The Deuce and the Transgendered

It's later than you think. It's even worse than we all thought. While we all watch as The Glorious Leader and his evil minions deconstruct America, there are other battles being fought on the regional and local level that most of us never hear of. We don't stop to realize that the big, national battles being fought in Congress are but the culmination of hundreds, maybe thousands, of smaller battles being fought in our own back yards. Obama and his communist czars have reached the point where they can challenge the Founders because we have all been too busy working and raising our kids to pay attention to the offensive being waged against us in our high schools, colleges, and work places.

Have you ever heard of the Gender Mutiny Collective? Until today I hadn't. But just because we haven't heard of them doesn't mean they haven't been injecting their own poison into American society. The poison of "I'm special, don't offend me."

"Transgendered Anarchists"? Are you, pardon me, shitting me? Regular anarchists are bad enough, but there are sub-divisions of anarchists, including transgendered anarchists? What? Do they riot at G-8 summits dressed in drag? Sorry, we're talking the transgendered, not your garden variety cross-dressers. What the hell do they want, and how am I preventing them from getting it? I haven't a clue. A brief perusal of the web and all I could really find was that they want "unisex" restrooms, so they can do their business and plot against us evil capitalists without being eyeballed by those who are luckily unconfused about their gender. Well hell, I'm all for that.

True story: I walk into the men's restroom at my employer's business. Standing in front of a mirror plucking his/her eyebrows is a "transgendered" person; long hair, make-up, dress, nylons, looking very feminine, but it's a guy, or at least I assume it's a guy since I'm in the men's restroom. I can't help it, I pause, ever so slightly, to make sure I'm in the right place, and then I continue to the urinal. The transgendered person eyeballs me, seemingly daring me to say something. I don't say anything. I ignore he/she...the person. I do what I came in to do, wash my hands and leave. The next day the restroom directly across the hall from the head honcho's office has a new "unisex" sign on the door and a deadbolt lock on the inside of the door. I guess the transgendered person was tired of trying to pluck those eyebrows, plot the overthrow of all the industrialized nations of the world and eyeball the rest of us at the same time. Multi-tasking can be a real drag...no pun intended.

How do you win? Looking back, I should of been more bold. Once I saw the eyeballing, I should of walked up to the mirror next to him/her and while I checked my general appearance said, "When someone eyeballs me like you're doing, I generally think you either want to screw me or fight me, but under the circumstances I'm confused. What's the protocol here?" Of course I'd of been fired within the hour, but at least I'd of met the challenge.

This is not meant to be a harangue against the transgendered...I mean I don't really care if you're an X trapped in a Y body. I figure that's your business and the sooner you get it cleared up the better for everybody. But forgive me if I don't throw $20 into your "Support the transgendered" bucket, as if you're one of Jerry's Kids. And if someone says you're not entitled to special rights just because you're in the process of fundamentally transforming, I wish you wouldn't organize to get them fired...that will get me to eyeballing you...and I'm telling you now I'm not looking to screw you.

The Deuce and Spin

Comments heard around America regarding the event captured in the above photo:

President Obama: "I don't know all the facts, but clearly the police acted stupidly."

MSNBC commentator Chris Mathews: "Yet another example of Teabagger violence. When will we be free of this terrible scourge?"

The Reverend Al Sharpton: "Yet another example of a black man forced to defend himself against white racism. You see that Confederate flag tattooed on the kid, right? Come on! It's right there! Stevie Wonder could see it!"

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs: "Uh...the cop was a black guy? In that case, uh...the President, uh...would like to add, uh...to his initial remarks, uh...that he was, uh...unaware the cop, uh...was a black man, and now, uh...that he has been, uh...informed of this, uh...fact, clearly the cop, uh...a fine example of, uh...a black man, uh...you know, uh...was forced to take, uh...the appropriate steps to, uh...control the situation. We inherited this racial violence from the previous administration."

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright: "Bust a cap in whitey's ass! It says it in the Bible!"

Former Vice President Al Gore: "Glaciers melt and polar bears drown under a hazy winter sky...anybody got any carbon credits? I'm like 9000 tons over my allotment for this month. Is this mic open?"

Former President Bill Clinton: "I don't comment for less than six figures. Hey honey! I used to be the president. Looking for a good time? Hillary's out of town."

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano: "I told you white men are a bigger threat to national security than Islamic terrorists...er, I mean violent extremists of no particular ethnic or religious background."

Congressman Barney Frank: "This kind of thing wouldn't happen if those evil bastards on Wall Street weren't foreclosing on everyone...and Freddy and Fannie are still financially healthy regardless of what you may have heard. S&M party tonight at my place!"

