John Stewart on Acorn

John Stewart has become hit and miss for me, but this one is actually funny.

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Some fun stuff

Some of my students have been kicking around the idea of doing a skate clip centered on bails and hi-fives. Here it is:

Kraut- Hammer!

Charles "Martel" Kraut-hammer just threw down the best hammer of the year. Read it and weep.

Calling all technophobes and Monty Python fans

Aside from the obvious hazards an IT company in South Africa has proved that it's faster to use a carrier pigeon for data transfer than IP providers in South Africa.

Local news agency SAPA reported the 11-month-old pigeon, Winston, took one hour and eight minutes to fly the 80 km (50 miles) from Unlimited IT's offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban with a data card was strapped to his leg.

Of course the only really important question is was it an African or European pigeon?

eBooks

This is a huge issue right now. As a librarian and dedicated bibliophile I thought I would not really like ebooks, but I have found that they are great for light reading. Currently I am using the Sony touch screen (great features, grainier screen) and a Kindle. I was shocked by how much I like both and how they solved many of my classic problems. As a professor, I no longer have to carry 6 or 7 books around- I can load thousands on one device, which also solves a classic traveling problem for me.

Most digital books even allow you to annotate them and write notes. Very nice, and I am a definite convert, even though I will always prefer a "real" book. But I have realized that ebooks will probably take over in the next 10 years because they are so functional and easy- and cheaper.

The real issue are these power plays the article I linked to discusses. Everyone with money and power wants to ensure that they get to keep. The one exception has been Sony, which is actually making their devices more functional and interactive with other formats. Exactly the opposite of Amazon's Apple approach: proprietary and controlled. These issues have huge implications for the future control of knowledge and dissemination of information. We have already seen a massive sell out of America's truth corps, the press, when it comes to putting facts and relevant information before the people. Most people think that the Internet will open the door in ways that people with power cannot close it, but don't believe. There are other ways of controlling information. The Obama administration has already backed down from a plan that would have given the president the legal freedom to shut down the Internet in emergency situations, but there are plenty of other alternatives.

It's critical that conservatives and libertarians pay attention to these developments and fight for free markets and freedom of information.

That's what I'm talking about!

This is rad. Some republican is finally getting a clue

Pirate Party

I have written about this numerous times and hope conservatives start figuring out how important these issues are to young voters- and how naturally its fits with conservatism. The Pirate Party has won an EU seat. They are rapidly becoming a serious movement in Europe and are attracting new converts all the time.

Mainstream, older generations think the Pirates are not serious- I mean they were a spontaneous reaction the a legal ruling against a torrent tracker from Sweden right?! But then think about how the Establishment has been treating the Tea Parties and townhall protestors stateside and you start realizing that there may be a lot of similiarities here.

Pirate Christian Engstrom sounds an awful lot like a traditional conservative. He just doesn't know it and neither does most of the tech world or youth because conservatives are not reaching out and communicating. Get with it people. Time to run up the Jolly Roger!

How Corrupt is America?

Ted Kennedy's public life from beginning to end was defined by corruption and abuse of privilege. It's that simple. His entire career and life are gross contradictions to everything America is supposed to stand for, yet he is still being celebrated and lionized by the same corrupt establishment that allowed him to exist in the first place.

Kennedy's corruption and disdain for the average American is like book ends for his life. He began it by walking away from an average American, leaving her to die, and he ended it pretty much the same way- boldly trying to change a law he created so the democrats can keep power. He does it because he can get away with it. Like a bad child our politicians just keep testing their boundaries, pushing the people's limit. Kennedy was the ring leader, but don't think it ends with him. President Obama has been rolling Kennedy style since he was first elected by getting his opponents thrown off the ballot on technicalities. The Obama presidency is not a repudiation of abuse of power and privilege, but rather the coming of Age for Kennedy style corruption. No one has benefitied more from the privilege of the wealthy and powerful to have their dirty laundry hidden or excused that President Obama. From the Media's blackout on his voting record and past to his thuggish behavior to hedge fund managers or lawyers fighting corruption (of Obama's friends), no one has utilized the Kennedy style better and to more effect than Barack Obama.

It would seem that the American people are finally beginning to tire of this behavior and are demanding some accountability and integrity from our elected officials. But we seem to be acting like bad parents who have let their children push their limits and are suddenly "getting tough" pretending that we are really good parents who let their children develop some bad habits. You have all seen those kinds of parents who suddenly pretend that they actually care about their child's behavior, but it won't last that long and pretty soon the kids will be up to the same old thing.

It's because our culture is corrupt too. We as Americans are concerned more with comfort and entertainment than virtue. Making sacrificies is not easy, for our elected officials or on the personal level. We love to decry our politicians, but they still represent us. After all, the people of Massachusetts kept electing Teddy year after year, no matter how despicable or open his corruption was. Maybe we deserve these leaders, because they reflect our own failures as parents, citizens and people.

Hopefully, Kennedy's death will remind us that we once produced men like Washington and Lincoln, and that we can return to those virtues, those values and that America.

Run, Mitt, Run!

The democrats gross abuse of power in Massachusetts has provided as perfect a set up for former governor Romney as any politician could ever get.

