Is this really necessary? I put my parrot on YouTube last year, just because he was screaming too much; he didn’t ask to be a star.
Anyway, here’s a video of a Romanian truck driver who really gets carried away while listening to some Gypsy music. And I thought text-messaging was supposed to be the most dangerous thing people do while driving. All kidding aside, the passenger who filmed this must have been mad to ride with him.
I didn’t write yesterday because Leive and I were gone at two Filipino birthday parties. The first was in Bardstown, seventy miles west of here, and the second was just on the other side of Interstate 75, in the neighborhood next to ours. Leive was particularly pleased to find some Cebuano speakers at the first party; that’s not the most widely used language in the Philippines. At the second party, there were nearly thirty Filipinos and two white men, so we had a paradoxical situation where the other guy and I were told to stay on the patio in back of the house! Who’d have expected that in a state with a population that’s 92 percent non-Hispanic & white? But seriously, with the Fourth of July rapidly coming up, I have a feeling we’ll be seeing our new friends again soon.
In the news, I haven’t been paying as much attention to the death of Michael Jackson as most Americans. Everyone else is saying enough about him, so I feel no need to pay tribute to a pedophile that converted to Islam a few years back. I’d rather hear what’s going on in Iran, and if that North Korean ship full of nuclear materials reached its destination yet (I learned last week that it’s going to Myanmar). The good news is that on Friday I tried calling my congressman to tell him I oppose this energy tax that they call the “Cap & Trade Bill,” and I couldn’t get through because all lines were busy; that means a lot of other Americans are concerned about the issue. Unfortunately, the bill was passed in the House anyway.
The bill can still be stopped in the Senate, though, and I hope that happenes, because such a tax would be a disaster to our economy, and it would break President Obama’s promise not to impose new taxes on 95% of the American people. I’ll remind everyone of the summary I gave at the end of my global warming essay:
I also felt compelled to add two points to the list on that page:
17. The ice-core samples mentioned in #13 above also preserve a record of carbon dioxide levels in ancient times. They show that the percentage of atmospheric CO2 has gone up and down in the past, but the CO2 increases happened as late as 800 years after temperature increases. Thus, one could argue that rising temperatures cause rising CO2 levels, instead of the opposite.
32. Don’t worry about the polar bears. Environmentalists like to illustrate the danger of global warming by showing pictures of polar bears stranded on melting ice. This was enough to get the Environmental Protection Agency to put polar bears back on the endangered species list. By doing that, they ignored three facts. First, the estimated population of polar bears has tripled since the 1970s, when they really were an endangered species. Second, they can swim for up to hundreds of miles in cold water, so even if the ice melts, they’ll be all right. That’s how they managed to travel to every part of the Arctic. Third, they survived previous warm periods, didn’t they?
Finally, I created two new pages on subjects that have appeared here first. The first, “Why Are American Jews Liberal?“, tries to explain the liberal voting record of Jews, when their best friends are conservative. The second, “Why Won’t Anti-Semitism Go Away?“, offers an explanation for that phenomenon. Re-read and enjoy!
I saw this picture on Wunderground.com, my favorite site for checking the weather. My family will probably like it, because my father took care of flying squirrels for twenty years. It’s not hot enough here in Kentucky (yet) for a squirrel to feel like this, but no doubt the Florida and Georgia squirrels feel overheated already.
My daughter and her husband chose some unconventional music for their wedding in 2006. I remember in particular that one song came from “Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.” But when it comes to unconventional wedding songs and dances, this selection, from a couple named the Brubakers, takes the cake! The video has been on YouTube for nearly two years, but it’s still worth watching, and since June is the traditional month for weddings, it seemed appropriate to post it now. I wonder if Sir Mix-A-Lot has seen this?
Today — this hour, in fact — marks one year since my mother passed away. My, how time has flown since then. The whole family is aware of this anniversary, and we’re observing it with our own moments of silence. If you want to see the pictures from her memorial service again, click on this link.
The past year has also been a big learning experience for Leive and I, and I’m now thinking of creating a webpage that will share the high points of what I learned. I will call it “Secrets to Success in Life,” or something like that. The latest learning experience happened last Friday. When we were at the Pre-Paid Legal convention last March, we met Bobby Diggs, a very successful associate from Virginia (Rank: Silver Executive Director, meaning he’s earning a six-figure income in this business). Last week, Bobby was traveling around in Kentucky. You might be amused to know that he likes it here because he needed to gain a few pounds, and Kentucky food does that for him! He also told me he loves lumpias (Philippine egg rolls), so Leive will have to make some, the next time he’s in town. Anyway, Bobby agreed to lead a business meeting at the house of a friend of mine, Alfonso Ferguson. We invited some prospects to come and see what Pre-Paid Legal has to offer, but none showed up. Thus, we had a top-heavy situation where nine business associates were in Alfonso’s living room, four of them high-ranking in the business, but there were no potential customers or future associates! Rather than declare the trip a waste, Bobby admitted that it’s hard to get people to go anywhere besides the movies on a Friday night, and spent the next two and a half hours teaching us some of the things he has learned from the business over the years. In other words, we got a free training session.
