Midcan5's Blog

A psychopath answers the question the NRA and others ask, do regulations work? From p.280 'Columbine' by Dave Cullen [bold added] "Eric manufactured three more pipe bombs: the Charlie batch. Then he halted production until December. What he needed was guns. And that was becoming a problem. Eric had been looking into the Brady Bill. Congress had passed the law restricting the purchase of most popular semiautomatic machine guns in 1993. A federal system of instant background checks would soon go into effect. Eric was going to have a hard time getting around that. "Fuck you Brady!" Eric wrote in his journal. All he wanted was a couple of guns - "and thanks to your fucking bill I will probably not get any!" He wanted them only for personal protection, he joked: "Its not like I'm some psycho who would go on a shooting spree. fuckers." Eric frequently made his research do double duty for both schoolwork and his master plan. He wrote up...

"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." Dwight D. Eisenhower In 'Immortality' Milan Kundera speculates on the eleventh commandment, the big one Moses didn't bring down with him. Gawd must have known her creation was incapable of so hard a command, ten were enough, 'Thou shalt not lie' impossible. But suppose for a moment the eleventh commandment....nah, impossible for what would the politicians ever say, honest politics would pose so hard a problem that talking heads would spin out of control, honest reporting would be the death of contemporary dialogue. And so it goes, a managed narrative has become the norm, the forms it takes are outlined below. Lies and facts interweave. Bull S...: Imagine that the most prevalent detail of American politics today is BS. Harry Frankfurt defines it thus, "It is .... this lack of connection to a concern with truth - this indifference to how things really are - that I regard...

Or worse off - a Fox survey has over 80% claiming they are worse off? Personally, I cannot blame any president for how I feel each four years. Are Fox viewers eighty percent worse off, and if so, why? Whose fault is that? Are you worse off because Obama was elected and he didn't help you out, are you too lazy for work and require the government to make things better for you? Are you worse off because the Bush tax cuts were left in place? Or are you entitled to the government helping make it better for you, all the while whining that the particular government in power hasn't made it better for you? Why does this question contradict the intent of the question? I thought the conservatives / republicans / libertarians did it all on their own, from nothing, did I miss a qualification or footnote? If you are better off, should you thank Obama? Should you thank Government? Should you thank luck? Should you thank your dead relative who left you lots? Should you thank youself? ...

By now it is obvious to all but the brain dead and retarded partisans that the republican party is useless. The party's only goal is to get back into power so they kiss the feet of the purses that control and manage them. The few sane and rational republicans left are leaving the party as Olympia Snowe did, or they have put on a clown hat as John McCain and Orrin Hatch do now. Republicans must now act like retarded tea party members. If an honest republican appeared today they'd be labeled crazy and placed in a Koch rehabilitation center. So with hope that the number of lunatics can at least be reduced in the party of Lincoln, the following voter's guide has been proposed. If a republican candidate says no new taxes under any circumstance, don't vote for them. If a republican candidate appears twice in a week on Fox media, don't vote for them. If a republican candidate is taken seriously on Fox news, don't vote for them. If a republican candidate is praised...

You gotta give Harry credit, we have lived through the most insane nonsense from the republicans and their spokespeople for at least four years now, and when Harry says something off the wall, the right wingnuts, republicans, and assorted tea party whiners are all up in arms. So now that Harry has struck back with the same artillery, it's time we all had a go at it. So let's see if imitation is really a sign of flattery. Quotes below cannot be confirmed, but whoever said truth had any business in republican politics. "Mitt Romney is not really a Mormon, he is a closet Episcopalian." "There are over two hundred Nazis in the republican party today." "Republicans are openly working to help the poor get poorer." "Romney really does believe today what he believed yesterday but not the next day, but..." "Republicans in the Chamber of Commerce think slavery is an excellent business practice." "Mitt Romney swallows lots of...

Midcan puts on his conservative / republican / libertarian / cynic's hat. I often hear the conservative right say that many college degrees and studies are useless because the real value of education is in turning the endeavor into a money making product. The arts are often criticized and many studies have no direct correlation to the market world. So watching the Olympics this week has brought to my attention a major flaw in the games, they are all useless in a market money driven world. I mean, who is going to pay you for swinging around on parallel bars, or swimming back and forth, or running fast. These could be valuable activities if the police were chasing you, or the playground was well equipped and you want to show off, but come on folks, markets don't care about these things. Synchronized diving, you gotta be kidding me! So how about some real American sports? So many things in our nation concern guns and the Second Amendment that an automatic weapons destruction...

"If Nikki White had been a resident of any other rich country, she would be alive today." "Around the time she graduated from college, Monique A. "Nikki" White contracted systemic lupus erythematosus; that's a serious disease, but one that modern medicine knows how to manage. If this bright, feisty, dazzling young woman had lived in, say, Japan - the world's second - richest nation - or Germany (third richest), or Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, Sweden, etc., the health care systems there would have given her the standard treatment for lupus, and she could have lived a normal life span. But Nikki White was a citizen of the world's richest country, the United States of America. Once she was sick, she couldn't get health insurance. Like tens of millions of her fellow Americans, she had too much money to qualify for health care under welfare, but too little money to pay for the drugs and doctors she needed to stay alive. She spent the last...

"Those who do not learn the lessons of history are suffered to repeat them." "The farther back you can look, the farther forward you can see." "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce."* Is history useful prognosticator? Alex Rosenberg thinks not, '"Human history is a thoroughly Darwinian process. Like all other Darwinian processes, it can't repeat itself, not even as farce. It is always unpredictably producing novelty, which historical study can't anticipate. The lesson of history - both natural and human - is that there are no lessons to extract from it." But we humans don't often accept reality, and ardently believe certain things, and argue for these things, and think these things mean something. Consider as you read the excerpt below that America had her best years after FDR's New Deal and read carefully the bold words and then ask your self, maybe history does repeat itself. Maybe today we are living in...

