THE KWANZAA FILES

DISCLAIMER: We are sorry if this post in any way offends those who celebrate Kwanzaa. Thankfully, we highly doubt any of the 13 people on this planet who celebrate  this holiday will actually read this post.

A. Kwanzaa is not an African holiday.

B. Kwanzaa was invented by a convicted rapist.

C. Kwanzaa was tied to the Black Nationalist movement.

D. Kwanzaa is blatantly Marxist.

E. Kwanzaa is fraudulent to the core.

F. Kwanaa is  bad news for black Christians.

G. This guy and this guy hate Kwanzaa.

Economic Eugenics

By Paleocrat
Dec. 27, 2008

Miss American Pie bids farewell to the Working Class Jack as companies downsize, outsource, and offshore those jobs once proudly (and efficiently) done by American men and women.

This once great nation of producers has run out of steam somewhere between Pauperism and the ghost town of the eternal Proletariat. Our microchips are now potato chips, while our manufactured goods have been traded in for Big Macs.

All the while our politicians and economists, market mystics through and through,  whistle away the day, trusting  that their prophecies of a glorious era ushered in by classical liberalism will come to pass. They can only cross their fingers in hope that the increasing amount of evidence against them is nothing more than a mirage or mere bump in the road to Utopia.

It is rather unfortunate that these mirages, these mere bumps in the road, happen to be known by neighbor and foreigner alike as American citizens. The young, the poor, and those without a college education, these are hit the worst. But so be it! Survival of the richest is the way of the day, and economic eugenics is en vogue.

In days gone by, young Americans performed these jobs. They did for years. Many of them treated these jobs as stepping stones to something better. Some found them to took them as career-worthy vocations. While many of these jobs may be tedious and redundant, they didn’t look half bad on a resume. And with wages superior to Taco Bell, these young ones were able to save up for a home, a higher education, or even retirement.

Tough luck, kiddos. These jobs are going the way of the dinosaur, and their tales will only be told by those begin their sentences with “back in the day.”

Then there are those “down and outs,” the American poor. These men and women are hit especially hard. Many of these people are willing to work long hours on a line, if for no other reasons than paying the bills and supplying basic needs for them and their children.

While these jobs don’t require the skill level of a doctor or a lawyer, they meet many people right where they are. Truth be told, not everyone has the skill level of a doctor or lawyer. And many of these Americans have no ability or opportunity to further their eduction. All they want is some food, clothing, shelter, and enough money to make sure the bills get paid.

Sorry, folks, the rich and famous care little about you. Out of mind, and definitely out of sight, save for the burdensome fly-by during an election year or photo shoot. Place your bets on the lottery. The odds are in its favor on this one.

Take as another example the rest of those without a great deal of formal education. Jobs of this nature were a way to feel the pride that accompanies work and private ownership. And this could be done without having a degree (or even diploma) on the wall. They may have gotten married right out of high school. Maybe there were difficulties they were unable to overcome in a high school or college setting. They may have come from a family without sufficient funds to send them to college. Maybe they simply wanted to dodge the bullet of student loans that so many of their peers spend years trying to pay off. Whatever the case may be, they had their reasons, good or bad, and now their hopes have been dashed to pieces by belligerent ideologues and fideistic advocates of the Austrian school.

And let us not forget the elderly. While I failed to mention them at the beginning of this piece, it would be foolish to ignore the impact downsizing, offshoring, and outsourcing has on many of them.

This age group has really hit hard times. Social Security just isn’t what it used to be. Health risks continually increase, adequate insurance becomes harder to find, and the money simply isn’t there. In many cases it is nothing other than the death of a loved one, leaving them with less money and mess of bills.

Unfortunately, many of these people find themselves back on the line, working tough hours. That is, if they haven’t found a comfortable place as a Walmart greeter or McDonald’s cashier. Any way we go with the scenario, it feels like a lose-lose to those who’ve already lived a life of hard work.

The young, the poor, the less educated, and the elderly. Each of these lack the fitness needed to survive the rough ad tumble of a global economy. So let them rot in the cesspool of a service economy.

This wouldn’t be so sick were it not for the fact that market mystics treat the situation as inevitable, as a sort of social determinism or economic fatalism. These people were just dealt a rough hand. Better luck next time, right?

Lost livelihoods are nothing more than collateral damage in the cut-throat pursuit of efficiency (i.e. the cheapest labor the world has to offer) and never-ending capital surplus. It’s only too bad that the financial fanatics and their political tools have such a difficult time putting a name, a face, and a sense of personhood with the laborers they are tossing to the wind.