If I do post any of the notes I took last Friday, I’ll just use generic tips that don’t strictly apply to business, so everyone can benefit from them. Like how philosophy controls attitude, attitude controls actions, and actions control results.
You can always count on the Middle East for new crackpot conspiracy theories. Here’s the latest: Pepsi must be a Zionist plot, because the name of the drink stands for “Pay Every Penny to Save Israel.” Here’s a link to the story:
Muslim Cleric: “Pepsi Is Zionist Plot”
You could have fooled me. A better case can be made for Pepsi backing Barack Obama. Yesterday I saw the current Pepsi logo on a sign, in front of the country store I drive past on the way to work every day, and at first I thought it was the Obama logo sideways:
Pepsi logo.
Obama logo.
When I heard that the cleric was from Egypt, I checked to make sure he wasn’t the same cleric who recommended two years ago that women should breast-feed male co-workers, to turn the workplace into a new kind of family (see my message from June 13, 2007). I also Googled the history of Pepsi. On this About.com page I learned that Pepsi was invented in 1893, and given its name in 1898. A full half century before 1948, when the modern state of Israel was founded. I suppose the inventor of Pepsi could have supported Theodore Herzl’s Zionist movement, which got started in 1897, but it’s not bloody likely.
The summer solstice, the longest day of the year, arrived yesterday, so it no longer just feels like summer — it is summer. I understand that over in England, a crowd of 30,000 Druids and neopagans went to Stonehenge, because that famous monument was set up for celebrations on that day. Of course, neopagans, wiccans, etc., like to have us believe that their religion is the oldest of all, when much of their teachings and practices were invented in our lifetime, so I’m wondering if the summer solstice crowds were anywhere near as large in the old days when all Britons were pagans, more than two thousand years ago?
While it’s warmer than Leive and I like it, the weather is quite tolerable for us, since we are used to worse in Florida and the Philippines. Today and yesterday, for example, the high temperature was around 88 degrees, so I was able to mow our lawn, while family and friends in other states, and my co-workers in the office, were sweltering in the heat. I still think we’re the lucky ones, in regard to that. In fact, here in Kentucky it does seem appropriate to begin summer on June 21. It doesn’t in Florida, where they can have days with 90+ degrees before April is over. In the past I have joked that Florida has four seasons, too: early summer, high summer, late summer and next summer!
I’ll finish with a funny list I heard on the radio this morning:
The Top Five Signs That Summer Is Here:
5. Hard-to-understand wind chill factors are replaced with hard-to-understand SPFs.
4. Flood Warnings are replaced with wildfire warnings.
3. Men in shorts.
2. You go to the movies because the theater has a fabulous air conditioning system.
And the number one sign that summer is here:
Nobody gives you funny looks when you shout “Marco!”
Recently in an online forum I was asked the following question:
The shooting at the holocaust museum (6/10/2009) in Washington DC has [news] people saying that things like a bad economy stress out misfits who act out their hatreds and also stresses out others who find themselves looking for a scapegoat, and that Jews are historically chosen as scapegoats.
Why Jews, in your opinion?
I thought you’d like to see my response; I may repost it on a new webpage later.
Dear ****,
Sorry I took so long to respond. I’ve been composing my thoughts because I’ve seen people try to answer this question before, and I want to do at least as well as they did. Ben Franklin once said that the only two sure things in life are death and taxes, but anti-Semitism is a third one. I think Mr. Franklin left that out because he lived during the Enlightenment, and during that time, anti-Jewish prejudice wasn’t as bad as it had been in previous centuries. This gave many Jews the idea that if they assimilated into the dominant cultures around them, and kept their Jewish customs at home, they would eventually be accepted as equals. It didn’t happen, though, which is why we’re having this discussion now.
1. First of all, **** is right. I have come to the conclusion over the years that anti-Semitism is a mental disorder. All the anti-Semites I have ever met had one mental problem or another. Often they’re sexually dysfunctional as well. Nor is this a new phenomenon; I’ve read that Adolf Hitler only had one testicle. Therefore if you hate Jews, it’s safe to say that you’ve got something wrong in your upper story, and maybe something wrong in your lower story, too.
