The Rants of Anaximenes

There are things on this planet and in our country that truly perplex me. There are customs, beliefs and generally held notions that just astound me, not for just their stupidity or senselessness, but for the sheer numbers of people who revel in their own folly by believing shit that just isn't true.

Fifty-four percent of Americans, for example, believe in psychic healing. Fifty-percent of people in the U.S. believe that ESP is real and 41% believe that possession by the devil is a fact of life. Twenty-eight percent of people in this country read their horoscope daily not as a muse, but to actually plan their lives around the movement of celestial bodies located trillions of miles away.

In an age where access to information has never been easier or more prolific, it seems like we're just getting dumber as a species. The problem is that as information becomes more available, one must examine it carefully with greater skepticism, and be ever vigilant and mindful of its source. Distortion is everywhere. It's as if one could almost assume everything reported in the news is a fabrication, and it must be the opposite that is really true. This has created some preposterous circumstances, driven by the very people who believe in ghosts, witches and the lost city of Atlantis. These are people that have a vote, by the way, which explains a lot about why these preposterous things have become so preposterous.

Preposterous Item #1 - The Senate voted to open the debate on the health care "reform" bill.

Yes, that is what was reported in the news. The Senate mustered 60 votes to open debate on the health care bill. But that is not the whole story. The Senate could have begun debating without the procedural vote, and did not need a super majority to do so. What really happened was that the Senate rules for any potential filibuster were suspended for which the Democrats did need a super majority vote. Now, the only tool that the minority opposition had to defeat this abomination of legislation has been taken away, and the health care bill can now be passed by a simple majority of 51 votes. If anyone doesn't think that the socialist extremists haven't hijacked the will of the people, think again.

In order to win over a final hold-out on the super majority vote, an eleventh hour amendment was inserted into this already onerous bill providing $300-million in additional aid to the New Orleans victims of Katrina. This "persuaded" Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu to fall in behind her party bosses and cast her vote for the resolution. This is procedural graft. Had it come from a lobbyist rather than from the Senate Minority Leader, it would have been illegal as bribery.

While preposterous in itself, it is more preposterous still that no one seems to mind this big-city, good ol' boy, Tammany Hall bullshit politics. The vacillating Rasmussen poll speaks to the lack of clear thinking on the part of the American people over this so-called health care reform bill. Two weeks ago, only 42% favored it. Today, it is forty-seven percent. On September 12th, it was 51%. Intensity is still stronger, however, among those who oppose the push to change the nation’s health care system: 25% Strongly Favor the plan while 39% are Strongly Opposed. The reason for this strong opposition, despite the propaganda that is being largely reported in the press, is that 85% of the American people who have health care insurance benefits are satisfied with them.

Additionally and perhaps more importantly, the number of uninsured in this country goes habitually over-reported at 40-million people, which includes 8-million illegal aliens. The real number of uninsured is closer to something like 18-million, which is merely 6% of the total population, not including illegal aliens who should never have been taken into account in the first place.

And those big, bad insurance companies that are supposedly fucking the American people while stuffing obscene profits into the pockets of their investors? Someone go read their annual stockholder reports. The profit margin of the five largest health care insurance providers was on average 3.3%. Aetna, the nation's largest, was 3.4% last year.

Oh, and speaking of illegal aliens: Surprise!! They really will be covered by this legislation if it passes in its present form. Representative Joe Wilson was right when he yelled, "You lie!" at the President during a speech to Congress in September. Is anyone really surprised? And what happened to Joe for his honesty? He gets censured by the House. What happened to Obama for his lie? It doesn't even get reported in the media. It's no longer preposterous when the President lies. It's more preposterous to think that anything he says might be the truth.

This bill is more than preposterous; it's a disaster. It will socialize one-sixth of the nation's economy. Already teetering on insolvency, private insurance companies will go out of business and the government will be running the system. There will no longer be any profit in advancing medical technology, so medical progress will stagnate. The best and brightest people, as few of them as there are, will seek other pursuits besides medicine, leaving mediocrity to rise to the surface as all medical practitioners become government employees. As computed by the Senate's own Congressional Budget Office, the cost of health care will substantially increase. This will drive the need to ration medicine and medical treatment while the price tag to the country becomes unsustainable, layered on top of a national debt that today is already the highest since World War II.