1. He is still (it seems) interested in running for president.
2. He is burdened by the recent exposure of Massachusett's failed Health Care system he helped create.
3. The democrats power in the Senate hangs on Kennedy's seat.
4. The nation is in an uproar over Health Care Reform.

Answer: Romney to the rescue. Everything fits perfectly. The people of Massachusetts are just now learning what a failure their socialized Health Care system is, but the democrats locally and nationally are out of sync with the people. There is no better time for a high profile republican to finally win the seat in a special election where Health Care is the biggest issue on people's minds. Romney can achieve two critical goals: rid himself of the albatross by admitting it's failure, and then frame his campaign as a sort of redemptive quest to save the rest of the country from the danger he knows so well! He launches himself into national fame by being the man who was elected at the last hour and saved the nation from looming disaster. He would then launch his presidential campaign as a former senator and governor, and the man who stopped the very thing Americans feared most.

His state is perfectly poised to elect him. First, they already have done so in the past, and second even Massachusetts must be ready for a change. The gross democratic corruption and abuse of power brewing right now over Senator Kennedy replacement is the perfect platform for a campaign launch. Mitt can co-opt the Obama message of Hope and Change and ask the people if they have had enough of democrat shenanigans.

Please Mitt, run for senator, and earn your spot in American history.

Why do we trust politicians with our money?

Remember back in June when the administration criticized the nonpartisan congressional budget office for having too high of a deficit based on their budget? It's a familiar story, because the democrats, the press, and Obama, have been doing the same thing over health care, arguing the the CBO is wrong and that their plan will actually save money. Well, Obamatuer just admitted that the CBO was right about the budget deficit and admitted that the 10 year deficit with Obama's budget is really more in the range of 9 trillion dollars rather than 7. How in God's name do you miss 2 trillion dollars?!

Is there anyone out there who wants to bet who is right about the cost of health care reform? Obama or the CBO? We put private sector people in jail for the kind of reckless behavior that seems to be standard practice for politicians.

If the people lead....

One of my neighbors seems to be a pretty standard Boulder hippie bourgeois liberal. She drives a subaru outback and has an "I Love Barack" sticker on it. Recently it was joined by the rather tired cliche "If the People Lead, the Leaders will Follow." I think we have all come to realize that this, along with another classic "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" have implied clarifiers "if the people leading are Leftists... if the dissent is Leftist." But thinking about the disdain and shameless lies about the dissent over Health Care reform I have come to realize that the Leaders also don't like the "people."

Ken Gladney is of the people, Henry Gates is not- neither is Barack Obama. I am not a Sarah Palin fan, but she resonates deeply with me, because unlike Barack Obama she is the first politician on the national stage to represent the people on an experiential and personal level. Even when they are out of touch, our leaders still represent us, but none of them know us like she does. Can you name any major leader who went to a state college? Who worked with their hands? Whose ability to wield a hammer went beyond photo shoots and actually helped her husband build their home? More than any politician since, well Lincoln, she truly represents the people. She is one of us. But we never got to know her, because the media created a caricature of her that is just like the one they are making of us now: dumb, ignorant peasants.

I heard, and hear, my students make all kinds of dismissive comments about her. The most recent was that she is a dumb B!*%h because she said Africa was a country. I asked my student if that made president Obama a dumb bastard because he said there were 57 states in America... He was lost and didnt know what to say. I then asked him the same rhetorical questions above and asked him who really knows his world and understands his life- who has actually lived it? Only Palin. She represents him, she represents the people and if the Establishment doesn't like her it's because she reminds them of the great unwashed "people."

Americans did not get to see the real Palin, because the Establishment cannot know her anymore than they know us. The leaders don't want the people to lead. We had a chance and they crucified the people. They call the people a mob, nazis, and other assorted epithets. Bill Ayers actually killed people, and does not regret it, but he is one of the Establishment- definitely not of the people, so he gets a pass. Sarah Palin suggests that socializing medicine may lead to "death panels" and she gets ridiculed. The irony is that her statements are no more inflammatory or idiotic than the stuff spoken by college professors across America on a daily basis. Churchill and Ayers are not the exception. But then they are not the "people" either. Sarah Palin is, and therefore must be crushed.

Looks like another Beer Summit is coming...

Too bad Kenneth Gladney (he doesn't get mentioned until about halfway through the article) is not an oppressed faculty member at an elite Ivy League university. But since he is a black man who was actually attacked for expressing his views (not in the refined and intellectually sound ways Dr Gates did of course), we should be expecting a national furor over this hate crime right? Beer Summit anyone?



If Gladney was only a professor or a trust fund hippie maybe his story would get the national coverage it deserves...

At least Dogs get good care

Theodore Dalrymple is a British doctor who is also a pundit. Funny article in the Journal comparing health care in Britain for dogs and humans. Dogs are privatized still...

Good for a few laughs at least

Grandma got run over by Obamacare. Listen, laugh, cry.

Warms the Cockles of my Heart

While America seems to be dying all around us, there are still some shining moments of genuine American beauty:


What's so hilarious is the obvious difficulty the open minded, culturally sensitive journalist seems to having understanding that anyone could think differently than her.