Barabas Lives!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/04/04/mozilla-exec-out-of-job-for-gay-rights-intolerance-some-think-thats-intolerant/?tid=hp_mm

You will be MADE to think as we do! 

Remember the Puritans? Freedom has NEVER been free, and is UNnatural to humans. Christian Exceptionalism is love for others and most importantly TOLERANCE in the culture (render unto Ceasar). The Puritans were rigorous in their own interpretetation of what they saw as the piety of the Bible, and they sought freedom from the state telling them how they had to worship. 

The human urge to piety relative to a set of beliefs and enforcing that piety as a standard is a constant of human nature -- again, like breathing. We ARE going to do it, the issue is just "how". 

Christ provided an impossible standard (Christ's) as a model,  but explicity forbade using personal power or the power of the state to enforce the standard on others by any means other than "loss of fellowship" for those that claimed to be believers but rejected the standard. 

When humans take the place of God, they DEMAND compliance for ALL, and they ALWAYS end up using the power of the state to enforce their view of "right". 

"Right" (mans right) is made law by FORCE, the only mechanism avaible once Gods standards, justice and love are refused. 

"Give us Barabas"! The cry that still echos loudly!

Viva Las Vegas

After a dismal day yesterday I launched at 9:30 from Flagstaff. 35 degrees again, took a shot at 89a route, but there was ice in shaded areas and I realized that I would not be enjoying the ride even if it DID get better -- scardy moose always thinking that on some shaded canyon turn there could be that patch that would be "invisible". Yea, I know, "it could be anything", but it was going to prevent enjoyment no matter how good the ride was. 

So, I chickened to I40 and sputtered along in the right lane in the wheel tracks that were pretty much dry and watched the bridges like a hawk. It was dropping down out of the Kaibab area at like Williams before it cleared 40. In the current Wing config, I need 45 degrees to get to the "edge of comfort" ... hours of riding without deep freeze. The vents pulling heat off the engine, the grips, etc make 45 OK in "reasonable wind". Today, I was nearly to Seligman before that happened. 

Had a nice breakfast at the "Road Kill Grill" there, warmed up, gassed up, and took the old Route 66 to Kingman. Really enjoyed the ride, saw quite a few bikes. Seligman and a couple of other holes in the wall gave a hint of how hoppin 66 must have been before the interstates took all the tourists. EVERYTHING has it's unintended consequences!

93 from Kingman up to Vegas was funny ... 65 MPH speed limit, slow traffic doing 85, plenty of folks at 90-95 and LOTS of bikes going the other way .. Harleys, in groups, often loud enough I copuld hear the thunder in my lane. When I popped the ridge prior to the Colorado River I once again wished I had a helmet cam set up! Very nice scenery from there over the new bridge above the dam to where I stopped and gassed up at Boulder City and shot the pic with Lake Mead in the back. Had to be upper 60's by then. 

To top my bad day off yestday I discovered that my iPad had not been charging ...  so I had my snazzy new phone route me to the Apple store. Right down town, big cool malln called "The Fashion Show" on Las Vegas drive, right next to a huge Wynns Casino. Bad cable ... cats DO have "some issues".  Vegas reminds me of the Lords Prayer ... definitely, it is LOADED with temptaion "Gentlemens Club, topless this and that, this kind of girl, that kind of girl ..." not to mention gambling and enough beverages to tempt an LCMS guy during Lent! Oh well, it is remarkable how many big buildings temptation can build. Lots flashier than DC, but not NEARLY as much money actually! 

Looking forward to riding down to LA tomorrow and then I will be turning for home by a more southernly route! Sure felt nice to drive around town with the big jacket in the saddlebag and just the kevlar shirt on for a change!

Snowed!

Today was a reminder how easy it is to focus on our own situation and to be FAR too believing of "the common wisdom".  A big part of the reason that I set out on this adventure in this direction was the cold temps in MN all winter and into spring. Even though I'm often a skeptic, I'm ALWAYS a human! The media regularly said "oh, the midwest and east is a LOCAL weather phenomenon, the South West is having an extremely warm winter and spring". Yea, right!

