A Short Message To The Republicans In The House Of Representatives

It took the Republicans acting like Democrats twelve years to lose control of the House of Representatives, starting in 1994. And it can be argued that Republicans only started acting like Democrats in 2000.

It took Democrats acting like themselves to lose control of the House in four years. Ponder on that.

As We Look Back At 2010. . . A Retrospective Of The Best And The Worst, Depending On Your Point Of View

As my stomach slowly starts to return to it's normal size after a New Year's Eve gorging, it's time to do the annual look back on the that was.

• The Democrats took a beating. And there was much rejoicing and pudding being violated.
• Former Sen. John Edwards is a deadbeat. But there's nothing new about that.
• James Cameron is an egotistical narcissist among egotistical narcissists.
• Al Gore is inconveniently single again.
• Yes, the United Nations continues to be a joke.
• And Ezra Klein continues to illustrate how overrated he actually is.

No predictions other than Obama will shift from blaming Pres. Bush to blaming the House of Representatives.

And if this doesn't count toward the news of the weird, it should count towards someone who is highly suspect.

Wishing everyone had a Merry Christmas and here is to a New Year.

Update: Linked by an Old Retired Petty Officer.

Battlestar Galactica And The Fatal Flaw Of The Series Finale

I know that this write up is way past the air date of the finale but due to lack of access to cable and waiting for the DVDs to move off the new release shelves to the cheaper racks helped to force the delay.  I put the blame on Blockbuster

Like I said here before, what drew me into Battlestar Galactica was that it was dark, fearless and brutal. Especially with the ever declining body count that was tallied at the start of each episode would be a stark reminder of how trigger happy the show’s producers were. But it strove to show the spirit of perseverance against an enemy who believed in the genocide of the human race.

But as Lost and Star Wars have their low points – most of season 2 and all three prequels respectively -- so did Battlestar Galactica.

The New Caprica storyline suffered a bit of a lull with the momentum of the series. Not to mention the fact that the producers were drawing obvious parallels with the War on Terror in Iraq. The humans found a habitable planet and started to establish settlements there. Roughly a year later, Cylons arrive and take over with nary a shot.

In an effort to coexist, they Cylons recruit and train a handful of humans to help police their own. The human resistance talked one man into doing a suicide run with an explosive belt (imagine the odds) to kill Cylons and humans collaborating with them.

Sometimes people can’t leave politics at the doorstep.

Getting past that, it was still an enjoyable show. I even liked the mutiny storyline by Tom Zarek and Felix Gatea. It was about time Zarek made his big power grab. Zarek knowing what needed to be done and needed his trusted acolyte to help him accomplish his means. Gatea, still suffering from having just lost his leg and a long held distrust of the Cylons in general haplessly went along with it.

What really stuck a craw in my cap was how the series was finished. Too much Deus ex machina happened. How were the final four revealed to each other? There was magic music that only the cylons could hear. Who was that piano player who helped Starbuck write the last notes to the song? He was some sort of angel who vanished. And how exactly did Starbuck end up alive and well in a brand new fighter? She’s some sort of angel who didn’t know what she was until it was time for her to disappear herself. I remember reading that Ronald Moore didn’t have a clear story arch and made it up as he went along. That was becoming increasingly clear with how often a ‘Wizard did it’ when it came to the storyline. Instead of a nice, neat puzzle there was a jumbled mess with odd pieces from other puzzles cut out to fit the one he was working on.

The last half of the finale was sub-standard compared to the rest of the series. If there was the lowest of the low, it would have to be that. It did remind me a bit of the Golgafrincham Ark Fleet Ship B in the book 'The Restaurant at the End of the Universe' with how Galactica found Earth.

The remaining humans and cylons agree to settle the planet they stumbled across. And with a stroke of absolute naivety and ignorance, decide to give up every bit of technology that they ever had in order to live and survive on that strange new world.

Yeah.

New planet with absolutely zero knowledge of what is and isn't poisonous to eat, they ditch the very tools that could save their lives. That's forethought. To add to this point, they could give up all their tools and technology but the very next day, when they need to plant a field or build a hut, they'll be using sticks and stone as tools to get by. And then struggle to make better tools as time goes along. So the lesson wouldn't necessarily have been learned. They gave up a hammer only to use bark and sap to fasten a rock to a stick as a crude replacement.

I’m going to do what I can to talk out of my hat with what little knowledge of history and anthropology I have to be counter balanced by having of played hours upon hours of ‘Civilization’. Terms like settlers, farms and grains are going to be used rather loosely so please bear with me.

When mankind was expanding, be it the westward expansion of the US or pretty much any other colonization that civilizations did, he needed other families and homesteads and communities to help survive, grow and prosper.

Back before the days to tractors and harvesters’ farmers used oxen, donkeys and sometime horses to pull the plow to help plant their field. Worst case scenario, one man can pull the plow for the other. In fact, the term ‘acre’ was defined as the average plot a person could plow with one ox in a day.

The average colonialist would need to know how to plant, harvest, mill and store the grain. For his house and barn he needed to have a working knowledge of carpentry. Even animal husbandry and care for his livestock. He needed to be the proverbial jack of all trades. He had to do it all because no one else was there to depend on.

