Happy New Year!
Here's hoping 2005 will be a year in which a trend of arguably about 100 years will be reversed. Here's hoping 2005 will end leaving us in a freer society than did 2004. Ok, maybe I'm being rediculously optimistic, but I have this hope every year.
Maybe one year I'll be right.
May we all prosper in the coming year.
Col. Hogan
Friday, December 31, 2004
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Open Letter to Undersecretary Jan Egeland
On behalf of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the people of the State of California, I hereby request disaster aid from the United Nations for Califonia flood relief. As you know, California has been inundated by well over six inches (15 cm) of rain these past days, and expects more in the near future.
Because of the holiday surfing and skiing trips of many Californians, they weren't in their home neighborhoods to work to mitigate the damage caused by billions of drops of falling water and the resultant flooding, wind damage and the need to rewash our millions of automobiles and trucks.
If you could forward a plea to Norway, Sweden, Germany, France and the OPEC nations that they should each send us all the assistance they can possibly afford, it will help to repair the damage, both to our stuff and to our psyches.
As a matter of convenience to the relief agancies and their staffs, we'd request that you not send clothing (painfully unstylish), food (horribly cooked and woefully underseasoned), or medical supplies (though hashish and marijuana will be gratefully accepted). Please send money--preferably in gold and silver (less perishable in wet conditions).
And pleas, oh please do not come yourselves. Many of you aren't up to the sandards of hygiene that Californians have come to expect--especially the French. We must, at all costs, avoid further contamination!
Thank you very much, Mr. Egeland, for all the generosity Europeans are known for.
Warmest regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
On behalf of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the people of the State of California, I hereby request disaster aid from the United Nations for Califonia flood relief. As you know, California has been inundated by well over six inches (15 cm) of rain these past days, and expects more in the near future.
Because of the holiday surfing and skiing trips of many Californians, they weren't in their home neighborhoods to work to mitigate the damage caused by billions of drops of falling water and the resultant flooding, wind damage and the need to rewash our millions of automobiles and trucks.
If you could forward a plea to Norway, Sweden, Germany, France and the OPEC nations that they should each send us all the assistance they can possibly afford, it will help to repair the damage, both to our stuff and to our psyches.
As a matter of convenience to the relief agancies and their staffs, we'd request that you not send clothing (painfully unstylish), food (horribly cooked and woefully underseasoned), or medical supplies (though hashish and marijuana will be gratefully accepted). Please send money--preferably in gold and silver (less perishable in wet conditions).
And pleas, oh please do not come yourselves. Many of you aren't up to the sandards of hygiene that Californians have come to expect--especially the French. We must, at all costs, avoid further contamination!
Thank you very much, Mr. Egeland, for all the generosity Europeans are known for.
Warmest regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Monday, December 27, 2004
THE BOMBER
Several months ago I bought a very nice looking 1956 Buick Roadmaster coupe. I've wanted a classic car for some time (since I sold the '57 Cadillac I had in the mid-90's), and I finally saw an opportunity to get one. I call it The Bomber because 1) it's a big, imposing, yet beautiful car that makes the little genericars shrink in fear and 2) during WWII, when the feral government forced US automakers to stop producing cars and turn to military equipment production, the Buick factory built bombers. My Roadmaster has a chrome gadget on top of each fender that is called, by Buick afficianadoes, bombsights.
I got the car for a relatively low price, knowing that it needs a bit of fixin here and there. It runs and drives pretty well, and it looks very nice, but you can tell a lot of the work that was done to restore it to its current state was done kind of cheaply and not correctly.
No matter. I intended to do a number of modifications anyway, to make the car driveable in today's modern world. I'm in the midst of those now.
I just got it back from a shop that rebuilt the suspension and replaced the old drum brakes with modern disc brakes. Now, it can stop. Next, I look for some snazzy wheels.
One of these days, I'll take the time to figure out how to post photos to this blog, then I'll show the thing off a mite.
More as the project progresses.
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Several months ago I bought a very nice looking 1956 Buick Roadmaster coupe. I've wanted a classic car for some time (since I sold the '57 Cadillac I had in the mid-90's), and I finally saw an opportunity to get one. I call it The Bomber because 1) it's a big, imposing, yet beautiful car that makes the little genericars shrink in fear and 2) during WWII, when the feral government forced US automakers to stop producing cars and turn to military equipment production, the Buick factory built bombers. My Roadmaster has a chrome gadget on top of each fender that is called, by Buick afficianadoes, bombsights.
