Oh. My. God.

I think hell may have just frozen over. I actually agree with Pat Buchanan!

Writing at Worldnet Daily, Mr. Buchanan lays out his arguments as to why the Obama administration's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and several of his co-conspirators is such stunning lunacy.

To me the money quote in the article is "It is possible that we have done an injustice to this man, keeping him locked up for all these years, without a trial. But that is what a trial implies...that he may not be guilty."

And why have the trial in New York City, of all places?? If the people of NYC are not still suffering from 9/11 PTSD, the traffic problems caused by the sheer amount of security necessary to guard such a trial will snarl traffic in Manhattan to the point of bringing it to gridlock. Any first year law student would know to ask for a change of venue. But seriously....where is a guy like KSM gonna get a jury of his peers in the US? And if he does, would maybe one of them be anti death penalty, or even a muslim who won't convict him, no matter what he did for fear of retaliation in the community? Puleeze.

What if, as Buchanan points out, some whacko decides to take a stab at the Great Satan and blow up a car in Manhattan? Again?! This shows the utter cluelessness of the Obama administration, and makes using Air Force One for a photo op above the city look like a kindergarten prank. This is the mother of all dark practical jokes. What if he gets off? What then? Why take that risk?

What are these maroons thinking and do they have America's best interests at heart?

The Fatal Flaw of Socialism

Two of my long list of favorite blogs to read are Bookworm Room, and The American Thinker. They are both prolific blogs and the content changes frequently, so for a junkie like me, it's a no brainer. The opinions offered on both also closely reflect the conclusions I've come to about life in my own experience as well. Although Bookworm Room is a blog mainly written by one woman, American Thinker is a collection of essays from many contributors.

Nevertheless, Bookworm Room had a post today that referenced a particular essay by Joe Herring, published at The American Thinker. Joe relates his experience with a young co-worker who seemed to understand the intent of Socialism, but was never educated on the consequences and the natural outcome of such regressive social constructs as communism, socialism, progressiveism and collectiveism. He quotes 20th century economist Fredrich Von Hayek's prophetic pamphlet "The Road to Serfdom.

To paraphrase the essay, Socialism requires that everybody "play nice," according to the rules. Unfortunately, Man is a perverse creature and there will be some who will never play by the rules, for one reason or another. Perhaps the joy of just going against the majority, or because they just want to be left alone. The natural progression of what happens to the dissenters, rolls down the slippery slope from re-education to elimination.

I agree with him when he says that we must inform our friends, our neighbors and anybody else who will listen that this is a failed ideology, and will never work because there is no "right" way to do it. Socialism is critically flawed because it does not take the perverse nature of Man into consideration and it demands the rigid adherence of all who live under it for it to survive.

Killing the Golden Goose

This post was originally intended for musicians and venue owners in Second Life, but it also applies to anybody who does anything "artsy" and then tries to sell their own creations. There is a reason that artists and musicians have managers. The managers are, theoretically, supposed to have at least one foot in reality, and their job is to make the artist they manage understand that there is a difference between what the artist thinks their talent or their creations are worth, and what the public will pay.

Starting in the real world, I live in Austin and we frequently have street fairs, where people can rent a stall or booth and set their wares out for sale to the general public. Over the years, I've seen tons of beautiful things at these fairs....things I might purchase if it were not for one small detail. They are usually so overpriced by the artists who are trying to sell them, that most folks remark on how nice it is, myself included, and keep walking. I have asked these artists why they price their creations so high and the inevitable answer is, "my talent and my time are worth alot of money!"

Uhm...sorry to harsh your vibe, man, but your talent is only worth what the general public is willing to pay for it, not what you think it's worth.

This kind of "you need to pay for my genius" attitude is slowly creeping into the virtual world as well, which is a damn shame.

One of my passions in Second Life is the virtual live music scene, which is quite vibrant. New performers are appearing every day. Some are great and some not so great, but for the most part, the music is amazing and up until recently, most of the musicians were content to take a small payment from the sim owner and take tips from the audience for their performance. There are also a number of sims that are "tips only," meaning the sim owner doesn't pay the talent at all and they work for tips from the audience.

Recently, however, a number of elite SL musicians who are no longer satisfied with the level of compensation received from the venue owners are wanting to charge a cover for their performances. I'm not sure whether this cover will be split with the venue owner to help defray the expenses of maintaing a sim or if it all goes in the performer's pocket. In principle, I really have no problem with charging a cover, per se, but the problem is that the performers tend to think in US dollars and not in Linden dollars, nor do they consider their services relative to what things and/or services go for inworld. They also don't consider the fact that their fans go to several concerts a week and if all the performers charged a cover for their music, the cost to the fans could run into the hundreds of real life dollars in the course of a month. There is also the fact that some, if not most of the music fans do not put their real life discretionary income into the game, but work inworld for their spending money, which covers their living arrangements, clothing budgets and so forth, so a cover charge running into the hundreds or thousands of linden dollars would be excessive and pretty much untenable.

