They Succeed Because We Let Them.

I think one thing that we’ve been talking about a lot in Boston is the fact this is not necessarily anti-capitalism, and that this isn’t anti-wealth. And so, you know, we’ve found that some people who are just wealthy might be a little alienated by our movement.   And so we’ve been sort of actively trying to reach out to them and say that, you know, it’s not that we have anything against wealth, and it’s not that we have anything against capitalism. We just want to make sure that our democracy is functioning the way that it’s supposed to function. – Jason Potteiger, brainwashed and unemployed recent graduate

And how is shutting down businesses, destroying property, and truly being a public danger and nuisance in any way a functioning democracy?

We’re not a democracy, we’re a representative republic, but if we concede the point for the sake of argument, the functioning “democracy” functions when everybody votes.  Then you keep abreast of the issues and write to your congress-critters.  That’s how it works.

Or, you can make a public spectacle and waste taxpayer dollars as an attention-whore and say stupid things like this:

“Inherently, in asking for demands, you are accepting that there is a power greater than yourself, which is something that this movement is categorically against,” Patrick Bruner, a 23-year-old protester, told the group. “This movement is founded on autonomous action and collective wisdom.”

There’s earned arrogance…

Arrogance has to be earned.  Tell me what you did to earn yours.  – House

And there is Patrick Bruner’s arrogance, which really doesn’t have a lot of life experience to justify it yet.  Of course there are powers greater than ones’ self – it is a fact of life and you can’t change it even if you close your eyes really hard and wish for it to be different.

Sam Abrahamson… back in the NPR interview:

You know, I came out here, essentially, because I’m sick of the apathy that seems to be pervading through my generation. Just like Jason, I’m worried about paying off all this debt that I’m racking up from college. So one of the things that I’m hoping to accomplish from these protests is to get some financial reforms, that we can have support for people like myself who are in the middle class, who are not going to have the ability to pay these loans off by themselves.

Grammar is not a strong point of college graduates, obviously.

How is Occupy Wall Street supposed to pay off all the debt one racks up from college?  The guy went to college in “pre-reforms” times, and surely must have known that he would be responsible for paying for the services rendered (obtaining an education).  If you know you are not going to have the ability to pay off the loans by yourself, perhaps you ought to save up some money and then go to school.

What Abrahamson is trying to do is get the education and then not have to pay for it.  Free lunch.  As a graduate who paid off all of his loans the less-polite part of me very much wants to say to Abrahamson:

Stuff it, you snot-nosed litte dirtbag.  Suck it up and be a man.  The real apathy here is rooted in your inability to face that you have to work for things in life and the rest of the world owes you no favors.  Stop being a child.

Idiots succeed in making statements like the ones above because no one calls them on it.  The Democratic Party gets away with calling itself the party that includes blacks and minorities because they are allowed to.  Media is allowed to slash the Tea Party as people clinging to guns and religion because they are allowed to (yes, I know Obama said that one).

And Occupy Wall Street is allowed the fiction of claiming that their 0.001% represents the rest of us in the 99% even though it is utterly untrue.  They don’t speak for me even one tiny bit.  They can’t even coherently speak for themselves since the liberal portion of this country is really composed of a bunch of special interests that band together as long as purposes suit rather than be held together by a common cause which is indeed bigger than themselves.  Autonomous action and collective wisdom is synonymous with anarchy and chaos.

The politest fiction is that demonstrative liberalism isn’t rooted in hubris.

More later – I need a nap.

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Concrete Made of Aerogel

UPDATE:   The HULC sounds like a hoot.  I have concerns about power lifetime and practicality.  Perhaps if you put generators on the hip joints you could generate power and it’d go infinitely long?

UPDATE 2:  Ah, a new lease on life for the Bedwetter Society.

But climate is known to be variable — a cold winter, or a few strung together doesn’t mean the planet is cooling. Still, according to a new study, global warming may have hit a speed bump and could go into hiding for decades.

