The Latest From BarackObama.com! Is That A Tingle I Feel Going Up My Leg?

From Rufus Gifford at BarackObama.com:

Have you ever gotten to do something so cool you're almost jealous of yourself?

Me: Um, no. Being jealous of myself would be stupid.

Pretty sure this would count:

Me: So you're saying it's going to be stupid?

On August 12th, just three weeks before the Democratic National Convention and 12 weeks before Election Day, President Obama will have a few friends over to mark his 51st birthday -- in the backyard of his Chicago home.

And you're invited.

Me: Oh! Be still my heart! Me, a mere peon, a peasant, a proletarian worker, a member of the unwashed masses, one possibly known to occasionally cling bitterly to my gun or my Bible? Me? I am invited to tread on the hallowed turf of President Obama's Chicago home? The same home he purchased with the "help" of felon Tony Rezko (not that His Eminence knew about anything shady Mr. Rezko was involved in, oh no)? I am invited to bask in the presence of The One? To -- should I be able to find the breath and the courage -- possibly actually speak with Him?

 Make a donation today of $3 or whatever you can to be automatically entered for a chance to be there -- flight and hotel paid for.

Me: Oh, I'm not really "invited" in the sense of, you know, being invited. I just get to buy a raffle ticket. Yay.

Look, campaigns are hard work, both for the President and the millions of people like you who are building it on the ground. When you factor in the ridiculous amounts of money the Romney campaign and pro-Romney super PACs are raising, we're going to have to work even harder to win than we did in 2008.

Let's have some fun together before the final push to Election Day.

Me: Hmm. The way I work those odds, the only ones guaranteed to be having fun that day are Obama, his family and the sort of people who don't have to buy a raffle ticket to get an invitation to that party. Plus one token peasant. Millions of loyal, hardworking Obama supporters? Not so much. Pat yourselves on the back, though. Better luck next time.

Let's be fair though. Pretending to enjoy the company of peasants probably isn't Obama's idea of "fun," so it's a work day for him. Bummer birthday, dude. Hope you get some time off later. Maybe after November 6.

The New Puritanism

Former porn star now reportedly working as EMT in Virginia

This story is just one of several I've noted in recent years where women -- it is almost always women -- have faced loss of their jobs when previous "unsuitable" job choices have come to light. These choices have been everything from Hooter's girl, to pin-up calendar girl, to modeling for nude photos or art, to stripper, to porn actress.

In each case, the woman has engaged in entirely legal behavior in the past, and is now pursuing a tamer, more "respectable" forms of employment.

Don't we all consider that a good thing? If you disapprove of those activities, shouldn't you commend a young woman for changing her life and going into an admirable career like teaching (that's usually the situation) or, in thise case, EMT? It's not like these women are taking their clothes off in the classroom or on emergency calls. I cannot imagine in what possible way the woman's previous career as a porn actress could make her unsuitable to be an EMT.

Yet time after time we see these woman hounded from their jobs. Is it the kind, moral or humane thing to do to chase a woman from an honorable, respectable career because in the past she made a perfectly legal choice that you disagree with? Should we slap scarlet "A"s on these women's chests and never allow them to show their faces in "polite" society again?

As a Christian, a bedrock of my faith is a belief in the idea of redemption. Throughout the Bible from Abraham, to the prostitute Rahab, to King David, to the prostitute Jesus saved from stoning, to Mary Magdalene, to Peter, to Paul (the self-described "foremost of sinners") we see the story replayed again and again of people who have done terrible, immoral things yet have found redemption and forgiveness from God, and changed their lives. Jesus didn't come and spend his time among the rich and the powerful. He lived and died and make his followers and apostles among the poor, the humble, the outcasts.

What does that say about the sort of people who would drive a young woman from her teaching job, not due to any current behavior, but for past sins?