So I believed them. The AVERAGE high for April 2 in Pagosa Springs is 50 degrees, the average high for Flagstaff AZ is 52. I'm sitting in the Days Inn at Flagstaff right now because the temp is  currently 32 degrees, and when I hit the area at 3ish it was 35 and snowing so heavy I had to limp in and stop.

East of Durango, this AM my temp read 37 degrees ...  1 degree lower than when I left Rochester. YES, I understand altitude, but the SW is having above average warmth this winter and spring. Remember?

Everyone,  definitely me, has an agenda, a very limited focus, and even in the best of circumstances, is EXTREMELY fallible! ALWAYS! Especially large organizations like Government and Media!

It is MY fault, my own grievous fault -- I ought to have gone SOUTH and forgot west!

Other than snow to start and snow to end (the start was not as heavy and not sticking), COLD ... mostly 45-50 degrees, with my new record for the trip being 35 degrees and heavy snow at Flagstaff, I did get in 425 miles including some nice rock formations along NM 491.

The elusive Monument Valley remains a quarry for another day and my guess is that the return trip will be SOUTH rather than through Idaho.

Roswell to Pagosa Springs, Memories and Chance

The alien museum opened at nine, so I had to settle for some pics and a couple T-shirts, coffee cup and shot glass across the street.

Hit 285 N out of Roswell and within 30 min was on a completely deserted 4-lane with tunes cranked doing 80 in a 70. No traffic, no place for a cop to even hide ... air would be the only way. "Reaper" came on, I cranked it, popped a ridge, looked forever forward and back, and the snake brain said "top it out" ... had I not had my wireless sending gauge on my tires, the angel moose on one shoulder would have won out ... kick it to 4th, close to redline at like 105,  6th, pulled strong to 120, hit 127  and then was leveling out. The thought of  losing my license and sitting in the Roswell pokey, backed me back down -- but wow, for a couple min, massive smile. Next random song in the mix, Bob Seeger, Roll Me Away ... I ride a Wing, so Marla never has to worry about the girl in the bar. Besides, it is lent and I never drink when I ride anyway, BUT ...

Riding bike makes me think about "the safety net". How many of the best moments in your life have SIGNIFICANT risk? Love, marriage, kids ... and yes, driving whatever, especially a bike. How much  was 116 MPH on the Yamaha sled worth? soloing in a plane? ... and countless other things. Naturally, in some cases if things go wrong, life is changed forever, or over ... in which case it is changed forever for those that loved you. BUT ... is the long "risk free"  (a fantasy) life worth living?

So I drove reasonable the rest of the day ... not slow, reasonable. Wanda the Witch of the Wing and I had an odd day ... I had Monument Valley in as the ultimate destination, but kept seeing things I liked ... long story short, ended up going "too far"  N, saw how beautiful the mountains looked, took 64 to Cimarron and  WOW!!! I need to check into this when I get back, the run from I25 through Eagles Nest, Taos and up to Pagosa Springs HAS to be in the running for greatest motorcycle mountain ride of all time! Passes, streams, great rock formations, snows cappers, elk, some long fast sweeper and straight sections ...  I GOTTA do this one again!

Had never heard of Pagosa Springs CO before either ... in the running for "favorite CO rocky town"  quaint little lodge even has a friendly kitty!

Would never have been here without Wanda and smoke in the air causing early dusk ... the elk were out TOO much and I had no intent for Pagosa Springs, but was HAPPY to see it. Would have blown through for Durango or went a more southern route if not for lowering light and Wanda Routing. Chance? Maybe, we can never "prove" otherwise, but sometimes it just feels like a "better planner".

Lots of 50 ... even 48 a couple times today, barely broke 60. Some of it could have been altitude, I was up and down A LOT. The wind was OK until noon or so, and then BRUTAL ... worst yet! Had to be completely on it or it could definitely cause an accident! Not to mention I was glad for every piece of gear, engine heat blowing on me, full fairing, mirror wings, laminar lip, etc ... didn't see many bikes for good reason, and Wings and BMWs were the ones I saw except for a couple REAL Harley tough guys!

So two years ago today IBM decided that they could go on without me ... rode the Wing that day too, first 100mi ride. 540 today, I'm slipping! So thankful for the blessing of  being able to retire early -- and thanks to Marla for staying working for a bit to help make that a lot easier financially.

