Tax Tea Party Protest - Hilo, HI

On April 15th, 2009, a group of "right-wing extremists" assembled to protest taxes in, among many other places in the United States, Hilo, Hawaii. The turnout of heartless, racist "teabagging rednecks," (as the brilliant sociologist, Janeane Garofalo referred to us), numbered around 100, according to the Hawaii Tribune Herald. This was a far bigger turnout than one might have expected, in this liberal outpost.

Contrary to what the mainstream media would have people believe, this was definitely not an assembly of the wealthy, nor was it organized or promoted by deep-pocketed Republican political action committees. This was a true, grassroots effort, organized by one middle-class, working man, who was wearing worn blue jeans at the protest. It was attended not by a blood-thirsty, racist rabble, but by a group of polite, thoughtful, hard-working people.

Liberals nationwide seem to dismiss these protests, and demean the protesters as ignorant ideologues. One of the many liberal advocates posing as journalists, Susan Roesgen, who works for (surprise!) CNN, berated one protester on the air with the assertion that he would be getting a several hundred dollar tax credit, and his home state would be getting 50 billion dollars in "stimulus" funds, implying that to protest taxes was therefore illogical.

What such liberals fail to credit the rest of us with is the intelligence to realize that there is no free lunch. SOMEONE has to pay for all of this spending. So, as much as a tax protest, this was a spending protest. Even if our taxes do not go up this year, some of us have the foresight to know that we will all pay, eventually, and our descendants will keep paying after we are gone. In the process, we will have lost everything that has made this country the greatest on Earth.

In the short term, our hard-earned savings will be devalued through inflation. With trillions more dollars printed to compete for the same goods and services that existed before, it will naturally take more dollars to buy those same goods and services.

In the long run, the free enterprise system; the engine that has driven this country to be the strongest in the world - the land of opportunity that people throughout the world still envy - will have been replaced with a "nanny state" that incentivizes mediocrity.

We won the Cold War (Ronald Reagan, R.I.P.), and we have served as the example for failed Communist states to revitalize their societies through increasing Capitalism. How sadly ironic, that the Russians and Chinese now think we are heading in the wrong direction - toward Socialism!

President Eloquent and First Lady Elegant?

As the President and his entourage attended the G20 London Summit, the media love affair with the Obamas, and the double-standard applied to presidents based upon their political parties, evidently extended across the Atlantic Ocean.

When "W" misspoke during a reception for Queen Elizabeth, and accidentally implied that the queen had been around since 1776, he corrected himself and winked at her. The British press eviscerated him. One apparently does not wink at the queen.

On another occasion, when some Australian official put his arm around the queen, he was treated similarly. However, just this week, when Michelle Obama put her arm around the queen, it was not an issue. For crying out loud, even I knew you aren’t supposed to touch the queen or treat her familiarly! But the queen was unfazed, as were the British press.

Let's not even get into the propriety of giving the queen an Ipod loaded with, among other things, audio of his own notable speeches. "Here, Queenie, listen up. Didja know I'm a celebrity?"

During President Obama's press conference at the G20 summit (the non-teleprompter portion, during which he answered questions from the members of the press), he made the following statements (emphasis added):

"So, overall, I'm pleased with the product. And I'll leave it to others to determine whether me and my team had anything to do with that. All right?"

"And that's good. But we want to make sure that there's mechanisms in place that holds people accountable and produces results. Okay?"

"I think the patient is stabilized; there's still wounds that have to heal and there's still emergencies that could arise, but I think that you've got some pretty good care being applied."

Nary a word from the press, about how bad his grammatical errors made him sound, yet Bush was reduced to the image of a blubbering moron by the media. Granted, President Bush made a lot of gaffes, but so far, President Obama is matching his pace.

While this manifestation of the mainstream media's double standard is annoying - maddening, even - what is really scary is that this refusal to criticize their anointed leader extends beyond the superficial to really important, substantive matters. It's like boarding a bus and averting your eyes while the driver slams tequila shots and starts careening into parked cars and fire hydrants. Something's gonna die, and I am afraid it is the United States of America, as we know it.

Taxation Without Representation

Time is often referred to by scientists as The Fourth Dimension. In finance, time is an important element -- the basis for much of the value of investment. A buffer of time between the commitment of an illegal act and its detrimental effects is no protection against prosecution in our legal system. Say, for example, I were to set a bomb now that is timed to go off in seven years. When the bomb later went off, would I be any less liable, legally or morally, for the damage that bomb did? I am no lawyer (thank goodness) but I doubt the statute of limitations would apply.

So why, then, should politicians be exempt from the consequences of their actions, or from the rules that govern their actions, by virtue of time? Generations in the future, because of the astronomical spending bill that Washington thieves have just passed, are effectively being taxed beyond all reason, or previous precedent. "No taxation without representation" was the battle cry that inspired an emerging, great nation to fight for independence.

