Rustling through the news and the talking-head programs has been the story of comments made by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in an interview with the Al Jazeera news network. The reports I heard stated that he said “his ‘foremost’ mission as the head of America’s space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.”

That seemed like a pretty stupid thing for the head of the United States space agency to consider as any part of his mission, but last night I actually heard the audio of his comments. The way it has been reported really does not capture the true essence of his comments. His actual words were, “When I became the NASA administrator — or before I became the NASA administrator — he [President Obama] charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science … and math and engineering.”

As far as I’m concerned, his actual words have nothing to do with improving relations with the Muslim world. In fact, if I were a Muslim I would be greatly insulted by his actual words. My reaction would be, “Who the hell do you think you are to suggest that as Muslims we are not proud of our historic contribution to science, math and engineering? You are going to help us feel good? Stick it up your ass, you pompous windbag!” Hell, I’m not a Muslim and that is still my reaction.

No one should be surprised by this kind of thinking from the Obama administration. It falls right in line with their elitist attitude that they know what is best for everyone and that anyone who thinks any other way is beneath their contempt. I guess it’s not just the citizens of the United States who are expected to bow down and worship his eminence, Lord Obama; now the Muslim world is also to thank His Holiness for making them feel good about their own culture.

Americans don’t much like people who consider themselves to be superior to the “unwashed masses.” You really have to wonder how Obama has gotten away with it so long. I hope that the answer isn’t that the majority of people in the U.S. really are capable of being hoodwinked by a smile and the ability to read off of a teleprompter. I have to admit that my hope appears not be well founded.

Happy Fourth of July to all my fellow American citizens!

While I hope you all have a fun day today, I also hope you take a moment to appreciate the freedoms we enjoy in this country, thanks to the actions of some very brave men two hundred and thirty-four years ago. And remember, you have inherited their fight! Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom – do not fail our founders!

I’ve been reading quite a bit of history lately, in particular U.S. history. Quite honestly, it’s depressing. It all reinforces that fact that while circumstances may change, people never do. The struggle between individual freedom and government control is an ongoing battle, and the origins of that battle, while refocused at the time of the American Revolution, go back to the beginning of human civilization.

What is humorous to me, in a darkly satirical manner, is the belief that many people hold that human beings are perfectible. Those people believe that if they create enough of the right laws, all people will fall into line and create the ideal society. Everyone will devote their efforts towards the equality of the whole. Self-interest will be sacrificed for “the greater good.” History proves this is never so, and human nature reinforces the fact that it will never be so.

It is obvious that the greatest failures of government come about through influence. Whenever someone, or some business, has a “friend” in government or is employed within that government, it is inevitable that he will profit from the actions of the government. Exceptions to this are so rare as to almost be fairy tales. The more the government tries to control such profiteering, the more pervasive it becomes. The only thing such efforts to change do is change the players, or make it more profitable for lawyers (and aren’t all politicians lawyers?) to find the new, legal paths to take advantage of the new legislation.

There will never be a perfect human society. The best that we can expect in a government is one that protects the rights of people to their property and their lives, and little more. Give government any more power than that and the little guy with no pull loses. If you want to succeed, you have to figure out how to meet the right people and gain the right influence. Hard work means diddlysquat if you don’t have an “in,” and it means even less when your competition has that “in.”

It’s like the old saying – if you like eating sausage, don’t watch how it is made. Unfortunately, you don’t have a choice with government. No matter where you live, you are going to deal with a government, like it or not. There is another old saying – follow the money. If there is a law, look to see who profits, because it is an almost 100% guarantee that someone does, and it is usually not you.

At this time, the most palatable sausage for me is the U.S. government, even if it does make me puke now and then. I guess that’s not saying much, but it’s all I have. Maybe that’s why I can’t stand writing about all the shit that keeps going on in our government. It just makes you want to give up, but as I said at the beginning, the more things change, the more they stay the same, and if you want to stay alive you just have to deal with it. Just bring your puke bucket with you.

The problem with blogging about current events is that you know damn well that all you are doing is flapping your gums, er, fingers, to no avail. You are not going to change anyone’s mind and, most likely, no one else is going to change yours. And yet, we persist, which is why I have to write this post.

Felipe Calderon, you are a two-faced, political snake. Then again, most politicians are, otherwise they wouldn’t be in office. Still, it takes a special kind of disingenuousness for the President of Mexico to complain about the United States’ immigration policies (among other things).

Cut the crap about looking out for “your people” living in the United States and just tell the truth that is blatantly obvious to all of us. You do not want the tide of illegal immigrants coming into our country to stop because your country could not survive without that.

