Captain Digital

Random musings on politics, society, and pop culture from the Internet's marketing curmudgeon.

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Current Events, Society & the Law

Random Thoughts.

I have a lot of things on my mind right now – things that don’t necessarily merrit a full blog post, but ideas I’d like to share, nonetheless. So consider this an idea sampler…

Obama IS the second coming of JFK, but not for the reasons the Dems would like to believe. I hear he’s signaled to Russia that he’s willing to put our missile sheild in Europe on the table, in exchange for their “help” with Iran. Um…so we’re going to surrender the one thing that has Putin foaming at the mouth, in exchange for some vague promise from Russia that they won’t continue to aid and abett those Iranian nut-jobs? Good plan. I hope O’s Universal Healthcare covers spinal transpants, ‘cuz it looks like he needs one…

Hey, Congress…The time to read legislation is BEFORE you vote on it. [Read more…] about Random Thoughts.

Recession-(80)Proof.

Adult Beverages, anyone?
Adult Beverages, anyone?

While visiting my father in Shreveport last week, I took time out to have lunch with a friend/former student. I asked him how the “mortgage crisis,” “economic crisis,” and “banking crisis.” He said he’s not really seen any ill-effects. That’s largely due to two factors – first, the recession is not nearly the “crisis” that the ObamaNation would have you believe it is (remember what Rahmbo said, “you don’t want t let a crisis go to waste”), and that my buddy owns a chain of liquor stores.

Beer, wine and distilled spirits are the original recession-proof commodity. Beer is “nature’s off switch” for millions. Tough day at work? Hit the off switch. Need to relax? Off switch. Wanna party? Off switch. Wine is generally thought of as a more sophisticated drink, usually a lubricant for dining. Then there’s the distilled spirits group. If beer is nature’s off switch, then liquor is the go-to beverage for just about any extreme emotion. Lose your job? Get a raise? Bad news? In these situations, beer is for amateurs. Liquor, ounce for ounce, packs more punch for less swallowing. And unlike beer (which comes only in “beer flavor”), you can get hooch in a wide variety of flavors, everything from mouthwash flavors (schnapps) to paint stripper (scotch) to drinks that will blind you in one eye and make you say “arrrggh” a lot (rum). [Read more…] about Recession-(80)Proof.

On Hospitals.

There’s a certain amount of irony in any hospital stay. First of all, what sadistic bozo invented hospital gowns? I’ve seen thong bikinis that afford more modesty, and as far as comfort goes, the idea of a permanent draft down your back is not my idea of a good time. Of course, hospital gowns are the least of your worries if you’re admitted to one of our temples of healing. As I write this, my sister and I are sitting in what is quaintly referred to as a “pre-op” room, waiting for our father to be wheeled into surgery. He’s gowned up, with the IV drip at the ready, all undressed, with nowhere to go. Apparently, Thursday is the “All You Can Sew” day in the operating room, so they’ve got victims patients stacked up like cordwood, awaiting their turn under the knife. This wouldn’t be so bad, but when you’re to go under a general anesthetic, you can’t eat for at least eight hours prior to surgery. In a show of solidarity, neither my sis nor I ate either, so between the three of us, even hospital food is gaining a certain, desperate appeal. [Read more…] about On Hospitals.

The Crisis President.

The Annointed One
The Annointed One

Every President eventually gets known as the “_________ President.” (Fill in the blank.) Most Presidents start their term wanting to stand for something, and then find that they get pegged with something else. For instance, think back to the days before 9/11. George Bush entered the White House wanting to be knonw as the “Education President.” It’s actually a little soon to know exactly how he’ll be remembered by historians, but right now, I’d vote for the “War on Terror President.” That brings us to the White House’s current occupant…

If I was going to guess about a title for The Big O, it would be “The Crisis President.” Not, mind you, because we’re in bad shape. Quite the contrary – if you look at inflation, unemployment, the stock market, gas prices, et all, Ronald Reagan took office at a time where our country’s situation looked a lot worse. As in much, MUCH worse. But Reagan got tagged as “The Great Communicator” because he both knew how to speak, and because he knew how to make people proud of their country again (after four years of “The Morass President,” Jimmy Carter).  No, I suspect Obama will be known as The Crisis President, because he uses the bloody word in just about every sentence in every address, every time he speaks publicly. [Read more…] about The Crisis President.

Shaken. Not Stirred.

Treasury Secretary Tim “I didn’t cheat on my taxes…I just didn’t understand the tax code” Geitner was on the Hill yesterday, waxing semi-eloquent regarding the second half of the bank bailout, a.k.a. “TARP II: When Markets Bite Back.” By all accounts (both liberal and conservative), Geitner’s performance was, at best, underwhelming. He appeared nervous and ill-prepared (note to Tim: the unbuttoned shirt collar under the tie didn’t say “man of action” as much as it said “I’d rather be having a root canal than be here today”). Geitner looked, well…shaken. Congress was not stirred by his performance.

If the Obama administration is going to persist in shoveling this kind of pork at us, they’re going to have to find some much more convincing liars to sell it.

The deal here is that no thinking person believes this “stimulus” bill is about stimulating the economy. Everybody knows that it’s a wish-list of the liberal left, masquerading as stimulus or order to get it passed. Evidently, 30 or 40 years of yearning has the Dems throwing caution to the wind, in order to fund their pet projects. See the problem is, in order to stimulate the economy, it’s necessary to do but two things:

  • Spend less money
  • Reduce taxes

Neither of these strategies holds much appeal to the tax and spend crowd. 800 billion dollars is one HELL of a lot of money, and the real scandal is that over 3/4 of the money won’t see hit the economy until well after the first year. Stimulus, shimulus. It’s all shuck and jive to me.