One need only look at the state of Medicare, Medicaid and the VA Hospital system to see what will happen to health care once the Washington bureaucrats are in control of it. One need only look at Canada and the UK to see what a government-run health care system will be like twenty years from now. And what escapes most people's attention is that this bill doesn't even go into effect until Obama reaches the safety of his presumed second term. What does that tell you?

Damn near half of the American people are too stupid to see what a bunch of rich, legislative elitists and socialist ideologues are doing to the rest of us. Too bad horoscopes aren't real, or 28% of the American public who believe in them might be able to better warn these other dunderheads what is about to happen if this preposterous bill makes it into law.

Preposterous Item #2 - No one has put a stop to the Somalia pirates.

A bunch of snot-nosed, odoriferous, hubristic, testosterone-laden criminals from a shit-hole country like Somalia are raiding ships on the high seas, and we haven't blown their piss-ant little asses out of the goddamn water. This really makes me want to vomit.

The liberal media is painting this story like these outlaws are somehow just protecting themselves from other countries that are fishing or offloading their toxic waste onto the African continental shelf in Somalia's sovereign waters. From an Associated Press report:

They were ordinary Somali fishermen who, at first, took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a “tax” on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coast Guard of Somalia. One of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, explains that their motive is “to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters. . . . We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish, and dump waste, and carry weapons in our seas.” Author Johann Hari notes that, while none of this makes hostage-taking justifiable, the “pirates” have the overwhelming support of the local population for a reason. The independent Somalia news site WardherNews conducted the best research we have on what ordinary Somalis are thinking. It found that 70 percent “strongly support the piracy as a form of national defense of the country’s territorial waters.” One country's pirates are another country's Coast Guard.

You gotta be fucking kidding me. Is anyone buying this crap? This Islamic country is full of people too stupid, too primitive, and too barbaric to govern themselves. It has been in a state of civil war or complete anarchy since the British left there in 1960. Ruled by warlords and renegade militia since 1991, there was no official government in Somalia until 2004. This so-called government just appealed to the UN for intervention admitting that it was on the verge of collapse. Mind you, this is a country with fewer square miles than the state of Texas and fewer inhabitants than the population of New York City. If it wanted to, Rhode Island could probably beat the crap out of it in a war.

You'll recall that in April, an American cargo ship captain was held hostage by pirates in a lifeboat off the coast of Somalia before U.S. Navy commandos freed him in an operation that resulted in the deaths of three of his captors.

Subsequently, Obama said the United States "remains resolved to halt the rise of piracy in the region." And he vowed "to work with America's allies to prevent future attacks, go after the pirates when they do occur, and make sure those responsible are held accountable for their crimes." That very same U.S.-flagged cargo ship held hostage last April was attacked again two weeks ago.

Somalia-based pirates are currently holding 13 vessels and crew hostage for ransom. Spain just paid $3.6-million to have 36 hostages released. Somalia pirates are also holding a retired British couple, kidnapped from their sail boat last month. And just yesterday, Somalia pirates captured a 300,000 ton oil taker taking a crew of 28 aboard hostage. The tanker was bound for the U.S. and was flying the Grecian flag. Last I heard, Greece, Spain and Britain were allies. We're attacked a second time and we do nothing. Did we "go after the pirates"? Have we "[made] sure those responsible are being held accountable for their crimes"?

Nope. It was just more bullshit from our fucking head of state; just another speech and just another sound bite for the six-o'clock news. This is embarrassing, and nauseatingly preposterous.

Preposterous Item #3 - 9/11 suspects will plead "not guilty."

I'm not sure with whom I am most angry: the shitheads that perpetrated the deadliest attack on American soil, or Attorney General Eric Holder for announcing his decision to award five September 11th conspirators, including alleged master-mind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, full rights of American citizens at a federal trial.

Holder's performance at his November 13th press conference was embarrassing:

Q: What would happen if the terrorists were acquitted?
A: “Failure is not an option.”
Editorial comment: You fucking moron. You can't predict what a jury will or won't do. You have placed these animals in a system of presumed innocence until guilt can be proved. You are asking federal prosecutors in New York to make the case against five conspirators, in a circus atmosphere, with an uncertain chain of evidence gathered on a battlefield, under a cloud of torture allegations. Acquittal is absolutely a possibility.

