It is not what they say

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Phil Kadath

It is what they do

As Parents Get More Choice, San Francisco Schools Resegregate

Amazingly, since they cannot protest themselves, no protests will take place.

Posted in Useful Idiots | 1 Comment

I wish I could say

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Phil Kadath

That this would be funny.

But in all honesty, I can’t.

Greece threatens tilt to Russia and China unless Europe yields

Greece’s radical new government has threatened to seek money from Russia and China to avert a financial crisis rather than yield to austerity demands from Europe, risking a dangerous political rift with the leading EU powers and a full-blown NATO crisis.

“We want a deal. But if there is no deal, and if we see that Germany remains rigid and wants to blow Europe apart, then we will have to go to Plan B,” said Panos Kammenos, the defence minister and head of the Independent Greeks party in the ruling coalition.

“We have other ways of finding money. It could be the United States at best, it could be Russia, it could be China or other countries,” he told Greek television. Mr Kammenos said Greece would prefer to leave the euro if membership means submitting to what he calls a “Europe under German domination.”

Athens = Bejing West!

Lots of cool old shit. Not quite as polluted. Yet.

I meant to link to this the other day when I wrote about the Grexit, but Cats was not up at the time.

NickM @ Counting Cats has an idea that is smarter, but just as dangerous as Syriza’s.

Posted in The Left is Never Right | Leave a comment

Step Cautiously

Posted on February 10, 2015 by Phil Kadath

Into this link. Only the strong will not lose any IQ points by reading it.

Synopsis: Freelance journalist speaks to Arts majors attending UC Riverside. They complain about how in debt they are because of their undergraduate degrees and how much more their debt will grow if they continue on to graduates studies.

When asked if they know of anyone who attended UC Riverside as an undergrad and is now working and earning an income, they all answer in the affirmative. These now employed former students they knew went through Science degree programs and are making “a lot of money”.

It is later added that those people “all hate their jobs”.

These Arts students then go on to complain some more about how in debt they are and how there are so few job prospects in their fields.

To which I have only this to add: A wise man once said that if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. But mostly because there are no jobs in that field.

Welcome to adulthood, idealists.

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Of course, they’re politicians (Part 1)

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Phil Kadath

It doesn’t matter the language they’re spoken in, campaign promises have an expiration date of the day after the election.

Syriza told some beautiful fables to the Greek voters before the election and promised them the sun and the moon and the stars—reversal of privatizations, pension increases, minimum wage hikes, and fatting up the government bureaucracy again with more lifetime civil service jobs.

The trouble is, Syriza doesn’t have the money to deliver any of this. No problem, said the party chiefs: once we get into office we force all those evil Germans and nasty international institutions to give us the money.

Once elected, Syriza officials have been touring Europe, meeting serially with all the people they denounced as cruel, stupid, and wicked during the campaign, and discovering what an intelligent 10-year-old could have told them: nobody wants to give or lend them any more money because people distrust them and don’t see how the promises they have made to the voters can possibly be reconciled with any of the agreements Greece has made in the past. More, no private lender wants to lend Greece a single euro except at extremely high interest rates.

It’s not clear what happens now. The ECB is cracking down. The Germans are refusing to budge. The Greek banking system is beginning to crack under the strain as more and more Greeks decide to get their money out of this crumbling edifice.

One good side to President Obama’s massive bungling of our nation’s international affairs: No one is looking at us to negotiate on behalf of Greece.

Posted in Dare To Be Stupid | 1 Comment

Of course, they’re politicians (Part 2)

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Phil Kadath

You have to spend money to make money.

Even if you’re the government, apparently.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) this week introduced legislation that would give states federal grants to study the possibility of imposing a controversial new tax — one that would tax people for every mile they drive in their cars.

Blumenauer’s Road Usage Charge Pilot Program Act is the latest effort to move away from a gas tax, which some say is not creating enough revenues for federal and state highway projects, and toward a system of taxing cars based on how far they drive.

First, put all the decent paying jobs in the urban areas where it is expensive to live. Then, put an extra tax on those not willing to in there. Also, tax vacation travel and require people to file with their state tax officials if they travel outside their state.

Don’t forget to smile so the people don’t recognize the fascism.

Posted in The Government is Not Your Friend | Leave a comment

Sunday Funnies

Posted on February 8, 2015 by Phil Kadath

Not all cartoons this week!

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Posted in Kewel! | Leave a comment

Paying for the privilege

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Phil Kadath

To be dependent on your government.

Robin Speronis lives off the grid in Florida, completely independent of the city’s water and electric system. A few weeks ago, officials ruled her off-grid home illegal. Officials cited the International Property Maintenance Code, which mandates that homes be connected to an electricity grid and a running water source.

That’s like saying our dependency on corporations isn’t even a choice. The choice to live without most utilities has been ongoing for Robin, the self-sufficient woman has lived for more than a year and a half using solar energy, a propane camping stove and rain water.

