Libercontrarian

Crushed between the wheels of capitalism and big government.

Al-Qaida Rocks Saudi

I'll bet they're sorry for funding terrorism now - the Saudis are getting hit by Al-Qaida, reports Fox News. Most memorable quote from the article?

"The blasts went off about a half hour apart in what appeared to be the latest attack by militants in Saudi Arabia (search) — two weeks after Usama bin Laden (search) issued a message urging his followers to focus attacks on the kingdom."

Oh, well. You sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind.

posted by: underwhelmed at December 29, 2004 11:24 | link | comments |

In San Fran, Rocket Science Triumphs Yet Again

posted by: underwhelmed at December 29, 2004 09:17 | link | comments |

So, how were ya gonna do that?

Check out this chimp on Democratic Underpantsground, in response to a proposed Kerry "unconcession," suggesting that CIVIL WAR is the answer to the "Divided Nation" problem:

It would be too easy to kick these Fundies and Freeptards butts. Seriously. I do believe we (Dems, Repuketards against Bush, and Independents) outnumber them. I want my country back.

So, my pansy leftie friend, how were you and your buddies going to accomplish winning a civil war against us? Were you planning on using pointed sticks (that will probably be banned in Kali and Massachusetts by the liberal governments you boneheads elected) as weapons? Aren't you angry at yourselves for encouraging government to disarm the citizens of your state? Perhaps you were planning on getting your police to help you! HAA! They'd probably move here to RedState Country/Jesusland/United States a' Texas AND JOIN US!

Try and remember that it's all us evil red-staters that have the guns - and if you want to attack us, make sure that you change out of your hemp clothing (I hear it's flammable, and napalm will set it alight) and swap out those Birkenstocks for some combat boots. That cold January mud will really mess up your little tosies.

Seriously, you shouldn't say things like that, especially when it is able to be recorded for posterity on the Internet. It makes your people look like the troop of escaped mental patients we all know them to be.

BAAHAHHAAAAA HAAAH HAHAHHAHAAA!!

posted by: underwhelmed at December 26, 2004 21:45 | link | comments |

In The Belly of The Beast

Well, dear reader, I'm coming to you live from the heart of Hell; I'm solidly in suburbia, up to my hips in fellow Christmas shoppers. I am blogging on my PDA (Personal Doofus Appliance), enjoying a Coca-Cola (even though I am slightly diabetic, I just said "The hell with it" and soldiered on) in the Park Meadows Mall. I figured that I'd leave the sunny 'hood of Aurora, Colorado to go see how the Other Half lives. They're doing very nicely, thank you.

 

I'm on my day off, a well-deserved rest after a very busy week of retail grind. I'm dressed with a sort of casual elegance, wearing my nice fish-shirt (it's adorned with small and largemouth Bass, Black Crappy, and various other fresh-water marine life), denim jeans, comfortable boat shoes, a warm coat (it's 25 degrees F outside!) and a wool felt hat. I look smart, feel happy and am surrounded by The Christmas Spirit. The shoppers in this part of town are more polite and less arrogant than I thought they'd be.

 

Nevertheless, the traffic is pretty rough and the crowds are thick. I am damn glad to be alive, healthy, and doing well this holiday season, and I hope you are too.

 

Well, it looks like the Main Battery is Low, in Hewlett-Packard terms, so I've gotta go. Hope your Christmas shopping's going as well as mine is!

posted by: underwhelmed at December 21, 2004 19:14 | link | comments |

Stiller's a Genius

Has anyone other than me figured out that Ben Stiller's a genius? I just saw 2001's "Zoolander" and I gotta tell ya, after watching "Dodgeball" this summer, I heartily believe that Stiller may be my generation's comic mastermind. Nobody does self-effacing humor like Ben Stiller, and he has been well-accompanied in the mission of making Americans laugh by Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, and by his pretty wife, Christine Taylor, who always plays straight-woman to his character's over-the-top antics.

If you haven't seen "Zoolander" or "Dodgeball," you are missing some comic greats. I haven't yet caught "Starsky and Hutch" but I will be renting it presently, to play on the new DVD player I bought Mrs. Libercontrarian for her 40th birthday last month.

posted by: underwhelmed at December 19, 2004 22:41 | link | comments (2) |

Numbers are Back

Yes, friends, I've got my numbers back! Hoorah!

posted by: underwhelmed at December 19, 2004 21:35 | link | comments |

Numbers All Wonky

Frequent visitors to my site (you two know who you are ) will notice that since Motime changed their schema, many counters have gone awry. I had 1842 hits on my blog (probably 92% of them are me correcting my fool spelling errors), and now, my counter is hovering at 2. Oddly enough, one of my less prolific blogrollers, The Closet Conservative, who has virtually no readership and has been on hiatus since Thanksgiving, is listing some 7,600+ hits! Wa happen?