2. A lot of it also has to do with jealousy, too. Where tolerated, Jews have been successful. Their emphasis on clean living and getting a good education virtually guarantees it. That’s part of the reason why they’re so often found in white-collar jobs like doctors, lawyers and bankers. This also explains why they’re on lists of great achievers, like winners of the Nobel prizes, when they have never made up a large percentage of the human race.
It seems to be a part of human nature to tear down people who are more successful than you are. When the Black Death hit Europe, for example, Jews didn’t suffer as badly as Christians because they bathed regularly, and that gave some Christians the idea that they had made a deal with the Devil to keep the plague away from their homes, or that they had poisoned the wells of Christians.
I’m not a fisherman, so I don’t know if this is true, but once I heard that if you catch a crab and put it in a basket, you have to cover the opening to keep it from escaping. However, if you put two or more crabs in the same basket, you can leave the cover off, because if a crab tries to climb out, another will reach over and pull it back. How much they are like people when they do that! Nobody is willing to blame themselves, if they are not successful. It is always easier (and more comfortable) to cut down somebody else, than it is to get off the couch and fix your own problems. The same attitude pops up in every election, when candidates play the class warfare card. Here’s my response to them: “Once you’ve gotten rid of the rich, who is going to provide jobs for us? Have you ever worked for someone who is poorer than you? I tried it once, and that job lasted for less than a month, because he could not pay me!”
For a personal example, a few months ago, my wife and I got started building a business with Pre-Paid Legal Services. It gives us a chance to help a lot of people improve their lives, and we’re starting to make some good money from it; the compensation plan is better than what I’ve seen anywhere else. However, not everyone is going to join just because we’re doing well. Most of the people we approach with the business will say they don’t have time, or they don’t have money–excuses for staying poor. Last week I got an e-mail from a leader in the business who said, “I am willing to do today what others won’t do, so I will have tomorrow what others won’t have.” The treatment we’re getting from people full of negativism is starting to remind me of what the Jews must experience, at the hands of people less successful or simply dumber than they are.
3. Third, Jews are the conscience of the human race. When somebody is oppressed, Jews are often the first to speak out against it. They were heavily involved in the civil rights struggle during the 1960s, for example, something today’s black leaders seem to have forgotten. I think a lot of it stems from the laws of the Old Testament. By our standards, the laws of Torah may seem oppressive, but compared with the laws of other civilizations in the bronze age, they were actually progressive. To give another example, there are laws regarding slavery, but some of the laws also minimize the chances of someone being enslaved for life. Likewise, there are laws calling for the cancellation of debts after enough years have passed.
Unlike the other civilizations of ancient times, Jews were not willing to surrender all their freedoms to a “god-king,” And when Israel finally did get a king, there were still prophets like Samuel and Amos around; because of them, the king could not perform priestly functions, like the kings of surrounding nations did, and the king was answerable to them as well as to God. Naturally a tyrant isn’t going to like such a group of people around, who will point out when he’s doing wrong. That would keep him from getting away with many acts of corruption or cruelty.
Jewish mothers sometimes tell their children that, “If you ever forget you’re a Jew, there will always be a Gentile to remind you.” Along that line, if you ever forget you’re human, there will always be a Jew to remind you.
4. Since God picked Abraham and his descendants as a chosen people, Satan has been trying to wipe them out, so that they can’t fulfill God’s ultimate goal of redeeming the world. Thus, we can expect a true enemy of God will be an enemy of both Jews and Christians. Along that line, a few years ago I speculated that Satan picked the Amalekites as an anti-chosen people, to destroy the chosen people, and that today’s Saudis are their descendants. For more on that, read my essay “Satan’s Chosen People?”
There, I hope that helps! I think I also know why 78 percent of American Jews voted for a guy who seems to attract most of today’s anti-Semites, but I’m still working on that question, so please let me try tackling it another time.
I just read a great letter, that was first read by Glenn Beck on his show last week. It summarizes my views on the current political situation quite well (On domestic issues, anyway. The writer said nothing about foreign policy, which usually has more of my attention.). It is worded well enough to explain why I’m no loger a Democrat or Republican, because neither major party is serious about stopping the out-of-control train we have for a federal government. Lately it seems that conservatives like myself are a dwindling minority, so I hope she’s right about a “silent majority” waking up. I also hope it’s not too late to reverse the trends, or else the America of our descendents won’t be anything like the America I grew up in. If you’re like me, you’ll want to spread the word, now that we have a voice.
