Kneel before Foamy!

The fires of Vesta burn brightly atop the Stoa this morning. The Foamy awards are being lined up for their new owners. By the beard of Xeno the Stoic there has been much to award over the last few weeks.

You must pardon the energy of this posting, but when the fires of Vesta are stoked, things get less formal.

Our first winner, in no particular order, since all of these awards are going to IDIOTS is:

Vice President Joseph Biden. From the mouth of morons, the King of vapidity, Mr. Biden stated that the Taliban were "not our enemies, per se". PER SE? What the hell does that mean, Joe? People fly planes into the WTC, kill more civilians than the Japanese at Pearl Harbor (who at least attacked a MILITARY target) and you do not classify them as an ENEMY...PER SE! However, someone who wants to keep more of the money they EARN is classified as a terrorist and enemy of the State.
Huge FOAMY award for you Joe, AND TRY NOT TO SIT ON IT OR YOU'LL SEE WHICH FINGER FOAMY IS POINTING SKYWARD IN YOUR HONOR!

The second award goes to President Barak Obama, for. Oh. So. Many. Things.
First, he launches a campaign ad where he calls himself a TAX CUTTER. Man, you can draw in some swirls over my head on that one. THEN, he calls himself a FISCAL CONSERVATIVE. This from a man who spent more money that we didn't have than any president since 1787! Not just that, but ALL the deficits EVER accumulated since 1787! Where is my golden back scratcher BARACK for all that money my children will have to pay back. Oh, it when to SEIU and all your other cronies...FIGURES! THEN, he takes his photos with every uniformed soldier he can find. Salutes until he drops a belt size, sends out CHRISTMAS cards and gets all warm and fuzzy with the troops. The very troops that make him want to vomit and cringe whenever he sees them. The very troops that he ignored for A YEAR under his first commander in the Afghanistan theater. Yeah, that guy. Here is your Foamy you Communist twit! And lastly, tying back into how "fiscally conservative" he is, he spends $4 million on a 17 day VACATION TO HAWAII. His wife flies separate of course, which increases the cost of the trip. Want some Kobe steak while you are on the flight, Mrs. President? Can you PRETEND, at least, to follow your own dietary restrictions! Here is YOUR foamy as well, thunder thighs!

The third award goes to our NKVD wanna-be, Mr. Eric Holder, Attorney General of these Socializing United States. Here is a guy that accuses America of being timid and afraid to address race--to discuss it openly. Then, when his own political chickens come home to roost, by the names of "Gun Walker", "Black Panthers", "Nation of Islam", "Tea Party", "Selective Enforcement of Executive Laws", "Affirmative Action", "Laws for Whites and Laws for Blacks" he goes and CRIES "YOU ARE ONLY GOING AFTER ME BECAUSE I'M BLACK!" Also known as the RACE CARD!. You faaarreeeekkkkin' COWARD! Enjoy your FOAMY you black racist bastard!

The fourth award (fifth, if you include the Award Ms. Obama was given...unless she already ATE it) goes to the Walter Reed Hospital outside of Washington D.C. They passed a new regulation that bans ALL expressions of faith on the campus. No crosses, no bibles (not even for the patients), priests must wear street clothes, and no open prayer. This one has three dots popping into view next to my ear. WHAT THE HELL! (oops, that is an overt religious comment). Can I even wear my WEDDING RING on campus! That is a religious article. Did you think about that one you pinheads! Of course, no one is taking credit for this little policy. Believe me, no policy gets written ANYWHERE without a sponsor or someone who has to sign off. ANYWHERE! This just goes to show you that people take their direction from the one in charge. Again, WHO WROTE THAT POLICY AND WHO APPROVED IT! Tell me now, bitch! Who do I get to say gets the honor of this Foamy award! SOMEONE WROTE IT, OUT WITH IT...YOU WORK FOR ME, JERK!

And last, but not least, the next Foamy goes to none other than NEWT GINGRICH. I haven't a clue why the media is calling him the new GOP darling. He had his shot in the 90's and he BAHHHHLEEEWWWW IT!!!! It was his Congresses that began to adore the attention and mewling of the media. It was his Congresses, and those of his next in line that began to act like DEMOCRATS! You waffling intellectual effete! Do you think that anyone with two brain cells still functional while you were the Speaker has forgotten how you BUNGLED your opportunities? Sure, you kept Clinton in line, but only because he chose to buckle. YOU buckled when they shut the government down. YOU admitted defeat like a whiny coward. If you had truth and right on your side then backing down was the WORST thing you could have done. Don't own what you don't own. Don't claim to be a TEA PARTY conservative when you still have the jam stains on your cheeks and chins from the special interest parties thrown in your honor while in power. You are no Tea Party conservative, I don't care how many TP cells you have hoodwinked. If the MEDIA LOVES YOU THEN I MUST WONDER WHY! The ABR (anyone but Romney) angle doesn't clear the smell test. Cain is crushed and third party conservative phantoms rise every day. THANKS NEWT!!!!!! Hear is your FREEKIN' FOAMY! Put that next to your RINO certificate on the mantle!

God you all make me sick today. All the GOP out there. COWARDS and game players. Ron Paul is a NUT. Newt is a RINO, Romney is a RINO, Bachman is being ignored....COME ON...GIVE ME A BREAK!

That has been your Foamy report. The fellows with white lab coats are currently trying to force me down and inject huge amounts of Thorazine into my thrashing limbs. Yeah, well I'll show them. I won't pay my medical bill.

Pione, folks.

Live well,

--Zavost

CLEAR!!!

I can hear this over and over from upon the Stoa. The European patient is expiring. adrenaline has been administered at least twice already. The Federal Reserve and world Central Banks trying oh so very hard to save their patient.

The whine of the shock pad capacitors is heavy in the air again as the Federal Reserve once again makes dollars available in unlimited supply; applying aid through several back doors since the ECB has already called a "time of death" out on the patient.

Dollars pouring out of the Treasure to support "dollar denominated" transactions. I wonder if trading in a portfolio of Greek bonds, to the tune of $5 Billion Euros can be classified as a "dollar" denominated transaction since the action taking place is the trading of Euros for Dollars?

How much is really being converted? How much of this debt is the American taxpayer retiring for the Europeans?

The first group of doctors has stepped back from the patient. The IMF, the ECB, a variety of "Residents" that were helping, part of the EU alphabet soup of professional leaches; all have stepped back, unable to decide what to do next to save the patient.

Good old Barak to the rescue. The United States has stepped in and plunged a central line into the neck of this corpse called the Euro and has attached the other end to our own Carotid. We will infuse this patient with our own life force and win the day...

...or doom ourselves to die with them.

The lending markets in Europe are dead. The lights are off and the only trades taking place are sales to non-European entities. And those transactions are being done in dollars, not Euros. The Euro is collapsing and the US will not be able to stop it.

Now I have to ask, does it need saving? Traditionally, if an economy goes in the tank, the currency would be devalued and the cost of doing business would dramatically shift downward. If Greece were to pull out and just thumb their noses at the rest of Europe, what would be the downside for Greece?

They will go back to the drachma, stick their tongues out at the EU and then begin to roll in the new business as folks from the rest of Europe begin to re-invest in a cheaper Greece. Happens all the time.

Greece was not ready, yet, to join the Euro. It should never have been allowed to join. The culture is not conducive to a Northern European concept. Greece shares more with Italy, Spain, and Portugal than it does with France, Germany, or Denmark. The economies are constituted very, very differently. Wrapping them up in a slick Euro did not eliminate the Black Economy that permeates the Mediterranean nations. Business is done differently down there. The governments have their own way of collecting taxes and disbursing them to the masses.

The vital signs are fading. There is a rally every few days, but the decline is clear. Sooner or later...likely very soon, we will lose this patient.

Once the Euro has passed, the world will look in terror at the issues facing the United States, issues made worse everyday with bailouts to Europe and the crony capitalism that has taken over in America.

The contagion will spread to the United States and then things will get very scary after that. Very scary indeed.

Live well, everyone.

--Zavost

World Economic Deathwatch

There is resigned acceptance upon the Stoa this day. It is not everyday you stand on Deathwatch for an entire economic way of life.

The world markets are dying. I will explain why I'm saying that, but first I want to demonstrate its equivalence in nature.

I have had the honor, due to my career in the healthcare field, to be present at the passing of many individuals. There is a power and energy in the room at those moments that is difficult to describe. It is the feeling that something important is happening.

Generally, if a person is about to die in their beds, either through a long illness or simple old age, there are two general styles of passing. If the person is conscious, they will become tired and take a nap. Their breathing will gradually slow until it becomes gently inconsistent. If one is still sitting nearby, you will also hear the last, long breath released from the lungs as all the muscles go slack in the chest. Frequently, I'm there looking at silenced monitors and know when this point is approaching. Sometimes it is the gentle release from the torment of cancer or some other painful ailment that has ravaged the body. Frequently, you can see the look of relief on their faces as they go.

The other way, which can be frightening to those who have not experienced it before, is a gasping and gulping that begins when death is near. I believe that the person has not completely resigned themselves, or accepted the fact that it is their time. No matter how they struggle, their moment has arrived. The underlying cause of their demise, be it heart failure, organ failure, cancer, etc. will not resolve, even if doctors are able to "keep" you alive on machines. Our technology is stupendous, but when it is your time, it is your time.