That is called an end run, saying that you can’t prove we’re wrong because all facts you’d use to prove us wrong are invalidated by our proven premise.

Here’s my own end-run:

UNTIL CURRENT CLIMATE MODELS CAN PREDICT ACCURATELY THE OBSERVED HISTORICAL WEATHER EVENTS USING THE SAME PRECURSOR DATA, MODELS PREDICTING FUTURE GLOBAL WEATHER/CLIMATE ARE OF LOW RELIABILITY.

There is also a major flaw with even that because the models are always tweaked to account for the latest anomaly.  Just because they are so tweaked does not mean that the model can and will predict tomorrow’s events.

This is Hubris.  The idea that one can account for every variable and is well documented as a form of god complex.

Update #3:  So sayeth the rich asshole.

President Obama said Tuesday that now is a good time for investors to buy stocks if they focus on the big picture.

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Obama apparently isn’t giving anyone anything they can hold on to, just “we have plans”.  When Russian President Dmitry Medvedev gets a letter from Obama with no hints or suggestions, I’m just not surprised.

The letter contained an assessment of the situation, but there were no concrete proposals about any mutually binding decisions

Update: Huh.  Well I can be wrong…

Senior U.S. officials say Obama suggested missile shield might be unnecessary if Moscow helped with Iran

But, we’ll probably never know given how untransparent the most transparent administration ever has been so far.  Prove me wrong again, Obama.

Elsewhere, we see the results of this concrete made of air.  For example, the stimulus package was supposed to stimulate (never mind that it was ill-conceived no matter what) but instead became entitlement money as the largesse morphed into another form.

Most of his “stimulus” spending was devoted to social programs, rather than public works, and nearly all of the tax cuts were devoted to income maintenance rather than to improving incentives to work or invest.

WSJ has a nice graphic.  Wanna see? Funny how the sharp loss events seem to correlate to pronouncements of the O-administration that relate to economic policies.  For the White House to whisper words monetary is akin to the kiss of death.

For those not in a state of active denial:

…after five weeks in office, it’s become clear that Mr. Obama’s policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence — and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth.

[later]

The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy. Health-care stocks have dived on fears of new government mandates and price controls. Private lenders to students have been told they’re no longer wanted. Anyone who uses carbon energy has been warned to expect a huge tax increase from cap and trade. And every risk-taker and investor now knows that another tax increase will slam the economy in 2011, unless Mr. Obama lets Speaker Nancy Pelosi impose one even earlier.

Ouchie.  Another complaint from those who were either deprogrammed or never sucked into the cult in the first place is the fact that capitalism is not being allowed to do it’s job.  One nice feature of capitalism is that it is self-cleaning.  Think of ants – they eventually pick clean stuff that is dead, usually after predators have taken care of the weakest in the ecosystem.

Obama is keeping the predators at bay, giving the one or two sickly lemurs horribly expensive life support that takes up an entire hospital’s resources, and all for terminally ill critters.  The rest of the system is being starved of resources and competed with.  Ok, bad analogy, a blend of analogies, and kind of a waste of both your time and mine.

His Treasury has been making a similar mistake with its financial bailout plans. The banking system needs to work through its losses, and one necessary use of public capital is to assist in burning down those bad assets as fast as possible. Yet most of Team Obama’s ministrations so far have gone toward triage and life support, rather than repair and recovery.

What’s he going to do when even the deniers realize that he can’t pin this on Bush any more?

Update on the financial issue:  Bernanke Says U.S. May Need to Expand Bank Rescue

No, no, no, no, NO.  Let the bad banks FAIL and let the ones that are still viable grow stronger without the crippled resource-wasting competition.  Zombie companies are not adding anything valuable to the party, only serving as a fiscal black hole (think AIG).

** Note, if you have not read clear through this post and you ping me about the HULC and the impossibility of perpetual motion, rather than recognize sarcasm, please be aware that I’m going to skewer you verbally.

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News of the Strange and Fantas… No, Just Strange.

