Month: March 2022

The Bumper Sticker Slogan Post

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Some people liked the idea of a 2022 Election Bumper Sticker.  My entry was:

Just Impeach the Dumbasses

But it occurred to me that polling the folks out there might be fun and might also uncover even better slogans.  So I propose to use this post to collect the reading audience’s choices in the comments and then I will put together a poll and try to get a wider audience to vote on the best slogan.  Democracy in action!

So go ahead and do your best.  Let’s see what kind of Madison Avenue inventiveness exists.  Eat your heart out Don Draper!

 

 

Updates

Impeach the Idiots! or ITI

Entrepreneurism is Not for the Lazy.  Or So They Say.

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And what a shame for me!  As many who visit here know I am the self-professed, “Laziest Man on the Right.”  I enjoy nothing as much as procrastinating and enjoying life.  Of course, I prefer to think of myself as, “The Most Interesting Man in the World,” but I don’t have his killer fake Spanish accent.  Boy, that was a great advertising campaign.

But of late I have been doing a lot of research and laying the groundwork for a vast commercial undertaking.  Not since the early days of Kramerica Industries has the world seen such poorly planned and shamefully misdirected effort from someone who ostensibly is trying to get something done.

All at the same time, I’m starting a limited liability company (LLC), re-opening my PayPal account, assembling and post-processing my first group of high-resolution photo files, working on my first novel, assembling a fine art photography book and for reasons known only to PayPal buying the cheapest mobile phone plan in the world.  The last item has to do with the fact that PayPal no longer allows individuals to have a PayPal account without a cell phone.  Apparently Big Brother truly does live in Silicon Valley.

As noted, the efficiency of these efforts has been abysmal.  I have to redo each step at least three times because of my ignorance or poor preparation.  The people I contact, even the AI I interfaces with which I interact, seem to be straining not to yell at me to stop bothering them and just give up.  And being the empathetic fellow I am, I tend to agree with them.  And because of my ineptitude all of this effort should be doomed to massive failure and soul-searing disappointment.

And yet, I am heartily enthused and invigorated by the whole confusing mess.  Slowly and painfully, I’m learning the things I need to know to carry out the program.  As soon as I can get the phone thing resolved and the PayPal account up and running, I can load the photos on the commercial website.  And once the LLC is official, I can start paying the government taxes on whatever paltry profits I manage to pull in.

And this is only the beginning.  I hope to follow up on my first novel with the rest of a science fiction series and other writings of various types and lengths.  I have the often-mentioned unbridled enthusiasm and unjustified optimism.  Most people I have confided in about my mad dreams have warned me that I have literally zero chance of success in my endeavors.  They say that statistically it’s an incredible longshot.

I am undeterred.  For I have always been inexplicably lucky.  Not just a little lucky but almost eerily lucky.  Over the course of a fairly long life, I have almost invariably been unreasonably lucky just when I needed it the most.  Even when something bad happens to me something or someone unexpected always shows up and sets things right.  I’ve led a charmed existence.

So that’s what I’m betting on, that my luck will hold out again.  Deep down I know that one day fate will even up the score.  I assume it’ll be something horrendously unlikely or even preternatural.  I’m expecting a meteor strike or a lightning bolt to rub me out.  But when it comes, I’ll face that day whistling a happy tune.  I’ve had the luck that ten men could expect while expending almost no effort at all.  I sometimes wonder what I might have accomplished if I had added hard work to luck but probably it would have mucked things up completely.

So, here’s to the future and just a little more luck.

A Clear Headed Analysis of Zelensky’s Mistake

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Ukrain’e President Zelensky is adored by the West.  Reporters and politicians practically sing his praises and vow to do whatever is needed to win his war for him.  But the realities of how he got into the truly awful predicament he’s in is not a story of statesmanship but one of terrible naivete.  Being a tv comedian may not be the background needed to navigate the space between nuclear superpowers.

I recommend this article to get a better understanding how Mr. Zelensky blundered his way into a disastrous war.

It comes down to a puppet for the American color revolution forces doing what he was told.  He may live to regret it if he is lucky.

23MAR2022 – Quote of the Day

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The magi, as you know, were wise men — wonderfully wise men — who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

William Sydney Porter (O. Henry)

Midterm Slogan: Impeach the Dumbasses

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The Democrats and their boosters have settled on the dual strategy of blaming Putin for inflation and also telling Americans that downgrading their lives is the solution to poverty.  I saw a Bloomberg publication advising people who can’t pay their bills to:

  • Take the bus
  • Don’t buy in bulk
  • Try lentils instead of meat
  • Nobody said this would be fun

Brilliant!  Why didn’t I think of that?  I’ve got one.  Sell your blood.  Wonderful!

But it seems obvious that this opens a very good opportunity for the Republicans to be seen as the party that wants Americans not to be poor.  They can have a slogan like, “The Democrats want you to barely survive; The Republicans want you to thrive.”

