Monday, March 17, 2008

Ever Wonder...

Yeah, it's an old old song.  Sue me.  On second thought ... don't.

But have you ever wondered why the far left is so ... what's the right word?  Oh, sorry.  Correct.  What's the correct word?  (Can't say right as it applies to the far left.  They even HEAR the word 'right' and well...it ain't pretty.  Unless you say that they're 'right' about something.)

But that makes me wonder; if they're right about their stance, their politics, their anything, then why have so many of them silenced (completely silenced) the voices of those who DISagree with them?

I thought that Freedom of Speech applied to BOTH sides of the political divide ... right and left.  Call me pollyanna about this, but that's what I thought.

Now I know that "pollyanna" is also a derogatory word ... at least, it's turning into one.  It means somebody who expects people to act decently, despite strong evidence to the contrary.

And, in this, I am pollyanna.  I DO expect you to act better, I DO expect you to act in a decent and honourable fashion.  I DO expect you to listen to other viewpoints without belittling them ... or silencing them.  Are you listening, far-of-middle people on BOTH sides of the divide?

"Ted, a free society simply cannot exist in which certain subjects are labeled as 'taboo.'  Problems won't be solved without first talking about them in depth and passion.  Let's not make some joke of the Bill of Rights.  Let's make so certain we listen to all viewpoints, especially those with which we strongly disagree.  The two of us should know that best." (emphasis added)

Did you catch that?  "Let's make so certain we listen to all viewpoints, especially those with which we strongly disagree."  But it seems that those on the far left and on the far right have taken the "I'm right, you're wrong, so STFU" stance. 

This helps people ... how?  This helps improve things ... how, exactly?

Telling people to "Shut up!" without hearing them first? 

The sad answer is yes, the US has become that politically polarized.  I'm not denying that both sidesdo it.  However, according to a University of Michigan study, those on the far left do it far more often than those on the far right.  Here's the link:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120053277483496183.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

According to University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone, "Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others." They also "believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference."  Really?

Does that sound like Code Pink to you?  They '...consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others.'  Really?  At a Move America Foreward press conference, they tried to shout down the speakers!  They didn't listen to them.  They didn't consider what they were trying to say.  They tried to silence them.  That's FACT, folks.  FACT.

Granted, I know that some on the far right engage in similar tactics.  And there are those nutjobs on BOTH ends of the spectrum that believe that the solution is to kill others.  Don't agree with something they're saying?  "Kill them!"  Don't agree with what the writer of this blog is saying? "I wish he'd die!" 

OK..their EXACT words were "I wish somebody'd run your sorry ass over ... and over ... and over AND KEEP DOING IT YOU PEICE OF SHIT."

That from a person of "tolerance and diversity?"  Really?

Where was that person's 'tolerance' of difference (of opinion in this case.)  Where?  Where was that much-vaunted 'tolerance and diversity' this time? 

Or does it only apply to those you agree with?

Thursday, March 13, 2008

She did WHAT??

Well.  Let's see.  Somebody from the Clinton campaign has pulled out the race card and the gender card.  And here I thought she was running a campaign based on "change."

Of course, this IS the same campaign that said Mr Obama's was "Change you can Xerox(tm)."

Ok...playing the race & gender card is change ... how, exactly?  I must've missed something.  Granted, according to my ex-wife, I'm not the sharpest crayon in the box (nor the brightest bulb in the chandelier) but I think I've missed something somewhere.

Wasn't she the one that was saying that the American people were tired of that type of politics?  Well, she wasn't the ONLY one, but her campaign (and her personally) said that.  And now...

Yeah.  This is exactly why I have a hard time believing a politician no matter what they say.  One of 'em could tell me that the sun was shining right now ... and I'd have to open the blinds and look outside.  And that's sad.

Whatever happened to the days when you could take a politician at his or her word?  If one of 'em told you that they would handle a problem, you literally COULD take it to the bank.  Today?  Well, you could still TAKE it there, but the poor teller would probably need CPR after they nearly choked from laughing so hard.  And Mrs. Clinton, you're part of the problem.  So are you, Mr. Obama.  And so are you, Mr. McCain.

Now I know that I'm saying things that many have said before.  People have told the politicians that they're tired of their games.  People are truly tired of one politician having his (or her) hand shoved up the rectum of another politician.  Their other hand is, of course, firmly in the pork barrel.  OH, that's right.  The word has been changed to "earmark."  Why?  Because "pork barrel" has a negative connotation, you see.  Honestly. 

