Horses and Bayonets

I find it mind-boggling how many people get their political analysis from CNN without ever actually viewing the footage or reading any of the transcripts on whatever this media outlet’s incomparably inept journalists comment on. I don't take anyone's opinion on politics at face value, especially views that are held by CNN correspondents.

The reporters at CNN might pretend to meticulously scrutinise the presidential debate, and make shrewd, snippy notes of their observations, but then they sit on their glittery soundstage and deliberate for hours and hours and hours about the most inane drivel and discuss, at great length, just how stupendously amazing and sparkly the democratic candidate was, regardless of how that candidate performed.

This is called left wing bias and most of the media are guilty as charged. Spin it until it fits their narrative, which is to keep democrats in power in the White House.  No-one knows why the majority of the mainstream media are left wing.  It's all just a big mystery.

They want Barack Obama to stay in the top job, and they want Mitt Romney to go far, far away, and take his pesky logic, common sense and economic credentials with him. How the hell is a bungling incumbent president supposed to maintain the top gig if there is someone who is actually qualified for the job challenging him?

CNN are always, always, always on the Democrat's side, and they spend the rest of their time demonising Republicans.  This doesn’t change.  Ever.  They don't do balance.  There is no neutrality and there never will be.  If you are neutral at CNN you will be fired by the network by the end of the day.

But who cares, you say.  Well it matters, because there are a lot of people out there who only tune into  this stupid media outlet during election time and don't appreciate how the media influence the public agenda. And let's be clear; CNN tell you what to think. So don't let them hoodwink you; read the transcript and watch the debate for yourself.  Think for yourself.  CNN have an agenda and they want you to buy into it and vote appropriately.

And despite endless harping on about wanting the truth from their presidential candidates, many of the electorate really don't care that much about fact checking, and just take Obama’s side for reasons I cannot fathom.

Exhibit A. During the last Presidential Debate, incumbent Barack Obama mocked his opponent, Mitt Romney:

"You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed."

This 'horses and bayonets' exchange generated 105,000 tweets per minute on the debate hashtag. Why do people take Obama's word at face value, but think Mitt Romney lies through his teeth? This drives me crazy, because it's a fallacy. We know that Obama either was either fairly liberal with the truth in regards to this exchange, or, as Commander-in-Chief, he is hopelessly out of touch with the Defence Forces. How do we know this?

It turns out the marines use bayonets quite a bit, and horses are used to get around Afghanistan, as they are one of the easiest forms of transportation. I guess Obama's not as in touch with his military as he likes to proclaim. Although focusing on such a trivial point shows that Obama was a little desperate as he tried to deflect attention from the deaths in Benghazi in the foreign policy debate and any kind of questions whatsoever to do with the economy.

A fairly irritating history of August

It is rather telling that on the first day of August, President Obama plopped himself into the international news via a potential, monumental economical epic fail that was sort of narrowly avoided but could have been completely avoided if only he weren't from the hapless Democratic Party and was capable of behaving like a proper President. Or alternatively, if only he were more like Augustus, the first emperor of the Roman Empire, or Lord Voldermort, the Dark Wizard / Raging Psychopath. 

It's hard to keep track of all the monikers of Augustus, because he changed his name more times than Facebook would ever have allowed.  But Augustus must have been his fave because the month of 'Sextilis' was renamed August in his honour in 8 BC, after he picked this particular month because it was the time of several of his great triumphs in his rise to power, including the conquest of Egypt and when he killed Lily Potter. Perhaps the Obama Messiah will now rename August in his honour; now that he has saved the U.S. economy from being swallowed by Death Eaters. 



Poor Augustus didn't get a salad
named after him. But he got the month
of August, so he no complain.

Similar to the Obama Messiah and Voldermort, Mr Augustus held a collection of powers that were granted to him for life by the Senate, including those of tribune of the plebs and censor, and the intellectual property rights for use of the Killing Curse as a threat. His magical powers stemmed from financial success, ability to apparate out of awkward press conferences, resources gained in conquest, the building of relationships with dodgy, decrepit nation states throughout the Empire, the loyalty of many military soldiers and veterans, and the respect of the muggles, believe it or not.



Although the most powerful individual in the Roman Empire, Augustus wished to embody the spirit of the average muggle's virtues and norms, so he tried to relate to them and pretended to connect with their pathetic little concerns. He did this by throwing good money after bad, pretending to cut back on lavish excess and banning Twitter tweets that use the wrong version of there/their/they’re and you’re/your.  He didn't even have to pretend about the last thing - he hated it for real.    



