Exact quote from the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, regarding the rough plane landing in Jamaica (emphasis theirs, not mine):

Of the 148 passengers and 6 crew members on board, seventy-six were US citizens.  Of those at least 40 were taken to local hospitals with minor injuries.  4 Americans were in serious condition.

There was no mention of the non-American statistics because hey, fuck them, right?  Why not at least have the courage to add, “And nobody gives a shit about Jamaicans,” while you’re at it, Katie?

“I want, not for personally for me, but for working Americans, to have a option, that if they don’t like their health insurance, if it’s too expensive, they can’t afford it, if the government can cobble together a cheaper insurance policy that gives the same benefits, I see that as a plus for the folks.”
-Bill O’Reilly

And the supposed “conservatives” continue to show how ignorant they are.  The free market is something that they don’t actually support because they don’t understand a lick of it.  The thing about free-market competition, is that it requires businesses to succeed or fail on their own merits.

What Billy-boy doesn’t seem to get is that the government’s version of “cobbling together” a policy essentially amounts to a room full of bureaucrats pulling numbers out of their asses until enough constituants are happy enough to get them re-elected next year.  When was the last time the government honestly shopped around for a good deal?  The fact is, they don’t have to.  First off, they’re most likely to just go with the company who gave them the biggest campaign contribution.  If that means sacrificing bargains, they know they can always just print more money to “create” a good deal for the end-user…the voters.  The voters, unfortunately, aren’t concerned that these actions end up affecting the future of our economy or about the Federal-Reserve-propelled decline of the dollar, though, because these are less concrete or immediate concepts.

For years, the Democrats and the Republicans have been force-feeding the public an idea that cheaper such-and-such, right this moment, means that the future is in good hands (pay no attention to the trillions of dollars in debt behind the curtain).

This is the bottom line behind why a public “option,” is not a true free-market solution.  The government doesn’t understand or care about things like cost vs. profit (or even breaking-even) because, “Hell!  If we run out of money, we’ll just print more!”  No loans, no bankruptcy, no real accountability…just pass it off to the children!  Governments don’t operate under the same constraints of economic reality that a real business must.

So, Bill…you think your current plan is great for you, yet support a government plan for all us lowly peons out there (way to stick to principles you sycophantic prick), but keep in mind:  When the government “option” accidentally (?) creates a monopoly based on their inexperience with actual business practice and their neverending supply of funny money, what exactly do you think will happen to your wonderful plan?  The government can simply offset unsustainable costs by selling off bits and pieces of our future (i.e. printing money, which is for all intents and purposes a hidden tax) and nobody will be the wiser.  Can your plan say the same?  Or will it suddenly have even less money coming in due to customers jumping ship, while still having to support its remaining members?  Sounds like a recipe for disaster if you ask me.

From the viewpoint of the masses, a public “option” appears to be a perfect solution.  They see all these positives for the proles, but the negatives are too obscure for your average American to consider.  And it’s not socialized medicine, right?  Just more free-market competition!  But as I said, competition only works when all the competitors are playing the same game.  A public option is effectively killing or severely crippling the private sector, not because it’s inherently better, but because it’s not based in any kind of economic reality.

I just can’t wait for Bill O’Reilly’s insurance company to go out of business because it can no longer compete with a mob of thieves who just counterfeit money in order to have the “best” plan out there.  Then after 4 years, everyone can pat themselves on the back, get re-elected, and “keep on fuckin’.”

Recently, a gang of robbers stole 170 dollars from me.  They said they needed it because they had lost a lot of money gambling in Vegas and their bookies were gonna break their thumbs!  Since they obviously needed the money, I didn’t really mind the theft that much.

That was until recently, though.  That’s right…I just found out that they gave themselves 16 cents of that money!  16 cents!!!  Can you believe that?  I mean…the nerve of those guys!

Edit:  Nevermind…they’ve already returned 3 cents back to the bookie fund (and I hear that they may return another 5 cents, too).  I guess I spoke too soon, eh?  Boy, I feel so vindicated now! I’d say they’ve really risen to the occasion and I applaud them for it.

Note:  Multiply the above by a billion, and you basically have the AIG bonus scandal.  Now do you see how stupid you sound, America?  Maybe it’s time to focus on the initial theft, instead of squabbling about 0.1% of it?

I’m getting really fucking sick of hearing about these copper thefts that are getting so popular these days.  Petty theft and vandalism are bad enough as it is…but these scumbags take the fucking cake.  In case you somehow haven’t heard about these crimes, basically, you’ve got a bunch of druggies breaking into vacant homes, soccer fields, or anywhere else that might have a few thousand feet of wire.  Then, they destroy the entire fucking place in order to get the copper.  When the whole thing is said and done, the thieves have a couple hundred bucks worth of copper and the victims have $10,000 worth of damage.