The body may "rally", but the ending is still a foregone conclusion.

Over night, the Federal Reserve and numerous Central Banks around the world stepped in and provided "Dollar Liquidity" to the world markets. Many companies, banks, and businesses...and governments, borrow and pay off debts every day in dollars. Loans and transactions are in dollar denominations.

In 2008, when Lehman Brothers was allowed to collapse, the credit market locked up around the world. There were not enough dollars to loan or pay in the world market (in circulation). No one wanted to take the risk of making loans in less stable currencies. No on wanted the exposure of someone making a run on shorting currency (think George Soros and Great Britain). At the time, the Fed made a special loan window available to keep the gears of finance turning with special interest rates.

That window opened wide last night and money like you have not seen before was made available to the world. Dollar denominate loans for everyone.

Why did this happen? The Euro is gasping. It knows the end is near and they are flailing. Except the Germans of course. There is a lot to admire and fear about those people. The European Central Bank, dominated by Germany, refused to participate in the world-wide bailout. Good for them. They understand what is happening and do not wish to squander their last reserves on this fools' dream.

Everyone looks at the world stock markets and smiles. Everything is up!

Did everyone's optimism leap because industry around the world came up with new technologies? No. Did the EU solve its debt crisis? No. Did the US Congress realize how deep the doo-doo is they are swimming in? Certainly not.

So, there has to be SOME reason why the markets were flush with cash. That is why. Everyone is looking for a place to "park" their money. The bond market in Europe is about gone. It is so expensive to sell debt, and the risk is simply too high that people with money are refusing to park it in Europe. There is not enough physical gold to purchase, and there are fewer and fewer people willing to buy "gold certificates".

So, they flee to the stock markets around the world. Central banks are not good places to keep money. Banks in general have begun to CHARGE rich people for the right to "park" their money with them, i.e. keep it safe since they know they can not grow that money safely.

The only problem is, the stock markets are not safe at all either and that will soon become very, starkly even, apparent to everyone. The United States has its own debt issues. Japan, in debt. EU, in debt. China, in debt despite all the favorable press they get. Oil nations, screwed because their customers are...in debt.

In 2008 I argued with my co-workers that the system, the entire system, be allowed to fail. It had to be allowed to reboot. Only by punishing those that made poor decisions would the rest of us learn what not to do. All the bail outs under Bush and Obama have done nothing but delay the day of reckoning...and make it much worse because we are in EVEN MORE debt.

We would be rebuilding now if not for that. Instead, we seek to entirely devastate the financial world as anyone alive has known it. It will be interesting to see what rises in its place.

The world market is gasping right now. The Unites States has shot the world full of adrenalin in an attempt to jump start things. An attempt to "give Europe more time to get things going in the right direction". That is not going to happen. The adrenalin will wear off and the US will have shot its last reserves off in a vain attempt to stave off the inevitable for another few days.

Yes, I said days. I don't think this will last more than another week or 10 days. Consumer confidence simply can not grow in this political and economic environment.

So I will sit upon my Stoa and continue to watch the monitors as they slow and then stop. I will stand in respect when the lines flatten out and the tone begins to drone.

Death is one thing that we all must do, and we must do it alone. It is natural to be afraid. To fall into the darkness and rely on faith that someone will be on the other side to catch you. I too am afraid, though I hope that if I am old enough, I will be at peace to allow it to come.

So too with the world markets today. No one can see what will come after this. Governments know that someone will be to blame and their cushy jobs are on the line. Thus, they delay the agony that we find ourselves in.

Live well, everyone. The sun will rise tomorrow, and for the next 5 billion years after that. Come join me on the Stoa and we will watch it together.

--Zavost

Thankfulness

The Stoa has not forgotten Thanksgiving. I don't usually discuss holidays and such, unless there is a lesson to be learned from them, or a truth that requires deeper deliberation.

Thanksgiving is one of those holidays. First, I'm sure that everyone who reads my work knows how the holiday came to be. I'm also certain that you have thought about the Free-Market causes that permitted the first colonies to survive after their disastrous flirtation with colonial Socialism.

Secondly, this holiday means something, truly, to those really understand that it was a huge Thank You to God for showing them the way. The colonists offered up to Providence for God's bounty. I am currently living in the birthplace of that holiday. The ground I walk on every day is the same ground that Pocahontas and her tribe lived upon.

This holiday also marks the beginning of the end for the East Coast tribes of Indians. I doubt very much that there were enough Indian tribes left in the Tidewater region of Virginia to celebrate any holiday 80 years later.

Do I blame white Europeans for the genocide of the American Indian? Is there an argument against? Let's all be grown ups here. Yes, they did. Disease did much of it, but European expansionism finished it. If not Britain, then France. If not France, then Spain. The fate of the Indians was set once the first boat arrived off their shores.

It was a different mindset back then. Try to place yourself in their contemporary shoes. Europe as at constant war. Wars of Religion and Succession. The Plague was an ever-present threat to Europeans just as smallpox was to the Indians. There were the strong and the weak. The weak endured what they must at the hands of the strong. Life was, from the earliest, short, painful, and violent. Europeans had a dozen children and multiple marriages in the hopes that three or four children would survive into adulthood. The generations alive at that time shared similarities with our own, though shaded towards survival and expansion.

Those people looked upon North America as a paradise. The Indians were simply in their way. It was their escape from a Europe that was approaching the zenith of its cultural energy. The day would come where virtually no portion of the world would not have a European flag on it or near it. Had there been no North America these people would have vanished into the mists of time, ground under by the Establishment.

It happened. Get over it.

Today, I have much to be thankful for. I am healthy. I am employed. My family is healthy and I have friends. My brother, mother, and father are employed and living independently.

Driving in to work today, the weather was warm and sunny. Every morning I love looking out at the Navy Shipyards and feel pride in what they stand for. They protect all that I am thankful for. The Liberal idiots see only their narrow viewpoint of the world. They fail to understand just how vulnerable they are to the "old world". The world that is governed by the aggressive use of force. The world that never went away. That is the world held at bay by the men and women that use the equipment built in that shipyard.

People need to dwell on that for a while. Liberals, regardless of nation or culture, live in denial that such a world can touch them. They forget or never realize that it is others who permit them that denial.

My list of things to be thankful for looks and sounds rather short. It is, though not by design. Life has taught me, sometimes the hard way, what is important and what is not. A true Stoic would simply be thankful for another day to contemplate. I'm not that enlightened. My list is short as I have stripped myself of all that is unimportant to me. Those things that I will grieve over are those things I have listed. Nothing more, nothing less.

I regret little in my life, since regret only saps energy that I could be using to shape the future, to make my "now" better. I'm not perfect, though. I do find myself thinking upon failed relationships and what I have learned from them. An old girlfriend from high school and the friend that took her from me. A father that abandoned his family to hunger and possible eviction. The same father that tries to reforge those connections even as he lays the ground work for their dissolution due to his emotional dysfunction. A mother and brother who were far away even I lived only a few miles from them.

I don't regret those, for the reasons I stated above. I do take away lessons from that. I respect them for who they are and what they are to me. I can not foist my expectations upon them. I am ultimately responsible for my own attitudes. I cherish what I have and know that I will live more of my life away from my children then with. I cherish them and what they can be in the future.

Don't let that which is ultimately unimportant sap your energy. Don't let those things distract you from that which is important. You will have to determine what is dear to you. Be honest with yourself and true to your character.

Live well.

--Zavost

Finding our Way

Upon the Stoa this night, I contemplate the near future. Our travails started in earnest in 2008 and will likely continue past 2020. We have a lot to atone for. A lot we must learn and much more we need to relearn.

I have said before that war is a leveler. An act that sweeps away the old and renews civilization for new growth, without regard to "good or bad".

Sometimes war or major societal dislocations are required in order for the contemporary leaders to contemplate radical change and for the people to accept that change.

If the United States is to continue into the future as a positive force for technological and cultural innovation then it can not continue in its present form. This much is apparent. The proliferation of Federal laws and the inability of the common citizen to protect themselves to the same extent as they can against other laws simply chains us to an unelected bureaucracy. The proliferation on Federal Departments, agencies, and programs which drain economic resources from those who drive the before-mentioned innovation. The citizens of the Republic are fractured and courted for their use by the powers that be.

I'll start with a few examples and work my way down until I grow tired of doing so:

Monetary policy. We must move away from fiat currency. In fact, I'm not sure if this is a choice we will be able to make for ourselves. Gold and silver coinage will have to be our currency. Oh, it does not have to be the actual metal, but the currency, whether it is coin, paper, or digital money. Whatever our unit of currency becomes, it must be based on precious metal holdings. Hmm, I do believe that our Founders were of the same opinion as well. Says so right in the Constitution. Metal currency. Specifically, Silver currency. You can see how we drifted, ever so innocently over 175 years.

The Federal Government's place in our lives. Today, more than half of all Americans are subsidized by the Federal government in some fashion. And when I say Federal government, I mean the People as a Whole. Redistribution of wealth. The States used to be pre imminent and they must become that again. The Feds are in every aspect of our lives. They have invaded our bedrooms and they are looking into ways to invade our futures. A hundred years ago, the Federal government was minuscule. The citizens of the States looked more to their State Capitols than Washington D.C. It needs to become that again.