Or maybe I am giving them too much credit? Maybe they know, but simply don’t care…

Noam Chomsky on Propaganda

The point of public relations slogans like “Support our troops” is that they don’t mean anything. They mean as much as whether you support the people in Iowa. Of course, there was an issue. The issue was, Do you support our policy? But you don’t want people to think about that issue. That’s the whole point of propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody’s going to be against, and everybody’s going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn’t mean anything. Its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something.

I’d Like Some Unbelief With a Side of Sweat

By Antipelagian

Dec. 22, 2008

Christians are often scoffed at for their “fideistic” approach to origins. It is said that they rely on Sunday School faith spoon-fed from generation to generation (I wish Christians were multi-generational. The notion of covenant succession has evaporated in the last century or so)…after all, there’s nothing more silly than believing that a world of cause and effect should need an initial cause in the first place. Christians, we are told, argue for the existence of God based on their own misappropriation of biology and neuroscience, to name a couple of examples. Christians supplant “viable evidence” with their ignorance. Essentially, it’s the whole “God of the gaps” scenario. What hapless, ignorant Christians are unable to understand, they replace with unicorns. 

Apparently we don’t measure up to Atheistic Materialism’s standard (a standard taken forgranted and accepted as “self-evident”…don’t bother asking anyone to define self-evident. If an Atheist has to present a well thought-out metaphysic that makes such a term meaningful, it sucks all the joy out of their faith). Having never presented a coherent worldview, they go on to assert that their conclusions are the result of the scientific method. Some Atheistic Materialists will go so far as to say all that can be known is accessed through the physical world of sensation, therefore, there is no reason to believe in the supernatural.

‘Reason’ is simply an intellectual tool, rather than an ultimate standard of knowledge, and as such will be affected by the regenerate or unregenerate condition of the man using it

Van Til’s Apologetic, pg 146

How many times have you been told by an unbeliever in the midst of a debate: “Let’s be neutral”? As though taking a step back, breathing deeply, then exhaling will suddenly make things “neutral” and the unbeliever and Christian can get along epistemologically? The truth of the matter is that “neutrality” in the mind of an Atheistic Materialist is an assumed autonomy that is never argued for, it is merely accepted. Atheistic Materialists berate Christians for being irrational and demand we meet the standard of Rationality…as if Logic was supreme, above us and above God (if there is a God).

Reason is a method, not the standard of truth. A way of identifying valid or invalid arguments or thinking processes. In the sense that it is a way of measuring, you can say it is “neutral” if you simply mean “objective”…but our use of it certainly is not neutral. To presume knowledge can be accessed apart from Christ is a slap in His face. Neutrality, in this sense, is far from neutral: it is hostility and rebellion.

The kind of man who is doing the reasoning already determines something about the way in which he thinks about reason and engages in reasoning. Thus Van Til stated, ‘It is impossible to speak of the intellect per se, without taking into consideration whether it is the intellect of a regenerated person or of a non-regenerated person

Van Til’s Apologetic, pg 146

During your next exchange with an Atheistic Materialist who tells you that you’re irrational, and that the impetus is on you to meet the standard of rationality, you need to recognize he means “you need to meet my standards of autonomy”. He has certain beliefs about logic, about reasoning, and he utilizes his faculties in such a way that is controlled by other assumptions. No belief is held independent of another. Each belief is a principle networked among a web of others. We need to evaluate that “web”. It should be a bit clearer now that our Atheistic Materialists are not being neutral. They are, in fact, demanding you follow their bias…so we can’t simply argue brute facts (there’s no such thing), and we can’t discuss evidence as though everyone agrees about what constitutes evidence: We must evaluate the measure. Contrary to what those of the so-called “brights” persuasion may say, Atheists don’t go by evidence and Christian by faith (that is the so-called faith of irrationality we’re accused of)…rather, Atheists reject a certain kind of evidence and adopt a different kind…whether or not their evidence is valid is determined by the validity of their measure for what constitutes evidence.

This necessarily means that metaphysics must enter the arena of debate. For too long it has gone unspoken and the “neutral” position has been assumed to be a humanistic starting point rather the reference point of the Triune God.

Oooh, You Smell Like a Sexy Whopper

By Velleitaire and Paleocrat
Dec. 21, 2008

Flame, the “newest” fragrance from Burger King (yes, Burger King), came out last Sunday. One wonders if it is a Christmas gimmick for stocking-stuffers.  So the next time you go out shopping for your special someone, don’t pass up a bottle of fragrance that “scent of seduction, with a hint of flame-broiled meat.” I’ll bet the farm that you’ll have you sweetheart begging to take a bite out of you… no,  literally, they’ll probably start watering at the mouth for Angus burgers or flame-broiled Whoppers.