"But it's only 5 dollars!" they say....

Five US dollars in Linden currency is L1295. For that amount, I can purchase a complete outfit, hair, jewelery, shoes and a dress, all of which will reside in my inventory until death do us part...or I use the delete key. I have addressed the SL shopping angle in another essay, but the bottom line is that one gets way more "bang for the buck" as a shopper in SL than in the real world, but these musicians do not see their cognitive disonance, or the unintended consequences of a move to charging to hear live music. In other words, not only do I get an exaggerated value for my linden money, I also have the goods in my inventory. To put out $5 USD for a virtual concert is unsustainable for all but the wealthiest of SL residents in the long run. If this trend catches on, I am afraid that these foolhardy folks will price all but the newest musicians (meaning the ones so new they're willing to play for tips only) right out of the market.

As for the venue and club owners, I have very little sympathy for their complaints about having to fork out thousands of linden dollars to pay their staffs and the talent they bring into their sims. Uhm, sorry, but you buy a sim at your own risk, and if you are counting on the people who visit your sim to pay your bills you are sadly mistaken, possibly bordering on delusional. Anybody with an SL age of over a year knows that sims are expensive. Anybody who opens a club or music venue should know that virtual clubs are money pits and be prepared to run in the red for quite some time, if not forever.

Most non sim owners look at the venue and club owners as social climbers or wannabe big shots who want to schmooze with the elite of the SL performers and patrons, and they seem to want everybody else to contribute to their "vision." What a load of crap. If you have a vision for a sim, wonderful! But YOU pay for it and don't expect those of us who come to your sim to help pay your bills. Your sim may be important to you, but I've got news for you, Mr. Sim Owner, you and your sim are not anybody else's priority and you have a nerve to ask everybody else to pay for your dream. The sim owners may have the noblest of intentions, but their begging really chaps my ass. A discreetly placed contribution basket is fine...but don't use the internal messaging system, or have the performer harrangue the sim visitors for money. You wanted to be a sim owner and wear the vaunted "owner" tag, so don't expect everybody else to pay for it.

For the past 3 years, the Second Life musicians and venue owners have benefited from the unstinting generosity of the fans, some of whom tip them until it hurts, and from those of us who have supported SL music from day one with our lindens and our time. I fear that if they try to fix a system that ain't broke, they will end up killing the golden goose that has been so good to them. I'm also afraid that it's not about the joy of sharing their music anymore, but has become about getting a piece of the linden pie, and in the end, this attitude will hurt us all.

Spectacular Failure

As of today, the Rassmusen poll has President Obama's "passion index" at -11, which, though it's not the lowest it's been in his short time in office, but it's down there around the lowest. Geoffrey P. Hunt, writing at The American Thinker says that Obama is setting himself up to be the worst president since Woodrow Wilson. That's a total ouchie.

I'd like to think I've been somewhat more generous....I think Obama will knock Jimmy Carter out of first place on the list of Worst Presidents Evah, and since presidental history isn't my strong suit, I'm fairly willing to take Geoff's word on Wilson. In point of fact, Woodrow Wilson was the first "progressive" president of the 20th century and this just proves that Americans, by and large, don't toe the socialist/marxist/progressive line in politics....mainly because it goes against everything America and American's think they stand for.

I haven't written much on Obama since the election because I was trying to "give him a chance." A friend of mine who is center-left leaning in politics and I agreed that Obama owns the economy come January 1, 2010, but I'm not sure it's going to take that long for America to realize that Obama is no more than an empty suit, ill prepared (although he had an education that most of us would envy) for the job he has been given by the guilt ridden white progressive political class, and a general populace fatigued with the relentless criticism and left wing hate of George W. Bush. Obama's election was the American population's "can't we just all get along?" moment, and now reality is sinking in to bite them in the ass.

I lived through Jimmy Carter's presidency. It wasn't fun, and I remember lines for gas that stretched several city blocks, stagflation, and a smug Mr. Carter in his little "Mr. Rogers" cardigan telling us all to turn down the heat to save energy while he ran the economy into a wall, and handed the country of Iran over to a bunch of apocalyptic clerics who rewarded his support by promptly taking our embassy staff hostage for over a year. Then they further humiliated him by releasing them at the very moment Ronald Reagan was taking the oath of office. His domestic policy was abysmal and his foreign policy dangerously short sighted....we're still cleaning that mess up as I write this and the threat of nuclear attacks on Iran is being considered because of Carter's shameful meddling in the politics of what was, at the time, an ally.