Our Founders envisioned citizen politicians. I don't mean to say that our politicians are not citizens, but that it was the duty of every citizen to serve their State or Federal government for one or two terms of their respective branches. This not not to deny a person a life of politics, but that one never serve more than two terms in whatever capacity they serve. Washington set the precedent, and it was not a bad idea.

The Judicial. There was a period of time where the Supreme Court sat around wondering just exactly what it was supposed to be doing. The Constitution was pretty clear. It was written for the masses and not the political elite. Things meant what they meant. Those of the first several courts lived side by side with the Founders. They understood the INTENT of every phrase and had no desire to parse the meaning or look for "penumbras" of meaning within the document. In the 1930's, when the legislators began to really get out of control by mandating what a farmer could grow or sell, the Supreme Court be can to fail. Upholding laws that would have made our Founders cringe. Once they "found" the right for abortion on demand in the Founding document it was time to sweep out the lot of them. It says what it says. Anything not specifically spelled out is left to the INDIVIDUAL states to decide. Period.

Things drift. The very continents themselves drift. Unlike the rocks we build upon, the Constitution was both self correcting and correctable by the People. We, the People. Politicians do not change it. WE do.

The Libertarians desire to turn the clock all the way back to 1787. I'd be happy to pull it back to about 1850. Drift. Drifting is what we have been doing for a very, very long time. If we wish to do this peacefully, we will have to drift back the other way.

War changes things, though. It add heat and acts as a catalyst for rapid changes. Will we become what the Libertarians wish us to be? Not overnight. Not even after another civil war. Can we turn the clock back to 1850? I believe we can.

Lets look at this like we would a computer that keeps crashing. You know, the Window blue screen of death. You make changes to the system and the system crashes. Simply go to a back up point and restore the system.

If we were to restore the Republic back to about 1850 then there will be many, many changes. No more Income Tax. No more Department of Energy or Education. No more FDA, Social Security, or Medicare. That will pull the Feds back down to manageable levels. The States will suddenly find themselves having to manage Interstate highways and orphaned government programs. We will, I believe, be much better off for it.

Things change, things drift. Right now we are moving off the cliff and into the historical abyss of human misery, autocracy, war and oppression. If we do not return to what we once were then this will be the only possible ending our experiment.

If war and economic ineptitude pull down the structures we are familiar with, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Socialism then adopting a prior version our selves becomes very possible. We will have already lost all of those things. It will be much easier to adopt individualism when individualism is all there is left.

I depart on this warm, November night.

Live well.

--Zavost

Foamy Awards for November 23, 2011

Ah, it is a warm, if wet night upon the Stoa. Water, water, everywhere. Wonderful stuff. Which brings me, in part, to the newest winners of the Foamy Award.

Yes, my daughter has located TWO more honorable recipients of the new award. I'm not at all afraid that she will run out of candidates if she keeps finding them this quickly.

The first award goes to the Department of Education and the Department of Agriculture. Honorable mentions also go to the variety of lobbyists who made it all possible.

Why, you ask? Michelle Obama has been the Food Czar since she was elected and has been mucking up with everything tasty, just don't get between her and a plate of ribs. New regulations that she ordered created will wipe the beloved pizza from the menu at schools all around the country. The very pizza that I grew up with and the pizza that my children now eat at their schools.

Oh, the uproar. How do we get out of the snare of our own making!

If you can massacre the language so that Black means Socialist, you can word your way out of this dilemma, right? Never fear, the lobbyists and their ilk are working over the government regulators who are set to enforce these stupid rules. Apply a generous helping of money, some political pressure and a dash of media polish and you get an ingenious solution to the problem.

That burnt dough, floating in a pool of its own grease is not pizza. What were you thinking? The cheese is class C quality and the "meat" is the main ingredient in a Weenie Tot. How could you mistake that for pizza. What you are really looking at is several servings of VEGETABLES! Yes indeed. The tomato paste, sauce, or whatever it is, will now constitute the major ingredient of "pizza".

Oh how we have fallen. Next thing you will have to swallow is that my SUV, a Nissan X-Terra will be called a light truck..oh, wait. Never mind.

This Foamy goes to you, you weenie tots.

The second award goes to the European Union. No, not for economics, though they can sweep the category cleanly. No, this is for yet another mangling of language. The legal arm of the EU has now stated that manufacturers of bottled water must never state on their bottles that, "the consumption of water will reduce the likelihood of dehydration". So lets get this straight. The wizards of smart in Northern Italy, responsible for this new regulation, are making it illegal to tell someone that drinking water will help keep you hydrated. Rrrriiiiiiiiiggggghhhhttt.

Let's ponder this for a moment. Water. Hydrate. Fire Hydrant. Hydro. Dehydration. Hold it, I think I'm onto something here. A person in the desert can die in a matter of hours of...dehydration. The loss of water due to sweating in an attempt to cool their core temperatures. Dehydration. Loss of water. Man, this is tough. So let's see. If I drink a bottle of water will I, A: live another hour, or B: die a horrible, delirium filled death. Hmmm, I think I'll drink the water.

Come on, really? In what realm of reality to you people over there occupy? You sit there with a straight face and tell people that drinking water has nothing to do with your level of healthy hydration?! Man, if I were Foamy I'd be jumping up and down with both fingers in the air. Hell, I'd even moon you! Enjoy your Foamy, you nimrods!

However, that is not dignified enough for a modern Stoic. I'll let my daughter do it. Well, except the mooning part.

I think I'll go do something else right now and get my mind off the idiocy radiating out of Europe these days. I wonder if those same folks are helping out the European economists?

Live well.

--Zavost

The Foamy Awards

The Stoa is being hijacked, yet again my by children who feel that their beloved, nasty, foul-mouthed Internet squirrel, Foamy, is not getting enough recognition for pointing out idiocy in all its forms. By the way, the Foamy looks like a rabid squirrel, with huge, judging eyes and a middle finger, sometimes on both hands, raised to the world in contempt.

I will attempt to faithfully reproduce the arguments and discussions that my children have with their brainwashed and hopeless classmates and teachers.

I will list a variety of Foamies in this post and then a few here and there as they are awarded in the future.

The Foamy is awarded to a person, group, or organization that displays an inability to tell the truth, tell fantasy from reality, or knowingly manipulate reality to their own ends.

The first goes to the NEA and the Department of Education: Many of our Founding Fathers attended schools with dirt floors, had tutors, and lacked books of any kind, yet they understood classical literature and founded a Nation. 90% of the money today goes towards pensions, benefits, and pay for the teachers; maintenance on buildings, and political indoctrination. Here you go folks, the first Foamy goes to you.

The next goes to both George W. Bush and Barak Obama. After the 2008 meltdown, W. famously stated, "I had to abandon the free market in order to save the free market system." Brother, that is a steaming pile. In 2006, Obama and his lapdogs in the press railed on Bush and the GOP for running $300 billion deficits. They said that these deficits are ruining the country and running the economy in the ditch. So, the DNC takes over, runs $1.5 Trillion debts and states that everything is working out fine. Better than fine, actually. Riiiiight. You did not just plow it into the ditch, you rocket sledded this car into a solid metal block at 700 mph, Mythbuster style. This one is for you, Obama, two fingers, waaaay up.

RINOs, this next one is for you. How do you know if you are a RINO? If you think that you have a better chance of getting elected by running as a Democrat, you might be a RINO. If you think that nationalized healthcare can be made to work if it is run by the right people, you might be a RINO. If you fantasize about the Press writing a favorable article about you, then you might be a RINO. If the DNC and the Press say that you are the candidate to beat, then YOU ARE A RINO. The press and the DNC looovvve to say who their person to beat is. They play up acting AFRAID of the candidate who they can waltz all over, and save the vitriol for those that they truly dread. I give you Palin, Bachman, and Cain. The ones they act afraid of are the RINOs. I give you McCain, Romney, and Gingrich (the King of RINO). Well, stinking 4th establishment, this Foamy is for you!

The OWS movement, the 99%ers who are really the losers of life's lottery, protest against society while collecting some form of Federal or State aid. Remember, that aid does not come from nowhere. It comes from taxes TAKEN by those who earn it. Many of them protest while living in their parent's basement, or the dorm room that their parents, or taxpayers, are paying for. Ingrates. Don't bite the hand that feeds you, stupid.

So many idiots deserving of a Foamy. More will be handed out in the days to come. Stay tuned.

Live well.

--Zavost

The Irrelevant Debate

Upon the Stoa, I sit with hand on chin, marveling at the ability of some to deny reality.

I speak of course, of the the "Super Committee" and of the EU's inability to grasp the seriousness of their situations.

The Super Committee was doomed before it even started. Why? Simply because it was a microcosm of the whole. Whether you have Congress locking up on party lines or a Super Committee locking up on party lines...you should have seen it coming.

Then again, it is all rather irrelevant, is it not?

To explain what I just said, let us look to Europe as our instructional model. For most of the 20th Century, they attempted to build a sort of Social Utopia, founded on a Social Democratic model that promised everyone a place in society and comfort in their lives. Free from uncertainty and failure.

If they agreed to pay massive taxes on everything under the Sun, sunlight included, then "the Government" would grant you a pocket with money, a job if you wanted one, and a place to live. Clean transportation and national healthcare.

Europe liberalized its laws and immigration practices, offering those from war torn regions of the world to come and share in their bounty.

