January 20, 2005

The Stockholm Syndrome

In a hostage situation the victims will tend to become appreciative of their captor. He is God-like in his ability to take life away and the hostage is grateful that their life is being spared. The hostage comes to see it, emotionally, as the captor granting them life and is appreciative of this gift. I see this very same mentality in our society today. America has Stockholm Syndrome with our government playing the part of the captor.

It boils down to one statement. This is the truth: The Government Does Not Grant You Rights

How often do you hear or read phrases about rights granted by the Constitution or Bill of Rights? How many times have you heard somebody say that this or that country should grant their citizens certain rights like our government grants us? These sentiments are exactly wrong and directly contrary to the documents and ideals that founded our country. Just as the hostage taker is not granting life by not taking it, neither is our government granting us the rights that it does not remove.

Excerpt from the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

In simple language this is saying that you are born with the right to do anything and that the purpose of government is to protect your rights. This is a powerful and often forgotten sentiment. Government is not here to grant you rights. You already have them. Government is here to stop other people from taking away your rights.

The core concepts to remember are that you begin with every right, the Constitution protects certain of your rights, and laws restrict or remove your rights. This is a heady concept, and frightening as well for many people. Taken literally this means that a critical component of the job of every Congressman and Senator is to pare away your rights.

This mistaken groupthink is pervasive. In the Presidential debates one of Bush's criticisms of Kerry was the relatively low number of laws he has authored during his tenure as Senator. Kerry disputed this, claiming to have been instrumental in a very large number of bills. I was horrified by this exchange. Both men were making it clear that they considered the removal of my rights to be not only a just goal but the lack of such efforts to be a considerable failing. They were both saying that a good Senator is one who makes a lot of laws.

Wrong. Very, very wrong. A good Senator or Congressman should be a terrible legislator. A good Senator should be primarily concerned with protecting the Constitution, not increasing the bulk of the Code of Law. Anything else is a direct contradiction of their oath of office.

Oath of Office, Congress:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

Note that there is absolutely nothing in the oath regarding the crafting of laws. The entire focus of the oath that every Senator and Congressman takes is that they will protect the Constitution.

The same thing goes for the President.

Oath of Office, President:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The documents are so clear. The sentiments are impossible to misunderstand. Even so, later today George Bush will repeat that oath of office. A short time later in a speech he will completely ignore it as he talks about forming a cooperative coalition of legislators to craft new laws and further snip away at the Constitution he has just sworn to protect.

It is frightening that this Stockholm Syndrome is so widespread that even the President of the United States is a victim of it. It is absolutely terrifying that it is so pervasive that this perfidy is not only accepted but actually lauded by the populace at large.

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January 19, 2005

No heat

They're doing electrical work in the building and we were without heat until about 20 minutes ago. It's about 25 degrees outside. It's about 55 degrees inside.

I'm the only person who wasn't bitching about it. You might assume that this is because I'm from Little Antarctica* but you'd be wrong. It's because my Lovely Wife bought me one of those massage/heat chair pads for our anniversary and I've been toasty warm and laughing on the inside* all day long.

* Also known as Buffalo.
** Okay, occasionally I laughed out loud too. There are some pretty efficient bitchers here with some fairly eloquent vocabulary.

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How to change the world

Defeating Nazi Germany

Do: Invade Germany.

Don't bother: Turning off Hitler's speech with a very forceful twist of the radio's knob.

Ending segregated busing

Do: Sit in the front of the bus.

Don't bother: Sending a 'strongly worded letter' to the CEO of the bus company.

Getting your own holiday

Do: Dedicate your life to a worthy goal, motivate and move your people toward it, live as an example of it, die in the pursuit of it.

Don't bother: Bitching at the TV set.

Send a man to the moon

Do: Put a guy in a big ass rocket and launch it.

Don't bother: Blasting loud music at the neighborhood Luddite.

Change the world for the better

Do: Put on your Birkenstocks and your best hemp shirt, get out of your house and actually fucking do something constructive that works toward the goals you profess to have.

Don't bother: Protesting against a welcome back party.

Bitching and whining will never change a thing. Jesse Jackson will never make the world a better place because he doesn't actually DO. Bill Gates made the world a better place because he does things in the real physical world to support and promote his ideals.