Alien Moose Discovered in Roswell

Left El Dorado KS at a bit after 8 after searching for a charge cable for my new Samsung Galaxy Note 3 that dropped into a black hole.After wasting time today at every stop trying to find a new cable, discovered 2nite that "std" micro-usb will work on one side of the attach port! Main cable is for charge AND sync ... charge only works with the old micro, COOL!

65 degrees to start, mostly 70-75, brutal crosswind until evening ... 25-30MPH again!

Took 400, then 54 most of the way. Liberal KS was funny ... giant landfill and HUGE beef processing plant on way in. Dalhart had the bigges feedlots I've ever seen on the SW side, MILES of them! Had to be 100K+ head. Tucumcari was interesting ... very large "bluff / mesa" with interesting shape next to town, old "Route 66" mainstreet. You can imagine it really hopping during summers in the 50's and 60's.

Lots of very green winter wheat, but like ZERO other crop work done. Hispanic kid chatted about the Wing and complained about their "hard winter" at Liberal -- little snow even, days it didn't thaw, TOUGH winter by their standards, he was like "20" ... "never imagined he would see anything like that, just thought it would keep getting warmer, that is what they said in school!" Ah yes, reality and learning that the "experts" often AREN'T!

The set of roads out of Tucumari was interesting ... 209,268,267,330, then 70 for the last 50 mi or so. Lots of open range, a few curves, no ditches, a few antelope, VERY little traffic. More farming than I expected to see in New Mexico. Good day, lots more variation, small towns. HOPEFULLY be out of the wind tomorrow!

Plus, my cell will be charged, so I might go for some pics finally!

Frozen Moose Finds El Dorado (KS)

Marla took a shot of me as I took off at 8aAM Sunday. The Wing read 38, and even with the vents drawing engine heat and the grips on high, I ought to have had long underwear and the liner in my jacket ... good for future reference. I need at least 45 or maybe calm, there was a 20-30MPH headwind the whole day ... noisy, and enough to keep a bit busy on the bars at bridges or when semis were around, but otherwise no problem.

Anyway, I was uncomfortably cold by Austin, toughed it out to Albert Lea and stopped into the truck stop and REALLY enjoyed having a very generous and nicely finished ham steak with eggs and hash-browns. They had a wood fired rotisserie doing chickens, I basked next to that for a bit. 

When I got out, it had warmed to 44 and that made all the difference. I saw 3 loud Harley's, heading S on  35 as I was getting on the bike. Not a lot of bikes to be seen until Ankeny IA or so, but by Des Moines and certainly Kansas City there were quite a few. I got about 150 mi each tank,  and other than breakfast, those were my stops until 8PM when I pulled in here

I did take a couple curvy road interludes ... I went west on 80 a bit at Des Moines, then turned off and picked an "avoid highways" mode with a town on  I35 ... so it gave me some curves and then I just picked up the old route ... did the same just N of Kansas City to avoid downtown ... it put me on a pretty cool road with lots of big houses, a flowage, and a good number of crotch rockets. So after a bit of a rocky start with the Wing guidance maiden the last couple years, we can get along after all!

Other than the wind, it was quite nice once I hit Des Moines. The last of the snow in ditches was N of there, but VERY little greening even down into KS. I still love the Flint Hills area. In 2012 early August it was under a long term drought, and looked terrible, but now other than being probably a month  later than "normal", the little ponds are full, and quite a few cattle were around. I saw one LARGE grassfire ... at least a mile or so fire line, but it was going away from the road, and while there were a couple of trucks out there, they didn't seem very concerned ... multiple signs that "this is a prairie fire area, don't drive into smoke". 

35 SW of Kansas City is a 75mph toll road that everyone is running 85 on. Went by a couple of groups of 2-up Harleys running 75ish and looking like they didn't enjoy running that fast -- shorty windshields, loud pipes, but I think they might have been struggling a bit 2-up with the headwind, besides the wind factor ... even on the Wing there was some evidence of a "breeze".

I'm smitten with the Indian, but on days like today, it would be A LOT tougher! Yea, yea, I know those V-twin riders are just tougher than the old Moose, but lots of smooth power and superb wind handling is going to be awfully hard to part with! Kinda like my giving up my blanky from childhood. Like all Wing riders, we know we need to give it up , SOON! 