Ever wonder how it got that way?  Look no further than your politician.  Oh, and ignore that brownish, smelly stuff in his/her other hand.  You know...that brownish stuff even the flies are staying away from.

I'm the writer of this journal, and I approve of this message.  If the politicians don't like it, tough ... brownish smelly stuff that the flies stay away from.  Got it?

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Driving

Driving ... but not right now. 

I know, I titled this blog as a journey from a Conservative to a politician's worst nightmare...but it's also my blog.  Journal.  Whatever.  It's one of those. :)

(.JPG Courtesy of the Dead Parrot Society at www.deadparrots.net)

Oh, how many times I could've given one of those today!  Let me count the ways ... one ... two ... three ... Yeah.  Three.

You know those lines on the parking lots?  You're supposed to park your vehicle BETWEEN them.  Not halfway over them ... not with your tires ON them, not with your car SIDEWAYS ... but between them. 

In this case, it wasn't an F-150 as mentioned in the photo above, today it was a Lincoln Town Car, a rather new one from the looks of it.  It was parked SIDEWAYS taking up two spots.  Granted, it was off by itself in a little-used area of the lot, but still.

What makes it funnier (and poetic justice in this case) is when I came out of the store, there were two beat-up sh*tty cars ... one parked on either side of the Lincoln and their drivers and the Lincoln driver were shouting at each other.

The driver of the Lincoln was none too happy that he'd been boxed in.  For the record, before anybody asks, I had absolutely NOTHING whatsoever to do with this.  Seriously.  It was just really funny.

And poetic justice. 

Keep your car/truck/SUV/whatever it is you drive BETWEEN the lines, please? :)

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Ugh

Migraine.  Be back later.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

ICE!

Well, Texas and Ohio voted for Hillary.  My mother was listening to Rush Limbaugh today (I was listening to Dr. Kaku and then Dr. Wolfson (more on this later)) and I really wasn't.  Granted, there were times I heard it and from what I gather ... well.

IF I heard it correctly (big IF here, because my mind was on Dr. Wolfson's lecture) Rush was talking about Hillary and Barack Obama ... their race for the nomination, and the fact that Rush appeared to want to get Hillary to stay in the race longer.

Why?  To fracture the Democratic vote would be my guess.  Again, I really wasn't listening too closely. 

But whatever happened to "government by the people and for the people?"  Call me naive here, but does anybody really think that any of the politicians have our best interests at heart?

And then there's what Dr. Ward was saying the other day ... that we really COULD get weaned off of oil if we (as a nation) really put our mind to it.  Most of our oil is imported nowadays.  And, according to Dr. Kaku (yes, he's a theoretical physicist but he also is an expert on the environment) we'd have to discover a new Saudi Arabia every 10 YEARS to keep up with the demand for oil.   That ain't likely to happen.

Our "government" spent $2 billion to dig the hole for the Superconducting Supercollider (in Texas) ... and then anothe $2 billion to fill the damn thing up.  Had it been built, it would have measured 87km in circumference.  By contrast, the new Large Hadron Collider (CERN) will be 27km in circumference.  And it SHOULD be online by mid 2008.  It should put String Theory to the test, and it is believed that it will have enough energy to create a Higgs Boson.  Since ST is the ONLY theory that predicts the Higgs, this will either nail it to the wall, or blow it out of the water.

BUT...it's also thought that the LHC MIGHT be able to create a magnetic monopole.  What does that mean in English for you and I?  Well...

One thing that's keeping us from having UNlimited energy ("hot" fusion) is that the plasma is contained in "doughnuts" of magnetic fields.  A magnetic field, you'll remember, has a north and south pole.  A magnetic monopole, by contrast, is a north pole WITHOUT a south pole.  These hypothetical particles are REALLY heavy suckers, which is why they haven't been found yet.

Well, when you try to contain plasma in a magnetic field, it's rather like squeezing a balloon.  You squeeze one area, and it bulges in another.  Squeeze that area, and ANOTHER bulges.  With only ONE magnetic field (north pole), the monopole (a hypothetical particle) COULD help contain the plasma long enough to make the reaction self-sustaining.  More than that, IF the plasma could be contained LONG ENOUGH, it would create MORE energy than is used to sustain the magnetic field.  Free energy.

