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About That Silly Obama/Biden Workout Video February 28, 2014

Posted by geoff in News.
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It could have been worse:

al-gore-bill-clinton

If you must, the Obama/Biden “Let’s Move” video is available here.

Ninth Circuit: Mexicans are Violent, Savage Animals February 27, 2014

Posted by Sobek in News.
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…and therefore whites must lose their freedoms.

At least, that’s what this decision seems to imply, right?

Mexicans are the new Muslims?  I never got that memo.

Tire Changing Excitement February 27, 2014

Posted by Retired Geezer in Gardening, Personal Experiences.
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I thought I would generate some excitement with this tire-changing video.

 

Ready for Hillary? February 24, 2014

Posted by geoff in News.
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At this point I’m ready for Carrot Top.

The Benefits of Obamacare vs. Math February 24, 2014

Posted by geoff in News.
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Does nobody in the press do math anymore? From an AP article talking about how beneficial Obamacare is for 55 – 64-year-olds:
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Laura Doesn’t Think Much of Communism February 24, 2014

Posted by Sobek in News.
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I wanted to throw in my two cents about this.

Obviously, the standard conservative response when a young brain-dead re-discovers the glories of the proletariat movement is a sarcastic “sure, maybe this time it will work.”  Let me make a few other points.

Come and See the Violence Inherent in the System!

Young Brain-Dead: Sure, every single communist regime has ended up (or started out by) butchering millions of people, but that’s only because they did it wrong!

Sobek:  Actually, Marx made it pretty clear that violence is an integral part of the plan.  “In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where the war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.” Marx (Verso: London, 1998), p. 49.

“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.  They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing conditions.  Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic relovution.” p. 77

Marx didn’t just say hey, maybe we should all share our stuff.  No, he had a theory of history, that ours is a history of class struggle that moves inevitably toward the increased concentration of wealth in the hands of a smaller and smaller group, which provokes a violent revolution by the oppressed masses.

Let’s Talk About the Weather

Young Brain-Dead: The only reason so many people died is because they had crummy luck with the weather!

Sobek: That doesn’t explain all the dead bodies in places where the weather’s nice, so this one applies more for the Soviets and ChiComs than for the Cubans or Venezuelans or Vietnamese or the East Germans or the rest of ’em.

There’s a great book called “Silent Steppe: The Memoir of a Kazakh Nomad Under Stalin,” by Mukhamet Shayakhmetov.  He was about nine when the Soviets decided to bring progress to the Asian steppes and tell them how they and their ancestors were doing it all wrong for the past 500 years.  By quirk of history, the same year the Soviets came in and stole the cattle from the nomads and forced them into agriculture (although neither the Soviets nor the nomads knew how to grow crops), there was a massive drought.  So what would have been a bad harvest due to inexperience turned into no harvest due to inexperience combined with no rain.  Traditional Kazakh society utterly collapsed, and millions of people starved to death.  Therefore, argues the Young Brain-Dead, it’s not communism’s fault, it was just bad weather!

Well, no.  Because the 1920s were not the first time there was a drought in the Asian steppe.  The nomads had experienced and managed drought for hundreds of years.  They had developed strategies to deal with drought.  People could still suffer and even die in a bad year, but never before had 1.5 million Kazakhs starved to death in a year.

My Typical Work Week of Blog Surfing February 20, 2014

Posted by geoff in News.
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  • Monday is Leon’s “Ridiculously Fit Women with Ginormous Aft Ends” post at The Hostages
  • Tuesday it’s pointless to get on the Intertubes
  • Wednesday is RFH’s “Hunky Hunks and the Lonely Women Who Love Them” post at The Hostages. I get a lot of work done on Tuesday and Wednesday.
  • Thursday is Hooker and Booze’s “Thursday Random” post
  • Friday is MJ’s “I Can’t Find Many Skinny Women With Huge Boobs, so I’ll Rerun Previous Entrants; Otherwise I’d Have to Run Plus-Sized Chicks Like Rosetta” post at The Hostages

Today is Thursday, so you should be hustling over to Hookers and Booze for their Thursday Random post. A sample:

cookbooks-lol

Wouldn’t Have Thought This Was Possible if I Hadn’t Seen It February 19, 2014

Posted by geoff in News.
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A cruise ship gets cut in half, a 90 ft section is inserted, and it’s all put back together.

Note to President Obama February 19, 2014

Posted by geoff in News.
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You can’t narrow income inequality without some income to narrow.

The Atheist Vendetta Against the Judeo-Christian Tradition Continues February 19, 2014

Posted by geoff in News.
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The militant atheists are at it again:

Administrators at a hotel run by Iowa State University have given the boot to Bibles in their guest rooms after protest from a religious separatist group.

The push to remove the books began when a guest at the Hotel Memorial Union complained to Freedom From Religion Foundation about the “unwelcome religious propaganda in the bedside table,” according to a local NBC News affiliate.

“We’re delighted to see reason and the Constitution prevailing,” Annie Laurie Gaylor, the foundation’s co-president, told the Blaze. “We can all sleep easier knowing secularism is being honored at our public universities.”

Annie Laurie Gaylor, who must have been mauled by Gideon Bibles as a child.

Annie Laurie Gaylor, who was apparently mauled by Gideon Bibles as a child.

Yeah, because having a Gideon Bible in the bedstand table had us tossing and turning all night.
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Watching American Technical Dominance Slip Away February 16, 2014

Posted by geoff in News.
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As many bloggers who wish-they-could-get-that-15-minutes-of-their-life-back can attest, I have an unfortunate tendency to spoil the mood at social functions by sharing my belief that the science & technology landscape is shifting away from 60 years of US dominance. In my field I’ve noticed that where 15 years ago foreign authors comprised only 20% of journal articles (and they sucked), now over 50% of articles are written by foreign authors (and they’re quite good).

The National Science Board has noticed the same trend:

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Irksome Robocalls February 15, 2014

Posted by geoff in News.
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Hey American Petroleum Institute (who just called), and the RNC, and all other conservative organizations, here’s a little factoid for you:

Robocalls Don’t Work

They’re disruptive, annoying, and unconvincing. They make me want to vote in direct opposition to whatever your message is. Not that I listen too long before I hang up.

Just knock it off.