Saturday, February 21, 2009

Satan is Smiling

The local tabloid brings the sad news of another lost soldier boy; this one, a local son killed in the empire graveyard of Afghanistan. The nationalistic, knee- jerk reaction of natives bring some questions to mind.

When the “enemy” (in this case, Islamic extremists) give their lives for their cause, they’re considered by their brethren as martyrs. Merriman-Webster defines martyr as “a person who makes a great sacrifice for the sake of principle.” US Loyalists insult and criticize those who martyr themselves in the name of Islam but hold up as heroes those that do the same for the sake of the US state. Isn’t this hypocritical?

Another question: If giving your life for your government is the highest level of service and the greatest contribution you can make- why are these people sad and crying? Shouldn’t they be smiling and celebrating?

Says one mourner, “We can sure support the people trying to make things better. We don't realize how lucky we are to live here, and there's a lot of people making it that way." Well, sir/maam, you certainly aren’t one of those people. Your remarks are representative of those who encourage and support the idea that one’s children should be sacrificed for the benefit of and extension of state power.

The tragic loss of this person makes nothing “better.” No worthy cause benefits from the loss of a young, promising life. Only the forces of darkness and depravity have been strengthened. The hope represented by a single soul has been permanently lost.
Satan is smiling.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

DVD Reviews

Eagle Eye:
Action thriller based around a government surveillance system gone haywire. There’s not a slow moment during the entire film.
Recommended

Burn After Reading:
Witty writing, great acting and quirky characters- everything you would expect from the great Coen Brothers.
Recommended

Battle for Haditha:
Reenactment of the civilian slaughter at Haditha, Iraq by US Crusaders. Ex- Marines play the lead roles which gives the film an authentic feel. The viewer can research for themselves whether the events are portrayed accurately. One fact remains clear- war is an obscenity that deserves neither glorification nor justification.
Recommended

The Mummy- Tomb of the Dragon Emperor:
Mildly entertaining action flick. This is the third installment of the Mummy series. As with most sequels that play out this far, the actors seem to have lost the spontaneity that made their original characters attractive, and now are just going through the motions.
(Barely) recommended

Joe Cocker- Mad Dogs and Englishmen:
The film chronicles Joe Cocker’s 1970 US tour with a 40 member orchestra. Cocker is one singer who puts his all into every word and note he sings which makes for some soulful, enjoyable music.
Recommended

Appaloosa:
Ed Harris stars in, directs, as well as produced and co-wrote this recently made western. A well played story about a long, working friendship between two lawmen in the New Mexico territory of 1882.
Recommended

The Visitor:
A middle-aged, disconnected professor (played ably by Richard Jenkins) discovers an illegal immigrant couple squatting in his little-used New York apartment. He becomes involved in their lives and immigration problems which brings about a personal life change of his own. A nice portrayal of post-911 American paranoia and how the state considers individuals to be nothing more than livestock to be managed and caged.
Recommended

The Express:
True story about Ernie Davis, the Syracuse running back who was the first black football player to win the Heisman Trophy. Not just a sports movie but relates his life’s events with the early days of the civil rights movement.
Recommended

Chaplin- The Movie:
This biographical film was produced in 1992 but was just released on DVD. Robert Downey, Jr. took on the challenge of playing the comic genius and succeeds. A very enlightening and insightful film about what motivated and inspired this once in a generation artist.
Recommended

Riding Giants:
A superb surfing film that outlines the history of surfing while focusing on the ultimate in the sport- riding the big waves. Lots of nicely restored surfing footage from the 1940’s and 50’s. The film includes the usual great surfing sequences, but the highlight is the wonderful personal testimony given by the most successful participants and trail blazers in the sport.
Recommended

Bangkok Dangerous:
Nick Cage stars in this Asian-style action film. He doesn’t have to work hard at playing the brooding loner- he looks that way, naturally. If you like dark, violent thrillers, this should satisfy.
Recommended

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio:
This film dramatizes the life of housewife Evelyn Ryan who helped feed her family in the 1950’s and 60’s by entering and winning scores of commercial contests, including jingle writing. A nice portrayal of a resilient person who made use of all their inner resources.
Recommended

Saturday, February 14, 2009

I Feel Under-Stimulated

Texas policy wonks are agonizing over what failed state enterprises they’ll bail out with their share of Obama’s massive pork (stimulus ) bill. Watch all the little piggys gather at the Federal teat.Texans used to be considered independent, self-reliant folks. Now, they've become helpless waifs who need the nanny state to wipe their bottoms and tuck them in at night.

All our lives, we’ve been conditioned to believe that the more money the government spends, the more prosperity that results. After all, governments know better how to spend and “invest” your money than you do. But, perhaps it’s time for all individuals to acquire some common sense.

Think about it. If government can wave its magic wand and “create” 4 million jobs, why doesn’t it go ahead and create 10 million, 20 million?

If government can wave its magic wand and produce $1 trillion out of thin air to “create prosperity“, why doesn’t it create even trillions more and make everyone a billionaire?

