Ladies and Gentlemen! Allow me to show you one of the finest pieces of straight-up propaganda I have ever had the pleasure of reading! I give you the article from TIME: California’s Fiscal Crisis: The Legacy of Proposition 13.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599190493800

 

Today I stand in awe. I stand in awe of the sheer amount of crap that has been shoved into one article. I applaud the blatant disregard for fact. I feel like a circus ringmaster. Behold the lies! Marvel at the incongruities! Up is down! Right is wrong! It is Topsy-Turvey World! 

 

The financial crisis in California grew worse this week as State Controller John Chiang warned he would begin paying California‘s bills with IOUs on July 2. The last time the state did this was during the Great Depression. What has brought California to such a perilous state? How did its government become so wildly dysfunctional?

 

That is a great question. Why is California the most fiscally screwed up state in America? I’m excited to see what the wizards of TIME have to say on the subject.

 

One obvious cause is the deep recession that has caused tax revenues to plunge for all states. But California‘s woes have a set of deeper reasons: direct democracy run amok, timid governors, partisan gridlock and a flawed constitution all contribute to budget chaos and people in pain. And at the root of California‘s misery lies Proposition 13, the antitax measure that ignited the Reagan Revolution and the conservative era.

 

HA HA HA HA HA!  Oh… wait… you’re serious. For real? California is a financial cesspool because of conservatives? I didn’t know that there were any of my kind left there. I thought that after most of us moved to away, then you took the few that were left and put them in camps.

 

In Washington, the Reagan-Bush era is over. But in California, the conservative legacy lives on.

 

They’re for real.

 

Read the article. Put your thinking cap on, and go read it. I thought my head was going to explode. The basic gist is that California was an FDR inspired utopia of magic unicorns and rainbows, and then nasty conservatives came along, and said “well, we’d kind of like to keep some of the money we earn, and not give it all to the government” so then everything fell apart. The unicorns were personally hunted to extinction by Ronald Regan, who wore a mask made from human skin and an antlered helm while riding a fire-breathing dire wolf and he ground the rainbow under his spiked jack boots.

 

And only in the news media can Arnold Schwarzenegger be a conservative. I swear to almighty God I will personally scissor kick the first person that says that to my face in the throat.

 

California is almost as close to being a completely liberal state as there is. You’ve got a republican governor who would be a democrat anywhere else, like what, four state legislators that are republicans, then the fiscal conservatives are actual democrats from counties that aren’t insane, and even then, they’re outnumbered by five to one by socialists who call themselves democrats, and the rest is from La Raza.

 

Social Security is the lasting legacy of the New Deal era because F.D.R. understood that workers who contribute payroll-tax deductions from their paychecks would not want politicians tinkering with their retirement dollars. Conservatives have mounted assaults on Social Security through the years but to no avail.

 

I love that bit. Those nasty Conservatives keep picking on Social Security. We’re so mean. We should just leave it alone. It is just fine the way it is. Except for that whole thing where it is going to completely run out of money in a couple of years, and there are a lot more people getting benefits than there are working, and it will take the bedraggled remains of our economy and beat it over the head with a aluminum bat until it finally quits twitching and then we can descend into blood, madness, and chaos. That’ll be just peachy.

 

Listen, you friggin’ idiots. It is a Ponzi scheme. It is failing. We keep assaulting it, because it sucks, and will inevitably fail. Do the math. You morons keep propping it up as the problem gets bigger and bigger and bigger until it will eventually explode. But we’re the big meanies for wanting to deal with your asinine FDR crap now, before the web of lies collapses.

 

Oh, wait… Because of recent record government spending, too late. Sorry Grandma.  

 

Now Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger says there is no choice but to complete the demolition by slashing essential services.

 

Yep. The article then goes on to talk about how the programs being cut will be things like teachers and police and prisons… This is the same state that spends billions on bike lanes, billions on beach cleanup, billions on trail beatification, billions on wild animal protection, billions on parades for every race and sexual orientations that I couldn’t even come up with in my strangest imaginings, billions to prop up every picked-on ninnyhammer, billions to replace the homes of idiots who rebuild them on hills that fall down or catch on fire every single year, billions for studying the mating habits of harp seals, billions on every bit of nonsense you can possibly think of, for every pet project a legislator dreams up while huffing paint or snorting coke off a $1,000 an hour hooker’s cleavage.

 

And then multiply those billions to do the same thing, but for illegal aliens this time. Oh, wait, forgot that. Hmmm… I’m sure millions of people who don’t pay taxes, but use the schools, hospitals, services, make up a disproportionate amount of law enforcement’s business, and fill the prisons have absolutely nothing to do with the fiscal crisis.