With Multiculturalism and Transnationalism at full strength in Europe, they could not seem to foresee the swarming of their nations by people who were running from one hellhole in order to create a new hellhole in a new part of the world. Multiculturalism prevented these new influxes of refugees from integrating into the host successful and stable host culture. In other words, if women ran from Sharia Law to Britain, very quickly they found themselves bound by it again as a squishy British legal system backed off imposing native law on immigrants.

Lets do some word-math. You have a declining native population. You have a swelling immigrant population that is adding more births to your registry than native births. You have 20% unemployment, and a virtual trampoline of social benefits. Hmmm, sounds to me like very quickly you will have more people consuming than producing. Its not rocket science.

Europe is dying. It is dying as surely as if it had put a gun to its own head.

The issue right now is not Greece. It is not the Euro, nor is it the EU. It is their mentality of cradle to grave entitlements. There are only three things in the Universe that expand forever. One is the Universe itself. The second is compound interest, and the third is entitlement spending. Who could have seen that coming, Europe.

The United States faces its own, similar problem. In Europe, they continue to feel that if you throw money into new bond-buying, then somehow they will get OUT of debt. Scratch the chin on this one, folks. I owe a billion dollars, so if I borrow 2 billion dollars I can pay off the first guy and spend the rest. Then borrow 3 billion to pay of the second guy and spend the rest. You can not do this forever. Whether they are talking about national bond sales or a pan-Euro bond, it is still debt; no matter what fancy name you give it.

It is no wonder that each attempt at "containing the contagion" fails. The entire Union is ill, just some parts are more ill than others. The core is failing. Germany sees it, but too late to prevent it. They want to hold onto they money they have now and not see more of it get flushed.

Margaret Thatcher said it best, "Socialism works great until you run out of other people's money". Well said.

The situation is beyond them, now. They will have to suffer the consequences of promising what was never in their power to deliver in the first place. Happiness. You can not legislate happiness and contentment. Sometimes, contentment is reached through the struggle of living. If you play every game in "god" mode then it gets boring real fast.

Our "Super Committee" was truly doomed to failure, regardless of what they decided in the end. Shaving $1.2 Trillion over TEN years does nothing to keep you from going over the cliff if you are running a DEFICIT of $1.3 Trillion EVERY YEAR FOR 10 YEARS. The debt levels are already unsustainable. The situation is already beyond them. Truly.

The price must be paid. Reality must be satisfied. Debt must either be paid or defaulted upon. Government must shrink back down to about 8% of GDP if we even want a chance to survive in the near future. 48% and counting is what is causing this failure on a systemic level.

Don't put any faith in Congress to do the right thing. They have failed us for 75 years. Over a hundred if you include Theodore Roosevelt. They only thing they can do is make it worse. Of that I have full confidence.

Live well.

--Zavost

Known by their Deeds

From the Stoa this morning, I want to think about those parasites, the OWS "movement" and its proper placement within history.

Yesterday, former President Bill Clinton voiced his approval of the OWS movement as it drew much needed attention to the plight of the poor and the vast, growing gulf between the rich and poor in this nation. As if no one has ever, ever, talked about this before...how about that.

Care to give up some of your book royalties? How about decreasing the cost of your speaking fees, Mr. Ex-President?

Current President Obama has also tipped his hat to the movement, encouraging Unions and other like minded groups to work together...

I have to ask, Mr. President...work together against whom? The rich? The powerful? The "man"?

You do realize that you are all of those? Hmmmmm?

Sure you do. You and your ilk try to channel and direct this odd blob of malcontents to accomplish your ends. Your ends are the punishing and bullying of your political opponents. Occasionally, the movement causes liberal collateral damage, but all of that is acceptable to their kind. Then again, they have yet to visit Mr. Jeff Immelt, the CEO of GE...

Squishy GOP like Bloomberg fawn and pamper the mobs and wring their hands about the rights of the protesters. Bank managers, the gainfully employed, and the innocent are accosted by this mob; but only those they are directed agains (most of the time). The crime, disease, drugs, etc that go on in and about the camps can not be ignored. This not a political movement like the Tea Party, this is a person trying to jump start a full blown revolution. Showering sparks on tinder of their own making.

When Bill Clinton swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, did it include fomenting rebellion against the same? When Barak Obama swore his oath, did it have anything to do with the FORCED redistribution of wealth?

No.

You have Anarchists, Socialists, Communists, Fascists, and the useful tearing up the fabric of an already decaying society. The EPA and its "Green" Reds pulling down dams and hydroelectric power stations, causing the death of hundreds of towns and cities that rely on those dams and backed up water for their economic livelihood. They are ravaging the middle of this country. The conservative core of this nation is being picked apart with hundreds of thousands placed on unemployment or government welfare. Conservative dependents on the public dole, powerless because they don't tend to riot like their liberal slaves.

We know you by your deeds, not your name or your title. When one takes an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, you protect what the Constitution stands for. You are not sworn to protect the People. The Constitution protects the People.

Think on that last sentence very, very, carefully. The Constitution was designed to limit the power of government and its ability to strip the citizen of their rights. The role of government is not to protect the people directly. Their role is limited by the Constitution as developed by We the People.

The biggest barrier to full government seizure of citizens' rights is that pesky old document. Liberals feel that it has outlived its usefulness. Not at all. We need it now more than ever.

The forces of authoritarianism and anti-republic sentiment is in full swing. Not since FDR has the American people been so threatened.

I'm all for calling things as they are. We are less free then we were in 1965. Our currency has lost 99% of its value since 1911. We no longer have the ability to launch humans into orbit, instead we have to rely on a political adversary and 1960's Soviet era technology to get there. We are limiting access to health care already due to massive government intervention since 1965.

Only the rich can seem to get elected these days. Only those who scream the loudest are heard any longer. Those that speak of sanity are silenced. Fairness and legal rights are now purchased or granted.

I know people always say that the next election is the most important election, but this one really is. We skid towards anarchy and rebellion. The loudest 5%, yes I said it you Fleabag losers, is causing all of this. Do not be misled by that low number. The Soviet Union was raised up on the backs of less, enslaving the other 98%. It has happened and it can happen.

The question will be: are we the people we want to be or will we be the people we are told to be. Simple enough. Freedom or slavery to the new political Oligarchs.

Live well.

--Zavost

Crony Capitalism

From the Stoa this day, I see the orbits of fate beginning to come together. Threads of action are converging and bundling that will shape our future for a hundred years to come.

Remember, fate is not destined or pre-ordained at all. We make our own fates as individuals and as a collective, be it a family, nation, or culture. We may not be able to choose our larger fate, but if enough of us push in another direction, we may be able to mitigate the effects.

The other day I saw a multi-billion dollar purchase of IBM stock by the government-lauded, vetted, and loved, Mr. Warren Buffett. Mr. Buffett has a history of not liking IBM. Not liking tech stocks in general. So why the huge turnabout? Makes me wonder.

IBM has not done anything to warrant, in my opinion, such a move by anyone, let alone "Wizard of Smart" such as Mr. Buffett. IBM ditched the PC market years ago and has moved into software that services large companies and organizations....what was that? They moved away from the PC and got into software and service for large organizations. He paid high for the stock despite the preferential treatment. More than he would have paid for any other deal of that size...so what does he see that the rest of us do not? What is his "Return on Investment"? Perhaps it is not money but influence that he has purchased.

Wonder if they are going to plug into the government for all the tracking software and hardware they are going to need to properly control a large, 300 million+ population. Cradle to grave healthcare, CTG welfare, CTG interventionism. Interesting.

I think we all need to pay attention to IBM for the next few years and see exactly what they are up to. Heck, I read that the SEC even gave IBM a waiver for reporting these large stock purchases as Mr. Buffett was purchasing them so the price was not driven up by his activities. Kept his purchase price low. Favoritism? Naw. None there.

GE has lead the way with Crony Capitalism. They push for the elimination of incandescent light bulbs even as they are building new factories in China to produce the new CFLs. They shut down all their American production and put thousands of American out of work. Immelt is named to all the important Federal committees and steers things in his direction. Shame on us for not yelling about this.

GE Health shows a 57% increase in profits from the year prior and pays ZERO Federal income tax on this revenue because they are able to use accounting rules and foreign holdings to shelter the income. Not illegal, but very favorable to them. Something I can not do, for sure. This happens even as the IRS hires thousands and thousands of new agents to dig ever deeper into the pocket of the common American. This is not smelling very well.

While I'm at it, I've got another gripe I want to air out. Scientific projects are being cancelled to make room in a shrinking discretionary portion of the Federal budget. Projects that have run for a decade or more to the tune of $10 billion for the entire decade. $80 billion for the 30 year run of the space shuttle; only to be cut. Yet at the same time I hear about the government throwing about $300 billion here, and $250 billion there. Simply ridiculous numbers. And that is for a SINGLE YEAR!

TRILLIONS of dollars down the Crony hole, the populist hole, the agenda hole. Money that can cure cancer, launch Man to Mars, explore the Solar System for natural resources (preserving the Earth) an such, yet we hose it down a black hole that will only grow larger and the dependent folks continue to multiply.

Crony Capitalists will only multiply. Look at Wall Street Banks. They were the darling of the Obama administration during the last election cycle. Now they are eeeevil. The Feds will feed, but they are loyal only to their own ambitions. Companies will continue to court the Feds knowing the risks because the payoff is HUGE...nothing less than the public tax trough.