McGoo sent me off to corners of the internet where the inhabitants lie in sluggish eddies. It’s a place where you can encounter the slithy toves, bandersnatch, jujubs, and jabberwocks and still say “I wonder when I’ll run into something odd?”

So those meanderings led to stuff that I scarce could have conceived had I pondered for a thousand years. More even.

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Who knew that the Japanese were so ingenious? So, now we have tactile versions, fluorescent versions, chemically enhanced versions, flavored versions, and vibrating versions. Wow, technology has really advanced mankind in leaps and bounds, hasn’t it?

A man can sleep around, no questions asked, but if a woman makes nineteen or twenty mistakes she’s a tramp. – Joan Rivers

But seduction isn’t making someone do what they don’t want to do. Seduction is enticing someone into doing what they secretly want to do already. – Waiter Rant

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And why do I add this to the mix? Because the idea of this sort of anatomy on an equine is very very disturbing. I’m not sure this is safe for work or not. (follow the above link for more *ahem* “intimate” pictures. Keep the kids away unless you would like to answer your daughter’s questions like “Why does that horse have boy body part things?”

Whatever they paid in commissioning the artist’s work, they paid too much.

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Another strange idea is the one that Obama seems to have regarding the machinations of the real world. Pollyanna-ism reigns in Obama’s world, and unbridled optimism supported by no facts in the real world does not have a place in today’s world.

Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything. – Frank Dane

The real distinction is between those who adapt their purposes to reality and those who seek to mold reality in the light of their purposes. – Henry Kissinger

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Truly amusing is the DNC’s desire to come to some sort of closure on the Hillary/Obama issue. Sure, they desire that the convention date rolls around with only one candidate, but whether you make the hard choice now or make it later, even if it is clear and legitimate, a number of people are going to be pissed.

In Hollywood a marriage is a success if it outlasts milk. – Rita Rudner

And, I might add, that in politics, loyalties labor under the same weaknesses- LK

An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought. – Simon Cameron

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This is somewhat eclipsed by the democrats’ silliness, but it is still unusual enough to warrant comment.

The next quote is essentially what our government tries to do, even though we couch it in terms like aid packages, relief efforts, and disaster assistance. Katrina was the perfect example of all the worst things we would do from start to end: Not listen to warnings, refuse to take steps to save ourselves, bicker about priorities, and buy off the witnesses and complainers.

Purchase not friends by gifts; when thou ceasest to give, such will cease to love. – Thomas Fuller

For all the bitching about FEMA trailers after Katrina, mayhaps this was the correct way to go?

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I hate to admit is, but my mind IS blown.

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Updates…

My muse showed up again, that black stallion from hell, so I worked on him a bit last night.  Do a search on “muse” and you’ll find the fell beast himself.

Added to the post “Implosion of Hubris – Revisited” – finally thought of the other social engineering example that I could not remember.

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Implosion of Hubris – Revisited

Given that the democratic party is made up a collection of individuals that hold to no common goal, it is surprising that they have not fallen apart before now. When you each believe in your pet cause to the exclusion of everyone else it is hard to work together as a unit. I think it is called Anarchy.

This tribute to Hillary is a new demotivational poster by yours truly, the glorious Lemur King. It is a simple reminder to the junior senator (leech) in the swamp, that determination to win don’t always make it so.

(click on the graphic for the larger version)

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Their next hurdle will be when they chew and gum each other to the death at the convention (and leading up to) as they decide how to get around those pesky rules that let Michigan and Florida copulate themselves right out of the picture when it comes to the primary.

I can see it – two factions inside of the DNC standing before the Supreme Court, waiting for a panel of judges to rule as to whether or not you have to play by the rules in an election. Such a tough call. Luckily we’re all adults and can be expected to see reason.

Oh, let’s just pull up a chair and a nice ice-cold Dr. Pepper while we watch them twitch in the wind!

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The latest in social engineering. NPR (National agitProp Radio) reported today that there would be incentives given to those who buy hybrid vehicles.