There is a story on the internet right now that the President of Iran is now ready to have talks with the west regarding their nuclear ambitions (funny how they're all reasonable in the wake of a badly botched, rigged election, huh?) and Obama could fuel the fires at home by actually sitting down at any table with them. This is unacceptable to me and it should be to any Americans who actually still believe in our brand of republican democracy. Should Obama decide to give these goons legitimacy, and ram through a very unpopular domestic agenda, he will certainly pass Carter as the Worst President Evah.

Will Obama Legitimize Ahmadinajhad?

There is a headline at Fox News online that says the Iranians are ready to have talks with the West, with "no preconditions" regarding their nuclear plans. Funny that they should be so reasonable now that the world knows their election was not only rigged, but badly so.

Will Obama legitimize this travesty by undertaking these talks?

Time will tell, but given what he's said and done in the past, I suspect he will go ahead with these talks under the guise of "not meddling" in another country's politics.

Disgusting.

Thoughts on Second Life and Child Avatars

As most of you who read my blog know, I play a game called Second Life, and from time to time I post an essay on my views of or about things that happen within the virtual world called "SL." Today I am going to offer my opinion on people who insist on playing child avatars (called AVs in SL) and taking those child AVs into what should be, and are classified as, mature, or adult simulators (called sims in SL).

Personally, I think people who insist on playing children in an essentially adult world have some mental issues to begin with, and those issues are multiplied exponentially when these people take a child avatar into a mature (meaning sex beds are in use in said sim or that the sim has sexual or adult activities) sim, as their mere presence, in my humble opinion, makes most of the other adults in the area very uncomfortable. It certainly makes me uncomfortable, and for obvious reasons, if one uses common sense. Of course, people who play child avatars tend to abdicate common sense in their zeal to make the rest of us "tolerate or accept" them in any situation. Sorry, but no, and I'll detail my reasons in the subsequent paragraphs.

1. There are many reasons why people choose to play children in SL and I'm ok with most of them. So you had a crappy childhood and you feel that you need to "get that back" by playing a child in a virtual world....ok, fine. Stay in the sims where children are welcomed, and there are picnic areas and playscapes abounding. No sex beds and no noobs with huge phalluses running around naked and jerking off every 10 meters.
2. The whole reason that SL had to set up an "adult" continent is because they were taken to court by some incensed parent who caught little Johnny watching cartoons fuck. Do you think those outraged parents are going to be comforted to see a child AV on the new "adult" continent, dancing with an enormous cock? I don't, and these militant people with the child AVs know it too.
3. To me, the only reason a child AV is present in an adult sim is to suck a potential pervert into trying to play with them. This is entrapment in it's purest form. Get the perv to make a move and zap them with a report. Seems to me that if the temptation isn't there, the perv would never make a move, because there wouldn't be anything to move ON.
4. Lastly, we have "child" AVs who have baby talk on their profiles, telling the world that they're 8 years old, yet they have an SL "partner," meaning a wife or a husband. How many 8 year olds do YOU know that are married in rl? If you're going to present yourself as a child, either do it all the way or put on an adult AV when you are in an Adult area.

The thing that chaps me most about people who play child AVs is their utter hypocrisy. They present themselves as "children," complete with the baby talk and the sexed up, Bratz doll look, and then they want to say they're adults when they're confronted in a place where children don't belong.

You want to play a kid? Great. Stay in the Disney sims where you belong and stop forcing the rest of us to look at you in places where no children should be found and we'll get along just fine. I don't hang out in sims that are child friendly and the people who play child AVs don't need to invade the places where the rest of us go to be rid of them.

Thank You

Today is July 4, 2009. America is 233 years old and we are celebrating the anniversary of Her birth, so I would like to pause for a moment, between the tragedies and crises of the day to say a profound and heart-felt Thank You to the members of our past and present Military.

Thank you for understanding that there is something bigger than yourselves.

Thank you for doing what most of us cannot or would not...your sacrifice of time and physical abilities in the service of protecting our country.

Thank you for the fact that I, as a woman, can get an education, can drive, can have control over my daily life.

Thank you for defending our shores from hungry tyrants that would see us, as Americans and Westerners, on our knees in submission.

Thank you for ignoring the peaceniks and haters who would denigrate your service. We who are grateful see their ignominious behavior and are embarrassed for them.

Thank you for keeping America the "Home of the Free and the Brave," for you surely rank among them.

The Chinese have an interesting curse...."May you live in interesting times..." It seems that we do. Evidently we are poised on the brink of history, watching as it rolls over us, times that seem to challenge the very foundations of what liberty means to each and every one of us. Are we so soft and bloated and apathetic that we will allow the destruction of such a beacon of light in the dark and ugly world? Only time will tell, but for now, our nation is safe because of your sacrifice.

Sleep well, brothers and sisters in arms, I fear we will need your courage again in the not so distant future.