Did Someone say Boycott?

Associated Press reports:

PITTSBURGH - H.J. Heinz Co. has launched an election-year campaign of its own, this one to distance the ketchup maker from what is shaping up to be an acrimonious presidential race.

The company has sent nearly 50 letters to radio and television talk shows nationwide to tamp down chatter on the airwaves and Internet suggesting revenue from ketchup sales will benefit the campaign of pending Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry (news - web sites).

His wife is Teresa Heinz Kerry, heiress to the $500 million family ketchup fortune.

The company has received about 150 calls this month from consumers vowing to boycott Heinz products, or in some instances to buy more, said company spokeswoman Debbie Foster.

I usually buy the store brand anyway.

A Random Thought From Thomas Sowell

The fraudulence of the left's concern about poverty is exposed by their utter lack of interest in ways of increasing the nation's wealth. Wealth is the only thing that can cure poverty. The reason there is less poverty today is not because the poor got a bigger slice of the pie but because the whole pie got a lot bigger -- no thanks to the left.

To put it another way: The Right believes in creating wealth, the Left believes in grabbing it.

Did I Say That I Hate Greenies

Robert James Bidinotto writes:

Their basic agenda, therefore, is to stop the "assault" and "onslaught" of human activity: to place every possible impediment to man's further development of the earth and its resources. They pursue this anti-human agenda tirelessly and consistently. Their fanatical activities have led not just to enormously increased financial burdens on us all, but--demonstrably--even to the deaths of thousands of men, women, and children worldwide.

And the ugliest aspect of all this is that while causing so much harm, environmentalists posture--and are generally accepted--as idealists.

I'm not just talking about so-called "extremists" within the movement: I'm talking about its mainstream organizations, leaders, and spokesmen. Their public faces of moderation mask private attitudes and goals that are radically, irreconcilably opposed to the requirements of human life on earth.

Check out the ecoNOT.com web site.

Why Do I Call This Blog "Living In The Surreal World"?

I reported a "Buddy Christ" sighting to the folks at View Askew.

The webmaster posted the sighting in their news section, but instead posting a correct link to the Sinfest site he posted a link to my personal home page, which I've had to alter for the time being.

(Does the Time Being appreciate this? NOOOOOO!)

The e-mail address of the View Askew webmaster is:

brad at newsaskew.com

Tell him Les says "Hi!" And please don't offer to introduce him to Ditzie. Ok?

And Then...

Comrade Chomski no longer permits readers to post comments on his blog.

Gosh, his feelings must be real hurt when he found out that the average citizen has more functioning neurons than he does.

Quote of the Day

Noam Chomski on his blog wrote:

People in the more civilized sectors of the world (what we call "the third world," or the "developing countries")...

Why does the Left insist on being anything but right?

To the rational mind opposites are not identical, war is not peace, freedom is not not slavery, and so on.

I should do a longer rant on the subject but I need to go back to bed.

BUSH BLAMED EVEN WHEN NOT PREZ.

My Horoscope from The Onion

Sagittarius: (Nov. 22—Dec. 21)

You're tired of all these narrow escapes with your life, so next week's gas-truck accident will be sort of a relief.

Quotes of the Day

"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, 1946.

Here's a case in point:

"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions."

Adolf Hitler, Leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party

Whenever I listen to a speech by or read the writings of a socialist, or whatever any other advocate of affirmative coercion chooses to call himself this week, it is with the reasonable expectation of being lied to.

The Kerry Pattern

And Now For Something Completely Different...

...it's Rocky Horror night at the Riverview Theater.

I spent a good part of the night doing callbacks in a British accent.

"Oh my Gawd! They've killed Columbia! You bastahds!"

One of the attempts to introduce a new callback failed when Dr. Scott was rolling around and kicking his legs around I yelled:

"Mein Fuherer! I can dance!"

This attempted callback fell limp.

