2009 January | MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

Archive for January, 2009

But we can trust the government to keep their word, right?

I mean they are such trustworthy souls who only have our best interests at heart. So when the INTI system goes nation wide, well, we can trust that they won’t collect our personal information. What is the INTI? Well, it is a system of GPS and collection facilities across the country to track where you drive “for safety”. The IntelliDrive part of this system uses “advanced wireless communications, on-board computer processing, advanced vehicle-sensors, GPS navigation, smart infrastructure, and others—to provide the capability for vehicles to identify threats and hazards on the roadway and communicate this information over wireless networks to give drivers alerts and warnings”

In short, you know those cameras on the highways you see every so often. They transmit to a nearby central processing area so those DOT personnel can watch the roads and react to accidents. Now, your cars will transmit to those too. What will the car transmit? Well, according to the DOT it’s a nice “identify, collect, process, exchange, and transmit real-time data provides drivers with a greater situational awareness of the events, potential, threats, and imminent hazards within the vehicle’s environment”. Nice and non committal, eh? You have to dig a bit deeper to see that they will be recording speed, lane changes, whether or not your wipers are on, everything about your vehicle. The DOT has repeatedly said that this won’t be used for citations. Um, yeah, right. Well, here’s what the CICAS (a part of the INTS development) says: “the CICAS initiative will produce a system prototype that addresses both control violations and gap acceptance crash problems.” What’s that? Control violations? Now, I’m sure they will say that just means accidents. But still, do you trust them?

Lawyers are already using toll road information to bust cheating spouses. Did you think that when you bought your EZ pass you were inviting tracking of your vehicle? Well, guess what, you did.

How long do you think it will be before the governments use the collected data to “punish” you for that time you hit 80 on I-75 or that time you changed lanes and your turn signal was a bit late or that you drove at peak hours instead of the less crowded time. GPS systems are already being used to track miles travelled in a state to charge the proper taxes. How soon until it is used for other things?

How soon do you who own businesses think it will be before the IRS disallows your deduction for miles because you went down fifth street and according to them you should have used sixth? Once INTS is in, the feds will start using it to regulate your every move, “for safety”. The IRS will use it to govern everything businesses do to eliminate valid deductions “out of fairness”. It’s coming and according to the DOT, you can’t stop it.

Funniest freaking prank

A little humor for pre Super Bowl Saturday. I have a new favorite channel on YouTube. Just For Laughs TV. Here’s the one that hooked me:

Head in toilet:

Start of race:

the american public has been conned

The self-regarding narcissist that we have just elected is starting to look like what he is - an untested amateur with an Emperor syndrome - and we are just eight days in.

I must go and get me some soda and popcorn.

Man of Steele

It’s official. Michael Steele is the new head of the RNC. I’m happy to say that, for once, the RNC did the right thing. Michael Steele is a tenacious advocate of Republican principles and is well skilled in breaking them down in terms plain and firm enough to win over the common man. He out-performed both McCain and Bush in the bluest of blue states, Maryland, in the worst of all years to make such a run, 2006. He’s made the rounds on all the media circuits, so he has a public profile. If any man can lead this party now, at a time when we are so bereft of leadership, this is the man for the job.

More importantly, this is an important statement about our party. More than anything else, our party desperately needs a break with the past. Steele represents that like few could. He’s the party’s first black RNC Chair. He breaks the sectional model we threatened to go down if we’d picked Dawson. He’s a break with the disasterous road we went down in 2008 under Mike Duncan. Steele is a new face and new leadership, and the public desperately wants a new GOP as an alternative to both the old and to the Democrats. So, here’s a salute to our new RNC chair, may his tenure mark the start of our comeback.

where’s my fucking unicorn?

8 days, no unicorn. I’m starting to think this Obama guy is all talk.

The Democratic Culture of Corruption

So it’s official, Rod Blagojevich is the first governor in Illinois history to be impeached and removed from office (by a unanimous vote no less). Blagojevich also shares another dubious distinction, he is the third Democratic governor of a large blue state to leave office in disgrace in the past 5 years. He joins two big city Democratic mayors and a scad of ousted congressmen in a 6 year record of lies, corruption, sex scandals, and impropriety from a party that campaigned against a Republican “culture of corruption” in 2006 and for “change” in 2008. Blagojevich only highlights that for the past 6 years, Democrats have been no better, no different than Republicans in their share of personal scandals. He further highlights that, while pointing out the speck in the eye of Republicans, Democrats have ignored their very own Democratic culture of corruption.