Imagine what we could do with that.  Suddenly, we could tell Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, and all the other countries that we import oil from that we don't need them anymore.  Then, they wouldn't have the US by the balls anymore.

We're not there yet, and if the politicians have their way, we won't get there any time soon.  Probably not in my lifetime.  Why?  M O N E Y.  The oil industry has many highly paid lobbyists in the District of Corruption.  If we DID get hot fusion to work, their stocks and their profits would tank.  It's that simple. They don't WANT different sources of fuel because they haven't invested in it.

Before I close this entry, let's take a look at hydrogen fuel cells.  They sound good, and "Green," but there is a problem with them.  They're clean WHERE YOU BURN THEM.  How do you create a fuel cell?  In a factory that makes them.  Where does that factory get its energy?  The electric power grid.  Where does the grid get the bulk of their energy from?  Coal-fired power plants. 

Fuel cells are a stop-gap ONLY ... they won't solve the problem.

And hybrids?  Dr. Kaku is right in that most people do their chores within 60 miles, which is the limit on most hybrids before the gasoline engine kicks in.  But there is a problem.  Where does the electric motor get its energy?  By plugging it into an outlet.  The outlet that gets its power from the same grid that we just spoke about.  Oops.

Another stop-gap.  Perhaps somebody really should ask the politicians why they let the oil industry run this country. 

We ALMOST have the technology to make hot fusion work.  Certainly we have enough technology to DRASTICALLY cut our demand for oil. 

But the oil industry, their lobbyists, and the politicians that they bought don't want that.  They WANT oil.  They WANT their profits. 

They don't want unlimited energy.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

FOUND IT!

Found it.  I was thinking it was a Princeton study about liberal bias in the media, but it was actually a UCLA study.

Here's the link:  http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx

Here are a few of my favourite parts of the study:  "With scores in the mid-70s, CBS' "Evening News" and The New York Times looked similar to Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who has an <?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = ST1 />ADA score of 74."  (No liberal bias at CBS News?  Really?  This study says differently.  Bear this in mind too, a mid-70 score would put it around 73 - 76.  A 50 means that the outlet studied is neither conservative nor liberal.  CBS was mid-70.  No liberal bias?)  And this one.

Before I post it, keep this in mind:  Most people, including most of the media, think that the Drudge Report is conservative.  Frightfully so, in fact.  Here's what the study said:

"The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left." AND "The fact that the Drudge Report appears left of center is merely a reflection of the overall bias of the media."

But according to the media, there's no liberal bias.  Oh, and our "friends" at the NYT (New York Times?)  Well, according to the study, CBS' "Evening News" was SECOND most liberal with the NYT being the THIRD most liberal. 

Now let's contrast that with what Bill Keller of the NYT said in December 2007: "…we are agnostic as to where a story may lead; we do not go into a story with an agenda or a preconceived notion. We do not manipulate or hide facts to advance an agenda. We strive to preserve our independence from political and economic interests, including our own advertisers. We do not work in the service of a party, or an industry, or even a country. When there are competing views of a situation, we aim to reflect them as clearly and fairly as we can." (emphasis added)

 

Yeah

Yeah, I know.  A second angry entry.  I'm going to sound like a teen pretty soon.  But I do have a reason to be angry...a personal reason. 

So we'll just say that when people fall, others shouldn't laugh at them.  That's what just happened, but I won't go further.

But I WILL go into something that aired on CBS the other night....yes, the same folks who brought you the forged National Guard documents are at it again.

This time they trotted out Jill Simpson...and well...the rest is a fiasco.  No liberal bias at CBS?  Please.  Google it, and then stand back.

Far back.

I'll post more (probably in another entry) when I find it.  I REMEMBER it, but that's not enough.  I need to find the link to it so that the one person reading this (me at this point) can go find it and read it.

BUT...one more thing about driving.  When you're in a right-turn lane (according to the arrow on the road and the sign on the stoplight) you do NOT pull ahead and turn AHEAD OF THE CAR IN THE LEFT-TURN LANE (in this case ... ME) to get out ahead of them. 

The idiot that did that last night nearly had his car made into a sub-compact.  I saw the tractor-trailer which is why I made no move to pull out.  The other guy?  He probably had to clean his car seat (and undershorts) when he got to where he was going.