Random Bits

Here are some random thoughts:

• Democrats seem to think sending out rebate checks to everyone will stimulate the economy. Why don't they also see that tax cuts stimulate the economy?
• Why can't I have a spam filter for my TV to get rid of Viagra and Cialis commercials just as I have a spam filter to get rid of the same kind of ads in my email? And what's with the people in the bathtubs?
• I've heard the government makes more money off a gallon of gas than the oil companies.
• The development process known as "SCRUM" is badly broken in my opinion. Unfortunately it seems to be spreading like a cancer through software development groups as the latest silver bullet to make software engineering a science rather than an art. I predict in five years everyone will have jettisoned it and be scratching their heads wondering, "What the hell were we thinking?"
• Neal Boortz is getting meaner by the day, but I still think he's great!
• Why is it that Republicans are constantly painted as the party of racists when it's the Democrats that constantly want to classify people as members of certain groups?
• Speaking of race, is a white person from South Africa who moves to the U. S. called an African-American?
• Greta van Susteren is annoying!
• The United States is not a Democracy. It is a Republic. There is a huge difference.

If you've been looking for the new website of Will Anderson, the (very entertaining) talk show host who was let go from WVNN for some stupid reason, it's here:

http://www.thewillandersonshow.com/

It was hard to find because the censors on WVNN's web site would remove the link when it was posted on their forums. I've posted it here to help Google find it.

UPDATE 04/29/2008: The link appears to go to a parked site with GoDaddy spam, so I guess it's gone again. I give up.

Since President Bush commuted the sentence of Scooter Libby yesterday, the press has been full of people who either think it was a good thing or a bad thing. Of course, the Democrats have their panties in a wad about it, but that was to be expected. Others seem surprised that President Bush didn't give Libby a full pardon. This is exactly what I expected to happen as should anyone who really thought about it. Read on for why...

Bud Cramer finally responded to the email I sent to him nearly a month ago regarding the surrender in Iraq vote. Below is the message I got back from him. It's a typical canned response that hypes up his support for the troops making Mr. Cramer seem like a die-hard blue-dog Democrat. He never mentions the "timetable" (i.e. surrender) part of the bill. He only references it as a way to "enable [the] process" of forcing the Iraqi goverment to "begin to accept greater resonsibility for ensuring stability in the region."

Read on for the response.

I'd seen variations of this one before, but thought it was funny enough to post here:

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs, in other words redistribution of wealth.

She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harboured an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.

Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Audrey doing?"

She replied, "Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over."

Her wise father asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA."

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, "That's a crazy idea, how would that be fair! I've worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!"

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, "Welcome to the Republican party."

I sent the following letter to Rep. Robert "Bud" Cramer today. He's theoretically my representative in Congress.

Mr. Cramer,

I hear the House is again set to send the President a troop funding bill with a timetable for withdrawal. I urge you to vote AGAINST such a bill. You previously voted for a timetable and voted against the "troop surge".

I'm getting sick of the Democrats and the barking moonbat you have chosen as Speaker continually trying to undercut the President in fighting the war in Iraq. It is vitally important that we win in Iraq and that's not going to happen with Pelosi and her ilk playing politics and encouraging our enemies.

I'll post any response I get

Update: I finally got a response. It's in another story located here.

I heard today that Halliburton is moving its headquarters to Dubai. There's so much to say about this and the response from the Socialists in Congress that I don't know where to start.

First, Halliburton's CEO says "the Eastern hemisphere is a market that is more heavily weighted toward oil exploration and production opportunities." Gee, that wouldn't be because all the Leftists and Enviro-nazis won't let us drill for oil in any part of this hemisphere would it? Say in ANWR?

Second, an obvious reason for the move is the much more favorable tax laws in the UAE. One of these days the Socialists will figure out that our crushing corporate income tax in this country is driving businesses away. If we were to implement the Fair Tax in this country, it would turn the United States into the biggest tax haven on the planet. Think of the economic boom that would result from all these companies moving to the United States!

(As an aside, I'll mention that the Socialists haven't figured out yet that there really isn't a corporate tax. All taxes at the business level are simply passed along to its customers as the cost of doing business.)

Third, there's a good chance a Socialist will be elected President in the next election. If it's either the Hildabeast or Obamamamama, you can bet Halliburton will be in the cross-hairs considering the hatred the Left has for this company. (Do you think they hate them more because Darth Vader used to be the CEO?)

Next we come to the Socialists' responses. Senator Patrick Leahy, D-NH said the company's move is "corporate greed at its worst." Sorry Senator, you're forgetting it's not your money. If they want to keep your filthy paws off their money, it's perfectly OK for them to do so. In Gregory v. Helvering (1934-5) 239 U. S. 465,460 Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland said, "The legal right of a taxpayer to decrease the amount of what otherwise would be his taxes, or altogether avoid them, by means which the law permits, cannot be doubted." In the same ruling it says, "Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury, there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes." I'd ask you, though Senator, to comment on all the off-shore money the Kennedys have, hmmm? Is that greed?

Finally, we have Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA, who is planning to hold a hearing. You go, Henry. Holding a hearing is a waste of tax money, but at least it keeps you and your friends busy so you don't go raising taxes or surrendering to terrorists.

Good luck Halliburton. Perhaps one day we'll have the Fair Tax and you can come back. If our economy isn't reduced to some pre-Soviet-collapse Eastern European hell hole. Or if the country isn't just a bunch of smoking radioactive craters.

If you've come to this site because you got a spam message from someone at timt.net, I'm sorry. I'm as much a victim of this as you are. Some waste-of-flesh spammer is spoofing my domain. I get hundreds of bounce messages every day. I can only imagine how many messages are actually getting to people's inboxes without a bounce.

I've looked into using SPF, but have not figured out how to implement it with my current provider's set up. In any case, it would only help when the spammer sent a message to a mail server that checked the SPF record on the purported sending domain. I think the number of sites that check this are still few.

Perhaps some day we'll have a different email protocol that will fix this....

Well, it seems the Hildabeast let her little Socialist demon out of it's cage this weekend during a speech. Here is what she said: (YouTube video of speech segment)

"The Democrats know what needs to be done. Again, we're working trying to try push this agenda forward. The other day the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative, smart energy; alternatives and technology that will begin to actually move us toward the direction of independence." [Emphasis added]

The two phrases in bold indicate her core beliefs. She wants to take those profits. She wants to put them somewhere. Excuse me, Ms. Rodham, but it's not your freaking money!

Whatever one might think of ExxonMobil, you have to belive the money is better off staying with ExxonMobil and its shareholders (including many peoples' mutual funds in their 401k accounts) than being stolen by the government to be squandered. But actually that's beside the point. The real point is that the money belongs to ExxonMobil. If they want to heap the money up and set it on fire, that's their business. It's not the government's money.

God help us if this woman is ever elected president.

I've had another camera available for a while to see the kitties, but didn't have a link to it on this page. You can see it on the "cams" page which is located here.