I Think I Broke It

I post this every year, but it’s still one of the single greatest pieces of philosophy and political reasoning ever made:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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Here’s the best band Ireland ever produced playing the greatest Irish folk song of them all:

Thin Lizzy – Whiskey in the Jar

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I’m a longtime fan of MMA, and I need a blogging topic that won’t piss me off, so I’m going to give my day after thoughts on “Age in the Cage,” UFC 109, match by match for the main card along with how I did on Cage Potato’s Fightpicker.

Matt Serra v Frank Trigg

Trigg looked sluggish the entire fight, while Serra’s striking looked great.  Serra caught Trigg with a great overhand right, followed by a few Henderson-style bombs. Serra’s got anvils on the end of his T-Rex arms and demonstrated in this fight. Trigg is definitely at the end of his fighting career, but luckily he has broadcasting to fall back on, which I think he does quite well at.

I called this one right and earned a few points for this one. I figured if Serra won it would be by KO or TKO, even with Serra’s excellent BJJ.

Demian Maia v Dan Miller

This is a fight that took a path that nobody saw coming.  Maia is one of the top five BJJ artists in MMA with all of his wins in the UFC coming by submission. His striking has been subpar for most of his fights, and Miller is a smart enough fighter to avoid that. However, Maia kept the fight standing, and pieced Miller apart. Maia won by unanimous decision, rightfully earned. Maia improved his striking by a large margin, but in the middleweight division are too many top tier strikers – see also Silva, Anderson- that would decimate him standing.

I called the winner, but I don’t think anyone expected that Maia would win a decision based on striking.  Unfortunately this was a boring fight, due to Miller’s unwillingness to get in close and open himself up to a takedown followed by tapping out.

Mike Swick v Paulo Thiago

I missed this fight due to heading back home from Ferg’s house. Thiago won with a D’arce choke early in the second round. I had picked Swick, as did most. Thiago is a dangerous fighter, so this wasn’t too much of an upset especially compared to

Nate Marquardt v Chael Sonnen

This was a fight most everyone thought was Marquardt’s to lose.  Sonnen had been mouthing off in the weeks prior and showing that he may be actually crazy. He mentioned that he did not know that Marquardt had been knocked out by Anderson Silva, which makes no sense. In any case, Sonnen dominated Marquardt through all three rounds conclusively. Before the fight Marquardt was the consensus number two middleweight, but that’s probably in doubt now.

Yeah, I lost this one. So did everybody else. Don’t lie, you picked Nate the Great too.

Randy Couture v Mark Coleman

This is a fight that’s been in the making since UFC 17 and is the first time that two Hall of Famers have met in the Octogon. For the record Couture is one of my three favorite fighters of all time and is apparently immune to aging. Coleman does not have either of these qualities. Within twenty seconds of the start I knew Coleman was going to lose, and Couture dominated him. Randy Couture is one of the greatest game planners to ever put on gloves, and he showed it in this fight. He finished the fight by taking Coleman to the ground and putting him to sleep with a rear naked.

I got this right – an old addage in MMA is never bet against Randy Couture- and the additional bet on who would get the take down first. Couture once again established that he may be near fifty but can still hang, while Coleman sadly showed his fighting days are behind him.  Sad but true.

I didn’t do too bad total, but the two upsets cost me. I don’t feel too bad about that since they were serious upsets, but nobody likes to lose. All in all, for a card that was considered subpar this ended up pretty well. Still, they could have done better especially during Super Bowl weekend but not a bad card.

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It’s a simple fact that I don’t blog much any more, if you could ever say that I was a regular blogger. It may be due to the fact that I’m a lazy bastard but part of is that I started this blog as a political blog, and I simply can barely stand politics right now. There’s not a good thing in the news for anyone with a minarchist or libertarian viewpoint or even a sane one. The problems that cause this fact are incredibly numerous, but I think that a generalization wouldn’t be too hard. What I’ll do is name the major problems with both major parties, and I’ll even throw in the Libertarian Party at no additional charge!