And at the low price of $3.99 who can resist?  Then again, you could buy a Whopper for  $2.39 and rub it all over your body. I’m sure that will turn some heads… belonging to hungry, fat people.

Well, the King may be on to something here. The old saying is that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Although I highly doubt that whoever said that was thinking about meat scented cologne.

But none of this should come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the Big Food. The industry has been in cahoots with the International Flavors & Fragrances company (IFF), the world’s largest flavor company, for years in hope of creating the perfect scent otherwise referred to as artificial flavoring.

Think about it for a moment. Why is it that you can identify a Big Mac from halfway across the room? Same goes for their fries. It all makes sense once one realizes that up to 90 percent of flavor is actually on account of the aroma. No wonder  fast food chains work so closely with the same companies that create the most popular colognes and perfumed. It keeps them coming back.

The real question, then, is why it took so long for one of the Big Food giants to come out with a line of body-spray. That was a huge oversight. They should have learned from the experiment where men chose Cinnabon as their favorite perfume fragrance.

While most people probably see this as amusing, I think of it more in terms of… immoral, atrocious, or perhaps, down right evil. Obviously, this is just another tactic for these companies to brainwash us. What do you predict you’ll think about when someone walks by you or gives you a hug and their practically wearing liquid Whopper on their body? These people will be walking, wonderfully smelling advertisements for fast food!

So the next time you think Burger King is intellectually incompetent, you might want to think again. Trust me, they know exactly what they are doing… and it’s downright scary. But hey, at least it smells tasty.

“Slut-erizer” Won Fuse’s Best Music Video 08

By Aleebannister and Paleocrat
Dec. 20, 2008 

Public morality is down the drain, and most Americans are increasingly desensitized by the media. Television seems to be the biggest influence on what many consider morally acceptable. Take Britney Spears as an example. Not only is she still the most talked about celebrity in America, but her video for “Womanizer” recently won her Fuses’ Best Music Video of 2008. It would be one thing if it was just a bunch of judges from the music scene, but it wasn’t. It was by popular demand. The people voted on this one.

When I watched the video of “Womanizer”, which was the Director’s Cut on YouTube, I almost thought I was watching a porno. Britney Spears’ spends most of her time in the nude and is very provocative in her body language. Her style of clothing, when she is actually wearing some, is not much different than a hooker on Cherry St.

After watching this video I decided to find out what all the fuss was about. I know that a lot of it (most of it) had to do with her squirming around all oiled up, but I thought maybe the lyrics had some kind of value to them. What was she trying to tell people. At least in words.

I don’t think the person who wrote this song did a very good job. Maybe that is because I like lyrics to be more meaningful, or at least tell a story. Just take a look at the lyrics! It was either written by a bad writer, or maybe someone who knows how to write to an audience who could care less about quality songs.

The visual aspect of the video is just as bad, or maybe worse. I have heard many people argue that it is fine to be naked (or almost naked) in a music video or on television. Then they normally say, “as long as they don’t really ‘show anything.'” But does this make any sense? How can you be naked, or almost naked, and not “show anything”? These kind of images show a lot! They actually show way too much.

This whole thing is a slippery slope. Where do we draw the line? I can see where the partial nudity on today’s TV will be full nudity on tomorrow’s, but I don’t see where the people or politicians will stand up and say “enough smut!”.

Television is always pushing the boundaries. They did it with swear words and now they are doing it with nudity. The only possible excuse that I can think of is that the body is considered art. This is a bad excuse. Seeing sex scenes or provocative images adds nothing to the “art” of film. Nothing. There is no reasonable excuse for this kind of thing. None.

We need moral and intelligent people willing to look at the horrible effects this kind of perversion has on the viewing public, especially younger people. We ned parents who care about what their children watch and who most influences the way their kids think and behave.

How did we even get like this? Whose fault is it? I have a feeling that the answer is looking back at us every time we step in front of a mirror. Our own worst enemy is our only hope.

Related Article – Fuse Fans Vote Britney Spears Womanizer Best Music Video of 2008

Off-the-Cuff: NRA Propaganda

The 19th hour of the day is always one to watch out for, being as full of fun as it is of fanatics. It also happens to be near the end of the workday for telemarketers… if there is such a thing. I’m not at all sure how much has changed since my time in telemarketing slave campss, but the idea of a traditional workday was as mythical as an archaeopteryx. Still, for those few wretched souls confined to the chairs of telemarketing, advocating causes that require them to stick to script lest they fall off-track and speak sensibly, traditional workdays are quite unheard of.

