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September 29, 2005

I'm About Do Some Fall Pruning on My Blogroll

by Joshua Minton

...There are quite a few dead leaves on my blogroll and I'm going to be trimming the growth away.

There are sites I haven't checked in eons as well as sites I thought were cool but turned out to be run by bullshit hack artists who deserve no play on the B to the W to the P.

Be ready.

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Check Out Microsoft's New Dashboard for XBOX360

by Joshua Minton

You can watch the video here.

Hat tip to Major Nelson.

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September 28, 2005

Here are a Few Issues Coming on the Ohio November 8th Ballot that You Should Be Aware Of

by Joshua Minton


  • Issue 2 would permit voters to cast ballots by mail or in person at an appropriate county board of elections up to 35 days before an election without stating a reason for voting early.

    I agree with this wholeheartedly but I also believe that we should be looking at ways to secure electronic voting via the Internet. I realize there is a lot of risk involved here but I'd like to see that layed out next to the potential rewards.

  • Issue 3 would revise limits on political contributions made by individuals, political-action committees and political parties, including reducing from $10,000 to $2,000 the maximum an individual can donate to a statewide candidate.

    As electioneering evolves, eventually most of a candidate's campaigning is going to be online which will greatly reduce the amount of money needed. Online virtual debates,chatrooms, comments and message boards, podcasts, blogcasts and so much more is going to define political races and this is technology that makes everything about communication and collaboration cheaper

  • Issue 4 would create an appointed five-member independent commission to draw new legislative and congressional districts every 10 years.

    Ohio's population shifts rapidly in weird areas and I'd actually recommend doing this once every five years. You'd be surprised at how quickly an area can go from farmland to Best Buys and Margaritaville restaurants around here.

  • Issue 5 would remove responsibility for overseeing elections from the Ohio secretary of state, handing it to an appointed nine-member board.

    Uh, duh! No elected or appointed state official should ever wield that much influence on a national election. It's more likely that we'll catch one of nine people doing us wrong than one well-connected and politically dangerous individual


Read the full article here.

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Here is my OKCupid! Politics Test Result

by Joshua Minton

You are a

Social Moderate
(43% permissive)

and an...

Economic Conservative
(61% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Centrist




Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid


This is an excellent little experiment, although I'm not quite sure I agree with the results. I'd place myself much farther to the right.

You can take the test here.

Hat tip to my man Reverse_Vampyr

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September 27, 2005

Boys Wear Pants Blog Cast #101

by Joshua Minton




This is part one of my conversation with Jason Patterson about art, spiritual awakening and the nature of true intelligence.

Jason and I worked together as entry level grunts in a customer service call center about five years ago. We used to have the most in-depth conversations on philosophy and individual freedom during our coffee breaks. Everyone around us thought we were nuts but we knew who had the goods.

I invited Jason to have another one of those deep conversations on my podcast so you can get a glimpse into the hell it has been for us to put the pieces together so that they fit in our minds.

Throughout both parts of this Blog Cast, Jason and I discuss:
  • The difficulty of collaborating with others in an artistic venture
  • The similarities between Tool and Pink Floyd and what I believe is Maynard's overall vision
  • The meat of the conversation is about Jason's decision to stay away from highly-opinionated and fear-based mindsets (aka "Rush Limbaugh") and what this means in terms of reaching individual Enlightenment for yourself
  • Jason tells us the most inspiring book he's ever read (hint: I bought it for him)

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This is Exactly What Happens When You Rely on the Government as Your Sole Source of Security

by Joshua Minton

This article discusses the assessment that one of the biggest gaps in the local, state, and federal responses to Hurricane Katrina.
When first responders arrived in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, one of the biggest dangers they faced was their inability to communicate with each other.

My cousin Terry is one of the community leaders in the of the HAM radio Emergency Response Unit in his area. He is one of the guys who drives into danger in order to make sure that hospitals can talk to ambulances and that the community holds together through secure communication being done by people who know what the hell they're doing.

This job is voluntary and pays a pauper's ransom for the risk he and his brethren take upon their shoulders.

All he asks for in return is your respect and your gratitude.

He can talk to any other HAM radio operator in the world from the equipment he carries on his hip. He has talked to people in almost every country in the world.

HAM radio operators are some of the friendliest people I've ever interacted with. They have been, without exception, the most open and willing to help you out group of artists (I'm sorry but communication is an art) that I've ever come across.

If the people in Louisiana were a community like we have communities here in the Midwest where it's more about keeping your corn from burning and helping out your neighbor when they need it, then maybe they wouldn't have fallen apart like a white turd in a rain storm.

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Coins from the Dead: Reflections On My Grandfather and How He Came Back to Life

by Joshua Minton

My aunts and uncles are in their seventies. My mother was born almost 30 years after my youngest aunt was born--she was a surprise to say the least.

So my aunts and uncles are much more like grandparents than they are aunts and uncles. And my maternal grandfather was a wonderful son-of-a-bitch. He drank whiskey like water. He won and lost thousands playing poker (not to mention a few hogs and cows along the way--forget Wil Wheaton and those fags in Vegas because farmers are the most serious poker players you'll ever find).

He sometimes fell asleep drunk on the toilet but he did it with class. He was a harsh man but I remember he had the most gentle hands and the biggest room-filling laugh.

My oldest aunt despised him when he was drunk--so he'd see she was coming and go to the cabinet and get out every liquor bottle in the house and do a couple shots so it smelled like he'd been drinking all day.

He'd invite his grandchildren over on Easter Sunday, after church, so he could give them melted chocolate that would ruin their nice outfits.

I remember being two years old and sitting on my grandfather's lap while we counted money. I learned to count, add and subtract at a very young age because I shuffled thousands of dollars in coins into piles for rolling.

On one of those occassions, he let me sip from his Jaggin' Coke and I remember liking the taste of the Coke a lot more than the whiskey. And this is where my Paw-Paw and I are different. I'm happy about that difference--it has made my life a lot more easier and far more enjoyable.

During times, the rest of the family probably felt like my grandfather made everyone's life around him harder except for me and my mother. He bought us a house when she was a single mother, divorced after less than a year of marriage, and forced to move back to a great big I told you so coming from her family.

But she had me with her and because I was so damned cute, I was like a Talisman against any criticism my family could heap on my mother for up and marrying a man who hadn't shown much initiative except for being a smart ass troublemaker and who was now out of basic training and headed for a spectacular career as an enlisted United States Marine (my father went on to become one of the most driven and gifted individuals I know and I am very proud that most of my inspiration and genetic drive for success comes from him and my grandmother).


But these memories of my grandfather I have just described to you are my family's memories that have been handed to me as sloppy seconds. These are things that happened before my time and are therefore easy for me to dismiss.

The most striking memory I have about my grandfather is that he was kind, gentle, and fiercely protective of me. And to a seven-year old child--that is God and it's a hell of a thing when your mother takes you aside on a Sunday and tells you that God died and that you won't be seeing him around here no more and sorry 'bout your luck but this is how the big bad world works.

So the seven-year old kid shed his tears at the service and when he lost it, everyone lost it, because even though the man was a wonderful son of a bitch to most of the people in his life, he loved that little Juicy unconditionally and that had to count something toward his character. It had to be something he could offer up at the gates of heaven to barter for admission despite the sins of his past.

When I cried, everyone cried because I cried like Mary Magdalene at the cross--I cried because God was dead and it didn't look he was ever coming back.

Well, imagine my surprise when my aunts and uncles came to Ohio to visit last week and my youngest aunt handed me a faded yellow envelope that had been folded into fourths. On the front of the envelope, written upside down, was my name with three lines underneath it--in my grandfather's handwriting.

She told me he had left this in a drawer and they found it cleaning up his house after he died. The envelope had been lying in the back of a drawer for years and finally showed up at an opportune time to bring it to me in Ohio.

I opened the envelope and shook the contents into my other hand.

  • There were three 1979 Susan B. Anthony dollars
  • There was one new 1983 nickel (this was also the year he died)
  • And there was a 1971 Kennedy half dollar with a black X marking out the eagle

Now, immediately, my mind fixed on this strange X and I wondered why my grandfather left me defaced US currency.
Could this mean that he was the eldest member of a secret organization that sought to replace the government-controlled communications delivery process like the Tristero in The Crying of Lot 49?

But when I flipped the coin over, I saw that a low arch had been penned from Kennedy's left eye to the base of his skull. Now I thought:

Is my grandfather trying to tell me that he was the one who shot Kennedy because he was an elder member of a secret organization that sought to replace the government-controlled communications delivery process?

Now, this is because I think and write so much about how communication processes in our society are changing reality daily, and this fixation has retarded the portion of my brain that deals with rational thought. Lucky for us all, I am aware of this.

So, I went for what was behind supposition number two. And immediately, my mind gave me an image of my grandfather and I sitting at the table and playing tic-tac-toe with money for money (there were nine half dollar pieces as game tokens but we played for a nickel a round). Hey, to a seven-year-old, that's a lot of money.

So that X was probably a game marker and that suspicious arc across JFK's head was probably an O that got rubbed out over the years (even though it is a perfect demonstration of the internal damage arc of James Files's Firebolt bullet as it was fired from the grassy knoll and entered Kennedy's right temple, forcing his head "back and to the left" while Charles Nicolette's bullet from behind, only a fraction of a second later, pushed Kennedy's head forward....but I digress)

Two days later as I held the half-dollar with the X on it in my palm (it has now become my take everywhere pocket talisman because when I am superstitious, I go all out). And as I stared at the coin, tears that were stuck in the faucet from twenty-three years ago started to roll and I had a good fourteen second squinched up facial convulsion that passed like the pain of losing anything does, anything but your own life.

It's a hell of a thing when a dead relative reaches out and touches your hand years after they're gone. Everyone says we keep people alive by their memories inside of us but that's a bullshit lie because memories are stillborn experiences that weren't taken to the very end. Memories are residual interest payments on the pain we inflict on those around us every day.

I imagine my grandfather used the sauce to drown out a lot of memories and who can blame him?

My memories of my grandfather are no more valid than my theories on the Kennedy assassination--just because I have them doesn't make them true. I can imagine that my grandfather was a secret conspiratorial Patrick Henry assassin instead of a hard-drinking, harsh-talking, deep-loving man who was a skilled construction artist and who didn't start loving and appreciating the people around him until it was almost too late.

It doesn't matter to me how pissed off my Aunts and Uncles still are at him all these years later because of what a shit he was to them when they knew him.

It doesn't matter to me how he spent months at a time away from his family and often left my mother standing at the door crying for her daddy who loved her unconditionally and gave her everything she ever wanted and who she wouldn't see for several months at a time.

It doesn't matter to me that granddad was a traveling man because I knew him after his big accident, when his legs had been shattered and all that was left were a metal walking cane with a grey rubber grip, the few braincells he hadn't stomped out with fifths of John Daniels on the Interstate roads of Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, and he had a heart the size of a god damned Illinois cornfield.


What matters is the way I still feel about him and about how good it felt to be touching a coin that was probably last touched by his hands.

I imagine him leaned over hunchbacked on that big kitchen table with the checkered vinyl tablecloth. I have just been picked up on Saturday morning after my weekly ritual of sleeping over at Paw-Paw's on Fridays. We had just finished the last of several games of tic-tac-toe and I was the big winner that day.

And my Paw-Paw was drunk but happy because he has a light in his life that he finally has the sense to walk toward. He is scrawling on a white #6 envelope that would eventually yellow with the age and wear of 23 years in my aunt's junk drawer. He is writing with a cheap ballpoint pen and he is writing the name of his toe-headed grandson which he underlines three times for emphasis; as if to say to his family:
You can tear down my house, haul out all my shit to the curb, sell it off and keep it. Send your kids to college with it or do something you love to do. I've been an ass and you've earned it. But whatever you do--you'd better make sure that this little boy gets these coins. He earned them! He's a hell of a tic-tac-toe player and one day, he might just surprise you, world. So you'd better watch out!

My memories of my grandfather are mine to dress up as I see fit but these coins belong to the both of us.

And no matter how hard I try, I could never erase that X across the eagle or the arc across President Kennedy's head.

But nor would I want to.

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Here is a Very Interesting Article on Land-Value Taxation that is Being Considered in Helping Revive Cleveland, OH

by Joshua Minton

This article is very interesting. Consider:
It’s called land-value taxation, a scheme by which property taxes concentrate on land rather than buildings. The current system effectively punishes property owners who improve their lots, be it with a high-rise or a screened-in porch. Slumlords and speculators, meanwhile, enjoy lower taxes for keeping their land idle and neglected.

A quick example: The county auditor says the WKYC-TV studio on Lakeside Avenue is worth $12.6 million. Most of the property’s value ($9.3 million) is derived from its recently constructed building. The net real-estate taxes are $158,000.

A few blocks east of WKYC, on a parcel of similar size, is a parking lot. Striped asphalt is not much of an improvement, so the property is assessed at $2.1 million — and the taxes are just $26,500.

The idea of taxing land and not buildings is credited to Henry George, a 19th-century populist. George held that society made land valuable, so society should receive the benefit. He promoted a single tax on land and the elimination of all others.


Hat tip to Fantastic Bastard for the link

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Politics in America is Far More Corrupt at the Local and State Level than On the Federal

by Joshua Minton

...and sometimes I think that's one of the reasons why the mainstream media focuses so much on the national politics--to obfuscate the true acts of pilfering that go on in front of our eyes every day on the way to work, going shopping, or taking our kids to the park.

Consider this letter from a Cleveland resident that was posted on Erie Voices this weekend from The Cleveland Plain Dealer:
Our nation's laws are grounded in the principle that we are a nation of laws, not of men. After reading the Sept. 18 article regarding "private judges," I have to question whether that axiom holds true in Cuyahoga County.

First, perhaps it is because I am not an attorney and do not speak legalese, but I fail to see where there is any ambiguity concerning the private judges' use of county facilities. The plain language of the law requires that the "parties will assume the responsibilities for providing facilities, equipment, and personnel." Why, then, should the taxpayers foot the bill when the law clearly says they should not?

Second, Rob Glickman asks why any judge would be upset with not trying a complicated case? Well, I was under the impression that part of a judge's duty was to try cases. If the judges do not like to try their cases, maybe it is time for them to seek a new profession.

Finally, implicit in the article is yet another failing of the Taft administration, which is short- term appointments to the bench. In appointing judges whom the public has rejected, the governor places another burden on the taxpayers while allowing his friends to line their pockets.

Joseph A. Amschlinger

Trust me, your state judges and councilmen and women are most likely robbing you blind and wasting your tax money on frivolities, living like the bourgeoisie in the years leading up to the French Revolution.

But to those people, I say this: Be alert because Americans invented the successful citizenry revolution. The spirit of George Washington, Patrick Henry, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan still flow through these veins.

The American citizen is not stupid and will only take so much before you get held accountable for what you do with the collective trust they have each given you as individuals to secure their lives and property from infringement by other citizens or foreign invaders.

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September 26, 2005

Behold, the Coming of the Virtual Plague

by Joshua Minton

This is madness!

There has been a rampant plague in the online game WarCraft which has killed tens of thousands of characters on two of the game's servers.

The plague came from a group of characters touching a cursed corpse and other players found ways to spread the plague through pets that wandered into different areas.

Maybe one day, we'll just fight all of our wars and let disease and ignorance kill our online identities by the thousands.

This way, when our entire way of life is threatened and decimated by maniacal forces, we can reboot the software and start from the beginning with a new character creation.

Maybe next time, we'll be the bad guy for change--it's all relative in cyberspace.

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If You Think No Child Left Behind was About Education...

by Joshua Minton

...you'd better think again. This article makes it all too clear who is the one profiting from this ridiculous bill that has done nothing but drive good teachers over the edge.

My dad had been a seventh grade geography teacher for almost ten years before No Child Left Behind. Now, he's about to become a Lieutenant Sheriff.

He just figured he'll catch his criminal students on the other end of the system instead.

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Ohio State University is the Biggest Money Whore Since Sharon Stone in Casino

by Joshua Minton

OSU is asking the state of Ohio for 58.5 million dollars for building rennovations. This is the same university who milks football ticket buyers of thousands of dollars just for the opportunity to buy tickets which are thousands of dollars more.

This is the same university that recently put in an indoor kayaking track.

This is the same university who, less than ten years ago, influenced the mass purchase and closing of every cool bar on High Street and replaced them with fast-food crap.

This is the same university who won't allow its fans to drink and be merry without hassling the shit out of them.

My message to the leaderhship of OSU is: Someday, those fans and students might just turn and walk away if they ever realize exactly how little you care about them and how much you care about their money.

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Colin Galbraith is Dead

by Joshua Minton

Colin Galbraith is a charming Scottish writer whose website I picked up because he subscribed to my e-mail newsletter.

Well, he woke up last week to discover that he was dead, at least according to Scotsman.com.

Read his post. It's some funny stuff.

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Thomas Sowell Skewers the Myth of Racism in Home Loans

by Joshua Minton

Consider the following from Master Sowell:

  • ...both research and old age tend to produce skepticism about things that look plausible on the surface. Just scratching the surface a little often makes a plausible case collapse like a house of cards.

  • These are what could be called "Aha!" statistics. If you start out with a preconception and find numbers that fit that preconception, you say, "Aha!" But when the numbers don’t fit any preconception — when no one believes that banks are discriminating against whites and in favor of Asian Americans — then no "Aha!"

  • Moreover, where there is a "problem" proclaimed in the media, there will almost invariably be a "solution" proposed in politics. Often the solution is worse than the problem.

  • Of course, the government can always step in and put a stop to these high-cost loans, which will probably mean that people with lower credit ratings can’t buy a home at all.

    ...Read the whole article here.
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    I Have a Question for the Saudi Foreign Minister

    by Joshua Minton

    Excuse me, Sir. Yes, over here in the corner of the media that no one legitimate would be caught dead in.

    Yes Sir, that does make you calling on much more of a risk because I'll ask you harder questions because I have no corporate agenda on my head.

    Well, Sir; my question begins with a thank you. I'd like to thank you for offering us advice and warnings about invading Iraq. But my question is, where was your advice and warning when 19 of your citizens crossed our borders, entered our citites, felt up our strippers, and then drove planes into our buildings, killing 3,000 of us?