Vice President Joe Biden: "I'd have to say that cop looks to be clean and well spoken...and I bet he doesn't speak with a negro dialect. I'm on his side. By the way, did I tell you guys I now know why the vice presidency was once described as not worth a warm bucket of spit?"

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: "I've just introduced a bill in congress to address this very issue. It's 3000 pages long...that means it's good for America's working families, deficit neutral and fully transparent. Where's my botox?

Host of The View and comedienne Whoopi Goldberg: "That kid got over the fence! You see what I mean? No matter how high you build the fence these young bucks are going to find a way over it. Amnesty is the only viable answer...whatda ya mean he's not hispanic? Italian? Oy! These ethnic types all look alike!"

World renowned blogger The Deuce: "I haven't seen an 'electric slide' like that since my clubbing days. Beautiful!

The Deuce and Guilty Pleasures

You don't tell your buddies, but maybe your wife knows, but only because she spends so much time around you. You don't talk about it with her. You don't tell your parents, your children, your colleagues, your employer, or your neighbors? Never! Not ever! They're the things that mysteriously give you pleasure, or at least more pleasure than you think they should. You don't know why, or if you do you find it impossible to put into words. What it is about them that makes you feel guilty varies. Maybe you think they cast doubt on your manhood, or your intelligence, or even your basic humanity. For whatever reason...you're guilty.

Here are some of mine. Laugh all you want...but I know you've got your own.

Movies:

Encino Man; Pauley Shore does imitations of a chipmunk. It cracks me up every time. And Encino Man's dance moves? Groovy!

Starship Troopers; A great book turned into a B- flick. "Everybody fights...nobody quits. If you do, I'll shoot you myself." Blasting aliens is almost as much fun as wasting zombies. You know it!

Office Space; Having been an office drone for a big corporation for many years, this movie touches my soul, and leaves it bleeding. Sadly hilarious.

Fight Club; Having been an office drone for a big corporation for many years, this movie touches my soul, and leaves it shouting for joy. Sick, but oh so satisfying. What would Tyler Durden do?

Back To School; Rodney Dangerfield mocks academia just like he mocked the country club set in Caddy Shack. Add the late, great Sam Kinnison in an all too brief role as a passionate Vietnam vet, and the slinky Sally Kellerman as the sex appeal, and you get gut wrenching laughter that commie libs can't begin to appreciate.

TV:

Ally McBeal; I hated the Ally character, but all of the supporting cast rocked. The Barry White soundtrack put a smooth groove on the whole insane thing.

Larry the Cable Guy: Humor so low hillbillies are embarrassed...but it sure is funny. Nobody tells fart jokes like Larry, and I'll never again shop at Wal-Mart with a straight face. Get 'er done!

Frasier; You could never find two guys more different than me. Brothers Frasier and Niles Crane's neurotic, snobbish and status seeking forays into sibling rivalry were laugh out loud funny. Effete metrosexuals? Yes. Hilarious? Always.

Radio:

The Savage Nation; Dr. Michael Savage's three hour tirades against everything liberal are enough to make any real man hoist the Jolly Roger and start cutting throats. Unleash your rage vicariously through Doc Savage!

Dr. Laura; So brutal and maddening even I can only tolerate about a half hour at a time. Nowhere else are morons, idiots and fools outed to a national radio audience with so much glee and so little mercy. Dr. Laura may be the one person on the planet with a lower tolerance for bullshit than The Deuce.

Art Bell's Coast To Coast, A.M.; If it's after Midnight and you're cruising the A.M. dial, you're going to find Art Bell, or his protege George Noory. Since it's after Midnight, the discussion is all about UFOs, Grey Men, astral projection, black helicopters and conspiracy theories. It's everything that goes boo! Scary, often hilarious and anything but boring.

Food:

Velveeta; The processed goo that looks and tastes like cheese. Nobody really knows what it is. It's formula is more top secret than Coke's. Slice it and make a sandwich or melt it and pour it over nachos, it's goo-licious! If you're worried about it's affect on your cholesterol you're a pussy.

Nacho Cheese Doritos; Just the very best salty corn chip snack ever invented. It has absolutely no nutritional value...but it's great with beer, and that's what's important. The "family size" bag isn't nearly big enough. South Americans riot whenever a bag is sighted.

Skittles; So much sugar just one will kill a hundred hummingbirds. Dentists puke at the mention of them. Tip; put ten on each side of your mouth, then bite down with all the force you can muster. The sugary jolt is like getting a Taser blast to the jaw! It hurts so good.