I was getting ready for something relatively important when the call came in. Was it drying my hair? No, I never dry my hair. I am rather confident it revolved around what has become a Christmas break of checking out the back of my eyelids for 30 minutes or so to make sure they are functioning at full capacity. At any rate, the jingling and jangling of the phone at that top of that 19th hour was nerve racking on many levels… and lo and behold! It was a telemarketer! What are the odds, right?

The poor soul on the other end of the line had no clue what he had just gotten into. Not only had he unknowingly got on my last available nerve, but he was unaware of what would soon become the apparent fact that he had, by no real fault of his own, stumbled upon a man who has dedicated his life to stomping out all things wretched and vile… and that telemarketing was somewhere between herpes and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, placing him in bad company.

Luckily, my household has the luxury of Caller ID. This may frustrate the run-of-the-mill pranksters, but not the more creative rabble rousers. No, we see the advent of this technology as a luxury; we see it as an opportunity to turn the tables on those who would dare advertise and plead relentlessly for a chunk of our already dwindling earnings.

“Hello, sir, I am calling on behalf of the National Rifle Association…”

Uh-oh, this called for my old man voice. Yeah, the voice of one who sounds as close to 110 years of age as he does to dementia. I mastered it while in high school, and it has served me well over the last 12 years since.

I knew that the next minute or so would be an apocalyptic message from Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the NRA, about Obama and “liberal thugs” and “gun-hating Dems” who plan to break into homes on Christmas Eve to confiscate all our weapons… even down to little Ralphie’s Red Rider BB Gun! The audacity! The unconstitutionality! 

Once the man gets back on the phone, I go on a tangent about how “I am scared as hell up to my ear drums” and we need to begin work on foxholes immediately. The poor sap tries to keep his composure (as well as to his script), but my talk of shotguns and coon hounds was too much for this young call-boy to handle.

Poor guy tried to swindle me for $100… until I began jabbering on into Looney Land.

“What’s your plan, boy?… A five-year plan? That whipper snapper Bay-Rock will be out of the White House in five years!… Didn’t you and that French Pierre guy talk about how this was at the top of Bay-Rock’s to-do list?… We need action now!… I’m glad you agree… So what are we doing this evening?… Yes, tonight!… Nothing tonight?… $100?… You just want my money?… You want my support? Good! For a second there I thought you only wanted money tonight… $100??… OK, I will support you. How do I get to your location?… To join the team… $100??… I got a better idea!  We’ll surround the White House!… Well, I don’t want one of them liberal bureaucrats you fellas were talking bout coming to my door trying to nab my gun… You keep wanting to get back to that five-year nonsense that costs me $100! I’m getting angry, boy… Well, I tell ya, me and my coon hound may take that $100 and surround the White House… Heck yeah! Better than giving it to some plan that will only begin to work after those bureaucrats take my guns! 

By this time, the telemarketer was trying his hardest to stay on script, and he appeared to be on some kind of laughter-inducing drug. It had also become quite evident that he had decided I was a failed cause. No money to squeeze out of the crazy, old man with a shotgun and a coon hound. So being the efficient worker ant he was, he made the decision that it was in his best interest not to waste any more time with me. He politely thanked me for my time, wished me and my coon hound the best, and hung up the phone.

After all was said and done, I was hit by the truly unexpected: an epiphany. At long-last I knew why I hated telemarketers, especially those advocating social change… because they, unlike a good gun, are all money and no action.

Frankenfood 101: BK Milk Shakes

“A typical artificial strawberry flavor, like the kind found in a Burger King strawberry milkshake, contains the following ingredients:

amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol, anisyl formate, benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid, cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl, dipropyl ketone, ethyl acetate, ethyl amylketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl heptylate, ethyl lactate, ethyl methylphenylglycidate, ethyl nitrate, ethyl propionate, ethyl valerate, heliotropin, hydroxyphenyl-2-butanone (10% solution in alcohol), a-ionone, isobutyl anthranilate, isobutyl butyrate, lemon essential oil, maltol, 4-methylacetophenone, methylanthranilate, methylbenzoate, methylcinnamate, methylheptine carbonate, methylnaphthyl ketone, methylsalicyate, mint essential oil, neroli essential oil, nerolin, neryl isobutyrate, orris butter, phenethyl alcohol, rose, rum ether, y-undecalactone, vanillin, and solvent.