These assholes all need to be shot in the head.

I rarely see anything in the news these days capable of making me quite as mad as this “editorial” by Rebekah Sanderlin.  It’s a spiteful commentary that essentially accuses all Americans of being lazy, stupid complainers.  She takes the Neoconservative stand to an extreme (that is, patriotism means loving the United States Government and hating the American people).  To truly vent my disgust with this moronic article, I decided to respond to several “points” of hers individually:

The war didn’t change and the fighting force didn’t change, but the people back home are over it. War, it seems, went out of style in 2003.

Yeah, that tends to happen when people begin to realize how unnecessary and never-ending the war in question is.  I suppose we should just support the war for the next thousand years for the sake of style?  Or maybe just to avoid admitting that our country was wrong about something?

In the military community we roll our eyes when we hear that Americans are war weary. Just what, we wonder, are you all weary of? Hearing about the war? Seeing stories in the news? Most Americans don’t even know anyone in the military and won’t have any direct contact with the war besides seeing uniformed soldiers in the airport. You all haven’t been asked to do anything more to support this war than sit back and watch as your tax dollars are spent.

So, the logic here being that anyone who doesn’t personally know a soldier, isn’t allowed or able to have an informed opinion about our country’s actions?  By the way…we haven’t actually been asked to sit back and watch as our tax dollars are spent.  We’ve been forced to sit back and blindly trust the Government and their actions while the whole thing is financed by hyperinflation.

To us, civilian complaints about being war weary sound like the gripes of deadbeat dads: It’s a bummer to hear that things are going badly and you’re sick of being asked to pay for it, but you’re not doing any of the real work yourselves.

Maybe the deadbeat dad analogy would work better like this:  “It’s not your kid, and it’s a bummer to hear that it’s being repeatedly gangraped each night, and you’re sick of being robbed by the rapists, but at least you’re not doing any of the real work yourself!”

It’s not your fault. Nobody has asked you to do anything. Our leaders didn’t think you would be willing to make real sacrifices, so they never bothered to ask. They let you all think that shopping yourselves into debt was patriotic, that spending yourselves into bankruptcy and foreclosure was enough to keep our nation safe.

I’m not sure why the economy even gets mentioned here, but since it did, I might as well point out the fact that all those idiots who bought houses they couldn’t afford were only able to do so because of the Government.  The schmucks in D.C. didn’t just allow people to spend themselves into ruin…they highly encouraged this behavior with their policies.  So, what’s your point, Rebekah?  The Government helped destroy our economy, so they should be allowed to do whatever the hell they want when it comes to foreign policy as well?

You are war weary because futility breeds weariness. When you feel like something is for no good reason and getting nowhere, it’s understandable that you’d be over it. But maybe you wouldn’t be so war weary if you, personally, had a stake in what was happening “over there.”

Oh, I get it…so, I suppose I wouldn’t mind a futile war that isn’t going anywhere if only I had a loved one who could be killed in the futile war that isn’t going anywhere.  Well, I should have Autumn sign up to fight, so I can begin loving perpetual war!

And make no mistake: We are tired. We are stretched thin. Our marriages and our families are collapsing. Our children are emotionally damaged. They act out at school and cry at home. Everyday we wonder if we have the strength for even another day of this. We’re tired from the work, but we’re not weary of the mission.

So far this article has read like this:  “The war is expensive as hell, most of the country is against it, it’s futile and it’s not going anywhere, it’s destroying families and children…now start supporting it you pussies!”

 My husband and I know that this is not his last deployment and we know that his odds of returning home get worse with each trip. The only way our family and other military families will get a break is if more Americans sign up to join the fight. News reports these days are full of stories of lay-offs and the high cost of health care. Well, guess what? There are no pink slips in the military and our excellent health care system is free.

All aboard the Socialism-Express, eh?  You know…without people in this country actually producing goods and services, there would be no taxpayers to pay for your wars of aggression.  Still want everyone to join the army to suck on the teat of the state?

So sign up. We want you. Your nation wants you. And we in the military community need you. My family deserves a break.

Your family deserves a break, huh?  I agree.  Apparently, so does most of the country.  But, I suppose you’re happy to just spend your time publicly insulting all of us for being “lazy,” instead of considering the possibility that we may actually have a principled and intelligent stance against the war.

The only thing that seems to keep this cunt believing in such a terrible war, is her fear that everyone in the middle east wants to destroy America.  Her article, however, is the best possible argument against continued war.  In her warmongering little manifesto, she cites the American lives lost or destroyed…drawing a correlation between personal proximity to these tragedies and willingness to support war.  Well, if a measly 4,000+ lives lost is enough for hordes of neocons like her to eschew all common sense in order to support the war with such fervor…I can only imagine how many potential “terrorists” have been similarly inspired by 100,000-1,000,000* Iraqi deaths.

