasn't been a Waco or a Ruby Ridge since Tim McVeigh blew up the Murrah building. So in one way, maybe it worked.

Apparently the liberals recognized that unfortunate event as setting a limit upon their power hungry over-reaching. They're over-reaching again, so naturally, they're expecting the same kind of thing. And maybe they do deserve it. They seem to suspect that they do, else why fixate on it?

On the other hand, the Tea Parties have shown themselves to be quite a bit more superior morally and ethically than either the liberals or Tim McVeigh.

But, yeah, maybe the liberals better quit working so hard to enslave us all before someone goes off. And this would probably be a liberal disgusing himself as a conservative. I mean, remember the Reichstag Fire. And more recently, that loonie government employee who put up the web site advising socialists everywhere to participate in the Tea Parties and try to start something.

Looks to me like the violence comes mainly from the left, not the right. But there is a spirit and underlying principles in the USA that dictate that a reasonable and responsibile citizen can only shut up and put up for so long.

Liberals really are so pathetic.