    I think it's a little bit late to be accepting advice or warnings from you. If I had my way and if Bush was a true leader with both hands on the reigns, your country would have been first.

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    The Niaides Project...Completed!

    by Joshua Minton

    And mission successful.

    For those of you new readers who didn't catch my post the first time around about my initial experiences participating in a fantastic creative writing project that was sponsored by The Columbus Dispatch (my city's proud paper) titled Create-A-Classic Novel; the project was seven novels to be written chapter by chapter in sequential order. The author writing the next chapter would have about five days to complete their 1,500 words. This meant that you didn't even know where the story was going until five days before your chapter was due.

    It was harrowing for the editing staff and it was damn near impossible as a writer who likes to plan his stuff out. But somehow, we all made it on time and on the money.

    I was pissed off that the guy after me went back and rewrote over my chapter, leading us to a schism of plot and character that couldn't be resolved except by nixing one of our chapters.

    The editor and staff writer who started the piece elected to write a concluding chapter that vaguely seemed to wrap things up without addressing the discrepancy in plot directly.

    It worked, but it could have been a hell of a lot better.

    Discrepancies and all, our book won the reader poll for the best online novel which means that people care far more about enthusiasm than they do about plot and character (something any good writer knows instinctively).

    We had some good enthusiasm on my team. In fact, the guy who wrote my favorite chapter won the editor's choice award for best author and boy did he deserve it!

    I had a great time and I was very impressed with the results and the camaraderie. The editing staff even asked us our opinion on how it could go smoother next time around.

    I had some suggestions like adding audio readings of the chapters as podcasts that people could download to their PDAs or iPods and listen to the chapters on their way to work, at work, or laying in bed.

    I suggested each team have its own blog that is subscription-based and use it to post their rough draft and get the other authors' feedback.

    The guy next to me didn't like the idea of knowing who was writing on his team which led me to believe that he was still at that I'm more talented than you are stage of writing before you've been knocked on your ass by a writer you know whose stuff makes you want to write better.

    With the right person leading that project, it could turn into a major marketing boon for The Dispatch.

    I would attack it from all sides with:

    • Readings in local bookstores
    • Interviews on Korby (our local Limbaugh of common sense)
    • Internet courses at public libraries to teach the elderly how to use the Internet to receive their news.
    • I would have RSS feeds and an opt-in e-mail newsletter.
    • I would build a brand around this event that would set the literary community on fire in this area and have people looking forward to the Create A Classic season which should be in the colder months when more people spend time inside surfing the web.

    It would start when Buckeye season closed and close when the golf season began.

    I had a hell of a time and I hope it shows in the writing. Here is a quick photo journal of the awards ceremony where you can see my ugly mug in true color.

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    Related Posts (on one page):

    1. The Niaides Project...Completed!
    2. This Pretty Much Just Pisses Me Off!

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    I Think I Found My Problem...

    by Joshua Minton

    It all comes from having this painting on my wall growing up:


    From 8th grade to 11th grade I fell into the social class so quaintly referred to at the time as a Wigger (that means "White Nigger"), which meant that I was totally into the Hip-Hop rennaissance happening at the end of the eighties and which lasted until about 1993.

    This is the part of my social development where I learned to be cool. For proof of this, please review the before and after bedroom wall:

    Before the Rap Attack


    And After...

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    Amendments Poll Results

    by Joshua Minton

    The question was:
    Which Amendmen to the Constitution is more important,the First or Second Amendment?
    The results were about what I expected:

    • 75% said the First Amendment was more important
    • 25% said the Second Amendment was more important


    I fall into the minority here because I believe that it is the Second Amendment that secures the First Amendment. Consider the words of Zell Miller from his 2004 speech at the Republican National Convention:
    For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.

    It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.

    It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.

    It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom he abuses to burn that flag.

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    September 25, 2005

    Surprising Finding from the Forbes 400 Richest People

    by Michael Surber

    You have to check out the Forbes 400 richest people.

    The first thing that jumps right off of the page is that four out of the top five richest people in the country do not have a formal education (drop-outs at that).

    Six through ten are all of Sam Walton's kids. Sam graduated from Columbia, MO but I don't think any of his kids went to college.

    Another surprising nugget is that all this Oprah Winfrey crap about her being the richest woman in the world, or country, or whatever outrageous claim all of these crazed fans have been making are absolute horseshit. All of her "followers" are so freaking brainwashed that you could dedicated an entire blog just to that. She actually comes in at a staggering 235. I'm not impressed.

    OK, well maybe I'm a little impressed that she has done it and I haven't, but in comparison with the other 200+ people above her, it's not so impressive.

    I love to read this kind of stuff. It can be very inspirational.

    By the way, The Donald and Steven Spielberg are tied at 83. I don't know why I find that funny, but I do.

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    The Blessed Ascension of John Roberts

    by Joshua Minton

    Our society works best when there are a lot of opinions funneled through just and righteous laws of governance. The trick is that both sides have to agree on what they’re going do and do it. That is how trust is built between two people, two parties, two cities, two countries, and between human beings and their creator.

    In order for society to work, both sides must also agree to abide by and enforce the laws as they are written (and not through the judiciary).

    I think Chief Justice Roberts is the best qualified person to lead our Supreme Court that I've ever heard discuss the law in a public forum.

    And another conservative minority or female in the Associate Justice's spot vacated by Sandra Day O'Conner will go a long way toward reeling this court and this country back from the tyrannical line it crossed in the 1960s.

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    If You Want to Stop War, You Must Create Better Art!

    by Joshua Minton

    Social change on a massive scale happens in one of two ways--through War or Art.

    I define War as any aggressive act that is meant to secure space: ideological space, geographical space, space for resources, or space to procreate.

    Acts of war always lower the living standards of those around you, even if your personal living standard goes up. You are a selfish prick if you live your live by the philosophy of making total war on those around you.

    I define Art as any idea, expression, product, or service that raises your living standard as well as those around you through the majesty of spiritually creative and morally intelligent synergy applied through artistic talents and skill sets.

    I think it’s clear which road is more profitable but you decide for yourself.

    We watched in real time as soldiers rolled into the desert of a foreign nation and secured the borders. Then the cameras were shut off once the real war began but, for the first time in history, passive observers witnessed the creation of War happening in real time and that is the point.

    Because while we can experience the actual creation of War, we can also participate in the creation of art in real time.
    Through the proper use of blogs, podcasts, e-mail newsletters, and aggressive marketing (both off and online), artists now have a potential and a platform to reach billions of people each second.

    How many are taking advantage of it?

    And while we’re asking questions, how many artists are wasting their time marching in the streets?

    How many are sitting around bitching to their co-workers and friends and feeling completely helpless and creatively void?

    How many are filling up warehouses of cyberspace with wasteland rhetoric and inflammatory political crap, throwing turds into an already muddy pond?

    How many artists are churning out spiritually, morally, and intellectually absent work that continues to deal with the parts of the whole instead of the entire framework and content of life like proper art should?

    If you’re one of these artists, then SNAP OUT OF IT!

    You've been given the greatest democratic tool of free expression in history and it is yours to waste or use to improve the living standard of yourself and the people around you.

    If you can pull it off, you will inspire those around you to act differently toward their circles of influence and society will begin humming again.

    A renaissance isn't a bomb that falls on the city. It’s a hot stone dropped into an already warm and rippling pond. The stone’s impact unifies the motion of the waves into growing concentric circles that touch the heart long before they ever reach the mind.

    Joseph Campbell always said that if a mythology or work of art has to be explained to the mind in rational terms, it is no longer functioning to put you in touch with the mystery that is the true source of your own being.

    Stop explaining things and don't waste energy where it doesn't synergize.

    As an artist, you will never defeat warlords arguing with them on their terms. They have the map and they are the ones driving the vehicle, dropping the bombs, and cutting off heads.

    It is your civic duty as an artist to use your talents, skill sets, experience, and passion to repaint the landscape and make the Warlord’s map obsolete.

    Artists must rise beyond the pettiness of local bickering by pooling the strengths and resources of those around them into an inspiration that can be creatively channeled into their strengths, talents, and skill sets to produce art on the breakthrough level of universal human expression (instead of petty and limited social group expression which 99% of so-called artists are putting out today).

    As an artist, you must pull back the veil of mystery that surrounds us all, so we may once again connect with the true source of inspiration which lies in the secret heart of every person on Earth.




    This article will be printed in the Monday September 26th edition of , , ,

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    September 23, 2005

    I Don't Trust Hypnosis

    by Joshua Minton

    And this is why.

    Imagine being called up on stage with twenty other people and then being hypnotized and made to simulate sex with your chair in front of an audience of hundreds and a convenient video camera which will broadcast your lunacy to the entire world.

    Trust me, it's much funnier when it didn't happen to you.

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    September 22, 2005

    A Classic Rap Triple Play

    by Joshua Minton

    I was rollin' with all the windows down on the SUV and the Old School Rap channel The Rhyme kickin' on XM. There was an awesome triple play of: Cinderfella by Dana Dane, I Need Love by L.L. Cool J, and Criminal Minded by Boogie Down Productions.

    That triple-terror of classics was a pure and joyful stroll down memory lane.

    I love satellite radio!

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    I'm Glad it Wasn't Me in That Hurricane

    by Joshua Minton

    I firmly believe that the only two sources of truth come out of the mouths of children and decrepitly old people.

    I was standing at the eye doctor's counter today, forking over my plastic and clipboard when this old lady wheels in on a manual wheelchair.

    For some reason, we got on the topic of Hurricanes Katrina and now Rita.

    The old woman threw up her hands and became very animated. She started telling us about how she had just moved up here two months ago and how happy she was that she wasn't there.

    And that got me thinking, You know what? I'm glad I wasn't there too!

    What happened to honesty in the world? Can't I be happy that my parents, grandparents and past ancestors didn't settle down in an area that was geologically unsafe to habitate? Can't I breathe a Darwinian sigh of relief that so-far Natural Selection has snared me in its net yet?

    Can't we just be honest without incrimination anymore?

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    How to Create Your Own Digital Medical Record

    by Joshua Minton

    MSNBC.com has a great article on websites and services that allow you to create your own digital medical record that is completely portable.

    Each person must begin taking control of their personal healthcare and not allow doctors, insurance companies and corporate agendas to dictate their personal health strategies.

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    September 21, 2005

    The Economics of Slavery, the Real Cause of the Civil War, and What We Need to Do to Fix This Shit

    by Joshua Minton

    Preface to the Essay

    Sometimes when I'm reading books that are helping to change my worldview, I like to compose short essays that let me organize and capture what the author is saying in my own words but try and bust it down to an even simpler expression and hopefully take it beyond to a directly related argument in language that any reasonable person can read and understand. This should be the purpose and goal of good expository writing (many journalists and bloggers would do well to heed its magic and obey--I don't make the rules, I just define them).

    I've been using this process to formulate my thoughts on slavery and the civil war, following reading Thomas Sowell's book Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One.

    Reading this book was one of those blessed paradigm-shifting moments where the myst that obfuscates the inside of the crystal ball has shifted away from an area where I can almost see the other side.

    Before reading the essay, you should know that Dr. Sowell is one of the most brilliant social thinkers alive at this time on Earth...and yes, he's a black man if that should matter to you in any way (let's be honest, that biological fact will validate or invalidate the ideas he is expressing in the minds of many people who read them). But I ask that you engage these ideas on their merit as successful and brilliant ideas; because that is how Dr. Sowell would treat you.

    Two years ago, I got an email back from Dr. Sowell about a question I had about the gold standard and how it affected currency. I remember thinking, Wow, this guy took five minutes from his day to email me back. That is just stand-up and his character shines through in a universally obvious way.

    On a professional level, Dr. Sowell has dealt with race from every aspect and his economic and moral philosophy of how the world best works for a free people left to trade under noble pretenses has been an anchor for me as I have defined and documented my individual core values. His arguments have risen so far beyond and above race that he should be immediately recognized and fraternally revered as the beacon of liberty that he is.

    The Economics of American Slavery, the Real Cause of the Civil War, and What We Need to Do to Fix This Shit

    by Joshua Minton


    Being Worked to Death


    Consider that most of the inmates in Communist-run forced labor camps were worked completely to death. And where privately-owned slaves were cheap and easy to replace, they were most often worked to death and replaced with the next body. These slaves were treated as livestock that was killed but didn't get eaten or as tools which once broken couldn't be fixed (which meant they were worth even less to a farmer or manufacturer).

    But where slaves were privately owned and had to be imported, there was a completely different economic attitude towards them and thanks to many of these slave-owners also being devout Christians, a whole new value system emerged regarding slaves and their humanity and ultimately their freedom. But this paradigm revolution that saw slaves going from chattel to equal human beings began as a worship of value that came about because slaves were so difficult and expensive to procure in pre-Civil War America.

    From this property worship, the Christian concept of brotherly love merged with a changing social atmosphere that favored individual liberty over collective tyranny and ultimately resulted in the overall decimation of slavery in the civilized Western world.

    Every lash of the whip has been repaid by the slash of the sword (or any available thermonuclear device) and we are culturally ready to face and finally go beyond our nation's birth of spiritual freedom from the bowels of moral tyranny.

    Some Slaves were Worth More Than Others


    The next thing I'd like you to consider is that it was paid immigrants (Irish mainly), and not enslaved Africans, who were hired and allocated toward the most dangerous tasks like draining malarial swamps, working directly with steam, building the railroads (along with the Chinese), etc.

    African slaves in the Antebellum South were far too valuable to be used so willy-nilly in dangerous tasks that any "Paddy" could do and significantly lower the risk factor of losing valuable property to the inevitable accident.

    Sowell asks a pertinent question that every Economist worth their signature would also ask:
    How does involuntary labor in general affect the allocation of scarce resources which have alternative uses? (50)
    When you're forcing someone to perform involuntary labor, labor they are being threatened by force or even murder to perform; your resources are not being diverted based on a price reflecting their value.

    In other words, you could be wasting and overpaying for far less than the best your resources could be bringing you. You might think that you're winning, but it's likely you'd be losing your ass.

    The cool thing about the global market is that usually when you negotiate your goods and services based on their price value in a market with minimal restrictions (enough to keep you and the other honest person from getting ripped off by swindlers and frauds), you know that they're going to their most efficient uses. You know why you're winning--because you are offering the best that the market has to offer in your area and you are constantly improving upon it to meet your audience's needs and desires. And when you win like this, the living standard of everyone rises and there is more happiness.

    And likewise, when you enter the market behind tyrannical tax loopholes and ridiculous tariffs set up for political or corporate rather than economic reasons, or you legislate and regulate based on corporate special interest groups who each have a separate and divisive agenda, then the living standard of everyone ultimately suffers and there is more misery in the world.

    It basically comes down to whether you are an Enlightened human being committed to the principles of individual liberty that this country was founded upon or if you're a rotten prick who is attracted to the over-regulation and immovable governing infrastructure that has marked every fascist, socialist and communistic regime in recorded history (all being left-leaning ideologies favoring state power before the individual and directly undermining the Declaration of Independence upon which our Constitution is founded).

    A Short History of Slave Economics


    The word slavery comes from the word Slav which is in almost every major language spoken. The slavs of Europe were slaves hundreds of years before Africans were ever negotiated for, seized, and forced into slavery.

    The slavs were the true chattel and timbers in the history of slavery--they were a seemingly inexhaustible resource that could be burned out like coal and then thrown away when they had burned down to ash. These were the least valuable human beings who ever lived and I'd like to give them a moment of mental silence in reverence for their collective suffering.

    Okay the moment has passed--let's get back to the topic at hand.

    Sowell points out that the more skilled and harder the task being performed by a slave, the higher the slave's value was in their owner's mind. This was based on their value to produce in the marketplace or on a more personal level (I don't need to go into specifics here).

    Sowell's whole point in bringing up this distinction is to show that there were many areas of value between the paradigms of slavery and individual freedom and that these areas were based upon and can be studied in terms of the market value of the individual slave.

    So if, like Antebellum Southern Americans of the past, you had to import slaves and encourage them to procreate in order to increase their production value (hence the slave population which would ultimately drive down their cost as more supply was raised to meet demand); then you would begin looking upon your slave as a very valuable investment, as much as you would your home and other major assets.

    In essence, slaves at that time were the biggest and most versatile tool in the southern chest and the bread and butter would have stopped coming if the tool was taken away from them.

    This is a very important point to make because many people excuse modern day issues of health care, civil defense, and the tax structure as social issues far too complex to solve in our time. Well, how do you think the Founders felt about slavery, knowing its economic stranglehold on the country as well as its ugly, evil, spirit- and value-killing truth?

    It wasn't until a great fusion of ideas, principles, and morality that slavery began to socially self-destruct.

    • The principal was the Christian concept of foundational love for one's neighbor

    • The moral, economic, and legal ideas were those of John Locke, Frederic Bastiat, and the American Founding Fathers who all stated unequivocally that every human being is born with certain inherent rights that can never be taken except by voluntary submission through ignorance, complacency, or sheer evil

    This is still the spiritual struggle for America and has been from the beginning. We continue to wrestle with being founded upon individual freedom but supported by cultural tyranny. This has, in fact, now become the overall struggle in the world and the winners of this war might not even have a world and society left worth fighting for.

    Like Kevin Kostner's character said in Open Range, "Someday you're going to realize that there are things worse than dying and that those are the things worth fighting for."

    Every World War, Civil War, and straight up War of Invasion ever fought by the United States has been sold as securing territory in the paradigmatic area between complete slavery and complete individual liberty a little closer to the final touchdown pass on our side (which is Liberty, in case you forgot).

    But America isn't just a contestant in this game--we're the game board and the game rules. We control the pieces. We control the dice. And we are dealing the cards.

    But once those cards are dealt, they have to be played and the rules take over at that point.

    Conclusion: The Real Cause of the American Civil War and Starting the Clean-Up


    Slavery is the most inefficient and ineffective way to get things done that require manual labor. Not only does it waste valuable resources through ineffective planning that stems from ignorance of the labor value, but it robs the spiritual and moral energy from the slave-holder.

    This was obvious to our Founding Fathers and Congress; and slavery was well on its way to being outlawed in the 1850s and this would have been accomplished in the next thirty years had the American South chose to sit still and let it happen as quietly and smoothly as possible.