Congratulations, Rebekah Sanderlin.  You’re bound to get your wish for eternal war, because people like you are ensuring that we’ll never run out of people who would like to see America destroyed.

*The number varies depending on who you ask…but either way, it’s pretty fucking huge.

They lie. 

Take this for example.  The biased piece of shit interviewing Ron Paul in the video below decided to present an out of context quote, repeatedly attributing it to Paul himself, saying, “I just went to your website and on the very first page of your website […] here’s what it says.  From your website.”

Now, the jackass initially claims that the quote was from ronpaul.com, which is not Ron Paul’s website.  When Paul tries to correct him, the newscaster interrupts to explain that he meant to say, “ronpaulforpresident2008.com.”  Note:  This is still not Ron Paul’s fucking website.  In fact…the quote that they found didn’t even originate on that website.  It was simply imported from the feed at the Lew Rockwell Blog (again…not Ron Paul’s).  The quote in question began:  “What a heroic day! The people rose up against a coalition of every evil group in America: the central bank, Wall Street plutocrats, politicians, banksters, think tanks (including the pseudo-libertarian sort), big media, big academia, and big business, and won. Today we got a taste of what things may look like when the regime is finally toppled, and its theft and killing stopped.”

This, of course, paints a rather rebellious picture intended to make Paul look dangerous…but it really doesn’t matter when the quote isn’t actually connected to Paul in any real way.

They also neglected to include any of the rest of the post, which included things like, “Our pizza party for Mises’s birthday today took on an especially festive air.”  Pizza party?  Anarchists!  “How sweet to see the CNBC types running around like chickens with their heads cut off.”  Oh, right…that means you.  “Oh, and by the way, congratulations, Ron Paul.”  Now, this would seemingly make it very obvious that the post was not written by Ron Paul, but research for such obviously hard-hitting and unbiased interviews is probably limited to just 3 sentences.  We can’t actually expect the media to read all 7 sentences of each random blog entry they find on an unnofficial website somewhere!  That wouldn’t leave any time for figuring out how to twist the first 3 sentences to fit their needs.

CNN has apparently decided to try the FOX News approach to journalism for awhile.  One of their Top Ten Most Read stories yesterday was a piece about how Megan Fox once had a crush on a stripper.  Now…I’m not saying that Megan Fox’s desire to ”get pounded by a hot stripper with a strap-on” [sic?] isn’t of interest to me.  It’s just that I don’t think CNN is the place for this information to be relayed to me.

Pro journalism tip:  If your story doesn’t actually affect anyone in the world in any tangible way…it’s not news.

Tonight someone asked me if I was going to Blort about the Madrid plane crash.  I thought to myself, “Why the fuck would I Blort about the Madrid plane crash?”

As I’ve alluded to…the neoconservative warmongers who have hijacked the Republican party generally don’t actually believe in things like the constitution or freedom (at least not when applied to anyone they hate or disagree with).  Keeping with that trend, New York Republican Peter King is practically begging the Metropolitan Transit Authority to reject ads for a website about Islam.  Each ad says something like, “Q: Head scarf?” or “Q: Prophet Muhammad?” on one side, with a website address and the phrase, “A: You deserve to know,” included on the other side.

So, why does King want the ads rejected?  “I have no problem with the ad itself, but I have a very, very real problem with those behind it,” he said.  Ah…of course.  I forgot that religious speech is no longer constitutionally protected once a congressman has a problem with the people making it.  After all…this would otherwise be a first amendment issue, right?  “I’m calling on the MTA not to have these ads, not to go forward with them, and I don’t see this as a free speech issue at all.”

Not a free speech issue?  A government official attempting to stop the promotion of a religion is not a free speech issue?  I’m guessing that his rationale is that no “law” is being passed to stop the speech, so it’s “technically” not unconstitutional for him to request as a citizen that the ads be rejected.  This is the problem with our country, though.  Our elected officials have very little respect for the spirit of the constitution and instead are constantly looking for the loopholes.

Look, if the people advertising this website have actually done something wrong as King implies…fucking arrest them!  If not, then leave them the hell alone!  Currently, though, all they are doing is promoting Islam.  The real thing, too…not the terrorism-equals-jihad Osama bin Laden style.  No, the guys running Why Islam actually seem to recognize that terrorism is antithetical to the teachings of the Qur’an.

So back off Peter King.  The worst that could happen is that some oversensitive New York rednecks get pissed off about the existence of Muslims.  On the other hand, maybe some Islamic extremists will actually learn something from this website about their religion of peace.