There are well attended sessions on leaving your blanky behind every year at WingDing!

Rummy Abuses Apes and Trainers

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/03/123940-thinking-rumsfeld-says-trained-ape-better-afghanistan-obama/

Ridiculous. An untrained ape, child, or a broken 8-ball, would do "better" if you define "better" to be "not counter to US interests".

But we know that BO desires America to be humbled, and at that he is better than any world leader since Ho Chi Min! (Ok, maybe Carter was the actual champ ... but it doesn't seem fair ... I think Jimmie was actually TRYING to do good for America, and can best be remembered as "the Barney Fife president".

The Breathless Human

The Rise of Secular Religion - The American Interest:

It only requires the most minimal of study and thought to realize that the non-spiritual human is exactly as rare as the non-breathing human. No matter how hard one may work to differentiate themselves from "the breathing class"  (say Indian meditation, holding of breath for very long times like free divers, etc), that more the actual focus is on breathing, modified though it may be.

So with the spiritual. Those that are absolutely most certain that they have completely "abandoned religion" and "have no faith" are often the greatest "Puritan zealots", even if their "purity" is pure evil as in the case of the Gang, the Prison Culture, the Nazis or the BO cabinet.

So we have "political correctness", gay rights, animal rights, veganism, coops, local foods, environmentalism ... the list is endless. As the linked article puts it:

We live in a spiritual age, in other words, when we believe ourselves surrounded by social beings of occult and mystic power. When we live with titanic cultural forces contending across the sky, and our moral sense of ourselves— of whether or not we are good people, of whether or not we are saved— takes its cues primarily from our relation to those forces. We live in a spiritual age when the political has been transformed into the soteriological. When how we vote is how our souls are saved.

"soteriological" - providing salvation.

One of the extreme advantages of religions that are thousands of years old is that when you are raised in one and embrace it, you know what you are doing. The analogy of the cute little boy that takes his toy apart becoming less cute when he dissects his puppy is apt. "Science" and "left wing paganism" has dissected Western Culture and Christianity with an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) and decided "that was easy".  The kiddies may think that yoga, gardening and expanded gender identities" are a good replacement for what they believe they blew up, but the fascination with monsters, vampires, demons, body piercings and tattoos  might not be entirely metaphorical.

Perhaps there is more to this breathing thing than they thought?

How durable is post-Protestant culture? Missing from Bottum’s portraits of the “poster children” is any mention of the children they are—or aren’t—raising. Fertility rates among members of the secularized Mainline churches are so low (just as they are among “progressive” Jews) that one is tempted to regard post-Protestantism as a one-generation wonder. While the children of the Mainline occupy themselves with yoga, organic gardening and expanded gender identities (Facebook now offers more than fifty categories to choose from), popular culture becomes moribund. The 20th century’s variations of the social gospel seem genteel next to what populates America’s metaphysical realm today. Americans spend more time with supernatural monsters than ever did the Christians of the Middle Ages, from vampires to zombies to demons of every hue. In 2012, the horror genre supplied one out of eight American feature films; a decade ago it was roughly one out of twenty-five. Strip away divine immortality from American spirituality, and it embraces the undead variety.

Oh, and that is in the current, supposedly nominalist, scientific, "modern" world.  Many of our current youth might well compare tattoos and body piercings with even an African tribesman of the year "800" and not detect any irony.

It is the season of Lent as I write this. God came down and took human form to die on a cross to save humanity from ETERNAL spiritual "non-breathing" (spiritual death) 2000 years ago. Of course each generation would DEARLY love to make that "eternal" word part a MYTH, in the sense that "myths" may be in "detail and particulars" not "data factual", but are far MORE "human factual" than "data reality".

The Mona Lisa is a better "likeness" for humans than a terapixel photo of the subject. On this failure of understanding falls much of the sadness of our declining culture and community.

While "Avengers" was an eminently forgettable film, the scene where Loki declares to Hulk that "I am  a God" might give  a tiny insight into how the underlying spiritual reality of the universe ultimately deals with humans that are certain of their deity ... or that try to hide what they are really thinking behind the idea that "there is no god" (translation in reality, they have decided that THEY are god!).

