Posted by Haltse on November 25, 2008 – 11:24 am
“Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads”
The industrial revolution is still spinning. We’re stuck for the most part with a work week, physically showing up and covering the costs of maintaining ourselves in food and transport outside of the house. For many of us it makes little to no sense given that our jobs are hunting ideas on the antipodes of our mental planes ( oh I just won a Private Eye Pseud award:P)
So the big plans from our new Saviour in chief? Newer versions of the same old ways. Much as I dislike state mandated jobs I can at lease express a preference for the kind of boondoggles that I like. Where’s a decent broadband plan? Where’s the “iPhone in each pocket” speech? We’re so in love with tangible structures that even if you could prove 100% that schools could be run remotely , cheaper with higher grades and none of the lose of their precious “socialization I doubt we’d ever see such a thing. This looks more like a way to keep on living as we have rather than looking forward to something that may look like change:)
My usual reservations about the energy issue is that mandating technology or favoring it with tax policy can kill off truly innovative stuff. There’s a reason we have ethanol in gas and it’s not because it’s good for anything other than those that happen to grow the raw material.
How about getting rid of all the regulatory crap that has us traveling to “beg” permission to modify or uses the items as a trip reduction method?
Now were did we put all those engineering graduates?
Posted by Haltse on November 23, 2008 – 3:19 pm
Who is always in charge?
Why is that entity never to blame?
Why is the cure for the failure of of that entity an excuse to give them more money and power? Really really puzzling. The reason I need to write things like this is I’m getting worse at discussing them because it’s hard , really hard to get it across in person. I’m tired of being in MPG or environmental debates with people whose cars are less efficient than mine.
It’s a bS argument because it’s nowhere near as simple as they make it out to be. Let’s tax fuel more so people will use less of it. After all poor people don’t have cars ,fuck em. That’s not my experience with my less well off rural friends that can’t afford much in the way of efficient cars and end up driving the motoring dregs. Still it beats walking four miles to store or taking kid to sitter, dr etc.
Person is on min wage/ tips. Fuel prices = higher food prices say another 10-12 a week. That’s a couple of meals , few hours sitting or something useful that a person working 40-60 hours a week may want. Only ear thhis shit from people with jobs that could readily afford it.. you know I wouldn’t mind paying.. well fucking do so. Save $1 a gallon each time you fuel and donate it to something tangible to help the people ,you’re so eager to take money out their pockets , rather than hurting others to feel good about yourself. Sadly no we’ll take that money and give it to state to make the Soylent Wheels for our slow backslide into steam. I’ve driven a lot of cars made by nations rather than private companies and boy do they suck! Put it this way I’d not be surprised if they added in flotation devices as a requirement from the Senator from Massachusets.
LewRockwell.com Blog: That Private Jet Non-Issue, and Political Thinking
I am sure that Henry Waxman truly believes he can run an auto company or any other company when, in truth, he only can run his mouth. One reason that Congress really wants this bailout is that people like Chris Dodd and Waxman want their chance to be acting CEOs and show everyone how to build “green cars.” Of course, anything which is built under their direction will be horrible, an overpriced and heavily subsidized piece of garbage that no people in their right minds would buy.
Posted by Haltse on November 19, 2008 – 9:55 am
Yeah we really need another President that believes any means necessary to hold onto central power is justifiable. 
That protectionist tariffs are a good thing and that arresting people that oppose you peacefully was valid. How can one get such a great reputation in history for just the words and not the actions?
Can Lincoln’s playbook help Obama in the years ahead? – CNN.com
# There are several similarities between the two politicians
# Historians say Obama can use Lincoln’s strategies to help him lead the country
Posted by Haltse on November 7, 2008 – 2:12 pm
I hate the cars that states make. Think about it Yugo, Lada, Skoda , Trabant and anything British Leyland, Austin put out are not known for anything other than their abject crapness. Some of these have gone onto great things after being privatised though. To be told that by people that have probably flown more carbon unhappy miles in their campaign than most of us will in our lives is equally frustrating.
Here’s what annoys me. These companies DO already make efficient cars but people will not BUY them. They don’t need to retool much. They make world cars, GM and FORD make successful small vehicles that work quite well in every other country apart from the US because we all know that a good anti pollution measure in CA , in one big town in CA ,is valid for the rest of the nation We had that crap in the UK were the short distances we traveled and the ambient temperatures made our cars pollute more with the early catalytic converters but it’s the thought that counts.