Methinks an error has been somewhere made. Oh well, sometime life hands you lemons. What do you do? Get gin and make daquris!

posted by: underwhelmed at December 19, 2004 07:20 | link | comments |

Armchair Commando To Build Rifle

Yes, kiddies, just in time for Christmas - I'll start building a new AR-15 rifle. In fact, nothing brings out the Ol' Christmas Spirit in your Libercontrarian like the smell of gun oil, the sound of a hammer ringing on a punch, my confused web-surfing for information and the shouting of oaths at my own foolishness.

Now, I know what you are thinking... "Didn't he just sell his old AR to buy that HK-91 Replica, the JLD PTR-91? What happened, did he give up on German engineering since the BMW debacle?" The answer is no, I've always had an intent to build a new AR from parts. It's kind of a hobbyist-thing; I won't be saving too much money since I can buy a nice Bushy 16" carbine at the local Sportsman's Warehouse for $689. I've only got about 40 rounds through the PTR-91, and it shoots like a dream, and is definitely a permanent keeper. I just want another 22-cal. poodle-shooter that's light and handy; it's just the thing for friends, women, and guests too terrified by the "sturm-und-drang" of der  .308 Heckler und Koch-wannabe or the even-more-ferocious and battle-tested .30-06 M1 Garand.

I can buy the rifle one piece at a time, spending $40 here, $120 there, $12 here, blah blah blah, thus avoiding the painful (I am in retail sales, so I have no appreciable income) eruption of funds while saving my hard-earned dollars for the next idiotically over-priced BMW repair. I figure that in 4 months or so I'll have another complete long gun in the Libercontrarian household, even as I re-train my tired, middle-aged eyes to shoot the iron-sights on the PTR. Hell, I may have to convince Mrs. Libercontrarian to build an AR herself.

posted by: underwhelmed at December 17, 2004 11:43 | link | comments |

Anybody Surprised By This?

I was watchig TV news the other day - President Bush gave the Medal of Freedom, our nation's highest civilian award, to George Tenet! You remember George Tenet, right? He's the fellow who was on watch while this happened:

Now that I have your undivided attention, why is it that the Republican Party has the exact same weaknesses as the Democratic Party - lauding inferior, inattentive, or immoral men? Why do we, the voting public, who are apparrently more conservative than less and thus so inclined to elect "Republicans," put up with these kinds of people failing in their jobs? Doesn't this smack of old-line cronyism, the "good ol' boy's" network to any of you people? We should be electing moral men who expect performance out of their fellow members of government. Seriously, folks, do you think that any of you little people would still be employed at your jobs if you fornicated the canine like Tenet did on 9/11? If you can honestly say "yes" to this question, then you are one of those "good ol' boys" and you need slapped!

Medal of Freedom! He should have been prosecuted for criminal negligence!

So who's on my list to shit-can if I am suddenly transported into George Bush's pandering body?

1. George Tenet (yeah, I know that he's retired, but if I can travel into the President's body, I can travel back in time, OK?)
2. Dummy Rummy, the guy who so inaccurately predicted peace in Iraq after Saddam's removal
3. Asa Hutchinson, Mr. Skate-Around-The-Truth
4. Condi Rice, the giver of Bad Advice
5. Tom Ridge, for sheer incompetence in setting up the toothless bureacracy known as Department of Homeland Defense
6. James Ziglar, head of the INS during the attacks, for missing our 19 friends

posted by: underwhelmed at December 16, 2004 07:46 | link | comments |

Asa Hutchinson Reveals His Lack Of Character

My regular readers understand that now that the election is done, I am going to reserve some critical attention for the many and varied foibles of the Bush Administration. My friend Taylor tells me, "As steel sharpens steel, so men sharpen men." I think that the most valid voices of criticism of the Bush Administration's policies come from his political right, because we don't have a vested interest in the destruction of the government simply because we believe, like the Left, in Socialism, but in rugged individualism.