Q: Can you point to a single case in U.S. history in which an enemy combatant caught on the battlefield was tried in civilian court?
A: “I'll have to look at that.”
Editorial comment: In other words, you hadn't looked at that before you made your fucking decision. You stupid son of a bitch, this was a matter of "Jihad" - Holy War - by the admission of the very people who perpetrated this act of of violence. This matter belongs in a military tribunal, not in a civil process that might be applied to the trial of a mafia kingpin.

Q:Would Osama bin Laden, if caught, need to be read his Miranda rights by U.S. soldiers?
A:“...it would depend....”
Editorial comment: On what? How the fuck does a Saudi national on foreign soil possibly - in the name of Christ - qualify for protection under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the United States Constitution? What fucking law school did you go to, anyway?

Holder's performance was not only embarrassing, but also offensive. As it turns out, Holder actually never consulted with his boss (that would be the President) or the Secretary of Defense (who oversees military justice) before he made his decision. This is hubris in the extreme, and also a testament to the weakness of Obama's leadership in keeping his team members in check - or even in selecting people qualified to hold the position for which they are selected.

Preposterous Item #4 - "Islam is a peaceful religion."


While shouting the Muslim declaration “Allahu Akbar” (God is great), Maj. Nidal Hasan executed twelve fellow soldiers and a civilian, and wounded thirty more people at a Ft. Hood shooting rampage on November 5th.

Obama decided to caution the American people "against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts,” in precisely the same way that he did when he said that Cambridge police "acted stupidly" in arresting a black Harvard professor last summer. Obama's comment was as hypocritical as it was preposterous.

As it turns out, Hasan had been under surveillance for exchanging email with a Muslim cleric on the terror watch list. Anwar al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen and called Hasan "a hero" on his website, was the spiritual leader of a Virginia mosque that Hasan attended. Awkaki knew three of the 9/11 hijackers, and Hasan recently exchanged e-mails with him.

In the mean time, on November 12th - the same day that Hasan is formerly charged with thirteen counts of premeditated murder - Federal prosecutors moved to seize several U.S. assets controlled by entities linked to an Iranian bank that has been identified as a key financier of Tehran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and possibly acts of terrorism. The seized assets include a mosque and Islamic school in Maryland.

Like the old saying, "where there's smoke, there's fire," if a religious affiliation continuously manifests itself as violent, then it is violent, and Muslim violence is everywhere. Never mind the 17,000 people who have died as a result of suicide bombings in Iraq alone since 2003, Muslim violence routinely hits the news, particularly by Muslim men against their daughters, far away from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq:

• A 20 year-old woman was strangled with a boot lace, stuffed into a suitcase and buried in a back garden of a London suburb. Her father was found guilty of ordering his daughter slain for falling in love with the wrong man in a so-called "honor killing," one of more than 100 homicides under investigation in Britain, home to 1.8 million Muslims.


• A 21 year-old woman was shot to death in St. Petersberg by hit men hired by the girl's Muslim father for wearing mini-skirts instead of traditional Muslim attire for women.


• A 25 year-old Georgia women was strangled to death by her Muslim father because she was about to disgrace her family by wanting out of her arranged marriage and asking for a divorce. He told investigators that he killed her as a "matter of honor."


• In Dallas, two sisters, ages 17 and 18, were shot to death by their Muslim cab-driving father because he was upset over their dating activities.


• A Saudi Arabian man cut out the tongue of his 17 year-old daughter and burned her to death after finding out that she had converted to Christianity. He was not prosecuted for his crime.


• A Muslim father in Iraq strangled his 17 year-old daughter after he learned that she had fallen in love with a British solider. Her brothers helped him kill her. He was released from police custody.


• A 20-year woman and her boyfriend's mother were run over by a car driven by her Muslim father for being "too westernized" and not living "according to Iraqi values." The attack occurred in Peoria, Arizona.

Violence in families is nothing new, but these cases are borne of a dogmatic belief system rooted in the Islamic faith. At least the Christians stopped doing this kind of shit sometime around the Renaissance. Muslims continue to rage war against all those who would oppose their values, ideals and beliefs, including, it seems, teenage girls.

It's a secret question that is so radioactive, most in government and the press dare not even pose it, let alone answer: Is Islam inherently violent? In the days following 9/11, President Bush assured America and the world that Islam was a "religion of peace" and that the violent followers of Osama Bin Laden had twisted the true Muslim faith. Acting on this belief, President Bush and other Western leaders sent troops to the Middle East.

