By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  July 9th at 07:54 AM  | 

Face it Kathleen Parker. You just don’t measure up. There’s someone out there right now who is everything you aspire to be. She got there from far humbler origins and has a far brighter future ahead of her.

This someone, of course, is Sarah Palin. The laughable envy you feel over you’re inability to measure up to her in any legitimate measure of grace, decency or feminine virtue reduces you to the level of Shelob the Spider-Queen in one of Morder’s foul dungeons.</

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  July 6th at 09:14 PM  | 

The recent events surrounding Congressman Alan Grayson (D-Fl) and his $50M vote for the ACES Bill in the House of Representatives are a profound example of what is wrong in our republic. It seems that Congressman Grayson sold his “Aye” vote to Nancy Pelosi in return for a $50M hurricane research center to be built near Orlando, Fl. His local newspaper, The Orlando Sentinal, characterizes the center as A Category 5 Waste.

While hurricane research is something that Florida has valid self-interest in appealing for help and support on, it turns out the Grayson project is a bogus pork BBQ platter for several reasons. The Congressman claims making Orlando an epicenter of hurricane research would vitally aid NOAA in performing its mission. The Congressman claims that the center could conveniently tie in to UCF and bolster their Earth Sciences curriculum.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  July 6th at 09:11 PM  | 

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Perhaps The State of California deserves condign scorn for failing to pass a budget and resorting to the issue of IOU’s to pay its obligations. I would tend to agree, but perhaps Clusterstock.com pressed the joke a bit too far with the offer to buy up California IOUs at fifty cents on the dollar. The State IOUs have to be worth more that – don’t they?

At present, no officially condoned aftermarket exists to convert the Terminator (others may prefer that we call it The Predator, The TrueLie or The HGH) into a valid means of exchange. Joe Weisenthal, author of the polemic linked above, had to be sadistic enough to investigate. Here’s what he found.

We’ve been calling around to various pawn shops, check cashing places, rare coin dealers and even a Wells Fargo branch. So far none have said they’re going to be doing business in CA IOUs, so it looks like our offer ( 1 Terminator = 0.5 USD) is the best you’ve got going for you.

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By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  June 29th at 08:32 PM  | 

So why then do we have this scene? We have it because our society has banned failure and thereby enstupidated the population to the point where a random sample of possible Congressmen and Congresswomen will contain a large volume of Obeys and Waterses. They are a mirror of our dysfunctional, modern society.

America will only be exceptional when we stop making exceptions. We can become exceptional again when we demand it from ourselves and our leaders. I can’t un-elect either David Obey or Maxine Waters. I don’t live in either of their districts.

I can take a stand where I live. So may you, I pray that you shall. We are not now an exceptional nation. We will not again be exceptional until David Obey and Maxine Waters are the exception; not the rule.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  June 29th at 07:52 PM  | 

This profound degradation of the philosophical basis of American society, as well the fear of the established church’s of the 18th Century, led the Founding Fathers to wisely separate these churches from the affairs of state. The question we now need to address is how to defend America from the philosophical depredations of discorporated faith-based thinking, unfettered by the restraints that most major religions will decently impose on their practicing believers.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  June 24th at 09:12 PM  | 

This, like abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment, becomes an issue of sanctity of life versus its commoditization. When NICE recommends availability of treatment under the pressure of mandated budget frontiers, life has been shorn of its fundamental sanctity. The decision of life or death for the patient balances on the steelyard of political feasibility versus budgetary affordability.

The Post-War Dream and the Great Society both are contingent upon the infinite bounties of a functioning market economy. Yet each paradoxically constrains the wellspring of wealth required to jet-fuel the colossal expenditures intrinsic to either. In the end the rationing boards run out of rations. Operations Research algorithms fail in the absence of feasible solutions within the walled-off regions under constraint.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  June 23rd at 08:17 PM  | 

Thus, Barack Obama has a base constituency to which he promised the moon. He took their donations and rode high on their support. He made use of these people to a fare-thee-well. Now, at the worst moment possible, they demand political remuneration.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  June 18th at 10:00 PM  | 

On 16 June 2009, US President Barack Obama has released a report on Global Warming (See USG release here) that the Guardian.UK seems to have misconstrued as science. Adulation masquerading as journalism follows below. The Obama administration unveiled the most authoritative report to date on the effects of global warming in America today in an effort to persuade the public of the need to act | Read More »

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  June 17th at 10:49 PM  | 

Perhaps we can now disclose who writes David Letterman’s rape jokes about the Palin family. Perhaps it’s none other than Matt Yglesias. Filth in the name of character assassination follows below…

Ahmadinejad is in most ways a classic right-winger, a demagogic nationalist and cultural conservative. In a manner somewhat reminiscent of a Sarah Palin, however, he clothes this right-wing politics in a language of class resentment, painting his more pragmatic and reformist opponents as decadent elites out of touch with ordinary people.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  June 16th at 09:03 PM  | 

The recent “election” that took place in Iran doesn’t require a PhD in Poli-Sci to figure out. Figurehead Incumbent President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, just stole an election. Protestors have the audacity to protest. They are being dealt with in keeping with the traditions of unconcerned tyrannies.

