iPandora

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?
From the Onion, Hat tip: Red Bits of Ephemera

The story about the retirees refusing to allow their pup Lancelot to shuffle off this mortal coil when his natural life ended by ordering Lancelot Encore (cute puppy pictures), the first one-off, made to order, cloned animal, is interesting to me more for what it says about the older couple, Ed and Nina, than what it says about technology.

Cloning is old hat. It’s been going on for some time successfully now. The news nature of this comes from the fact a person was able to pay lots of money and get a “copy” of their preferred pooch. It’s an “Imaging that” kind of thing, nothing more, from the technology side.

But the couple intrigue me.

Have you ever experienced an idyllic situation? The light is just right, the leaves in the trees, the grass under your feet, the water of the river and the touch of sand in the barbeque. We want them to continue forever. We desire to hold onto these minutes and relish the moments as they fly inexorably onward, until we’re packing the car again and driving home and back to work grind on Monday.

There is an undeniable desire to freeze frame life and contain the moments that we find are perfect. But life keeps moving and so must we.

Miss Havisham perpetually in her moth eaten wedding dress with the rotten cake would have cloned her beloved had she the change.

And so the Otto family have become the Miss Havisham of our age. Technology can fix everything, including bringing the dead back to life.

When we insist on living “as things were” we deprive ourselves of our future. When we insist on constraining our lives to some eternal “present perfect” we forego any growth, sorrow, or joy or the other parts of life which are necessary for normal human function.

Humans may wish for an eternal ideal, for that perfect time. However, we need the eternal change and constant motion through which this world functions. To hold onto things which must change, forcing them through our own force of will to remain unchanged, is to deny our own humanity and to fade from the real life which would beckon us onward.

Death is as much a part of life as life itself. Not in an Eastern Yin/Yang way, but in a Western form of closure. We begin, we pass, and we end. Everything in our life follows the same path on different time tables.

And so the Otto family have relegated themselves to the eternal past. They may continue to grow old and pass through this world, but they have achieved no nirvana or eternal blissful stasis.

Lancelot Encore will die too. None of are god enough to prevent that. And Ed and Nina will together sit in their moth-eaten wedding dress beside their rotten wedding cake, watching out the window with hope that Lancelot will once again run through their lives.

It’s not happiness, it’s Havisham.

• RT @music2myear: New blog post: Obama Hypocrisy: Lobbyist Dream http://tinyurl.com/c882zk #TCOT #RUSH #CONSERVATIVE #HHRS #
• Happy to see anybody regardless of history, keep ‘public servants’ accountable. Campbell Brown on Cutting the Bull: http://bit.ly/gxLD #TCOT #
• http://bit.ly/11C6t Prez has real power. No small jokes/light words. Needs more tact/maturity, appreciation 4 his position. #tcot #sgp #hhrs #
• Just got a callback. #
• RT @melissacantype: RT @monkeytoesshoes: RT Stupid Law, effective next month. HELP RT http://tinyurl.com/8yfltu #CPSIA #TCOT #SGP #HHRS #
• RT @blairwarren: Follow your bliss, but only if you can follow it while doing what you know is right. #
• RT @music2myear: New blog post: Potent Presidency: Words Mean Things http://tinyurl.com/ddvh5l #TCOT #HHRS #SGP #obama #

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In my wandering to and fro about the earth, I have stumbled upon some amusing articles today and feel compelled to show them to all those that prefer to get their news from a no spin zone, not a political quagmire.

First . . . YaY Obama!!!President Obama today criticized the bonuses of financial institutions. I do agree that, unless you earn it, you shouldn’t get it. In fact, most bonuses remind me of the association meeting I attended recently where the voters approved the officers Christmas bonuses in February . . . 11 months before the officers would receive them. I would have allocated all the money elsewhere and then given bonuses if the officers saved us money . . . just a though.

Pelosi needs to attend Politicians Anonymous. Apparently, she can’t remember that she is partisan. In fact, one of the most partisan political leaders today.

Finally, you can no longer be assaulted in New York.It is totally impossible because Bloomberg is trying to get rid of it in New York City. Or as a citizen said . . .

“I don’t think they should do that,” a woman in Manhattan named “Nora” told CBS 2 HD. “Because I like salt in my food.”

When the most powerful man in the world says something, anything, it carries a significantly greater weight than if Joe Schmoe on the corner says even exactly the same thing.

An account executive or a cable repair man can joke about their kids schools closing when a little ice accumulates and it’s just that, a joke.

The President of the United States makes a joke about the weak populents of Washington DC relative to the hardy Chicago stock, and it means something far greater.

You can imagine the calls that went out when the heads of the exclusive private school the Obama girls attend heard our President’s words:

“My children’s school was canceled today, because of what? Some ice. As my children pointed out, in Chicago school is never canceled.”

That’s the way to win friends and influence people, for sure.

I’m sure there was no malice aforethought in the Presidents jab, but even the lightest of touches from the big stick of the President of the United States of America will floor many, many people.

I’m afraid what will occur when he makes an off-hand comment regarding a foreign country or head of state.