Chicken Gizzards; That mysterious internal organ that when bathed in batter and deep fried behind the counter at your local convenience store is good enough to make you buy some at 3:00 A.M., even when you're not drunk. Salty, crunchy mystery meat to rival Taco Bell's best. So bad for you vultures won't touch it.

Miscellaneous:

Soccer Riots; Gotta love 'em. Any sports fan that brings smoke bombs and a tire iron to the game is aces in my book. Nothing like a good England vs. Germany blood feud to bring out the competitive spirit of soccer fans. Nothing will warm your heart like seeing English skin heads beating the shit out of German skin heads, and Russian skin heads waiting outside the stadium to take on all-comers.

Extra Strength Toilet Paper; Finally, someone at Charmin read my emails. Soft tp is okay for chicks and kids, but a man needs something he can really torque down on to get those stubborn dingle berries without suffering the heartbreak of finger break through! Know what I'm saying?

The Deuce And Books, Part II

Books; thousands of them. A few great, many good, most suck. In Books Part I, I listed the small number of books that had most impacted my life. In Part II, I'll recommend specific books and authors. These are the cream of the crop people. Only the very best.

Economics and Government:

The Road To Serfdom; F.A.Hayek. As the title suggests, how governments always grow like cancer and rob us of personal wealth and liberty.

On Liberty; John Stuart Mill. Why personal liberty rocks.

The Wealth Of Nations; Adam Smith. The premier work on free enterprise.

Free To Choose; Milton Friedman. The best modern work on free enterprise.

Forgotten History and True Adventure:

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage; Alfred Lansing. The 1914 sailing expedition to Antarctica. Unbelievable adventure and survival.

Sea Of Glory: America's Voyage Of Discovery; Nathaniel Philbrick. South Seas exploration in 1832. No one knows about this expedition.

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex; Nathaniel Philbrick. Whaling ship sunk by a giant sperm whale and the agonizing survival of some of the crew. Riveting!

Life On The Mississippi: Mark Twain. Fantastic American history. Twain's best.

In Harm's Way: The Sinking Of The USS Indianapolis; Doug Stanton. WWII sinking of the ship that delivered the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Incredible heroics while surviving crew fought off sharks and exposure for four days in the south Pacific. Heartbreaking courage.

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster; John Krakauer. Disaster on Mt. Everest in 1997...five died. Heart wrenching decisions near the summit of Everest. Incredible courage.

Science:

Cosmos: Carl Sagan; The companion book to Sagan's groundbreaking TV series. Some of it dated by now, but it still boggles the mind.

The Right Stuff: Tom Wolfe; The Mercury program and the first American astronauts. Who volunteers to be the first to ride a rocket into space? Studs...that's who.

The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry; Bryan Sykes. The genetic mapping of man's beginnings and our spread throughout the world.

Science Fiction:

Dune: Frank Herbert; IMHO, the greatest single work of science fiction. World building to challenge Tolkien.

The complete works of Robert Heinlein. IMHO, the greatest body of work in science fiction.

World History:

I, Claudius: Robert Graves; fictionalized account of the life of the Roman Emperor Claudius. Terrific insight into the trials and tribulations of a man who never wanted to be the emperor of the world. A daily fight for survival within the Roman court.

The Flashman Papers: George MacDonald Fraser; Fabulously entertaining historical fiction of British Army in the Victorian era. Hilarious and chock full of untold history.

The Name Of The Rose: Umberto Eco; Murder in a medieval monastery during the Inquisition. Is there any period of human history more neglected than the Medieval period? Fantastic story and history.

Others:

Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy; A unique individual enmeshed in the 60's meltdown and the Nixon White House.

The Killer Angels: Michael Shaara; a fictionalized account of the battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War. Amazing work. Drives home the terrible slaughter of that war, and the motivations, brilliance and courage of the combatants.

The Count Of Monte Cristo: Alexander Dumas; Just a terrific tale of adventure and vengeance. A classic...rightfully so.

Also read these authors.

Larry McMurtry: most famous for the television adaptation of his masterpiece Lonesome Dove. Great tales of the American West.

Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes...gas light on a foggy London night...crazed killer running rampant. Enough said.

Edgar Rice Burroughs: The adventures of Tarzan AND John Carter of Mars? Kick ass!

Book lovers love "best of" lists. I've given you mine. I sincerely hope you check out some of them. You won't be disappointed. And I hope you share your "best of" list. I'm always looking for a good book.

Here's to the author, the printing press and the human imagination. Add 'em up, and you get books. Wonderful.

The Deuce and Books, part I

I've written previously about my love of Movies and TV, but I've saved the best for last. Books.