The argument seems to be in the teaching case that "the children" will not have respect for the young woman or be able to learn effectively if they learn of her background or see her pictures on the internet. Seriously? First, if the kids are searching porno sites on the internet, then they're obviously not exactly Mommy and Daddy's little angels themselves, are they? Any lack of respect they display is their own behavioral problem not the teacher's and it's the job of the school administration and the parents to stand behind the teacher and not blame the teacher's past on students' current bad behavior. 

What kind of message does it send to the students if the woman is fired from her job? To me what it tells them that any woman who has ever engaged in disapproved behavior is forever a disreputable whore, not worthy of their respect. What we should be teaching them instead is "Sit down. Shut up. Pay attention. Your teacher's past life is none of your business, you little animal, and it doesn't entitle you to leer, to mouth off or to be disruptive."

I'm not going to get crude about it -- hardcore pornography isn't my thing in the first place -- but Harmony Rose is, as porn actresses often are, a very attractive young lady. It's certainly no drawback in my book if the EMT who shows up to help me has a pretty face -- it might cheer me up in what are likely to be dire circumstances. If I'm laying on the ground due to an accident or a heart attack, I'm certainly not judging the past choices of a young woman who has trained hard to learn the skills she's now using to tend to me.

I look at the pictures you see if you Google Harmony Rose, and I read her bio on IMDB, and I honestly just feel sorry for the poor girl. Some important people in her life -- her father, chief among them, because it's really a father's duty to establish a healthy self-respect and sexual identity in his daughters, by modeling for them how a man should treat a woman --  let her down big time if she thought that her best course in life was explicit pornography. I know she probably doesn't share my view of her porn career, and that's OK with me. I wouldn't criticize her for it or judge her for it if I met her. It was a perfectly legal choice, and her past is her own business. But I'd congratulate her on working hard to be an EMT, and I'd support her in that effort. I wouldn't try to tear her down or get her fired.

You Didn't Hit That!

The New York Post reports that Obama wedding registry fund-raising strategy not a hit with brides.

Imagine that! In the scheme, Obama "asks couples to request campaign donations from their guests in lieu of wedding gifts."

Given my previous post regarding Obama's "You didn't build that" statement, maybe Obama could educate newlywed couples with a speech on the theme of "You didn't marry that!" or "You didn't hit that!" to make them understand that the couples really owe society -- especially the Obama campaign -- for their marriages.

Here's my sample speech. Just trying to be helpful, Barack, buddy, really. Because you didn't write those speeches on your own, you know!

“If you’ve married the love of your life, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart and so handsome. There are a lot of smart people out there.  There are a lot of handsome people out there. It must be because I wooed harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardwooing people out there.

“If you got married, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great wingman somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create those unbelievable romantic dates that allowed your love to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges for you to drive on to get to those dates. If you’ve got a spouse, you didn’t bag that. Somebody else made that happen,” he said. “eHarmony.com didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the dating companies could match perfect soulmates on the Internet.”

That will be a big hit, don't you think?

You Really Want To Go There, Obama?

Obama to business owners: 'You didn't build that'
As a small businessman, I could respond to this huge slap in the face with a detailed rebuttal, citing the value of ingenuity and individual initiative and creativity, citing the incredible amount of hard work it takes to build a successful small business, and the value it brings to its employees and customers as well as its owners. But the heck with that. I won't waste my wisdom on anyone who is a big enough ass and a big enough idiot to make the proposition Obama makes. I'll just say this.

Fuck you, Obama. I goddamn well did build that. It's not yours. I don't owe you or the government anything I haven't already paid for. My teachers got paid, my laborers got paid, I paid all my taxes and all my utility bills. My balance sheet is fucking clean. My business would not exist if my wife and I hadn't created it and put hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours into it. I'm sure as hell not going to share credit for that. Fuck you.

'Robin Hood Tax' insulting to Robin Hood

Lefties have been sullying the good name of Robin Hood for years by promoting the "steal from the rich, give to the poor" lines, when in actuality Robin Hood stole from the government and gave to the poor, but naming a tax after him is beyond the pale!