    The Southern leaders saw what was coming as clearly as a thundercloud in a blue sky. And instead of passively laying down to watch the foundation of their entire society be gradually pulled out from under their feet, they acted according to the spirit of the Constitution--seceding from a union they felt was no longer protecting their best interests.

    A freshman President, as virgin to being Commander-in-Chief as Bush was on 9/11, had to make the biggest cultural, political, and martial decision ever made in American history up to that point (even bigger than The Louisiana Purchase which started the entire cycle of going beyond the boundaries of The Constitution).

    He decided to hold the Union together at any cost.

    Initially, this meant keeping the south just as it was, slaves and all, but as time progressed it became apparent that the Union would not win until the war acknowledged and joined the greater paradigm war going on for individual liberty against moral, spiritual, and social tyranny.

    So the Emancipation came followed by the slaves being freed from legal bondage through the laws of the Federal Constitution.

    Of course, changing the legal bondage at the state and local level took another hundred years and the cultural bondage is just now beginning to break.

    Progress in this last phase of the Race War has been retarded due to various in-group focusing of resources into cultural identities far different from that which The Constitution demands of its citizens.

    We are called upon by a higher order to be socially and morally responsible individual citizens driven by our spiritual passions for greater lives for ourselves and those around us instead of pathetic and herded social groups being hauled around by the nosering of our group-defined definition of collective suffering.

    The gradual destruction of the values and principles that our Holy social union was founded upon has resulted in a fragemented people who aren't even united under a common Federal identity and purpose. And it is this struggle for definition that was the real cause of the Civil War and is the root cause of every other war ever fought.

    Recognizing this as a fact like you do when you see the moon in a dark night sky, you should realize that we must do something to fix all this bullshit before our species teeters off the edge as one more failed experiment that fell prey to the physics, biology, and sociology of entropy (in other words, we ignorantly remain closed systems which are inevitably torn down by the physics of corporeal reality).

    We must first define our cultural vision and personal identities in terms of individual liberty. And We must recognize and overcome the horrors and fears of the past so We have the strength and determination to take advantage of the the opportunities of the present and turn them into the hopes for the future.



    ©2005 Family Bliss Enterprises, Inc.

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    2. The Economics of Slavery, the Real Cause of the Civil War, and What We Need to Do to Fix This Shit

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    I'm Not a Superstitious Person...

    by Joshua Minton

    ...but if I believed that storms were bad omens and punishment for evil doing...I might be tempted to throw in the towel at this point.

    If I believed that massive death and destruction could be meted out from the identity of a social divinity universally recognized to be a bastard to his enemies and a lover to his minions...I'd probably fold my hand.

    If I knew in my heart of hearts that the paradigm and value-culture center of my life was inherently evil and that I would be punished for my moral transgressions as well as those of my friend and neighbor who I was too weak-willed to give my open opinions and support to...I'd cash in my chips and go home to love the ones I'm with.

    If I had what some call faith, the ability to look away and hum while the world burns around me, I'd probably make a better party voter.

    I'd be a lot more things if I were a superstitious person.

    May God bless and protect those in the Gulf region once again as they bear the burden of media tragedy and entertainment for the next three weeks.

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    Slipping Point (demo) by Joshua Minton

    by Joshua Minton

    (02:03)
    This is a demo I wrote in response to an e-mail I got from a guy I've been extending a handshake to for two years now.

    No one should have to beg for friendship because they are sorry for wrong pastdoings and seriously want to make amends.

    Here are the lyrics so far:

    Something bad is coming up,
    Something troubling.
    Something bad is coming up,
    something from underneath.

    I’m walking ‘round hysterical
    I just can’t think to see
    I’m feeling ‘round hylerical
    but the only thing funny is me

    Cause I think I’m missing out on all the good times too;
    and I just can’t see myself getting to the end and looking back on it blue

    And if you think you’re think you’re gonna quit well then you might as quit cause who needs you

    to row a boat across the ocean if you can’t even swim so fuck off too!
    ©2005 Family Bliss Enterprises, Inc.

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    September 19, 2005

    The Changing Threat of Electronic Information Piracy

    by Joshua Minton

    Be aware of this and update your antivirus and firewall software if you use Windows or get smart and switch to a Mac for your internet surfing.
    ...Attackers are increasingly targeting your assets and your private information.


    ,

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    I Told You Months Ago to Invest in LED Lights

    by Joshua Minton

    As more press attention begins going toward this lighting technology, their value is going to gain. These LED lights will be very expensive for the next few years until the Tipping Point passes and there are factories and businesses set up to deliver them en masse to the global marketplace.

    They are more efficient and economic in terms of energy used and money spent to power. They can be coordinated within a community so as to virtually eliminate light pollution and open up the skies again to those of us living in urban areas.

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    Light On at the End of the World

    by Joshua Minton



    This is a first round demo--as in, I just wrote it this morning. Here are the lyrics:

    When you see the light go on

    Will you stand and wait
    For the looters to come?

    If you stay
    Then you betray
    The light of faith in which you were made.

    And if you break a promise you make
    Your pool of light will quickly fade

    And what will you do when the light goes out
    And there’s nothing but you and the lock on your house?

    You can’t even scream
    There’s no one to hear
    Echoing head, platitudes of fear.

    It’s all breaking down
    The crap and the crown
    Ashes we keep to regrow the ground.

    I want you to know
    Before we all go
    The push and the shove
    they could have been love.

    Let me know what you think.

    ©2005 Family Bliss Enterprises, Inc.

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    Results from the Poll for 9/12-9/16 2005

    by Joshua Minton

    The question was: Do you think the country is better off, worse off, or the same since John Kerry lost the 2004 election?

    [Double Click Chart for Blow Up]



    • 27% said Better Off
    • 36% said Worse Off
    • 36% said The Same

    Now, I have a pretty diversified readership meaning I court just as many liberal readers as I do moderates and conservatives and I'd be willing to bet that this is a general consensus opinion--that the country is no better than or worse off since the 2004 election.

    This is surprising since I slighted the question to essentially bait John Kerry supporters and I expected a surge in anti-Bush votes for the "Worse Off" category.

    My personal vote was that the country is the same since 2004. I don't think President Bush has shown much leadership since the start of the Iraq War and perhaps that was the primary reason he was put up for office in the first place.

    And I'm not talking about conspiracy theories here because my constitution forces me to accept election results at face value because the alternative that elections are fixed exercises put on for hegemonic show would probably incite me to start a rebellion in my own neighborhood and let it ring out in concentric word-of-mouth circles through the entire country like an ideavirus that got out of the gate.

    George W. Bush won both elections fair and square and those who think differently can slob a knob because we are where we are and we need to deal with reality as it is, focusing on what should be and completely ignoring what could or should have been, except by extracting distinct of what not to do.


    I think these poll results gains credibility when you review Bush's speeches and statements since that time--nothing really controversial, just "keep it up and stay the course," etc.

    A true leaders shakes the ground they walk on even when they tip toe and this President is no longer a ground shaker as far as I can see. He's a man in a nightgown and long dangly hat with a candle, barefooting his way through the house so as not to step on a creaking board. The only noises being made are those of the mice and cockroaches who have been following in his footsteps to pick up the crumbs (and this includes you, mainstream media).

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    Ed Adkins Really Knows How to Piss People Off Online

    by Joshua Minton

    Damn Ed! I thought I was good at pissing people off online but you have just won the hot potato until the next Blog War heats up.

    Ed apparantly made some disparaging comments about Tom Green that got picked up by Green and fed to his rabid fan base who are trying to skewer Ed on his own site. But Ed is holding his own and, in my opinion, is clearly coming out on top.

    One wonders if they would actually want an audience who has acted with such immaturity and lack of thought beyond the brainstem as Green's blog fans...yeah, I guess one would.

    Which makes it all the more righteous to get out there and fug with them.

    Keep it up, Ed. Blog Wars are better than reality TV.



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    September 18, 2005

    Check Out This Drunk Woman Cracking This Reporter Across the Head on Live Television

    by Joshua Minton

    This is too funny.

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    The Quote of the Day Comes from Kurt Vonnegut...

    by Joshua Minton

    ...who is once again the author of a Best Seller.

    He says, "When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon."

    I don't care who you are or how you vote--you should have read Kurt Vonnegut at some point in life. Everyone creams over Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle but my personal preference is The Sirens of Titan.

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    Forget Terrorism and Hurricanes, A Giant Planet-Eating Dust Cloud Named Chaos is Going to Destroy the Earth in 2014

    by Joshua Minton

    That right, listen to Too Short and get in where you fit in, fooh because our future existence in this solar system could be in serious doubt once this massive dust cloud, 10-million miles wide, strikes our solar system and takes the sun and its planetary orbiters along with it.
    "Just imagine our galaxy the Milky Way as a beautiful, handwritten letter.

    "Now imagine pouring a glass of water on the paper and watching the words dissolve as the stain spreads. That's what the chaos cloud does to every star or planet it encounters."

    To avoid widespread panic, NASA has declined to make the alarming discovery public. But Dr. Sherwinski's contacts at the agency's Chandra X-ray Observatory leaked to him striking images of the newly discovered chaos cloud obliterating a large asteroid.

    "It's like watching a helpless hog being dissolved in a vat of acid," one NASA scientist told Dr. Sherwinski.
    It should be one hell of a show.

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    September 17, 2005

    I Just Bought a $180 Trash Can

    by Joshua Minton

    ...because I can.

    We live in a world where displaced people who have had their homes ravaged and their lives turned upside down turn around and use the tax payer money given to them so that they can begin to rebuild...on strip clubs and $$2,000 shoes.

    So, I thought, since I can afford it, and since I've earned it--I'd go out and buy the most expensive trash can I could find.

    This way, I'll rest peacefully knowing that while there is trash out there wearing the most expensive clothes and buying the most expensive nudity around. My trash will be kept safe and sound in the most expensive vessel conceived of by man for private use.

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    Nintendo Has Just Created the Worst Controller Ever

    by Joshua Minton

    Look at this monstrosity. I just can't believe that anyone would enjoy sitting down to play a video game with what is essentially a television remote a little bit longer than an iPod.

    I own a Nintendo Gamecube and I really like the feel and functionality of the Wavebird wireless controllers. I guess I just don't understand the need for these gaming platform manufacturers to change everything about their systems.

    The whole point should be keeping what works and improving upon what needs improving. That is Six Sigma. That is Total Quality.

    That is common sense.

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    But apparently Mario, Donkey Kong, and Link have run out of common sense.

    Nintendo,

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    September 16, 2005

    An Education on Cheap Labor and the Horror of Minimum Wage Laws

    by Joshua Minton

    After reading recent posts from Supafine about how terrible it is that contractors in the wake of Katrina don't have to submit to minimum wage laws or affirmative action laws, combined with Tony Pierce's recent post about why he only buys certain tennis shoes because of most shoe companies' exploitation of Third World labor--I am just astounded at the ignorance of many intelligent people when it comes to the economics of how things work.

    So, I thought I'd help out my fellow man by putting this whole thing into perspective.

    As discussed in the Joshua Minton Podcast from 9/15/2005, in the essay "I Have a Right" by Charles W. Baird, every human being has the right to take goods and services to market and offer a price in exchange for them. But they have no right to force others to meet that price--in fact it is the difference between the price I am offering and the price they are willing to pay where the economics of the world's markets take place.

    In our country, higher-paying jobs usually correspond with greater productivity or how much value the worker adds to the company or the service or product being sold at market. This is known as a Meritocracy and this is a good thing because it keeps incentives in place for individuals to achieve, which always results in raising the living standards of the society as a whole.

    So employers should have every right to seek out employees who bring the most added-value to their company and their product or service.

    But when a governing body or union interfere with this process of negotiating work in exchange for a fair wage (determined by the worker and the employer only), the economy and therefore the living standards of the whole suffers.

    This interference can take many forms (occupational licensing, minimum wage laws, racial quotas, child labor restrictions, etc.)

    But what is being forgotten in this little do-gooder equation, and as Thomas Sowell argues, is that what is being called labor here is actually capital.

    Each of us are capital investments.

    We are walking repositories of education, skill training, talents, strengths and each of these are investments that companies and other people make in us when they hire us for our services.

    Consider that people in the top percentage of earners produce more social worth per hour of effort that those in the bottom percentage.

    What this means is that the top dog's hour of work results in a greater value to their fellow citizens than the guy flipping burgers at Wendy's and this is because of their individual capital. This isn't to say that the burger flipper can't build up his capital to one day equal that of the CEO; but this usually this takes a will and determination which is void in the minds and hearts at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

    Sowell bring up this vital point:
    While almost all jobs today provide both pay and experience, at one time it was common for inexperienced and uneducated young people to take jobs that paid them nothing. This was obviously an investment of their time and labor for the sake of acquiring human capital.
    This system, which would be called exploitation today, was an invaluable resource to acquiring experience and opportunity for much greater wealth and success in later life. But this way of life and opportunity for those with little to offer besides talent and drive, has been all but eradicated by minimum wage laws and other labor restrictions.

    Sowell references the results of a study conducted by an international consulting firm which determined:
    the average labor productivity in the modern sectors in India is 15 percent that of the United States. In other words, if you hired an average Indian worker and paid him one-fifth of what you paid an average American worker, it would cost you more to get a given amount of work done in India than in the United States.
    He goes on to explain that this discrepancy isn't necessarily limited to the workers themselves because you have to factor in the quality of the equipment, the validity of the business processes, and the quality of leadership. He also brings up the notion of the quality of roads and transportation and local corruption because if it costs more to ship or bribe local officials, then the value of those goods (and the employees who produced them) are reduced as well.

    Demanding that big corporations raise the wages they pay to Third World workers may sound like wisdom and compassion coming from the economically ignorant do-gooders of the world, but it demonstrates the same fallacy with which they vote--only from the heart and not from the head. The actual outcome of forcing wage rates to be higher than the market would have naturally allowed them is that these companies stop hiring these workers altogether.

    So not only have these do-gooder idiots now forced these workers out of a good paying job (relative to their local economy), they have also robbed them of the capital they would be earning toward future success opportunities as their worth improved in terms of time, experience, skill sets, and education.

    And this leads us right back into the horror of minimum wage laws. These abhorrances to freedom were originally instituted in the Jim Crow south to drive poor blacks out of job opportunities and forced the great black migration to the North following the Civil War. But yet today they are heralded as basic civil rights for poor minorities--perhaps Trent Reznor was right when he claimed there was happiness in slavery and so was Kaiser Soze when he said that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

    When you impose an unnatural market wage for a given service, you have effectively barred individuals who are less educated, less experienced, and less skilled from gaining the opportunity to begin building up their capital.

    Good job, liberal idiots--you've just taken the bread out of someone's mouth to make yourselves feel better.

    Until the citizens of this country begin thinking beyond the petty feelings and tin man rhetoric passed around the halls of academia, they will forever be slaves to the inevitable economic forces which govern exchange between human beings.

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    Happy Constitution Day!!!

    by Joshua Minton

    To celebrate this day of the rule of law and individual liberty, students at Vanderbilt University are arguing that Constitution day is...you guessed it, Unconstitutional.

    I am at a loss for words on this...

    But I do think it is important to note that our rights do not come from this document but rather it is the charge of this document to establish a government to protect those rights.

    That's a big difference.

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    September 15, 2005

    President Bush Has Lost His Mind

    by Joshua Minton

    After two weeks of terrible publicity, weak federal response, and absent leadership from the whitehouse, the President finally spoke up, stepped up...and asked for a bigger government and more beauracracy.

    This party and this president have gone off the deep end, adrift between the conservative values they claimed to be founded upon and the fascist/socialist/communist landfall they are attempting to steer our ship of state towards.

    If anything, this President has just shown us the definition of insanity--doing the same stupid shit again and again hoping for a different result. Of course the response of big government is going to be "make it bigger and throw more tax payer money at it" instead of the common sense of "this area is uninhabitable by humans and anyone who lives there is frigging loco en la cabeza."

    The response should have been, "we are encouraging the private sector to step up and rebuild without government help and, oh yeah, to help you out, we're going to pass the Fair Tax bill and eliminate all federal income tax debt besides that which is levied against goods purchased for the first time only."

    This response is just kicking at the stool of the man in the noose. Eventually the stool will break and reality is going to tighten around the neck of the citizenry with the rush and the knowledge that Michael Corleone felt when he realized Fredo lied about knowing Johnny Ola.

    It's just pathetic.

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    iTunes and Cameron Crowe are Both Awesome!

    by Joshua Minton

    So I went to three stores today: Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, and Best Buy; to purchase the soundtrack for the upcoming Cameron Crowe movie Elizabethtown starring Orland Bloom (Legolas) and Kristen Durnst. I love Cameron Crowe's work--I think he's one of the most talented writers and directors making films today and I consider Almost Famous (he was the Rolling Stone reporter the movie was based on), Jerry Maguire, Say Anything, Singles, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High (he wrote the book and screenplay for this, not to mention went undercover in the high school to get the goods) to be some of the finest films ever produced by an American.

    And the soundtracks to these movies are as great as the films themselves, Crowe always treating the score and music in the film as a co-star (plus he's married to Nancy Wilson of Heart who is one of the best acoustic guitar players ever and don't even challenge me on this).

    But nobody must have told the Walton empire and Best Buy how fantastic Crowe's work is because there wasn't a disc to be found between the three stores.

    So, I came home and bought the sumbitch from iTunes for $9.99 ($4 cheaper than it would have been in the store). The tracks came in high-quality MP4 format and included a PDF of the liner notes.

    The soundtrack is every bit as good as I knew it would be (you can listen to snippets from every song on the Elizabeth town website.

    And I learned that I will be buying all my future music from iTunes because it's not only more convenient...it's cheaper!


    Elizabethtown (Music from the Motion Picture)


    ...But I did finally bite the bullet and bought a hard copy of the Soundtrack to Eddie and the Cruisers which isn't available through iTunes.

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    Getting Lost and Loving It

    by Joshua Minton

    Another of the birthday presents I received was the entire first season of the ABC show Lost which I didn't get a chance to watch last year because I gave up my cable for two years to pay for a laptop and ABC is one of those channels that comes in shitty off my antennae (and yes, you can use Tivo with an antennae).

    There are 24 episodes in this season and each one is about 40 minutes long. That equals 960 minutes or 16 full hours of show.

    To give you an idea of how addicting this show is, I finished it in three days! Of course, consider that I'm in between jobs right now (I start my new job in two weeks) so I have a lot of time on my hands but my days are busier now than when I was employed full time.

