Brushfire of Freedom

The Irritable Pundit

Hello all,

Change. I am so tired of hearing about CHANGE.

Photoshop, come hither!

Brushfire of Freedom

The Irritable Pundit

I and that genuine jewel of femininity, the lovely Mrs. Irritable Pundit, have packed up the little ones and are headed for a week's release from the doldrums of daily doing. I am speaking of course about taking a vacation. That wonderful state of rest, relaxation, recreation... and reprobation.  That last brought on by the new bikini that Mrs. Irritable Pundit purchased yesterday. 

Wow.  Just wow.

As I head off on the great American highway, I wanted to share a picture from the road.

I love old timers. They say it like it is. 

See you next week!

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Copyright 2010.  The published content is the sole property of the author.  Any copy, use, or redistribution of any portion of the material without the written consent of the owner is a violation of international copyright laws.

 Brushfire of Freedom

48.0px Arial; color: #c22c2d;">The Irritable Pundit

Hello all,

Uncertainty is the single most destructive force in the market.  It can be both internal, communal, and external. Internally it is destructive only to the individual company, communally it can be destructive to a market segment, externally it can be destructive to an economy.

Lets look at a few examples.

Internal uncertainty is where the leadership of a company finds itself unable to make a decision as to direction.  Sony and its inability to focus on its product lines comes to mind.  Remember the days of the Walkman? Sony had the world on a string, but while they dithered as to their next direction (True digital? Mini-disc?) they created an opportunity for someone else to step forward.  A plucky little California-based computer manufacturer made a bold decision and changed the world as the iPod effectively ended the discussion in Sony's boardroom. 

Apple took action, and ended uncertainty.

Communal uncertainty is where a group of manufacturers miss a change tipping point en masse.  Consider the book publishing industry today.  They effectively passed over leadership of a vast entertainment empire by refusing to believe the digital wave would be able to overtake them.  A web-based storefront decided to prove them wrong.  Today, no one talks about Macmillan publishers, they talk about the Kindle, and the Nook, and the iPad. 

Amazon took action, and ended uncertainty.

External uncertainty is what we face now in the United States. If you need an example, go to Drudge. Consider this story about how the drilling rigs in the Gulf are starting to sail away to other waters -- taking their jobs with them. The money-quote is about halfway in the story.  In it, a financial analyst asked a question that is chilling. "Are you really going to spend $5 million … getting ready to drill a well that someone would then probably block you from drilling?" No one would. You do not have to be a devotee of Burrhus Frederic Skinner to recognize that this level of uncertainty is wildly destructive. The stakes are simply too high.

So the old jobs leave, headed overseas.

External uncertainty can reach further than just the corporate boardroom. In small town USA, it is much the same. Say you run a small business, and you need to hire an extra hand to help with an expansion. 

With taxes rising to an unknown level? 

With Obamacare and its confusing mess of labyrinthian regulations, fees and charges bearing down like a freight train? 

With the Democrats threatening Cap and Trade and other expensive global warming fiascos?

With an economy burdened by uncertainty at every level?

You stare at your balance sheet and worry. You walk out to the storefront and try to be cheerful.  Can you hire someone? Will you have to let someone go if things get worse? Will sales improve after you have spent the capital? If you make the wrong decision you could lose it all.  Beyond your own circumstances, every one of your trusted employees would be unemployed.  At a small business, those people are your friends -- it matters. Paralyzed by indecision, you wait another month.

So the new jobs never arrive and the recovery stays nothing but a dream. 

One small business after another does the exact same thing, and like ripples in a pond, slowly fading, the economy comes to a stop. You can not blame the businesses (large or small) for fearing the unknown. Nor can you blame the consumers for holding back in the face of an uncertain future. Though the scale is changed, the stakes are still simply too high for all involved.

You can only blame the source of the uncertainty -- Barack Hussein Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and every other Democrat in Washington. They have transformed the American economy into a Skinner box experiment. Today we get a food pellet with one push on a lever, tomorrow it takes 10 pushes, the day after we get a random shock. Like the animals that Skinner tormented, we become afraid to push the lever. We need to stop this experiment by joining together and holding out until November ...and then?