If you insist on fast relief, why settle for such a pittance?

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“In the end, Lincoln didn't unite this country -- that can't be done by force -- he divided it along lines of an unspeakably ugly hatred and resentment that continue to exist almost a century and a half after they were drawn. If Lincoln could have been put on trial in Nuremburg for war crimes, he'd have received the same sentence as the highest-ranking Nazis."

“The troubling truth is that, more than anybody else's, Abraham Lincoln's career resembles and foreshadows that of V.I. Lenin, who, with somewhat better technology at his disposal, slaughtered millions of innocents -- rather than mere hundreds of thousands -- to enforce an impossibly stupid idea which, in the end, like forced association, was proven by history to be a resounding failure. Abraham Lincoln was America's Lenin, and when America has finally absorbed that painful but illuminating truth, it will finally have begun to recover from the War between the States.”
L. Neil Smith

“Libertarians spend their lives accurately predicting the future effects of government policy. Their predictions are accurate because they are derived from Hayek’s insights into the limitations of human knowledge, from the recognition that the people who comprise the government respond to incentives just like anyone else and are not magically transformed to selfless agents of the good merely by accepting government employment, from the awareness that for government to provide a benefit to some, it must first take it from others, and from the knowledge that politicians cannot repeal the laws of economics. For the same reason, their predictions are usually negative and utterly inconsistent with the utopian wishful-thinking that lies at the heart of virtually all contemporary political advocacy. And because no one likes to hear that he cannot have his cake and eat it too or be told that his good intentions cannot be translated into reality either by waving a magic wand or by passing legislation, these predictions are greeted not merely with disbelief, but with derision.”
John Hasnas

“Mr. Obama, not everyone believes in your gods. Nor everyone believes in your government, for obviously very good reasons. Some people, unlike the masses weeping in mindless emotional fervor every time you hypnotically chant your vague sentences, actually think as independent and free individuals, not units within some great collective.”
Danijel Orsolic

“We live in a time toward the end of the world of states. A growing number of states will vanish. Still more will become hollow shells, within which 4GW entities thrive while protected by "state sovereignty." As Globalism collapses economically and the global elites are revealed as emperors without clothes, the motto of every state will become "sauve qui peut." [“every man for himself.”]
William Lind

“Americans are proud of their system of government, but consider what it has given us this time around. We had an outgoing president who thought it was his right to grab as much as he could while leaving. Now we have a new president who thinks that the election entitled him to grab as much as he can, right from the beginning. We get looted by the state coming and going. It all amounts to one massive war on prosperity and freedom.”
Lew Rockwell

“The categorization of pot smokers as trouble-making, ne'er-do-well, societal misfits is a most disturbing portrait painted by decades of government propaganda justifying its fraudulent and violent drug wars and the placing of peaceful people in cages, like animals, for the "crime" of using (or selling) a drug that has not been approved for general use by the chain of power cascading on down from the gang of monopolists in Washington D.C.”
Karen DeCoster

“Liberty is an arrangement in which power is dispersed. More importantly, it is an arrangement in which the use of aggressive power meets with a quicker and more determined response because the incentives to efficient protection are stronger. This in turn enhances the incentive to cooperate and produce, which makes aggression less desirable and more likely to be dealt with efficiently. Society launches itself into a virtuous cycle as opposed to the downward course that a state induces.”
Michael Rozeff
From the Darkness:
“Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.”
Nancy Pelosi, defending her proposed spending of hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services.

“The federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back to life.”
Barry Obama [What resources? The FG has been technically bankrupt for decades. The only resource it possesses is supreme fire power.]

“Our proposal is to combine a revived military draft with a broader public-service program as already practiced in some European states -- a “domestic Peace Corps.” Indeed, a crucial component of our proposal is that draftees be allowed to choose between military and nonmilitary service. A program structured along those lines would simultaneously increase the political appeal of conscription, defuse the opposition of those who disapprove of the use of military force, and serve such valuable national purposes as public health, public works, and the alleviation of shortages of teachers and social workers in disadvantaged regions of the country."
Willima R. Hauser and Jerome Slater, writing in Foreign Policy.

"Advocates of the free market must confront the fact that both the Great Depression and the current financial chaos were preceded by years of laissez-faire economic policies."
Katrina van den Heuvel, editor of The Nation, and author Eric Schlossel.
"I'm hearing certain voices in my head. … Lincoln's one of them."
Barry Obama, explaining what happens when he sits down to write a speech.

“It is a jobs bill, And today you might call us the jobs squad.”
Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, on the Obama pork package.

“Despite all that divided us -- North and South, black and white -- he had an unyielding belief that we were, at heart, one nation, and one people. And because of Abraham Lincoln, and all who carried on his work in the generations since, that is what we remain today.”

“'Only a nation can do these things. Only by coming together, all of us, and expressing that sense of shared sacrifice and responsibility...can we do the work that must be done in this country. That is the very definition of being American.”
Barry Obama, giving his religious testimony. [No, this the very definition of being a slave.]