'via Blog this'

I Don't Always Talk In Front of Whiskey Bottles ...

Bruce Bradley on Chuck Grassley: A ‘farmer’ with no law degree - POLITICO.com:

... But when I do, I TELL THE TRUTH!

Saying what they really think is a very very bad idea for Democrats. Iowa, do you want this guy, who seems to be running against Chuck Grassley (who isn't running)" or do you want a Lt. Colonel, Iraq vet that knows how to farm and cut hogs.

Is insulting farmers in IA in front of a bunch of whiskey bottles a good political move? Maybe even some of the dead vote will balk at this loser!

'via Blog this'

Best Senate Ad EVER! Iowa People, PLEASE HELP!!

Squeal - YouTube:

OK IA people, THIS is the candidate for Senate! Might make it down there to vote for her RE-election, but right now you gotta help me out!

The ad is very well done and RIGHT to the point! She has the SUPER view on "cutting pork" -- those pork politicians need to A LOT more squealing!

NOT having Stuart Smalley and and whiny Amy for Senators! One more super benefit to get the hell out of MN!

Oh, I can imagine that media is going to HATE her ... attractive, smart, mother, military and farm background. I would be completely un-surprised to find that she is a Christian as well.

Of course they hate ALL Republican women, and BLACKS (even more) ... but intelligence, accomplishment, and ESPECIALLY BEAUTY in any remotely conservative woman makes their blood run completely cold!

When they say "freedom", they DO NOT mean the freedom to disagree with them ... especially if you are group that they have consigned to their thought plantation!

'via Blog this'

Outrunning Glaciers on Acid

Remember The Acid Rain 'Scare'? Global Warming Hysteria Is Pouring Down - Forbes:

Back in the late '70s when I was in college, we needed to go fast on I-94 to get to Madison for other reasons, but we all thought that it would be funny to tell any officer that pulled us over that we were "outrunning the glaciers". Those were the days of Global COOLING ... which I know as now gotten the left all riled up to be reminded of, so they have went to work trying to rewrite that part of history.

No, it WASN'T "the same" then,  since not EVERYTHING had been fully politicized yet! One of the outcomes of that was that "research" tended to end up in a lot of different places, and maybe more importantly started from a lot of different premises. Today, you can set out to "continue to prove" GW, or you can get no money, get no degree, lose your professorship, etc. Tough choice if you are an academic that wants an advanced degree and needs to eat.

In the "old days", we all watched, read, or listened to the same message on NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, NYT, WaPO, etc and if you were a complete low brow reactionary, you MAY have gotten some wild right wing thinking from the EDITORIAL page of the WSJ, although their news pages were (and still are) just as left as the rest of the media. Oh yes, there was Buckley and National Review -- which I had never heard of until I got bummed out because Jimmuh assured me that the era of fun in America was OVER!

"Many" scientists thought the data showed we were cooling. It was NOT a "religious issue"! The idea of using "science" as a political cudgel to pound down the apostates had not been even remotely associated with "science" in those days (we still had religion for for the fixed outlook).  "Acid Rain", "Coming Ice Age", "Ozone Hole", "DDT", "we are going to turn Japanese", "Detente --- the obvious reasonableness of surrender to the USSR", "the world is OUT of petroleum" .... those were the "smart topics" of the day.

The list of topics aren't an accident, They were ALL considered to be "common sense", and if had Fox news in those days, you could likely have done a poll showing that people "didn't know the answers to the issues of the day" ... as in, "all the forests will die from acid rain" (probably before the glaciers ran over them, but they were not clear on that), all us country kids will be dead of skin cancer long before now, and the penguins would ALL be gone due to the "ozone hole".

DDT, well, it turned out to kill 50 million plus 3rd worlders by NOT being around, but we are back to using it now with no problem to birds (if a couple beers are OK, a keg isn't necessarily better), we not only didn't turn Japanese, they started their eternal  government managed recession in '90 and are still in it.

We didn't ever try the surrender to the USSR route -- but given BO, maybe there is still time. Oh, and world oil reserves were at "400ish Billion Barrels BB) in '80 and they are N of 1.6 TB today with a lot of countries using less ... + a lot of the Baaken isn't even online! The US could push Venezuala and the Saudis for the the top of the list!  We talk about that as about as much as GW folks talk about GW during a record cold March.