Transcript: ‘I’m going to confront this economic crisis,’ Obama says – CNN.com
I would like to see the administration do everything it can to accelerate the retooling assistance that Congress has already enacted. In addition, I have made it a high priority for my transition team to work on additional policy options to help the auto industry adjust, weather the financial crisis, and succeed in producing fuel-efficient cars here in the United States of America.
Posted by Haltse on November 4, 2008 – 10:08 pm
I’m lucky that I never had a horse in this race I find both sides odious. I find the propositions can be even worse. People that claim to be religious would rather spend 73 million dollars on making sure other people have less rights than they want to enjoy.
Preachers that get up daily and tell us that $20 a month saves a life , you know that life is life one could go as far to call them pro-life crowd? Yep rather than having two men or women be recognised by the state ( big problems with that but going to ignore that for now;) ) they would condemn 3.65 million people to an early death just to stop two people expressing a civil commitment. What the fuck is wrong with you sick bastards? That 73 million was just for the CA marriage amendment by the time you add in the other states it’s quite a bit higher. That’s pretty much evil right there. In some ways it’s a good thing we substituted naked aggression for the paper substitute because they really would act out their malevolent fantasies again and again as they have done throughout history. We call this progress;) Anyway to a post from a rather good UK blog that captures in many more words than Mencken did.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
H. L. Mencken
Now over to.
Samizdata.net
Many will find the glee of the statist left over the next few days and weeks hard to endure, but to be honest I have been walking around with a grin all day. Finally the era of gradualism is over and the masks are going to come off. The USA has voted for statism and it is going to get exactly what it voted for at a juncture in history where it will very quickly be impossible to hide the cost of those votes.
Obama is not the start of a new era, he is the death knell for the old one.
Posted by Haltse on October 13, 2008 – 6:23 pm
I’ve argued with people in the past that to use a quote is agree to the defense of it’s inclusion. I’ve never been amused by those trying to wiggle out of a comment by stating it’s not their words so .. Cough BS. So while I don’t agree on the latter paragraph as being accidental, e.g the military picking up where the system failed since I believe that it’s there to benefit from such, the rest is pretty much what the US looks like from here.
America the Banana Republic: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com
Now ask yourself another question. Has anybody resigned, from either the public or the private sectors (overlapping so lavishly as they now do)? Has anybody even offered to resign? Have you heard anybody in authority apologize, as in: “So very sorry about your savings and pensions and homes and college funds, and I feel personally rotten about it”? Have you even heard the question being posed? O.K., then, has anybody been fired? Any regulator, any supervisor, any runaway would-be golden-parachute artist? Anyone responsible for smugly putting the word “derivative” like a virus into the system? To ask the question is to answer it
Posted by Haltse on October 4, 2008 – 11:52 am
If you had asked me to write down 3 main criticism’s of Bill Maher’s movie, Religulous, that would be brought up in negative reviews number one on my list would be
“Well you’re atheism is just a religion anyway “
I get that one often. The need to drag people to their level is one of the ideas that Bill O Reilly espouses , you can’t justify bad action by pointing out another’s bad to make your point . I didn’t say O’ Reilly manages to walk that walk but it’s an ideal, kinda like the Christ myth on which the followers of both = Major Fail. Most negative reviews reference this sentiment and here’s an example From Glen Whipp at LA.com which neatly encapsulates the form of dementia.
“…thought is absent in “Religulous,” as is imagination. The movie is Maher’s monument to Maher, as ugly and hateful as anything he decries in the film.
Yep Bill Maher is the equivalent of crusaders, suicide bombers and those that rape children. Sounds like a psychotic* idea. A movie about ideas, EVEN , if you believe it to be a bad movie is not as hateful as the wanton destruction of sentient beings by blowing up families in a market because you’re invisible friend tells you too?
I call bullshit because this guy is as deserving of the phrase “and then there’s this asshole” as anyone claiming to be a critic.
Movies Maher ridiculous in ‘Religulous’
*the term is also used in a more general sense to refer to mental disorders in which mental functioning is sufficiently impaired as to interfere grossly with the patients capacity to meet the ordinary demands of life.
Posted by Haltse on September 21, 2008 – 11:40 pm
Kinda worked this one out prior, way prior, and my opinon on it matters not an iota to the end result but it’s cute that he thinks we have a choice.
A Time To Choose by Michael S. Rozeff
This is a time to look at matters carefully and decide: Do you favor free markets or do you favor the State? Do you think that these failures are failures of the free market or do you think they are failures of the State?