These protesters are the worst sort of hypocrite. They want only to scream their disillusionment in the hopes that somebody else will do something about their problems.

(Tip credit to DCeit)

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January 18, 2005

Monkey business

There's a new short story up at Protomonkey. This one is a corroboration between Paul and myself.

Go. Read. Enjoy!

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Caption contest results

The coolest thing about caption contests is that even when you have nothing to blog about you have something to blog about.


(Click here if you are Paul)

Grand Prize: 5 points
Objects in mirror are closer than they appear
Frick

First runner up: 3 points (selected by President Bush, confirmed by the Senate)
Forgetting that the reindeer were still attached, Santa threw it in reverse and floored it.
Machele

Second runner up: 2 points (selected by 17 rats while Victor was out)
The local deer craze known as 'Overpass Diving' came to an abrupt end Thursday night when, following a near-perfect 3 1/4 rotation dive, tragedy struck.
Ryan

Third runner up: 1 point (selected by a duckbilled platypus)
How come I don't see any picture?
Paul

Special bonus section

I came up with a couple myself:

"Bob thanked his lucky stars that he'd had the foresight to get his truck sighted in." (This will only amuse hunters.)

"Ram tough? Sure. Deer tough? Not quite."

Posted by: Jim at 09:20 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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January 17, 2005

Is it Monday already?

Egads this weekend went fast. It must me Monday though since I'm at work and there are lots of grumpy people all around.

What to do to dispel that fine case of the Mondays? Get a cup of coffee and look over the Bestofme Symphony. It beats the hell out of working and today's a holiday so you don't even have to feel guilty about it.

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January 14, 2005

What's cookin', good lookin'?

Ask VW. She's this week's host for the Carnival of the Recipes.

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I'm on the grill

And you can add the briquettes. I'll be interviewed by Jen, Queen of History and Stuff, and the questions get supplied by y'all. And the one or two readers she has that don't read this blog, I guess. And maybe a few folks who just follow the interviews. And the occasional flightless bird.

Anyway, send your questions to her by noon central next Thursday (1/20/05). She'll put them all together and give them to me in anonymous fashion. Not that she'll be anonymous. I mean, when somebody comes up and says "Yo! Here's the interview questions" and hands you the interview questions that's not really anonymous at all. I mean she collects them and gives them to me without telling who asked what question. So ask away in the knowledge that you will be free from my diabolic retribution.

I will of course naturally assume that boob related questions come from Harvey.

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Caption Contest

Contest will be open to sometime next week. Don't wait to the last day because nobody but me knows when it'll be. And to tell you the truth I don't know either. Woo hoo!!

As usual, 5 points to the winner and a handful to the also-rans.


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Victor loves him some split pea soup

Victor asked for Lovely Wife's split pea soup recipe. She gave it in the comments but I'm putting it up here where everybody will notice it. It's my good deed for the day - spreading goodwill and yummy food, not to mention AssWar ammunition.

Just to warn y'all, this isn't quite so much a recipe as it is a force of nature. Lovely Wife cooks her soups the old fashioned way, by love and intuition. more...

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January 13, 2005

Dear nameless coworker,

I know that you are efficiency minded but sometimes corners should not be cut and procedures should not be rushed. This could be for any number of reasons including quality, performance or, in this particular case, etiquette.

What I am specifically referring to is your behavior in the men's room this morning. You may recall that when you entered said bathroom I was already occupying the first urinal. You quickly analyzed the situation and correctly (according to the tenets of the Big Book of Men's Room Etiquette) proceeded to the last urinal. My concern is with your actions while traveling to your post.

It was particularly unnerving to be in the semi-compromised position mandated when urinating to hear your zipper open when you were directly behind me. Furthermore your motions and mannerisms, as well as your speed off the blocks, showed that you had already taken the tool in hand before arriving at your destination.

To reiterate, these two actions (unzipping behind another man and walking through the bathroom with your cock in hand) are both egregious violations of the BBMRE. I trust that merely bringing these errors to your attention will suffice to correct these deficiencies but I must warn you that I am prepared to retaliate if this behavior continues. I have homemade pea soup in storage and I am not afraid to use it.

