Let's see:
Week beginning 11/18: Jeep blew radiator hose and needed repairs...and the worst part is the Jeep fix still isn't finished. I've got to flush out the heater core, but I don't want to do that when it's below 40 outside. It's supposed to be warmer by the end of the week, so I'm hoping to get that done in a few days.
Week beginning 11/11: Wisdom teeth decided it was time to hurt like a mofo
Week beginning 11/4: bad case of gastroenteritis laid me low for three days
Week beginning 10/28: miscellanious stupidity, mostly anxiety attacks
Week beginning 10/21: cleaning binge
Week beginning 10/14: abortive return to the workforce, IttyBit dying
Meanwhile, there's everything else to do. *sigh*
* * *
So did you hear that Sandra Fluke was nominated to be Time's
Bortz.
You know she was only nominated because Rush Limbaugh called her a slut.
Well, we're only a hop, skip, and a jump from Barack Hussein Obama being Time's permanent free-floating person of the year, anyway. The honor has long since become a meaningless, tin-plated paean to whoever is on the top of the leftism heap.
Kind of like the Nobel Peace prize, only worth less. (Or "worthless" since you could, at least, hawk the medal--it's gold, after all.)
* * *
The collapse of Greece has been staved off for another few months. Whenever anyone predicts that "This time, it's really gonna happen," they are assuming that the established rules will be followed.
Not so.
This time, as Denninger blockquotes:
In the latest bid to keep the 17-nation euro intact, the ministers cut the rates on bailout loans, suspended interest payments for a decade, gave Greece more time to repay and engineered a Greek bond buyback. The country was also cleared to receive a 34.4 billion-euro ($44.7 billion) loan installment in December. Greek bonds rose and the euro reached a three-week high on the accord.So it's like the ministers just said, "Hey, remember what we said about those spending cuts? You can forget them, because we know if we actually force you into default we're all going to be swinging from lampposts by the close of business."
It's kind of like the opposite of a loan shark. "Hey, Louie unnerstands that you ain't got the money to pay him back right now, so's we're here to tell you that he's gonna stop chargin' you interest fer the time bein' and give you another month to pay him your next installment. Further, this here is Greta, Louie's masseuse, an' she's gonna give you a nice massage to help you decompress. See?"
This works out very well for nearly everyone. The bankers and politicians keep their cushy, high-paying jobs with all the perks and no one has to be lynched.
...though the hoi polloi, suffering with 25% inflation and no paychecks and-and-and, end up freezing in the dark. Well, let them eat cake!
* * *
The natural consequence of re-electing Barack Hussein Obama to the White House is that your 401k is going to become part of Social Security. Sorry; that's how it is. Your 401k, your IRA, whatever privately-held retirement instruments you have--all of 'em are going to be nationalized.
They're not just going to "change the tax benefits" as the article alleges; the government will seize control of them, one way or another. Of course it won't be sold that way, oh no! Under the guise of making retirement "safer", law will be emplaced that requires fund managers etc to invest in government debt instruments rather than stocks, commodities, etc. The rules will be pretty strict (tighter than they are now) and basically you won't be able to touch a dime of your money until you reach retirement age.
Don't doubt me on this. Americans' retirement savings represent a huge pool of money and the D.C. politicians spend their nights salivating over it, trying to figure out how to get control of it without being lynched. This is going to be the next big push from our government, and it's going to happen before 2016.
* * *
Democrats want Jesse Jackson Jr's replacement to be black.
A couple of other items related to race and politics caught our attention over the Thanksgiving weekend. First, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., an Illinois Democrat and CBC member, resigned from Congress "amid federal ethics investigations and a diagnosis of mental illness," as the Chicago Tribune reports. That sets up a special election to fill the vacancy:No, we can't have an actual democratic process get in the way of Democrats keeping control of a district.Some Democrats quickly offered to broker a nominee to avoid several African-American contenders splitting the vote in the heavily Democratic and majority black 2nd Congressional District, which could allow a white candidate to win.This passes with neither editorial comment nor a disapproving quote. It's hard to imagine the same absence of reaction if a group of pols offered "to broker a nominee" with the goal of preventing a black candidate from winning a white-majority district.
*sigh*
This is Illinois, so I know there won't be a Republican elected in my district.
* * *
So now Santorum is saying he may run in 2016.
Earth to GOP: stop letting people run for the Presidency multiple times. This is why you keep losing elections.
Bob Dole ran in 1996 because "it was his turn". He lost. John McCain ran in 2008 because "it was his turn". He lost. Mitt Romney ran in 2012 because "it was his turn". He lost.
SEE A PATTERN???
Every one of these asshats--every last damned one of them!--failed to win nomination in a previous election. Dole lost the nomination to Ronald Reagan in 1980--that's after he failed to be elected as Gerald Ford's VP in 1976. McCain failed of nomination in 2000. Mitt Romney failed of nomination in 2008.
Yet they kept running, and kept running, until they got to be the front man and--surprise, surprise!--they lost the general election.
What makes anyone think someone who can't win the party nomination on his first try can win the general election? If he can't even inspire the party faithful to vote for him in the primary, what makes anyone think he can do it in the general election?
"Well," you say, "Ronald Reagan failed nomination in 1976." It's true. Ronald Reagan was also a true conservative and the GOP elite was run by the country club RINO Republicans. Then, as now, they couldn't stomach the idea of an actual conservative being in the top slot. Further, though, he was challenging an incumbent, something that almost never succeeds. Although Ford had been President for only a little while, he was still The Man. It's very difficult to take the nomination from a sitting President, no matter how lackluster he might be.
Another example: Ted Kennedy challenging Carter for the nomination in 1980. That didn't work, either, even though Carter was a SCOAMF.
So what we get out of the GOP is a bunch of RINO-approved moderates who can't win any fucking elections because the independents see "Democrat" versus "Democrat Lite".
"Santorum is conservative!" The hell he is. He's just as much for big government as George W. Bush is, Mr. "I signed the largest increase in funding for the Department of Education since Carter created the fuckin' thing". Santorum may be socially conservative, but that doesn't fix anything, not when the US government is spending 150% of revenues, playing games to hide the fact that they're not doing squat to stop it, and planning to increase taxes even more ASAP.
But one may as well shout at the wind, I suppose. The GOP isn't even going to try to rein in spending--all the while making a big noise about how much they are trying--and the deficits will remain the same size, and the debt will continue to expand asymptotically, until finally the whole f-ing thing comes crashing down in a smoldering ruin. And then whatever congresscritters manage to survive that and avoid dancing Danny Deever are going to act all dumbfounded as if they had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
*sigh*
So I think the watchword for post-collapse America must be "hang all the sons of bitches, and hang 'em again just to make sure!"
* * *
Meanwhile, however, I continue to attempt to live in the ominously creaking structure that is the Obama Nation, which means getting more applications turned in today. I need to have some kind of income.
What a mess.