Dylan Ratigan is leaving MSNBC because he is tired of saying WTF over and over again. While I am not a regular watcher, I liked his honest enthusiasm, the 'Daily Rants,' were often excellent and perceptive opinions. So this past week the ranters have praised Mr. Ratigan for his gutsy decision in leaving a cushy talking head job to do something real. Can one imagine Limbaugh, Beck, or Hannity doing the same? Never, as talk is all they have ever done. Talk, as the cliche goes, is cheap, and Ratigan has decided he'd rather not say the same stuff day after day, even when talking honestly about the same stuff. What Ratigan is doing is what Americans used to do, the 'can do' and do spirit, what gave the nation and later all Americans freedom, what helped create a fair wage, what gave women the vote, what allowed others to even vote, these actions gave people power over privilege and its very often complicit tool, government. Actions speak louder than words. So reader ...

The other day a fake commencement address by a right wing talking head, Neal Boortz was praised as the best ever online. Since I know many teachers, and the work they do, and the difficulties they face in a society in which only money and sports are worshiped, I took umbrage with such nonsense. My solution to the buffoon's 'libelous'* speech - I am not sure what word to use when someone who earns their living talking shit all day criticizes people who actually contribute to society - was the old fashioned one, a good punch in the mouth followed by a toss off the stage. How else could you rationally debate a total jackass. I was raised in a world in which the teacher was in charge in the classroom and the student listened. Today in America every moron, with equally moronic parents, is not only right, but the teachers wrong. And then when asked why our students do so poorly, the teachers are blamed. Imagine if little Joanie studied instead of texting and kicking a ball al...

I know this will be hard to believe, but often when I call a right wing conservative stupid I feel a bit of remorse. My mom would have corrected me, my dad would have added a much more colorful stupid. But face it folks, the right wing today are the puppets of the rich, and they prove it almost daily. And is there any need to mention the dreamy libertarians who think fantasy-land is for real? So it was a pleasure coming across Jonathan CHait's piece on why he can't help but be un-PC. Enjoy. Oh, and do as I do, save the link, for tomorrow a right wingnut will repeat the same nonsense. It's all they do. By Jonathan Chait "There are just a lot of people out there exerting significant influence over the political debate who are totally unqualified. The dilemma is especially acute in the political economic field, where wealthy right-wingers have pumped so much money to subsidize the field of pro-rich people polemics that the demand for competent defenders of letting ric...

This just in from the TOTKO hot-line: 'Allen West is under investigation as a Communist sympathizer and possible double agent. It has been confirmed from excellent sources that West is in possession of numerous Communist made technologies and further investigation will determine if the purchase of these items contributed to Communist China. West denies being a Communist sympathizer, but given the number of communist made products uncovered in his possession they point only to support of communism. It has also been alleged he was seen coming out of a Walmart, and has received campaign contributions from a company that sells numerous communist made products. Investigators are positive they uncovered a supporter and potential communist in Congress. Stay tuned as this story unfolds.' TOTKO press "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you no sense of decency?" Joseph Nye Welch, the Army's chief counsel (There is a reason McCarthyism has become a...

Will this SCOTUS Strike Out? If this court finds Obamacare unconstitutional will it go down in history as one of the most unimpressive, ideological, and partisan courts of all time. Arguments can be made on both sides of this issue but when we consider our preamble of a nation that operates for all people, it would seem the choice an easy one. Consider this court elected George W. Bush, who proceeded to almost topple the entire nation's economy, wasted billions on illegal invasions, and couldn't even catch Osama bin Laden nor eat pretzels properly. Next they gave corporations person-hood, granting money the power to destroy an opponent, create a new slanted reality, and even govern and legislate the country. Money talks, as they say, now we see it does even more than just talk, it manages the nation. Our nation's symbolism will now be the fifty dollar bill. 'In Money we Trust' - well kind of trust until the next bailout. What will history think of the likes of...

Some things never change..... "A quick glance at the list of bills prioritized for passage in the past year shows a significant focus on limiting women's access to pay equity, sex education, birth control, cancer screenings and abortion. In Wisconsin, we are in the greatest economic recession since the Great Depression. While residents are doing their best to weather decreased wages, lost jobs and health insurance fee hikes and coverage reductions, Republicans have been focused on advancing their personal social agendas and passing policies that negatively affect women and families." Read article here. "Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home - but not for housing. They are strong for labor - but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights. They favor minimum wage - the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all - but the...

'My fellow Americans we need to get back to the principles of our founders, we need to cut spending, reduce taxes, get government out of our lives, bring back liberty, and tell our people the truth. Government is the problem as Ronald Reagan said so eloquently. Since media will not get our story out we must, we must stop the entitlement mentality that makes people dependent on government. The fourteen trillion dollar deficit is the problem we need to address immediately, we need to reduce our budget, return our land to the people, and return to the principles of our founders.' Senator/Representative Whatshisname Hypothetical question from the audience: But you work for government, and the majority of America's debt was caused by conservative republican policy, and Reagan raised taxes numerous times as he grew government, and the last conservative republican created an enormous entitlement program and the Great Depression and Great Recession both followed conservative r...

This stuff is hard to believe, anyone know the median income of the average American? "Conservatives say if you don't give the rich more money, they will lose their incentive to invest. As for the poor, they tell us they've lost all incentive because we've given them too much money." George Carlin "In making salary recommendations for the senior administrators, Nordenberg said, “The increases … are more than justified by the performance of these officers. They are compatible with the raises that have been awarded to others on campus, and the benchmarking that has been done by the committee’s independent consultant would support even larger increases."" "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be co...