I got the car for a relatively low price, knowing that it needs a bit of fixin here and there. It runs and drives pretty well, and it looks very nice, but you can tell a lot of the work that was done to restore it to its current state was done kind of cheaply and not correctly.
No matter. I intended to do a number of modifications anyway, to make the car driveable in today's modern world. I'm in the midst of those now.
I just got it back from a shop that rebuilt the suspension and replaced the old drum brakes with modern disc brakes. Now, it can stop. Next, I look for some snazzy wheels.
One of these days, I'll take the time to figure out how to post photos to this blog, then I'll show the thing off a mite.
More as the project progresses.
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Airport Security
Because of thousands of complaints by women with bruises and hickeys on and between their breasts, abdomens and rib areas, and the looming threat of a lawsuit by ACLU attorneys, Airport Security Nazis have been ordered to stop playing with women's breasts at airline security checkpoints. Freelance skinmag photographers have also been ordered out of the area.
Resignations by disgruntled security screeners are up sharply amid complaints that the job "just ain't no fun anymore." International Sisterhood of Gropers union officials are threatening a walkout if the order isn't rescinded immediately.
Meanwhile, crotch groping continues as usual, although a vocal minority continue requesting handwashing facilities be installed at convenient locations.
I'll give you follow-up stories as they become available......
Col. Hogan
Because of thousands of complaints by women with bruises and hickeys on and between their breasts, abdomens and rib areas, and the looming threat of a lawsuit by ACLU attorneys, Airport Security Nazis have been ordered to stop playing with women's breasts at airline security checkpoints. Freelance skinmag photographers have also been ordered out of the area.
Resignations by disgruntled security screeners are up sharply amid complaints that the job "just ain't no fun anymore." International Sisterhood of Gropers union officials are threatening a walkout if the order isn't rescinded immediately.
Meanwhile, crotch groping continues as usual, although a vocal minority continue requesting handwashing facilities be installed at convenient locations.
I'll give you follow-up stories as they become available......
Col. Hogan
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
"Giving Something Back"
How many times have you heard a top-tier actor, sports figure or other celebrity refer to a charitable act as "giving something back" to the community? Of course, if the celebrity happens to be a leftist, it's usually referring to something they did to coax others to ante up. But that's not my point.
I want to analyze (briefly) the meaning of the act of "giving something back."
I first heard the term from a baxabaw player. It may have been Magic Johnson (of magic johnson fame), but I can't recall. Whoever it was, he made a point to mention that he grew up in a poor neighborhood (hood, in the jargon), and now that he's successful, he wanted to "give something back."
"Giving something back" sort of implies that you've taken something away. I can't in my wildest imagination come up with what Magic Johnson might have taken from his educationally, financially and philosophically deprived hood that brought him to his current degree of success, but I'm sure it didn't involve anything that pouring a few tens of thousands of dollars into the hood can repay. Of course, it's a fact that the gift is obviously helpful and welcome in the community, but it's hardly any kind of payback. The fallacy is further amplified by the fact that celebrities "give something back" to people and places of whom-which they know nothing. I don't think this is the trail to enlightenment........
The "real deal" is this. None--not one--nary a singularity of these celebrities really really believes he/she is worth anywhere near the amount he earns. Well, I think there might be one somewhere, but I haven't found him. Or her. He'll see one of his old pals in the hood, sitting on the stoop sipping on a brown paper bag, and think "there, but for the grace of (fill in the name of your favorite invisible friend) go I." He completely (this is where I run to the end of my meager amount of psychological expertise) blanks out the years of hard work, practice, study, drilling, trials, lessons and the astounding degree of sustained discipline that got him to his lofty level, and assumes that what he did could've happened to anybody.
Through decades of hard work and perserverence, I've managed to lift myself out of the gutter and elevated myself to almost halfway up the face of the curb. I know that it's I who have done it and that I deserve every quarter they toss me.
If I find a deserving cause to which to donate, I will. It won't be "giving something back," it'll be good ol' fashioned Good Will.
Col. Hogan
How many times have you heard a top-tier actor, sports figure or other celebrity refer to a charitable act as "giving something back" to the community? Of course, if the celebrity happens to be a leftist, it's usually referring to something they did to coax others to ante up. But that's not my point.
I want to analyze (briefly) the meaning of the act of "giving something back."