The citizens of Nottingham were suffering under excessive taxation by Prince John (to pay for King Richard's ruinous crusades and policies, but that's another topic), enforced by ye olde villain, the Sheriff of Nottingham.

So, naming a tax after Robin Hood, the great anti-tax champion of English myth, is Orwellian in its reversal of meaning.

The so-called Robin Hood tax is a 0.03% tax on financial transactions. I find it ominous that the Robin Hood Tax booster site's "How this Works" page is extremely vague regarding how this would be implemented and what financial transactions it would apply to. Also that the page uses the language of the 1% versus the 99% is a hint that this tax is more about class warfare than sound fiscal policy.

The page says "That money could provide funding for jobs to kickstart the economy and get America back on its feet." Hmm, really? Because it is the private sector that creates jobs, exactly how is it efficient to take money away from the job creators and filter it through the government in order to create jobs? Are there people out there who still believe that the government is the engine of job creation? The idea was ludicrous on its face even before it had been so thoroughly debunked in practice by the current financial crisis and the failed stimulus bill.

No, what that money will really be used for is to fund government spending, at the cost of jobs. It's simple fact, you don't take money away from wealth generators and expect to create jobs.

The page goes on "So it's time for justice for ordinary families and businesses. For American families faced with a choice between buying food or paying the heating bill." Again, really? How dumb do they think I am? I'm an ordinary American. Well, maybe not so ordinary, because I'm in the declining percentage that pays more in taxes than I receive in government services. I also own stocks, in my 401k, as millions of other "ordinary families" do. This tax will steal from my 401k and put no money in my pocket. It won't help pay the heating bill or the food bill (because I'm not on government subsidized HEAP utility payments or Food Stamps -- I pay for my own damn heat and food, thank you).

Nowhere does the page explain exactly how this bill will give "justice" to ordinary families or help them pay their heating or food bills without increasing their dependency on the state. Increased dependency is not justice in any sense of the word!

A tax on financial transactions would simply be deferred throughout the rest of the economy. If commodity trading is 0.03% more expensive for the traders, then commodity prices will be approximately 0.03% more expensive to consumers in order to account for the added expense! That means oil, gas, basic foodstuffs -- it will come right back and hit "ordinary families" in the pocket book.

 I work for a subsidiary of Boeing. If Boeing stock is 0.03% more expensive to trade, thus financially impacting Boeing, that hurts me, the Boeing employee. It hurts people who invest in Boeing and people who might be hired by Boeing. It hurts other companies that do business with Boeing. All it does is give more power to the government, which for starters has to take a cut of whatever money the tax generates to pay the tax collectors and regulators necessary to implement the law. Then the money gets spent by government on things that don't generate wealth or create jobs -- the "social safety net" that's looking every day less like a "safety net" and more like a net trap.

People don't need handouts, they need jobs, but every time you raise taxes you take money away from the people who create jobs and give it to the people who give handouts. Government handouts don't raise people out of poverty, they just make them more settled and comfortable in their poverty. Jobs raise people out of poverty. Companies, big and small create jobs, not government. Wall Street funds the companies that create jobs. Stealing from Wall Street is stealing from the wealth and prosperity of the nation.

Robin Hood would have had no part of this.

The Oath

Playing Games With My Son's Life

My son will be deploying to Afghanistan again in a couple months and this week he made the off-hand comment that the Rules of Engagement have changed since last time he was there. Then, someone with a two-way radio was presumed to be a hostile and could be shot. Now, that person has to be presumed to be non-hostile.

We're not talking about someone strolling on their way to the grocery with a two-way radio to keep in touch with their kids. What every soldier there understands is that men with two-way radios are spotters. They're setting the troops up for an ambush or a manually-triggered IED. Now they have to just let those guys go, let them deliver their murderous message, and hope they can handle whatever is coming.

Bastards sitting safely behind desks in air conditioned offices made that rule. My son, in a dusty HumVee on a chunk of barren Afghani road, has to live or die by it.