We need to take action, and end uncertainty.

See you next week.

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Copyright 2010.  The published content is the sole property of the author.  Any copy, use, or redistribution of any portion of the material without the written consent of the owner is a violation of international copyright laws.

 Brushfire of Freedom

The Irritable Pundit

Hello all,

Sarah Palin is hot, and I mean smoking hot.

I'm OK with this personally, but Sarah Palin is apparently bad, because she is smoking hot. Or maybe I'm bad, because I think that Sarah Palin is smoking hot, which is bad apparently. I need a smoke while I work this out, but I gave up those coffin nails because they are bad too, so all I can do is sit here in the July heat, be hot and wish I was smoking. I know, I'm not making much sense, but thus speaks Newsweek, that bastion of fairness and even-handed approach!  

More correctly, thus speaks deputy editor Julia Baird of Newsweek who is busily excoriating me for ogling and objectifying Republican women. Actually she said , "It’s odd to see how some men insist that when women start to grasp power, we should think of them primarily as playthings and provocateurs."

Now wait a minute. I'm not really sure if:

1) Sarah is hot and thats bad somehow, or if 

2) I'm bad and a neanderthal because I notice she is hot.  

Regardless, I do not now, nor have I ever, thought of Sarah Palin as a "plaything" or "provocateur". OK, maybe the provocateur thing, but only after seeing her at the Republican convention, and I think I should be forgiven that one discretion simply due to the shock of seeing a female politician in heels and a skirt. Do you know how many times my retinas were assaulted by Hillary Clinton in a lime green pantsuit? 

Such images could make Ron Jeremy require Cialis for life. (/shudder)

That one time aside, I think of Sarah as an extremely intelligent and gifted politician. Sarah seems to echo my own yearnings for independence and liberty, and shares my own thoughts of limited government and reverence for the constitution and our founding fathers -- and she just happens to be smoking hot. This apparently is a conundrum to Julia Baird, is not fair to women, and is the fault of men in general and conservatives in particular.

OK, assuming that made sense, which it doesn’t, now what? She is hot and it is bad that I noticed? 

I will admit that Sarah Palin could be bad for my marriage if the lovely Mrs. Irritable Pundit were the jealous type, but beyond that I simply do not buy it. First, it isn't men who are making the snarkiest comments, it is women.  More to the point it is liberal women, like the author of this piece, who have the greatest issue with attractive women and belittle them for their looks. This is apparent in things big and small within her screed. When the author spoke of Nikki Haley's recent troubles (oh yeah, she goes after her too) she mentions how Sarah Palin "bounced to her defense". What?  "BOUNCED to her defense?". Name a serious conservative male columnist who could have gotten away with that language. Heck, name one who would do it in the first place (other than yours truly if I was in a mood). Better yet, would the author have used the same words if it was Mike Huckabee who had lent a helping hand?

I dont think so.

The problems with Julia Baird's column are legion. A mature man can notice that a woman is beautiful without the assumption that she is an airhead. By example, the lovely Mrs. Irritable Pundit is an accomplished woman, holding a doctorate, running a business, and usually editing my written nonsense into something resembling intelligent discourse. That she is smoking hot is a bonus, and a good one. However, it does not detract from her intellect, her world view, or her worth, which are impressive, amazing, and beyond price consecu tively.

Mrs. Irritable Pundit, Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin, and Nikki Haley are all smoking hot, and very smart. A mature conservative male sees no conundrum, no irreconcilable differences between both being true. Beauty and brains are not mutually exclusive.

In fact, to a mature conservative man, a woman who is smoking hot without the brains to match, isn't actually smoking hot anymore. If Julia Baird was actually privy to the conversations among the men she judges she would have heard from time to time, some variation of, "She looked attractive, but the minute she opened her mouth? She wasn't attractive anymore."

Yes, we men really do say things like that on occasion.  It does not stop us from being struck dumb when a Victoria's Secret commercial flashes on the widescreen TV mind you, but we men do know the difference between Madison Avenue and Main Street, USA. So, all I can do is shake my head in wonder at the total lack of comprehension that Julia Baird shows when she says, "...we need to remember that these women are not competing to see who has the most smokin’ bod."  