It’s truly pathetic that McConnell and McCarthy haven’t already rolled out a campaign for November that targets Democrat voters.  They should harangue Democrats in all fifty states to provide enough votes in the Senate to convict both Biden and Harris of being dumbasses who have allowed the US economy to deteriorate to where Americans can’t buy meat for their kids.  We’d need sixty-seven votes in the Senate and that is probably a bridge too far but it would make a killer advertising campaign.  Imagine showing cuts of Biden and Harris spouting gibberish, graphs showing gas and food prices skyrocketing and then finish by saying, “Can we afford to wait three more years to get rid of Biden?  By then there won’t be anything left.  Vote Republican to get rid of the dumbasses.”

I think it has definite appeal.  One thing such a campaign strategy might do is sow dissension in Democrat ranks.  Democrat senators who are up for re-election will try to distance themselves from Biden and Harris.  Some might even agree with the campaign to help bolster their chances for re-election.  Even if we don’t get the sixty-seven votes in November there might be some senators up for re-election in 2024 who might work with the Republicans to get rid of Biden and Harris next year.

And what it will do is appeal to people’s desire to get out of the trap we’re in.  Who wants to hear that we have to wait until 2025 to see the last of Dementia Joe and the Nitwit?  Even if it doesn’t succeed it might get us a few more seats and those will help to offset poisonous fools like Romney.  Yeah, I like this idea.  I think I’ll have a flag made that says, “Impeach the Dumbasses.”  It’s not as inspirational as Make America Great Again or anything like that but it’s short, punchy and abusive which plays to my strengths.

I’ll fly the flag in the run-up to Election Day and have a barbecue to raise money for “Impeach the Dumbasses” bumper stickers.  Come to think of it, maybe I can have them made up by one of those web sites that make custom bumper stickers and sell them on the site.  You know, it’s sort of my patriotic duty to do it.  And I might even make a few bucks too. Win, win.

Update:  So there have been a few people interested in actually buying a bumper sticker.  If anyone knows of an on-line company that does a good job making these things cheaply and conveniently let me know.  Me and my big mouth!

The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

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Okay this one is an oddball.  What we have here is a sort of morality play mixed into a fantasy.  In the first half of the nineteenth century in the southwest corner of New Hampshire there lived a farmer named Jabez Stone.  He has a wife and a widowed mother and not much else.  Bad luck follows him and prevents him from ever catching up on his debts.  One day when disaster strikes, again, he cries out that he’d sell his soul for some good luck.  And the Devil (played amusingly by Walter Huston) shows up and talks him into the deal.  He provides him with a pot of “Hessian” gold and seven years of guaranteed good luck for the price of his soul.

(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

And indeed, Jabez gets all the good luck for which he could ask.  When his neighbors’ crops are destroyed by hail, his are spared.  He loans money to his neighbors and when they can’t pay him back, he makes them sharecroppers working his fields.  He builds a huge mansion on the hill and alienates his wife and mother and all his old friends.

Jabez’s wife Mary is a good friend of the famous American statesman, Daniel Webster (played by Edward Arnold) and she finally calls Webster in when she decides that something terrible has happened to her husband.  Jabez has changed from an honest friendly religious man into a greedy, hateful sinner.  He’s driven away all of their friends and taken up with a Jezebel named “Belle” whom the Devil has sent to keep Jabez from repenting.

On the seventh anniversary of his contract Old Scratch (as the Devil is called in that neighborhood of New England) comes to claim Jabez Stone’s soul.  By this point Jabez realizes the wrong he’s committed and is repentant but he knows his contract is binding.  But at this point Daniel Webster confronts the Devil and demands a jury trial.  Webster will represent the defense and the Devil gets to pick the judge, and jury.  The jury is made up of notorious criminals of the early American era including Gen. Benedict Arnold the infamous traitor of the Revolutionary War.  But the Devil stipulates that if Jabez is found guilty Daniel Webster’s soul will also be collected.

Webster uses all his gifts as an orator and appeals to the jury’s remorse for not fulfilling their birthrights as free Americans and lovers of life.  He reminds them of the simple joys of living a virtuous life and how each of them regrets the road he has taken.

Finally, the jury asks the Devil to see the contract and when he hands it over Benedict Arnold tears it up and throws it away.  The judge and jury disappear into smoke and Daniel Webster gives the Devil the bum’s rush out of Jabez’s barn.  The two victors return to the farmhouse in time to enjoy a homecooked breakfast with Jabez’s wife and mother and young son.

His neighbors arrive to alert Jabez to the fact that his mansion on the hill is in flames.  He smiles at them and tells them he’s glad and that all their debts to him are cancelled and to prove it he tears up his promissory notes and invites them to breakfast.  The movie ends on a comical note with Old Scratch sitting on a country fence, finishing up a pie he stole from Ma Stone and looking into his little book of prospects and then peering out into the audience and smiling and pointing at you!

As I said this is an oddball film.  The bulk of the film is a melodrama about a good man going bad through greed and pride.  I suppose the supernatural story is meant to be a metaphor for how circumstances can make even good people lose perspective on the what’s really valuable in life and let the pursuit of money destroy the good things they have.  I don’t know if I can recommend this movie unless I compare it to something like the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  That movie also shares a supernatural framing of the dangers of losing perspective on what makes life worth living.  If you didn’t like that better movie then you probably won’t like this lesser tale.  That won’t guarantee you’ll like this one but it gives you an idea of what kind of movie this is.