Not voting means you voted? OK, whatever you say, but the court disagrees.

An Appeals court has made an interesting ruling on union voting rules for companies that fall under the Railway Labor Act.  But first some background:

House Republicans pushed this year to revert to the old rules, under which workers who did not cast ballots in union elections would be counted as “no” votes. The effort, which came in the form of an amendment to the FAA’s funding bill, led to a protracted fight with Democrats and union groups and to a brief shutdown of the FAA this summer. 

That's right. You heard it correctly. Republicans have always supported a rule that says if you didn't vote, then you voted, and of course, you voted "our" ideological way too. That rule was changed to say that if you didn't vote, you didn't vote. Of course, this had to go to court. The Court of Appeals ruled on it yesterday. The court made the following earth shattering announcement:

If you didn't vote, then you didn't vote.

Gee, what a surprise. In another move, the court is going to take up the issue on whether the sky is blue, or as Republicans claim, it is purple with yellow polka dots.

President Obama's Detroit Intervention

From the Detroit Free Press this morning:

This year, for the first time since 1988, all three Detroit automakers have gained market share in the U.S.

There are a number of factors which contribute to the automakers becoming profitable again, including the earthquakes in Japan, which decimated the Japanese auto industry, and the Obama bailout....... Ahh, the Obama bailout. I want to talk about this one.

To be honest, the Obama bailout of the auto industry is something that I was rather torn on. After seeing the results of the bankster bailout, I was more than a little pissed when Obama decided to bail out Detroit. However, one cannot argue with results here. OK, OK, I can admit when I am wrong. Should the government intervene and attempt to prop up or otherwise save a failing sector of the economy? Generally, I still say no, but now with more nuance in my answer. There are times when government intervention is needed, especially when the end result is that sector paying back the money to the government, becoming more profitable, and yes, saving jobs too. OK, I will give Obama the credit on that. I still don't like him, but even a broken clock works twice a day. Well done, Mr. President.

Yeah, yeah, you can call me a flip-flopper now.

War on Christmas Rhetoric is Anti-American

I would call the war on Christmas rhetoric by Limbaugh and others anti-Semitic. Jews do not celebrate Christmas, but Hannukah. This is the main reason I tend to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". There is no war on Christmas. There is only a war by nutters against Jews, and others who do not celebrate Christmas, but their own religious holidays.

I always thought religious freedom in America was important enough to stand up for, so I am standing up for it. No doubt some self-righteous assholes will call me an anti-American Communist Nazi that makes baby Jesus cry, but I would call myself someone who is standing up for religious freedom, which is one of the reasons we have founding fathers, a Constitution, and America itself.

The Flip Flop That Wasn't

From Yahoo  News:

During an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan on Wednesday night, Cain said that he personally opposes abortion under all circumstances, even in cases of rape or incest. But when pressed on how that view would direct his policy decisions as president, Cain appeared to support the notion that abortion should remain legal in those cases.

OK, so Cain does not like abortion, even in cases of rape or incest. However, in those cases, Cain says it's not the government's business to dictate to the states. The mass media whores call this "confusing". I do not call it confusing at all. Cain has a personal belief about abortion, but separates it from what he believes to be the role of government. What is so confusing about that, except the media whores attempting to make a mountain out of a???...... Wait, a molehill doesn't even exist here.

Damn, if only Mitt Romney could "flip flop" like that, he would actually be telling the truth, for a change. LOL.

How Today's Conservatism Lost Touch With Reality

"Conservatism is true." That's what George Will told me when I interviewed him as an eager student many years ago. His formulation might have been a touch arrogant, but Will's basic point was intelligent. Conservatism, he explained, was rooted in reality. Unlike the abstract theories of Marxism and socialism, it started not from an imagined society but from the world as it actually exists. From Aristotle to Edmund Burke, the greatest conservative thinkers have said that to change societies, one must understand them, accept them as they are and help them evolve.


Watching this election campaign, one wonders what has happened to that tradition. Conservatives now espouse ideas drawn from abstract principles with little regard to the realities of America's present or past. This is a tragedy, because conservatism has an important role to play in modernizing the U.S.

A great article which hits hard at the core reason why today's Republicans have lost their ability to reason. Today's Conservatism is not the traditional Conservatism that made America great, and was based in reality, but is one that, much like the Liberals, is based on nothing but abstraction. There were, and still are, some great Conservative thinkers in our time.... Buckley, Buchanan, and Goldwater. What have they been replaced with? Beck, Palin, Limbaugh, and Ryan. The party of ideas, the GOP, has gotten stuck in a ditch, and can't seem to get out of it, and right now, the Conservative movement desperately needs a great thinker once again, to help restore the Republican party to sanity. To those hyperpartisans on the right who maintain that "Liberalism is a disease", I say "Physician, heal thyself".

Evidence for Intelligent Design?

As the creationist agenda has been stymied in the courts, which have ruled that it's teaching amounts to promoting religion in government (a violation of the separation of church and state), they have turned to another strategy in order to inject religion into the teaching of science in the classroom. They call it Intelligent Design. It is still creationism, but worded differently in an attempt to circumvent court rulings against it. It still teaches that our universe did not evolve, but that a higher power created it all. From Albert Einstein to Steven Hawking, scientists have been attempting to put together a "theory of everything", over a period that spans almost 100 years. yet, in what seems like a fortnight, the creators of Intelligent Design have come up with all the answers, or so they tell us.

There is quite an irony here, because there is a possible case to be made for intelligent design. According to the theory of the Holographic Universe, of which there is at least one mathematical construct for, everything that we know, see, and are, is nothing more than a projection. According to this theory, a prediction was made that there would be found in the universe a graininess, or pixellation of sorts. Last year, that graininess in the universe was found. This give rise to the possibility that this universe is a simulation. Still, it's only a theory, and it is not proven, but it is a possibility.

Now comes the irony. The people in the political think tank that came up with the idea of Intelligent Design are just too dumb to understand string theory and tensors, which is what is required to attain only a very elementary understanding of the theory of the holographic universe, let alone the mechanics of how it works.

Out of the mouths of idiots sometimes comes wisdom. As Jesus said, forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.

Punked by a damn script kiddie

I have been heavily into computers since the mid 1970's.  I know more than a dozen languages, can write Windoze programs, and hell, I even created my own compiler once.  I have built my own computers.  When it comes to computers, I am pretty fucking smart.  So smart that I opened up a facebook app yesterday (The one that purports to have a picture of dead bin Laden).  As soon as it was running, I knew something was wrong, so pulled the plug on my computer - Literally, I pulled the plug out of the wall.  But too late for some of my friends who had this app spammed to their facebook walls.

So here is the deal.  DanaRhea, a very smart computer guy, just got punked by some fucking pimply-faced high school script kiddie, who probably made tons of money off of dumb asses who gave him his pay per clicks by being dumb asses.  Did I just call myself a dumb ass?  You betcha.  I am a dumb ass.

**DanaRhea bends over**

OK, folks, start kicking.  I deserve this, and I bet a few of my facebook friends are really going to enjoy this too. LOL.