I wasn't having those issues Julia, nor were any other men preparing to cast votes.  In fact, the only person dismissing Sarah Palin as a mere "Hottie" already fading was you, years ago during the campaign. 

Go home Julia, catch up on your irony.

I shouldn't give Julia too hard of a time, the truth is she does genuinely care about women's issues.  It is just that her outlook and laser focus on her gender have caused her to misjudge the other half of humanity in this regard. Also, she is not a bad writer by any means, although waxing philosophic about  "Sex and the City" aren't really my thing. Considering the subject, I should also point out that the profile picture she makes publicly available on Twitter (and as her BIO picture on Newsweek) demonstrates conclusively that Julia Baird is smoking hot

...but the minute she opens her mouth?

See you next week!

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Copyright 2010.  The published content is the sole property of the author.  Any copy, use, or redistribution of any portion of the material without the written consent of the owner is a violation of international copyright laws.

 Brushfire of Freedom

The Irritable Pundit

Hello all,

My column comes out after Independence day (as they are published Mondays), and rather than miss it by a day, we'll just be way early and do it now.

I'd like to hit a slightly different point than most.  I believe Independence day is amazingly relative today, more-so than ever before. I can hear your inner dialogue.. "Blah blah, more than EVER before?  Please"

Yup.  For the meaning of Independence itself has almost been forgotten.

Example: According to that bastion of consistently liberal explanations, "Wiki pedia", Independence is " ...a condition of a nation, country, or state in which its residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory." Note that Wiki puts the state as having the primary condition, and the people as exercising self-government within the confines of the state.

Liberal claptrap.

The preamble to the constitution does not say, "We the states", it says "we the people", as in American parlance it is "we the people" who declared our independence, formed a union and removed ourselves from tyranny.  This was not an accident of verbiage, it was intentional. Our founders were fierce individualists, with a keen sense of self-reliance and a fanatical opposition to the runaway powers of an over-reaching state.

Which sadly is exactly what we are seeing in our beloved country today. Look around, what do you see? Wage controls, price controls, government rationed healthcare, impenetrable regulations and unaccountable bureaucracies, unconstitutional power-grabs and incomprehensible central planning. Our economy is in shambles and our government grabs more, and more, and more. The power, the money, and the choices they take come from you.  In the truest meaning of our founders, they are taking our independence.

George Washington would be ashamed of the city that bears his name. 

Thomas Jefferson would be loading a pistol while talking about watering the tree of liberty. 

Benjamin Franklin would be hitting on a scullery maid but he would have much to say in the morning.

What can I say? Benjamin was the original Pimp of Philadelphia. He would get around to condemning today's pretenders eventually, but he was a randy old geezer first and foremost.  His priorities were:

1) Women

2) Women

3) Science

4) Women

5) Liberty, freedom, and Independence!

And if he had time? More women. If the rumors of the number of his illegitimate children (here and abroad) are even half right, his direct decedents could easily control Rhode Island's elections. And they would be of all races, colors and creeds. In fact, when asked if he preferred blondes, brunettes or redheads, his response was "All cats are gray in the dark".

C'mon!  Whats not to love about that man?

In truth, perhaps more than Washington or Jefferson, Franklin was the epitome of what independence actually was (if not its most powerful proponent). He lived his life his own way, travelled around the world chasing science and learning (and a few skirts). As the forces lined against the colonists, he would come to fight ferociously, using his extraordinary intellect against the powers that tried to take his freedom away.  Franklin fought against a tyranny that wanted to limit what he was and what he could be.

This Independence day, remember our freedoms and our founders and especially remember Franklin.  In his honor, make a resolution to be who you want to be, to be all you dream you can be.

And maybe give your significant other a scandalous little squeeze in public.  

Franklin would have liked that.

See you next week!

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Copyright 2010.  The published content is the sole property of the author.  Any copy, use, or redistribution of any portion of the material without the written consent of the owner is a violation of international copyright laws.