I will attempt another new callback during the next showing. When the Lips fade into the cross at the beginning of the movie I will yell:

"It's The Passion of the Lips!"

If any of you try this during your local screening of the RHPS, let me know how it turned out.

Ok?

Thoughts For The Day

A pacifist is someone who doesn't see the difference between being at peace and being a slave.

A pacifist is someone who would rather see me, my family, or my nation die than to see me raise a hand in the defense of myself, my family, or my nation.

A pacifist is by any practical definition a mortal enemy of myself, my family, and my nation.

It would be nice if I could treat it as such.

Are You Sure It Was A French Restaurant?

The customers (outnumbered 2.5 to 1) fought back when an Islamist mob occupied the establishment.

MANAMA (Reuters) - Some 100 Bahraini Islamists shouting "God is Greatest" stormed a French restaurant serving alcohol in the pro-Western Gulf Arab state and threatened diners with knives, witnesses said on Thursday.

One diner managed to wrest a knife away from the Islamists and stabbed one with it, causing him severe injuries, a witness said.

Fire Dance With Me

Iranians are dancing in the dark for the first time in twenty-five years.

The mullahs should be dancing at the end of a rope, pretty soon.

We should hope.

Another Thought

There's a whiny liberal bumper sticker that reads, "Texas is missing a village idiot."

Oh really?

I would like to see one of the supposedly intelligent liberals drop in at a local flight school and take the introductory flight in a Cessna 152, which does Mach 0.1 on a really good day, without soiling themselves and then continue to say that President Bush, who flew the supersonic F-102 in the Texas Air National Guard, is in some way an idiot.

No one could honestly do that.

Thought For The Day

No barbarian in seeking to conquer or destroy a civilization had ever shown any form of restraint in their own use of force.

Why, in the defense of our own civilization, should we?

Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah, summed it up very pithily: "We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you."

Thought For The Day

If John Kerry is elected this November I am dead certain that we will see, possibly before the end of his first term, a glowing mushroom cloud rising over the shattered ruins of either New York City or Los Angeles, or both. A crude Hiroshima-yield uranium bomb should cause about half a million dead and wounded with each detonation. Should any liberal that I have the misfortune to be aquainted with voice a complaint about this I will simply repeat the immortal words of Mr. Frank O'Connor*:

BROTHER, YOU ASKED FOR IT.

Assuming of course that the other insane policies of the Despocrats -- such as trying to eradicate poverty by forcibly impoverishing the productive citizens, fighting violent crime by assaulting innocent people, etcetera, etcetera -- haven't already touched off a civil war, a record breaking terror attack like this should do the trick.

I still have over four thousand rounds of .308 ammunition that I bought during the Clinton administration.

*Ayn Rand was a bit stumped when she had to come up with a final message to the world for one of her major characters, her husband came up with this line off the top of his head.

Some People Want To Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide

I really don't see what the problem with dihydrogen monoxide is, I consume dihydrogen monoxide every day and cannot in any way support a legal ban on it like some dumbassed California town almost did.

Really, it doesn't ... ACK ... COUGH ... ACK ... THUD!!

Run Away!!!!

And Now For Something Completely Different

John Belushi is still dead, which is really too bad.

And Now Some Words From The Guru

This is not the place to get personal, but I must admit to great pleasure at being singled out personally by some anonymous group of anti-gun activists as a bad guy. A man's worth is often determined by the stature of his enemies, and while these people do not seem to have much stature, they did go to a lot of trouble in fabricating a printed flier denouncing me and all my works. I am flattered. According to my old comrade Colonel Paul McNicol, USMC, "If you're not making anybody mad you're not getting anything done." If these people would come out from behind anonymity, I would be pleased to go to the mat with them. For the moment I must be content to reflect, though I have now "arrived" - according to my granddaughter.