I know that this has been covered a million times in a million different places, so there isn’t much point in repeating it all, but I feel compelled to do a little of that anyways. First, the tons of money that the illegal immigrants send “home” is what keeps your country afloat. If you didn’t have that influx of American dollars your government would be toast. Secondly, if all those illegal immigrants had to stay in Mexico not only would you miss those American funds, but you would have a vastly larger population requiring all the social services that they are getting in the United States “for free.” Since you would not have the funding to support them, you would not be able to stay in power without oppressing political dissent, of which I do not doubt you are capable.

Give me a break on your opinions on our laws regarding illegal immigration. How about we change our laws to be as draconian as those of Mexico? Would that make you happy? I didn’t think so.

And knock off that crap about wanting to have the United States re-enact the “assault weapons” ban. Once again, I can only assume that you know the truth and that you are lying through your teeth to cover your own sorry ass. The weapons the drug cartels are using in Mexico are not coming from the United States, or at least only a very small percentage of them are. Those that are, are NOT assault weapons. Most of the weapons the drug cartels are using are not legal in the States and cannot be sold here. Look to your southern neighbors for the source of those weapons, or overseas. They ain’t coming from here. Drug money can buy a lot of whatever the drug dealers want to buy, and until that situation is resolved, you could ban every gun in the United States and it would have zero effect on the problem in your country.

Lastly, why don’t you keep your nose in your own country’s business instead of ours? I acknowledge that you and your predecessor have made some progress in combating the pervasive corruption in your government, but you’ve got a long way to go, baby. Clean up your own house; then maybe we might think you have something valuable to say about ours. Until then, keep your sticky fingers out of our business.

A side note about the sad incident in the Chatham neighborhood of Chicago (see previous post). Apparently, while an Illinois State Trooper was accompanying the ambulance carrying the mortally wounded police officer to the hospital, he t-boned a car crossing the street. He had his emergency lights on, but the three women in the car were a “little confused” about the traffic stop and the driver was trying to get around the traffic closure. Fortunately the officer was not hurt and the three women only received non-life threatening injuries.

However, the driver, a 25-year-old woman from Chicago, was issued citations for failing to reduce speed, failing to yield to an emergency vehicle and no valid driver’s license. Damn, I’m sick of this. I don’t know how many people are driving around Illinois without a driver’s license, but I know there are a lot of them, and this includes people driving on suspended licenses. Throw in the number of people driving without insurance and you have a real public safety problem. I don’t have an answer on how to solve this, but maybe there should be more serious consequences for driving without a license. A couple of weeks in jail might straighten those idiots out, though I doubt it.

How about it, Mayor Daley? Is the City of Chicago going to press charges against the man in the Chatham neighborhood who shot and killed one man and wounded another? He obviously owned, possessed and used a handgun in Chicago, all of which are against the law. Or are there, perhaps, reasons not to do so?

How about the fact that the man, a retired police officer, was coming to the aid of his son who was being attacked by three punks trying to rip off his motorcycle? Perhaps retired police officers are allowed to retain their firearms? How about the fact that his son was a current Chicago police officer and a veteran who had recently returned from two tours of duty in Iraq? Or maybe, quite simply, that the man did nothing wrong other than defend his life and that of his son, in spite of your stupid laws?

Unfortunately, the punks committing the crime were armed, though why they would be in Chicago where it is against the law must surely be a mystery to Mayor Daley. They didn’t hesitate to use their weapon (or weapons?) and they shot the young police officer in the head, killing him. I don’t know if the police officer who was killed was armed. He was not on duty at the time but I believe that Chicago police officers can carry a weapon while off-duty. If he was armed, perhaps he didn’t have time to react to the attack. More likely, he didn’t think that the streets that he grew up on in Chicago would be more dangerous for him than the battlefields of Iraq.

It’s a damn shame this young man lost his life. It’s a damn shame that only one of his three attackers wound up in the morgue. And it’s a damn shame that Mayor Daley insists that the people of Chicago not be allowed to own the means to protect themselves. Work on stopping the crimes, Mr. Mayor, and let the people have the means to defend themselves. As hard as the Chicago police work to control the violence, they cannot be everywhere all the time, and each individual citizen is their own first line of defense.

Common sense? Not in Chicago.

I’m not sure why I am reacting this way. After all, every episode of Family Guy is an insult to someone or something. It’s just that I generally find irreverence to be acceptable, and even enjoyable, social commentary, even when it gores some of my own personal beliefs. Perhaps that’s the problem I have with the Brian and Stewie episode; there is no redeeming value to it, unless you want to call rubbing peoples’ noses in poo “social commentary.”

Somehow I can’t see the logic of using such weak material for the 150th episode, not to mention stretching such dreck longer than the normal half-hour program length. Calling the material “weak” is actually a bit too kind. I should call it childish, immature, sophomoric and disgusting, but that defines a lot of the episodes. Instead, what I think is that everyone involved with Family Guy was rolling on the floor laughing as the episode spilled out across the airwaves. They knew that they had finally managed to completely insult every viewer and still got them to watch this wretched episode. Just goes to show that even I can be suckered. My humility has been restored.