This brings me to the topic of the day - immigration reform. Current Undersecretary of Homeland Security, Asa Hutchinson, was a guest on the John and Ken radio show July 8, 2004. I heard the exchange while listening to Joesph Farrah's World Net Daily show on Sirius Radio last night. It was a shameful bit of political slipperiness that deserves to be heard. These are the sideways-talking turkeys who run your govenment! The clip's about 6 minutes long and downloaded instantly using Microsoft Windows Media Player, so you should give it an ear. Hutchinson may be picked to be Ridge's successor; you may want to let your CongressCritter in on this bit of tomfoolery prior to the award of said position to a Bush Player.

posted by: underwhelmed at December 12, 2004 08:04 | link | comments |

The Dummy Rummy Question, New Focus

Much ado seems to be focused on the question asked by a soldier to Donald Rumsfeld at a meeting earlier in the week in Iraq. The question this soldier asked was a pointed one - he was asking about the lack of availability of armor for vehicles. The press has made hay with this; Rummy's dummy of an answer ("You go to war with the Army that you've got") didn't win a lot of awards with the people getting shot at, the folks in the press, and the relatives back home. It didn't win the heart of Your Sergeant-Major of the Armchair Commando Brigade of Aurora, Colorado, either. In truth, the fact that the question was posed by a news reporter THROUGH the soldier in question has some in a tizzy; nevertheless, it was a question that was valid and righteous, even if it reveals an almost pathological resolve amongst journalists to tear down and attack the Bush Administration at every turn.

Rummy's mishandling of the war effort - his lack of preparedness for the post-war uncertainties, his continuing slow adoption of new technologies (or old ones, in the case of armoring the vehicles) and his cluelessness with respect to locating and squashing the Queen Roaches of the nest (Al-Sistani, Al-Douri, Al-Zarqawi, Bin Laden, Syrian border-crossers, Iranian border-crossers, blackguards and turncoats in the Iraqi National Guard) is causing me to think hard about who a qualified replacement would be.

You may have read that the Administration has called for Kofi Annan to stay as head of the U.N. I consider this folly. In fact, considering the widely metastasized cancer of corruption that afflicts that troubled institution, and the myriad of slippery eels that gain legitimacy by its existence, I am wishin' (and hopin', and prayin' - my apologies to Burt Bacharach) that we would gain the brains to 1.) leave the U.N., including and especially with respect to its funding, 2.) eject that troubled body from U.S. territory so that it could go to Belgium, who has offered it sanctuary, and 3.) begin to get tough on the insane "immigration" (I thought that when people walked across your borders in the hundreds-of-thousands without your permission it was called an invasion) policies that are very apparently not working for anyone except law-breaking cheap-labor-seekers, foreign welfare cheats, foreign criminals, and terrorists. Oh, and Vicente Fox, too.

In fact, I think that, with the election safely over (well-lllll, maybe I should wait until those Ohio votes get recounted :@)  ) I can find it in my tiny heart to turn up the heat on what I perceive are the very glaring faults of the Bush Administration. I believe that this will become a highlight of the Libercontrarian's new focus!

I'm sure that Ralph, Howard, and my other liberal readers will find future columns amusing, and that some of my more Republican (note that I didn't say CONSERVATIVE) friends will be found unsmiling at their computer monitors. As always, I encourage feedback, especially the kind that disagrees with me.

posted by: underwhelmed at December 11, 2004 07:16 | link | comments (2) |

Christmas Retail Season Begins In Earnest Today

Well, muy amigos, the Holiday Shopping Season will really kick into gear today. I expect an onslaught of holiday shoppers barging through the doors, pushing each other, talking disrespectfully, in strident tones, to the poor blue-shirt kids I work with. As you folks may have found out from reading my column, I can be a bit cranky; the last thing I need is for some mean-spirited, menopausal Park Meadows bitch to get in my face today.

So I'll take a deep breath, relax, and try to remember that everybody has a bad day.

Deep breath.

OK, I'm fine, now. Yeah, the area I now work in, since being transferred from the sunny 'hood (and I mean that in the most derogatory, gang-bangin', wide-tired, rap-playin', knit cap/trucker-hat wearin' tattooed-idiot way) of Aurora, Colorado, is home to the most audacious set of Mercedes SUV-driving, tennis-bracelet-wearing, tech-savvy, comfortably-upper-middle-class brainless middle-aged white idiots you've ever seen. They'll waste your time like you're their maidservant, completely unconcerned about the fact that: a.) there's 18 other customers in line behind them that are waiting to be helped, and that b.) your Libercontrarian does not have infinite patience and grace.

