Archive for March, 2009

kingmakerMy review of the Big Finish Adventure # 81 The Kingmaker is now available at Amazon.com here.

This episode is clearly a comedy but the comedy doesn’t come at a cost of some high drama. There are also many plot twists that will keep you on your toes. Fans of the reclusive leftist will like one particular aspect concerning Erimem and broken arms. One twist involves a technical violation of the license agreement between Big Finish and the BBC:

The terms of our licence with the BBC allow us to only produced ‘Classic’ Doctor Who. This means that we can only use the first eight Doctors and their companions. Anything connected to the new series – even characters who are no longer featured – cannot be used by us in a Big Finish Doctor Who production.

The violation is rather small and very amusing. As the BBC gave them a new license it apparently was a big deal to them however for us Dr. Who fans it adds up to a big smile.

Of course they do that

Posted: March 7, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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Matt Welsh via Glenn when dealing with the Freeman nomination notes the sudden spin of the left from the Saudi’s being the root of all evil to it being no trouble at all:

Remember when Saudi-bashing was a lefty thing? When Michael Moore was devoting a big chunk of Farenheit 9/11 to the over-warm relationship between U.S. leaders and the clannish House of Saud, stewards of the dictatorship that produced 15 of 19 hijackers on that sunny September morning, and Craig Unger was peddling House of Bush, House of Saud? Well now that Barack Obama is in the Oval Office, the proper lefty response has morphed into a full-throated defense of one of Saudi Arabia’s most influential apologists: Former U.S. ambassador Chas Freeman, who has been nominated to head up the National Intelligence Council. Why? Because neocons don’t like him.

What I want to know is why anyone is surprised at this? You might recall our leftist friends were dead set against fighting world war II until June 22, 1941. Until the Soviet Union was under threat the war was not worth fighting. Once the invasion took place then the worm turned very quickly.

As for Andrew Sullivan who has less credentials on the left recall he proclaims himself a Catholic but when Catholic belief conflicts with his personal desires he simply modifies Catholic belief and proclaims his modified belief superior. Why should his beliefs on Iraq or the China or the Saudi’s be any different?

Signs of the “New Russian USSR”

Posted: March 7, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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One of the sure signs of dictatorship is an attempt to re-write history. It loves like the soviets Russia is again moving in that direction:

Mr Shoigu also issued a veiled threat to leaders in eastern and central Europe. Most of them regard the advance of Soviet forces into German- occupied Europe as a second occupation, and Estonia sparked outrage in Russia a few years ago when it relocated a statue of a Soviet soldier from the centre of the capital, Tallinn, an event not lost on Mr Shoigu.

“Our parliament should pass a law that would envisage liability for the denial of the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War (the Second World War],” the minister said.

“The presidents of several countries who deny this would not be able to come to our country and remain unpunished, and the mayors of several towns would think twice before they dismantle monuments to Soviet warriors.”

Some clarification is necessary here. There is no question that the Soviets did defeat the Nazi’s and pushed them back to Berlin etc, the problem here is the inconvenient fact that the advancing army replaced one conquering dictatorship with another that oppressed them for decades.

Mr Shoigu’s suggestion, which has popular support in the Russian parliament, has added to concerns that Russia is promoting a version of history that has changed little since it emerged from the Stalinist propaganda machine as a means of bolstering support for Mr Putin and his government.

Russia inferiority complex is centuries old and it looks like it hasn’t gotten over it yet. The Obama retreat in foreign policy is nasty sign to eastern Europe that we aren’t going to be helping. It’s still early and this can change just like Iraq but when you retreat someone else advances. If we make a power vacuum someone else is going to step into it.

The Bells start to ring:

Posted: March 7, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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The Bells are starting to ring

Michael Bloomberg:

“They [the wealthy] are the ones that buy in the stores so that people that work in the stores have jobs in the stores, generate sales tax,” he said.

“The rich are the ones that go to the expensive restaurants where, as a matter of fact, I looked at a list the other day of restaurants where the staff is unionized. They’re the expensive restaurants. They’re not the cheap restaurants.”

Whoopi Goldberg:

But I don’t want to get it coming and going. I don’t want to get the federal raised and then the state raised and then the phone tax raised and then the television tax raised and then the city tax. Back off me!

Lets explain something the UBER rich can relocate themselves almost anywhere in the world and be welcomed with open arms. As they can travel at will any such relocation will not effect their ability to run their operations or their quality of life.

The very rich can relocate from one state to another. Florida is very nice this time of year at New Hampshire has still resisted the democratic party’s attempt to impose additional taxes.

The Bubble people near 250,000 will ramp themselves down because they know that any additional effort will gain them nothing in terms of financial or quality of life rewards:

So, what happens when the heart surgeons, dentists, litigators, and people who employ 10 or 20 other people in their mid-size businesses decide that they don’t want to pay for the excessive, pointless spending that the president finds so compelling? Instapundit speculates on people “going John Galt.” I think golf — a time-intensive sport that the hard-working have eschewed for the past decade or two because it took too long — will make a comeback. But while we’re watching, “working affluent” is a far more useful and less loaded moniker than “the rich,” which has overtones of dilettantes, poodles, and yachts.

Some examples:

1. I recently talked to a record shop owner, who had two shops, four employees, open seven days a week. He let go all four employees, closed one shop, is only open five days a week, and reduced hours at that. Result? Almost the same take-home, and greatly reduced blood pressure.

2. The owner of a small custom stained-glass shop, where I am currently taking a class, let one employee go because the additional income she brought in was not worth the added hassle.

3. I retired from a pretty good job at the end of last year, at the age of 61. I could easily have kept working, or found another job. With pension, and social security in a few months, my gross will be considerably less. But, after taxes are taken into account, the net is not all that much less. I figured that I was working in a pretty high-stress job, for little incremental income.

Michelle Malkin has more.

As always in a republic we get the government we deserve. And if you feel like a chump? Oh well.