Cowboy Confessional

In reaction to George Bush escaping the presidency, House Speaker and San Francisco escapee Nancy Pelosi said “It felt like a 10-pound anvil was lifted off my head.”

Ignoring for a moment that Nancy doesn’t have the foggiest notion of the working weight of your average anvil, we witness two distinct political pressures at play. Nancy realized that Bush was a viable impediment to her policies and that airheads need paperweights to keep their inflated craniums and egos from achieving escape velocities.

Being no fan of Bush I can safely say that the new administration merely portends a different flavor of cow flop. The essence of Obama and Pelosi’s shared sentiments is that government is the alpha, omega and the entire Greek alphabet betwixt. His embryonic economic scheme places central command and control as the solution, willfully ignoring that building infrastructure does not build GDP. Nor does $40 billion in new welfare checks, $77 billion in special education grants, or $9 billion to give rural farmers broadband Internet connections which they can get now from satellite providers.

But it does buy a lot of servitude.

Obama, Pelosi and other neo-soviets believe in the centralization of power and that the decisions of a few self-anointed smart people are better than the millions of aggregated individual decisions made by the economic populace at large. But humans can be ornery critters, which is why herding Homo sapiens is a Herculean task.

Obama may have a little rancher blood in him. When I was a working cowboy, I learned that forcing a heard into the corral was hard and error prone. But dropping a couple of bales of hay into the pen caused most bovine to enter on their own accord. The more leery livestock could then be spooked into the seeming safety of rejoining the corralled pot-roast-in-waiting.

Obama tipped his hand on the campaign trail, claiming his mission was to make government “cool again“, which it never was. However, his objective is clear – that service to the government is essential … and possibly mandatory. Financial hay will be submitted to students in return for the being underpaid servants of the state. The fraternity of the subservient will establish a division between such euphoric vassals and those who choose not to enter the states stockyard.

Odd that a black American would fancy slavery.

Aldous Huxley prophesized Obama’s ilk when he penned Brave New World, a novel wherein The World State was the alpha, omega, etc. It wasn’t until 1959 that Huxley summarized the mechanics of the Obama administration and his legislative handmaiden. While speaking to doctors attending a 1959 psychotropic medication symposium at the University of California Medical School, Huxley noted:

“It is much better to get people to love their servitude, rather than bully them into it … Our dictators will instill in us an enormous euphoria …”

Google notes that words “Obama” and “euphoria” appear together more than 1,300,000 times across the net.

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Regardless of your political beliefs, party affiliation or who you voted against in the last election, there is one pure, heartwarming and beautiful event occurring today.

Somewhere in a dingy shack, an unbathed, shell-shocked and bleary-eyed Klansman is starting  at his television and slugging back glassfuls of Jack Daniel’s until he spirals into an alcoholic coma.

Now that’s change I can live with.

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The financial news has initiated their death watch over the New York Times.

The AP reports that the yellowest of journals has a mere $46 million in cash, which does not begin to balance a whopping $1B in debt. If the Times were a profitable company in a growth industry, this situation might be survivable. However, due to their serial disinformation campaigns and associated skullduggery, the NYT is flushing down the sewer pipe of finance. With circulation abating and advertising revenues falling faster than Taliban soldiers, their demise seem inevitable.

To wit: The New York Times has $46 million in cash and lost $41M according to their last income statement. Assuming that things do not get worse for them (and given that advertisers retreat in a recession, things are already worse) they could be bankrupt in a year.

Now that is change I can hope for.

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I want to brag about a local band, not because they are good great musicians, but because they write honest songs.

The outfit is called Houston Jones, and their music is as they bill it “high-octane Americana.”  Fitting description as they rather seamlessly weave together sounds from blues, folk, country, gospel and their own cosmic connections.  The sound is unique while sounding oddly familiar.

The band’s moniker was hijacked from the last names of their lead singer (Travis Jones) and their most talented and digitally bizarre lead guitarist Glenn Houston (Glenn plays left handed, but with the guitar strung for right handed players.  I can only assume he got bored trying find left handed axes and learned to play them upside down as well as backwards).

Chris Kee, the band’s bass and cello player has been accused of writing most of their songs.  Bassist songwriters are not unknown, but are slightly rarer than virgin girls in a brothel.  Much is explained by the fact that Chris is degreed in ethnomusicology and has so many frequent player miles that new tunes are likely sprouting out of his ears.