I first heard the term from a baxabaw player. It may have been Magic Johnson (of magic johnson fame), but I can't recall. Whoever it was, he made a point to mention that he grew up in a poor neighborhood (hood, in the jargon), and now that he's successful, he wanted to "give something back."
"Giving something back" sort of implies that you've taken something away. I can't in my wildest imagination come up with what Magic Johnson might have taken from his educationally, financially and philosophically deprived hood that brought him to his current degree of success, but I'm sure it didn't involve anything that pouring a few tens of thousands of dollars into the hood can repay. Of course, it's a fact that the gift is obviously helpful and welcome in the community, but it's hardly any kind of payback. The fallacy is further amplified by the fact that celebrities "give something back" to people and places of whom-which they know nothing. I don't think this is the trail to enlightenment........
The "real deal" is this. None--not one--nary a singularity of these celebrities really really believes he/she is worth anywhere near the amount he earns. Well, I think there might be one somewhere, but I haven't found him. Or her. He'll see one of his old pals in the hood, sitting on the stoop sipping on a brown paper bag, and think "there, but for the grace of (fill in the name of your favorite invisible friend) go I." He completely (this is where I run to the end of my meager amount of psychological expertise) blanks out the years of hard work, practice, study, drilling, trials, lessons and the astounding degree of sustained discipline that got him to his lofty level, and assumes that what he did could've happened to anybody.
Through decades of hard work and perserverence, I've managed to lift myself out of the gutter and elevated myself to almost halfway up the face of the curb. I know that it's I who have done it and that I deserve every quarter they toss me.
If I find a deserving cause to which to donate, I will. It won't be "giving something back," it'll be good ol' fashioned Good Will.
Col. Hogan
Thursday, December 02, 2004
O'Reilly on Drugs
I was listening to Bill O'Reilly on the radio this morning. While talking about a particular drug dealer who got a very long (mandated) prison sentence, he was going off on callers who disagree with the "War on Drugs," referred to by the honest as the War on the Bill of Rights.
The only justification he offered for his utterly unreasoned stance was "for the children."
Sorry. Even when my kids were young, I thought that making the world child-safe was a ridiculous idea, both because it can't be done and because the world would then suck for adults. Sorry kids, there are more of us than you. Not only that, but soon you kids'll be grown up and you'll be hating life in the nerf-world, too.
Parents, you have to keep your kids away from drugs. Your kids aren't my problem. To repeat, you keep your kids away from drugs.
You say you can't watch your kids all the time? Well, you're right. Fortunately, you don't have to. What you have to do is be with the kids a lot (read just about all the time) in their first four or five years. Read to them, teach them, stimulate them to learn. As they grow and learn, they become more capable of independent action.
You can't stay home with the kids? Your work won't let you be home with the baby? You can't be home when the kids get out of school? Then why did you have kids?
Well ok. A lot of the problems aren't being addressed. I don't think I can address all of them here, but the big one is taxes.
Up to about the middle of the last century, most mothers stayed home, took care of the homes and the kids, and generally supported the family while the father went to work and brought home the bacon.
Before you start detailing in your minds all the problems for Mommy in this arrangement, let's observe that it wasn't all plums and posies for Daddy, either. Before we start throwing blame around for the way the two sexes were built and the way the societies of man have arranged themselves since first sentience. The way to escape currently lies in personal responsibility: If you don't want children DON'T HAVE ANY.
That's a good plan for those few of us who haven't started late, (already have a family), but for those who have....well you have a family and that's your priority. Deal.
There are several reasons why it's come to this. The biggest one is government. We all pay (that is, those of us that are productive) around half of our productivity to the police state--up from around ten percent in the fifties. We're told that it's an exchange for various services that could be provided by no one but government.
Not true.
The services in question were provided far better (leaving aside technological progress) back then than now, in spite of all the money currently being taken from you.
Not only is government very poor at providing these services, but they "charge" a lot of money for them. And, your freedom. Writer L Neil Smith estimates, maybe conservatively, that these services, crime prevention, streets and roads, schools, medical care, etc, etc, along with all the other goods and services we buy, would cost about one-eighth the current costs were ther no taxes and no government regulation.
