Cowboy Confessional

What are they putting in the water in Charlotte County, Florida? Given the serial sexual antics of their elected representatives there is now a movement afoot to rename that turf to Harlot County.

Congress swung Democrat in 2006 due to the perversions of former 16th District Republican Mark Foley. Don’t take my word for the damage Foley wrought during that election cycle. According to Election projection, whose results are spooky accurate, the House and Senate were still in Republican control until the Foley scandal broke, their lead dropping nearly 20 points shortly thereafter.

Foley had a thing for teenage boys, and in his quest for twinkies had the bad judgment to leave electronic trails of his seductions via email and text messages. Foley’s attempt to mate with underage men ran somewhat counter the GOP’s family values manta.

Now his successor has been implicated in serial affairs.

Enter stage left Tim Mahoney, a Democrat who dashed into Foley’s former job on a campaign promising to return morals and family values to Washington. You have to give Mahoney credit for taking on a task that would make Sisyphus flinch. Evidentially Harlot County morals include not only seducing teenage boys but also committing serial infidelity.

Mahoney’s hardship now lay in his damaged brand. When your actions are contrary to your brand, people respond with rejection. A brand is a promise, and since trust is the foundation of all relationships, when one violates their personal brand they violate trust. Foley broke his “family values” brand and was chased out of office. Now Mahoney has broken his “morals” brand.

Naturally the Republicans are dancing down every Charlotte County street today, sensing an opportunity to reclaim what Foley threw away.

What neither my Republican nor Democrat friends will admit is that there is not a dime’s worth of difference between their candidates. Politicians are in the game for power. People who crave power are by nature corrupt or corruptible. We should be thankful that their sexual appetites keep them too busy to steal even more money from us.

I best contact the Charlotte County water management district. I have a sibling who lives near by and I want to make sure she isn’t suddenly desiring to run for office.

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Being surprised is difficult. In San Francisco we are accustomed to what the outside world would considered oddities, and we elect many of them to office.

The fact that a pair of FDR mistakes have failed financially causes no surprise either.

Ignoring the imbecilic notion that any organization is “too large to fail” we witness this past week the bust of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These ugly twins were sired by FDR as part of his infamous and borderline fascist Nuts Running America program. These agencies were originally federally owned and in one fell swoops replaced most of the secondary mortgage industry in America (strike one). After 30 years of screwing up and making most mortgages a government project, Congress (strike two) decided to semi-privatize the institutes. This created the worst of all models where profits were in the private sector and the risk was loaded onto the public (strike three).

And now that Fannie and Freddie and flopping, guess who is getting stuck with the bill?

The current mortgage market meltdown is almost completely the responsibility of the government and by proxy Fannie and Freddie. FDR thought it a grand idea to pump inflated currency into housing so people without jobs could own homes. During the past few decades they continued to push money into mortgage markets. Since FDR created these near-monopolies there was little distribution of risk and together Fannie and Freddie assumed nearly half of all mortgages.

Thus, the companies “too big to fail” are failing in a spectacular way.

This logic failure was accelerated during the recent housing bubble. To finance various wars, the government was out of necessity going into (more) debt. To balance the negative effect on the economy the Federal Reserve kept interest rates artificially low. Cheap government money was all Freddie and Fannie needed to indirectly loan money to a lot of people who lacked credit worthiness in order to buy properties with inflated values.

And yet nobody in government — including the quasi-governmental Freddie and Fannie — saw a problem with this.

Life is a risk vs. reward proposition. The lower the risk, the better any reward looks (this explains most petty street crime which today carries very little risk). Government lowered the risk in backing mortgages which in turn caused lenders to take ever bigger gambles. Had lenders been playing with purely private equity, the latest housing run-up would not have happened … and neither would have the current meltdown.

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Normally I am saddened to witness a fellow human sink into the abyss of madness.

But for Tim Robbins I’ll crack open a fresh bottle of Jack Daniels and bid his brain a joyous bon voyage.

Tim is a possum in political animal zoology – slow witted, ugly, odoriferous and leaving the bad taste of road kill in one’s mouth. Leveraging his marginal fame, which in turn is based on his marginal acting abilities, Tim thrust himself into the political arena with the confidence that only complete idiots posses.

This time the poor folks attending the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) suffered Tim’s delusional diatribe. Having attended two NABs myself and witnessed first hand the utter insanity of the mass communications market, it was difficult for me (until today) to imaging anything that could add to the intellectual chaos therein.

The last year I attended NAB I stood at the intersection of two isles, and witnessed a near collision of professional wrestlers from the WWE, models from the Playboy Channel, and a televangelist who — momentarily distracted by the passing semi-clothed men and women — stood in helpless bewilderment.

They had nothing on Timmy.

Seemingly unaware that he was speaking to the proverbial hand that feeds him, Tim initiated a monologue on the deficits of the media. News reports from NAB tell that Tim could not speak a sentence without inserting multiple profanities, making his remarks unavailable for broadcast.