I won’t go into any more detail on their songwriting, aside from saying that it ranges from sweet, to driving, to outright silly (Sleepy Armadillo is a song about road kill).  Listen and experience and see how music can be simple and simultaneously masterful.

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Reality is a harsh dominatrix, as the President Elect is discovering. The question is will Obama become a bottom.

A pathetic pas de deux was done between Obama and the media most suspect man, George Stephanopoulos. It is worth recalling that George – a Disneyesque proto yuppie and suspected animatron – was a strategic member of the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign and later Bubba’s press secretary. Now sinning on behalf of ABC News, Georgie makes for a curious participant in the government-media complex having been a Democrat presidential political operative and now an alleged journalist interviewing … a Democrat president elect.

If the partisan conflict of interest escapes you, have your doctor increase the dosage on your Zoloft prescription.

George’s recent interview of Obama defies the very definition of “interview”, where according to Webster “a writer or reporter asks questions.” Take for example this passage where George (technically speaking) asks:

“At the end of the day, are you really talking about over the course of your presidency some kind of grand bargain? That you have tax reform, healthcare reform, entitlement reform including Social Security and Medicare, where everybody in the country is going to have to sacrifice something, accept change for the greater good?”

George unleashed not an inquiry but a policy statement with a question mark. He outlined a theme (a sloppy reincarnation of FDR’s new Deal), talking points, and cause/effect policy relationships. In short George aped what Obama would have said if not prompted.

Obama simply answered “Yes.” What more could he add?

Let’s ignore the Speaking Greek and focus on the stated goals and demands of both this interview and the unfolding Obama economic “plan”. In this passage Obama acquiesced to changing a wide swath of so-called “entitlement” programs (to which nobody will be entitled once the federal government goes bankrupt) forcing “sacrifice” on “everybody” for the “greater good”.

Somewhere Ronald Reagan just perked up, hearing a Democrat speak Republican policy points about reducing entitlement programs. The only question is if Ronnie can hear the rest of the interview over the loud harp playing or crackling fire.

The one thing Stephanopoulos sensed correctly is Obama’s FDR affliction, seeking a return to the good old days of neo fascism. Some men who are temporarily commissioned the helm of government suffer from severely swollen heads (in Bill Clinton’s case, it was his minor head that bulged based primarily on the oral testimony of young interns). Obama ordained that “Everybody’s going to have to give. Everybody’s going to have to have some skin in the game.”

He hasn’t yet caught wind of the nascent opt-out movement.

After the current administration and congress absconded with $700 billion taxpayer dollars for corporate bailouts, and when nobody raised a constitutional challenge, a number of otherwise patriotic Americans had finally had enough. These folks had long accepted a certain amount of graft and illegalities from their electeds. But the staggering swiftness, lack of thought and thorough disregard for The People’s express written instructions to government caused some to start an opt-out movement – and silent effort to disengage themselves from government. These people are not hiding in the woods and living “off the grid”. They are simply finding every possible way to not pay taxes, disregard oppressive laws and remove government oversight from their lives.

In short, they are living free and they may be your next door neighbors. Jealous?

Their argument goes something like this: The Constitution is in effect a compact between The People and their slaves (the government). When the servants broke faith and violated the compact, then The People were no longer duty-bound — and perhaps not legally bound — to participate. It is like a divorce. When that husband called the Federal Government started spending the family budget on cheep prostitutes (AIG, Freddie Mac, etc.) the marriage was over. The unfaithful party was ordered out of the house and all that remains is dividing up the property.

The opt-out option is both an easy and difficult position to argue against. When the president proclaims that “everybody’s going to have to give,” he will also gladly imprison those who don’t. Since Obama is of the socialist caste – which is slightly below “untouchables” – participation is to him mandatory. Thus opt-out movement folks run the risk of offending The State.

Line on the left, one cross each.

Arguing in favor of opting-out is trickier but intellectually more satisfying. Freedom is the absence of control. The opt-out crowd is merely finding the shortest path to freedom. It is their birthright and perhaps even their duty. If there is any mass to their movement, they will succeed because the government cannot possibly find and prosecute them all. After government coffers are reduced, the ability of government to control the populace is also reduced, eventually to the point where all they can afford to do are the few tasks enumerated in the Constitution.

One of Robert Heinlein’s characters said “The only thing you can do to a free man is kill him.” I would not bet against Obama trying that.

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