Don't get the impression that EVERYONE was just stupid back then, and we have obviously gotten smarter. SOME predictions DID happen! Reagan DID consign the USSR to the ash heap of history for example (until BO resuscitated it like a long dead Chicago voter).

So the linked article brings back memories:

And lobby they did. Between 1994 and 1996 the Enron Foundation contributed nearly $1 million to the Nature Conservancy, and together with the Pew Center and the Heinz Foundation they engaged in an energetic and successful global warming fear campaign which included attacks on scientific dissenters. Incidentally, the Heinz Foundation, headed by Teresa Heinz Kerry, generously provided a $250,000 award to Al Gore’s star congressional hearing witness, NASA’s James Hansen, who subsequently went on public record supporting her new husband John Kerry’s failed presidential bid.

A bunch of people hardly remember Enron ... going from the most admired business in America in the late '90s with a myriad of connections to both parties, to an early example of "W's fault ... he met with Ken Lay" (the CEO of Enron). As WSJs "Best of the Web" likes to point out, Paul Krugman was an Enron advisor and proponent and proud of it in the late '90s. Ah, how easy the memory hole works for one side of the political spectrum.

Historically, mankind inherently understood the relation between age and "wisdom", because it was ASSUMED, and UNDERSTOOD by at least the educated that to a very significant extent "education + experience = wisdom". Put that was before the cult of "progressivism", which assumes that the data/information/knowledge that they pick up today is INHERENTLY superior to the past (mostly because they have no clue about what happened in the past)

So, most no longer learn from the past ... even just a few short years in the past. It matters not that every time a set of policies has been applied in history, they have failed. If the "smart guys" think that printing bags of money + taxing it away from the economic winners so that the economic losers get "another chance" (typically to lose bigger amounts faster), it doesn't really matter how many times it doesn't work until you end up in Greece or Japan and you are just STUCK --- no capital to go forward, no successful folks left, and a bunch of unsuccessful ones that have even lost the will to fail after pissing away multiples of borrowed / subsidized fortunes.

I have to admit that as much as I'm looking forward to warmer temperatures, a nice big continental glacier forming would be VERY cool. Sure, the "30-40 tops" years I have remaining would only allow for a few100 feet of snow and ice AT BEST, puny by the 5000+ full monty behemoth, but the warmist tap dances would be a thing of beauty ... and there is always tracks for the Ranger!

Oh, never mind ... they will claim it is "due to human caused climate change" ... or it will just go down the memory hole like Krugman/Enron, "out of oil", "ozone", etc.

It is the age of OZ, and even when Toto pulls the curtain, the lefty witches will conjure SOME way to hide the humbug!

'via Blog this'

Jon Bon Pony

The House Wins, Toyota Edition

The left likes to say "follow the money" ... which they often do relative to the RIGHT side of the street.

I prefer "The House Wins" ... as in Vegas, and now government sponsored lotteries. Back when I was a kid, Sargent Joe Friday and Bill Gannon regularly hunted down mob connected guys "running the numbers". It is a decent measure of advancing corruption that today "the numbers" (lotto) are run by the state.

Gambling may be "vice", but at least you choose if you want to be fleeced. Not so with the US legal / government system where "the house" is a combination of lawyers and government -- which is actually the same thing. 43% of our congress lists their OCCUPATION as "lawyer" we don't need to think very long to know that the number that have law degrees or have practiced law in the past would raise it higher ... and guess what? The entire SCOTUS of the US are lawyers! (news at 11)  BO is a lawyer as is his wife, and so were Billy and Hilly.  (BTW, the NEXT profession listed, with 100 is .... Teacher! No wonder our kids self esteem is so high and their scores are so low!)

While Packers and Vikings fans may find reasons to be at each others throats, the PLAYERS have a LOT more in common with each other than they do with either "their" or the "oppositions" fans. Football is game and the NFL is a business and the fans are the customers -- BUT, the NFL doesn't get to pass laws requiring you to pay money into the business or players salaries.