Today, I'll keep my presentations brief and ask for their commitments quickly, so that other frustrated patrons don't have to wait so long. In fact, now that I've committed this ethic to the blogosphere, I feel likelier to act upon my words! Positive affirmation! That's what I like to see in myself, even if it makes me feel a little like Stuart Smalley.

posted by: underwhelmed at December 11, 2004 06:20 | link | comments |

A Crowning Moment in Libercontrarian History

My two readers, Eric Cowperthwaite, and Mrs. Libercontrarian, will be delighted to hear of my success in my ever-continuing pursuit of Personal Technology Enhancement. If it were possible (and life was a William Gibson novel), I would meld adaptable technologies to my very frame! You might have guessed that I am enamored of tech-gear, toys, and the fabulous explosion in affordable consumer electronics. Indeed, I have found a field, Wireless Telecom, that I love.

I got my new Bluetooth-compatible cell phone, a Nokia N-Gage QD, talking properly with my iPAQ 2215 PDA (Personal Doofus Appliance) today through the Bluetooth radio ensconsed therein, and have successfully configured said appliance to communicate with the internet through the new phone's GPRS radio. It turned out that the phone needed a kick in the pants, provided by my friendly T-Mobile TechSupport Genius, Andy (thanks, Andy!). What all of this hoo-haa means is that the Libercontrarian can be truly mobile; wherever my wireless provider has a network, I can be online.

This could be a tragedy for left-wing kooks everywhere. Your Sergeant-Major of the Armchair Commando Brigade of Aurora, Colorado can now comment on the events of the day while on vacation or around town without the need to find a computer connected to the internet. He can receive spam efficiently while at work, and obtrusive, idiotic pleadings for money can fill his inbox without restriction [yayy :( ]. He can find directions to the nearest Wendy's, much to his wife's (and cardiologist's) chagrin. Indeed, it represents the culmination of a life's dream (this may be hyperbole), a dream where The Curious are instantly Googlefied into becoming The Informed.

Praise Allah!

For you more technically competent types (Eric), my successful implementation of 1999-designed and 2003-implemented (2.5G) technologies may cause a yawn. Try and remember that us pointy-shoed markting types eye the implementation of new technologies with disdain, as you engineers frequently let us over-promise and under-deliver to the customer (ducking! :@) ).

posted by: underwhelmed at December 07, 2004 11:28 | link | comments (7) |

Various Insober Ruminations

Your Libercontrarian, Sergeant Major of the Armchair Commando Brigade of Aurora, Colorado, is this very evening on the mission of insober analysis. I am assured by my numerous liberal detractors that such analysis will not be a singular happenstance for your Sergeant Major; indeed, it will not be unique on the web; a co-blogmaster of seriously impressive status, the Vodkapundit, attempts analysis in a state of reduced sobriety on a regular and predictable basis. He's also a lot better looking than me, appearing on his website like a toasted Mulder. Inevitably, an admonishing (and hot) Scully lies waiting for him. Anyway, that's how I envision it :@).

 

There's been a ton of interesting subjects to comment upon this week - the unsettled political landscape in the Ukraine has provided the political cognoscenti with many, many opportunities for students of politics to examine the age old-question of "the people's will" at first hand, the cleanup in Fallujah has revealed the many and varied mental illnesses of our insane enemies, and this Christmas season seems to me to be the most joyous and best-celebrated in years.

 

BTW, kindly ignore the lack of what passes for my normally intelligible syntax and spelling - I am attempting the careful creation of my idiotic ruminations not only in a condition of vodka-inspired insobriety, but on a PDA (Personal Doofus Appliance). I apply this stupid supplication in hopes that you may be then inattentive enough to excuse any misspellings, grammar-errors, and thought-disconnects I may evince in the coming paragraphs. The small size of the hand-held appliance, and its concommitant "neato-boy-wonder" techno-appeal is causing me to work on a screen the size of a matchbook cover, simply because I can claim that I am blogging from my living room, wirelessly! It’s the form-factor, I swear!

 

Okay - Mrs. Libercontrarian is not due until midnight, the bewitching hour. Thank Christ! I may be able to effectively voice my sublimely foolish "opinions" without her sensible input.

 

These things being granted, I am compelled to comment on the impressive FORTITUDE shown by the "Youth Set" of 2nd Squad, Third Platoon, India Company, (battalion and division unnamed) U.S. Marine Corps, on Fox News Corp's Sunday night broadcast of their hard efforts to overcome the few odd "true believer" types as they cleared Falluja of enemy opposition in the embattled town.