We are Coming for You!
GLENN BECK: I got a letter from a woman in Arizona. She writes an open letter to our nation’s leadership:
I’m a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone.
Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you’re willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me?
Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:
One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I’m not a racist. This isn’t to be confused with legal immigration.
Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.
Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.
Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say.
Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don’t you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!
Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don’t you start there.
Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don’t trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.
Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why — what do you have against shareholders making a profit?
Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.
Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we’ll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band-Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.
Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let’s have it. Let’s say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try — please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.
Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now.
Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let’s just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I’m busy. I’m busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.
I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending.
From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington. Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don’t want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we’re morons.
We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we’re so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work, pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn’t ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when he will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.
Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don’t care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.
I promised to let everyone know when President Obama does something right (IMHO). So far I can remember two times when I had to keep that promise. The first was last year, when the press was bothering him during a breakfast and he said, “Just let me eat my waffle.” The second was three months ago, when he correctly picked which college basketball team would win the NCAA finals. Now here is the third: He swatted a fly during an interview, and did it so skillfully that some are calling it a “ninja swat.” Here it is, in living color:
What made this so good is that it offended People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), those environmentalist wackos that can never be offended enough. You probably remember them trying to scare away fish from a fishing contest, by beating the water with bamboo poles; encouraging seafood lovers to become vegetarians by calling fish “sea kittens”; and crashing a nice game of cow patty bingo in Lakeland, FL, because they think the cows are offended by it. Yeah, like the cows would rather wait until nobody’s looking to take a dump. </sarc>
Anyway, PETA is calling the fly-swatting incident an “executive insect execution,” and said it would have been better to trap the bug and release it outside. Sure, and is that what most PETA activists do when a fly, ant or cockroach gets into the kitchen at home? Down in Florida we did not have time for niceties like that; we might catch & release a frog or lizard that got in, but with insects it was always an uphill struggle, which the bugs might win in the end. And when ants invaded my Kentucky house last year, I thought it was a good time to quote what Gerard Butler said in “The 300”: “SPARTANS! This is where we fight! This is where they die!” Obviously PETA does not know the difference between a pet and a pest. I suppose they also would have approved of one of the strangest incidents in the first century B.C., Virgil’s funeral for a fly.
In other news, PETA has just recruited Lydia Guevara, the grandaughter of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara, to pose semi-nude for their latest vegetarian ad campaign. Remember those pro-PETA actresses saying, “I’d rather go naked than wear fur?” Same idea here, only the younger Guevara is wearing a bandolier of carrots, and the caption for the ad is, “Join the Vegetarian Revolution.”
Not bad, but I think the T-shirt below is a more accurate way to remember Che’s legacy. I’ve noted elsewhere that he was one of the biggest losers of the twentieth century, and the less people know about him, the more likely they are to think that his shirts and posters look cool.
Finally, yesterday I heard a commentary from Earl Pitts, where he complained about taking his dog to a place called Pet Suites, before going on vacation. I called their kennel in Lexington, before I went to Florida last year, but alas, they only take dogs and cats; no parrots allowed there. Earl thought a hotel was too good for a dog, when all you have to do is put them in a fenced backyard and make sure they get food and water every day. I have learned not to take Earl Pitts seriously; earlier in the week he suggested that he could make the Guantanamo detainees tell us anything we wanted, without waterboarding or any other “enhanced interrogation” techniques, if we get them drunk enough first. Obviously he doesn’t know that a devout Moslem will not drink. Still, he has a point; how many other cultures would let you pamper your pets while you’re out of town?
This ties in with what I wrote nearly two years ago, when Michael Vick was in the news (see my July 26, 2007 entry). One of the differences between successful cultures and unsuccessful ones is the way they treat their animals; cruelty to animals is far more common if the culture is dysfunctional. Along that line, I think both PETA and the terrorists showed what they really think in 2003, when the Palestinians blew up a donkey laden with explosives in Bethlehem, using a cell phone to detonate the charge from a distance. PETA heard about it, and their chairperson, Ingrid Newkirk, sent an angry letter to Yasser Arafat that in effect said, “We don’t care how many Jews you kill, but leave the animals out of it!” Later in the same year, Iraqi terrorists used donkeys to carry rockets, and Jay Leno called that a “weapon of ass destruction.”
By contrast, Judeo-Christian ethics encourages kindness to animals, especially livestock. So where’s the best place in the world for domesticated animals? Right here, in the most advanced countries of the West.
The Xenohistorian Weblog 