Same with Republicans and Democrats in the US government and lawyers. You may THINK that "your group", "your lawsuit", 'your justice", "your fairness", etc are going to get the upper hand, but rest assured "the house" ALWAYS comes out on top! Oh sure, they have a lot of good fights and froths, but they all know where their bread is buttered. Many of them go in nearly penniless, make a mere $150K a year, and come out either as or soon to be multi-millionaires. It is money that someone COULD easily follow if they wanted -- but the MSM, conservative media, or certainly not EITHER political party or lobbying groups. It is all one big happy game on the inside -- ALL those people are to some degree or another part of "the house". The lawyers are the "owners and superstar players" ... and we go down from there. (in more ways than one)

So we have the vaunted $1.2 billion "settlement". Who pays for this? Consumers of course, just like "corporate taxes". This is a cost of doing business and that is passed on to consumers. If they don't buy the higher priced cars, eventually the company goes out of business. Who gets the money? Lawyers.

I would guess that very few (if any?) of us actually believe that "the car started accelerating, the brakes didn't work, and there was nothing I could do to stop it! The ignition freeze? Gear shift locked in D?? put it in N and try to blow the engine for goodness sake, who cares!  (it is rev limited now anyway ... it will just be noisy) How bad are your brakes? If you REALLY believe that this can happen, go out in your drive, firmly press the brake as hard as you can with the car in gear, then floor the accelerator and see what happens. Or if you want don't want to do that, read this.

Of for a lot better fun, and to find the REAL problem -- not SO much that the government agencies are fools, but that the people that put them in power (ultimately US) are fools ... so what do we expect? READ THIS! Like everything else from PJ, it is both wise and funny, which I truly love.

So, the cause of "Sudden Acceleration" is panic, hitting the wrong or both pedals. Panic is caused by being human -- as is electing all foxes (lawyers) to guard the hen house (us).

For those of us that like to watch the spectacle of corruption and incompetence in our current national dance of death. (hey, may as well enjoy it, what else is there to do?) We are going to have a great contrast point coming up.

GM has known about an ACTUAL engineering problem for A DECADE ... during which time they were bailed out by our illustrious foxes. Naturally, this has gotten FAR less interest even though it is responsible for MORE accidents and deaths.

If you are driving down the road, calmly minding your own business and suddenly your steering wheel is LOCKED in whatever position it is in and your engine goes off, you may be surprised! Yes, you still have brakes ... but not power assisted, and you MIGHT have the presence of mind to try to tun the key back on, which hopefully will give you non-power steering in what is now likely to be an emergency situation --- remember, this is perfectly capable of happening at 60 or 70 in the middle of a curve, passing, etc. Oh, and your nice air bags? They are OFF!

Now it looks like Toyota tried to play their situation "old school" ... using engineering data, government studies, common sense, all that old crap ... and while they did avoid having anyone go to the pokey,  it was expensive.

THIS TIME, GM (Government Motors) has a different approach. They named Mary Barra CEO. BO invited her to the SOTU, and she has been a regular contributor to his Lowness! Well, piss down my back and tell me it's rainin!

 I'm betting that things to A LOT better for GM than they did for Toyota. What do you think?

Koch is Biggest Oil Sands Player

Washington Post Falls For Left-Wing Fraud, Embarrasses Itself | Power Line:

Only, of course they are not, that is just what the WaPO and a bunch of other lefty mouthpieces reported. They are barely a player at all as is easily and fully shown by this column.

** But that is not what I want to write about!!

I've been reading a bit too much "left" lately. "The Fox effect" and "Dog whistle politics" are books I'm slogging through for example. What more deeply thinking people need to understand is that for those on the left, Koch = EVIL, and articles like the one dissected here are taken as FACT!

Thy become enmeshed a world view where Fox News, racism, evil big business, big money, Citizens United and a vastly longer list of things are part of a woven tapestry where  "what EVERYONE knows"! Or at least "all right (correct) thinking reasonably intelligent people" ... and lord knows (a generic, imaginary lord) that NOBODY would want to be associated with "those people" (shhh, almost all of them are WHITE, but we are not racists here ... THEY are racists, you can even be white and be "one of us" as long as you say exactly the right stuff!).

So the NYT, Public Radio, NBC, Slate, etc, really have no other choice than to HATE all things Koch and attack them by ALL means, both legal or not. The MUST be stopped! Their brand of "speech" is not acceptable!