Look to the late 1800's for a historical example. It took the Feds to break down the monopolies that emerged at that time. Now, if you think that this was done in the interests of the people then you are sadly mistaken.

The monopolies were broken up because their power became so great that they began to challenge the very power of the Federal Government itself. Once broken up they were more easily regulated. Regulation does not seize the methods of production, but it does set the ground rules for their production. This is a de facto control of those industries. The Feds actually had to take a BAILOUT from Mr. JP Morgan (yep, that guy) to keep the government going after a financial crash. How humiliating to be propped up by a private individual.

Watch IBM. Watch Microsoft. Watch Apple. Watch Government Motors. There are eddies and currents in the fabric of our society right now that should be greatly concerning people these days. Watch the Occupy Wall Street folks and look for the strings that are jumping that puppet. The strings run through Obama and into those pulling Obama's strings. A massive matrix of like-minded and similarly governed NGOs and "non-profits".

Keep an eye out and prepare. Tough times are right around the corner.

Live well.

--Zavost

More Random Observations

The Stoa has been on the road the last two days. Death in the family and all. These are good opportunities to re-evaluate your own life, as you ponder the ending of another.

While traveling, I frequently have to wait for connector flights. These can sometimes take hours. Many would see this in a negative light, but not me. It gives me a chance to watch the seas of humanity pass by, chatting about their lives and what is important to them in this frozen slice of time.

It also allows me to ponder things that have only been half-pondered in the past. For instance:

Every one of those people passing by have extended family trees. They all have grand parents, parents, siblings of some kind. They laugh and they wont. They tell jokes, and cry about the funerals they are en route to. I'm not much different then they.

Ethnicity does not come into play. I see Chinese fathers playing with their one daughter. I see a Korean mother counting to three before she is going to punish her son. I see black families, yes, families, move orderly through the airport. I see white dopers, stupid caps on their heads and everything, iPod buds growing out of the sides of their heads. I wonder how they paid for that stuff if they were always so high...

Seeing those people makes me think again on what it means to be a sentient human. I know I must be stealing from some classical writer here, and I apologize ahead for this one:

The part of us that makes everyone us is a spark. An energetic point, right between the eyes, for lack of any better geography. The body is simply the vehicle that allows it to move about within our material plane.

I feel that, like old worn-out cars, we eventually have abandon our bodies once they break down. We move on, perhaps finding a new vehicle later on. Another "model" to roam about in for the next 80+ years. It does not sound all that bad.

Perhaps we make arrangements on the other side before birth, deciding and selecting the model of vehicle we wish to tool around in. White, Asian...each has its own advantages, each has its own challenges. We pre-select based on our wishes. Ethnicity is no different then Ford, Chevy, or Nissan for instance. I must have selected based on size and durability. A svelte model was not in my cards.

As I helped to carry my Grandfather from place to place, finally ending up in the cemetery, I was struck by that symmetry. He was 90 and just wore out. It was time for him to move on and find another vehicle. I hope he spends some time with my grandmother, who has been waiting for him to join her for the last 5 years.

I see all of the extended family, many of which I have not seen since the last funeral. They are all older, and several are noticeably missing, having passed or being too ill to attend. There was a time, after seeing a slide show of his life, where his generational cohort were kids. Slicked hair and cocky attitudes. Pictures followed showing a young man courting a woman nearly 4 years his senior. Odd for the day. At that time he still had his own grandparents. His own parents, and his uncles. Over time, they began to pass, one by one.

Eventually, he was "dad" and "uncle". People came to his house to celebrate the holidays. The older cohorts were still around, though the vital webs of familial relationships had begun to break down due to deaths deletions. Then he was "grandpa", perhaps traveling to see his children and grandchildren. The focus was shifting from his cohort to that of his son's. Eventually, his friends and relations begin to age and die, joining those who had gone before, like his parents and uncles.

Today, with his passing, a complete chapter has now been closed. My father is the "patriarch" of that branch of the extended family, though the focus has already shifted away from him. The focus is on my generation now. His generation has already begun to fade. The GI generation hung on for so very long.

I am the patriarch of my family branch, though I am only 42. Odd, that. My focus is on my family. My children do not have this extended web and are poorer for it, I believe.

My daughter was born in 1997, my son in 1999. Both of them met my grandfather, their great grandfather, and my daughter actually remembers him. This man was born in 1921. My father in 1946. Myself in 1969, my children in 1997 and 1999. My son's eyes took in the memories of this man and will carry those memories deep into the 21st century. As long as we remain in the living memories of our descendants then we don't truly die.

My great grandmother was born in 1898. I remember her as she lived to be almost 100. My daughter has a vague recollection of her. This woman, who was born in the 19th century, is being carried around in her descendants, like my daughter into the 21st. There is something profound about this and it requires much time to ponder and to appreciate.

I am sure he is in a better place now, reuniting with friends and loved ones decades past. It was a wild ride and he was in the thick of it all. I'm sure he has much to discuss with them.

I wonder which model he will pick next time?

Live well,

--Zavost

The Passing of Family

Atop the Stoa this night, I ponder the passing of family from this world.

The generational links that bind us form at birth and dissolve upon death. Those around us imprint something of themselves at every encounter. In my case it is the passing of a grandfather. His imprinting upon me differed, of course, from the rearing of my father. I saw him only infrequently before I became an adult. A year or so would pass as a child, and many years would pass as an adult from meeting to meeting. Eventually, we met only at the funeral of an extended family member.

He was a good man. A kind man. Intelligent, hardworking, WWII veteran. He raised three children and tolerated a powerful wife who wanted to see that he would return from the war before she committed to marriage. She worked at Studebaker for 20 years and at the University of Notre Dame for 19 years.

I saw him as a man who was serious, but able to smile when appropriate. My father's recollection of him is that of a father, who was stern and unable to give him a confidence-building pat on the back.

Regardless of his impact on others, I always looked upon him with a detached fondness.

Family is like that. Each one touches the others around them differently. My grandmother (his wife) was not very fond of much, or of me. The feeling was mutual, though I did have a lot of respect for her. When she passed in 2006, I studied her life with the eyes and mind of an adult, and not that of a child. She was a remarkable woman, though apparently cold and distant to her grandchildren. Looking at them as a pair, I can not be surprised that my father's life took the course it did, given how they shaped him growing up, though he did, of course have a choice.

The grandparent that made the most impact on me was my Grandfather on my mother's side. He passed in 1979 when I was only 10, and much of what I remember of him has to highly romanticized. Knowing that people are not all good or all bad, I can still accept him as the great man I remember him to be.

My other grandmother (his wife) is still alive at 92 and impresses me still. I find it strange that from my grandparents I see traits that I want to emulate (or learn from), and from my parents, traits I wish to shun. My grandparents remained married, each for more than 50 years, while my parents had a messy divorce when I was 20.

My grandparents saved for their retirement and their future. They bought much of what they owned without debt or long terms. They endured the great depression, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and all the other political upheavals of their times. Yet, they were still upbeat and productive members of their society.

All four of them volunteered with the church, served the poor and helped their community. My parents have been less altruistic. It is not a knock on my parents, they are who they are and I accept them for what they are. I am who I am today because of them, so any negative attribute I assign to them is something that shaped me into the virtuous individual I try to be today.

The generation above us shapes us. The generations about us shape us. Our relationships with our grandparents are shaped by their upbringing 50+ years ago, translated through the generational lens of our parents, shaped more than 20 years ago. We are shaped by our grandparents as surely as we are shaped by our parents, whether we notice it or not.

We shape our children and will help to create the next "culture" in which they will in turn raise their children. Generational influence, hundreds of years up and down the generational chain.

Think about that when dealing with your children or your grand children. Your words, actions, laughs, smell, chocolate chip cookies...all of it becomes part of the memories that will pack down through the decades. Children, a century later may use an idiom or a hand gesture that would seem so in place a century earlier.

Good stuff to ponder, the next time you interact with a family member. Enjoy them while they are here, since it is much harder to interact with them when they are gone. Bite back the angry retort at Thanksgiving, allow them to mend a fence if they wish. Ponder this, class, for I will continue to ponder the passing of my grandfather for a long time to come.

Live well

--Zavost

Ongoing Language Deterioration

From the Stoa this night I once again shake my head. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Words mean things.

It irritates me that one political party or the other feels the need to mould and shape a word and it's meaning to mould and shape an electorate. No, that is being generous. They demean our language to dupe a public who, for some silly reason, thinks that a word and its meaning does not change in one's lifetime.

Two items have my attention tonight. The word "black" in relation to race, and the word "starvation".

Centuries ago, the indigenous peoples of Africa, well, most of them, were called "Negros", a derivation of the Greek word for black. There was no seemingly negative connotation to that phrase, and I would assume that it is still appropriate to use today. People did create a negatively connotated word, but it was not Negro. Later, during the civil rights movement, they demanded to be known as "Afro-Americans" or "African-Americans". Funny, I never wanted to be known as a "Slovak-American" or a "German-American", though negative words do exist for each of those populations of people, despite their "Whiteness".

Bill Clinton in the 90's was given the title, "black" for his policies. That, somehow, despite is affluent white upbringing, he "understood" the black condition. Forget for a moment the powerful black leaders who needed him to keep the race enslaved to welfare and big government.