    So the show opens up with the most awesome plane crash I've ever seen filmed (it even beats the one in Castaway). Actually that's not true because the show opens up with Matthew Fox (Charlie from Party of Five) lying on his back in the jungle with a dog sniffing him. He stands up, pulls an empty mini-liquor bottle from his jacket pocket and looks around. Everything is chaos. People are getting crushed by flying debris. One dude get sucked into one of the engines which explodes and it's all you can do not to duck for cover.

    Let me interject here to say that the picture and surround sound on this set are amongst the best I've ever heard coming from a television show. There were times when they were in the jungle when I felt like slapping my neck to keep mosquitos off.

    There are about 40 some odd survivors but the show focuses on a handful and employs flashbacks from their pasts to show why they were on the plane and why they are acting the way they are on the island. All of these people are connected in crazy ways (like we all are) and the season shows them progress from fighting over nonsense, succumbing and beating their own inner-demons, to becoming an actual functioning community.

    Beyond that, the island they landed on a very mysterious and dangerous place. Crazy unopenable hatches, stranded survivors from a previous crash, a crashed slave ship in the middle of the island, polar bears, crazy boars and loads more make this one of the most interesting shows on television today.

    By the end, you are fully investe in the characters and the plot and it is well worth dropping four sawbucks on this set. You won't regret it.


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    "I Have a Right" by Charles W. Baird

    by Joshua Minton



    Josh reads the first essay from the magnificent book Cliches of Politics and briefly discusses its implications for Libertarianism while dispelling the myth of Leftist Libertarians.

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    September 14, 2005

    Ten Reasons I Can't Wait Until the XBox 360 Comes Out

    by Joshua Minton


    1. I Don't Currently Have an XBox: I do have a PS2 and a Gamecube but I never bit the bullet and went the Microsoft way until now.
    2. The XBox 360 Will Play All Original XBox Titles: This was one of the things that I really liked about the PS2 and was a huge selling point for me on this. There are certain XBox titles (like Halo) that you can't get on any other system. Plus, these great older games are cheap and easy to discern which ones are the best from seasoned gamers.
    3. Dead or Alive 4: This will be the best fighting game ever made--the best looking and the best playing. Check out the trailer here.
    4. Peter Jackson's King Kong: This game is going to be bad ass. I predict that it will be one of the most stellar video game surround sound cinematic experiences of all time.
    5. Downloadable Game Demos, Extra Levels, etc Via XBox Live: Again, this is an ingeneous way to not only get more money out of what was previously a dead end product once the box hit the retail scanner, it is a way to say thank you to the fans and the game buyers. This ability makes all the difference and the platforms that don't focus on this market extension are going to suffer big time in the sales of their units
    6. Customizable Face Plates: The decision to allow people to individualize their gaming consoles not only opened up a brand new product line for the Seattle giant, but it will mark the same difference in console sales that happened when Alfred P. Sloan started selling people cars in whatever color they wanted while Henry Ford offered the same old black car your neighbor had.
    7. Awesome Wireless Controllers: How about a 30-foot range with a 40 hour battery life? You can plug your headset into the controller for a near wireless get up all the way around.
    8. Wireless Networking Adapter that Support 802.11g: This means I can connect the 360 to my home network and play online wirelessly as well as download extra levels and game demos all without a phone cord or a wireless LAN.
    9. The Unit Comes with a Free XBox Live Silver Membership: This will allow you to get online and see exactly what is out there. By upgrading to the XBox Live Gold, you can play against others, chat with them, show them your ugly mug on camera, and sweet talk them with the headset while you whomp their asses to the ground.
    10. Because Every Other Video Game Unit Has Gotten Old: We need a change every few years, a good upgrade, something fresh and new and dazzling. While there is nothing wrong with kicking it old school every now and then, it's also nice to be shocked and awed by outstanding graphics and great gameplay.

      UPDATE: Microsoft has announced that the XBOX 360 will launch on November 22nd, two days before the crazy Thanksgiving shopping day rush. The only set worth buying is $399.

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    Bush is Very Close to Getting Nuclear Pre-Emptive Strike Capabilities

    by Joshua Minton

    As reported in the Columbus 10TV website:
    A Pentagon planning document spells out America's willingness to use nuclear weapons in a preemptive strike if terrorists threaten the US or its allies with weapons of mass destruction.


    If the Pentagon does amend its nuclear policy, this should be something that is advertised openly as an option on the table at all times. Terrorist states have to know that using a nuclear warhead on Mecca or on Muslim holy sites is an absolute possibility should they ever attack our country again.

    Hat tip to Fark.

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    JD Has Added Trackbacks to the Mouth of Brazos Blog

    by Joshua Minton

    And I couldn't recommend doing this enough to those of you out there without trackbacks on your blogs.

    It took me awhile to figure out how to use them properly but after I did, I realize how indispensable they truly are.

    See, amateur bloggers who want to get their blogs some traffic, leave comments on other blogs hoping someone will like what they read and click through to their site. Once they do, we hope that they love what they see, couldn't imagine living one day without checking back on our site, they sign up for e-mail alerts or better yet, for our RSS feeds and then they become a permanent member of our reading audience.

    But trackbacks are the tools of professional bloggers, those with things to say instead of people to impress. Trackbacks are the mark of someone who has seen something of worth in another person's blog entry and wants to add their two cents into the conversation but also wants to do it on their own turf, in their own home, under their own roof...you get the idea.

    So, the professional blogger notes that the blog of reference has trackbacks, clicks that link, and copies it. They then write their own blog entry, adding their brilliance to the topic, slaps on a grabbing title that will prompt people to click through, and adds a manual trackback ping to the other blog at the bottom of their post. They do that by putting the following code into the HTML section of their blog posting platform (make sure to take out the quotation marks because using them was the only way this would show up/and pay attention to the spaces:
    <[Exclamation Point]-- ping:[Enter trackback ping] -->
    This text doesn't show up in the post, but it tells your blog server to send a message out to their blog server and says, "Hey, there's another blog talking about your post over HERE!" And your link shows up in their trackback menu for their audience to click into and marvel at your brilliance.

    If you're blogging platform isn't configured to send pings or you're just having a bitch of a time with it, you can send a ping manually from this site which will work just fine for you.

    Beyond that, the professional blogger always checks the trackbacks of a blog post before they look at the comments. They do this because the points of view of bloggers who effectively utilize trackbacks are substantially more enlightened than those who post mere inflammatory comments and the "totally agree with you, dude" comments that add little or nothing to the discussion but make the blogger feel a little bit better about theirself.

    So, welcome to the trackback club, JD. It's an exclusive lot and we mean business.

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    Adding to My Recent Post About Technology in the Medical Industry

    by Joshua Minton

    This article claims a conservative estimate of $81 billion dollars could be saved each year by converting to a completely electronic methodology of submitting medical records.

    This is almost common practice in the health insurance industry, not because of the privacy factor but because it is just so much more efficient to transmit the information.

    Using electronic transactions through EDI clearinghouses is just the most ecnomomic use of resources when exchanging enormous amounts of data.

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    Related Posts (on one page):

    1. Adding to My Recent Post About Technology in the Medical Industry
    2. Who's the Monkey in the Doctor's Office? Where's the Modern Technology in the Examination Room?

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    If You've Ever Wondered What a Half-Naked Chick Would Look Like as a Falling Dead Body Constantly Crashing Into Bubbles...

    by Joshua Minton

    ...then wonder no further.

    This is perhaps the weirdest, most disturbing, and momentarily addicting thing I've seen in a long time.

    If she gets stuck, left-click her, pick her up and toss her on another bubble.

    Hat tip to Fantastic Bastard because it couldn't have come from anyone else.

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    The Iraqi President Has Said the US Can Remove 50,000 Troops by the End of 2005

    by Joshua Minton

    ...and I suggest that President Bush step up to the plate and do the right thing. Let the Iraqis sink or swim while we still provide them with logistical and moral guidance.

    We cannot live their lives for them and defense of property and liberty is something that must come from within which the desire of cannot be imposed from the outside.

    We cannot waste any more time overplaying a hand to extend a game whose time has come to end. There are far too many other obstacles to be overcome on home soil and we need our troops here to secure our borders and build up our civil defenses.

    Hat tip to Antimedia for keeping the civilized side of the blogosphere up to date on what is actually happening with this war and why it is still worth fighting.

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    C'mon, You Know You've Thought About Bringing Pot Brownies to the Office Pot Luck Luncheon

    by Joshua Minton

    —...but Arthur Wayne Bethel, aged 29, actually did it.

    He's on trial right now for bringing brownies allegedly laced with marijuana to an office pot luck that just happened to fall on April 20th (420 for those that don't know).

    This article says that people were "sickened" by the brownies. Now listen, I've been stoned of pot many times in the past. In college, I smoked my share, your share, and the dude next to you's share of pot. And I was never "sickened" by it, okay? Alcohol sickens people. Pot makes your eyesight better, your guitar strum sharper, and your conversation skills jump about ten notches.

    The only way you'll puke off pot is if you use a bong bigger than a foot, in which case your ignorant ass deserves whatever illness befalls it.

    And you've got to love this lady's reaction:
    Evangelina Sanchez, a nurse's aide, said she grew ill about 3:30 p.m. that day, about a half-hour after eating two slightly burned brownies she found in the break room. Sanchez said she felt so dizzy while waiting to pick up her children from Laguna Middle School that she threw up "two or three times." Then she dozed off for two hours while her children waited to leave. When she tried to exit the school parking lot, Sanchez said she almost hit a tree.
    The only thing funnier would be if someone had brought these to a Congressional mixer and showed the results on live C-SPAN.

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    September 13, 2005

    The Monsters Under the Floorboards: The Weapons of Mass Destruction We Forgot to Add to the List

    by Joshua Minton

    I'm going to try to say this without sounding racist or classist but its important because what we saw happen after Katrina is the exposure before every citizen (and terrorist's) eyes of a seriously dangerous risk to American civil infrastructure.

    Robert Tracinski puts forth a very interesting argument when he asks the question of why, in this particular instance, did we see raping, looting, and the worst animal behavior we've ever seen from the populace of any American disaster, natural or man-made?

    His answer is that four decades of the welfare state have robbed a whole section of the population of their ambition and ability to achieve and they are essentially living with nothing, owning nothing of worth, earning nothing of note, existing for the sake of existing, no lights at the end of their tunnels.

    And his answer was that the project in New Orleans, like the projects in any other American city, is populated with these wards of the welfare state and prisoners, thugs, gangsters and outright criminals who have been shaped and inspired by two decades of negative cultural influences being passed off as entertainment.

    And when the corrupt police, the incompetent political leaders, and those who provided the barriers that kept the wolves out of the barnyard just pulled out and left the sheep of the welfare state in the barnyard with the wolves let out of their pens and no sheepdog in sight.

    And we saw what happens when individual achievement and civic morality have been constantly ground away and when the worthless protectors and servants of the people finally abandon them to their fate.

    People get raped. People get murdered. Society burns in flames or drowns in murky sloshes.

    But we need to take the argument one step further than Tracinski does because we should consider what the enemies of our country have learned from this tragedy. They have seen that the lowest of our society have been taught that they are worthless by being robbed of the desire and ambition to achieve despite that fact that every person has access to the knowledge and resources they need to achieve whatever desire is in their hearts.

    They have learned that if they target cities that are controlled by minorities who buy into the welfare state and attack the infrastructure, those political and civic leaders will likely abandon their posts and leave the sheep to the wolves.

    If coordinated on a massive scale in several key regions and locations at the same time, this could cripple the economy and the federal umbrella we were deceived to believe would protect us all.

    This is clearly an imminent danger and threat to our society and is a systemic weakness inherent to the very nature of our system. In fighting global communism, we have almost become a worse monster than that which we fought to eradicate--a centralized system that encourages the goose stepper at the expense of the spiritless and mindless automaton who has had all individuality driven from them by a merciless bureaucracy with endless regulations and forms to fill out.

    The only way to combat this is to get back to basic civics, to create governments of one inside our hearts and minds. As individual governments, we must negotiate resources and space with our family members and friends, neighbors, coworkers, bosses, and acquaintances, to form a bigger government which again reaches out into greater concentric circles eventually encompassing the entire planet, the entire solar system, and the entire galaxy.

    This will be a complete paradigm shift from the top-rule down model of step-in-line that we've all been taught in the best way of living in a civilized society.

    Clearly it doesn't work and has put the safety of the entire world in danger.

    Hat tip to Ron Wallace for the Tracinski link.

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    Revisiting The Office

    by Joshua Minton

    Another one of the birthday presents I got this year was The Office collection on DVD which includes Season 1, Season 2, and the two Christmas Specials.


    Ricky Gervais is a comedic genius, as funny and as original as anyone I can think of today and this show is pure work of art that rises above comedy, tragedy, and pity to something sublime.

    Consider that there are essentially 14 episodes that take you through the emotions of hating this dipshit boss who is far more concerned with being popular than with being successful, to turning your head away at his embarassing flubs and outright slanderous behavior towards others.
    You've got to love it when he's outside waiting for a blind date and a fat woman walks up and he's put off but relieved when she's looking for someone else. When she asks what he's so happy about; he says, "I was waiting for a blind date and I was afraid you were it."
    But when he puts his people to pasture to save himself only to be denied when he fails the medical test, his peer from another branch becomes his boss instead and he has to eat crow throughout the entire second season to the point where he gets fired and comes back continually again and again into the office in the Specials where everything winds up to a feverous emotional pitch and it is in the last five minutes of the last special where the emotional breakthrough occurs and the series goes from being a comedy to being a true work of art.

    I have watched this show four times now (three before receiving this gift) and I cannot recommend it highly enough. There is stuff here that will keep you laughing for years and years.

    I can't wait to see what Ricky comes out with next.

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    John Roberts is Schooling and Ruling Already

    by Joshua Minton

    I listened to Arlen Spector's questioning of Judge Roberts on C-SPAN this morning and it felt like I was in the back of a lecture hall and that the Senator was just a student in the class asking hard questions of the professor.

    Roberts was flexing enormous intellectual muscle and just batting down these questions like teeballs.

    This man is going to be a phenomenal Chief Justice.

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    September 12, 2005

    The Boys Wear Pants and Joshua Minton Newsletter Policy

    by Joshua Minton

    I HATE spammers with the passion of a thousand burning suns. I will NEVER sell, give, or barter your e-mail address or name away to ANYONE, not even my own mother.

    The only thing you're going to receive from me will be under the banner of The Joshua Minton Newsletter.

    Once you enter your e-mail address, make sure to click the link in the e-mail that will come to you immediately. Doing so verifies that this is a live address and gives me permission to send you my newsletter.

    Thank you so much for letting me keep in touch with you.







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    I Have Nearly Lost Faith in George W. Bush

    by Joshua Minton

    ...but this wasn't something unexpected. This is all part of my master plan to watch the two party corporate-controlled political system broken forever, to be replaced by the age of the Enlightened Individual.

    See, I knew Bush was a company man back in 2000 and that the GOP was a company and a business miles before it was a philosophy and a set of core values. But the company securing power for the next two terms was so much more important than voting core values at that time.

    Besides, in 2000, I wasn't quite sure what my core values were.

    When I graduated college that Spring, I would have voted for Al Gore without even thinking twice (and that was the problem, wasn't it?).

    But my brother-in-law came down to visit me and we were having drinks at the bar, waiting for our table and he asked me the question that changed everything: Why are you going to vote for Gore?

    All I had was: Umm, err--the environment, uhhhh the way they treat minorities, ehhh they've been running the government pretty good for the last eight years... And then he proceeded to educate me on conservative values of governance and why they made more sense morally, ethically, politically, and financially than liberalism which was full of lofty ideals with no substance and masked a terrible usurpation of individual liberty.

    I didn't come away convinced but I was definitely curious. I read this book, this book, this book, this book, this book, and this book; then I started listening to Rush Limbaugh every day at my new 9 to fiver cubicle job.

    I didn't have much money then, but I knew I was going to have some someday and I wanted as much of it as possible to remain in my bank account--that wasn't going to happen with Al Gore in office.

    But deep in my heart I knew that a Bush presidency would come at a price, that moving away from the Clinton era would heft an enormous fee but it was one that must be paid.

    I didn't think a thing about Islamic fundamentalists and the danger they posed to my country. I had heard of Osama Bin Laden and I think I actually read his threat against the US in 1998 but it didn't mean anything more to me than the Bible's threat of damnation if I didn't toe the line and call myself a believer (which never happened).

    But I voted for Bush and it was the first time I ever cast a vote for anything besides for myself as cutest boy in my fifth grade class (I won, by the way and got to date Brandy, the hottest white chick, and Shonda, the hottest black chick at the same time). So, I voted and my man won and that was all that mattered to me at the time. I was on top and for the first time in my life, felt a part of my country, a new regime that I helped usher into power--it was a sweet but short victory because that first major bill came due pretty fast and the interest was high: 3,000 lives to be exact.

    I've never placed the blame for 9/11 on Bush (I firmly believe that it was Woodrow Wilson who caused 9/11 and keep watching this site over the next few days because I'll prove it to you) and I think that had he been able to retire in January 2003, he would have been the greatest President in the history of our country besides George Washington; greater than Lincoln and greater than Jefferson. Nobody was greater than Washington and I don't care that the man owned slaves or if he tortured small animals on the docks of Mt. Vernon--the man was an Emperor who laid down his power voluntarily because he knew the dangers and because he'd given up so much of his life and what he loved in order to preserve the freedom we each continue to enjoy to this day--that was a great man.

    And George W. Bush is also a great man but great in the way that any American is great. He was in the right place at the right time to do the right thing.

    His tax cuts for those who pay 80% of the taxes were right.


    His response to 9/11 was right and he galvanized the country into a social force that moved mountains, or rather invaded mountains because his invasion of Afghanistan and dismantling of the Taliban was also right.

    But he was still a company man and that leash was bound to get yanked at some point and it did. Someone still had a stick up their ass when it came to Iraq. Now, I'll be the first to admit that it was in our country's best interest to invade Iraq, remove Saddam from power, and secure the country as a democratic ally in the Middle East from which to launch an idealistic invasion that would eclipse that of the cold war between capitalism and communism. But we should have prioritized better because Iraq was about third or fourth on a very short list of things to get done before we took on the Islamic fundamentalists which really meant taking on Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and Syria in that order.