“The [counter narcotics] program, which costs around $1 billion a year, may be the single most ineffective policy in the history of American foreign policy. It’s not just a waste of money. It actually strengthens the Taliban and al Qaeda, as well as criminal elements within Afghanistan.”
Richard Holbrooke, special envoy to Afghanistan. [Then why are you continuing the program?]

"We're all Leninists now."

“We're going to use the power of government just like the Left is using the power of government. It's going to be a bigger, more powerful, stronger government -- and we're going to turn it against the Left in ways they could never have imagined."
Rush Limbaugh[What a wonderful event to look forward too.]

Image Review of the Week

The confused and ignorant will look to idols and earthly messiahs:



You work hard to escape the state’s clutches, but there’s always something pulling you back:



A steel building on fire and…….it doesn’t collapse!:



Come fly with us- (Keep movin movin movin, Though they’re disapprovin, Keep them doggies moving..);



Overturning the laws of economics isn’t enough. Obama takes aim at the laws of gravity:

What’s a queen without a robe?....



....and what’s a king without a carriage?



Celebrating 200 years of myths:



The tradition continues:




Hear the band:



The winds of judgment are just beginning to blow:



Joe the Joker makes sure no one falls between the cracks:



A change in the chain of command requires much redecorating:


No need to dress. Just a friendly visit from Janey Jackboot:


You can scrub and you can scrub, but the slime just won’t come off:



Sic Semper Tryannis- Tyrants beget even more tyrants:



A romantic moment for fascists in love:



They’re all heart. The state not only owns you, but loves you:



Big tough soldier-persons need their comforter:



The Empire’s new enforcer:




US Crusaders- always looking for new ways to draw blood:



How come George isn’t smiling?



Is there room in the empire junkyard for still one more?

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“War -- every war -- is the realm of lies. Whether called propaganda or psychological warfare, everybody accepts that it is right to lie for one's country. Anyone who speaks the truth runs the risk of being branded a traitor.”
Uri Avnery

“Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The heathens paid divine honors to their deceased kings, and the Christian world had improved on the plan by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!”
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

“The Bible doesn't tell us we have the authority, through direct actions or votes, to restrict freedom because we fear the consequences of other people's behavior. The Gospel does not call for force, coercion, regulation, or redistribution. We may be called to be responsible stewards of creation, but we are not called to control what can not be controlled. And the Bible nowhere teaches that any person has the authority, ability, or obligation to control the will or actions of another. The very attempt to do so is to declare war on human nature, which is a war on nature itself - the very opposite of responsible stewardship.”
James Leroy Wilson

“In their blind support for “our team” and for “supporting the troops” in Iraq, American Christians seem to have forgotten an important point about government and God: When the laws or actions of one’s government’s contradict the laws of God, the Christian has but one proper course of action — to leave behind the laws of man and to follow the laws of God.”
Jacob Hornberger

“We can survive and thrive in the collapse of both the US military empire, and its financial house of cards. Patriots of all political persuasions should welcome these collapses, encourage them, cheer them, and revel in them. Like the great lion with a painful but removable thorn in its paw, we the people will be far better after the military empire and financial fakery is expelled. Not corrected, not improved, just gone.”
Karen Kwiatkowski

From the Darkness:
“The commanders and soldiers that were sent on the task in Gaza should know that they are safe from any tribunal and that the State of Israel will assist them in this issue and protect them as they protected us with their bodies during the military operation in Gaza.”
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
"So many of you have been here struggling and pushing for decades and Barack and I want to say 'thank you' for what you've done and 'thank you' for what you will continue to do."
Mama Obama, thanking the parasites that inhabit the Department of Education.

"There's a lot of work to do and we're going to need you. The children of this country are counting on all of us."
Mama Obama, while addressing parasites at the Education Department [Mama thinks so highly of government schools that she has HER kids in private schools.]

"In the midst of our greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, the American people were hoping that Congress would begin to confront the great challenges we face. That was, after all, what last November's election was all about."
Nancy Pelosi, [No, Nancy, the election was about which gang wins the authority to plunder the public.]

Image Review of the Week


Johnny Jackboot is always on the lookout for larger prey:



Cheer on the war machine. Sports + Politics = State Glorification:



Watch where you point your virtual weapon:




Boobus americanus searches for rodents and shadows:



Takin’ it to the streets:



It’s time to track your share of the stimulus:




Coming soon to your neighborhood:


Oh, God. Another goat book to read?



Who needs a daddy to hug when you can have a pretty rag to hold?


Why waste time recruiting when you can just get a Big Dog?

Israeli Defense Minister and Labor Party leader Ehud Barak looks to ease his guilt:


They’re always looking for someone to kiss their boots:


The civic religion requires occasional prayers and supplication to the democracy god:


A uniquely American abomination- linking liberty with taxes:


The blood of children- a necessary sacrifice to the O’holy state:


The state’s eyes are always prying:


An about face- soldier boys doing something useful and civilized:


Joltin’ Joe is in the giving mood:




The Obama dream car (for you, not him):