 

These hard boys, products of difficult training and harder experience, took days to clear five miles of terrorist-laden city. Many men paid a price, with the highest costs being incurred in their efforts - not as many as those who died in western France in the Summer and Fall of 1944, neither in numbers or in percentage, but their loss is felt no less keenly than it was 60 years back. Your idiotic cell-phone salesman/underachiever, who has no less a keen sense of history than any history professor of the subject, has a purely revolted sense of propriety at the horrors of the war in central Iraq, and a more well-adapted idea of its inhumane cost, both enemy, allied, and civilian in nature, as a result of the amazing quality of the Fox News Broadcast, courtesy of the reportage of Greg Palkot.

 

I am heartened by the efforts of freedom-seekers the world 'round - our brothers in the Ukraine have achieved a serious foothold on the beachhead of freedom this week by forcing the Supreme Court of that corrupt nation to recognize that her recent elections were, on the whole, corrupt. The protestors remain in the streets, bound there until 26 December, the day those elections are held again. These people are committed, tooth-and-nail, to the belief that the representatives they make the effort to elect should be the people that actually serve them, as opposed to the slippery eels that the commie "good ol' boys network" of the former Soviet Republic pre-elected to the leadership positions therein.

 

The retail Christmas season is raging along, apparently in full heat. Your friendly Sergeant Major of the Armchair Commando Brigade of Aurora, Colorado, has been kept busy with many customers, eager to come into the market to purchase a cell phone or four. Predictably, I am willing to oblige their needs. My appreciable capabilities in this endeavor have empowered me to move my sales efforts to the top store in the region; if you have been a faithful reader since the earlier days of "underwhelmed," you will have recalled a sense of helplessness on my behalf. No more. I am able to identify any cell phone from 30+ feet away, and have probably gained a year of knowledge in four months. I'm good. Not great, but that can come in time. My employer, more importantly, believes me to be an asset. Sucker!

 

Well, gang, the vodka is wearing off. While this is a condition that rarely affects Stephen Green (Vodkapundit), the Sergeant Major of the Armchair Commando Brigade of Aurora, Colorado is not immune to the decreasing insobriety brought abought by the reduction of Blood Alcohol Level, a sad event indeed. My insober ruminations must therefore come to a halt; the alternative will be my making sense, a major disappointment to my readers around the globe (all two of them).

posted by: underwhelmed at December 05, 2004 22:43 | link | comments (2) |

Michelle Malkin's Accusers - Racist Idiots!

Michelle Malkin, a conservative blogger of much renown, has been accused by frothing-at-the-mouth liberal idiot racists of "trying to hide her ethnicity/being afraid to reveal it." The accusations are being levied because Mrs. Malkin is of Filipino descent; her last name, Maglalane, is being used as an object of scorn by her accusers, showing both their vaunted liberal tolerance for diversity (until those damnned furriners have the unmitigated gall to disagree with liberal-mental defectives) and their stunning ability to administer a stinging, elementary-school caliber rebuke.

Well, shitbirds, my last name is HORIANOPOULOS. It's 13 letters of joy, meant to confuse the non-Greek masses. I am 100% Greek and 100% American, will never shorten my name or give a rat's mangy ass if you like it (or can pronounce it) or not, and if you'd like to make fun of it in front of my face instead of behind the safety of your computers, feel free to look me up in the sunny, crime-ridden 'hood of Aurora, Colorado. We can talk about it, man-to-man (hope that's not too "pseudo-macho" for ya there, Howard). Malkin's ethnicity is part of her proud heritage, as is mine. Makes her no less American, and should make her - or me - no more of a target than some roaring idiot WASP named Johnson (or Kerry).

Unless you guys really want to prove how "tolerant" you are when us damnned furriners disagree with you.

posted by: underwhelmed at December 04, 2004 22:39 | link | comments |

Democracy in Trouble?

In the Ukraine, it appears as if the Supreme Court's wishes for a new election are being thwarted by the Congress there - will democracy flourish or will it fail? Opinions? (Thanks Maidan News!)

posted by: underwhelmed at December 04, 2004 22:12 | link | comments |

Well, Hell!

Agghh. I had a beautiful post all written up - I struck the backspace key to erase a mistyped character, and the display changed to another window! I clicked the "Back" arrow on my browser, only to discover my carefully written post (ironically enough, about the advantages of technology) GONE. Anybody know why this happens on IE6?

Well, Microsoft, you've done it again. Congratulations - another set of original ideas smashed into paste by your underdeveloped products!

posted by: underwhelmed at December 02, 2004 21:36 | link | comments (5) |

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