In the end, she was found not guilty of not having a proper sewer or electrical system; but was guilty of not being hooked up to an approved water supply.

Speronis is still being hassled by the municipality of Cape Coral for not having a connection to city water, nor proper sewage. That. regardless of the fact the city capped her sewers themselves.

I was pretty sure this was posted here last year when this story came out, but I looked and couldn’t find it and figured now was as good a time as any.

Posted in The Government is Not Your Friend | 3 Comments

Refusing

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Phil Kadath

To let her sister be made a victim twice.

In 2013, 27-year-old Jessie Doyle was shot and killed by her estranged husband, Josh Cavett.

The anti-gun organization Everytown for Gun Safety reached out to Doyle’s sister, Jennie Cochran, assuming that she would support their cause.

Audio of a phone call between Cochran and Ann Wright of Everytown for Gun Safety shows just how wrong that assumption was.

In the call, Wright asked if Cochran would feel comfortable sharing her story so people would understand the need for stronger gun laws.

“I’m very pro-gun, as is Jessie, so I would really hope that you guys don’t use her story for anything,” Cochran responded. “Because the only thing that would have saved her was a gun.”

On “Fox and Friends” this morning, Cochran explained that there’s no way the police would have been able to respond in time to prevent her sister’s murder.

“[Cavett] is a felon. He’s gonna have a gun, and the only thing that would have leveled it out is if she had one too,” she said.

“It was already illegal for him to have a gun. He was a felon … they’re gonna get them. There’s a black market out there and they’re always gonna have them.”

Cochran told Brian Kilmeade that she didn’t want the anti-gun group to take her sister’s story and use it to create more victims.

I have no doubt that this woman knows how to load more than a dishwasher.

And yet the left would be perfectly fine if she didn’t.

I support a woman’s right to choose her method of self-defense.

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | Leave a comment

Diamond in the Rough

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Dave RNS Photographer

Every day we are bombarded with negative news and stuff that annoys us and gets the ole pressure up toward the redline.

We watch videos with horrified indignation as shithead islamists burn prisoners, behead innocents, blow up kids and commit other atrocities.

We just shake our heads and wonder wtf they are thinking as we read about asshole open carry creeps who do more for the other side in a week than Moms Against/For could do in a year.

We nod with indignant agreement reading blogs and rants of the big bad Gummint and its bureaucratic tentacles reaching into more of our lives than it has a right to. (actually I do believe this one, but read on)

We endure our spoiled teenagers whining about their hardships (what, your cell phone broke?)

The egg McMuffin flippers and WalMart cashiers deserve a living wage, we’re told by the enlightened progressives as they fan the flames of envy economics.

There’s been no lack of media attention about Detroit and the troubles it’s experienced in the last 50 (100?) years as politicians, labor unions (redundant) and other forces swirled around to cripple the city and region until, as the butt of derision and the poster child of industrial decay and crime, it is but a stereotype to those elsewhere around the nation.

Well, here’s a story about one simple man in Detroit whose attitude about working provides hope that in spite of all the nasty and just plain stupid shit the media and life throw at us, there are some incredible people who roam amongst us every day, not asking for attention or glory, but just carrying on and gettin’ it done.

So, next time your teenager starts whining about how their life sucks and goes into hyper-drama mode, show him/her this story and then tell them to shut up and get over it.

Note:  this story is already or will be nationally covered now because another good person, a 19-year old Wayne State University student who read about the man and wanted to do something good for him, started a GoFundMe crowd funding campaign that has raised a bunch of $$$$ for the subject of the story.

Detroit’s not dead, just wounded.

Besides, what other major city police chief believes it’s okay to be legally armed and shoot the bad guys when they break in?

Posted in Heroes, Comrades and Brothers | 1 Comment

In a little less than two years

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Phil Kadath

We will find out if President Obama can do for the internet what he did for the recovery of the American Economy.

On Thursday, [FCC head, Tom] Wheeler is expected to present to the commission a set of rules that would treat broadband providers like utilities, effectively denying them the right to charge companies a premium for faster access to consumers and holding them accountable for any attempt to secretly impede the flow of data. When the commission finally approves them — a vote is scheduled for late February — it will mark the most significant rewrite of the rules of the road for the Internet in more than a dozen years and affect the competitive playing field for generations to come.

Wheeler did not speak officially for this report. But interviews with FCC officials, industry executives and representatives of public interest groups reveal the origins of his dramatic pivot on this issue: an intense and relatively brief grass-roots lobbying campaign that targeted two people — him and President Barack Obama.

Congress can pass a bill that would nullify these rules, but you know that the President won’t sign it, and the majority won’t be enough to override a veto.

It’s been nice knowing y’all.

Posted in Dare To Be Stupid, The Government is Not Your Friend, The Left is Never Right, Too Stupid to Live, Useful Idiots | 1 Comment