Happy New Year. Here’s hoping all your positive hopes and dreams for yourself and everyone around you come to pass in 2012.
LOCAL AND REGIONAL
* The Bible states that ye cannot worship both God and Mammon. The people that run Catholic schools didn’t get the memo. Catholic schools are probably the most anal-retentive legal institution on Earth about making you pay up.
* Pardon me, but wasn’t deseg supposed to be winding down?
* They stole a safe from a store with “Dollar” in its title. Don’t steal, but if you’re going to steal a safe from a store, pick something a little more upscale than a “Dollar” store.
* This is a national story, but I’m putting it in the local section because it’s almost a spot-on match for the Willie Reed saga at SLU.
* Speaking of SLU, the P-D profiles their theology education program for state prisoners. I wouldn’t have a problem with this, and what I’m about to say shouldn’t be interpreted to mean that I do, but the problem with a big majority of diplomas and degrees earned in prison is that they were earned in prison. An employer ordinarily thinks that, ceteris paribus, a diploma earned by a free person is better than one earned by someone in prison, because the person in prison didn’t have the self-control to earn the same diploma while he was free. IOW, it’s easy for him to have earned a degree while in prison because his physical circumstances are heavily controlled, while on the outside, he has definitely proven at least once (and he probably will again) that without a guard or warden screaming in his face all the time and iron bars around his bedroom, he just doesn’t have the ambition in the real world to make it.
* Agreed. But this map is wrong — Missouri is like Illinois, no ID required. Nixon vetoed the bill that would have put Missouri in the same league as Arizona.
* Jeanette Mott Oxford, a Democrat who will soon be TLed out of H-59, seems to want to mount a head-on primary challenge to Robin Wright-Jones (Virvus Jones’s daughter) in S-5. It states here that “social justice advocates” want Oxford to run.
My, questioning the social justice chops of the incumbent left-wing Democrat black woman State Senator, are we? That’s (five six seven eight…) RACIST~! How un-social justicey of you. I can just see the debates between these two — They’ll both scream at each other that “I’m more social justicey than you!,” or, “my social justice is more social justicey than your social justice.”
* Real smart, Missouri Republican Party. Ignore the plebiscite of Republican voters in a swing state. It might behoove you to know that Nixon and Mrs. Antolinez have indicated that they’re ready to convert this news into a pro-Obama statewide media buy in the fall.
* Rundown of the new laws in Illinois starting at midnight tonight. Second to the last is most interesting. It is basically establishing mandatory prison time for felons in possession. I doubt every felon caught in possession in Illinois will be going to prison, but it will probably become a useful sword of Damocles with which to extract snitching.
* And, considering what else has gone on around and inside McDonalds, and the quality of their food, naked people in the drive-through lane seems to be the least of their worries.
NATIONAL
* HARK! They have discovered a new kind of racism: Infrastructural Racism.
* I was just waiting for this: Shoe riots are now Nike’s fault for charging too much. Now, Nike isn’t blameless here, because of the slave Chinese labor it uses, plus letting its corporate image being married with the basketball and hip-hop culture.
But some of these “Jordan” shoes are being turned right around and hawked on EBay for $500, when they cost $180 at retail. This means that in pure economic terms, Nike is actually UNDER-pricing these things.
If these “activist” clowns are upset about the “exploitation” of retailers charging $180 for shoes to “people who can least afford them,” then maybe these people should develop different cultural appetites for footwear. On my feet right now? A pair of $50 New Balance, manufactured in the USA or Britain, never endorsed by any “bassetball” player or any “afawete.”
* NOW Eric Holder is worried about illicit guns being used to kill cops and LEOs? Hello, Eric? Brian Terry?
Now you know why I’ll vote even for Jon Huntsman over Obama, to get this thing and Thomas Perez out of town.
* Only reason the GDP seems to be increasing is because the medium of exchange which measures GDP is being made less and less valuable.
* Federal money means Federal control. I’ve been saying it for years, and finally, it’s starting to sink in.
* Disagree with something? Compare it to the KKK. That’s how we roll in the USA circa the eve of 2012.
* Feds upset at Maricopa County, Arizona for being “too tough” on illegal aliens, but they’re not blaming Crook County, Illinois for covering up immigration offenses. Clear cut OOJ to me.
* SV Titans weren’t big into the Occutard movement. Why? Maybe because they’re the 1% of the 1%.
* Shit-Pot-Le: The Official Restaurant of Illegal Aliens and Philo-Semitic Cowards Everywhere.
* Fancy. Some of the same crud-mouthed neo- and lamestream con bloggers who hate Ron Paul are now up in arms against SOPA/PIPA. Ron in the House and Rand in the Senate have been the most notable and strident opponents to SOPA/PIPA the longest, even though bigger names are now on their side, Johnny come lately style.
* As I suspected, this noise about “we Dems can take back the House in 2012 riding on Obama’s coattails as he trounces a schmuck Republican” is just noise. Why are veteran House Democrats, who would be in line for commmittee chairmanships, retiring? 2010 saw the defeat of a lot of long time incumbents, such as Spratt, Oberstar, Kanjorski, Skelton. House Democrats lost half of their previously reprsented land mass and 430 combined years of tenure in November 2010, and thanks to these “voluntary” retirements, are losing a lot more aggregate experience.
* Ron Paul tried to be nice to the Occutards. No good deed goes unpunished.
* Somebody else has finally picked up on Michael Savage’s instability, even if it is Alex Jones.
One comment to this story suggests that Ron Paul is the most popular Republican candidate among Jewish voters on the East and West coasts. Any polling data to back that up?
* More proof that Bachmann is birddogging for Romney.