Here’s the problem with the Democrats: they are as usual running a statist to socialist agenda, but this time they’re running it through regardless of what the people say. The sheer brazenness of their healthcare jihad is horrible. They seem to have no cares about how awful their handling of power is. Every single action they take as a majority party seems like a boldhanded grab at power, as perfectly exemplified by the rush to move healthcare throw Congress before Brown takes his seat. The nastiest of the socialist wing of the party runs things so far left that the only admitted socialist in Congress seems like a moderate.  This is why Kim Du Toit called them the “Evil Party.” Also I have a longstanding hatred of that side of aisle for appropriating the term “liberal.” As if shackling the country under suffocating layers of inefficient government bloat has anything to do with liberating anyone.

Here’s the problem with the Republicans: while I agree with a good amount of the basic beliefs, and am still a Republican, there is so much stupid shit that passes as Republicanism as to make me wonder if I stay in the party simply because I hate myself.  The GOP has given up on so much of what makes them Republicans in favor of laying their faces in the laps of the Religious Right in an effort to win more elections only to piss off much of their base and get their asses handed to them in the last election. It seems like every time the GOP takes the majority they “say government doesn’t work, get elected and prove it” as O’Rourke has said.  If politics were war they’re going against the Democrats with a Nerf Sword and a cardboard shield.

Here’s the problem with the Libertarians (those in the actual party): you guys have more flakes than Kellogg’s. You are the party with the most right ideas, even if I don’t totally agree with all of them.  Half the people who run as “Libertarian” have no idea of what the word means much less how to govern like it. You let dumbasses like Howard Stern and the guy who turned himself blue because of Y2K run under your banner while letting every idiot who like pot and prostitutes run as a member which confuses everyone on the depth of classic liberalism.

Now you see why I can’t stand politics right now? Is there anyone I like out there? The answer: not really.

I plan on blogging more in the next few weeks, hopefully. I went against previous quotes and bought an Iphone (no, I will not use Apple’s capitalization) so I may do some moblogging if I get the urge.

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To every veteran, active duty, and reservist – thank you.

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I know most people out there have seen this “Tactical Bacon” and jokes have been made about its lack of a tactical rail but I’m willing to risk my guts for nothing but stupidity and boredom so I went ahead and bought a can. Normally I’ll eat the nastiest of the nasty processed food such as the legendary Meal on A Stick, so I should have no trouble with something as pure and good as bacon, right? Here’s a review, sorry about the bad quality pictures as they come from my phone:

I’m going to put the rest of the entry behind the fold as there’s a bit of pictures.

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I’m beginning to hate the vast majority of my fellow Americans. Why? Because of crap like this:

President Barack Obama is getting some flack and some praise after enjoying a beer.
He was at an NBA basketball game and ordered a brew. Images of Mr. Obama enjoying a beer have angered some people.
One caller to WWL complained, “People are losing 5, 10, 20 thousand dollars a day in the stock market, and he’s sitting there drinking a beer!” She also said, “It’s insulting… there’s a lot of people suffering.” She insisted President Obama should not publicly have fun during a time of so much pain.

Seriously people, the man is in his forties. He is old enough to drink a beer if he damn well pleases. It doesn’t matter one iota what’s going on with the country any more than if you have a ton of work at your job and you choose to drink a brew in your own home. Some people just need to be bitchslapped.

You can make a point that a man as intelligent as the president shouldn’t be drinking what appears to an American style lager. Bad choice, Mr. Obama. Bad choice.

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I recently bought a Cingular 8525 and just set it up so I can moblog. Maybe now I’ll get off my ass and write more.

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I love Xbox Live, I’m not afraid to admit. I enjoy getting on to play some Halo or Call of Duty or even Uno. However, like any community that features large amounts of teenagers there are a lot of dumb things that happen, a lot of it simple stupidity in action. This list is in no order besides "I just thought of this one" order and simply lists some things about Live that piss me off to no end.

Singers

If you play on Live for more than thirty minutes you will encounter one of these. These are the idiots, who for some reason or another, believe that can sing well and that they must share this rare gift with all the poor souls trapped on Live in the middle of a game without time to mute them. Here’s a ProTip: you can’t sing, your voice is the audio equivalent of ball cancer and no one loves you.