 

California throws millions of dollars on big bonfires of crap, but don’t worry, they’re gonna fire the cops first, because that’s how they roll…

 

and the state aqueduct that carries water from the well-watered north to the parched south.

 

Let me tell you about the state aqueduct. I was born and raised in that well-watered north. Basically we were told to shut up. We could grow crops with dust for all they cared, because damn it, there were swimming pools to be filled in Los Angeles. Sure, San Joaquin Valley, you might be the breadbasket of the world and grow 1/8^th of America’s food, but we want to have green lawns in the suburbs!

 

I’m guessing that it hasn’t gotten anymore sensible since I fled with the other refugees either.

 

Oh, nope, it hasn’t. They’ve shut down huge pieces of the San Joaquin Valley to protect some stupid fish. Apparently growing food is bad for these fish. Hmm… I wonder why my home county has like the highest unemployment in the country right now… Must be from all that Conservative Legacy. I don’t even know what a smelt is.

 

South of Los Angeles at California State University, Fullerton, Nicole Muth, 22, has just finished her junior year with straight A’s. Muth grew up in Modesto with “lots of love but no money.” Raised by her aunt and uncle, she receives a Cal Grant of $4,500 a year. “It definitely helps,” says Muth, who credits the grant with allowing her to focus on her studies

 

That’s $4,500 dollars that came out of somebody’s pocket so that she could “focus on her studies”… And keep in mind, with how efficient California state government is, there were twenty state employees who processed her application and sent her a check.

 

It definitely helps. I bet it does. But why is that everybody else’s problem?

 

Hell, I grew up with no money and a little bit of love, and still I put my ass through college working thirty-five hours a week making $7.15 an hour. Don’t give me your friggin’ sob story. Modesto is forty minutes from my home town. I don’t care how poor you are. I don’t care if you had to live off of cockroaches and moss and wore clothing made out of newspapers and mice pelts. Your state is BROKE. So you don’t get any more money. Deal with it.

 

Modesto is also right down the road from where a few young children were pitchforked to death by a mad man, because California also requires you to keep your guns locked up. One more reason California gets the finger.

 

But Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a nonprofit advocacy group, says, “These are no longer cuts. These are amputations, and the question is, Which limb are we cutting off today?”  

 

I got an idea. How about the head?

 

Productive people have fled California en mass. We got tired of being bossed around, taxed to death, placed under the command of legions of petty bureaucrats, milked of our blood, sweat, and tears, and then left defenseless because you don’t even think we’re worthy to protect ourselves.

 

TIME, you disgust me. You are a pathetic shadow of a news organization. Your propaganda isn’t even clever anymore. How stupid do you think America is?

 

Smart enough to move out of California apparently.

After posting about how much Megan Fox sucks and wants ya’ll to just die already, my buddy Rabbit sent me this. It pretty much sums up Michael Bay’s awesome style.  Warning, Mr. Bay’s doodles may not be work safe if you are a nun or teach 4th grade or lower.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/transformers-2-michael-bays-rejected-script/

That said, if Michael Bay showed up on my doorstep and said here is a giant sack of money with a dollar sign on it, and I want to buy the rights to one of your books, my “artistic integrity” can go to hell. I’m taking the money. I can always write more books.

 Marko at Munckin Wrangler has just posted a sample chapter of his military-SF novel.  I read it over lunch. This looks like a really promising work. Marko’s got a great voice, and he’s one of the more intelligent folks on the interwebs, so I’m looking forward to this.

http://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/a-free-sampling-of-the-wares/#comment-16393

http://www.worstpreviews.com/headline.php?id=13818 

“TotalFilm recently interviewed the actress and asked her how she would stop the villainous Megatron from demolishing the planet. Fox first said that she would “make a deal with him,” adding: “and instead of the entire planet, can you just take out all of the white trash, hillbilly, anti-gay, super bible-beating people in Middle America?”

I guess Fox is not too worried about losing acting gigs due to her comments. She previously stated that she will keep getting cast in movies and doesn’t need to be a good actress, because Hollywood is superficial and she happens to be good-looking.”

Wow. All I can say is, girl, save your money. Invest wisely, because nobody is ever going to hire you for your brains or your talent, and that body will only last so long.

I’ll admit, I enjoyed the first Transformers. Giant Robots Fight, enough said. Then I watched it again recently with my son for his birthday on DVD. I realized that like most Michael Bay big explosion movies, the human interaction in between the action scenes are rather painful.  Really, how many of us have this on DVD, and don’t skip most of the scenes? Hmm… humans, humans, humans, ahh giant robots! Play!