* How to get the “youth” vote back int Obama’s column? The writer acknowledges that barely more than half of Americans ages 16 to 29 are employed, (and even fewer than that are employed in real jobs that can sustain a household and are indicative of family formation), notes that the jobs issue is paramount, but then proposes three bullet points that all have to do with student loans. Can’t pay a student loan back without a job!
* America 2012 Eve: E Unus Pluribum.
* This only goes to show, you can’t go hope again.
* Romney hearts VAT. You know, there was once a day when Republicans were proposing Social Security payroll tax decreases and Democrats were proposing that the IRS have even more powers to attain more taxation vectors.
* Newt cries. What is it with Republican House speakers and their water works? HRC cried and won NH four years ago, doubt it’ll work for Gingrich.
* Yard signs mean nothing. I found out the hard way. Realize that many people without yard signs can and do vote. And, for a contested Republican Primary and an uncontested one, there would be nothing but Republican yard signs everywhere.
* Iraq was too dangerous, so they were “resettled” into Oakland.
MASSIVE EPIC…
* Manhattan Beach: 80%+ White, and SWPL-type Whites. Bell Gardens: Heavily (90%+ in some census tracts) Hispanic. Any questions?
* Two usual suspects combined with one unusual one. And please, kindly avert your eyes if you read the actual text.
* How Colorado turned blue: Don’t count on Red Scare (one of the very worst anti-Ron Paul eliminationist media) or Assrick Assholrickson to tell you the real reason: Electing a new people with Hispanic immigration. No, Red Scare is too busy trying to whip up so much vitriol and hate against Ron Paul in the hopes that some lone nut pops out from the woodwork to assassinate him. If HUAC were still in operation, and stocked with sane committee members, they would be subpoenaing Red Scare’s financial records to see if those that stand to benefit from a war with Iran or are benefiting from our current farcical Middle Eastern adventurism are funding Red Scare and their attempt to have Ron Paul assassinated.
* Huron, South Dakota: Mexico’s Newest Colony? I’m waiting for the cultural sensitivity politburo to march in and lecutre us about how “it’s their culture, we have to understand, you can’t be so bigoted.”
* I wonder: Is it time to move the 9/11 memorials out of New York City? I also wonder how many young men from Tennessee have died over in Crapistan because of what some Crapistanis did to a good chunk of lower Manhattan, with their eternal reward being that their sisters and mothers get popped with New York City’s Rube Goldberg gun laws when they visit said memorial. If New York City doesn’t want to be part of the United States anymore, then fine. GTFO, and become the last Soviet Socialist Republic.
INTERNATIONAL
* Dear Hugo: It’s a black thang. You wouldn’t understand.
* Kanye West is going to London. Michael Savage still can’t.
* Lost in translation. First off, because of the higher cost of living even controlling for the exchange rate, $67 in Germany goes nowhere near twice as far as $33 in the United States. Second, German taxes are somewhat higher. Third, that $67 is whatever they’re paid translated into American dollars using the current exchange rate, which at the moment is realtively favorable for a strong Euro versus our buck.
* Because rap math worked out so well, now we have rap anti-terrorism.
* The opiate of the convicted masses — British inmate transport vans soon to get teles.
* This has far more to do than sticking to American beverage makers than combatting obesity. Don’t doubt me.
MISC
* LOL! I actually remember watching this. This was in May 1992, Johnny Carson’s last month, so I watched every Tonight show that month.
Even Jerry Brown gets a mention here.
* Has Kwanzaa done kwanzaaed out? My theory is that the reason that Kwanzaa is now a fringe holiday among blacks is because it’s mostly fringe radical blacks that celebrate it.
* I don’t know if I agree with this blanket prohibition, but it would be a good idea to prohibit those who committed felonies in Second Life from owning virtual guns.
* Charles Babbage was so far ahead of his time, that with a little more money from a few more people and a slight few changes in circumstance, the computer age would have started about a century before it actually did.
Think that’s crazy? I had a Western Civ Prof who made the case that very similar conditions existed in and at the height of the Hellenistic/Alexandrian Empire that also existed in 18th Century Britain, such that the Industrial Revolution could have sprouted well before the Birth of Christ. Talk about moving up history — If that would have happened, humans would be halfway to Alpha Centauri by now.
* If we’ll soon be able to shoot lasers out of our eyes, then that means it will soon be a crime to look at an airplane in flight.
* The Barack H. Obama Indefinite Detention Center. So true. You’ll get a Koran and be made it read it even if you’re not Muslim. Hell, that will be the point!
* If you see something, say something. At a hockey game? What would we ever see? Except that I went to see a fight and a hockey game broke out.
* It’s a wonder any NBA player ever follows the whims of any referee.
* I would like to meet the moron who thought it was a good idea for athletes to give themselves frostbite. Oh, I know — He works for the same company that merged the marketing of athletic shoes with the hip-hop culture a generation ago.
* Android smartphones were the hot family Christmas gift this year among my relatives and near-relatives. According to Google’s stats, they were a hot gift for a lot of other families, too.
Next year, if there’s a glut of inexpensive Android tablets, those will probably be the hot gift.
* In similar news…this person is crying that she’s the only person on Earth who didn’t get an iCabal MaxiPad for Christmas. If you ask me, this means that someone must really love her a whole lot. To say that she didn’t get an iPad is like saying that she didn’t get an STD.
* Speaking of whining about Christmas gifts…
* The census of digital data at the end of 2011 stand at about 1.8 zettabytes spanning 500 quadrillion files. That’s 1.8 trillion trillion bytes (binary) within the containers of 500 thousand trillion files (decimal). Yottabyte is a thousand zettabytes, so once we’ve blown through 999 zettabytes, we’ll soon roll over the odometer to a foll yottabyte. After yottabyte, there is no official naming scheme, except this chart will give us headroom aplenty.
