Brutally Honest

"We work at staying stupid"

Morgan is on a roll as the new year beckons:

To the extent that we end up buried in a tidal wave of
“knowledgeable” professionals who are supposed to know everything, and
in actuality when it comes time to getting things done, can’t really be
counted on to do any of it. I’m griping about paperwork being treated
as an acceptable substitute for skill — paperwork treated with greater
respect than skill. To the point where those with the authority to do
so, reject skill, replace it with paperwork, think the exchange to be a
costless one, and then coast along in blissful ignorance of the fact
that this is what was just done. If we were talking about installing
seat belts or brake pads, we’d have to wake up to what we’re doing…but
we don’t have to…and what we’re talking about, is all the stuff in our
lives that is supported by technology. Which is pretty much everything,
lock stock & barrel.

The overlap between these two old-guy complaints, is broad, deep and significant. It is a seductive cultural spirit antagonistic toward simply knowing how to do things. The shoving of the nearest nerd into the handiest garbage can. The pretending you don’t know the answer to the question so you can avoid being typecast as a “geek,” and therefore get along with your pals. The wearing of the clothes backwards. The ass crack sticking out of the pants. Ain’t. You is. Let me ax you. The Idiocracy.

Deep down, I think we all understand we can afford this nonsense because…well, we can afford it. Got a hungry belly, you take it to Taco Bell with $3.15 and the problem is solved. Boss fires you for goofing off too much, you take it up with your local union and you’ll make the sonofabitch sorry his momma ever met his daddy. Laziness…all kinds of laziness, the intellectual, the spiritual, the physical…carries no consequence as 2008 finds us. None at all. None. And so — we work hard at getting lazy. It is the one thing toward which we channel our truly dedicated, sweaty-forehead, all-other-priorities-are-trivial, white hot energy.

Because we must put that kind of energy somewhere, and there are no other challenges, dangers or problems left to absorb it. We work at staying stupid. At not speaking English. At using improper grammar. At mumbling. We are very much like the battery with one paper clip attached to both terminals. Zero resistance…and we’re overheating and melting down because zero resistance is a situation outside of our intended design.

Happy new year!

Happy new year to you Morgan.  I'm making a resolution to read you often and not just here in the comments.

Might many more mimic my manner.

Can you believe this...

... sh*t crap?

Marine Sgt Mike McNulty is on activation orders to Iraq (second tour).  On December 1st, 2007, Mike went to visit a friend in Chicago before deploying to say goodbye.  In order to get to his friend's residence, and keep in mind that Chicago is a myriad of diagonal and one-way streets, the front entrance (right way) to the one-way street was blocked.  Mike, being a Marine, overcame and adapted by driving around the block to the other end of the street and backing up all the way to his friend's place. 

While saying goodbye, at about 11am, he noticed a man leaning up against his car. Mike left his friend's apartment and caught the man keying his car on multiple sides.

After caught in the process, the man told Mike, "you think you can do whatever you want with Department of Defense license plates and tags".  (In Illinois you can purchase veteran, Marine, or medal plates.  Mike has Illinois Marine Corps license plates.)  During the exchange, he made additional anti-military comments.

Mike called the Chicago police and had the man arrested. A citation against the man was issued for misdemeanor criminal damage to private property.

The police report (and I have copies if needed) states:

Victim related to P/O that as he walked back to his vehicle, he observed the offender leaning up against his vehicle and rubbed/dragged his left arm and hand across the passenger side.  As offender walked away from victim's vehicle, victim observed a scratch along the rear trunk and passenger's door area where offender dragged his arm and hand over. Victim and witness stopped offender and confronted him.  Victim has military plates and decals on his vehicle and offender made anti war and military comments to victim.  Upon P/O's arrival to scene, offender denied scratch victim's vehicle, but did admit to rubbing past it. Victim at this time did not sign complaint, because he is leaving tour for military duty.  Offender said they accused him of scratching the car because he is Jewish.  Offender's statements/responses to P/O's questions unreasonable.      

