Leany on Life -- February 2011

You remember the scene from Get Smart when . . .

Continued below
(Best viewed with a mind not clouded by the Kool-Aid)

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The John Galt Society

It can be discouraging to look around at who's running the show these days and wonder "Where have all the grown-ups gone?"

Take heart. There are still some people who are not drinking the Kool-aid. Here's where to find them. I would suggest going gown this list every day and printing off the most recent articles you haven't read to read over lunch.

Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin is a feisty conservative bastion. You loved her book "Unhinged" and you can read her columns here.
Ann Coulter
Ann posts her new column every Thursday, or you can browse her past columns.
George Will
What can you say? It's George Will. Read it.
Charles Krauthammer posts every Friday. Just a good, smart conservative columnist.
If you want someone who gets it just as right, but is easier to read, try Thomas Sowell, who just posts at random times.
Jonah Goldbert seldom disappoints.
David Limbaugh carries on the family tradition.

Jewish World Review has all these guys plus lots more good stuff.

Or you can go to radio show sites like
 Laura Ingraham's or Glenn Beck's or Rush Limbaugh's..

If you'd like you can study The Constitution while you wait.

Then there's always TownHall.com, NewsMax.com, The Drudge Report, FreeRepublic.com, World Net Daily, (which Medved calls World Nut Daily), News Busters, or National Review Online.

For the Lighter Appetite

If you have to read the news, I recommend The Nose on Your Face, news so fake you'd swear it came from the Mainstream Media. HT to Sid for the link.
Or there's always The Onion. (For the benefit of you Obama Supporters, it's a spoof.)

Dilbert.
Dave Barry's Column
Daryl Cagle's Index of Political Cartoons
About half of these cartoonists are liberal (Latin for wrong) but the art is usually good. (Fantastic, if you're used to the quality of art on this site.)

Or just follow the links above and to the right of this section (you can't have read all my archived articles already). If you have read all my articles (you need to get out more) go to my I'm Not Falling For It section.

Above all, try to stay calm. Eventually I may post something again.

Check it Out

You probably already have, but just in case you haven't, check out Jordan's Eagle Project.

You remember the scene from Get Smart when Steve Carell pushes the button on the Cone of Silence remote then goes into spasms about this being the happiest day of his life? He doesn't realize that the device didn't activate and he ends up looking stupid.

A similar thing happened to Bill Maher. He said:

A Republican Congressman, Rep. Chris Lee, was caught flirting with a woman trolling for dates on Craigslist and sent her a shirtless photo of himself. He lied about his age and his marital status. He said he was 39 and divorced. He's 46 and married, though being a Republican congressman, I'm guessing he's really 60 and gay.

I'm sorry, what?

I have a theory. I'll bet that whenever Maher says "Republican," his technician is supposed to push a button and activate the ultrasonic zombifier in the studio. That turns off all the brains and makes people laugh at stupid stuff.

In that instance, the technician must have dropped his pencil just before the magic word. He ducked under the desk to look for it, missed the cue, and didn't push the button.

When he found the pencil, he looked out through the windows of the tech booth to a silent audience and Bill Maher glaring at him. "What?"

Dude, you didn't push the button.

That's all I can figure. Maybe you can help me out. Seriously, what part of that quote is funny?

Here, let me try. "Bill Maher says he's a comedian, though being a really ugly liberal I'm guessing he's gay."

[rim shot]

Is that all it takes to write comedy these days?

When Jerry Sloan resigned as coach of the Jazz they had a press conference. I turned on the TV and . . . and nothing. I don't have any channels. Not one. I have no TV feed whatsoever.

I have no idea how long I've been without a TV. It has to have been months, but I don't know. That's like asking a liberal how long his work boots have been missing.

So I'm guessing--which seems to be the way you arrive at facts in this world--that this new digital TV signal that I'm missing out on has been frying people's brains. Something in the signal gradually reconfigures your brain to laugh at what "they" want you to think is funny.