Ralph Peters is too old and too politically incorrect to waste his time tip-toeing around the obvious. He gazes upon the “robust debate” occurring now in Iran and writes the following.

The result was that the mullahs and state corporatists no longer saw a need to play pretend. Bush worried them. Obama doesn’t.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  June 12th at 12:32 AM  | 

According to Clusterstock.com, California has 50 days to live. Given the pathetic level of fiscal probity shown by the state government, I’m fairly pissed that they’ve been given a 50 day reprieve. But therein lies a tale.

Is it economically possible to let the cancer-ridden patient just expire? How would such euthanasia work when applied to a federalist government entity? The answers, regrettably, are “No,” and “you are an idiot if you’d like to find out.”

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  June 8th at 08:53 PM  | 

Climate Depot tells us that recent postings at Climate Progress have been misinterpreted….

“How so?” The Inquiring Mind inquires.

They don’t make threats at Climate Progress – they make predictions. Here’s the latest kerfluffle at Nostradamus.com.

[Update: Joe Romm deleted the 'strangling' skeptics in bed remark on June 6, but now defends the comments as "clearly not a threat but a prediction" and claimed "some people misread it." Romm wrote: "The original was clearly not a threat but a prediction -- albeit one that I certainly do not agree with. Since some people misread it, I am editing it." ]

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  June 5th at 12:15 AM  | 

Greenbiz.com has made a commendable and manful effort to wade through a dense thicket of data obfuscation. They have poured over all 40 pages of a recent study of how the current Cap’N Trade bill, volleyed about Congress, would impact the profitability of S&P 500 corporations. The study, itself, is a little too boring to read to the kids, but it marks a nice effort to merge financial investigation and fabulist storytelling.

The report, “Carbon Risks and Opportunities in the S&P 500,” was put together by the not-for-profit Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute and Trucost, a global provider of environmental data and analysis.

Regrettably Greenbiz got taken for a ride and doesn’t see too many problems with Cap’N Trade. They tell us to relax, the PMT is chump-change and we can always refinance the ARM before the rate adjusts. If you believe in fairy-tales, here’s what Peter Pan got off his handy-dandy Excel Spreadsheet.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  June 5th at 12:05 AM  | 

When we do feel that we’ve paid too high a price to preserve our public square? Worse yet, if it all goes too far, what in the heck are we going to able to do about it? Property translates into rights and power. In modern America, we own less and less of it and share more and more of it. It’s something to think about as we all enjoy the egregious grossness of a bombed-out reprobate on the Phoenix Light Rail.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  June 4th at 07:20 AM  | 

Condemning Dr. Tiller’s murder should be heartfelt, not tactical for those who also condemn Dr. Tiller’s performance of multiple late-term abortions. We may not always like or feel served by the laws, but we should all thank God every night in prayer that we live in a society of laws; not men.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  May 15th at 02:35 PM  | 

The Man-Made ATM Void known as Barack Obama’s economic policy has opened up new and fascinating opportunities in the growing field of crisis exploitation. Like a Conquistador from Spain, appalled that Montezuma and the Aztecs ripped out hearts on the altar of Quetzalcoatl, Barack Obama has just now learned about deficit spending. Boy does the prospect harry him!

President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  May 14th at 07:29 AM  | 

I become increasingly convinced that a socialist USA would have no better morals or ethics than the former USSR. There is no decency, inherent to us as a people, that would cause us to pass laws and enact policies similar to what was done in Russia, under the Bolsheviks, and get anything different than the Gulag Archipelago as a result. This new and creepy form | Read More »

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  May 12th at 06:52 AM  | 

According to the HuffPo, (Actually, UK Telegraph says Huffpo said this.) Wanda Sykes killed at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. I’ll agree with that. If you wanted good taste or judgment, you could find either out back. They’re lying dead in the gutter.

This is what she said: “Rush Limbaugh said he hopes this administration fails, so you’re saying, ‘I hope America fails’, you’re, like, ‘I don’t care about people losing their homes, their jobs, our soldiers in Iraq’. He just wants the country to fail. To me, that’s treason.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  May 8th at 09:04 PM  | 

I imagine myself a cracker-jack vulture capitalist in need of a dandy new investment to beat MARR and make my money work for me – not vice versa. You couldn’t put a gun to my head and make me invest it in the manufacture of wheeled conveyances at US plants. It’s nice when a major corporation full of professional money managers agrees with one of my simple hunches. It tickles my masculine ego.

Regrettably, that major corporation with $15Bn to invest was General Motors. The $15Bn they’ve decided to invest in Brazil, S. Korea, Canada and Mexico came from US Government bailout funds. Money designed to alleviate economic misery in our country – not someone else’s.

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  May 7th at 08:40 PM  | 

When the law doesn’t favor Obama, he acts like it doesn’t exist.