As it turns out, the man is Chicago lawyer Jay R. Grodner, who owns a law firm in the city and has offices in the suburbs.

Do read the rest of this story but be warned, especially if you're on blood pressure medication, you might just have a coronary.

Un-freakin-believable.

 

A Brutally Honest review of 2007

As we face 2008, I thought it'd be kinda neat to look back at things posted in 2007.  Lots to choose from frankly but let's give it a shot, month by month.

In January, Mrs. BH posts her first (and last so far) blog to wish a special guy a special day.  Lots of nice (and less than nice) comments follow.  Also in January, I wonder aloud at Saddam Hussein's hanging, George Bush's humanity, a post that draws tons of hits, and the sadness that comes from losing your pet.

February comes and I'm thinking about a new Brutally Honest category called Plainly Sucks, I write about the latest cult personality, the Unseen Iraq and the fact that Lent is that traditional time leftists attack Christianity.  Oh, and while researching for this post, I find a guy who I said then I'd added to the blogroll but lo and behold he was gone... so he's back, with my apologies and without apology, BroKen begins his BH career as a guest blogger.

On to March, where I write about the...er... ballsy Dr. De Cock... no kiddin'. And Rosie losing it, imagine that.  And an excellent review for an excellent movie.  And no one should miss Al Gore's refusal to take a personal ethics pledge or the fact that the global warming movement is all about your inner female.  And I'd be remiss not to mention Mom's knee surgery... she's doing so well now in that department.

April showers bring Hillary Clinton channeling Don Imus, the traitorous actions of key members in Congress, the telling concept of grief voyeurism I called pornogriefic, and who can forget Cheryl Crow's butt-wiping advice or the much more serious and unimaginable evil that took place at Virginia Tech and the exchange I had via Instant Messenger with a VT student?

May springs forth with an unforgettable letter written to Cindy Sheehan by The Anchoress and an equally unforgettable understanding of what Memorial Day means by Gerard Vanderleun.  There's some photoshop meanness, a local hero laid to rest, and a Democrat making sense... really.  And speaking of really, how about the hypocrisy of those who say "who are they to judge"?  Oh, while on the subject of hypocrisy, I dare not leave out Jimmy Carter.  And speaking of leaving out, I can't leave out what Mrs. BH began to ride that month nor the simple awe, admiration and gratitude I had for a vet I'd met.

June comes and with it my public support of Fred Thompson and one of the most egregious cases of Bush Derangement Syndrome.  Love is defined by HarryTick (a must read), ditz is defined by Cameron Diaz and Morgan Freeberg skewers the Church of Chicken Little.  And who can forget Leslie's post bringing a ringing comparing and contrasting of Islamism vs. Liberalism or my own recounting of the Episcomuslim... or would that be the Muslimopalian?

There's 6 months of BH musings, ponderings and clap trattle.  Quite the feast.  And so you don't overdose, I'll stop here and maybe, just maybe, I'll look at the last 6 months tomorrow.

Nancy Pelosi has a heart...

... and given what I've written about her in the past, it'd be damned near sinful not to report this:

On this Saturday evening, December 29, 2007, my cell phone rings at about 5:50 pm CST and I hear:

“Is this David Jeffers?” 

“Yes it is.” 

“This is Nancy Pelosi and I just wanted to call you and let you know that I got your packet from Congressman Jeff Miller and that I read all of your son Eddie’s articles. I want to first say how sorry I am for your loss and I imagine this must have been a tough Christmas for your family.”

That’s how my conversation with the Speaker of the House began. I told her because of our faith in Christ we were able to rejoice knowing that Eddie was with Jesus. I told her my daughters were able to come home for Christmas and we were thankful for that. She asked about the girls and where they lived and said it was great that they were close enough to come home. She said that it was good that we have a strong faith to lean on.