I don't see the humor in " I'm guessing he's really 60 and gay" because my brain hasn't undergone the reconditioning that it was supposed to.

Up. That's a good show. Up.

The human says "This is crazy. I finally meet my childhood hero and he's trying to kill us. What a joke."

The dog says "Hey, I know a joke! A squirrel walks up to a tree and says, 'I forgot to store acorns for the winter and now I am dead.' Ha! It is funny because the squirrel gets dead."

If you have a better theory than the electrolumiphilopsychic TV brain modifier deal, please let me know. Something has turned those brains into useless lumps.

I used to hear from a buddy how incredibly funny Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart were (forgive me if I got the names wrong--I really don't give a crap). So when I found myself in a hotel room, with better things to do but no inclination to do them, I turned on the TV. There was Jon Stewart.

I figured I owed it to myself to give him a listen. I like to laugh as much as the next guy.

"Republicans are stupid." (Loud laughter) "No, no, wait, you know who's stupid?" (pause for effect) "Dick Cheney!" (gales of roaring laughter, extended applause) "Dick Cheney is stupid!" (audience members slapping their knees and wiping their eyes).

I was watching a dog laugh at the thought of a squirrel getting dead.

If you have a very small brain and you hate squirrels for no rational reason, I guess that is pretty funny.

I can take you to the exact hotel room I made that discovery. 15 minutes of TV is all I could take. I watched an episode of Supernatural on my iPhone and hit the sack.

Hey, I've got one. Bill Maher fell out of a tree and impaled himself on a fence, and his boyfriend said "Dude, you never complained before."

See, it's funny 'cause Bill Maher gets . . .

My favorite line from Josey Wales is (say it with me): "Don't pee down my back and tell me it's raining."

Last night some democrat was talking about "investment" in jobs.

This the perfect example of what I was trying to say with my post on Trust. You may not know exactly what they're trying to do, but you can be certain it's different than what they're trying to convince you they're doing.

Really, how stupid do you think I am? You think I'm going to hear "investment" in "jobs" and then walk away and trust you? Once you get looking at it, it turns out that the government is taking my money to hand over to labor unions to help democrats to destroy my country. Investment? Jobs? Give me a freaking break.

Josey Wales said it best, but Alan Keyes was a close second. "My ancestors were slaves, but they had one thing over you people. At least my ancestors didn't pay for their own chains."

I know it's been a long dry spell. Sorry.

I really enjoyed this one a lot. Maybe I was just in the right frame of mind because it was sent to me by the mother of a fallen Marine. I can't guarantee that it will affect you the way it did me, but I hope you enjoy it:

I honestly don't know how these guys do it with a straight face. I guess you can't blame them for thinking the people they are posturing for are idiots. After all, they did elect them.

Imagine trying to sell your wife on this: I'm buying that $45,000 1-ton diesel that we don't need but I really, really want. But hey, I know how to compensate. I will cut out that expensive $3.00 chocolate I buy you every Valentine's Day! What a financial genius I am.

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This piece (Whose side is God on?) by Michael Medved, is an excellent overview of the differences between the liberal and conservative philosophy.

The left emphasizes just outcomes—seeking smaller gaps between rich and poor, and a comparably dignified standard of living for all members of society. The right stresses just procedures --making sure that individuals keep the fruits of their own labors and remain secure in their property, without seizure by their neighbors or by government.

Liberals accept unequal, potentially unfair treatment by government in order to achieve fair results; conservatives accept unequal, potentially unfair results so long as every citizen receives fair and comparable treatment by government.

A lot of the same ideas are echoed in this column by Pat Buchanan.

But why is that a concern of the U.S. government, and where is the empirical evidence that an inequality of pay between the sexes is proof of sexist hostility to women?

Just because something is good, doesn't mean the government should do it--especially federal government. Childhood obesity is the perfect example. This is something being pushed by the most socialist President of our lifetime. You should shudder every time you hear that guy say "What the government MUST do FOR you." Kids should eat better and get out more. Sure. But that's not why we have a federal government.