  • We should have secured our oceans and land borders first.

  • We should have strengthened our civil defense measures in the heartland (meaning bomb shelters for every neighborhood and a firearm in every home with people trained to use it along with HAM radio teams that network across the entire country to provide armed defense that is structured and unbreakable even should one region go down the others would move in to secure the infrastructure).

  • We should have applied Six Sigma to the disaster response and recovery (including healthcare) for a massive strike. The aftermath of Katrina clearly demonstrates that the administration has been jerking off on this matter for the past four years.

  • We should have already rebuilt the World Trade Centers exactly as they were or something very similar, right on Mohammed Atta's grave. And right out front of the towers, in a lovely little butterfly garden with a fountain should be a hundred foot spike with Osama Bin Laden's shriveled head being burned in an eternal flame.

    But none of that happened. Instead, we got Go back to work and keep charging up those credit card bills and that should have been the first clue as to what this administration was going to end up being about.

    And then came the invasion of Iraq. And I'll admit that it felt pretty frigging good to see the American might roll into the deserts of Iraq on cable television. I taped about ten hours of the invasion and it is in a vacuum sealed bag in my basement inside a box labeled WAR BOX because I want my kids to watch a war unfold as it did before my eyes in real time. I want them to know that their father was watching for the first time in history that a civilian could sit at home and watch the invasion of another country live on television.

    And it felt damn good to watch that statue of Saddam topple to the ground. But that was the last time I felt really good about Iraq because I knew the sensational stuff was done and that the really hard work was about to begin. It took years to secure Berlin from the Russians and they were civilized compared to Fascist Islamists. It's going to take decades to secure a peaceful state of government in Iraq and these are years and resources we don't have to allocate to those ends which is a Global War on Terrorism that is going to last at least 50-70 years (since we're being honest here).

    I'm all about removing dictators from power and letting the people handle their own business but we need to be expedient about it and get on with it and if a terrorist state should rise up in Iraq in our absence, that's when we send one plane back armed with a full blown nuclear warhead and turn their sand castles into the biggest glass mirror on the planet, something that could be seen from the surface of Mars.

    And to be honest with you, I was with the President even up until Katrina hit. I was willing to say let's stay the course, go the distance, hit the nail on the head, and whatever other cliche you wanted to use about Iraq. But after his response, or lack thereof, to hurricane Katrina I'm feeling the passion that I once defended him with and with which I proudly displayed my B/C '04 sticker on my SUV until August of this year start to dissipate and I'm finding myself anxious for November 2008 to roll around quickly so that the next phase in the plan for individual freedom can be enacted.

    Because time is running short and the smallest actions are going to have the biggest long term impacts.

    The President's response to the Katrina devastation was the same as his stump speech for Social Security reform--a party mantra, a company statement, something slick and polished and adequately (but rarely eloquent, let's be honest) delivered. There is no spark left in this man that I can see. What I'm seeing, hearing, and feeling are a bunch of lawyers and men in suits pointing their fingers at a field, imagining construction crews rolling in and clear-cutting to build, build, build, and make the same old shit all seem new.

    But what I'm beginning to see, hear, and feel from the President is what I heard from that prick in Poltergeist who put up a housing development over the cemetery and I'm afraid that we won't survive three more years of milk toast company mission statements being passed off as social direction and core values.

    I want the man with the bullhorn back. I want the Bush doctrine acted from. I want to see the first priority be Americans again and damn the rest of the world--they come second and we come first. I want the man I voted for back, not the man the board voted for to best represent their corporate interests.

    I want America the country not America, Inc.

    But like I said in the beginning, this was all part of the plan. See, the Democrats have been completely marginalized from all legitimate power. They've had their balls cut off and a sock shoved in their mouth and this is a good thing for America. They will have no candidates to run besides Hillary and Obama and they will be defeated by a margin unseen before in the voting behaviors of this country's citizens. It is plain that those two are not what is good for America.

    But the company is no longer good for America either and must be marginalized in the same fashion. The age of the individual is about to descend upon this world with a social evolutionary force unseen since the Industrial Revolution ripped farming away as the tensile web that connected all of mankind.

    Never before have individuals had the power and reach to effect long-term and short-term changes in their world on a global scale.

    The next Presidential race is going to hinge on ideas, ideals, core values and how well the individual can hold up to them in the burning light of public scrutiny.

    The next President must have his or her own blog and the comments and trackbacks had better be turned on and pumping.

    The next President must have their own podcast and put out a daily five minute monologue about why their vision is better, not why the other guy sucks because that is so played out. Every speech and every news report should be indexed on their website.

    I'm talking FULL DISCLOSURE here, something unheard of in American politics but it's the only thing that will work in the future of American elections.

    One good thing about the Internet is that it has sharpened the bullshit detector in a lot of the citizenry and future politicians need to take that into account or suffer the wrath.

    Here's a rule of thumb: Party people don't do well when it's a race of individuals and this is exactly what the future of global politics will become.

    In the next ten years, our species will either fall together or fall apart but one thing is for sure--the next few years aren't going to be boring.

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    The Bodies Found in Louisiana Hospital Were Already Dead and Waiting for the Morgue

    by Joshua Minton

    As reported by Cinda Becker at Modern Health Care:

    Forty-five bodies were found at Memorial Medical Center, a New Orleans hospital owned by Tenet Healthcare Corp., the Associated Press reported. The bodies reportedly were those of patients, according to a spokesman for the Department of Health and Hospitals who did not provide other information. Harry Anderson, a Tenet spokesman, said they were patients who had died and were tagged after Katrina hit but before the hospital was evacuated. They were awaiting removal by the coroner and were guarded by a security detail, he said. A significant number of the patients were those of a long-term rehabilitation company that managed an LTAC in the facility, Anderson also noted. "No living patient was left behind," he said. "We evacuated every living patient before the staff left on Friday... . The coroner simply didn't show up until yesterday." Anderson said one of the great tragedies of the disaster was that fragile patients awaiting evacuation in high temperatures with no power or water no doubt died in all New Orleans hospitals.


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    Who's the Monkey in the Doctor's Office? Where's the Modern Technology in the Examination Room?

    by Joshua Minton

    Whenever I go to the doctor's or dentist's office for a visit, I'm in the waiting room with my iPod on my belt, headphones in my ears, my iPaq out with stylus, zooming through e-mails and websites.

    But yet, when the nurse comes to grab me--she has a manilla envelope with the three-sheet ditto paper and is using a ball point pen. It's like the Jetsons meet the Flintstones and it's almost like the guy with the stethoscope is on the wrong end of the evolutionary timeline.

    I don't know about you, but I want to see virtual reality and LCD computers screens everywhere in my doctor's office.

    Does anyone else find this to be a FUBAR situation?

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    Related Posts (on one page):

    1. Adding to My Recent Post About Technology in the Medical Industry
    2. Who's the Monkey in the Doctor's Office? Where's the Modern Technology in the Examination Room?

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    Seven and Seven

    by Joshua Minton

    This comes from Supafine:

    7 THINGS I PLAN TO DO BEFORE I DIE:

    • Visit the site of every major Revolutionary War battle
    • Visit the site of every major Civil War battle
    • Publish a New York Times Best Seller
    • Meet Stephen King and have a conversation
    • Build my dream home in Ohio
    • Get a custom-made guitar from Ed Roman that will probably cost me about $10,000
    • Home school my children until they can enter a private high school
    7 THINGS I CAN DO:

    • Build a relational database in Access with links to an Excel spreadsheet that can keep track of multiple inputs and analyses of multiple sets of data relating to multiple functions
    • Code HTML and CSS just enough to get me in trouble
    • Create relationships maps, cross-functional maps, and flowcharts in Visio and analyze them for process gaps and improve your work processes by at leat 25%
    • Play guitar
    • Beat Goldeneye on the N64 on the 007 level
    • Make movies on my home PC
    • Speak Chinese
    7 THINGS I CAN'T DO:

    • Change my own oil
    • Make pie crust
    • Wrap a present right
    • Woodworking of any kind
    • Hit my child
    • Hit my wife
    • Stay mad at my boxer dog
    7 THINGS I SAY MOST OFTEN:

    • Fuuuhhk, man!
    • Where's my B? (nickname for my son)
    • Hi Baby. (to my wife)
    • Who is it? (to my dog--getting her in attack mode)
    • Stunad!
    • Thanks, Buddy!
    • Hey man
    7 CELEBRITY CRUSHES
    You can leave your own seven and seven list in the comment section or post one to your own blog and put a trackback in to my blog. I will be interested in reading any others.
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    The Genetic Discovery that Could Rock the Foundation of Modern Sociology

    by Joshua Minton

    A University of Chicago study has discovered two genetic strains that mutated about the time of the invention of agriculture and art (the two most significant events in human history that distinguished man from animal).
    Each gene variant emerged around the same time as the advent of so called "cultural" behaviours.

    The microcephalin variant appeared along with the emergence of traits such as art and music, religious practices and sophisticated tool-making techniques, which date back to about 50,000 years ago.

    It is now present in about 70% of humans alive today.

    The other, called the ASPM variant, originated at a time that coincides with the spread of agriculture, settled cities and the first record of written language.
    I have had a few in-depth discussions with a friend who is currently a Sociology PhD candidate in a major university and he has explained to me that modern Sociology is based totally on social theory and shies away from anything to do with biology. He is introducing arguments that challenge this directly and I imagine this research will assist him greatly.

    At the least, it is an extremely interesting study and should be followed.

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    The Funniest Thing I've Read Today...

    by Joshua Minton

    ...comes from JD:
    I would like to offer thanks to Louisiana for sending Houston a bunch more people from their projects. There was getting to be a severe shortage of drug dealers, gang members and crack whores in Houston. Now, rides on Metro, buses and rail, and the walks to the bus and train stops will become even more interesting. Our freeway overpasses were in need of some new, different, tags. Sheila Jackson Lee needed some more votes to insure her permanent position in Congress. And Quanelle X was starting to cool down too much – he definitely needed something to fire him up again.

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    What to Do in Case of a Nuclear Strike

    by Joshua Minton

    Read this and pray you never have to implement it.

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    September 11, 2005

    The Question that Defines The Sopranos

    by Joshua Minton

    I've rewatched all five seasons of the show these past two weeks and I've concluded that this is the question that the show is demanding of the audience:

    How much is one man willing to sacrifice in order to take the easy way out which has become progressively harder the further he progresses in life?

    Tony is a natural born leader in everything he does but he ultimately falls victim to his pride or his own pussy ass weakness as he calls it.

    This is American tragedy on a Shakespearean scale--a true epic that will define our culture in this time we live in.

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    Oh My God, If Only Our President Had the Balls to Say This...

    by Joshua Minton

    ...he would be Teddy Roosevelt reincarnated. This is a brilliant post by Tony, who I've been very critical of these past two weeks but only because I respect him.

    This is one of those posts that make me jealous I didn't write it, which is always a compliment coming from another writer.

    It is posts like this that make me keep coming back to read Tony. And while I know it is meant in jest, to contrast the President we have with the one we'd all like to see--the one who would have had his army rip Afghanistan apart to find OBL and strengthen his country's civil defense measures on both coasts and both borders before he ever invaded another sovereign country with dubious reasoning; I still have to give it up to him because this is a post that reaches across the political divide to remind us of the ideal leader that we would all love to have and deserve.

    Someday, we will Tony. Someday we will.

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    This Pretty Much Puts an End to the Great Katrina Response Debate for Me

    by Joshua Minton

    The only forum that I posted on following Katrina was Tony Pierce's but I mostly did that through Trackbacks. If you have your own blog and want to respond to another blogger's post, you should be doing it through trackbacks from your own blog. Not only does this add legitimacy to your post but it puts your full online presence behind your words. I always look at the trackbacks before I read the comments on any post.

    But getting back to the point...if the Bill Whittle essay Tribes didn't make the point to these liberals then perhaps something a bit shorter might help. This post pretty much sums up what is wrong with the whole "Bush didn't act because he was incompetent/didn't care" argument:
    when I tell my liberal friends that the federal rescue effort (or any rescue effort) following the hurricane involves proper planning and preparation, I’m told, by people who’ve never moved anything heavier than a table lamp and never supervised anybody other than the cook and the maid, that, of course, this is nothing, that the feds should have been there as soon as the rain stopped, and that “they,” meaning more than one of my liberal correspondents, had they been in charge, would have been there and back, more than once, before our federal effort really got underway.

    They would have been ready to air-drop supplies to trapped residents, I’ve been told. But air-dropping supplies involves more than the three men who fly a C-130: it involves the mechanics who keep the plane in running order, the men who fuel it, the men who maintain the runways, the men who get the supplies to be loaded out of the warehouse, the men who move the supplies from the warehouse to the plane, the men who load it on the plane, the men who figure out which supplies are needed where, the men who coordinate all of the shipments, to get the maximum use out of supplies, the men who reorder the supplies to restock the warehouse, the men who handle the paperwork and the payments, the men who get new fuel to replace what was loaded on the plane, the men who prepare the mission plan, the men who provide the aerial coordinates, and probably a few dozen others I haven’t mentioned.

    Yet, when I mention these things, and note that I’m the only person they know who has any industrial management experience, I’m told that I’m just making excuses for President Bush.

    They don’t get it, they don’t understand, because they don’t want to understand.

    Well, it’s pretty simple: loads of Democrats, and not a few Republicans, who have never been responsible for men and equipment ever in their lives, have been telling us how badly the President (personally) has failed. My advice: unless you are reading something written by someone who does have some experience with machinery and men and inventory and transportation and logistics, when it comes to some blowhard criticizing the federal response to Katrina, just ignore it, because the vast majority (if not all) of the critics simply have no idea what they are talking about.

    Hat tip to Antimedia

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    The "Go Fuck Yourself, Mr. Cheney" Guy Has a Website...

    by Joshua Minton

    ...that is worth checking out for the laugh value. I fully support this man's right to tell his Vice President to go fuck himself, especially in light of the fact that the man's house was destroyed by Katrina and there was no one else to blame.

    By the way, here is the video of the guy telling the VP off.

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    Michelle Malkin Says Everything that Needs to Be Said on this 9/11

    by Joshua Minton

    Click here to remember.

    Related Posts (on one page):

    1. Michelle Malkin Says Everything that Needs to Be Said on this 9/11
    2. Kerry Defeats Bush!!! 9/11 in the Alternative Universe

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    Kerry Defeats Bush!!! 9/11 in the Alternative Universe

    by Joshua Minton

    So, I bought this book for my son from one of those price clubs. The book was Scholastic Encyclopedia of the Presidents and Their Times and it is aimed at young kids to teach them about each U.S. President. Well, the book is very well done, able to keep the interest of any child or addle-brained adult. But imagine my surprise when I opened the Presidential table of contents to see this:
    Double Click Picture for Blow-Up



    The first thing I thought was, Holy Shit, this has got to be worth something! The next time I went to the bookstore, I checked the book out and it was historically correct which means that mine should be worth something to some John Kerry supporters who would like to build themselves a fantasy wall of what could have happened.

    So, I'm encouraging all readers (regardless of their political affiliation--all points of view are welcome here) to leave a comment about what they think the world would look like on this 9/11 had John Kerry won last year's election.

    And if you're uncomfortable leaving a message, feel free to vote in the anonymous poll in the right sidebar about whether you think the country is better off or not since the 2004 election.

    I honestly don't think it would look all that different right now but I'm interested to see what you think.

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    1. Michelle Malkin Says Everything that Needs to Be Said on this 9/11
    2. Kerry Defeats Bush!!! 9/11 in the Alternative Universe

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    September 10, 2005

    Kanye West is a Racist

    by Joshua Minton

    I was willing to let the George Bush hates black people comment go as the guilty ravings of the liberal minority victimized wealthy but this is too much.

    In a recent interview, West said,
    I think white people are allowed to say bling. They are allowed to say old-school black slang, like hottie and homie.

    Actually, I do not think that (white people) are allowed to use slang until it is at least a year old. If you say a slang word too early, it's like you're trying to be black. So as long as the slang is a little played out, you're all good.
    The arrogance of this guy is astounding. What if I were to say that Kanye wasn't allowed to conjugate verbs until the white people were done doing that--you know, 'cause they invented it and all.

    Eff him. I wouldn't buy one of his albums now if I needed to memorize a song off it to play on the Goonies bone piano to save my life. I'd rather fall than be indebted to this prick in any way.

    He'll be in the bargain bin in two years anyway and any history books marginal enough to mention him will misspell his name and no one will care.

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    September 9, 2005

    This is Why Newt Gingrich Should Be the Next US President

    by Joshua Minton

    Post


    I have long been a fan of Newt Gingrich. He has a brilliant political and social mind. He intrinsically knows how the American political system should work and balances that out with a razor sharp knowledge of how processes, both social and economic, work best--when deep attention is paid to the incentives of the processes involved.

    Plus, the man reads just as many fiction books as he does non-fiction. He has written a brilliant alternative history to the Civil War with his novel Gettysburg which follows a history that could have been should Robert E. Lee have followed his course of action up until that point in the war and had actually won the battle of Gettysburg.

    Please take the ten minutes of time to listen to this short speech of Gingrich's which I got from his podcasts (you can find them on Itunes). You won't be sorry.

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    Another Dumb Ass Star Opens His Mouth and Takes the Heat

    by Joshua Minton

    Kanye West was booed last night during his NFL appearance because of the ridiculous remarks he made last week on a live NBC telethon that, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

    I say good. I've never listened to this guy's records and I was only mildly tempted to pick one up to check it out (and still abstained).

    These stars deserve exactly what they get when they make political statements--a divided audience who could have all been potential music buyers.

    Stupid...stupid...stupid...

    Hat tip to Zebrality

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    The Busblog is Sounding More and More Fascist Each Day...

    by Joshua Minton

    ...there is no other way to describe it when someone writes this:
    new orleans was a fuck up from the ground up. and at some point the president needed to say ok im taking over for a minute because i am seeing that this red tape is strangling people. impeach my ass later but now im gonna show you how its done. but we dont have a leader in america although we have plenty of sheep

    Let me put these words in different context: let's say on March 1st, 1933 in Berlin, the following quote appears in Der Angriff:
    the [reichstag fire] was a fuck up from the ground up and at some point [president hindenberg] needed to say ok im taking over for a minute because i am seeing that this red tape is strangling people. impeach my ass later but now im gonna show you how its done. but we dont have a leader in [germany] although we have plenty of sheep
    One could almost hear the wheels of ascension turning as that leader appeared seemingly from nowhere to take absolute control and bring order and safety to his people.