Regards,
Jim Peacock

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I wonder how long it will be...

...before the Islamic terrorists start killing relief workers in Indonesia?

Relief and aid workers are a favorite target of Muslim extremists and there are shitloads of Muslim extremists in Indonesia. Right now the whole country is a target rich environment for these murderers. Chaos, unknown people everywhere, lots and lots of westerners with limited security.

In fact the Indonesian government is now setting up American forces for murder by these monsters. In an effort to remain in country to continue providing assistance our Marines will now be unarmed.

In a major compromise, the Marines agreed not to carry guns while on Indonesian soil and for the vast majority of troops to return to ships stationed off the coast after each day's operations.

I do not see good things coming out of this compromise.

(Hat tip to e-claire)

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Pea soup

We had Lovely Wife's homemade pea soup for dinner last night. Mmmmmmmm. Most of you have probably never had homemade pea soup; it's a vanishing art here in the States. Lovely Wife makes her soups old school style. She starts with a big pork butt bone, does some magic thing to get the flavor out of it, strips the meat, slow cooks the dried split peas, hand mashes the stuff and oh my Lord is it good stuff.

But it's more than just a fantastic dinner. You see peas, like their cousin beans, are a musical fruit. Pea soup for dinner means more than just a delightful repast. For a person like me it means ammo.

My strike runs are already planned. There'll be some cubical bombs dropped today.

Oh, yeah!

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January 12, 2005

Around and about

Carnival of the Vanities - Mucho reading material. Check out the blog too.

[This area reserved for space aliens.]

Google photo montage - Dirty words work too! And check out the blog - very funny.

100th review celebration giveaway - From one of my newest constant reads. If you sign up to win the prize without reading some of the reviews (which are hillarious) then you are a skeezer.

Happy Birthday Girl Child - Happy Daddy has a very sweet post remembering the event.

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Conversations with brilliance

[The scene: The boys are in the tub. Lovely Wife and I are having a conversation while they are relatively quiet. ]

Me: [To Lovely Wife] So I'm going to be involved in setting up KPIs for the company as well as metrics for Development.

Bear: [Interrupts] What's that?

Lovely Wife: What? Metrics?

Bear: No, kaypeeayes.

Me: It's an acronym. KPI stands for "key process indicator".

Lovely Wife: Do you know what that means?

Bear: No.

Lovely Wife: Can you figure it out?

Bear: Well, an indicator is like a light or something so it's probably a light to help you find your keys.

Lovely Wife: You're pretty good at figuring stuff out bear but...

Bear: [Interrupts] I know. I'm brilliant.

Lovely Wife: You're brilliant?

Bear: Yeah. I'm even smarter than you. more...

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January 11, 2005

The curtain is withdrawn

Random Penseur has another installment of his Behind the Curtain series where he shines the spotlight on history's supporting players. Claudius Smith was a swashbuckling cowboy, jailbreaker, and "a bold, handsome man, around whom secretly clustered all those unprincipled and daring men". He was also a murderer and villain, an American who terrorized New York and New Jersey in support of the Crown of England.

Go read. It's a good 'un.

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Live from the "So what?" files

There's some controversy about perennial favorite band Nickelback. Mikey Smith noticed a disturbing similarity between their older hit How You Remind Me and a newer hit Someday. He synched the songs up to play together and found that they do indeed share a baseline. That really pissed him off.

Nickelback, you lazy, talentless bunch of wankers. What, did you think nobody would notice that you're recycling your hideous dirge and selling it all over again to your deluded fan base? You bastards, you're taking advantage of those tone deaf MTV brainwashed twats who are too thick to notice you're releasing songs that are EXACTLY THE SAME as ones you recorded earlier. And here's the proof, people. Listen to their first godawful hit, played through the left speaker. At the same time, an equally shite single (released two years later) will be played through the right speaker. Can you spot the difference?

He maintains that this is effectively theft by deception. While I agree with some of his points ("deluded fan base" and "tone deaf MTV brainwashed twats" to be precise) my overall impression of his argument is "So what?".

In order to be popular a group must produce an identifiable sound. Think of any band that has had more than a single hit and you should have no trouble finding similarities in their songs. In this particular case they are recycling a base line. In three chord rock. How do you not recycle a baseline when you've only got a handful of them to work with?