Much was made of Republican financial corruption in 2006 and 2008. It cost us the seats of Tom Delay, Conrad Burns, Ted Stevens and anyone who’d ever used the same comb as Jack Abramoff. Democrats, of course, have been mum on many of their own financial scandals. James Traficant was expelled from the House in 2002 after being convicted of bribery, tax fraud, racketeering, and misuse of House staff on his personal property. He isn’t the only Democrat to do time (or foreseeably will) for similar charges. William Jefferson is facing bribery charges and had the full support of the House Democratic caucus till Louisiana voters got sick of him. Former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick can relate, he was sent to jail for suppressing evidence in a civil trial. The evidence, of course consisted of text messages he’d made on a city phone that contained details of an affair he was having with his chief of staff. While we’re on the subject of corrupt big city mayors, Shiela Dixon of Baltimore is under indictment for misappropriating charity gifts for the poor.

Of course, impropriety is not confined to pure criminality. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is not only under investigation for pay to play schemes, but he is also accused of inappropriate business dealings in awarding state contracts to businesses he used to chair. Charles Rangel is under investigation by an ethics committee for receiving gifts in the form of favorable rent arrangements in Harlem. John Conyers of Michigan in 2006 accepted responsibility for misusing his House staff for campaign and personal purposes. Republicans with similar clouds of impropriety were dogged with controversy for months. Nary a peep has been made, except in passing by the media, about the above abuses, and certainly Democratic leadership has been mum on the matter.

There’s always the sex scandals. We heard for months about Larry Craig, Mark Foley, and David Vitter’s improprieties. In contrast, very little was made of Tim Mahoney’s infidelity, even though he had replaced Foley in 2006 over the very same issue. Elliot Spitzer got to resign and have his improprieties concluded and moved on from, even though prostitution is illegal in every polity his dalliances occurred in. Then, of course, everyone gave David Patterson a total pass on his admissions of infidelity. And, of course, we can see the above example of Kwame Kilpatrick. Now, certainly there is some relish in the notion of sticking it to the “family values” Republicans when they err. However, I don’t ever remember the Democratic party declaring itself the party of hookers and adultery. Perhaps they should only receive a pass on this sort of conduct if they’re willing to openly stake out such a position. Even if Democrats don’t purport to be a “family values” party (which they will on the campaign trail if they can cloak it in socialist rhetoric) whoring and infidelity are nothing to be proud of.

Now, I’ve saved the best for last. Sure, it’s popular to beat up on Illinois with it’s Chicago machine, but that’s just too easy. In recent memory the state the Democrats should be most ashamed of is New Jersey. Back in 2002 Senator Bob Torricelli was revealed to have accepted campaign contributions from an imprisoned North Korean businessman. Rather than step aside as his seat was up for election, he clung on till polling showed him a 20 point underdog against the Republican. It was only after he was a guaranteed loss that he decided to step aside and allow the Democrats to throw in a ringer, former Senator Frank Lautenberg. The problem, then, was Torricelli had withdrawn several days after the deadline to legally remove a candidate from the ballot. So, the state Democratic party sued in the Democratically dominated state supreme court to change the rules to allow Lautenberg on. The New Jersey supreme court allowed it, even though that same year a Montana court refused the very same sort of request out of the Republican party. Lautenberg, of course, won, though the whole thing stunk to high heaven. The other big winner in New Jersey that year was Jim McGreevey. McGreevey, of course, would later cheat on his wife. . . with a guy. . . who he then appointed Homeland Security advisor to the governor. No better example exists of the Democratic culture of corruption than New Jersey; we have finance scandals, corruption in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, we have infidelity, and we have cronyism.

There can be little doubt that a hitherto widespread problem of corruption in the Democratic party will continue to go unchecked. The media was far too focused on Republican problems for the past 8 years to pay much attention to the transgressions of the opposition. The real question is now that the Democrats are incontrovertibly in the majority will their scandals finally begin to stick? Only time will tell.

Presidential Party Systems and You

Now that we’ve had time to recover from the shell shock of 2008 and assure ourselves that everything is going to be okay, it’s time to get depressed again. Specifically, the object of our depression is a political science concept known as the presidential party system. We tend to think of presidential contests as being highly individualized affairs, but in truth over time they tend to follow periods of dominance by one party or another for a fixed and empirical length. An analysis of these shows us that, by most probable permutations, we could be in for a VERY long winter indeed.

Political scientists recognize there to have been 5 or more presidential party systems in our history, depending on how they view the first few elections and the contemporary ones. All agree upon the Jacksonian system, which lasted from 1828 to 1860, the Reconstruction/Gilded Age system, which lasted from 1860 to 1896, the National Republican system, which lasted from 1896 to 1932, and the New Deal system, which lasted from 1932 to 1968. The similarities in outcome from each of these systems is amazing. They all lasted between 32-36 years, with 36 years being the modal set. They all were characterized by a dominant party winning most presidential elections with the opposition party capturing no more than two such contests during the system. And, all have similar characteristics of electoral breakdown from year to year.