Then, along comes Barak Obama, a man who is the product of a white woman from Kansas and a Kenyan from Africa. Technically, half white and half "black". However, the media trumpets his blackness at the expense of his whiteness. No matter that he grew up in affluent Hawaii. We should all be so lucky. Somehow, he passes the litmus test for being "Black". Though the word "blackness" should be used, I believe.

Herman Cain appears on the stage and the media and the black leaders proclaim that he is not really "black". How about that? The word has completely morphed in a few short years from "black-race" to "black-beliefs". This is wrong on so many levels. How can someone who was born of a black man and a black woman not be considered "black"?

Black now has nothing to do with color or race, it is now a code word for someone who believes in a certain political mind-set. A belief in victimhood on a planetary scale.

I believe that this is reason enough for me to shake my head. White Red-Neck from Arkansas is black. A spoiled rich boy raised in Indonesia and Hawaii, half rich white and half rich African is an authentic American Black man. A self-made black man who does not prescribe to victimhood is NOT black.

On to the next word. Starvation. I saw a sickening commercial on Hulu yesterday that said that starvation is not about food, it was about power. Power that affects woman and children the most. "Woman and children hardest hit!", is all I can hear in my head.

This ad went on about how food is being used to control and demean women around the world. Hogwash. Bunk. Manure. Why are there more women on a diet then there are women in the world? Does hunger exist? You bet. Are men to blame? I can definitely agree to that. Though it is not done as tool directed AT women. It is a side effect of corruption, rebellion, and outright war. When men are fighting and killing for a cause they are not planting a field. When men come upon a village that is not their own, they WILL act up. Food is not a tool of oppression.

Starvation is the absence of food. Hunger. If you wish to be honest, just tell women that you want them to sign up for your organization so that you can get more of whatever you want at the expense of those weaker than you or your group? In the name of "social justice" for your "group" you will seize those same rights from others who have done nothing to wrong you, despite what you are told.

Ignorance, idiocy, lack of self-worth. These are all things that plague us in our modern day. If you are so worried about the oppression of women, then perhaps you need to address your Islamic compatriots. As a religion they are mandated to oppress woman. Allah ordered it through is pedophile prophet.

Why not look at that last sentence and take it for face value. Are more woman oppressed by men holding back a slice of pizza or are they being forced to wear a bag over their heads and obey the men of the household. Which is it?

I retire on this fine, wonderful night.

Live well.

--Zavost

The theater of the absurd

From atop the Stoa this night I sit upon a step, chin in hand. Europe, oh Europe, what have you done?

The EU draws up a new "bailout" that is actually a transnational power grab and then wonders why the Greeks don't meekly accept their fates. Their Socialist Premier decides to put the issue to the people to see if this was ok with them. How about that; the SOCIALIST was more democratic than the EU.

The Germans and the French throw an absolute conniption and make some threats behind the curtain and the Premier buckles. Authoritarian practices sweep the field.

The only country that has figured out the only way to survive this situation is denied a lifeboat...pulled back on deck to go under with the rest of them.

You can not undo a BASE jump once jumped. The markets are collapsing faster than any government can react, not that this could have been avoided even if they had reversed course in 2005.

I will continue to watch from my Stoa and take care of my friends and family.

Live well.

--Zavost

Just Perhaps...

From the Stoa this night, I look out upon the Shipyards of the Republic with some guarded optimism.

This morning I came across a video showing an ex-Representative that connected the Communist dots from his college days to his time as a Representative. In college he went to a Communist rally simply to cover it as a minor undercover journalist. What he heard made him shake his head at the lunacy of what they were going to do to undermine the Republic and put it out of his thoughts.

Fast forward 25 years and he recalls the rally, looks about him and realizes just how much of that agenda they did accomplish. He writes an article while in office and then has to put up buckets to catch the hail storm of fury directed at him. Someone sends him a book from 1958 detailing how a similar Communist rally was going to undermine the Republic and then he truly sweats.

Only then, after reading that old book, did he realize just how deep the roots of Communism sank into our Republic. He saw, spread out before him their blue print that would carry them to 1992, the year of his rally. Then he sees how far that 1992 rally has gone.

Society had been so rotted from within that in 1992 he didn't think the Communists had done all that much in the intervening decades. He thought that Communism was something of his generation to fight. How wrong he realized he was.

The light turned on for him, and he has been trying to turn on the lights of all those around him, as I do every day. Arguing against Communism and Socialism is self-defeating. You CAN NOT reason a person out of a position that they did not reason themselves INTO. You must teach them how to think. Don't think for them, that is what has gotten them into this mess.

Help them think for themselves. They will come to their own conclusions, if they have a good heart and spirit. No one willing wants to take what is not theirs, not deep down. Guilt is at variance with our normal state of being. To deny that guilt is to lie to themselves, which to me is the only kind of lying that is truly inexcusable.

Just perhaps enough people are waking up. Just perhaps the Tea Party has solidified it roots. Just perhaps the common American citizen can comprehend what they have given up. Just perhaps they will take responsibility for the mess their collective ignorance has inflicted upon this great nation.

Yes, it is your fault, just as it is mine. However, we must not dwell overly much on how we got here, but on how to get "there". We must get back to our solid, common sense roots. We must rekindle our religious roots and our solid distrust of big government. We must re-value the family while we revalue our dollar. We must educate our children, on mud floors or at the base of a Stoa, it does not take a lot of money. Two people talking is all it takes to educate.

Just perhaps it is not too late. We will come from the crash that is coming, the massive crash that was only delayed by the 2008/9 financial bailouts. The time of reckoning approaches, for it has only been delayed at the cost of trillions. From the ruins we will have an opportunity to shed all the fat and sloth and be reborn as the America we once were. In other words, those willing to work hard to put everything back together again will be in the positions of power. Hopefully, those will be the right people.

Good night from the Stoa. It has been a pleasant night and I trust that you will ponder what has been discussed this night.

Live well.

--Zavost

Not all change is good change...

From the Stoa this night I wish to muse aloud about all the change that has been going on lately.

The mis-named "Arab Spring" continues to grind along. Egypt's President is in prison. Tunisia'a President is cast out. Libya's strongman is dead at the hands of the rebels. Assad is clinging to power in Damascus. Saudi Arabia is angry at Iran. Iran wants to nuke everyone, despite being downwind from everyone.

Putin is the virtual Czar of Russia today, for good or ill. China flexes is muscle even as it falls apart from within. Vietnam seeks closer military ties to us to warn off the resurgent China. Change abounds.

Obama has the worst Presidential ratings since they were recorded at the 11th quarter of service point. This despite the fact that he has the MSM covering for him. Think about that. George W. Bush had a rating more than 10 points higher than Obama at the same point despite having 99% of the media feed on his every cough.

Change for change sake is not good. This is unplanned change at best, intentionally destructive or self-serving change at worst. You would hope that someone with the power of the Presidency would use this as a change agent for good. Instead we have a President who viscerally hates this country and everything it has ever done. Funny that, for if we had not "grown" as a nation, a half-white, half-Kenyan would NEVER have become mayor, let alone President. Funny if you really think about it.

His change is purposeful and personal. Regardless of our historical track record of success (our acts speak for themselves) he wishes to remake us into nothing more than another moribund Europe or a hapless third world nation. His "change" was never our "change". It really was his.

Is it a good change to see Ghadafi dead? Well, yes, he was a very bad man. However, the absolutes of philosophy fail us when discussing the real world. Ghadafi was indeed a very bad man. He ordered the deaths of thousands outside of Libya, and thousands more within. He sponsored terror and developed chemical weapons. He was also tamed over time. After Reagan bombed him the 80's, wounding him and killing one of his children he realized that he was in a game that was over his head. All the defenses he purchased from the Soviet Union were dissolved as if they were wet tissue. He was on the path towards normalization and acceptance into the society of nations. He even renounced his nuclear weapon project after seeing how quickly we disposed of Iraq and Afghanistan. American strength was once again to be feared.

Now, as part of the "Arab Spring" the time is ripe for a radical islamic to take power, as will happen in Egypt shortly. Just as Jimmy Carter created the weeping sore that is Iran, Obama will out-do him and turn the entire Middle East into one.

This "Occupy Wall Street" is neither new nor youth driven. It is just another Communist rally, no different than one you might have seen in St. Petersburg in 1918, Berlin in 1922 and 1933. You are seeing it in Greece today. They are the disaffected, the incompetent, and the lazy. Some are in it for the easy women and cheap drugs, but most are simply unwilling to risk personal failure in an attempt to be successful in life. They call themselves the 99%'ers, but they are unwitting pawns in a game that Lenin and Goebbels would have found comfortably familiar. No joke. These will be the mis-guided muscle that will focus the attention away from the real group of people attempting to seize power. The rabble can be dispensed with once they have the power, since they don't care about restraint in the way that most governments care.

Change needs to thought out. You must have a goal fixed in mind and direct the change to minimize the "un-intended consequences" of that change. Unfortunately, the folks sponsoring the OWS movement know exactly where they want this change to end up and they have plenty of unthinking, lazy, fools to help them get there.

It is time to retire for this day. There will always be a tomorrow, even if I am not around to enjoy it.