Besides, Chicagoans herd their kids off to school every day regardless of the weather to give the kids plausible deniability when the parents are hauled into court on racketeering and corruption charges.

From CNN and Campbell Brown:

…we are again asking the President to explain why, exactly, that he announced, with great fanfare, new ethics rules if he had no intention of abiding by them.

Democrat leaders are often the first and loudest claiming the ethical and moral high ground.

I guess this is what happens when the high ground is defined by and populated with moral relativists.

The picture I get in my mind is all the righteous leaders of the Democrat party, Pelosi and Reid and Obama and all their entourage and Blagojevich, standing in a sea of muck and waste, drawing a circle around themselves with sidewalk chalk and claiming the land they stand on is high ground.

I should have spent more time in art class and turned that into a comic… Alas, I have not the skill. Just the dream

• Bush has gone into the trash can of history with a very black & shameful file full of treachery & killing -Ahmadinejad http://bit.ly/2gi2iE #
• just set up tweetdeck and found all the replies I’d not seen. Lovin’ it. #
• “Senate Defeats Pro-Life Amendment to Restore Mexico City Policy on Abortion” Lists Senators and their vote: http://bit.ly/1y50e1 #
• Looking for good/cheap linear PCM audio recorder to record piano improv and performance. Any knowledge out there? #
• #TCOT A “D” before their state is no excuse for supporting the Lard Pack. Keep it all up. #
• #TCOT Bart Stupak (D-MI) may be swingable. He helped with the amendment against Obamas ending Mexico City Policy #
• #TCOT Bart Stupak (D-MI) (202) 225 4735 Possibly conservative leaning #
• #TCOT Twitter CEO Evan Williams, formerly of Google, @ev will be able to tell if blocked from trends #
• RE Twitter trends ignoring #TCOT : Eric Williams @ev and Jack Dorsey @jack are Twitter leads #
• lard/population=$/person 800 000 000 000 / 303 824 640 = 2 633.10 per man/woman/child in America #
• lard/population=$/person 800 000 000 000 / 303 824 640 = 2 633.10 per man/woman/child in America #TCOT #HHRS #
• rt #TCOT re Not Trending Eric Williams @ev and Jack Dorsey @jack are in charge #
• #TCOT #hhrs looking for Illinois /Chicago conservative and ideologue. Relatively new to area, looking for perspective and opinion. Add me… #

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Ahmadinejad had harsh words for Obama’s predecessor: “Mr Bush has gone into the trash can of history with a very black and shameful file full of treachery and killings.”

“He left and, God willing, he will go to hell,” he added

and we want to be friends with this guy?

From the article “Iran tells U.S. to show change in policy not tactics”

• HF 57: photo ID must b supplied to voters at no cost for those lacking other forms of photo IDs. Require an ID to vote http://bit.ly/135IR #
• “In the middle of the night drive to the beach, arrive just as the sun rises. Have a breakfast picnic, and fall asleep” http://bit.ly/141UP #
• “bethany actually � Blog Archive � Make your own vanilla extract” http://bit.ly/aM4I #

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Soon, I hope to write an article about who I believe is the most dangerous person in the United States is . . . and it isn’t Obama. But, in the meantime, I want to leave everyone with a good article.

There are no personal attacks in this article and there are not screams at false promises. There are no presumptions. This article just makes a sincere point about civility in American politicians and our recent President’s failure to restore that success. The restoration of that civility would be a huge success for the President Obama.

Here is the article.

I do want to say though that I do not believe this success to be possible as long as people with the antagonistic mindset of the Democrat Leadership exist. This argument is not about the policies they stand for, but about the way they present and enforce their policies. Remember back to 2000. The Republicans were in charge of the world and what happened? They gave a number of their committee chairs to democratic counterparts. The move was not about beliefs, but about reaching across the isle to reach something together. This move was made with the understanding that the elected individuals, regardless of being republican or democrat, were elected by some group of people to represent that group of people. This new form of government (locking elected lawmakers out of policy meetings) does not stem from this belief. The current democratic leadership does not recognise that their republican colleagues due represent the electorate and that they are commissioned to form policy. No, all the democratic leadership recognizes is what they believe (regardless of what their specific electorate believes) is best for the country.

Let me present a quick example before I run. Many years ago, residents in conservative Woodland Ca were trying to organize a Gay Pride Parade. The city counsel held a hearing to discuss the parade and listen to the communities thoughts on the parade. Near by liberal Davis sent many of their citizens to pack the city hall and speak at the forum. The counsel wisely forbade them from speaking (though some of them still did) and heard only testimony from Woodland residents. The Woodland response was overwhelming. Over 90% of people speaking were against the Gay Pride initiative and those speakers presented surveys which showed that over 80% of Woodlanders opposed the parade. When the city counsel voted on the parade, most of them supported the public’s desires and voted against the parade. However, one member voted for the parade saying, we need to accept everyone (true) and celebrate our uniqueness (true) and become catch up with the rest of the world (you mean descend to). Despite the publics overwhelming opposition, the representative of the people voted against them. This, my friends, the mentality of the Democratic party leadership.