How many of you can remember the first book you ever read. Not a book your mom read to you, or a teacher read to you, but a book you read all on your own? I do.

It was 1967 and I was in the fourth grade, and the book was Black and Blue Magic. It was one of the best books of my childhood...and I still have it, all these long years later. It was about a young boy, maybe 12, growing up in San Francisco. His father had died, and his mother was struggling to make a living running a boarding house. One night a mysterious boarder arrived, and having befriended our young protagonist, gave him a bottle containing a potion that when rubbed into his shoulders, gave our young man wings. Real, feathered, giant wings; big enough to lift our young hero into flight. You can imagine some of the adventures that followed, and perhaps imagine the sacrifice he finally made to protect his mother's happiness and his own future. It's a child's book, but read it anyway. Better yet, read it to your own child or grandchild. Experience the magic together.

A year later, my fifth grade teacher read a children's version of Homer's The Odyssey to my class. We were riveted! My first venture into fantasy and adventure...and classics come to think of it. It was great, and played a major role in my life long love of epic stories filled with heroes, villains, monsters and daring-do.

I was in Junior High when I accidentally stumbled upon Tolkien's classic The Lord of the Rings. It was described in a tiny blurb of the Weekly Reader that we received every few weeks in school. Actually, it was book two, The Two Towers, that I read first. I laugh now at how perplexed I was at the abrupt beginning and equally abrupt end. It wasn't until I finished the book that I discovered it was the second book in a trilogy! I ordered book three, The Return of the King, next, and so knew the end of the story before I had ever read the beginning. I read the beginning, The Lord of the Rings, and after that the "real" beginning, The Hobbit. Even though I had read the story in a haphazard fashion, to say the least, it did not lessen the absolute joy I felt reading it. A generation later, I read the entire series to my kids. They loved it as much as I did, and man did I enjoy reading it to them.

It wasn't until I was a young adult in 1979 that I would read the book that would have the largest influence on my life of all the books I've read, except one. It was Robert Heinlein's Glory Road. It wasn't the high adventure that made this book so memorable for me...it was instead it's dissertations on political ideologies and human liberty that struck such a powerful chord in me. It led me to Libertarianism, which I adhered strongly to for the next twenty years of my life, and though it is no longer my primary political belief system, it still runs strongly in me.

It wasn't far, or long, from Heinlein to the ultimate in libertarian philosophy, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Yet another adventure, but lacking in sword play or monsters ( at least, non-human monsters ). The epic story of individual men and women who refused to bow to peer pressure or sacrifice their own sense of good and evil to "common knowledge", ultimately separating themselves from a corrupt and diseased society of cowards and parasites.

Still some twenty years later, while I was searching for a better understanding of eternity and my place in it, I read C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. Described by some ever so enlightened critic as the "Christian apologetic for people who's intellect gets in the way of their faith", I read it and was overwhelmed. It is such a simple and straight forward explanation of the deepest mysteries that mankind faces; I was consumed. Ultimately, Mere Christianity let me be content to not understand the fullness of God; that it was okay to be dumbfounded by the mysteries of existence; the existence of myself, mankind and the universe. To be incapable of comprehending the beginning or the end of time. To finally understand what "faith" really means, and to read the Bible like a grand, epic adventure full of heroes, villains, monsters and daring-do, instead of a just a dry and musty text book on how to live a good life.

There have been lots of other great books. More on those in part II.

Mr. Quarter Said US Treasury Credit Would Tank

This was taken from an article in Financial Times published March 26, 2010.

"A sign of the strains across US fixed income markets was this week’s historic rupture between the 10-year Treasury yield and its close derivative, the interest rate swap.

For the first time since swaps emerged in the mid-1980s, the 10-year swap rate traded below that of the 'risk free' 10-year Treasury yield. Analysts say this reflects how government debt issuance has altered the dynamics between 'risk-free' yields and swaps, which reflect borrowing costs for non-sovereign borrowers."

Trading below the "risk free" 10-year Treasury yield means that the market sees the interest rate swap as less risky than a 10-year US Treasury Bond!

Mr. Quarter Told You So......

The following article was posted at the Yahoo! Finance page today:


The Associated Press, On Thursday March 25, 2010, 5:12 pm EDT
WEAK DEMAND: Interest rates climbed in the bond market Thursday after a government debt auction drew tepid demand. Auctions Tuesday and Wednesday also saw lower demand.

NOT THAT INTERESTED: The auction of $32 billion in seven-year notes saw demand fall from the past two months. That means the government could have to start offering higher interest rates to attract buyers.

BERNANKE SAYS: Testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke affirmed the government's pledge to keep interest rates near zero for an extended period.