Monthly Archives: April 2015

Shut off the idiot box

The-Idiot-Box-How-TV-Is-Turning-Us-All-Into-Zombies
Most of us watch way too much of it. It’s turning us into the world of Idiocracy:

Kill Your TV and Save Your Life

We all know what the expanded version of the problem is: The problem is that we live in, as Andrew Breitbart called it, a “Matrix” of leftist assumptions and propaganda, all being delivered to us 24/7 by a wireless intravenous drip system called television.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I’ve been thinking it’s time to actually do something.

Just an idea, but I would like to start thinking seriously about delivering a truly grievous wound to the Political-Entertainment Complex.

I’m thinking about, firstly, stopping watching almost TV entirely and shedding cable stations. (Some cut the cable entirely.)

I say “almost entirely” because people are so addicted to TV at this point that I think it seems as hard to quit TV as it is to quit smoking. (By the way: It’s easy to quit smoking.)

So let’s throw in the “almost” caveat there and think about it like this: If I write down all the shows I watch, I think I’ll be embarrassed and sad to see how many hours I sit as a voluntary, unmoving, passive spectator, watching other people perform Shows and other people perform in Sports and other people doing things.

I ditched cable about a year and a half ago.  I don’t miss it.  What little bit of TV I still watch is all downloadable or streamable, and there’s not much of it.  In the past month, I’ve watched Top Gear (probably in its final season), Archer, and Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. What do I do with the rest of my time?  Any number of things: reading (books or blogs…take your pick), hashing, tinkering with electronics, shooting, reloading ammo, going to beerfests…probably more stuff I can’t remember offhand.  There is life beyond TV.  You don’t necessarily need to do the things I do; do the things you find interesting.  Whatever it is, it’ll more than likely be better for your mind than spending hour on hour glued to the idiot box.

Someone set us up the bomb

obama-chamberlainWhat makes him think this time will be any different than 1938?

Obama: We Finally Have An Iranian Nuclear Bomb In Our Time

I don’t have much to say about this as it’s breaking news and President Nixon won’t tell us the details, of course.

I did see the Iranian President stating, emphatically, the following: We will continue enriching uranium; we will continue research and development (into nuclear bombs and more efficient centrifuges); we will put 1000 of our best centrifuges in our underground fortified nuke bunker at Fordo, but we promise we’ll use those centrifuges to spin things like industrial salts, not uranium, swearsies.

Obama is delivering them the bomb.

“Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonour. They chose dishonour. They will have war.”
— Winston Churchill, to Neville Chamberlain in the House of Commons after the Munich accords

Liberal fascism rears its ugly head

Liberal_Fascism_(cover)I’m pretty sure there was a book on that subject:

Indiana Shows the Left Has No Concept of Freedom

What interests and concerns me about the fight over Indiana’s religious freedom law is not its implication for gay weddings and whether pizza will be served at them.

Much more important are the basic principles that are being invoked to argue against the Indiana law. These arguments set out to define religious freedom out of existence, and they end up defining all freedom out of existence.

At the end of last year, I complained that “The basic problem with the left’s conception of freedom is that it doesn’t really have one.”

[…]

Now, when we say that gay marriage is legal, what we actually mean is that the government is required to offer and recognize these marriages. But Tomasky assumes that what the state must do, private citizens must do also. If a law binds the actions of the state, it is also binding on Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public. There is no distinction, in Tomasky’s mind, between government action and private action.

It’s that old principle of tolerance: “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”

[…]

Blow also echoes Tomasky when he thunders, “Anything that even hints at state-sponsored discrimination—blatant and codified—is not only discordant with current cultural norms but also anathema to universal ideals of fairness and human dignity.” Did you catch that phrase? “State-sponsored discrimination.” Anything that is allowed by the government is therefore sponsored by the government. To not arrest you for doing or saying something is to adopt that action or idea as the official policy of the state.

That which is not forbidden is mandatory. Everything within the state, nothing outside the state.

Something to think about as tax time approaches

The IRS is operating above the law, and nobody in the 0bama regime is willing to rein it in…not much surprise there, unfortunately:

DOJ: No contempt charges for former IRS official Lois Lerner

The Justice Department will not seek criminal contempt charges against former IRS official Lois Lerner, the central figure in a scandal that erupted over whether the tax agency improperly targeted conservative political groups.

Ronald Machen, the former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in a seven-page letter this week that he would not bring a criminal case to a grand jury over Lerner’s refusal to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in March 2014. The House approved a criminal contempt resolution against Lerner in May 2014, and Machen’s office has been reviewing the issue since then.

Lerner and other IRS officials, however, are still under investigation by the FBI for the tea party targeting matter — which is a separate probe entirely.

…and if you believe they’ll ever prosecute her for targeting conservative organizations, maybe you’ll be interested in this bridge I have for sale.