She said that Eddie’s words were profound and that although he is gone from us, his words will live on forever. She also stated that our soldiers are magnificent and regardless of our differences on the war or its conduct, we can all be thankful for such a wonderful military. We said a couple of more pleasantries and then wished each other a Happy New Year. I thanked her for taking the time to call and that I appreciated it.

David Jeffers is the father of Eddie Jeffers, who I wrote about back in February, and who was killed in September.  His dad announced that death here, his dad posts links to his son's articles here and a video tribute here.

Many will question Nancy Pelosi's motives in doing what she's done and who can blame them but I'll choose, for now, to believe that God touched the woman, if only for a moment.

Hillary Clinton brings hope to the masses

I had the privilege over the last few days to listen as family members (on Mrs. BH's side of the family tree) pledged their allegiance to Hillary Clinton.  Not surprising really.  I did my best to remain respectful though it was excruciatingly difficult. 

So imagine the pleasure experienced when I came across Tom Elias' post explaining the reason for the hope folks have in Hillary:

The New York Daily News' Michael McAuliff reports that Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) told a campaign audience Saturday that oil prices will drop if she is elected president.

Writes McAuliff:

Hillary Clinton predicted Saturday that just electing her President will cut the price of oil.

When the world hears her commitment at her inauguration about ending American dependence on foreign fuel, Clinton says, oil-pumping countries will lower prices to stifle America's incentive to develop alternative energy.

"I predict to you, the oil-producing countries will drop the price of oil," Clinton said, speaking at the Manchester YWCA. "They will once again assume, once the cost pressure is off, Americans and our political process will recede."

According to campaign insiders, other things that will happen if Sen. Clinton is elected president (not necessarily in order):

1) Boiled brussel sprouts will start to taste like steak off the grill.
2) Singer Pat Boone will launch a successful career revival with a number one rap song.
3) Tight corduroy pants will no longer make that swishing sound when husky people walk. 
4) Rosie O'Donnell will win a Nobel Peace Prize for something science-related.   
5) Former Chicago Bear Hall-of-Famer Mike Ditka will open a successful nationwide chain of sensitivity training and Transcendental Meditation centers.
6) Bananas will never turn brown. 
7) Carrot Top will tell a joke and somewhere, someone will laugh.

Priceless.  Hell, number 3 in and of itself is nearly enough for me to throw my support for Hillary.

Nearly.

Malaysia: Only Muslims can use word "Allah"

Followers of the religion of peace in Malaysia are peacefully (for now) exhibiting their intolerance:

A church and Christian newspaper in Malaysia are suing the government after it decreed that the word "Allah" can only be used by Muslims.

In the Malay language "Allah" is used to mean any god, and Christians say they have used the term for centuries.

Opponents of the ban say it is unconstitutional and unreasonable.

It is the latest in a series of religious rows in largely Muslim Malaysia, where minority groups claim their rights are being eroded.

A spokesman for the Herald, the newspaper of the Catholic Church in Malaysia, said a legal suit was filed after they received repeated official warnings that the newspaper could have its licence revoked if it continued to use the word.

"We are of the view that we have the right to use the word 'Allah'," said editor Rev Lawrence Andrew.

'Unlawful'

The Sabah Evangelical Church of Borneo has also taken legal action after a government ministry moved to ban the import of religious children's books containing the word.

In a statement given to Reuters news agency, the church said the translation of the bible in which the word Allah appears has been used by Christians since the earliest days of the church.

And so many would think that hey, that's over there, and not over here, so who gives a rat's patootie?

Think again infidel:

The Canadian Islamic Congress has filed “human rights” complaints against Maclean’s magazine for publishing an excerpt from Mark Steyn’s book “America Alone,” which the CIC labels not just “Islamophobic,” but flagrantly Islamophobic: Canadian Islamic Congress launches human rights complaints against Maclean’s.

Complaints were submitted to Human Rights Commissions in B.C. and Ontario on the grounds that “the article subjects Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt,” according to a CIC press release. In the release, the CIC labels Steyn’s article as “flagrantly Islamophobic.”