    It's amazing how so many on the Left are quick to look at the Presidential office for blame and for security and as the Father of their Fatherland--and it's because they think like fascists. Now, I know so many of them would like to fool you into believing that fascism is a political philosophy which belongs to the right but the truth of the matter is that fascism is a leftist political viewpoint and always has been. Only idiots think otherwise.

    Consider this definition from my post defining the political spectrum:
    FASCISM: A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism. This system allows for private ownership of property but insists on government control of production and the option for seizure of private property at any time for the good of the state. This system also advocates the strict control of private firearm ownership as well as radical social manipulation through laws used as incentives and barriers (HINT: this is the modern Democratic Party in action except that the belligerent nationalism and racism has turned into anti-nationalism and political-correctness--but both are effective weapons for marginalizing social enemies)
    Click photo for blow-up

    It's time to finally call the left in this country out for what they are--Fascists on their way to being socialists on their way to being communists.

    It is outright lunacy that they are crying racism in a situation where 85% of the residents were black, the mayor was black, and the governor was a woman in a Democratic state that should have been the pinnacle of Utopia with all of its socialized wealth redistribution programs--and they all failed in utter and complete incompetence to protect themselves or their black and white neighbors--and somehow it's the white President's fault for not assuming the role of dictator that they claim he has been since September 11, 2001.

    Watching a talented writer come back to this trough of rhetoric day after day is like watching Tin Cup keep dropping his ball on the 18th hole, hoping for that hole-in-one; but unfortunately for the leader-needers in our country, this isn't the movies and that hole-in-one isn't in the future.

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    Time Stand Still

    by Joshua Minton

    It happened again today. I was going about my business and suddenly I was in a face to face struggle with the nemesis of all mankind--TIME.

    I've done something these past two weeks that I've been meaning to do for awhile--I've been watching every episode of The Sopranos back to back. I'm at about the fifth episode of the fifth season (the latest one) and at the end of the fourth, there is a scene of Carmella walking into her lonely house but stopping at the porch and turning around to a flashback scene of little Anthony Jr. on a big wheel saying, "Hey Mom, look at me!" and he wheels as fast as he can down the driveway and out of the scene. Carmella flashes back to the present moment and the episode ends.

    This hit me right in the heart because, as a parent, you begin to develop this kind of sixth sense of memory with your kids when, you'll find yourself in a mundane moment when your child is smiling or saying something new or laughing at a cartoon on television or handing you a transformer robot, saying, "Make a cah, da-ee. Make a cah!"--and you realize that this moment is what life is all about and that it will never get any better than this.

    These moments with your kids are the invisible gold that you can't put in a safety deposit box; that parabolic treasure to be stored in the heaven of the soul. It's what men have been killing for and dying for since Moses wore short pants.

    But the Catch-22 is that when you're in the moment and that feeling of sacredness descends and you become aware of it, you are already removed and the moment dies. You can't stretch them out and you can't reproduce them. And one day that sweet little boy holding his Transformer up to you is going to be asking for the car keys and then closing the door behind him as he leaves your house for the last time that he'll refer to it as his own.

    Time is a bitch and it wins every time.

    But I have to believe that those sacred moments that we store up in our hearts are like twisting confetti of joy that, when we die, explode out of us and fill the ether with pure light and goodness, enough to illuminate the world for a few seconds and allow everyone to see the righteous path and fill them with the courage to take it.

    I have to believe because the alternative of lost moments is just to painful to accept.

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    September 8, 2005

    Jim Henson was on Drugs...

    by Joshua Minton

    ...but damn it made him good at what he did.

    We just got through the First Season of the Muppet Show and I'm telling you that this man and his puppet team were hitting the hookah before they wrote these songs and these shows.

    I mean, right out of the cage, the song Mahamana is one of the weirdest things I've ever seen or heard...but the son of a bitch just popped out of my subconscious three days after I had watched it and I couldn't get it out of my head. And to top it off, once I did get it out of my head that day, Opie and Anthony use the instrumental of the song as one of their background tunes and it was back in my head for another few hours.

    The man was brilliant but the man was on drugs.

    And obviously he was good at making television crack because I was back at the fixing post two days ago, shelling out another thirty crackers for the First Season of Fraggle Rock.

    Fraggle Rock was one of my favorite shows growing up and I am very surprised to see how well it has held up. My son is captivated by all the songs and the crazy ass puppets (remember the talking trash heap who was the oracle and those big nosed king and queens of the universe...man, this show is some crazy shit!).

    But what I was most surprised to find out about this show is that Henson created it to put international global conflicts on stage in the most simplistic terms possible so that children could understand why it is that countries don't get along together. He wanted to bring world peace through his puppets on HBO.

    All this time we've been thinking Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War when all along it was Jim Henson with his hookah pipe and puppets that really brought down the wall.

    Rock on!

    PS: Just try to tell me that it doesn't look like the Swedish Chef is smoking a roach in the picture above.

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    Bill Whittle's Tribes is the Best Piece of Polemic Written Following Katrina

    by Joshua Minton

    I am so done with this subject, but I am glad that I chose to wait so long to read this Whittle piece. It has been sitting in my inbox for three days now and I finally bit the bullet and read the whole thing tonight.

    Wow...is all I can...wow! You must, muST, MUST read this post if you read nothing else today.

    Trust me, read it now.

    Hat tip to Antimedia.

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    This Could Be the First Major Discovery About Terraforming Possibilities in Space

    by Joshua Minton

    It is now being theorized that the asteroid Ceres, the largest known asteroid, may contain more water than Earth.

    I have long thought that asteroids would make excellent bases for terraforming and setting up colonies and mining operations. But I never imagined that they could actually contain water.

    If this is true, then it is completely possible for humans to land on, develop, and colonize an asteroid, even keeping to the point of building some type of nuclear engine that could change the trajection of the asteroid to keep it from colliding with interplanetary matter.

    I could write an entire Science Fiction television series about this asteroid colony and make it as kick ass as Star Trek or Babylon 5.

    This is very cool!

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    Needle Dick Motherfucker: The Time My Mom Got Kicked Out of the Bar

    by Joshua Minton

    The waitress’s tits were spandex clad billboards advertising freckles and one cinnamon shaded mole. They were called Angel Shots—the drinks she carried, not her tits.

    I had grown up in bars, shooting shuffleboard with the old men in their trucker hats while similar waitresses slugged plastic and glass pitchers of thin foamed suds onto wobbly tables while Glenn Frey sang Smuggler’s Blues on the old Wurlitzer jukeboxes that had the inevitable stain on the finish and cracked glass that made you shift your gaze to read half the song titles. Darts, pool, card tricks, beer nuts, whatever it took to keep a ten-year old kid occupied while his parents and their drinking buddies got drunk, laughed, and teased each other in the way that you only could in the 80s.

    This particular night I was trying to balance the pillar salt shaker on its edge in a pile of spilled salt. I didn’t even notice the Angel Shots girl walk up to the table until Tom started talking.

    Tom had been staying with us for awhile now. Mom said he was most likely on the run from the IRS. He was always drunk he was always obnoxious. He had a signature pickup line that he used on every woman he met, regardless of the social atmosphere.

    He would look at them; brush the beer from his handlebar mustache, and say, “How do you feel about anal sex?”

    We all knew what was coming as the Angel Shooter girl walked up to the table and set her tray of test tube shooters on the table, followed by her ample breasts which set perfectly on the table like a shelf.

    Tom’s eyes grew large and he wailed a suppressed, “wheeeh!”

    My old man was sitting next to the waitress and he raised up off his seat to look down the girl’s blouse further.

    Her reaction was immediate and full of disgust. She pulled back, her breasts remaining firmly on the table, and said, “What the hell do you think you’re doing!”

    The old man was too shocked by her reaction to say anything but my mom jumped in by pushing the waitress’s tray of test tubes right into her tits and said, “Look, bitch; if you don’t want them to look at your tits then don’t shove them in their faces.”

    My mother has never been a great draft beer drinker and tonight was one of the greatest not so great times of her draft swilling life.

    The girl backed away from the table completely, the tray of drinks crashing to the floor and breaking and pouring out underneath the high stools under our feet.

    The manager came rushing over from behind the bar with his stained towel in his hands. The smell of bleach from the towel was overwhelming as he assumed the spot formerly occupied by breasts and shooters.

    He asked what happened and told us that Shannon was in the break room crying and said something about sexual harassment. My mother cut him off at these words and said, “She shouldn’t be sticking her tits in peoples faces if she doesn’t want them looking.”

    The manager held up his hands in a stop gesture and said, “I’d like you to apologize to her.”

    That was it. She threw her coaster at him and said, “You little needle dick motherfucker. How dare you…”

    And that was truly it because the manager was on the phone with the cops and we were all escorted from the bar to the car. I had to drive because I was the only one who hadn’t been drinking.

    On the way out, the manager snapped a Polaroid of my mother and, waving it for development, said, “Don’t come back.”

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    A Sneak Peek at the First Draft the Cover of My Upcoming Book

    by Joshua Minton

    I'm still aiming at Monday September 18, 2005 for the launch date of Flipping the Temple: Win the Information War Using the Internet to Achieve Fantastic Success as an Artist.

    But I thought that you might appreciate a sneak peek at the cover art, which has been done by the amazing artist and fellow BGSU alumni Chris Schmidt.

    Chris is putting the finishing touches on this, so it won't look exactly the same--but this is exactly the look I was going for.

    I am so pleased with Chris's work. Please check out his site for other awesome stuff he's drawn and illustrated.

    ...Oh yeah, I've urged him to submit something to Tony Pierce's contest for designing his book cover for his upcoming work about dying, meeting Kurt Cobain, and going to hell--it sounds like the possibility of a modern day Divine Comedy which could be very cool! Tony's posts this past week have had me pissed off to the highest of pisstivity, but I still think he's a great writer. I might have to pick up a copy of his book here soon.

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    Scientific and Photographic Proof About Men and Women

    by Joshua Minton

    Here it is, finally:



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    September 7, 2005

    The Waves and the Rock: The Difference Between the Political Left and Always Being Right

    by Joshua Minton

    I'm not one for trusting the results of polls too much, but many of those on the left are quick to use these polls to point out that President Bush has the lowest approval rating since Nixon during Watergate.

    So, before they gear up for another round of ridiculous attacks on the President as the scapegoat for a class-5 hurricane, let me point out that according to the most recent ABC poll, 55% do not blame the President but 75% do blame the incompetent state and local governments of Louisiana, as appropriate since disaster recovery has always flowed from the local to the state to the Federal government (despite the copy/paste from the FEMA website that the Leftist bloggers have been burning out their Control-Cs and Control-Vs on their keyboards over).

    If that's not enough, this CNN/USA/Gallup poll from today has a measly 13% of those polled blaming President Bush for the debacle following Katrina.

    Those numbers should instantly deflate any momentum the far left bloggers like Tony Pierce, Matthew Good, and throw a dart for another because they all sound the same. Beyond that, they happen to be dead wrong and completely out of step with the majority of Americans who realize that this was a systemic problem that resulted in the deaths of thousands and the loss of billions of dollars.

    Systemic problems means that we look at the incentives and handoffs within the processes in order to prevent future deaths. The left would have us believe that impeachment and replacement with a bigger beauracracy even more dependent on a centralized government is the answer--but this is because after six years of shooting bullets into a dark room that the President isn't even standing in, they haven't got anything left to do or say.

    What amazes me is that these leftist bloggers amass thousands of readers daily and tens of those make the effort to comment on each blog post and somehow these bloggers convince themselves that they've become the majority just because they've gathered a little band of self-congratulatory minions around them.

    But like Junior Soprano once said, Some people are so far behind in the race that they actually think they're leading.

    There is a vast difference between a person who argues from a set of core values and a person who argues from a point of eternal contention. The latter becomes mere waves while the former is a solid rock that the waves break against every time, no matter how big they are or how much daily traffic they see squirting through their site.

    Here is my core value: Every human being is inherently free to pursue their own happiness provided that this pursuit does not infringe upon the life or property of another citizen..

    I vote for the politicians who get our society closer to this goal. If you've read my definition of the political spectrum, you realize that, almost without exception, the leftist press and the tongxue bloggers argue from a fascist, socialist, and communistic point of view all the while obfuscating their true intentions under the guise of fighting for the Bill of Rights.

    But these pathetic swipes at the air are not core values--these are laughable attempts to subvert individual freedom. These are foamed up waves that look big but crash and break against the rocks of logic and liberty.

    So my advice to these boogie board surfers of the ephemeral is to keep on smacking the rocks. Perhaps in a few hundred millions years they might wear a couple of inches away.

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    An Update to Everything You Need to Know About My Politics

    by Joshua Minton

    Click here to read the updates.

    I have added two new items in the list:

    • The Death Penalty
    • Celebrities Speaking Out Politically

    I will be updating these as new topics occur to me and I will always let you guys know about the updates.

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    My Photo Essay on The Ritual of Ohio State Games

    by Joshua Minton

    I have posted my latest photo essay with pictures taken from the Ohio State Game against Miami (Ohio) on September 3rd, 2005.

    The Ohio State Game is a sacred event in my family and I hope that carries through in these photos.

    Click here to view.

    TT:

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    September 6, 2005

    The Left Bloggers Have Lost Their Mind In the Wake of Katrina

    by Joshua Minton

    I can't believe the ferocity with which so many bloggers on the far left are going after the President in terms of his culpability for the Katrina response disaster which is so clearly a systemic issue and not a personable one.

    Just perusing the disaster recovery plans for the city of New Orleans clearly demonstrates that they didn't follow one letter of the plan despite being warned by the government days ahead.

    Bloggers like Tony Pierce have staked their entire credibility on the President's guilt in this matter. Consider this statement from his blog post today:

    its youre fault. you voted for Bush. twice!...if you have a Bush/Cheeney sticker on your SUV, the blood of New Orleans is on your hands. straight up.
    That statement is not only ignorant and wrong, it would be totally offensive to me if I had core values that could be moved by pathetic and inciteful statements like this. Tony, if you descend from upon your virtual throne to ever read this post--you have a short window of opportunity to apologize to your readers for that statement and my advice is that you take advantage of it.

    I just can't believe that these people are willing to lay their credibility on the line to push the President's blame on the disastrous local response to a category 5 storm that the state and the city were warned about days prior to and refused to enact their disaster recovery and evacuation plans against. It defies all logic but then the those on the left have never been known for their strong grasp of logic. I'm not sure I can even bother with Tony any more--I respect his talent but there seems to be nothing affirming or optimistic in what he's been saying and I don't have time to waste on people who's viewpoints don't enlighten or advance in some way. I hope I'm wrong and I'm willing to be more patient before I delete his RSS feed the same way I did Wil Wheaton's today.

    One of my readers said this:
    Fuck Tony Pierce. That guy wouldn't know logic if it was skull fucking him and wearing a name tag.... To argue with him is to argue with an idiot.
    I would never take it that far but it truly does seem to be a brick wall between those on the left and those on the right.

    If you've read my piece on The Political Spectrum, you know that many of those on the left are arguing from political, social, and economic points of view that are largely fascist if not outright socialist and communistic. And if they have any firm grasp of history, they should know that Americans, as a culture, are inherently suspicious of these political points of view despite any accolades they may receive in the offices of the ACLU.

    No one is saying that the President is innocent in this whole mess. It's just that those on the left are hinging their entire six year war against this man into his response for disaster recovery after a brutal act of nature. Surely they can't think that people are stupid enough to follow this pide piper's call of lunacy. But this is nothing new because they take a swing at every opportunity they think they have and they lose a little more credibility every time.

    Tony has been known to say that his Busblog cannot be discredited and I am certainly not trying to do that here. But I would like to point out that Dan Rather once thought he'd never be fired and Jayson Blair once thought he'd never get caught either. Tony's credibility will probably be OK with the majority of his readers but if he ever wants to branch out beyond that, to actually move ahead into the bright future he has the opportunity to pursue, then he needs to learn the art of compromise and know when to backtrack and apologize for outright viscious statements that alienate a good portion of his country. But then again, he probably doesn't care what I think in which case I don't know why I should care what he says.

    Things change on a dime online and we as bloggers must do everything to protect our credibility. Tony once gave me the advice to apologize for an indiscretion I had commmitted. I took his advice.

    I hope he takes mine in turn and apologizes for that insane statement of blame.

    And by the way, if you want to know what inspires people, check out this story about a six-year old kid who was found walking down a Baton Rouge highway with a five-year old infant in his arms, surround by five toddlers...amazing that a child has shown more leadership in action that the entire operations of his government.

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    I'm Done Reading Wil Wheaton's Blog

    by Joshua Minton

    That's it. I can't take no more. I've perused and deleted three months worth of absolute crap from the former Starfleet Officer and I can't bear to read one more post about online poker games; I just can't imagine a more boring topic to blog about.

    And with his I've given up on my blog post today, it's obvious that he no longer cares about putting quality content out there.

    So, it was good for five of the nine months I've been reading it but I can't waste any more time with this blog.

    Sorry, Wil. If you start posting good stuff again, I imagine I'll hear about it through the grapevine and maybe then I'll come back. But until then...the sky's the limit! (For those of you who aren't Trekkies, this last phrase was the last one uttered in the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation).

    TT:

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    September 5, 2005

    Today is My 30th Birthday...

    by Joshua Minton

    ...and all I feel is wiser. I still have the same elastic passion to learn new things that I had at 19. It's just that now, I've got a lot more knowledge and experience that gets in the way. The Bible says, "He who increases knowledge, increases sorrow," and I guess I've spread a lot of both in my life but I have relationships that I've given my all to as well.

    30 is one of those birthdays where you're supposed to take stock of everything, to check your course on your life map (hopefully you have one), and make sure you're at least heading in the right direction.