The best example before that was child labor. That's a tougher one because it is law and we are used to it. It should be law, but not necessary federal law.

Sure, child labor is horrible. It shouldn't happen, so that makes us very vulnerable to arguments about the federal government coming in and fixing that. Don't let the teary-eyed scenes overwhelm your logic. We can't get caught up in allowing the federal government to get involved in that. It's not the role of the federal government.

You shouldn't have eaten that donut this morning. You also shouldn't have looked at that girl's tush in the jewelry department at Dillard's. Are those things you want the federal government taking care of?

Here is an excellent column on the death penalty, specifically "facts" about the death penalty that the people who state them don't know.

They’ll say the death penalty does not deter murder. We don’t know that, since it’s never actually been studied. This is a statement of personal belief, not fact.

What we do know is that the murder rate soared when the Supreme Court abolished the death penalty in 1972. In 1960, the U.S. murder rate was 5.1 per 100,000 people. By late 70s, it had nearly doubled, reaching 10.2 in 1980. The U.S. government didn’t execute a single person that year. The murder rate only began to fall as more capital sentences were handed down in the 1990s. By 2009, it had plummeted to an all-time low of 5 per 100,000. 52 people were executed last year.

I'm not posting the most relevant excerpts because the most they are too horrific to appear in such a gentle venue. Just read the column. Suffice it to say that I have no problem with certain people being killed. And the sooner the better.

Anyone who does is viewing the universe with a completely different browser than I'm using.

The lesson here is: Do not operate typewriters while under the influence of certain medications. According to these (delusional) people, what happened in November 2010 had nothing to do with the will of the people . . .

Actually it's not that bad of a piece, but the bias really shows through. It's impossible to read it and the writers are reporting facts instead of proselytizing.

This is an educational site. Here we study ancient history, like the election of 2010 . . .

These are actually pretty darn good cartoons. It's not their fault I didn't post them when they made sense.

I love conspiracy theorists. They make me seem almost sane by comparison. That's not to say I don't think evil people are capable of conspiring. I'm just convinced that the conspiracy theories, called "Ron stories" for reasons completely unknown to me and not referencing anyone I personally know or work with, are not the ones that are going to get them.

One of my favorites is the 100 mpg carburetor. It's a great story, a takeoff of the classic. A big corporation steals your idea; a publisher steals your novel . . .

The fact that these stories are bullcrap make the real ones so much more entertaining. For example, you should watch "Spark of Invention." It's kind of a rah-rah story of the little guy winning, but it's really quite sad.

All of this is just filler leading up to me asking you to read this story about the invention of FM Radio. It's a real-life thriller about the little guy getting stepped on by the big corporation.

And while you're at it, download this free book called Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. It's not only a pretty good book for a free download, it's a pretty good book.

Trust is the first point of the Scout Law. There's a good reason for that. Everything else is pretty much based on that. Society can't function without it.

Saturday I got a call from a guy who was "just letting me know that the ACT study materials my daughter had requested were going to be arriving in the mail." His job, he said, was to just explain about them, he was a counselor, he'd be brief . . . fifteen minutes later he paused to catch his breath and I said "Okay, thanks," and hung up.

He called right back and said he guessed we got cut off somehow and proceeded to go over the same stuff again, finally giving me a confirmation number then asking for my credit card number.

I told him I thought that he said it was a free 60-day trial, he said that yes, but we have to . . . I said "This conversation didn't start with the understanding you'd be asking for my credit card number before you were finished. That might have saved us both a lot of time."

I guess he didn't figure we accidentally got cut off that time.

His ACT study materials might be pretty darn good. But I'm not giving a liar $200.

It reminded me of the time back in college when some guy carrying a blue briefcase with a big "Y" on it came around to the apartment while I was studying. He didn't say he was with the university, but he said words that made it sound like that was exactly what he was saying, then he said "and we're just going around trying to get to know the students a little bit," and could he come in? Well, crap, I mean, when the University sends someone around on official business you let him in.