We emphasize again that freedom and liberty are not interchangeable ideas. Freedom basically denotes the elimination of restraint - the breaking of shackles. It was used as a conspicuously successful morale builder for galley slaves, among others. It was promised to the slaves on the Christian side at the critical battle of Lapanto, 1574. They were told they would be freed if their side won. Since the existence of a galley slave is about the closest approximation of hell that humanity can devise, freedom from it was an unequaled objective. Liberty, on the other hand, is a political idea denoting the right of an individual to do whatever does not interfere with the activities of his neighbor. Men also fight very well for liberty, but that objective is less well understood and may not even be prized by persons lacking the spirit for it. Most of today's governments are socialist in which liberty is mostly lacking, and the people in those states do not seem to mind. Thus it is somewhat annoying to hear exhortations which do not differentiate between those two words.


--Lt. Colonel Jeff Cooper, USMC, Retired.

Someone Else's Thought for The Day

"Send the terrorists to the firing squad!"

-- Anonymous Demonstrator in Madrid

Thought For The Day

When fighting for one's life, one NEVER uses the Queensberry rules.

Keep this in mind in the upcoming election and really, really, really keep this in mind in 2008.

Ahhh...the good works of the UN.

In the growing scandal over the United Nations Oil-for-Food program, which from 1996-2003 supervised relief to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and his staff have excused themselves from any responsibility for the massive corruption involving billions in bribes and kickbacks that went on via more than $100 billion in U.N.-approved contracts for Saddam to sell oil and buy humanitarian supplies. U.N. officials have denied that this tidal wave of graft in any way seeped into their own shop, or that they even had time to notice it was out there. They were too busy making the world a better place.

That's fascinating, not least given the ties of Annan's own son, Kojo Annan, to the Switzerland-based firm, Cotecna, which from 1999 onward worked on contract for the U.N. monitoring the shipments of Oil-for-food supplies into Iraq. These were the same supplies sent in under terms of those tens of billions of dollars worth of U.N.-approved contracts in which the U.N. says it failed to notice Saddam Hussein's widespread arrangements to overpay contractors who then shipped overpriced goods to the impoverished people of Iraq and kicked back part of their profits to Saddam's regime. . . .

But what has to be clear by now is that the U.N. itself was either corrupt, or so stunningly incompetent as to require total overhaul. There are by now enough questions, there has been enough secrecy, stonewalling, and rising evidence of graft all around the U.N. program in Iraq, so that it is surely worth an independent investigation into the U.N. itself — and Annan's role in supervising this program. If Kofi Annan will not exercise his authority to set a truly independent inquiry in motion, it is way past time for the U.S., whose taxpayers supply about a quarter of the U.N. budget, to call the U.N. itself to account for Oil-for-Food — in dollar terms the biggest relief operation it has ever run, and by many signs, one of the dirtiest.

Found this tidbit over at instapundit. I'll take it a step further, I'll bet that the folks who are ranting and raving over possible problems with Halliburton, are going to completely ignore this festering pile of corruption.

[liberal democrat John Kerry] he relentlessly slams George Bush for not getting Europe on our side in the Iraq War-but in 1997 he expressed the completely opposite opinion about Clinton's preparations to attack Iraq, even deriding Russia and France: Kerry Praised Clinton for Snubbing Iraq War Allies.
Link via Little Green Footballs

But in 1997, Kerry praised President Clinton for preparing to attack Iraq by deploying ships, aircraft and troops over the objections of France and Russia.

In a November 1997 audiotape broadcast by WABC Radio's Monica Crowley on Monday, Kerry painted Clinton as resolute for putting U.S. war plans against Baghdad in motion.

"The president has, in effect, put military action on the table," he told CNN's "Crossfire."

“Where’s the backbone of Russia, where’s the backbone of France, where are they in expressing their condemnation of such clearly illegal activity?” he railed.

Kerry also praised the White House for giving the United Nations the brush-off.

“The [Clinton] administration is leading. The administration is making it clear that they don’t believe that they even need the U.N. Security Council to sign off on a material breach because the finding of material breach was made by [U.S. weapons inspector Richard] Butler.”