This "understanding" of Islam is based not on fact, but instead on equal parts wishful thinking and Islamic deceit. Islam is a not a great faith inherently peaceful. It is a form of totalitarianism, a belief system that orders its adherents not to baptize all nations, but to conquer and subdue them. Islam is a violent, expansionary ideology that seeks the subjugation and destruction of other faiths, cultures and systems of government.

Westerners have been indoctrinated to believe it is only the Jihadists that are extremists. They are not. They are the mainstream. Our misguided sense of political correctness keeps us from asking the question, let alone engaging in the debate. The more tolerant we are of the kind of violence that Islam brings with it, the more preposterous the situation becomes. And the less surprised I'll be when the suicide bombers start walking into American cafes and shopping centers, far away from Tel Aviv and Baghdad.

Preposterous Item #5 - "Go green."


I spent considerable time laying out the case for this sham called Global Warming in my April 14, 2007 blog Global Warming (And It's All Your Fucking Fault), so I won't restate my case except to say that we are now in our tenth year of cooler Arctic temperatures, and it is colder there today than it was in the 1940s. The Greenland ice sheet actually thickened by 2 inches per year in the decade 1993 - 2003.

We are in a cooling trend, not a warming trend, and the further in time we go from An Inconvenient Truth, the more evidence there will be that Al Gore is full of shit.

But have you noticed that the language of "Global Warming" has now become "Climate Change," and we hear more about "going green" and "saving the planet?" How utterly preposterous it is that the issue of climate control - or lack of it - has become a political issue. It isn't. It's a scientific issue and anytime politicians start professing to understand the science behind the data, it's time to start questioning their motives.

Global warming - when it exists - is not due to human contribution of carbon dioxide (CO2). CO2 is not a pollutant, but a trace gas representing 1/2 of one-percent of the total atmosphere. Humans are responsible for only 5% of CO2 output on this planet. Scientists know that temperature impacts CO2 levels, not the other way around. CO2 levels do not drive temperature change. Oscillations in temperatures are not anything close to catastrophic given the Earth's climatological history.

Global Warming is in fact the greatest deception in the history of science since the days when people were put to death for professing the Earth revolves around the Sun. We are wasting time and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification, in the same way we believed, 30 years ago, that global cooling was the biggest threat:

"It is a cold fact: the Global Cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for ten thousand years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance; the survival of ourselves, our children, our species...." - Lowell Ponte, The Cooling, 1976

Global Cooling was bullshit then just as Global Warming is bullshit now. And belief in this preposterous idea is expensive:

• According to Money Magazine, building a home as "green" as you can go would add between 20%-30% to total construction costs and would take more than ten years to provide any return on the additional investment. The average homeowner flips their house every seven years. Do the math.


• For two years, the city of Durango, Colorado, bought electricity for all its government buildings from wind farms. The City Council ended that program this year, reverting to electricity derived from coal-burning plants and saving the cash-strapped city about $45,000.


• A wind energy project in California received four separate $10 million state tax credits even though it will generate less electricity than projects getting one-tenth the $40 million subsidy.


• September of 2009, Grail Research Poll of 600 consumers found that 93% said that a company being perceived as green was important to their purchasing decision, but 85% didn't buy green products because they cost more than their conventional counterparts.

Well, if climate change, going green and saving the planet won't work in the free marketplace, that can only mean one thing: more government intervention, as if the government and its preposterous environmental laws haven't already done enough damage. This country hasn't built a refinery since Jimmy Carter was president. No new orders for nuclear power plants have been approved by the government since the 1970s. The last nuclear plant to be completed went on line in 1996.

Yet, the United States has become ever more dependent upon imported or foreign oil. A mere thirty years ago, 28% of the oil consumed in the United States was imported. Today nearly 60% of the oil utilized and consumed in the United States is imported from other countries, as is 10% of our gasoline. Coal fired energy accounts for 50% of the nation's electrical power, but if the environmentalist have their way, coal fired electrical plants will become a thing of the past because of this bullshit concept of a "carbon footprint," and we'll start importing our electricity as well.

This is all a preposterous set of circumstances. "Go green" is all about "Getting fucked." Don't think for a minute this is about saving the planet. It's about controlling your pocketbook, and a preposterous, monstrous lie.