10 minutes later he was trying to get me to call my dad and get a credit card number for his insurance plan.

He didn't specifically say he worked for the University and was on official BYU business, and there's no law against anyone buying a blue briefcase with the University logo on it. But he was a liar.

A lie is any communication designed to deceive.

Things work a lot less efficiently when I have to sort through your words to try to figure out what you are really saying. When there's no trust things get very inefficient.

That's why I hate democrats. If they would just tell us what they were after . . . well, then they wouldn't keep their jobs, I guess. The reason they have to fog it all up with something other than what they mean is because no one wants what they're selling. If they told us up front that they were trying to sell us a $200 book, the conversation would be over.

Democrats are sleazy lying sack of crap salesmen; you can't trust them.

Republicans are the stupid people on the other end of the phone who (in their own defense got woken up by the phone in the middle of a nap after getting to bed very, very late Friday night) think that the person they are talking to might really be a "counselor" connected with a college day that their daughter attended at school.

Universal Health Care is the only way to fix the economy? In what universe?

Investment? How stupid do you think we are? That might work with a three year old who's being told that her dead goldfish is "just taking a little nap."

And if you want to save the environment how come the measures you're proposing to do that don't?

And seriously . . . green jobs? No, really, what are you guys smoking?

But every so often the liberal will, in the heat of the moment, accidentally reveal what he really thinks. Maxine Waters did it when she said the government should socialize the oil industry. And so did the mindless puppet of a liberal that called Sean Hannity's show at 3:42 pm January 31. He got so upset that he spoke for the racism that colors the thought of every liberal out there when he sputtered "Bush put this country into such a mess that the Black Guy can't even clean it up."

Direct quote.

Wow. Just . . . wow.

The soldiers training Iraqis have what they call "Enchilada days," meaning days when they sit around because the people they're supposed to be training don't show up. They call them that because the Muslim saying is Insha'Allah, meaning "God willing" meaning "If God wanted me to go to work today he would have forced me to get out of bed."

As a whacked out right winger I participate in a grass roots Constitution study group. The point is that if you're going to say "That's unconstitutional," you might want to know whether it is or not. We have good discussions about the founding, political theory, the migration of political thought and the evolution of law in America.

Whenever we get into the inevitable discussion about evils that are being perpetrated on us by politicians (a discussion much older than America), a good-hearted elderly lady in the group always says "Well, all I know is that God is in control."

I hope separating this into a new paragraph prevents it from being blasphemy, but bullcrap.

I know this good lady doesn't mean that we should do nothing--she organized the group, for crying out loud. But it drives me crazy when she says that because . . . well, I guess just because I'm contrary. All she's saying is "Don't freak out."

You know who some of the most strident opponents were to forming the Jewish State of Israel were in 1948? The Jews. Some of the Jews. Some of the Hassidic Jews believed that if God intended for that to happen, He would make it happen. They thought that it was a sin to try to establish a Jewish homeland. Other believed the truth--that God makes things happen by using us as tools in His hands.

The real approach is "Pray like it all depends on God, then go out and work like it all depends on you."

The idea of Insha'Allah--the notion that if that's the way it is, that's got to be the way God intended it to be--is a great way to use religion to justify laziness. If I don't feel like spending time with the kids that's gotta' be God telling me not to.

So this could segue nicely into a takeoff on the other discussion I halfway started on religion. But I don't really feel like getting into it . . . so you know what that means . . .

Not sure exactly what I was trying to say with the earlier post on religion (further down the page, not up). It's a double-edged sword.

When you think of that part of you that's aware of its existence--the conscious part of you that's deeper than intellect or biology--you can't deny that it's eternal. But I think that somewhere in the personal debate on "Are there eternal consequences for how I behave?" everyone entertains the notion that "I'm kinda' hoping that it's all poppycock."