Meanwhile, they are completely blind to the actual top donors, both in groups or as individuals. "ActBlue, AFSME,  IBEW, American Federation of Teachers, American Assn for Justice ..." are nearly unknown relative to "BIG MONEY in politics". Individually, compare how often you hear "Katzenberg, Goldman, Simons, Eychaner and Linbeck" of which Linbeck, the little guy gave $1.25M in just 2012.  Meanwhile, OpenSecrets, certainly no "conservative organization" ranks them ALL TIME at #59 with 18M TOTAL from 89-2014.

But Koch is the name that has been branded by the media as evil -- pretty much as well as "Coke" (pronounced the same) is branded as a really good soft drink.

It is relatively hard work to look at a couple points of view and at least understand that it all isn't NEARLY as "cut and dried" as we would all love to have it.

In the universe proffered by "US education, the MSM, US entertainment, etc" the physical universe is daily observed by "experts", thought about, analyzed with "complete lack of bias" (other than "facts and logic"), and then lovingly fed to us all in completely easy to digest hunks that all link up wonderfully into a grand, correct, satisfying, objective, reasonable, popular, morally pleasing, somewhat comforting -- but still needing each of us  to fight the clear "bad guys" view of what is happening.

Then there are evil sorts like myself and the Koch brothers that say that universe is false -- and indeed that the universe that I inhabit is FALSE AS WELL, with the exception that I will claim there IS an understandable transcendent framework for what we all see with meaning and direction from a loving God.

But that is by FAITH ... , but so is the alternate view that it is all random and meaningless with the exception of the wonderful "meaning" described above as "the standard world view".  With that view, your "hope" is that you were right!

I say you get to pick, but BO, WaPO, NPR, etc say, no you don't! -- unless you want to be an idiot.

Eventually though, if not already,  your speech or other activity is labeled as "hate" or something else "not of the will of today's truth",  so you  run afoul of the IRS, NSA, EPA, or some other alphabet agency and become not just "wrong", but CRIMINAL.

So maybe it is safer to just think that the Koch's ARE the biggest oil sands player?

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Understanding Conservatives Via Facebook

What Facebook can tell us about conservatives:

First the learned published theory:

Here's my theory.  Conservatives are a remarkably well-organized and tight-knit group. It's why every book from a conservative author shoots to the top of the best-seller list. It's why Fox News Channel's primetime programming regularly doubles that of its cable competition. It's why Rush Limbaugh has no talk radio equal among liberals. It's not terribly surprising then that organizational closeness extends to the digital space where conservative use Facebook to share stories/links from a handful of conservative websites.

Here is my theory. Supply and Demand.

When you have high demand and low supply people are anxious to access the low supply information and share it by lots of means ... Facebook, word of mouth, etc. 

Liberal media perspective on the web, cable, radio, etc is a saturated commodity. Liberals have NO need to post anything from "marginal sites", because NBC, CNN, NPR, NYT, HuffPo (which USED to be considered "left wing"), etc are FULL of any story with a liberal slant that they could possibly desire!  True, false, slanted, insane, etc ... ALL are completely available and easy to find. 

 Everyone always gets exactly the view they want AND MORE on the liberal view blasted at them 24x7 from EVERYWHERE! Even supposed "conservative media" STILL present the liberal view and generally just respond to it (like this blog). When a liberal outlet deigns to mention a conservative view, it is often castigated as being part of the "echo chamber" for even having mentioned the "false" view. 

If you add "conservative" and "moderate" together, 75% if US people identify as one or the other, where only 21% identify as liberal. (see Gallup data)

The book "Left Turn" is a very good attempt by  a couple of university professors, based on PEER REVIEWED RESEARCH (the magic wand!) to figure out:

1) Where the American people are relative to bias (like "40")
2) Where a bunch of media and institutions are
3)  Where our politicians are

Here are a couple of charts from that book 

Basically, Joe Lieberman was about a 75, most Americans cluster around 40, standard MSM is around 70, and Fox is like 50.

So there is my "supply and demand theory" ... or the other guy and Hillary could be right and there is a highly organized right wing conspiracy that is taking these things and in an organized way posting them on FB!

You make the call.


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