With the advent of more and more people expanding into the original colonialist’s territory came more and more opportunity for a different set of trades and skills to be used. Eventually someone would be able to set up a mill to help process the grain for the farmer. Making it one less step the farmer would need to worry about. The farmer would work the fields and drop the grain off to be processed for a small fee or portion of the grain.

As more people moved into the community, the range of skills and occupations grew. A carpenter would be available to help build and repair barns and houses and stores. Bakers would make bread and biscuits for the townspeople. Blacksmiths would fashion tools, shoe horses and pull teeth.

People would developed their skills with their chosen trades. Skilled workers turned into craftsmen turned into artisans. A skilled smith could turn his attention to silver to make eating utensils, tableware and jewelery. A carpenter would be able to turn his focus into becoming a cooper and make barrels for storage.

The trades are actually the historic source for many people’s last names. Coopers, Smiths, Fletchers (someone who made arrows) and, obviously, Bakers all were derived from people’s occupations. Joe the Cooper slowly turned into Joe Cooper.

As trades grew so did their tools. Hammers went from a simple rock on a stick of yesteryear to a heat treated mallet to the various hammers that are available today. The ball-peen, the usual claw hammer, tack and even the sledge hammer are ready to be bought in any local hardware store. Homes went from huts to log cabin to steel and concrete structures that scrape the sky. Transportation transitioned from foot to hoof to to wheel to tire to wing.

How this relates to BSG and the last episode is exactly why it would never work. The crew of Galatica vowed to eschew any technology in order to ‘Break the Cycle’. They purposefully marooned themselves in the middle of the Stone Age. Except that they never broke any cycle, only delayed it in happening again. They left themselves with nowhere to go but to begin a brand new cycle of events that they ran from in the first place.

This Is Scary

I believe that the book of Revelations in the Bible has been misinterpreted.

Revelation 6:1-2 in fact.

1 As I watched, the Lamb broke the first of the seven seals on the scroll.[a] Then I heard one of the four living beings say with a voice like thunder, “Come!” 2 I looked up and saw a white horse standing there. Its rider carried a bow, and a crown was placed on his head. He rode out to win many battles and gain the victory.

After a little bit of studying, I think that was translated wrong. The correct version should be "It's rider bowed a lot, and a crown of peace. . ."

Relax. It's a joke.

Thought Police Operating In Oz?

UPDATE II: The story was only kinda sorta true. It was blown out of proportion, if you will. Thanks to Ace who fell for it too.

UPDATED: Linked by The Daily Gator.

The Aussie government is there to help protect the children by banning porn actresses with A-Cups.

Just when you thought that extremist knee jerk fear based reactions to non existent threats were something only the Northern Hemisphere got into, Australia has banned adult material with small breasted women in it, fearing that filthy pedophiles will gain enjoyment from it.

So, if this makes sense to a government bureaucracy, why not turn your health care over to them as well?*


To Clarify: This is not a defense of pedophilia. Rather the round about thinking that lawmakers go through to help 'protect' the populace. The justification using 'For The Children' is trotted out for a case of getting a foothold in censorship.


*Granted, it's the Australian government but it's still a bureaucratic organization trying to control and regulate everything deemed 'bad'.

Via Becky.

From Thomas Sowell

Don't forget. His new book, Intellectuals and Society is out this Tuesday.

Key quotes his book, Visions Of The Anointed.

Be it ever so humble, someone has to build a home, which requires work, skills, material resources, and financial risks for those whose investments underwrite the operation. To say that someone has a "right" to any kind of housing is to say that others have an obligation to expend all these efforts on his behalf, without his being reciprocally obligated to compensate them for it. Rights from government interference -- "Congress shall make no law," as the Constitution says regarding religion, free speech, etc.--may be free, but rights to anything mean that someone else has been yoked to your service involuntarily, with no corresponding responsibility on your part to provide for yourself, to compensate others, or even to behave decently or responsibly. Here the language of equal rights is conscripted for service in defense of differential privileges. p. 100

Given this perspective, systemic processess which depend upon the direct experiences and revealed preferences of millions of human beings, whether expressed in prices in the marketplace or through social self-selection of various sorts, are all treated as mere nuisances to be swept aside by public policy when these systemic processes impede the carrying out the vision of the annointed. Even formalized and solemnized committments, such as the Constitution of the United States, are treated as mere obstacles to be circumvented by flexible interpretation. Other people's decisions, through whatever processes those decisions have been made, are to be preempted by the decisions of the annointed. p.116

And one more to start off the new year. This quote from historians Will and Ariel Durant:

"Out of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional responses which they propose to replace. No one man, however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of society, for these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history." p.112, Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1968), p. 35

Remember this from Barack Obama: "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming America" not only presumptuous and arrogant, but chilling in its intent.

Big thanks to Lisa. She did the legwork to make this pretty much cut and paste.

Looks Like There Is Bad Luck Ahead

Insta Glenn had this from Robert Heinlein, author of 'Starship Troopers'. Read the book, skip the movie.

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as “bad luck.”