Little Kids Just Learning To Curse

Okay, let’s face it – all of us starting cursing when we were young, I’m don’t hate them for that. I hate them because they CANNOT friggin’ curse the right way. All of us in my age bracket learned to curse by watching R rated movies, and we never said things like "Shit you man!" (yelled at me during a Halo game). Also, just because you figured out that you can curse if you really want to doesn’t mean we care to hear it in your high pitched, puberty-anxious shriek. Yes, cursing is a hallowed institution during heated completion, and it’s just plain damn funny but only if done correctly. ProTip for these kiddies: Don’t curse me until your balls drop, got it? And speaking of those who are awaiting puberty:

Annoying Little Kids Who Shouldn’t Be Playing In the First Place

I know this sounds like I’ve joined "Focus on The Family" or whatever, but it’s the honest truth. All gamers out there, take note: all those little kids out there on Live/PS Network/whatever who are loudmouthed, annoying little dickweasels are the reason why have idiots like Jack Thompson. If you are kid who is mature enough, and your parents are cool with it that’s fine, but the ones I’m referencing are the ones who are always the loudest, dumbest, most brazen douchebags in the entire game and have no problem letting everyone figure it out. ProTip: You’re only on Live because your parents don’t want to deal with you.

Teamkillers

The bastardest of the bastards. These are the jerkoffs who seem to like to play for no other reason than to kill their own team. Granted, this doesn’t apply to a lot of games but you can bet for every mode that has the ability to kill your teammates (supposedly accidentally) there will be at least one round with one of these idiots in there. As a counterpoint, most players will actively hunt teamkillers, even on the other team. Twice I’ve seen a wanton teamkiller get screwed over when literally everyone playing that game turned on him. It was awesome. ProTip: Teamkilling does cause lots of bad game karma. You will get killed for it. A lot.

Leetspeakers

Just plain annoying. This is the internet equivalent of every dumb kid you knew in school that could barely spell his name. These are the kids who add numbers into words. Most denizens of any networked community openly despise these idiots. Don’t try and reason with them, or point out they suck even while they’re mouthing off about how badass they are. ProTip: Go to hell. You don’t deserve a joke answer.

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To steal a quote from Call of Duty 4 : "Bloody ‘ell, we just got our asses kicked!" We got the crap knocked out of us last night and everybody knows it.  Now, as we lick our wounds we need to focus ourselves and reform our party to the party that it should have been the whole time. Still, we’re in this deep, will we recognize the problem and fix it in time?

First of all, McCain was a weak candidate. Few people were really pro-McCain versus anti-Obama. Yes, Palin helped energize the base but it was too little too late. McCain has alienated the right way too much to have had serious appeal anywhere near Obama’s. Also, Obama ran an incredibly well thought campaign and it paid off. Now we’ll have to see if he lives us to being a president that reaches across party lines or governs how he has in the senate this long.

The problem is that we have earned this loss. We’ve for too long forsaken our principles in favor of bowing in front of the evangelicals and the religious right and this is where it has gotten us.  We are battling an uphill battle now, with our saving grace being the near miraculous retaining of the filibuster. We can no longer stand to fellate the fundamentalist wing of the party. The Religious right had their chance and blew it. It’s time for those of us who are really what the party should be to take back our party. The GOP needs to return to the party of truly limited government, free-market capitalism and reliance upon individualism and liberty, not a narrow view of the Bible.  We need to always respect our religion, but at the same time the Bible itself offered a good example of why the government should be limited (1 Samuel 8). Liberty is never out of style and we need to remember what got us into power in the first place. This will not be an easy few years, but I know we can come out of this in much better shape than we started.  We just have to swallow our pride and reclaim what was stolen from us by our fellow Republicans.

All of that said, I’m proud of my county for progressing in just 150 years from the horrible act of owning property in other human beings to a black man running the greatest country on the planet. I’m very proud of John McCain for accepting and conceding with great grace and humility. I want to congratulate Barack Obama for his victory and wish him the best for the presidency. Unlike some, I will not say he is not my president because I am diametrically opposed to his beliefs. He is the president of the United States and is president for all of us.

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