For example, listen to the dialog of the soldiers in the opening bit aboard the V22 Osprey. Hey, let’s throw some stereotypes together! “I can’t wait to get back to Fenway and eat a hotdog. Not me, I’m the handsome white guy, and I so dearly miss my baby. Whoo Wee I gots to eat me some aligator! Yee Haw!” 

Then you’ve got the whole asinine family interactions, and scenes that go on far too long. Look, we don’t care. Make the giant robots fight.  I don’t care about your stupid dog. I don’t care about your homework. I don’t care that Shia is a horny teenager. Whatever. Make the giant robots FIGHT already!

Then you’ve got the Anthony Anderson character… because remember, it is us despised middle-Americans that are racist. Not Hollywood… They’d never perpetuate a negative stereotype… “Grandma don’t like no PO-Leese in the house! I done ate up all them doughnuts ’cause now they know I ain’t guilty!” Then he immediatly betrays his friend. “Ooooh, I done ate me too many of dem doughnuts!”   

And back to our brain-surgeon, Megan Fox? She was the worst.  Many people liked Megan Fox in the first move as eye candy, despite the fact that she can’t act, and her delivery is so wooden that it made the 1980s Transformer’s cartoons look like Masterpiece Theater. Yes, she is hot, in a sleazy, Kid Rock video kind of way. I find it ironic that she’s bashing us middle-Americans as white trash hillbillys, when she looks strangely like the meth-fried village-bicycles I saw in various Alabama trailer parks. Look, if I wanted to watch a no-talent hack who was just easy on the eyes, I’d rent porn, and then I wouldn’t have to suffer through her trying to string coherant sentances together either.  

I did like the heroic Donald Rumsfeld character, you got me there.

So now we’ve got Transformers 2. I’ll skip the theater, just because now that I’m aware of how much the dialog is going to drag, and the newness of the giant robots is gone. I’ll just watch it on DVD so I can skip the insipid humans, and the dreck that passes for story, and go right to Optimus Prime hitting things.  And I’ll make sure I borrow the DVD or get a bootleg, because sorry, Megan, you dimwit, you aren’t getting a dime of my white-trash hillybilly bible-thumping money.

So there has been some discussion about pushing through this new 1200+ page law that no one has read, that will take our already weakened economy and kneecap it with a baseball bat, all in order to stop global warming.

Wow.

Does this actually make sense to any normal person? Does anyone in America who isn’t a complete idiot think this is a good idea? It is just one more power grab mega-tax, and even if you believe in the global warming/climate change stuff, it won’t work because our industry will scale down, and China, India, and Brazil, who couldn’t possibly care less about the environment, will pick up our slack.

So nothing will change in the enviornment, except that maybe Americans won’t consume so much… because we’ll all be too POOR! 

Barack thinks he’s FDR, and sure enough, just like FDR, he’s going to take an economic downturn that should have been over in a few years and make it last a decade. However, Barack is reaching for the stars. He’s making FDR look like a piker. FDR only dreamed of controlling 2/3 of the domestic auto industry, the insurance industry, and the finances. So, if we continue our FDR train to its historical conclusion, then I’m excited to see what kind of epic war Barack gets us into that could have been avoided if only we’d exercised a little preventive maintenance.  (I’m still hoping the Brit’s get a Churchill again, fingers crossed).

I was having a conversation with someone last night who thinks Barack is doing an okay job. I asked how he figured, when you looked at our out of control government spending, that was going to wreck the dollar, and enslave our children to eternal debt. He responded that George Bush was bad too. Okay, a given, but just because the previous guy sucked doesn’t excuse doing the exact same thing only multiplied by four times in one eighth of the time, and then it is okay. So he said what was more important was that Barack gave us Hope, and that the economy doesn’t matter anyway, (and he was totally serious) because something terrible is going to come along and reboot everything, like a plague, or a big meteor, or a nuclear terrorist attack…

So… if I’ve got this right, putting my Finance Manager hat on, your economic exit strategy is to spend your way into a hole, and then to pray for death? Hmmm… That sounds about right. 

And while we’re looking at this 1200 page Boost the Chinese Manufacturing Industry Bill, they’re ramping up for government sponsored health care. Yay.  The only thing the government is even half efficient at is the military, and anybody who’s worked with it knows that things get done there despite the bureacracy and not because of it, so now we’re going to take 1/7th of our economy, and our health, and our very lives, and turn it over to the same douchebags who brought us Polar Bear protection and Bullet Trains from Vegas to Disneyland.   Oh, this is going to go so very well.

At least now all those uppity Canadians who talk about how friggin’ wonderful socialized medicine is, but then come over the border to get surgery here before they die while waiting in a government que, can now just shut the hell up and die like the rest of us.