Oregon's Dumbest Glibertarian, cont.

I wish this wasn't part two of a continuing series.

Oregon's Dumbest Glibertarian is at it again, with another column in today's college paper.

I can't be arsed to do a full-fledged analysis, so I'll just go through a few of the lowlights in the first few paragraphs. You can read the rest on your own if you have the brain cells to lose.

Recently, the sequester has been a big topic. Congress has been debating the sequester in an effort to strike a deal to avoid the “catastrophic” problems we would otherwise face. The political left says without an agreement, cuts would send us into another recession and people wouldn’t be able to eat. The right says that without coming to an agreement, the military would face huge cuts, leaving us vulnerable to attacks.

Ok, other than the scare quotes around "catastrophic" that's not all that bad to start. For bonus points, try to predict where he's going based on this opening paragraph. Anyway, continuing:

But the sequester isn’t alone in topics debated by Congress this year. As the calendar approached Jan. 1, Congress was debating the debt ceiling to avoid the fiscal cliff. We technically went over the fiscal cliff since a deal wasn’t made by Jan. 1. When we “went over the fiscal cliff,” nothing happened. The earth didn’t collapse inward. The sun didn’t burn out. And with the sequester, we don’t have anything to worry about either.

Ah, that's more like it! I especially love the exceedingly grand straw man cliff he fights. And "going over the fiscal cliff" now means "technically, the calendar went past fiscal cliff day and even though the issues were dealt with the next day before we had a chance to hit the ground at the bottom of the cliff, we still totally fell over that cliff." That is exactly the same thing as if the evil useless government did nothing 'cause they're a bunch of know-nothing poopyheads covered in poop.

Continuing directly:

But the real questions and debates shouldn’t center on whether Congress will make an agreement in time, or which side is correct about the repercussions if a deal isn’t made. The real question we should ask is, “Why does the decision of only 535 congressmen in Washington, D.C., control what happens to all 300 million people in the country?”

Wow. He may have managed to outdo the stupidity with this. He actually does not seem to know that our wacky system of government consists of a "representative democracy" where "we the people" elect "representatives" to "represent" us in the decision making process. Really, he doesn't understand this. Read the rest of the damn article if you don't believe me — that is the article's entire point.

He says some other really stupid shit and manages to get a bunch of stuff wrong about The Great Depression and economics (as usual) too, but I don't have the energy to go into that.

At this point I should really start taking bets on which wingnut welfare publication hires him.

Sounds of Spring

All of a sudden after a couple halfway warm days, the frogs are out in force.

Those in the midwest buried under yet another snowstorm can either take this as a taunt, or as a reminder that spring will eventually show up...

Sea Quest. Or?

Once again the fucking idiots in charge of this country have managed to manufacture a completely unnecessary and imaginary crisis and freak right the fuck out about it. And then let it actually happen. Our gloriously useless press is more than happy to cheer on the debacle. They go along because this imaginary self-created crisis perfectly reflects the unfortunately very real beltway consensus that if only there were some perfect, reasonable, moderate people or party in government everybody would get together and talk about reasonable, moderate solutions to this completely imaginary and unnecessary crisis. All while ignoring the few, y'know, actual reasonable people yelling at them. 'Cause "Eew, ick, who wants to talk to a liberal they're always right about everything and so uncivil and so smug. Let's see if we can see what John McCain thinks! He's mavericky!"

Fuck. There haven't been enough fucks in this post yet. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

You may be able to tell that I'm more than a little annoyed by this. Yeah, it's personal. My livelihood relies on money from the ebil gubmint. I actually end up saving we taxpayers a pretty decent amount of money because I do the work of the equivalent of about 10 six-figure-salaried federal workers back in DC. I know this is true because they call me to do projects they can't manage to finish. And I don't mind, really -- they're good folks, generally. They mean well, they just work in a completely dysfunctional bureaucracy that values the quantity of meetings you attend over the work you produce.

Nothing has been solidified yet, but there's a pretty decent chance my project (a long running project that actually benefits the general public) will get chopped because of this. We've already been running bare-bones ever since the cuts a few years ago, and we can't absorb another one. It's too bad, I've been producing some especially good work recently -- I finished my most recent project on time and on-budget yesterday in spite of them constantly interrupting me with work on unrelated projects. It's pretty darn cool and has been well received by the folks that have heard about it and seen previews. It may all just be flushed down the shitter along with thousands and thousands of similar projects done by similar unknown wage slaves all over this country just because we're ruled by a cult of Austerity-worshiping center-right fools.

Fuck.

I can get another job, and have options lined up. I'll be fine. Fucking pissed, but fine.

Oh well, might as well see what else I can get done before we get chopped...

The Church

Jesus & Mo get it right with today's comic, as usual:

Random

Here, have something random and weird from the guy behind the Pictures For Sad Children webcomic.

Grand Cru

If you haven't had Rodenbach Grand Cru and you like sour things, you simply must go find this beer immediately.  If you can get ahold of the harder-to-find and more expensive "2007 Vintage" version, even better.

Damn this is one amazing brew. Yum!

Valentine Sunset

Damn nice sunset last night:

I really like the shadow cast by Mary's Peak (approx 4200' tall) upward onto the clouds.