How does this relate to O'Reilly and his desire to keep drugs away from kids? Well, for openers, would alleviate the need for both parents to work outside the home. The one that stays home can teach the benefits of a moral, productive, purposeful life to the youngsters, she (or he) can be there when Zachariah, Jr asks the critical questions about hockey and why he shouldn't stick the cute girl's ponytail into the inkwell. She can be around to discuss the changes that are happening in budding young Myrtle's body and how to get the ink out of her hair.
Drugs, other than aspirin and the odd dosage given by the family doctor, won't become an issue because the kids will have already been forewarned and forearmed properly by their parents, not by anonymous jack-booted thugs from DEA at your neighborhood children's prison. And they'll have better things to do. Fuddling the brain with short-circuit inducing chemicals will be seen as a waste of the time he could be spending building his (or her) own personal aircraft. Or flying it across town to meet that special speed skating champion who'll need a massage after the race. They'll be learning to live and prosper in an adult world.
We don't need a "War on Drugs" or a "War on Poverty" that purposefully gives society both more drugs and more poverty. Mostly, we need to be left alone.
Col. Hogan
I was listening to Bill O'Reilly on the radio this morning. While talking about a particular drug dealer who got a very long (mandated) prison sentence, he was going off on callers who disagree with the "War on Drugs," referred to by the honest as the War on the Bill of Rights.
The only justification he offered for his utterly unreasoned stance was "for the children."
Sorry. Even when my kids were young, I thought that making the world child-safe was a ridiculous idea, both because it can't be done and because the world would then suck for adults. Sorry kids, there are more of us than you. Not only that, but soon you kids'll be grown up and you'll be hating life in the nerf-world, too.
Parents, you have to keep your kids away from drugs. Your kids aren't my problem. To repeat, you keep your kids away from drugs.
You say you can't watch your kids all the time? Well, you're right. Fortunately, you don't have to. What you have to do is be with the kids a lot (read just about all the time) in their first four or five years. Read to them, teach them, stimulate them to learn. As they grow and learn, they become more capable of independent action.
You can't stay home with the kids? Your work won't let you be home with the baby? You can't be home when the kids get out of school? Then why did you have kids?
Well ok. A lot of the problems aren't being addressed. I don't think I can address all of them here, but the big one is taxes.
Up to about the middle of the last century, most mothers stayed home, took care of the homes and the kids, and generally supported the family while the father went to work and brought home the bacon.
Before you start detailing in your minds all the problems for Mommy in this arrangement, let's observe that it wasn't all plums and posies for Daddy, either. Before we start throwing blame around for the way the two sexes were built and the way the societies of man have arranged themselves since first sentience. The way to escape currently lies in personal responsibility: If you don't want children DON'T HAVE ANY.
That's a good plan for those few of us who haven't started late, (already have a family), but for those who have....well you have a family and that's your priority. Deal.
There are several reasons why it's come to this. The biggest one is government. We all pay (that is, those of us that are productive) around half of our productivity to the police state--up from around ten percent in the fifties. We're told that it's an exchange for various services that could be provided by no one but government.
Not true.
The services in question were provided far better (leaving aside technological progress) back then than now, in spite of all the money currently being taken from you.
Not only is government very poor at providing these services, but they "charge" a lot of money for them. And, your freedom. Writer L Neil Smith estimates, maybe conservatively, that these services, crime prevention, streets and roads, schools, medical care, etc, etc, along with all the other goods and services we buy, would cost about one-eighth the current costs were ther no taxes and no government regulation.
How does this relate to O'Reilly and his desire to keep drugs away from kids? Well, for openers, would alleviate the need for both parents to work outside the home. The one that stays home can teach the benefits of a moral, productive, purposeful life to the youngsters, she (or he) can be there when Zachariah, Jr asks the critical questions about hockey and why he shouldn't stick the cute girl's ponytail into the inkwell. She can be around to discuss the changes that are happening in budding young Myrtle's body and how to get the ink out of her hair.
Drugs, other than aspirin and the odd dosage given by the family doctor, won't become an issue because the kids will have already been forewarned and forearmed properly by their parents, not by anonymous jack-booted thugs from DEA at your neighborhood children's prison. And they'll have better things to do. Fuddling the brain with short-circuit inducing chemicals will be seen as a waste of the time he could be spending building his (or her) own personal aircraft. Or flying it across town to meet that special speed skating champion who'll need a massage after the race. They'll be learning to live and prosper in an adult world.
We don't need a "War on Drugs" or a "War on Poverty" that purposefully gives society both more drugs and more poverty. Mostly, we need to be left alone.
Col. Hogan
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