Thursday the 13th

You've Got a Ticket to Ride

Pittsburgh's very own legacy amusement park, Kennywood, will be graced by still another roller coaster starting next season – and there is a contest under way to determine what this coaster will be called. Among its features are: “It will immediately take riders from 0 to 50 mph in three seconds” -- and “It will climb 95 feet and pause at the top for a brief 'cliffhanger' before taking a 90-degree plunge”. So... given those specs, may I make a few suggestions? It could be called “The Obamanator” -- based on Obama's meteoric rise in the political firmament, as well as his administration's attempts to get four years' work done in six months. Or – it could be called the “Inflationator”, based on the inevitable outcome of all of the current government programs put in place in response to the “economic crisis”. Or how about “Taxilla” -- based on the inevitable steep hike in taxes for all but the poorest of the poor – necessitated by the same programs. Surely the fast initial acceleration, the “cliffhanger” point, and the 90-degree plunge, could not be better suited to describe the current state of the American economy and the actions that are being taken to – allegedly – fix it.

What'd I Just Tell You?

In my recent post regarding reactions to random killings, I allowed as how – and I quote myself, with all due modesty -- “The fact that there are people out there who are still miserable is not the fault of the 'system' or 'holes in the safety net' -- it's part and parcel of flawed human nature operating in a fallen world. And the more government steps in and tries to lock-step people back to 'mental health', the more pathological things become."

In other words, all the “mental health” screening in the world is not going to keep some people from doing very bad things – they will, indeed, slip through the safety net and fly under radar. There is an example in today's paper of a big-time child pornographer who – to everyone's amazement -- “has no mental-health diagnosis or childhood trauma that would help explain his crimes”. And this, of course, is the ultimately-disturbing thing to the system, and to the materialists who believe that “if only we could come up with the right tests...”. But, for what it's worth, this individual was also pronounced (after, I assume, due referrals and diagnoses) a “psychopath” -- and as we all know – or should know – psychopaths as a group are remarkably skilled at not only avoiding detection and diagnosis, but they can pull the wool over the eyes of even trained clinicians, pathologists, and judges – and voters, I might add, in those unfortunate instances when they decide to go into politics instead of (or in addition to) kiddie porn. Our society seems to have a remarkable lack of discernment when it comes to this personality type – since we see so many of them achieving high office, and making huge amounts of money, while their even-less-desirable habits go unanswered. I've said before that this is a measure of the overall health of a society – the extent to which it can detect, and sanction, the “outliers” -- the extreme anti-social types among its numbers. So how can anyone expect a society that has such a strange tolerance for this type to come up with suitable safeguards? The answer is, they can't – the psychopathic politician is cut from the same cloth as the psychopathic murderer or pornographer... the only difference is in the medium they choose to exercise in their pursuit of power and dominance over others. If we want to get rid of one type, we have to get rid of them all – not hypocritically worship the one and condemn the other.

40 Million Frenchmen Can Be Wrong

I keep marveling at how France – supposedly the home of the most sophisticated, jaded, insouciant race on the face of the earth – keeps acting like such a racist, ethnocentric country. Now they've decided that something called the “burquini” is pas de rigueur in public swimming pools. The “burquini” -- for those of you not up on your Moslem fashion lore – is a form of swimwear for women which conforms to the sharia law, i.e. it hides pretty much everything. (If you still don't get the picture, think of the way liberal female politicians and officials dress -- ah, now you've got it!) And what is la belle France's rationale for banning the burq? “Hygiene” -- that last-ditch alibi for prudes and scolds down through history. The notion is that, because the burquini is not skin-tight it opens the door for all sorts of unsanitary conditions and infestations. Now – anyone who knows, first hand, about the relative state of hygiene of the average Frenchman knows that “baggy” is the least of their worries. Anyone out there remember when baths were the exclusive province of the Arab world, and not Christendom? Anyone remember when what we call “towels” were called “Turkish towels”? Yes, it's true – the average Moslem, on any given day, is likely to be at least as clean as the average Christian, or post-Christian – not to mention the average Frenchman. So once again France is outed as one of the last bastions of real, dyed-in-the-wool provincialism and bigotry. Oh Robespierre, where art thou?

Another Wright Makes a Wrong

I see where a “former Clinton aide” has been charged with “smuggling a knife and 48 tattoo kneedles onto the state's (that is, Arkansas') death row.” Note the soft-pedaling here – an “aide”, as if she were no more important than, say, Monica Lewinsky. Hello! We're talking about Betsey Wright, who was Clinton's chief of staff when he was governor. To quote the Wiki entry on this harridan --

"She served as chief of staff to Governor Clinton for seven years. As Deputy Chair of the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign, Wright established the rapid response system that was responsible for defending Clinton's record in Arkansas and promptly answering all personal attacks on the candidate. She coined the term 'bimbo eruptions' to describe the series of women claiming they had had affairs with Clinton."

So this woman was a hard-core Clintonista -- and no friend to other women. And now she is reverting to type, clearly... and once again, a “friend of Bill” turns out to be almost as degenerate and chaotic as the man himself.

Change for the Worse

Now get a load of the “agents of change” -- he really used that expression! -- that Obama just awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to. There were some worthy recipients, I admit – but among the less-worthy were blockheads like Billie Jean King, Sandra Day O'Connor, Ted Kennedy, and (posthumously) Harvey Milk. Oh yeah – the “granola coalition” has risen again.

Wave the Wicked Banner

But speaking of rising again – not! -- now it's illegal for a public school student in Tennessee to wear a T-shirt and belt buckle depicting the Confederate flag. Hey – when will these Southerners admit that they are a defeated nation – like the Indians, or the Palestinians? Why do they keep dreaming of a new rebirth? Surely they haven't taken the words in the Declaration of Independence seriously – have they?