In 28 BC, in an attempt to appear frugal and modest and ghetto, he generously decided to melt down 80 silver statues erected in his likeness that he had built because he was "born this way" and everyone needed to know it. And in 29 BC, Augustus paid 400 sesterces each to 250,000 citizens, turned bad romans into Horcruxes and raised the debt ceiling so he could keep buying spears and whores whilst looking like the savvy shopper.



The good news is that Augustus eventually died. The bad news is that his reign laid the foundations of a regime that lasted for nearly fifteen hundred years. And this is why they have four-year terms in the United States.

I heart NASA

On July 8, NASA's Atlantis zoomed up into outer space for the last mission in the cash hungry space program, creating an atomic-sized plume of rocketship pollution and producing a deafening racket through highly technical noise generating equipment that blew the crap out of anything resembling an eardrum that happened to be within a few miles radius of the launchpad.  In a nutshell, rockets are cool. 

Barack Obama decided to axe the 40-year-old space program because it was gnawing away at funds that he preferred to spend on useless government programs that did nothing but create more bureaucracy, more socialism and more welfare dependent citizens.  The U.S. spends about US$2.2 trillion on health care every year, with about US$1 trillion of that being squandered through wasteful practices in urgent need of reform. 

The U.S. space program has devoured US$196 billion over the years (around US$450 million per mission), but it is, without a doubt, one of the best things to come out of the United States.  You could almost forgive the U.S. for giving the world Paris Hilton, the Kardashians and other rampant trashbags, because they had cool space shuttles.  Well not anymore they don't. 

Apparently the 9,000 or so folk who work at NASA are out of a job tomorrow, so they'll be packing up their kevlar reinforced deskspaces and taking their plastic rocket booster stress balls and heading off to the local employment agency that specialises in genius rocket scientists, astronauts and world class aeronautical engineers.  Something tells me they'll be okay.  The Russian space program is about to skyrocket (boom boom).

Since they blasted the Atlantis out into the great whoop whoop earlier this month, NASA have been running a real-time stream from their Mission Control Centre in Houston, the nerve centre of all things NASA, where one can watch those crazy command centre kids racing about with toy rocket ships above their head, surfing Google and Facebook, and spending hours upon hours chatting to their fellow aeroengineering geek colleagues about all things rockety. 

Oh wait, that's my workplace; except without the rocket scientists and toy space shuttles and talk of sonic booms.  All you see on the NASA live stream is a bunch of very serious looking middle-age men doing actual WORK; or at least it looks like work because they have many serious looking screens with lots of serious looking graphs and mapping data on them.  Maybe, like any true public servant, they know how to look busy.

On this occasion, Atlantis' mission was simple; deliver a years worth of supplies to the International Space Station.  So basically they were just the delivery boys (and girl) of several tonnes of food and vodka that will tide the Battlestar Gallactica crew over until the Russians come for them.  

I don't know what the big woop is with astronauts.  Just minutes before she landed, the Atlantis was travelling ten times the speed of sound, which is actually slower than the speed most people do down Canberra’s Tuggeranong Parkway during the morning peakhour. 

All of NASAs shuttles (except the two that blew up) will be placed on eBay under reusable space vehicles, if you are in the market for one.  Which you might be.  I'm not judging, I just think perhaps you should try and fit it into your garage before you buy.  Because there are no refunds.  Barack Obama doesn't do refunds. 

Another version of the truth that is actually true is that the shuttles are heading to a museum to become oversized dustcatchers.  Very sad state of affairs.  It's high time we got a Republican back in the White House, before this idiot dismantles anything else that has inspired generations.

Things that annoy the shit...

Who are these people who walk around on their lunch break playing with their mobile phones? If you can't go for a walk without getting bored then you have a PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM. If you are trying to look busy and important and relevant - let me assure you that truly busy and important and relevant people have no time for mobile phones and will have their staff answer their phone messages and update all their social media accounts. Just look to the Queen for proof.

Plus everyone knows that public servants are anything but busy, important and relevant. The Obama Messiah apparently updates his own Twitter page, but that's just so he can pretend to be one of the people, while fully maintaining his distance from the people. I think we should have a National Walk like a Person Attached to their Mobile Phone Day, just so these douche bags can experience how truly annoying it is to encounter them in a shopping centre.

Grounded tigers, axed newspapers, rocket ships for sale

Please put up your hand if you have any actual certified training to fly an aeroplane. Games arcades do not count as credible training programs. Neither does any previous experience working for Tiger Airways.

Poor Tiger was clipped over the wings last week by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), the body that oversees all things that fly in a civil fashion in Australian skies (except birds obviously), when CASA demanded DEMANDED! that Tiger ground all their planes.