    In the past ten years, I've graduated college, maintained a loving and monogamous relationship for eight of those years, been in and out of a great corporate job, started my own company, started this blog which is gaining readership every day, and, most important, I've been blessed with the most wonderful, healthy, smart child that a man could ever ask for. I'd like to thank the river of compassionate benevolence that lies beyond all metaphoric words that only describe the source of all existence for these blessings I have been given.

    And since 30 is a special birthday, I asked for something that was special, something that would last a lifetime and beyond. Check this out: I got the Tolkien Classics Collection from Easton Press. For those of you readers out there, Easton Press makes the finest books known to man: 22 karat gold lined pages, beautiful leather-bound works of art. This series retails at $275 for five books.

    I will read them every year and my son and I will cherish the time spent reading together.

    I can't wait until they come out with a Harry Potter series by Easton. Geez, I ran up a $25,000 wishlist one time here.

    But I'd finally like to thank you, my readers, for making my blog something special.

    • I want to thank Fantastic Bastard who is one of the best friends I could have ever asked for--thank God I was placed by chance next to you in the dorms--my life wouldn't be the same.

    • I want to thank JD for coming back day after day to check me out and for keeping blogging during the times he felt no one was reading. I'll always read your stuff my man and I'm proud to be your fellow American.

    • Thank you, Antimedia, for being a kick ass blogger and inspiration and for doing a sacred duty as an American jouralist--passing on the truth!

    • And while there are a million other bloggers I could thank, I'd like to thank my man Doug for sending me an e-mail of praise and support for my comments from a forum that isn't exactly warm and friendly to my political viewpoints.

    • Everyone else, keep reading and keep commenting! It's going to be a hell of a year coming up and I'll do my part to keep in interesting online.

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    Why Tony Pierce and Matthew Good Need a Lesson in Basic Economics as Applied to Corporate Taxes

    by Joshua Minton

    The Blogfather and the Canadian rocker are excellent bloggers, good at stirring up the shit storm, but neither one seems to have the firm grasp of the basic economic principles of liberty that are ultimately needed to rise above the fluff, the name calling, and the general pessimistic ranting that is indicative of any member of the leftist press today (and yes, bloggers should be considered members of the press because they are opinion molders and fact purveyors).

    In their podcast discussion on September 2nd, 2005; Matthew Good told Tony that if he were to ever run for office, he would raise corporate taxes significantly.

    Corporations are a common target of the left because of the enormous influence that they wield in the political (and therefore social) arena; and the fact that they are generally owned and controlled by stuffy white dudes in suits doesn't hurt the message with their target demographic either. But beyond that, corporations are easy targets because they get pork stuffed into Congressional bills that benefit a certain segment of the population (generally at the taxpayer's expense) and they lobby for bills to be passed that protect certain "victims," usually at the expense of intrusion upon the free market exchange of goods and services.

    But when it comes to raising taxes on corporations, what is often not understood by the more emotional of the left, is that corporations are owned by individuals (either publicly traded as IPOs or as private companies, like my own).

    Any tax increase is therefore passed on to the individual shareholders in the form of decreased funds available for paying out dividends and salaries (which never happens and usually results in increases in pricing for the goods and services the companies produce), or in decreased funds available for reinvesting into the company in terms of research and development.

    Private entrepreneurship is the prime mover of raising the living standard for everyone across the world. Granted, it takes many decades to trickle down sometimes but there are now some people in Bangladesh finally plugging in personal PCs as a result of Bill Gates taking technology someone else developed and producing and marketing it so that we are all connected and you are reading these electronic words right now.

    What you are really talking about when you say "raise corporate taxes" is that you want to overtax the rich to compensate for the living standards of the poor. Unfortunately, it never works out that way because the more taxes you leverage, the bigger the bureaucracy grows to administer those taxes and it is this ever-growing system of taxation administration, this cancerous plethora of leeches and succubi with its endless lawyers, piled up codes that no one can make sense of, greasy fingered special interest lobbyists pilfering off the public dime, and the inevitable legal loophole parades that allow the rich to keep their money anyway which is to blame for the waste and inefficiency (which ultimately leads to poverty and death) that is choking our economy right now.

    Raising corporate taxes (or any taxes) always depresses the economy and therefore the living standard and opportunities for everyone because you are taking money out of private hands (because all corporations are ultimately owned by individuals) and putting it into a sausage factory bureaucracy of waste, incompetence, and inefficiency (like the half billion dollars completely unaccounted for by the US Department of Education). This is money that could have been used to develop the next cancer drug, hire fifteen new Full Time Employees, or used to develop the next affordable hydrogen-powered automobile.

    Leveraging taxes against the innovators and the investors of the world is just chopping away at the incentive to achieve and take risks and this is really slitting the throat of the future to placate the needs of the moment, something all politicians (especially those on the left) are excellent at doing.

    So, the next time you hear a journalist, blogger, or rock star spout off about raising corporate taxes, you can be sure that they are just trying to get you in the gut. Don't let them. Arm yourselves by reading this book and this book (both written by the most brilliant black man alive today) and call them out on their shit. Just because they're talented writers and musicians doesn't mean that they're not dead wrong about some things.

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    The Mayor of New Orleans is Sensationalizing and Obfuscating What Happened When Katrina Refugees Were Turned Back At the County Line

    by Joshua Minton

    I watched the interview with Mayor Nagin that was rebroadcast on ABC around 11:30 PM EST on Sunday September 4th, 2005 and in it he recalled the events of the Katrina refugees being turn back at the county line when they tried to leave the Superdome using the one remaining bridge and highway.

    Apparantly, a looter got into a mall across the county line and stole and/or caused some property damage. So, the marching group of refugees were met with dogs and machine guns and told that they were to turn back immediately, that they would not be let across the county line.

    Mayor Nagin's response to this was that it simply a matter of people valuing property over human life and that he was sure it was a class issue.

    But I wouldn't want an angry bloodthirsty mob marching down my street either and I would expect my law enforcement officers to protect my life and property in the same situation. I mean, these were people who had just been through the worst natural disaster in American history and had spent the last few days degraded to the base level of animals reacting out of mere survival instinct. Would you want an angry mob who the media had been showing looting for the past few days marching through your neighborhood?

    But the crucial point of contention here is the argument the mayor makes that property rights were being heralded above human rights, because Mayor Nagin is dead wrong. Let's consider the words of former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court George Sutherland:
    It is not the right of property which is protected, but the right to property. Property, per se, has no rights; but the individual--the man--has three great rights, equally sacred from arbitrary interference: the right to his life, the right to his liberty, and the right to his property...The three rights are so bound together as to be essentially one right. To give a man his life but deny him his liberty, is to take from him all that makes his life worth living. To give him his liberty but take away from him the property which is the fruit and badge of his liberty, is to still leave him a slave.
    There are no rights except human rights and property rights are actually the rights of people to own and protect their property (which is the product of their liberty applied to their efforts to achieve a happiness that in turn does not infringe upon the safety or property of other citizens).

    When the unscrupulous or outright ignorant among us start making this distinction between human rights and property rights, they are denying one of the oldest and most basic tenets of Liberty--the privilege of private ownership as an extension of one's life and liberty along with the inherent right to defend that property from infringement by other citizens the same as they would if their own lives were being threatened.

    What happened in New Orleans was tragic, but the decision to turn those people back at the county line was an appropriate protection measure for the property and safety (which are the same right) of the citizens in the northern counties.

    It is far easier to attack the decision as inhuman, as racist, and as classist but the level-headed among us will realize that they would expect their safety and property defended in the same manner were the situations applied to them under equal measure.

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    September 4, 2005

    My Theory on the Common Cold

    by Joshua Minton

    I caught my first cold since Winter and it's not totally horrible.

    I believe that the common cold is a natural process--something to cleanse the body of its filthiest germs and cellular wastes. This is why there is no cure for the virus, just alleviation of its symptoms.

    Consider how good it feels to finally come out of a cold--how strong and alert you feel (or maybe that's just me).

    Anyway, I know people who never catch colds and I just convince myself that their bodies are all fugged up. It's like being on the inside of Superman's crystal chamber while everyone out there is getting radiated.

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    September 3, 2005

    Driving By a Dead Body Without Even Knowning It

    by Joshua Minton

    Check this out:
    COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - The skeletal remains of a college student who was last seen three weeks ago at a bar near campus were discovered near a reservoir, and authorities are investigating her death as a homicide, police said Friday.

    Julie Popovich, 20, of suburban Reynoldsburg, was last seen Aug. 11 at a bar near Ohio State University, where she was enrolled.

    Authorities used dental records to identify her remains. The remains were discovered in a field near a reservoir Thursday by landscape workers.
    I live about 40 minutes away from my parents (which is a normal commute for me to go anywhere around here) and I like to drive the backroads because the country is much more beautiful than the highway.

    Well, yesterday as I was crossing the bridge over one of the many reservoirs in my area, a sherrif's car was parked horizontally, blocking the road. The land was flat and the corn had recently been cut down, so you could see for a long distance.

    About half a mile away, I saw a group of cops walking with a man in plain clothes. They had a German Shepherd on a leash. I figured that they had found some pot plants--that was until I read this report.

    HOLY SHIT! I have been driving by the dead body of a hot girl who'd been murdered and buried in a fairly close to my home.

    Thass fugged uhhuup!

    My condolences to the Popovich family--no one deserves to be treated like that. I hope you catch the prick and cut his balls off before a judge takes leniency on him because he suffered psychological trauma from having a mushroom dick and compensating for it by abusing women.

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    Reaction to the New Orleans Mayor's Rant...

    by Joshua Minton

    Look Mayor Nagin, YOU are were the mayor of New Orleans and as such, you are the first line of defense and risk management for the people of New Orleans. So, while those on the left are being so quick to hand out blame to the President and Federal agencies, let's not forget that America is a country whose politics and resources marshall from the ground up.

    And you sir, have just admitted your absolute incompetence to the entire world, passing the blame for your city's disaster recovery and response plans to the governor, Federal agencies, and indeed, the President himself.

    You should have been marshalling greyhound buses for the poor a week before when everyone knew the storm was coming. You should have been organzing food and shelter relief efforts months before. You should have been educating your citizens on how to keep calm in such a crisis and how much of a bad idea it is to go into your attic to keep safe from a rising flood.

    You should have done these things and so much more so that you didn't end up standing in a flood tide, looking like an outrageous fool, blaming the rest of the world for your incompetence as a leader.

    UPDATE: And, from Antimedia...
    ....then let's get the facts straight. President Bush had to beg the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana to evacuate the city? And they're blaming the feds for the poor response? The New Orleans disaster plan included using buses to evacuate the poor, but the Mayor never initiated the plan? And they want to blame the feds and the President for the failures?

    And where is the media reporting on this? Non-existent as usual. Folks, we are getting the results we've been voting for — politicians who'd rather CYA than get the job done. And people are dying. Does voting seem serious enough now?


    UPDATE: Check out this comment posted to Tony Pierce's blog today:
    My name is Steve, I live (or at least used to) in New Orleans, Louisiana. My house is currently under 20 feet of water. I got out before the storm with my car, dog, and the clothes on my back. All else is lost. I am a refugee and yes, I AM WHITE. While you jackasses sit around and discuss the racial implications of a storm and flood, down here in Louisiana, we are all suffering together, black, white, asian, etc. This is a natural disaster that we in Louisiana have been warned about for years. The city, state and federal government all share some blame in this, but particularly the city for not having a plan for getting the poorer elements of the city a way out BEFORE the storm hit and the levees broke. Our city govt. has a history (particulalrly recently) of extreme corruption and inneffectiveness(?). Getting people out before a storm by buses, trains, planes, however, was the job and responsibility of the New Orleans city government, not the feds, not Bush, but the city and it failed and left its own people (and by "own people" I mean it in any and every way you can read into it) behind. Where I am here in Baton Rouge, we are trying to help, the finger pointing and race baiting can wait.


    You're exactly right about the responsibility here, Steve. All my prayers are with you. Please send Steve an e-mail to let him know he's in your thoughts with the rest of the victims.

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    Ah, the Ignorance of the Left...

    by Joshua Minton

    ...cannot be displayed better than this:

    ...civil society has already broken down! This is not a civil society we live in, but a profiteering, every-man-for-himself, oligarchy. The democratic process is broken if not rigged; the largest-ever redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich occurred over the last six years under the guise of economic stimulus...

    And praytell, please explain to me how it is that poor people can have what they don't own redistributed to those who do own what they have worked for? Could this be a masked resentment that the class warfare and wealth redistribution that have plagued America since the corruption of mealy mouth politicians of the early 20th century is thankfully collapsing in on itself? The corruption which lead to the passing of the Sixteenth Amendment and the Great Race of parastic looting from the achievers of society that could have been conceived in the pitted hearts of Lenin and Marx is one of the most egregious crimes against individual liberty ever committed and yet it stands as a hallmark of social compassion--odd isn't it?

    This tripe might work on CNN but it will get no play on the Internet so long as BWP is on the case!

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    Antimedia Says It All...

    by Joshua Minton

    There's not much more I can add to this:

    Maybe bin Laden is right. Maybe we do need a cleansing. God knows we've become a spoiled, selfish bunch, whining and complaining about the conditions of our lives, blaming everyone in sight but ourselves for our troubles, all the while living better than 99% of the people in the rest of the world.

    I heard one announcer (it doesn't really matter which — they're like clones spewing lines) say of the government, "They had a week to prepare before the hurricane hit. How could they be so unprepared to respond?"

    I thought the same thing myself. Why didn't people stockpile bottled water? Why didn't they get together the canned goods and other things that don't spoil in the heat and can sustain you for days? Why didn't they evacuate when they were told to? Why didn't they prepare? Why did they just wait, helplessly, without any preparation at all, for the government to save them?

    But the answer to my question has been staring me in the face for days. "The people" have been conditioned to depend upon the government to take care of them. Taking care of themselves never even crossed their minds.

    Somewhere George Orwell is nodding sadly.

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    September 2, 2005

    An Education on the Political Spectrum

    by Joshua Minton

    I was called a "right wing fascist" the other day in Tony Pierce's comment section and that hasn't happened in a while so it prompted me to do a little public service announcement...you can believe it, or you can doubt it.

    This is the political spectrum (click to see blow up):
    First of all, it must be understood that the political spectrum has much more to do with economics than it does with social aspirations. Here are some further definitions:

    • COMMUNISM: A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people and advocates the overthrow of capitalism by the revolution of the proletariat. This system represents the complete destruction of the individual in favor of the group identity.
    • SOCIALISM: An intermediate period between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved. Socialists are Communists in transition and, again, a heavy emphasis is placed on driving out individual identity in favor of a group identity.
    • FASCISM: A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism. This system allows for private ownership of property but insists on government control of production and the option for seizure of private property at any time for the good of the state. This system also advocates the strict control of private firearm ownership as well as radical social manipulation through laws used as incentives and barriers (HINT: this is the modern Democratic Party in action except that the belligerent nationalism and racism has turned into anti-nationalism and political-correctness--but both are effective weapons for marginalizing social enemies)
    • MODERATE LIBERAL: This is the individual who votes the fascists and socialists into power and is the prime medium by which a capitalist state reverts to Communism. This is the pressure point to attack in order to prevent the destruction of individual freedom by the tyrants of the left.
    • UNDECIDED: These are the brain dead worthless among us, the automatons who go to work, reproduce, pay their taxes, grow old, and die like good worker bees without having made a peep one way or the other in life.
    • MODERATE CONSERVATIVE: Another pressure point to target in order to prevent Leftist tyrants from destroying individual liberty. These individuals claim to be conservatives but still support wealth confiscation, redistribution, "pork" handouts to lobbyist groups, social manipulation through law, and bigger and bigger salaries for public servants with no term limits for lawmakers and judges. (HINT: This is the modern Republican Party and it is in danger of slipping totally across the undecided divide into the danger zone of the wrong side of the fence)
    • CONSERVATISM: Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change. These individuals are quick to legislate morality and constantly seek to impose their religious views into law and persecute those who fall outside their narrow definition of what is "right and acceptable." (There are also heavy elements of this type in the leadership of the GOP)
    • LIBERTARIANISM: One who believes in free will, advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state, and believes that the individual is the only measure of freedom. The Libertarian also believes in a strict interpretation of the Constitution and that the purpose of government is to protect the lives and private property of its citizens and nothing more. They typically believe in open borders and strong civil defense. They typically do not support the invasion of foreign nations without specific and probable cause. They believe that the purpose of society is the free exchange of products, services, information and ideas with minimal interference from the government. (HINT: This is the only hope for the future of freedom for humanity.)
    • ANARCHISM: The theory or doctrine that all forms of government are oppressive and undesirable and should be abolished and the rejection of all forms of coercive control and authority. These people are just plain nuts!

    So as you can see, there can be no such thing as a "right wing fascist" and anyone who uses that term is clearly demonstrating their political ignorance and should be ignored or dejected from any semblance of credibility when debating social theory.

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    Shifting Hate from Sheehan's Plate to the Creole State

    by Joshua Minton

    How pissed do you think MoveOn.Org and Cindy Sheehan are since the hurricane and its disatrous aftermath has taken virtually all media attention away from their collective whining session outside the President's Texas ranch?

    Of course, those far left of center in the country aren't satisfied with organizing relief efforts or with the rescue of the victims. They feel it prudent to transpose their rage about Iraq from Cindy Sheehan to the Katrina victims, all the while keeping the President in the crosshairs as the Nicholae Carpathia of real life.

    You want to talk about the horrors of the devastation in the Gulf Coast and how tragic it is, I'm with you. You want to talk about racism in the media and how it affects our social outlook, you'll bore me because I'm white and affluent and interested in individuals for the content of their character and not the color of their skin. It's not my fault other people are too stupid to practice critical thought; I've got enough on my plate keeping my own brain sharp and my own relationships fruitful and strong.



    Black Cops
    Black cops in New Orleans "Find" DVDs and Electronics at Wal-Mart

    But if you want to tie the whole thing back to the Iraq War, I'm going to tell you that you're nuts and you're probably still stinging from the '04 election and I'll smile even bigger because I'm one of the Ohio voters who put the man back in office for a second term which means my vote was worth twice yours and you should acclimate to it because Ohio's star is on the rise.

    But getting back to Iraq; if any mistake was made by this administration, it was invading Iraq prior to strengthening US civil defense measures including bomb shelters and the operational and human resources needed to respond immediately to disasters of this magnitude.