Kerry defended President Clinton’s go-it-alone war plan as the best way to protect U.S. national security, telling “Crossfire,” “I think the United States has always reserved the right and will reserve the right to act in its best interests.”

What's Wrong With This Statement?

From an interview with Comrade Kerry in Time magazine:

TIME: Obviously it's good that Saddam is out of power. Was bringing him down worth the cost?

KERRY: If there are no weapons of mass destruction— and we may yet find some—then this is a war that was fought on false pretenses, because that was the justification to the American people, to the Congress, to the world, and that was clearly the frame of my vote of consent. I said it as clearly as you can in my speech. I suggested that all the evils of Saddam Hussein alone were not a cause to go to war.

Ayn Rand once said that because dictatorships in general, and Soviet Union in particular, did not recognize and respect the rights of its subjects they could have no sovereign rights that would be recognized and respected by any free nation such as the United States. In her view, if I understood it correctly, the hunting season on dictatorships was always open.

But to those like John Kerry, who claim to be caring, compassionate, and progressive, it is somehow wrong to depose a despot who uses his political apparatus to subjugate, plunder, and murder his subjects. Kerry and his fellow party members claim to be “democrats” but are presently screaming bloody murder at the top of their lungs when a tyrant is toppled and replaced with a democratic government that answers to the citizen body of that nation.

What the hell is wrong with these people?

Even though they don’t care about the citizens of Iraq they do care about their own constituents, right?

Well I certainly don’t think so.

Remember the Strategic Defense Initiative? Kerry and his comrades in the Congress opposed it even though their party’s primary base of support lived in close proximity to the industrial, transportation and military sites that were targeted by the Strategic Rocket Forces of the Soviet Army. The logically and morally correct course of action for Kerry and his political comrades was to implement the full SDI program as soon as possible for the benefit of their constituents.

But they didn’t, did they?

In fact, not only did Kerry and fellow party members oppose SDI they also fought to stop other programs to upgrade the American armed forces. Many members of Kerry’s party, such as Ron Dellums of California, were also a party membership card short of being proper Communists and were reasonably expected to have welcomed the Soviet Army not as the band of barbarians that they historically were, but as “liberators of the proletariat,” etcetera, etcetera.

But at least Kerry and his party would put the money stripped from the defense budget to a compassionate use, right?

Oh really? Well I certainly don’t think so.

Establishing a common defense against barbarian states such as National Socialist Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as well as those despotic states that still exist, is a moral necessity. Anyone who refused to financially contribute to the common defense was a parasite and deserved to be dealt with as such. (As to active opponents of national defense, apart from those creatures who sexually molest children, I think there is no one more depraved or despicable than a politically active pacifist. But that’s a rant for another time.)

But Kerry and his political comrades not only attempted to loot the defense budget but they sought to levy progressively higher taxes on the more productive citizens in order to buy the votes of less productive and the outright non-producers. (I could go on about the ongoing corruption of the electorate but I want to keep this rant short.) Those, like Kerry and his political comrades, who rob Peter in order to pay off Paul, can usually count on the votes of Paul. However, this also has the effect of reducing Peter and his fellow productive citizens to the political status of cattle. Hominid livestock who are compelled to live in an enforced state of poverty but are expected to work as hard as before in order to support an ever growing class of parasites.

An example of the parasites that Kerry and his political comrades are funding with the tax monies taken from productive and rational citizens are the social agencies that actively and punitively interfere with the efforts of those citizens who try to raise their own children to be rational and productive adults. And if this wasn’t injury enough, at the same time tax monies are also being used to create the equivalent of an ecological niche for an irrational and destructive underclass that preys upon each other and on their social and moral betters.

Kerry and his political comrades call this compassion.

Well, if this is compassion, then I’d rather be an indifferent son-of-a-bitch.

But Kerry and his political comrades are using their legislative power to move society in a progressive direction, right?