Yet the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of that once-great nation are being taxed in the future, for our comfort and convenience, now. If only all of those who will pay those taxes were here to protest the lack of representation, there might be another revolution, of a slightly different kind.

The Town is Burning, All Right

To those who read nuance in things people say, President Obama's recent use of a metaphor to sell his gigantic spending bill was a telling one. While he was on his recent Bipartisan Support of My Trillion Dollar "Stimulus" Promotion Tour, he uttered the passionate statement, "When the town is burning, everybody needs to grab a hose!"

Well, as a practical sort of fellow, I would have thought to use a different word. I would have said, "...everyone needs to grab a bucket." There is an important distinction between a hose and a bucket. Use of the word, "hose," presupposes that there is an unlimited supply of water at the other end of any hose you grab. But, to carry the metaphor further, there isn't always an unlimited supply of water, when there is a fire; or real money, when there is a financial crisis. From literal experience, I can tell you, that assumption is a naive one. If you grab a bucket, you can see just how much water you can dip into, to put out the fire. If you grab a hose and expect unlimited water to be supplied to the nozzle, you can be severely disillusioned. I am afraid President Obama is going learn this lesson the hard way -- an even harder way than I did. And in the process, we are all going to get burned -- or hosed.

Happy Friday

Top Ten Disadvantages of Being an Atheist:

10. If you want to celebrate Christmas, you have to at least tacitly acknowledge a preposterous story about how one particular woman got pregnant, a long time ago.

9. When you are angry, you tell an imaginary power to damn something indeterminate. Pretty unsatisfying.

8. When you do something wrong, or bad, you have to take the blame for it yourself, and feel bad about it for as long as you remember.

7. You have only your parents to thank for the massive talent and/or good looks that allowed you to win that boxing match, football game, or beauty pageant.

6. You'll never "speak in tongues," unless you contract malaria, or go insane.

5. You have no ostensible, inherent goodness with which to misdirect gullible people from your evil nature.

4. You have at least one seemingly impenetrable barrier between you and the Republican Party.

3. You have to live your life knowing that it will end forever, in an alarmingly short time; and yet live it well, just for the sake of being a good person.

2. There's no good place to go and get free wine and wafers.

1. You don't really have a catchy, celebratory phrase to say on Fridays.

The Best Grammar Tip Most Remedial English Failures Will Ever Get, For Free!

I am no English expert, but compared to the average American citizen, I am apparently a freakin' genius. Forget my most recent annoyance, an epidemic of verb tenses that do not match their subjects ("There's students and teachers violating this rule."). That is not quite as easy-squeezy to solve. No, I am talking about a different epidemic of grammatical idiocy:

"Happy birthday, from Tom and I."

Okay, class, can anyone tell me what is wrong with this sentence? These are the most frequently spoken grammatical errors, and the most easily fixed. Just strike the proper noun from the statement, and say it to yourself in your mind, before you utter the sentence. Would you say, "Happy birthday, from I."? NO! You would say, "Happy birthday, from me." So, say, "Happy birthday, from Tom and me." That simple.

"Her and me went to the mall." Her went to the mall?? Me went to the mall? NO! She went to the mall. I went to the mall. She and I went to the mall.

It only takes a fraction of a second to say these things to yourself before you say them out loud. So, if you don't want to sound like an idiot, do just that.

Despite the simplicity of the solution, such ridiculous grammatical errors are memorialized forever in published works; mostly in popular music. I would hereby like to offer my services to any singers or songwriters who are confused or unsure. Please, ask me, or someone more knowledgeable than I, before you write a hit song that will remain in the public domain for the foreseeable future, perpetuating ignorance.

Examples? Well, I live in Hawaii, so I will offer up an "IZ" (the renowned, beloved, deceased Hawaiian artist, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole) song as my first example. In his song, Henehene Kou 'Aka, he ends every stanza with the expression, "...for you and I." Over and over and over, he sings, "...for you and I." Oh, except for the stanza in which he switches it up and sings, "...for I and you." While most of his songs are music to my ears, that one strikes a sour note. If someone gave you a present, would you ask, "For I?"

NO! You would ask, "For me?"

I hate to dump on Jessica Simpson while she seems to be going through a rough patch, but she sang a song, Between You & I. Need I write more?

I'm sure there are more examples, but I will stop there.

It makes my brain figuratively explode

Okay, how hard is this? Especially for people who use words to make a living??? When you say, "Literally," you mean, uh......literally. That is to say, according to wordnetweb.princeton.edu you mean, "in a literal sense; literally translated." Or, according to en.wiktionary.org you mean, "In the direct, word for word sense."


So why do idiotic talking heads say stupid things like, "I literally flew across the room to change channels," or, "My brain literally exploded"? Of course, neither of those things literally happened. Yet, too many imbeciles feel the need to emphasize their stories by throwing in the adverb, "literally." The proper adverb would be, "figuratively," but of course that wouldn't emphasize anything. "My brain figuratively exploded." Nope. No emphasis. Maybe the sentence doesn't need emphasis, after all.