Faisal Joseph is the CIC’s legal counsel on the matter. “In Canada, we have 750,000 law-abiding Muslims,” he says. “When you read that article, it sounds to some people [like] there’s an attack from the ‘Muslim’ world against the ‘non-Muslim’ world. We take real issue with that type of characterization and the implications of it.”

In response, a Maclean’s spokesperson provided the following statement: “Mark Steyn is a thoughtful and experienced journalist, and the piece was a commentary on important global political issues. It was not in any sense Islamophobic, and Maclean’s is confident that the Human Rights Commissions will find no merit in the complaints.”

And it doesn't stop there un-believer:

In addition, there is this story about a Catholic journal being brought under the same body, for publishing stuff which, well, appears to be the teaching of the Catholic Church:

Today, Catholic Insight magazine has also become a victim of the new anti-religion. We, too, have been denounced to the Canadian Human Rights Commission in Ottawa for speaking out against the activists who agitated for adding so-called sexual orientation to the Hate Crimes Act in 2003 and the legalization of same-sex “marriage” in 2005. The politically correct activists brook no opposition. See the article ”Catholic Insight under human rights attack”, page 10; and David Warren,“Suing for silence”, page 17.

from here

The religion of peace, peacefully looking to rule the world while the ignorant exclaim that they're no worse than the extremists in every religion, even those 'extremists' who, heaven forbid, see marriage to be between a man and a woman and who in that seeing should be seen as violators of human rights.

Really.

Welcome to liberal la-la land, where Muslims are seen to be peaceful and Catholics a threat.

Freakin' unbelievable.

I'd rather be led by Fred

And this is highlighting why:

Committed atheist concerned about direction of Christian churches

Brendan O'Neill, an avowed atheist, is asking the church to bring back God, this after listening to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the titular head of the world's Anglicans, Christmas sermon:

They say we get the leaders we deserve. We also get the bishops we deserve. And in an age of petty piety, where relativistic non-judgementalism coexists with new codes of personal morality, giving rise to a Mary Poppins State more than a Nanny State, it’s fitting that the Archbishop of Canterbury is a trendy schoolteacher type who dispenses hectoring ethical advice with a smarmy grin rather than with fire-and-brimstone relish.

In his Christmas sermon, delivered at Canterbury Cathedral, Dr Williams finally completed his journey from old-world Christianity to trendy New Ageism. His sermon was indistinguishable from those delivered (not just at Christmas but for life) by the heads of Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth. Williams did not speak about Christian morality; in fact, he didn’t utter the m-word at all. He said little about men’s responsibility to love one another and God, the two Commandments Jesus Christ said we should live by. Instead he talked about our role as janitors on planet Earth, who must stop plundering the ‘warehouse of natural resources’ and ensure that we clean up after ourselves.

Williams has clearly been reading the Good Books – not the Bible, but those Carbon Calculator tomes that are clogging up bookshop shelves around the country, and which instruct people on how to live so meekly that they leave no imprint whatsoever on the planet or human history. He said that Earth does not exist only for ‘humanity’s sake’; it also exists ‘in its own independence and beauty… not as a warehouse of resources to serve humanity’s selfishness’.

Williams warned that our greed – presumably our insatiable lust for warm homes, cars, cookers and other outrageous luxuries – is killing the planet. He welcomed the fact that mankind is ‘growing in awareness of how fragile [the planet] is, how fragile is the balance of species and environments in the world and how easily our greed distorts it’. In 2008, we must take more seriously our ‘guardianship’ of the Earth, he declared (1).

Williams isn’t the only leading Christian who has sold his soul to Gaia and traded in Christian morality for the pieties of environmentalism. The Reverend John Owen, leader of the Presbyterian Church of Wales, said in his Christmas sermon that everyone should remember his or her ‘duty to the planet’. He urged people to recycle leftover food, and ‘redouble [your] efforts to take action and campaign against climate change’ in the coming year (2). Meanwhile, the Vatican is taking steps to become the world’s first carbon-neutral sovereign state by planting trees in a Hungarian national park to offset the CO2 emissions of the Holy See. Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, says that in 2008 there should be the ‘dawn of a new culture, of new attitudes and a new mode of living that makes man aware of his place as caretaker of the earth’ (3).