No. Not only do I not think so, I truly believe that anyone who did think so would probably place a winning bid on a certain well-used suspension bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan Island on ebay.

An intelligent reader should have noticed by now that I do not use the term “democrat” to describe John Kerry and his political comrades. I do not believe that they deserve to be called such.

The Democratic Political Tradition in Western Civilization began in the ancient Polis of Athens. In Athens the citizen body, the adult male members of the founding tribes, not made the laws of the polis but were also armed and were expected to enforce the laws of the polis and defend it against external aggressors. In adopting a more inclusive definition of the concept of citizen we could say that the American Republic has made verifiable
progress.

But to John Kerry and his political comrades, progress consists of disarming the citizen body, of denying the rights of free citizens, and instead treating those rights as state granted privileges while imposing increasing restrictions on the acts of speech, peaceful assembly, association, commerce, and worship. The political state toward which Kerry and his political comrades, in both the Congress and the Courts, are propelling America is a form of despotism similar to that
found in Communist states such as Cuba, North Korea, China, and Vietnam.

(And if you really want to have fun, try comparing the platform of Kerry’s party to the twenty-five point program of the National Socialist German Workers Party sans the aggressive military and race planks.)

Instead of being the party of democracy, Kerry and his political comrades are in fact the party of despotism. When they object to the overthrow of a foreign dictatorship, such as that of Saddam Hussein’s, they are simply showing that they care for and have compassion for their ideological kindred. If anything, the foundation of their political philosophy has not progressed beyond the moment when for the first time a wandering band of nomads came upon a community of farmers, and instead of learning to farm and settling down themselves, chose to subjugate the farmers and live off their labors.

Although the methods of predatory subjugation have improved over the millennia, John Kerry and his political comrades are in my view no more than stone age savages. They are hazards to us, our families, and our nation. And it's about time that they are dealt with as such.

Another Classic Game Returns

PARANOIA is back! Run away!!!

The PARANOIA XP site is up and running.

You are in Error. No one is Screaming. Thank you for your Cooperation.

Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.

I Actually Did That

Furnulum pani nolo.
"I don't want a toaster."
Generally, things (like this quiz) tend to tick you
off. You have contemplated doing grievous
bodily harm to door-to-door salesmen.


Which Weird Latin Phrase Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Addition To My Primary Site

I once started writing Homecoming, a short story based on a passage in a Classic Traveller alien module:

Terran Naval officers were dispatched throughout the Vilani Empire. . . . more than 100,000 naval officers were dispatched to the worlds of the Vilani Empire, to take control of the reigns of government, to direct local bureaucracies, and to maintain peace and order. In some cases, Terran ensigns were faced with governing a whole world, and commanders previously entrusted with no more than a light cruiser were know administering subsectors.

-- Traveller Alien Module 6

However, about halfway through the creative process a discussion erupted on the Traveller Mailing List and the Citizens of the Imperium bulletin board about the validity of that particular passage.

I ended up not finishing Homecoming at that time.

So anyway I'm posting in here for the time being.

(I do a lot of things for the Time Being, does the Time Being appreciate this? NOOOOOOO!)

Good comment from Sgt. Stryker's Daily Briefing

Further Comment by Les:

I took a young lady from the gaming club I was a member of to see IRON EAGLE. I had an employee discount with the (now extinct) theater chain at the time.

She ended up marrying someone else.

My Landlady Talks To Ethically Challenged Merchants

My landlady, Dana Wolfe, has been acquainted with Puke and Snot (“two actors who came up from nothing, and brought it with them”) for over a decade. Which is say before her *AHEM* operation.

Dana recounted a recent conversation she had with one of them. (I’m typing this from memory so please bear with me.)

Puke: How have you been?

Dana: I’ve been a broad.*

Puke (looks at Dana again): That must hurt.

Dana: More than you will never know.

*This is a line from the Shakespearean Entrance sketch, I couldn’t possibly recount the sketch with anything resembling justice.