Though cursing is the sign of a weak mind and a weaker vocabulary, it is not in and of itself proof of madness. But the following quote is:

“Just when we were close to a national news media providing a general consensus on what the truth is …“

First is the rather psychotic notion that the media has ever come close to reporting what the truth is (whether they know what “truth” is, and if what they report instead of truth are entirely different matters). For Timmy to bank his political hopes on the old media is like a drunk pegging his ambitions on holy water.

Media madness aside, Tim was scarily close to Goebbels’ axiom. If the national news media were to agree upon what the “truth” is, then it would sure-as-sin be a lie. In one breath Timmy was lambasting the media for not being inquisitive enough, then in the next breath seems to believe they need to have consensus. The two objectives are mutually exclusive, unlike the questions “will the sun rise in the east” and “is Tim Robbins insane?”

Let’s set in concrete Tim’s nutty notion that there is one truth and that the media (of all people) should know and agree upon what it is. He then skids completely off the mental highway by saying:

“… along comes the Internets [sic] that allows its users a choice on the kind of news it watches and the YouTube. My God, we’ve got to stop them.”

The interesting thing about the Internet (singular) is that it allows anyone willing to spend $12.95 a month to be a broadcaster. In other words, the Internet is the Grand Democracy were every man, woman and hermaphrodite can speak his/her/its mind. All ideas are set forth for public exposure, critique, ridicule, analysis, and adoption through thoughtful process.

And Tim Robbins is against this.

What Timmy is really against is thought. All intellectual pursuit that does not fit his political myopia is to be shunned, discarded, and ignored by the old media. Your voice is unimportant. Alternate perspectives are to be reviled. Only the consensus of his hand chosen Illuminati needs to be considered valid.

Sail into the maelstrom of dementia Timmy. You won’t be missed.

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Be wary of stupid people in large groups. They tend to be dangerous.

Just watch any session of Congress.

Today’s lunacy lesson revolves around a tiny film called Fitna. The video involves the Quran (or Koran for American journalists) and was produced by a non-Muslim. That combination alone is enough to ignite lethal agitation among zealots sans intelligence (if I may be redundant).

In this presentation, producer Geert Wilders simply shows verses from the Quran, then plays video of Islamists who obviously wound their turbans too tightly. For each of these select passages Wilders shows the verses being used as justification for abusing women, slavery and homicide. Wilders’ point appears to be that like many religions before, some people are using Islam to justify theological fascism.

You know, like the Roman church did by posting a copy of Deuteronomy in every inquisition waiting room.

Granted, Wilders put a prickly point on his presentation, using some of the more graphic (though edited) videos produced by Islamist for Fascism, Inc. (if you don’t like seeing a masked jihadist holding aloft a freshly severed caucasian head, then don’t watch Finta). Wilders’ selected footage is the best of their worst, or as I like to say “the cream of the crap.”

But at no place in the video does Wilders call Islam a bad name, defame Mohamed, or call for reverse jihad. He simply exposes people misusing religion as a means for their maniacal mission.

Tell that to the Islamist. Well try to tell them if you can get them to quit scream and burning effigies long enough to engage in thoughtful discussion (yes, I know — I’m pissin’ into the wind with that notion).

All too predictably, after the film hit the Internet violence erupted among Islamic hot heads (how can your head not be hot when you live in the desert and is wrap your head in turban — maybe they have simply baked their brains to the point of imbecility). “They call this freedom of expression, but it’s freedom of aggression,” said one over agitated ass. Failing to have watched the film or to dispassionately consider Wilders’ core message, he continued with the obligatory “God is great.”

Well, at least he got something right. I hope he joins one group that marched in protest of the film. They were wearing headbands that read “We are ready to sacrifice our lives for the sanctity of the prophet”.

That can be arranged.

What would be amusing were it not for the sadness of stupidity is that Radical Islamist have detached themselves from reality. Sane people who watch Wilders’ film will not think less of Islam. They would instead see an analysis of how dimwits with dictatorial dementia abuse the Prophet’s words to justify their temporal tantrums. Loons — like the leadership of Jamate-e-Islami — are Wilders target.

Likewise with my literary cross-hairs and Leupold scope.

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I always thought tattoos were dangerous. Now we have proof.

I don’t have any objection to tattoos on principle. In fact, a well placed tattoo on a woman can be sexy (especially if one treats them as a set of handlebars). But so many people now have tats that it is no longer cool. Skin and ink has become mainstream, and the few of us not wearing body art are the differentiated minority.

I always thought allowing some random biker — with a prison record and suspect hygiene — to jab a used needle into my epidermis bordered on insane. But two mentally challenged Texans have made getting a tattoo almost fatal.

Seems that either Robert Glasser and Joey Acosta of El Paso wanted a tattoo of a revolver. So in order to make their tat as realistic as possible, they decided to trace a real .357 mangle’em.

They didn’t bother to unload it first.

Somehow, Robert and Joey managed to shoot themselves at the same instant. One round staffed Robert’s hand and then clipped Joey’s arm. For this to happen, both “men” would have to have been on the barrel side of the loaded and cocked handgun. Triple stupid.

Sadly, Robert and Joey do not qualify for a Darwin Award, but might receive an honorable mention for trying.

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