CASA were a little miffed when they discovered that Tiger pilots do not really know how to fly planes properly. Which is actually kind of funny. Honestly, how can any airline possibly live up to CASAs safety standards?  That Flight Centre pilot is probably shaking in his boots because I don't think he even has a cardboard licence.

I wonder if the pilot of that French airliner that spun the other midget plane at JFK airport in New York earlier this year has ever worked for Tiger. Actually, it is just so typical of the French to barge through oncoming traffic and smack right into another plane that just happens to be sitting in their way. Didn’t even stop to exchange insurance information, which the pilot would have probably just pulled out of a ham and cheese baguette in lieu of a cereal packet.

Speaking of people who cannot do their jobs in a manner that is not, you know, legal in the eyes of the law...

The staff left standing at the News of the World who were not involved in the phone hacks of the world scandal are complaining that their employer's key headline-chasing workplace guideline, that being tampering and sticking one's nose into the personal phone records of people in the news, has made them lose all credibility.

Well, I’m not sure they BEGAN with any credibility; such was their choice to work for a newspaper that contains page three girls, and thinks important breaking news is covering the sex romps of English footballers. Perhaps these journalists (italicised for the purposes of sarcasm) could have fixed their credibility issue by working for a CREDIBLE newspaper.  Actually, probably not.  Maybe if they left the media industry altogether things would perk up for them.

Speaking of things being grounded and axed, NASAs Atlantis shuttle took off this week for the U.S. space program's final flight, after the Obama Messiah thought it a good idea to wrap-up one of the few good things to have come out of the United States.

All those young kids (who aren’t stoned) who stare at the night sky for hours, with dreams of being an astronaut, will just have to get a boring government job like the rest of us. Alternatively, they could get a gig at Tiger Airways.

Watching the take-off yesterday, it occurred to me that I didn’t know how space shuttles come back down to earth.  Well I imagined they didn't just hit the brakes at that speed because they’d likely burn up into oblivion on re-entry. So I ventured out into the great outer space of Wikipedia to suss it out:

The vehicle re-enters the atmosphere by firing the Orbital maneuvering system engines, while flying upside down, backside first, in the opposite direction to orbital motion for approximately three minutes, which reduces the shuttle's velocity by about 200 mph (322 km/h)... the shuttle then flips over, by pushing its nose down (which is actually "up" relative to the Earth, because it is flying upside down).

The vehicle then performs a series of four steep S-shaped banking turns, each lasting several minutes... in this way it dissipates speed sideways rather than upwards. This occurs during the 'hottest' phase of re-entry, when the heat-shield glows red and the G-forces are at their highest. By the end of the last turn, the transition to aircraft is almost complete. The vehicle levels its wings, lowers its nose into a shallow dive and begins its approach to the landing site.

That is friggin’ mad!  But I bet they can't parallel park.

Jack Bauer - fighting tyranny since 2001

I'd just like to say that, despite the fact that he is fictional, Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland, is awesome. Jack spent his television career fighting off all sorts of devilish criminals, from Islamic fundamentalists to Mexican drug lords to loose cannon, poker-playing Chechen militants with bad accents.

But by far, Jack's biggest opponents were often the left wing governments he worked for. Jack's show, '24', was produced by the Fox Network, traditionally a conservative news outlet, meaning they produce news that is fair and balanced, unlike CNN, who don't care terribly for facts and truth. And '24' was a pretty accurate summary of the international political environment - where the only way to deal with international terrorists is generally through a process of force and torture. Anyone who says this violates the human rights of terrorists needs to know this: you are an idiot.

Jack knew that terrorists aren't big on sitting around a table with a U.N. panel to discuss a fair and appropriate solution to their disagreements. Because a fair solution usually means the terrorists have to cede some of the power that they misuse, and start treating people with respect and dignity and stop using them for target practice, as human shields and for suicide missions. Terrorists much prefer blowing up the negotiating table, as Jack discovered in seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.

But instead of fighting the bad guys, Jack had to spend alot of his time trying to convince one stupid democratic president after another that his way was best. And of course, the Democrats always agreed that Jack's way was best AFTER the deaths of hundreds of people.

I really have no idea why the American people vote for Democrats to run the country in the first place. George Bush spent the first few years of his first term cleaning up the mess that Bill Clinton could have prevented while he was in office. In the 90s, Clinton was offered Osama Bin Laden's head on a platter by Sudan. He could have locked up the mass murderer and tossed away the key, but he didn't want to look like he was racially profiling, plus he was far too busy having sex in the oval office to worry about international terrorism.

'24' was axed in 2010, midway through it's 8th season. Fox believed the new producers were veering too far away from Jack's character, and because their stupid storylines involved Jack heading out to have tea and cookies with Islamic imans to apologise for offending them while he was defending the United States from destruction at the hands of their followers.