Having established all that, it’s time to look at our current system. Since 1968 experts have agreed that the New Deal system is over, and that some sort of system has existed since 1968. The problem is we don’t know if we’re still in that system or not. The system began when a schism over Johnson’s civil rights policies broke the south in a very fundamental way off of the Democratic block, and Nixon was later able to solidify that hold, except for the Carter hiccup, on the southern states for the Republican party. The blowout victories of Reagan and Bush were built on that same coalition. The problem, now, is one of timing. Presidential systems really only have so long that they last, and it’s been 40 years since 1968. That begs the question, are we still in Dick Nixon’s system, or are we in a new system altogether?

The likelihood that we’re still in Dick Nixon’s presidential system is remote. It would be totally without precedent in the history of presidential systems. That leaves us with option that somewhere a new system started and there is a new demarcating line to be drawn. Where that line is drawn can leave our party in a fairly grim position.

Chronologically, the first option is that Dick Nixon’s system was unusually short. That would place the start point of the new system at 1992 with Clinton’s win. This would make Nixon’s system only a 24 year system, which would be short beyond precedent for a presidential system. However, an argument could be made here, since 1972, 1980, 1984, and 1988 were all major blowouts that transcended our understanding of a Red State-Blue State system. That would leave the Nixon system short, but with a much more national character. It would also place us 16 years into a Democratic presidential system. That would portend a two term Obama administration, and then at least one more Democratic president. It’s not the happiest of outcomes, but at least we’d be halfway through.

The second option is that Nixon’s system came to an end in 2000. That would make it a 32 year long system, and would reflect the tendency of opposition parties to win their victories during systems thanks to a party schism (thank you Mr. Perot). The stumbling block is that rarely do parties demonstrate weakness so soon after starting a new party system. Jackson at least slid the Van Buren administration in before the Whigs poked a hole in the Democrats’ armor. Between Lincoln and Cleveland you had Grant, Hayes, and Garfield. Only in Nixon’s system was weakness demonstrated so quickly after the system was formed, and it would be a weak system if we place the end point at 2000, having allowed more opposition victories than other systems. Still, it would be a Republican system by preponderance.

The last option, and unfortunately, the more likely one, is that a new party system has just started. That leaves us in the worst position possible. That suggests that we’ve just initiated a 36 year system of which 28 years will belong to the Democrats. The next election, in that case, will probably shape the map to what we can expect to see for three subsequent decades. And if that’s not a cause for depression, I don’t know what is.

Are you smarter than a 4th grader?

So my son brings home an extra credit math paper and we can’t solve it. So, I turn it over to you to see if you can help. The turn in time has expired so you’re not helping us cheat. I don’t see a solution and I think the teacher left something out, but here it is as it was written on his sheet.

The 4th grade class has ______ _______ students and they are going on a trip to Disney. An odd number of _____ kids will ride in each of _____ cars. Including drivers, a total of 4 _____ people are on the trip. At Disney, _____ _____ which is one more than half ride Space Mountain. 1 _____ kids waited with 3 adults making _____ _____ who watched in total.

In the above paragraph, you will find 10 spaces. In those 10 spaces, you need to place the numbers 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and you can only use a number once.

Good luck.

oh dear, oh dear, oh dear

Britain, land of my birth, is facing an even worse recession than the US (although Nancy, Harry and Barry are working hard to fix that).

British gross domestic product will contract 2.8pc this year, a sharper and more painful decline than the IMF now forecasts for America, the Eurozone or Japan. The new forecast compares with a prediction of a 1.3pc decline made in November.

Time to treat the Banksters to some rotten fruit, methinks.

AI Wednesday January 28th

Yet more tryouts. Salt Lake City, I believe. Could be interesting.

AI January 27th

More tryouts

no child left without a pony

Wow.

I am staggered by the depth of the reckless stupidity that the Congress are displaying in response to an overdue cyclical economic contraction, albeit one with its roots in a lending orgy underwritten with money created using financial instruments so esoteric and complex that nobody can now even place a value upon them.

So how do we propose to resolve this ‘crisis’?

Why, we’re going to go on a borrow-and-spend orgy, burdening future generations of taxpayers with debt for vital economic stimulation measures such as repairing school buildings.

This is nothing less than a blatant liberal hijacking of this ‘crisis’ to enact spending on ideological baubles at a scale that the average American would find risible if stand-alone legislation were proposed. There’s probably very little we can do about it, but we must never, ever allow the duopoly that are ramming this thin gruel down our throats to forget it - at the next election vote against any and all incumbents that vote for this nonsense.

Including Republicans.

AI Wednesday

Since the TV’s are still in the middle of the Obamagasm, let’s hang out on AI!

I have to coach 2 soccer practices and they don’t end until after 8 so I’ll open it now. I’ll see you when I get in.

The Historic Moment

It was early 2008. Few had heard of him. But the more they heard, the more they loved him. As time wore on he seemed more reliable, more dependable, more rational than the rest of the pack. He was a man of winning words, able to command the day with the sheer force of his oratory.

Then today, the culmination of a full year happened. Today, I got made a new blog writer. :P