NeoCon WTF

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May 292010
 

My regular readers will divide almost evenly between those who say “oh yeah, NeoCon Worlds Trade Fair, the big contract furniture show in Chicago at the Merchandise Mart” and those who say “Neocon! What the Fuck? has ArrghPaine gone over to the dark side?”

The fact of the matter is that my political views aside I have spent the bulk of my adult life in the contract furniture industry and this time of year my entire life is consumed by NeoCon Worlds Trade Fair, hence the sporadic tweeting and almost not existent blogging.

NeoCon will be June 14-17 at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, I will be in Chicago from June 9-18… I assume I will then return to ranting on a near daily basis, please carry the torch in my absence.

May 192010
 

Dr. Rand Paul fresh off his victory in the Republican primary in Kentucky stopped by the Rachel Maddow show this evening and managed to profess his passionate support for the privatization of racism, or at least strong support for those who wish to practice racism… Well you watch and tell me what you think.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Ultimately Rand Paul misses the larger point of freedom, referees are necessary to ensure that the powerful don’t stomp all over the freedoms of the less powerful.

And as is so often the case, Randy Newman has articulated this far better than I ever could

We’re rednecks, we’re rednecks
We don’t know our ass from a hole in the ground
We’re rednecks, we’re rednecks
We’re keeping the niggers down

Now your northern nigger’s a Negro
You see he’s got his dignity
Down here we’re too ignorant to realize
That the North has set the nigger free

Yes he’s free to be put in a cage
In Harlem in New York City
And he’s free to be put in a cage in the South-Side of Chicago, the West-Side
And he’s free to be put in a cage in Hough in Cleveland
And he’s free to be put in a cage in East St. Louis
And he’s free to be put in a cage in Fillmore in San Francisco
And he’s free to be put in a cage in Roxbury in Boston
They’re gatherin’ ‘em up from miles around
Keepin’ the niggers down

Dr. Paul is either stupid or ridiculously naive, I hope it is the latter but either bodes poorly for his inclusion in the Senate of the United States of America.

May 182010
 

Here is your lesson in pure unadulterated bullshit for the day…

British Petroleum would have you, me and everyone else believe that there is around 5000 barrels of oil spilling from the disaster that was the deep water horizon…

Independent estimates based on the video that BP finally released put the number at somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000 barrels a day…

Who’s right? Let’s run the numbers shall we?

5,000 barrels a day breaks down like this:

5,000 barrels x 42 gallons per barrel = 210,000 gallons per day.

210,000 gallons per day / 24 hours = 8,750 gallons per hour.

8,750 gallons per hour / 60 minutes = 145.8 gallons per minute.

145.8 gallons per minute / 60 seconds = 2.4 gallons per second.

70,000 barrels a day breaks down like this:

70,000 barrels x 42 gallons per barrel = 2,940,000 gallons per day.

2,940,000 gallons per day / 24 hours = 122,500 gallons per hour.

122,500 gallons per hour / 60 minutes = 2041.6 gallons per minute.

2041.6 gallons per minute / 60 seconds = 34 gallons per second.

So it is either 2.4 gallons per second or 34 gallons per second… Now watch this video and tell me that BP isn’t blowing smoke even faster than they are blowing oil.

The “Drill Baby Drill” crowd is going to suck on this and hard in the midterms just think for a moment of the timeline… think about how Florida will feel about this spill by November, and think, just for a moment, of the words uttered by the late Tim Russert…

Florida

Florida

Florida

May 092010
 

Attorney General Holder;

I watched your appearance on Meet the Press today and openly admit that I was shocked and disappointed with your seeming acquiescence to the chattering idiots who advocate the application of justice by the wholesale destruction of the justice system.

When I hear that the lesson from this latest brush with terrorism on our shores is that we should rethink the provisions of Miranda I am flabbergasted.

When George Tiller gunned down a physician for performing legal operations was there a rethinking of our gun laws?

Should we let a terrorist, so incompetent that he left the keys to his get away car in a Pathfinder shaped smoke bomb, force us to change the very rights and protections that the American justice system affords all its citizens?

Should we let a terrorist, who only really managed to scorch his genitals, cause us to abandon our ideals about torture?

Are we so timid that we would let these clowns dictate our behavior?

Are we so frightened that we would allow these events to tear at our values?

The “war on terror” is an idiotic concept, articulated by an intellectually challenged moron for the justification of an insane policy that does nothing to augment our safety or our freedom.

Terror is an emotion. Terror is the reaction to an event that has been perpetrated by those who don’t care about the action, only the reaction. We reacted to the third degree burns of a moron’s scrotum by whipping up the actual terror that the perpetrator was seeking. We are now reacting to an idiot that built a smoke bomb and wasn’t bright enough to even take the keys to his get away vehicle along with him.

Terrorists will do the things that they do for the reasons that make sense to them. We can choose to deal with the situation with the clear eyes of fact and law, or we can descend into the panic that accompanies terror, torture, suspension of habeas corpus and rethinking of Miranda… Where exactly on this path are we to declare the terrorists victorious? If we let them terrorize us into abandoning the best of what we are they drive us closer to the caricature that they create of us to justify their actions. Making their actions ever easier to justify…

Extremists attack and extremists react, please don’t let the principles upon which our nation are founded be the victims in the equation.

You cannot make the American people safer by removing the legal protections that our system provides them. One innocent man that is denied due process represents an unimaginable loss to all Americans.

Justice must not be swayed by political hyperbole. The founders of our nation understood the brilliance of creating a society in which all are equal before the law. Please don’t allow fear and the promotion of fear to diminish the heart of what ultimately allows us to declare our nation… Just.

Respectfully,

May 062010
 

Senator Joe Lieberman has managed to propose the single worst, most damaging, disastrous piece of legislation to be introduced in at least a generation, perhaps in a century and quite possibly since the creation of our union.

I don’t wish to appear vitriolic or hyperbolic in this claim and yet it is very difficult to overstate just how completely dear Joe is suggesting we deconstruct the foundations of the justice system of this country for either his political advantage or his wild and paranoid ravings…

The Terrorist Expatriation Act would seek to empower the State Department to strip U.S. citizens of their citizenship upon the suspicion of alignment with a terrorist organization. Of course if you are stripped of your citizenship, you have no rights afforded you in the constitution should the accusation prove to be erroneous, a small inconvenience for those who don’t happen to be white, rich or who have the audacity to be of middle eastern decent, well traveled or multi-lingual (and not in one of the “cool” languages like Italian).

Senator Lieberman was not alone in this asinine quest to decimate the U.S. Constitution, he was joined in this folly by Senator Scott Brown, R, and Representatives Jason Altmire, D, and Charlie Dent, R surely the “Four Horsemen of the Hypocolypse” and a very sad commentary on what passes for political discourse these days.

Seriously folks, Senator Joe Lieberman is more guilty of trying to take away your freedoms than the worst of the terrorists, heaven help us should he succeed.