Live well,

--Zavost


Sent from my iPad

Clueless

Upon the Stoa this day, I marvel at the ongoing idiocy on display in the MSM concerning these interlopers urinating on the sidewalks of Wall Street. So many misdirected, misinformed, lazy, clueless, unwashed...I could keep going...losers in our society; unable to form a critical thought in their heads if they had to.

What is the goal of these modern day sit-in hippies? Redistribute the wealth? Are you kidding? There has been more of that since Obama slid into office than at any other time in the planet's history. Still not enough for ya?

Who is to blame for the high unemployment? Perhaps the unions for making the business climate in the country too expensive. Perhaps the Federal and State governments with Regulations and Taxation policies. Perhaps?

What causes unemployment? For starters, a company does not exist to employ YOU. No, it does not. Not even YOU hiding in the bushes over there doing only God knows what. It exists to supply a good or service to another individual or company. Period. It does not exist to provide pensions, bonuses or healthcare; though those are good incentives to hire top notch employees.

Unemployment comes about when the cost to provide that good or service exceeds the revenue generated by that good or service. Quality can be cut, but at the risk of driving away the customer. Other expenses can be reduced, but the biggest bang for their buck comes from reducing the staff; and when I say staff, I mean YOU. You and your costly benefits structure.

The government distorts the market by placing layer upon layer of regulation upon whatever industry in lays it rheumy eyes upon. When the private sector has to spend $1.6 TRILLION to comply with regulations, then that is money they ARE NOT using to expand. And when I say expand, I mean employing YOU, and your costly benefit baggage. Think on that. Think really hard.

Regulations are meant to protect a wide variety of things. People, the environment, both. However, in a free market economy, companies that build products that are shoddy or do not do what they promise they will do, will go out of business as the consumer takes their dollar elsewhere. Poof, problem solved.

These unwashed masses sitting in at banks, Federal Reserves and such only want money. Turns out most of all the money that Obama vaporized over the last three years went overseas or directly into the coffers of Federal and State unions, Federal and/or State budgets. Very little of it came our way. The only thing in front of us is a growing bill that will have to be paid.

"Create Jobs" they write on their signs (at least they can spell). A company will only create a job if there is a reason for that job. How silly are you? Jobs just are not willed into existence. They are borne from need. Think on that one again. If the free market needs more widgets, and the company can not make those widgets fast enough, they will hire more people to make those widgets. There is no "Social Contract" between business and labor. The relationship is based on mutual needs. If you are working at McDonalds, you are not bound to McDonalds. If Pig in a Polk is offering more money and better hours, you are free to leave McDonalds without so much as a goodbye. On the other hand, if vegetarianism has wiped out the profit margin for McDonalds and they need to cut staff to keep their heads above water, they are free to do so...once they have navigated an ocean of regulatory paperwork.

No Social Contract exists between labor and capital. Period. If you mess around with that concept, you get the mess the whole world is in right now.

I'm off now, to make my little part of the free markets system more free.

Live well.

--Zavost

Known by the friends we keep

This bright morning from the Stoa I wish to attempt to untangle the threads that bind politics, economics, and good old common sense together.

Let's start with the situation in Syria. Power-hungry elite that controls the economy, the media, the military, the judiciary, and the legislation has been cracking down on the citizens who are demanding more freedom (or in this case, the desire to sink deeper into radical Islam). The United States, itself partially controlled by the above factors, FINALLY decides to sponsor and refer Syria to the Security Council in the UN for censorship. This does not help the poor schmucks getting creamed on the ground, but it makes everyone feel better who does not live in Syria.

Syria is economically poor. It does not have much in the way of resources and gets much of its funding from Iran, Russia, and China. Boy, that list just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It never was a real powerhouse of trade and has always relied somewhat on immediate border trade and weapon's deals to bring capital into the nation.

Common decency, let alone common sense, dictates that Syria not be permitted to butcher the innocent in the streets like this.

Unfortunately, the Arab/Islamic cultural values ARE different from ours. It does not make their acts any less heinous, but we must view the situation with clear lenses. Power is what makes their world revolve. Concessions are just an admission that you do not have to power to rule them. Think on that very, very carefully before you rebut.

I believe very strongly that all humans wish to live in freedom. We all wish similar things for our children and for ourselves. Culture gets in the way, though. Their religion is the antithesis of freedom. Their history is one of repression, forced conversion, and genocide. Since the fall of the Romans, life has been decidedly short and violent.

Russia and China both are ruled by power restrictive Oligarchies that have no interest at all with sharing power with the masses. They too are willing to go to great lengths to maintain that power. They have no desire to harm a trading partner or a loyal ally. They also see no reason to knock off an ally and replace him with an unstable Theocracy. They are not stupid. A bit on the evil side, but not stupid.

The United States is what it is. We do not deal with nor trade significantly with "evil" nations. Nixon opened the door on China and they have grown very, very rich on wealth transfers from the United States. What did we get? Affordable rubber dog poo, apparently. Did we see a lesson there? In an attempt to split the alliance of China and the USSR, we compromised our ideals. We split the alliance, which was very shaky to begin with, and set the stage for a world-menacing China. Way to go Nixon.

We have woven our beds close to Russia and China and we can not simply pull everything, however, we must remember who we are what we stand for. No compromise.

If China sponsors terror, either directly or indirectly, then we need to pull our economic assets out of China. Ditto for Russia. Unrestricted Capitalism is just as bad as restricted Capitalism. We do not allow the sale of items that can be used to develop weapons, but we sell the technology to launch missiles more accurately. Error.

If we continue to work closely with China and Russia on "common" goals then we are no different then they.

Think on that. Listen to your Great-Grandmother. We ARE known by the friends we keep.

Live well.

--Zavost

Odds and Ends

Atop the Stoa today, I simply wish to unload a few items that are slowly swirling around the Arena of Ideas.

In no particular order:

What is going on in the metals market? I'm seeing massive trade inputs in the middle of our night. Not only that, but other major exchanges are closed at that time as well. The effect is huge drops in value just prior to COMEX options. What is up with that? Who benefits from that move? The FED? Investors? Something smells there.

I like Col. Cain for President. The man has my vote pretty well locked up. Gingrich? No. Too limp. Romney? RomneyCare...Hello? Perry? No way. Don't like him, can't trust him. Paul? Too Libertarian. Any man who is willing to throw away his military career by putting a gun to the forehead of a captured terrorist to get information out of him that will save even one of his men from harm proves to me that he has the integrity to make the hard decisions. He will make them with in a moral and professional manner. The moral way may not be the best way to handle something, just ask the KGB, but I believe that in the long run, our integrity is more important than wrapping up an issue conveniently. Cain for President!

Video games today. So many games are being written based on historical premises. In one way it is really a good thing because the pre-teens and teens may be motivated to actually look up the real history to see how the game compares. Kind of a sneaky, stealth way of getting them to learn. I'll take it. OR, it could be that the game designers don't have any original ideas of their own and find that lifting from history is a convenient way to come up with a cool game idea. I can see their brainstorming sessions including Patton with laser eyes or Lincoln with an Iron Boot. Again, whatever it takes to spark the interest in our children to learn and to extend themselves.

Where does Obama get off lecturing Europe on its debt crisis? How disconnected from reality is this man?

TV programming really sucks. Distorted stereotypes and inappropriate behavior. Sometimes its funny but usually it just has me shaking my head. I'll stick to my documentaries, Sci Fi, and history shows.

There is a great place around here that sells bait, tackle, and guns. All under one roof. Got to go in there and check it out. Thank you 2nd Amendment.

Sleep? Over-rated. Food? Must eat less. Cars? Like guns, need one for every occasion. If you are female, just substitute shoes.

Duty calls, all. Study up on your current events. Tests will be coming soon and you'll need to recognize them.

Live well.

--Zavost

In Time...

Atop the Stoa this day, I would like to think about endurance and permanency. There is an old saying that goes something like this, "All things must pass in time."

Those who lived in the Northern French regions of the Roman Empire during the last generation of peace had little reason to think that their grandchildren would grow up in a world where the Roman Empire was but a hollow construct. New leaders, claiming the legitimate mantle of Roman legitimacy ruled their lands in reality and did as they pleased. The Empire, for them, was dead, even if it still endured in the core areas of the old Republic. Eventually, even that was gone and the Empire faded into legend. Those of that last Imperial generation enjoyed the wealth and technology of an Empire that had endured for nearly a thousand years. Those in the east, two thousand. Mind-boggling stretches of time.

In time, all things must pass. While watching an interesting documentary on Sun Tzu, I was struck by the number of times he was called the greatest, or best, or genius, and all that. Often times, on other shows, writers go out of their way to get the point across that this person was somehow the best, or that country was somehow the best at something. Sun Tzu was ultimately more important to the modern world than he ever was in China.

The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous land-empire in the world. Largest, yes. Cohesive, no. It could no more be administered from the home lands then by any other region in their Empire. Also, culture worked against an enduring edifice that could live long past a single ruler, thus the various Khanates that sprang up in short order. They were also destroyed as the smaller units that they were, over time.

Many countries have had the title of "best" over time. The Egyptians lived a high quality life for THOUSANDS of years before Alexander the Great ended it in 335 b.c. The Greeks themselves conquered an empire that stretched all the way to India. They fragmented and assimilated over time.

Sun Tzu went a long way towards the unification of China, though this was elusive even into the modern era with the gross violation of territory by the West.