They aren't talentless wankers, they are wankers of limited talent. Successful wankers of limited talent. Rich successful wankers of limited talent. Rich successful wankers of limited talent that get a whole lot more pussy than Mikey Smith.

And they deserve it. They made a sound that people like. They're smart enough to keep making the sound that people like. Eventually people will get bored with that sound and they will either come up with a new sound that people like or they will descend into obscurity like almost every other band in the history of music to resurface only as guests on Hollywood Squares or the occasional Trivial Pursuit question.

Posted by: Jim at 08:21 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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January 10, 2005

Sick and tired

That's me. Bloody sick and bloody tired. Sick enough that I'm going home shortly. Tired enough that my eyes keep going unfocused. This is despite enough drugs to keep Snoop Dog flying and about 24 hours of sleep in the past 2 days. Bleh.

Damned flu!

Anyway, here's a thought for the day:

Some people are like Slinkies . . . not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.

Posted by: Jim at 10:20 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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January 07, 2005

Nigerian scammers are really pissing me off

The quality of Nigerian scams has degraded so much over the past couple of years. Just look at this piece of garbage I got today:

Hello,

My greetings.

I got your email address from a casual enquiry wherein I sought for trustworthy potential partners with whom to go into business with in the investment of some contact funds ( $ 8,500,000.00 U.S ) currently trapped. It is my hope that you will be of assistance in helping me free the trapped funds, transfer it, and put it to investment purpose. 10% of the funds will accrue to you for your assistance.

The source of the funds are as follows: During the last military regime in my country,government officials awarded contracts that were grossly over-invoiced to Contractors. The present civilian government set up the Contract Review Panel, and mandated it to use the instruments of payments made available to it by the decree setting up the panel, to review those contracts and if necessary pay those who are being owed outstanding amounts.I have identified the above mentioned sum which have been lying unclaimed for years and would like to transfer and invest it.My position as a current serving Civil servant forbids me from operating foreign Bank accounts, this is why I need your assistance.

Here is where you come in : I need you to furnish me with the following information :
1. YOUR FULL NAMES
2. BUSINESS NAMES
3. ADDRESS
4. TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBERS

With these information, I will forward an application for payment in your busines's favour and ensure that it is approved. Upon the transfer of the funds, I will meet with you in your country so that we can go into investment after sharing in the agreed percentages ( 10% for you ).

Please do reply,

Olawale

I mean - that is truly pathetic. It breaks my heart to see the fine tradition of Nigerian scamming headed straight into the shit heap. Being me, I could not let this go without expressing myself. My reply is in the extended entry. more...

Posted by: Jim at 03:22 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Getting into work was a bit difficult today

Oh, the traffic wasn't any worse than usual so it was a relatively fast 45 minutes to drive in. Getting up to my office was the hard part.

I hit the button for the elevator and after a minute or so the right side elevator car (there are two elevators) arrived. The doors opened and I was greeted by darkness. The lights were out in the car and the little back-up light was on casting a feeble glow about. I figured what the heck and got on. I pushed the button for the second floor. Nothing happened.

I pushed the button numerous times but nothing continued to happen. After a little bit I realized I was acting like a lab rat clicking the lever even when it was obvious no food pellets were arriving. I exited the non-functioning elevator and pushed the call elevator button again. It didn't light up. Since there was an elevator already arrived on the floor it wasn't calling the other elevator.

This presented a problem. You may recall from previous posts that the stairwell doors are locked on the first floor so people are forced to go by the security desk to get to the upper floors. The security desk was currently unoccupied.

No elevator. Can't use the stairs. Nobody to report the problem to.

I was going to have to wait until somebody came down to the first floor on the elevator.

I waited several minutes and suddenly the defunct elevator closed its doors and headed upwards, no doubt to confound and irritate somebody on another floor by sitting idle and dark while they did their own lab rat routine. I pressed the call elevator button again and was rewarded with its cheery familiar glow.

The left elevator arrived momentarily and I was able to proceed to my offices without further mishap.

If anybody asks why I was late I'll just tell them I had trouble getting up this morning.

Posted by: Jim at 11:53 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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