The reduction of man to an eco-janitor, a being who creates waste and thus must clear it up, is more than a cynical attempt by isolated Christian leaders to connect with the public. Yes, Williams, Owen, the Holy See and Co. no doubt hope and believe (mistakenly, I’m sure) that adopting trendy Greenspeak will entice people to return to the church. But the move from focusing on love for God and one’s neighbour to focusing on ‘respect for the planet’ represents more than a rebranding exercise: it signals a complete abandonment by the Christian churches of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. And in this sense, it is not only God that is being downgraded by the new nature-worshipping priests; so is humanity itself. And that’s enough to make even a committed atheist like me worry about the current direction of the Christian churches.

There's more and the man makes salient points worth pondering. 

H/T to Kathy at Five Feet of Fury.

Fox News is most balanced according to University study

This is sure to set teeth on edge, veins in the neck to bulge and the media elite to froth at the mouth:

These results are from CMPA’s 2008 ElectionNewsWatch Project. They are based on a scientific content analysis of all 481 election news stories (15 hours 40 minutes of airtime) that aired on the flagship evening news shows on ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX (the first 30 minutes of “Special Report with Brit Hume”) from October 1 through December 15, 2007.

...

Who’s Fair and Balanced?: Fox News Channel’s coverage was more balanced toward both parties than the broadcast networks were. On FOX, evaluations of all Democratic candidates combined were split almost evenly – 51% positive vs. 49% negative, as were all evaluations of GOP candidates – 49% positive vs. 51% negative, producing a perfectly balanced 50-50 split for all candidates of both parties.

On the three broadcast networks, opinion on Democratic candidates split 47% positive vs. 53% negative, while evaluations of Republicans were more negative – 40% positive vs. 60% negative. For both parties combined, network evaluations were almost 3 to 2 negative in tone, i.e. 41% positive vs. 59% negative.

Who, you're probably asking, are the CMPA?  Glad you asked:

The Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) is a nonpartisan research and educational organization which conducts scientific studies of the news and entertainment media. CMPA election studies have played a major role in the ongoing debate over improving the election process. Our continuing analysis and tabulation of late night political jokes provides a lighter look at major news makers. CMPA is one of the few groups to study the important role the media plays in communicating information about health risks and scientific issues.

Since its formation in 1985, CMPA has emerged as a unique institution that bridges the gap between academic research and the broader domains of media and public policy. Founded by Drs. Robert and Linda Lichter, CMPA has become an acknowledged source of expertise in media analysis.

The Center's goal is to provide an empirical basis for ongoing debates over media fairness and impact through well-documented, timely, and readable studies of media content. CMPA's bi-monthly newsletter, Media Monitor, is a prime example of these analyses. Our scientific approach sets us apart from self appointed media "watchdog" groups, while our timeliness and outreach distinguishes us from traditional academic researchers.

Pass this along.  Michelle did.

One frenchman not waving the white flag on Global Warming

Oh I love this:

Climate-change skeptics are taking a beating these days even in France, where people long resisted the green creed.                  

Paris bookstores brim with guidebooks -- including one shaped like a toilet seat -- that tell readers how to help save our planet. Yet the dissidents refuse to shut up, even now that Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize and the U.S. government has agreed to negotiate a new global-warming treaty by 2009.           

The most conspicuous doubter in France is Claude Allegre, a former education minister and a physicist by profession. His new book, ``Ma Verite Sur la Planete'' (``My Truth About the Planet''), doesn't mince words.           

He calls Gore a ``crook'' presiding over an eco-business that pumps out cash. As for Gore's French followers, the author likens them to religious zealots who, far from saving humanity, are endangering it.

Crooks and religious zealots in the Global Warming movement?

Sacre bleu!  C'est la verite!

(Pardon my french).