Here’s my idea of a stimulus plan:

  • Reduce EVERYBODY’S tax rate by 20% for the next year
  • Reduce every department (other than the military’s) budget by 20% for the next year
  • Cut all non-essential spending (National Endowment for the Arts, Mohair research, etc.) by 50%

That’s it. The whole thing. And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is how you create a stimulus plan that works. To do something like that, it would help to have people that put the public’s interest ahead of their own. Oh, and maybe put somebody in charge of the Treasury Dept. that understands enough about the tax code that he can pay the taxes he owes, and not duck his responsibilities. I can’t see any Democrat doing this, because they are the party of bigger – not smaller – government. There’s not been a Republican since Reagan that had the cojones to even so much as propose this. Pity. We need leaders that will do what works, rather than try and game the system to serve their taste for pork, earmarks, and pet projects. Cut the waste, and the public would grant them a license to thrill.

Stimulate Me!

Washington D.C. seems to be obsessed with the idea of stimulating the economy. On the surface, this seems like a noble idea – our economy is in the tank right now, and the sooner we get it moving in the right direction, the better. Unfortunately, looking to Washington to fix our economy is rather like asking some thug that smashed your car window and stole your CDs to repair the car and give it a nice detailing. And putting Congress in charge of writing a bill to allocate funds for economic stimulus is not too different from putting the foxes in charge of the hen house and expecting the hens to thrive and egg production to rise.

Um…no. Don’t think so. [Read more…] about Stimulate Me!

Sauce for the Goose.

For the last eight years, I’ve suffered along with the rest of my fellow Conservatives, having to put up with much of Hollywood, the mainstream press, cartoonists, and just about everybody on the left who had access to a microphone, make George Bush out to be some kind of drooling moron, one step above a “developmentally disabled” charity case. The left has righteously proclaimed that they are not biased, and had no axe to grind regarding Bush & Co., and that it was all in the twisted imagination of Conservatives, that they were out to “get” Bush. What excesses they DO cop to, they claim were “all in good fun,” and they point to the fact that they also skewered Clinton (admittedly an easy target) during his Presidency. (My personal fave was the crack about Hillary forbidding the installation of a walk-in humidor in the Clinton Presidential Library.) They also protest (too much, if you ask me) regarding their treatment of Obama, claiming that they have not turned a blind eye to him, his past, and his mistakes, and asserting that they are not so enthralled with The Chosen One, that they refuse to be as critical of him as they have been of W.

Time to show yer cards, boys. [Read more…] about Sauce for the Goose.

Got MLK?

Today our country celebrates/commemorates/observes the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Coincidentally, it’s the last day of the Bush Administration, and the Eve of the ObamaNation. (Ahem.) The Chosen One has been busy in the last two weeks, with his faithful media lapdogs casting him as a combination of the second comings of Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and Jesus Christ. Pretty big boots to step into, if you ask me, but the media assures us that he’s up to the task. We’ve been treated to breathless stories of how Obama has but four years to “fix” global warming or we’re all doomed, and how the Messiah is going to undo eight years of the “evils” of the Republicans.

I find it interesting that everything Obama has done so far, has been of a symbolic nature. [Read more…] about Got MLK?

GreenWatch: When Theory Trumps Reality.

Before we get started, let me state for the record, that I am not a scientist (nor do I play one on TV). I am, however, a thinker (with apologies to Glenn Beck), and I have been trained almost since birth (thanks, Dad!) to think things through. I don’t like to take things at face value, and I prefer to question conventional wisdom.

That’s why I believe that all this talk about “global warming” and “climate change” is complete and utter bull.

(I’d use a much more explicit word, but this is a family blog.)

The problem I see here is that the green crowd have combined a rush to judgement, bad intel, skewed data, hidden agendas, and a sense of hysteria into a perfect storm. If these nutjobs only hurt themselves, it would all be simply amusing. Unfortunately, they are not content to play Chicken Little to the world. No, they’re doing their best to screw up everything they can, all in the name of an imaginary problem over which we’d have no control, even if we DID cause it.

I don’t want to get too far into this nonsense, but if you were to take AlGore’s premise at face value, and have the USA sign onto the ludicrous Kyoto Protocol, by their own admissions,  we would only change our global climate something like 2/10ths of one percent. That means we’d be just as well off doing nothing, for those of you keeping score.

Here’s a prime example of the kind of twisted thinking that will kill us all: [Read more…] about GreenWatch: When Theory Trumps Reality.

Read All About It.

I hear that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, like many other once-proud newspapers, is up for sale. Even worse, if it’s not sold inside of 60 days, it will cease to exist in print (but might continue in a greatly scaled-back online form).

Sad. Very sad.

I was thinking the other day about how the newspaper biz has changed since I was a kid, throwing a paper route in Shreveport, Louisiana. It’s changed a lot – and not for the better. Of course, you could argue, and many do, that the Internet killed the Newspaper, just like it’s kill(ing) CDs and will soon kill DVDs. But if you’ve ever tried to get all your information from the web, you’ve probably seen that there’s something that you lose, when you ditch paper. So, I’m not convinced the problem with newspapers lies at the feet of the World Wide Web alone. No, I think it’s something(s) much deeper, and will, in fact, cause the destruction of an entire industry in no less significant a way than what happened to the dinosaurs. [Read more…] about Read All About It.