Posted by Haltse on September 8, 2008 – 9:52 am
This line from an article, front page, main story , about the Large Hadron Collider annoys me. Firstly Mainly as it has to justify why research is useful to us which is kinda scary. We’re reading this new SOLELY as a result of our research and understanding about how most of the ‘verse holds together in a tolerably predictable manner. Can they please maybe deal with us all becoming Fannie Mae stock holders? K thx bai.
CNN.com – Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News
Skeptics fear it will lead to the Earth’s demise
Posted by Haltse on September 2, 2008 – 5:05 pm
This Saturday I attended one of my meetup groups. Actually it’s about the last meetup group I make an effort to attend since it’s really great to hang around with non theists and libertarian types. I don’t play well with other atheists , specially those that align themselves as humanists. Oh hell surely I can’t be against humanists? Well ok, maybe I should have said most of them.
Here’s my objection.
Republican god is mean , insane and listening to his words proves that they are not fit to lead.
Democratic god is nicer, rational and while not the best situation it’s possible to support someone for president that talks with invisible men. This is an inconsistent view for people that claim a reality based view to hold. Oh well I’ll return to that in part 2.
While Hungary was never as hard line as some of the other countries in the Soviet bloc, even trying to get out from under them in the mid 50’s, the conditions were still atrocious in relation to the USA at the time. What follows not an exhaustive list, it’s anecdotal from a guy, Tames Birilov, that was born there and was there, –really- there with a chunk of the wall to prove it at the time it fell down.
Read More »
Posted by Haltse on September 1, 2008 – 6:55 pm
The Republican party are falling over themselves to point out that this week they should be Americans first re the weather system on the gulf coast. I’m sorry .. no. YOU DON’T. It seems to me that suggesting that you have the best interests of the nation at heart yet , are fit to lead, possess the moral authority to tell us how you will use the money stolen from us for our own good. Maybe they should be more Republican because anything else suggests that even they don’t buy their own line of bullshit.
Posted by Haltse on August 29, 2008 – 12:11 am
Thankfully others suffered this so I didn’t need to. Way back when he first announced I read his platform ,seriously. Then wrote a letter. I got back an invitation to send money and NO response to my inquiry. I left a socialist state to come to a socialist state with nicer teeth 
Hit & Run: 2008 Convention > The Shorter Barack Obama – Reason Magazine
Government cannot solve all our problems. Just the ones involving energy, education, work, the weather, cities, the countryside, sick children, sick mothers, joblessness, hopelessness, and frightening foreigners who do not live in Iraq. Now if you’ll all look under your seats, every one of you is going home with a new car!
Posted by Haltse on August 18, 2008 – 8:22 pm
More insanity from the reality challenged community. Not only are they claiming that their brayers* lowered gas prices but that you can get over the more advanced cases of death by engine casing embedded in your head by following the right invisible man. Be sure to pick carefully as it’s really hard to tell the invisible and non existent apart. Not an original thought but please if you hate modern life so much stop using the medical , physical and all other technology that doesn’t fit in with your two thousand year old training manual. Your children are not harmed by our children living differently from you I wish I could say the inverse was the case. Yep you teach your toddlers to claim their parents are going to be hurt forever because they are bad.. And we’re the evil ones? More on that soon.
Survey: Many believe in divine intervention – CNN.com
Survey: Many believe in divine intervention
* 57 percent in survey said God could save a patient even if doctors said it was futile
* Researchers: Docs should be prepared to deal with families who expect a miracle
*not a typo.
Posted by Haltse on July 9, 2008 – 7:23 pm
Not April first
Doubts over the veracity of this brought up in the comments but. The state has ran tests on the population re syphilis , radiation and LSD amongst other things so is it any wonder people could believe this.
Washington Times – Politics, Breaking News, US and World News – “Want some torture with your peanuts?” by Aviation Security
Posted by Haltse on June 24, 2008 – 8:29 pm
Morningstar – Dow Jones & Company, Inc.: FISA Deal Will End Court Cases Vs Phone Cos – GOP Lawmakers
And now a message from your masters. So this guy is an R , so what, check out how the “opposition” failing to prevent it, like they failed on the Patriot act, on the TSA and on the ongoing funding. Stop defending your Obama
he’s for this shit too.
Sen. Kit Bond (R-Missouri)
“I’m not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I’m sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do,” Bond said.
Last word to George.