Think about that… Think about it again… I’ll wait…

They will take taxes from you, far in excess of what the government needs to run (if you take away pork and entitlements), and give it back to you if you exhibit rewardable behavior while purchasing a large item, such as a car. This is known as social engineering. How remarkable! Our government is in the business of regulating our behavior. Doesn’t that just leave you all warm and fuzzy?

Next, in the latest issue of Guns and Ammo Handguns (June/July 2008) comes word that as many as ten (10) states are considering – get this – serialization of ammunition. That is, a serial number laser-engraved on every bullet. Every bullet. Totalitarian states considering this are: Arizona, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Washington. So, now you know where you won’t live when deciding to look for work elsewhere. It’s not even that it is so infeasible as to not even work, but the fact that some damned idiot wants to do it. Theres no real proof that it would (1) work so that a bullet was recognizable, (2) prove to be anything less than a bureaucratic nightmare, or (3) change anything in a meaningful way, but by God, some unqualified schmucks in government think it’s jim-dandy idea.

[note: I had another example of societal engineering that I thought of on the way home but cannot remember it right now, sorry. I’ll pick it up again tomorrow when I’ve gotten some rest. – LK]

Update!!!

I just though of the latest thing in social engineering that I had forgotten. The mind manipulation in new TV ads convincing us to buy into CFL’s. Yes, according to this ad, our seven year old daughter has more on the ball than old dad, who apparently must be guided through life by his children, even to the point of being told what kind of lightbulb to buy.

I have issues with our government and politicians making decisions that they have no business making, for politicians rely on emotions, political dynamics, and a large amount of hubris to make up their minds about anything, including light bulbs.

from the link above, Steven Milloy states:

The business fantasy is for the nation’s 4 billion-plus light sockets to sport CFLs. There’s much more ka-ching in selling 4 billion $5 light bulbs as opposed to incandescent bulbs costing $0.75. But what about the mercury problem that may impose substantial liabilities on businesses and consumers faster than CFL light bulbs turn on?

Today’s business leaders apparently have forgotten the infamous Superfund program that needlessly and retroactively imposed tens of billions of dollars of costs for pre-1980 waste disposal practices regardless of whether they were legal at the time. CFL-maker GE, in particular, is involved in a senseless $500 million clean-up of industrial chemicals known as PCBs buried long ago in Hudson River sediments.

Imagine the clean-up costs from billions of CFLs disposed in landfills and burned in incinerators across the country. Superfund even imposed bankrupting liability on mom-and-pop businesses. Imagine the peril of home-based businesses that casually toss CFLs in the household trash.

First mercury was dangerous. Then, temporarily, it became no big deal. Now that the Greens have caught us in the CFL trap, they’re reverting to form on mercury — all to cause the sort of chaos resulting in increased government control of our lives.

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Speaking of ammo and gun control… Next is the woman obsessed with sniper fire and the idea of her opponent being assassinated (perhaps a bit of instability there, eh, Hill?), HIllary Clinton and her stance on… Yeah, you guessed it… guns! She was reported in USA Today as saying “I believe in the Second Amendment right to bear arms.” As pointed out in TownHall, however, she has in her last seven years in congress co-sponsored 22 anti-gun bills. Well, I guess being shot at so much would have an impact on your gun stance, huh? And it’s a lot easier to sponsor anti-gun bills when you have your own ****ing Secret Service bodyguards paid up for you and your entire family for the rest of your miserable life. The rest of us aren’t so lucky.

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Another graphic, this one obtained from youscold.com… Thank God no one wrapped a turban around that butt or there would be rioting in the streets across the world over the indignity.

(click on the graphic for the larger version)

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Ok, I have no idea where this next one came from, folks but we should all take it to heart… cell phones must be turned off while in the movie theater or if you clearly cannot observe all traffic laws while discussing last night’s American Idol. Actually, to date, were it not illegal to do so, I can think of three guys, roughly fifteen different women, and six to seven teenagers that I would have done this to.

(click on the graphic for the larger version)

(if you are the owner of this photo, could you let me know so I can credit you with it?)

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