Fast Food Nation
Eric Schlosser
Chapter 5: Why The fries taste so good (pg. 125-126)

Joe the Plumber Violated by Hyphenated Bureaucrat

By Antipelagian
Dec. 18, 2008 

Joe the Plumber (aka Sam “Joe” Wurzelbacher) will be etched in the memory of Americans for roughly 9 more minutes. I will remember a bit longer since I hail from the same town in Northwest Ohio that Joe the Plumber calls his abode.

 On the one hand, we saw McCain/Palin capitalize on the little guy taking on Barack Obama. On the other, we saw “the political machine” in action, making certain to air Joe Wurzelbacher’s confidential records before the nation in an attempt to discredit him.

I’m not terribly interested in what Joe said to Obama, and I’m not terribly interested in how the McCain/Palin campaign tried legitimizing themselves with Joe’s story.

I am interested, however, in how the state of Ohio has dealt with this situation. Joe’s confidential records were accessed by the Toledo Police Department upon request of the media. The program accessed is called LEADS, and is only to be used under strict guidelines:

Data accessed through LEADS, NCIC, NLETS and other intra-state systems is restricted to the use of duly authorized law enforcement and/or criminal justice agencies and is not to be sold, transmitted or disseminated to any non-law enforcement agency, non-criminal justice agency or unauthorized person.

Taken from Maggie Thurber’s blog

Not only was LEADS accessed illegally in Toledo, but Jones-Kelly, director of the Department of Job and Family Services in Dayton, worked with the Obama campaign in a number of ways including raising funds for Obama and using tax-payer supported time to do so. Besides this, she authorized access of Wurzelbacher’s confidential records to find “dirty” laundry:

She later disclosed that state computers also were used to conduct checks to determine if Wurzelbacher was receiving welfare assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes.

&

state child-support computers were checked for potential information on Wurzelbacher…

Taken from The Columbus Dispatch.

Now why bring up old items, I mean, the campaign is over after all. Sure. But shouldn’t we be alarmed at how people can be destroyed when it suits the political interests of whoever has access to private information? It pisses me off!

Governor Strickland didn’t fire Jones-Kelley for either of these misuses of the State’s resources. I can understand that with the emails, but violating the rights of an Ohioan???? She got a slap on the wrist. To make things even worse, she resigned from her position while using a ploy to look like a martyr:

“…It is with sadness and clarity that I have decided to resign my position as director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. The decision comes after having a time of pause, in which I realize that I continue to be used as a political postscript, providing a distraction from urgent state priorities.

Taken from her resignation letter found here.

Yes Helen, you certainly took the high ground. You’re only interested in urgent state priorities, which is why you campaigned for a Federal election during State time.  It’s unfortunate that your illegal activities which included violating the rights of a citizen of the STATE of Ohio is being used for political points…after all, the violation of Joe Wurzelbacher’s rights was supposed to garner political points for Obama, not backfire on you! Somebody call me a whaaaambulance!

Off-The-Cuff: A Real Police Standoff

By Velleitaire and Paleocrat
Dec. 17, 2008

Sometimes the police can be a little… presumptuous. But this is just downright ridiculous.

For two nail-biting hours, police surrounded a closed bank in Montgomery, N.J., in an attempt to negotiate with what appeared to be a bank robber standing inside. The silent alarm at the bank had tipped them off, but it didn’t look like their was much action inside the building. The only thing they saw was a dark figure standing behind the blinded window. 

What were those robbers doing for two hours? The police wanted to know! So they tried making contact. They tried a number of times, but to no avail.

What to do? Send in SWAT, of course! That was the only logical thing to do. Obviously the robber is pretty crazy. I mean, he had been standing in the same place for two hours! Maybe he was a mastermind of thievery who tried tricking the cops by standing still? It works with bears, doesn’t it?

The pros busted through the door, aimed their laser-lit machine guns at the robber, and demanded that he (or she) hit the floor. But this guy must have been on some serious drugs because not even SWAT and their weapons could faze him. Nope, he just stood there like a lifeless piece of cardboard.

That must have been because he was a lifeless piece of cardboard. Yep, a human-sized cardboard cutout. So for two hours these police officers and SWAT members were in a hair-raising, adrenaline induced standoff with Mr. Cardboard Guy. 

I’m left with so many questions. Could they see the face? Did it look like Sen. John McCain? They sold life-size cutout of McCain at FYE during the election, right? Did the police ever wonder how this robber could stand in the same place for two hours? He didn’t move once! Not even an inch. That would have to be hard to do. Maybe they thought he was dead? But then why the SWAT? Too many questions… and all of them are far too obvious.

Thank God nobody got hurt. The only damage done was to the ego of police officers involved… and any journalist who may have thought they were covering a big story.