    But all this is really beside the point because the fact remains that there is a global army of embedded Islamist Fascists who have been trained to slit your throat regardless of who you voted for in the last election and carefree of how much you disagree with the war in Iraq.

    It's even more ironic that the majority of those opposed to the war happen to live in the two cities that are the biggest targets for decimation by Al Qaeda and yet they still remain adamantly opposed to the only course which will prevent their certain demise.

    The only thing that will prevent a massive strike yielding hundreds of thousands dead is strength through armed force and persistence of core values. And all the Anti-Bush blog posts and media sponsored cookouts outside Presidential residences won't save you when terrorist cells detonate a nuclear explosion in your city, turning your buildings into shadows, your picket signs into deflated toothpicks, and your domain names into virtual tombstones.

    My advice is to focus on what matters before it's too late. Only the fool sits and complains about how dirty the windows are when the house is on fire.

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    A Response Worth Repeating...

    by Joshua Minton

    I don't normally copy and paste my comments on other people's blogs onto my own but I was really moved while writing this response to Tony's post tonight.

    Here's the foreground breakdown: I said that I agreed with Speaker of the House that New Orleans was a lost cause and shouldn't be rebuilt; Tony said that didn't surprise him since Republicans had been making major mistakes for five years; I said that may be true but that I felt in my heart and mind that Democrats would have made many many more; he responded by telling me not to call him "T." And I responded with this:
    Tony,
    Sorry about calling you "T." I meant no disrespect. I've re-watched four seasons of The Sopranos in the past week and it must have sunk in through osmosis.

    The fact remains that if Gore were President during 9/11, he would have most likely followed the pathetic Clinton policy of taking terrorists to court supported by a United Nations thugged up with terrorist sympathizers who have been stealing and robbing from hard-working Americans whose tax dollars have been sent under the auspices of feeding, clothing, and caring for the Third World but actually went to fund who knows what the fuck--ask Kofi and his kin.

    Beyond that, Able Danger has all but proven to the sensible American that Clinton was well aware of the growing Al Qaeda threat but did nothing and that Bush inherited a ticking bomb and reacted swiftly and appropriately (at least in my mind and you won't convince me otherwise so don't bother trying).

    And now that intelligence agencies are fairly sure that Al Qaeda has allied themselves with the MS-13 street gang and has already smuggled nuclear weapons into the United States and are just waiting for the right time to use them, there's a big chance that your city is a major target. And what exactly do you think a Clinton/Gore/Kerry presidency would have done to prevent that from happening besides smiling a lot in front of the camera and bending over a little further for the UN and domestic terrorist cells to stick it in a little deeper?

    We are talking about the future of our civilization here and you and Matt Good can talk about peace being the most important thing all you want, but the fact remains that peace without strength means less than shit and that further means that people have to go and die to secure that peace and provide you and I with the opportunity to hold virtual debates that don't end in beheadings and castrations.

    Wars suck.

    Hurricanes suck.

    Schoepenhauer said Life is something that should not have been. But the fact remains that Life is and our entire civilization dictates that wars must be fought in order to secure peace, especially with an enemy who will grant no quarter and sign no treaty, who will not stop coming after us until their hearts stop beating.

    And the fact that he was willing stand up and do something about it is exactly why I continue to support this President.


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    September 1, 2005

    Someone Finally Says It, "New Orleans Should Be Written Off!"

    by Joshua Minton

    Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is questioning even rebuilding the city at all following the rescue efforts.

    I'm sorry but I agree. First of all, the first Frenchman Creole who built their house on the swampy peninsula was eating retard sandwiches. And the dipshits who followed after him were even dumber.

    "Hmm, let's see--I'll build my house on the sea bed--that sounds like a good idea!"

    It's about as intelligent as these friggin' dolts in California who build their houses on stilts on the side of cliffs and then are shocked and dismayed [Tom Daschle voice] when mudslides knock their shit into the ocean and force the rest of us to pay for it through our insurance premiums once their stop loss gets hit and the government picks up the rest of the tab (with our tax dollars--at least those of us who work to achieve wealth).

    I say we write New Orleans off as a national tragedy, sequester some land in Nevada, just outside Las Vegas, fill a couple lakes up and throw in some crocodiles and have women parade around all day long topless throwing beads out to random strangers. Let the Indians build ten or twenty casinos and we'll call it New New Orleans. We can even name one of the casinos Mardi Gras and they can rebuild the French Quarter inside.

    It's a tragedy that so many people died but can't we be honest and admit that it's amazing it didn't happen before this? To make the same mistake twice is just foolishness for the sake of tradition and I won't lend my support of tax dollar allocation to it.

    We got Louis Armstrong, Anne Rice, and some great hangovers out of it all. Let's cash in our chips and walk away with the losses we've already taken--there's no need to commit Harry Carrey just to prove a point.

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    Everything You Need to Know About My Politics

    by Joshua Minton

    Most people who claim to be political experts have no core values. By that I mean that they don’t have statements of purpose that they live by, sentences of honor that could be written on the back of a business card and yawped from the rooftops of the world. Here is my core value:

    Every human being is born with the inherent right to pursue their own happiness provided that their pursuit does not infringe upon the safety or property of another citizen.

    This the maxim by which I weigh every political and spiritual conundrum that I come across in life and is the impetus and inspiration behind every word I write.

    And by extension, here are my feelings about the burning issues of our time:

    • Race: There will be no social equality until we move past the issue of race. Unfortunately the sacrifice to be made in order for this to happen lies on the shoulders of those who have been historically wronged. Those in power in America know full well the weight of the crimes of their ancestors and have done everything possible short of committing cultural suicide to make it right; that won't happen. So those who feel they are owed something need to put that victim shit aside and get on to being productive citizens willing to call bullshit if the old ways rear their ugly heads again. If they do, I'm in your corner. Until then, shut your mouth, get to work, and raise your kids to be fiscally, morally, and socially responsible to those around them. No one gets a handout in life; I don't care who your grandparents were--I care about what kind of grandparent you're going to be to your offspring.

    • Abortion: Until there is an amendment brought forth, voted on, and passed in Congress then signed by the President, this is a state's rights issue and Roe vs. Wade was a travesty of judicial activism that has sadly been distorted into a woman's rights issue. The bottom line is that our law was never meant to be based upon judicial precedence but rather by congressional acts and the Ninth Amendment specifically delegates all rights not mentioned in the Constitution to the states or the people respectively. This is unequivocable and Roe vs. Wade should be overturned immediately and delegated to the states to legislate. Personally, I would never agree with a woman having an abortion of a child that was partly mine. Beyond that, every woman I've ever talked to who was once Pro-Choice and went on to have a child, said that they could absolutely feel that there was a life growing inside them from the beginning and that they would never get an abortion themselves or recommend it to anyone else. Additionally, the psychological damage that having an abortion has on young mothers has been well documented. I believe that the abortion issue is primarily one of economics and if you're too poor to raise them, then stay home and masturbate--do yourself and the world a favor.

    • Gay Marriage: See the abortion answer. If you're gay and you want the state tax breaks, move to a state that votes same sex marriage legal. If you want a federal tax break, tell your elected representatives to vote YES on H.R. 25 and S.25 (The FairTax Bill). Other than that, count yourself lucky you live in a country where people just make fun of you behind your back and on TV instead of dragging you out to the public square and chopping your extremities off.

    • The Second Amendment: Every citizen should have the civic duty of owning a firearm and knowing how to handle it, secure it, and shoot it. Militias formed of free men are the primary defense against a tyrannical government and the first act of any despotic government with a lick of sense is to seize privately-owned firearms and prevent their further distribution. Guns should be used in defense of life and private property as well as for hunting in order to keep the game populations in check and for food. And finally, Conceal to Carry laws should be passed in every state and city. It's time that gun control laws ceased to expose law abiding citizens to criminal acts by those who don't obey laws by nature of their morality and the individual choices they make.

    • Taxes/Social Security: The principle organizing power of government is not the power to wage war (as Oliver Stone preaches) but rather its ability to tax its citizens through threat of force. The Sixteenth Amendment was "passed" as a measure of class warfare (although it started off as a political ploy and just happened to pass by a fluke) and has been exploited by ruthless politicians and various industry lobbyist groups for almost a hundred years now. The time has come to slam the door on these parasitic pricks and the only answer is to pass The Fair Tax Bill (H.R.25 and S.25). Taxes should be used to fund civic projects, civil defense, and to pay a REASONABLE SALARY to our elected public servants. The exact limits and definitions of these three responsibilities should be determined by dispassionate elected officials (see Term Limits bullet below)

    • Healthcare/Medicare: I have spent five years working for one of the nation's two largest health insurers. For two of these years, I served as Business Systems Analyst reporting directly to an Executive Director and I've seen enough to know that the system is completely FUBAR! You have a system where the consumers of the product have no market leverage to affect the quality of what they are purchasing. In fact, health insurance companies don't even see patients as their customers; they see the corporations who employ the patients as their customers. Patients want cheap or outright free healthcare because they have no concept of the cost and value of quality healthcare. Doctors want to be paid far more than the insurance companies are offering. Employers want the cheapest healthcare possible and don't give a hoot about the quality. The answer to this crisis is: HSAs; tort reform to protect doctors and hospitals from douche bag predatory trial lawyers after reporting vital error statistics needed to improve operational processes which will boost the quality of care; the establishment of a universal risk pool to leverage the stop loss costs of healthcare for the poor and indigent (this is about as close to welfare as I will support); and the reformation of ERISA laws to apply to individuals and small businesses and not just large corporations (thereby castrating the corporate leverage as the medium through which patients have primary access to healthcare).

    • Immigration: I believe that open borders and inpouring cultures have made America the powerhouse it has come to be. And while I realize that without slave-wage migrant labor our economy would undergo dramatic changes, I believe the threat from insurgent terrorist agents living among us is a far greater threat to the safety of our nation. Therefore, I support amnesty for illegal aliens who register for citizenship and learn the English language and what it means to be a free individual living in a civic society. Those who don't register should be shipped the hell out of this country immediately, possibly to Gitmo if they fit the bill as a terrorist intending to do our country harm. I also support the construction of a large razor wire border running across the southern border of Mexico and the northern border of Canada (wherever possible) as well as a swell of border patrol agents authorized to shoot to kill if necessary. I am more supportive of sending troops to secure our own border than I am in sending soldiers overseas to invade foreign countries and secure oil fields (which is totally necessary given our dependence on oil to operate, feed, and finance the rest of the world).

    • Civil Defense: This is the most important function of government. Before we went to war in Iraq, we should have completely funded our civil infrastructure including local bomb shelters being built all over the country which were able to house and care for every citizen when the invetable nuclear or biological attack finally happens. We should be working to secure the borders rather than spending billions on a ridiculous missile defense shield when any terrorist with an American Express card and a hooptie can drive a small arms nuclear weapon across the border with minimal obstruction.

    • Global War on Terror (including the War in Iraq): We are at war with an enemy who will never sign any treaties of peace; who will never stop until our entire culture and country is broken in two, the Constitution burned, and the resources of the world under fascist Islamist control. Historical mistakes combined with a defunct United Nations that has harbored gangsters and villains redistributing American funds into terrorist activities have led us into a situation where it is annihilate or be annihilated. There are times when we must take the war to the enemy and the dismantling of the Taliban and securing of Afghanistan was a primary battle in this war. But securing our civil defense should have been the next step taken, followed by the invasion of Iraq and toppling of Saddam's regime. Unfortunately, in retrospect, things didn't work out that way and I fully supported the invasion of Iraq when it began and continue to support it today. But I feel that once the Iraqi Constitution has been finalized and secured by vote, American troops should be withdrawn back to our country immediately to help secure the nation by building the infrastructure for civil defense and securing the US borders. And the only thing that bothers me about the fact that no biological or chemical weapons were found is that we know they were there and that the country used them on its own people--so where the fug are they? That's the question we should be asking, not why did we go to war when they weren't there--they were there--get over it and support our troops in finding out what the hell happened to them.

    • The Proper Use of Law: The Law is the social extension of an individual's right to protect their life and property from infringement by other human beings. Civilized human beings defer this right of defense to a legislature, executive, and judicial system that is charged with securing these rights universally for all citizens, all the while retaining the inherent right to recall that delegated authority to protect themselves, their family, or their property (refer to the Second Amendment). Once the law goes beyond this barrier of protecting individual lives and property from being infringed upon by others, it has become tyrannical and must be dissolved back into the individually delegated rights from which it springs. The confiscation of private property (taxes robbed from paychecks prior to even being paid out along with eminent domain seizures and every other egregious action by a do-good government) is an abhorrence to the spiritual freedom of the individual and whose absolute prevention should be the primary concern of any half-intelligent citizen who dares to call themselves a patriot.

    • The Quest for Oil: Our civilization runs on oil and the intelligent action to take is to encourage and promote scientific endeavors to remove our dependency from this static natural resource immediately, like yesterday. We should all be driving electric hyrbids in three years and full electric/hydrogen cars in five to ten years. Fuck the Saudi Arabians and fuck the Bush family for getting into bed with these demonic bastards who used our money to fund the 9/11 terrorists and still suspiciously remain off the Axis of Evil list. Every resource and every intelligent mind should be bent on breaking the dependence on oil as a means to move the global economy; doing so would remove enormous access to capital from the pocketbooks of global terorism, much more so than the ridiculous and hypocritical drug war.

    • Why I Voted for George W. Bush Twice: Because he wasn't Al Gore or John Kerry. The entire Democratic Party is the pride of the ghosts of the fifties communists. The entire party has pretty much been exposed as socialists and won't regain any sort of respectable power for at least a generation--and thank God for that. Al Gore was a fake motherfugger from the beginning, a quasi-conservative who reinvented himself to go for the liberal win in a white house bid (remember when his wife was head of the PMRC going after Ice-T and 2 Live Crew?). John Kerry was an absolute idiot and I'm convinced that the GOP and Carl Rove engineered the nominational defeat of Howard Dean so that they would be up against a candidate easy to defeat on the basis of his past as a weak-spined, plastic-haired, socialist puke. The Carter and Clinton administrations weakened our ability to defend ourselves and gather vital intelligence outside of our borders and I knew a Republican Bush presidency would be a step in the right direction--a strengthening of the national security infrastructure, a rearming and further modernization of the military, and massive tax breaks for the achievers of society. That being said, it is time for Bush to go after this term. The beautiful thing is that the Democratic Party has been totally marginalized from being taken seriously in American politics for many years. In my mind, the Republican party is next to be marginalized and this will usher in a new age where the two party system is broken completely in favor of voting for individuals on the basis of their core values and how they have historically stuck to them and acted from them. BLOGGERS WITH HEART FOR PRESIDENT 2012!!!

    • Congressional Term Limits: Four terms for congressman and two for senators. Period. End of story. Political office should be a rewarding burden and not a career. The fact that it has become a viable career option for used car salesmen and viscious trial laywers is a major problem in American life. Citizens of this country instituting Congressional term limits is the same as farmers putting up barb wire to keep foxes out of their chicken coops and pulling out the shotgun and tar and feathers when necessary. Make no mistake, embedded politicians are the enemies of the people and that's why they weren't the ones given the ultimate power by the Consitution.

    • The War on Drugs: This is the most tyrannical and hypocritical action ever undertaken by a succession of US Presidents and their Congressional counterparts. There are instances where being under the influence of drugs classified as mind-altering or reaction-limiting should be illegal (operating any vehicle in public or inciting violence, etc.) but the government has no right stepping into our homes and dictating what we can or cannot put into our bodies given that this action does not infringe upon the life or property of any other citizen. Marijuana should be legalized, standardized to a proper cultivation, and taxed heavily to support the strengthening of our civil defense structures and operational processes. Political leaders who don't agree with this should be nailed screaming into a pine coffin and pushed out to sea.

    • The Death Penalty: In my youth, I was much more zealous in meting out terminal punishments for the unforgiveable crimes of murder, rape, child molestations, etc. But as I've gotten older, I realize that it would be much more prudent to use these individuals to better society in some way. That could be hard labor, but I'm also thinking that you could teach them a trade and give them an entire lifetime to master the trade and learn new ways of innovation towards improving the processes and productions of society. Their penalty is losing their liberty (which is similar to losing their life). They should be given the option the entire time of taking their own life if they are too unhappy to live.

    • Celebrities Speaking Out Against the War: I have no problem with citizens exercising their First Amendment rights to speak their minds and hearts. But the First Amendment only gives us the right to speak; it does not guarantee us an audience to hear us out. I do think that when an actor of musician bares their minds to us on a stage we payed for them to act or play music on that it does cross the line into the inappropriate--but even that I am willing to forgive. I just don't see why anyone would cut their audience in half with divisive statements when they are in the position of marketing their creative work to an audience who supports their passions and lifestyles. There are always reprecussions when they do this--sometimes it's not so bad and sometimes it's a career breaker. Proceed at your own risk. The exception to this, in my mind, is when one of these stars takes the time to publish an article or start a blog--because then, they are engaging us on an intellectual level that has little to do with their artistic platform. I actually admire it when a Sean Penn or someone else takes the time to put their thoughts on the page and takes the heat from it. That's the way it should go down.

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    I Have Reposted All My Old Acoustic Podcasts for Your Listening Pleasure

    by Joshua Minton

    Click here to enjoy and I apologize about the sound levels sometimes getting out of hand. There's not much you can do with a cheap computer microphone.

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    This is How Bad it Truly Is in New Orleans...

    by Joshua Minton

    According to this MSNBC article:

    In a stunning example of how desperate the situation has become, 25 babies who had been in a makeshift neonatal intensive care unit at New Orleans’ Ochsner Clinic were airlifted Wednesday to hospitals in Houston, Baton Rouge, La., and Birmingham, Ala. Many were hooked up to battery-operated breathing machines keeping them alive. Their parents had been forced to evacuate and leave the infants behind...
    What can you possibly say as you watch one of the nation's oldest and most culturally rich cities sink possibly forever into a murky wasteland swamp where hundreds and thousands of dead bodies, some centuries old, now float and decompose in sitting water.

    I believe this is the worst natural disaster our country has yet faced and will be forever remembered as a day of Infamy right next to December 7, 1941; September 11, 2001; and the day that Islamist Fascist terrorists detonate a nuclear bomb in a densely populated American city.

    It's too terrible to think about...and just sad.

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