Friday, July 25, 2008

"He ventured forth to bring light to the world..."


(Blantantly swiped from the TimesOnline, U.K., this piece by Gerald Baker was too good! I had to post it in it's entirety...the 'shopped pic is mine, of course.)

"And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.


And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world.

He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the

Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.

And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.

From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it.

And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child's very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light.

And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy ploughshares.

From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered “Hosanna” and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet.

In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine, the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace.

As word spread throughout the land about the Child's wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites.

And they told of strange and wondrous things that greeted the news of the Child's journey. Around the world, global temperatures began to decline, and the ocean levels fell and the great warming was over.

The Great Prophet Algore of Nobel and Oscar, who many had believed was the anointed one, smiled and told his followers that the Child was the one generations had been waiting for.

And there were other wonderful signs. In the city of the Street at the Wall, spreads on interbank interest rates dropped like manna from Heaven and rates on credit default swaps fell to the ground as dead birds from the almond tree, and the people who had lived in foreclosure were able to borrow again.

Black gold gushed from the ground at prices well below $140 per barrel. In hospitals across the land the sick were cured even though they were uninsured. And all because the Child had pronounced it.

And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times.

Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length.

But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him.

And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.

Thence he travelled west to Mount Sarkozy. Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not.

On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One.

And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: “Yes, We Can.”

Friday, July 11, 2008

Thinking Like a Democrat

I've been pretty busy with my other project as of late. (see here.) Now that I am a a full fledged evil capitalist exploiting the hardship of my fellow rural citizens I really don't have much time to vent or make snarky remarks about the current state of this nation here. But I do have some time to think about it and lately what has been niggling at my noggin is this ridiculous mantra by the Dems that we "can't drill ourselves out of this mess". (Oh, and is it ok to say "niggling", still?...I haven't seen any memos from the pure thoughts squad lately. Must have got lost in the mail.)

Anyway, I got to thinking how asinine that statement is and what would have happened if other Americans in the past had took that defeatist attitude. Here's what I've come up with so far-

Thomas Edison: " Geez, I dunno, I've tried about a dozen different filament coatings and every one has failed. To hit upon the right combination is going to take too much time. It could take years to get this stupid incandescent light concept off the ground! Hmmph! Maybe we should just concentrate on improving whale oil...This is just too hard!"
( Edison and his team tried over 6,000 different substances for filament and coatings before hitting upon the right combination that would make his light bulb practical and financially feasible.)

Charles Lindberg: "Yeah, right- Fly across the Atlantic?! Oh sure, I bet I could do it, but what would be the point? Besides, that's a pretty long stretch to fly over water, it's dangerous! All that time, effort, money and risk- for what?! No thanks. Besides, I hear that the shipyards are coming up with more efficient ships to cross the Atlantic- that's where the future is!" (Lindberg's historic and daring flight across the Atlantic ocean to France opened up the possibilities of trans-Atlantic flight and commerce.)

Levi Strauss: " So they found gold in California? That's nice. I'd go, but the trip is just too much! No safe roads, all manner of hazards along the way. It would take months to get there! By the time I got out there, it'd all be mined out anyway, they say there's only so much gold in the soil there, it won't last. Besides, what possible opportunities could there be for me out there? I'm a tailor!" (Strauss did indeed go to California to try his hand at gold mining and while there developed a style of trousers that would withstand the rigors of the job that became a hit with the other gold miners.)

President Kennedy: "We will choose not to go to the moon. We will not go to the moon in this decade or even attempt to do any other great thing because they are hard, experts tell me it would take almost 10 years to achieve a successful manned moon launch. A decade is a long time to to wait for any payoff. This nation can't afford it." (Of course, the irony here is that Kennedy was the darling of the Democrat party...back then. AND we had men on the moon with a year to spare!)

An anonymous NASA tech : "Hey, the President said it can't be done! Screw this noise, I'm packing up my slide rule and going fishing!"


The Founding Fathers: "Although we all agree it's a bummer to be what amounts to being slaves to King George, we all also agree to even attempt to tell him where to get off is too risky. We could be killed for that kinda crazy talk! We have too much to lose. We can put up with it. Besides, does anyone here have any idea how to create a new country?! Egads, boys! The logistics are just staggering! It would take years and who knows how many lives to pull this off. Nope. Not gonna do it. A revolution won't get us out of this mess."


Of course there are many more examples, feel free to post yours!

I mean, to me it's a no-brainer. Becoming energy independent for us would have untold benefits- think of the thousands upon thousands of jobs generated by increased oil production, refinery construction, etc. The effect on this (intentionally contrived) slumping economy would be incredible. And it wouldn't be short term. Our security would benefit, in that we would no longer be at the mercy of the petty whims of OPEC. I honestly can't see any downside to this. Yes, we CAN drill ourselves out of this mess. But unfortunately, thinking like a Democrat has taken hold in this country.
The Democrat Party mascot, the donkey, must be Eeyore. Gawd nose, they are all acting like him! Doom, gloom and defeatism!