China has been around nearly as long as the Egyptians, though until the last few decades, no one saw China as the best of anything short of reproduction.

The Western powers each had their day in turn as well. Portugal, Spain, France, Britain, each had world-spanning colonial possessions. Germany rose in time as well, but being land-locked, it quarreled with the neighbors often. Russia, emerging from the Mongol yoke, spread out as well. Though big, they were backwards and never really attained the stature of a great Western power, even today as the Russian Federation.

People look at the United States as the greatest power to ever exist on Earth, and they would be right. If you look at things that make a nation or people great you see economics, military power, law, culture, etc. There is a matrix of traits that makes a country "great". The more of these categories you excel in, the greater your stature. Many countries are great at some things, though backwards and twisted on others, which bring them down as a whole.

The Aztecs had calendars nearly as accurate as our modern system, but they had a thing about cutting out your heart and pitching it down a ziggurat to please blood-swilling gods. Sort of pulls them down on whole.

The Chinese have excelled at many things over the millennia. Evolution and information dissemination were not among those. Gunpowder had been around for a while, but never really used in a significant way for warfare until a European got a look at the stuff and thought about all the walls a home he'd like to knock down. Writing, paper, navigation, astronomy; highly developed, though it took longer between discoveries than it did in the West. Their culture was highly compartmentalized and ideas were blocked by status, birth, and station. No cross-pollination of concepts or ideas among other geniuses. No wonder they were a rich nation that could not protect itself from the rising West.

As an American I would like to think that my nation has been chosen by God for a special purpose. I believe that everything has a purpose, for good or ill, and it is not within my cognitive realm to understand which is which. Our peace and plenty has been a boon for us, though it has made us soft. The seeds of our destruction are sewn in the genesis of our success. Our endurance as a nation and people are dependent upon the choices we make, short and long term, those around us, and historical or environmental forces largely out of our control.

There is virtually no genetic difference between the various "ethnic" groups of humanity. The political units we build are built by groups of people who differ only in their outlook on a variety of philosophical issues. Nothing more, nothing less. Adaptive cultures will endure, inflexible cultures will endure only as long as historical or environmental factors permit.

I pray that the United States can endure. Our experiment is only under 250 years old, born of concepts a thousand years earlier. Can we last as long as Rome or will we last as long as a Supernova. Brighter than all the stars in the entire galaxy, though winking out after but a short while.

Let us see together.

Live well.

--Zavost

Blah, blah, blah

From atop the Stoa this afternoon, I wish to play some catch up. Even Stoics need to earn enough money to live...so I've been busy of late.

The "jobs" speech that Mr. Obama gave the other day was anything but a jobs speech. It had all the elements of a campaign speech and a stimulus speech. It had the ingredients of class envy, class warfare, lies about who is rich (a single person earning $200,000 is now considered a millionaire). It had hand outs to Blue States and to jobs that exist primarily to fund the DNC with campaign money.

It would take only a moment of thought, an ounce of reason, and a smudge of common sense to see that. The media does not notice of course. Obama shouts that Congress must PASS HIS BILL! The media goes to a Republican leader and says, "are you going to pass this jobs bill?" The Republican shrugs and says, "We don't have a bill to pass or decline." Talk, words, vapor. Lacking in all substance.

The jobs bill is intended to fund infrastructure, schools, teachers, police, firemen, etc. All the things that the $850 Billion dollar Stimulus bill was supposed to fund. The Porkulus was passed for the same reasons. Why do we need "Son of Porkulus"? How much money do you have to burn through before you realize that something is not working?

Then again, we have to remember that to Obama, all money is government money. All jobs are government jobs. All people are government people. There is this 'odd' classification of business and individuals called the "private sector" that has Obama baffled. To him, funding the Public Sector of the economy should be all he needs to do. He can't figure out why the Public sector continues to fail and the private sector continues to die (not that this bothers him).

I'd bet that if we took his speeches from 2009 onward about job creation, balancing the budget and limited taxation...ran them all together on hundreds of monitors (since he has had hundreds of speeches), they would all be saying the exact same thing over and over.

Make the rich pay their fair share. Put people to work. Reducing the deficit. Things have turned around. Raise more taxes. Employ the union. Blah, blah, blah.

Thats all I hear now. I can't stand the sight of him and his words make my ears bleed. He make sounds through the blow-hole in his face but they don't mean anything. They could be dolphin sounds for all I know. His actions are the same, over and over. Tax, spend. Blame and retrench. Pay off his buddies in the unions and punish the people who generate wealth. Over and over.

Just stop talking Obama, we are way, way tired of it.

Live well,

--Zavost

The Sleeper must Awaken

It is another day upon the Stoa. The day after the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

The world of today is a very different world than the world of 9/10/2001. My children can not know what it was like to wave goodbye to a friend or family member from the boarding ramp at the airport. They never knew of a time where you did not have to take your shoes off or stand in an x-ray unit before you could even get close to the gate.

On 9/11/2001, the United States was punched in the nose by a punk who worked through others and hid in other people's countries. The Clinton administration had treated previous attacks like criminal actions and not the acts of war that they really were. OBL was not a vandal, he was not just wrecking things for the joy of it. He bombed the WTC in 1993 to kill Americans. Sounds simple. He tried again in 2001 and succeeded in bringing down the towers, hitting the Pentagon, and failed in his attempt to hit either the White House or the Capitol.

Problem was, he did it during a Republican Administration. OBL was quite surprised when Afghanistan as a Taliban nation was swiftly destroyed, barely escaping from Tora Bora as we closed in. Iraq was next and hundreds of covert missions of which we will likely never hear about were carried out as well.

The Sleepers were Awoken on 9/11/2001. Party affiliation was set aside, for a time, in mutual anger and sadness over the tragedy. Blood, food, clothing, you name it; all were donated to help out. Thousands joined the military in the hopes of being sent overseas for some payback when war was declared.

The wars have gone on longer than anticipated because of politics and "nation building", but that is another blog entry.

It was not long before the nuts came out and claimed 9/11 was an inside job, despite the evidence. A man so dumb that he could not turn a door knob planned 9/11. Cheney, a man so evil that he could not go hunting without shooting a friend for the fun of it, supervised the planting of explosives in the WTC and the Pentagon, disguised cruise missiles to look like airplanes, and then sprinkled the rest on the levees in New Orleans while he waited for their Hurricane creation/guidance machine to be perfected.

As the years went by, those on the left tired of playing nice and went back to being kooks. Under Bush, to voice your opposition was considered the highest form of patriotism. Under Obama it is treason. Eric Holder prosecutes the very agents who have prevented more than 25 additional 9/11's. Really, Holder? Really, Obama?

Some may consider those actions to be more than a little treasonous on the face of it, Mr. Obama.

One of my students asked me yesterday, "why were we attacked?" This could have been answered any number of ways rather directly, but in this case the direct answer was not the best one. This one had to be answered more philosophically. The answer was as easy as the question: we were perceived to be weak.

History is crammed full of wars that started because one side thought that they could roll over their opponent in a matter of weeks and claim whatever prize motivated their need for war. Just pick your war.

In WWI, Austria-Hungary failed to realize that Serbian treaties of mutual defense would be honored. Plus, Serbia put up one hell of a fight against the Austrians.

Hitler slammed into the Soviet Union in 1941 without even bothering to issue cold weather gear because he was so certain of a quick victory.

The Japanese hit Pearl Harbor in the hopes that we would not have the resolve to fight an extended war, especially since Germany would be pulled into a wider conflict.

North Korea invaded South Korea because of a belief that our drawn-down post WWII military would not prove to be a hinderance.

The United States went into Vietnam thinking that the North Vietnamese were simple guerrillas and could be swiftly defeated with American military might.

The Ayatollah attacked our embassy because he knew that Jimmy Carter would not do anything substantive.

Saddam invaded Kuwait because he felt that the rest of the world would simply accept a done deed.

No one willingly places their hand in a meat grinder. The radical Islamists poked and harassed as long as they knew they could get away with it. The Iranians let the hostages go as soon as Ronald Reagan was elected President. They knew that he would not tolerate the situation, and they were right.

The Jihadists bombed embassies and vacation sites around the world knowing that there would be no concerted effort to stop them as a movement. When Reagan pulled out of Lebanon in 1983, a young OBL realized that there was a limit to how much America would tolerate in the way of casualties. He went to war against the Soviet Union and learned the art of war in Afghanistan. He knew that he could operate openly against President Clinton and even tried to bring down the towers in 1993.

His mistake was hitting the towers again a year too late. A Republican was in office now and this act of provocation could not be allowed to stand. The Sleepers had Awoken and we had become the Wrathful Giant of Japanese fame. There was going to be payback and it was not long in coming.

That fire has dwindled, flared back only briefly when OBL was killed. The cries of distaste were sickening when the left derided patriots for showing joy at the death of OBL. The Tea Party had already been labeled a Terrorist organization by the left, despite the obvious breakdown in reality with that statement.

We must Awaken once more. We must shake off the stupor that the left has once again wove about us. I hate to think that it will take another 9/11 for this to happen. Obama, Holder, Pelosi, Reid; they are the true enemies of the State. When returning soldiers and veterans are considered prime fodder for home grown terror and the border with Mexico remains open then my statements stand. Try to call those extreme and you will simply prove your position.

Live well and remember what happened and why on 9/11. Live well for their memories.

--Zavost