Good grief! Something is wrong with this picture. I just received a new 8GB Toshiba USB flash drive that Amazon was offering for only $14.99 as a “Lightning Deal,” and a good deal it is. Picking up the sealed, plastic package that everything seems to come in today – and that you need a chainsaw, hardhat with face shield, and cut-proof gloves to open – it felt awfully heavy for a thumb drive. Hmm, seems awfully thick, too.

Well, no wonder. Inside the package, besides the drive and packaging copy, are four – count ‘em, four! – folded, multi-page tomes, one of which is a user guide and the other three being warranties. Being a detail-oriented kind of guy, I just stacked, compressed and measured them; they are 3/16” thick, more than half as thick as the flash drive itself.

Having once been in printing, I bet the stupid flash drive probably cost less to produce than the packaging, including literature. I guess I can understand the user guide if someone has never in his life used a USB flash drive, but three massive warranties? Like I am going to bother sending a fifteen dollar flash drive anywhere to get it replaced if it goes bad. It would cost me more than that in packaging, shipping and aggravation than it would to just order a new one.

I guess I can understand it in this age of legal “gotcha”-ism. After all, most of the warranty stuff is explaining how they are not liable for the loss of any data you stored on the flash drive. I guess they have to allow for idiots who think all data storage devices are 100% reliable, 100% of the time. Still, it speaks volumes about the ridiculous lengths to which manufacturers must go today to protect themselves. In the end, all it does is drive up the price of things. Oh well, what else is new? Kind of reminds you of “defensive medicine,” doesn’t it?

I am sick . . SICK . . SICK to death of Mayor Daley constantly singing his one-note song that it is the availability of firearms that is the principle cause of gang violence in Chicago. He was at it again today after another outbreak in gang violence.

I know that he is not a stupid man, but he has clearly lost his mind about this issue. He is so blinded by his anti-gun passion that he doesn’t even recognize the truth in his own words –

“They [the gangbangers] feel that that gun is bigger than the police badge, that gun is bigger than the police gun.  That’s how they feel.  And they don’t fear the criminal justice system.  They don’t fear the federal government.  They don’t fear the state system.  They don’t fear at all.  They don’t!”  (as reported by Bill Cameron, WLS News)

Well, duh, and double-duh!! Do you not understand the contradiction between your words and your desire for more gun control? Let me spell it out for you simply – the gangbangers do not obey the law – period. So what the hell good would any new laws be in stopping gang violence? NONE!!

Gang members are already breaking a great, big pile of laws. They don’t give a rat’s ass about your stupid gun laws. Putting more on the books only hurts those who need and want to protect themselves from the gangbangers.

Please, Mayor Daley, shut your mouth about more gun laws until such time that your Chicago police figure out a way to stop the people committing the violence. Believe me, you are not going to find a gun on the street shooting itself – it will be in a gangbanger’s hand! Concentrate your efforts on the people and the shooting will stop. It is so much easier, isn’t it Mr. Mayor, to blame the lack of gun control laws for gang violence than to admit your administration’s inability to do anything about it?

Hitting the news has been the story about a group called the Hutaree militia, presumably a “Christian Militia.” This small group is alleged to have been plotting to kill a police officer and then bomb the funeral service in order to kill many more. Assuming that there was an imminent risk to the public, the “federal authorities” stepped in and indicted nine members of the group, eight of whom have been arrested as of this moment, with the ninth being a fugitive.

The host on the talk radio station I was listening to this morning was asking people if anyone could explain the rationale of groups like this that advocate violence against the government. I could not help but think, “You’re asking the wrong people!” The people you should be asking are the friends of Barack Obama, like Bill Ayers, who openly advocated and participated in physical violence against the government and to this day does not regret what he did. They are the people who really understand the psychology of people who join groups like this.

I’m certainly glad that the government is keeping tabs on all terrorists, including the “home-grown” variety. I do not support, in any fashion, any group that proposes violence as the answer to their dissatisfaction with our government. There are rational, legal, and moral ways to create change. Indeed, way back in my college days in 1968 I was a lone voice saying the same thing about all the demonstrations and student strikes taking place on my campus. Of course, no one would listen to what I considered to be my words of reason then, and I doubt anyone will listen now – neither the radical right nor the radical left.

I have to admit that the timing of these indictments against the members of this group is interesting. Certainly if there was an imminent threat, it was warranted. However, given all the distress with which the Democrats reacted to a few threats of violence after the vote on the health care reform bill, one wonders if there was an increased urgency to bring groups such as the Hutaree to the attention of the public. It would be a logical step in an attempt to paint everyone who disagrees with the efforts of the Democrats as wacko right-wingers, giving the government reason to investigate such peaceful, legal groups as the tea-baggers. Perhaps, even, to be used as an argument for the curtailment of free speech. I’m just saying . . . but maybe not for long?