EckerNet.Com

Well the New Year is almost upon us. It\’s time to do that silly thing we always do about promising to be a better person and blah blah blah blah. Instead you get this….

I will stop and smell the roses, BEFORE setting them on fire (lesson learned from last year)

I will at least pretend to notice the posted speed limit

Learn to lick my elbow

Recycle my bad karma

Stay off the FBI\’s Most Wanted list

No Dying

Try at least one animal I haven\’t eaten yet

I will stop reliving the past, instead I\’ll worry about the future.

I will spend at most one hour a day on the internet

Redefine one hour to mean \”less than 24\”

Stop getting in arguments with inanimate objects

Find a cure for clowns

Create a fool-proof Zombie Survival Plan, beyond yelling \”GET SOME!\” and shooting everything in sight.

Increase my carbon footprint

Midgets

Stop making silly resolutions

Stop when it\’s hammertime

Mature past the age of 12

Actually that last one is probably gonna take all my time this year…

Damn I\’m good, my yearly predictions were spot on in almost every area last year. Clearly I missed my calling. EckerNet has closed, now doing business as Kevin\’s Magic 8-Ball.

Despite eight years of liberals claiming otherwise, Bush will not in fact declare a dictatorship at the last minute…..yeah, I know I’m starting them out tough.

Yeah, big surprise on that one right? Although admittedly it probably was the the feverswamp at the Daily Kos.

Despite their respective scandals, neither Senator Dodd nor Senator Rangel will resign their Senatorship nor their respective committee chairmanship.

Another big surprise right?

The irony that the only reason they’re the chair of a committee is because Democrats regained the majority by campaigning on Republican’s \”culture of corruption\” will never be mentioned by the mainstream media nor the liberal left (but I repeat myself).

Ditto.

Immigration will not become a major legislative issue this year

Short of a few quiet attempts to get it started as an issue again, it did not.

The recession will begin turning around in the fall of this year

I\’m convinced it would have….had the Federal government stayed out of the way. In fact according to their own figures it probably would have too. I underestimated the ability of the Federal Government to shoot itself in the foot. Now if only we could figure out a way to make them shoot itself in the forehead.

Democrats will be unwilling to pass another bailout bill without bi-partisan support. Republicans will not provide it.

Democrats would like to but they\’ve clearly grown nervous about an already hostile public.

Obama, despite his record otherwise, will govern as a moderate this year

Ok to be fair I\’m not wrong or right here. Obama hasn\’t done a damn thing yet.

Fairness Doctrine, not gonna happen

Thankfully

Assault Weapons Ban? Not gonna happen, although if any anti-gun legislation is passed it’ll be to increase tax on ammo….effectively accomplishing the same thing

No AWB so far…although the MAIG is trying to push for it lately.

Vikings? One and out in the playoffs

Wild? Don’t even make the playoffs. Gaborik is traded at basement value to an east coast team.

Damn I\’m good. What\’s that you say? Gaborik wasn\’t traded at basement value to an east coast team. Well he did get sent to a east coast team and how much more basement can you get than free??

A member of Obama’s administration will be forced to resign due to a scandal

I might be cheating on this one because a number didn\’t even get past nomination before their issues got the best of them.

Global warming will lose popularity and credibility rapidly.

And it has…which has made the eco-crazies even more frantic and desperate.

Some how that doesn’t effect the fact that \”green jobs\” becomes the new hip trendy thing to worry about.

Good Lord the word green is everywhere. If it\’s not \”Green\” you are a complete bastard for even considering it.

Microsoft gives up on making Vista work and just skips right to the next version. Consumers are somehow still stupid enough to buy it, not having learned the lesson of Vista.

Spot on. Windows 7 appears. Everyone agrees to pretend Vista never happened.

Oil prices remain low through the year.

Eh, they aren\’t the prices that people were screaming about a couple years ago. But they aren\’t the $0.99 prices they were in the late 90s either. The public seems to have become acclimated to these prices as the new low.

China is the first to start to recover from the recession with the US following shortly thereafter

Well they have enough money to continue to bail our asses out don\’t they?

Iran declares it has nuclear weapons, although this might actually be verified

Well they\’ve announced intentions to continue on that path but so far as far as we know they don\’t have them.

Regime change in North Korea….from internal forces

It appears very likely I will be right about regime change from internal forces….just for the wrong country. Iran is imploded and North Korea is the quiet one now. So I had this backwards. I\’ll take a solid miss here.

Iraq continues to progress

And it does

In Afghanistan, the central government signs a power sharing agreement with the Taliban

And they effectively have.

Mainstream media continues it’s love affair with Obama

They try, but it gets more and more difficult every day.

Newspapers continue to go bankrupt

Anyone miss them?

Israel stops it’s war against Hamas before eliminating the threat. We got back to the same cycle all over again. Rinse. Repeat.

Yup….we haven\’t gotten repeat lately, but it\’s a matter of time.

Large Hadron Collidor will be started up again and will complete a full scale test. World does not end

They have. LHC is back up and running. And according to a friend of mine that works on the LHC they have had collisions. Very nice. Congrats.

GM declares bankruptcy. Again world does not end….neither does GM.

Well to be fair I think they are now Government Motors so I guess General Motors sort of ended.

Home prices continue to fall, bottom out in the spring. Eventually settle around a 3:1 to 5:1 median home price to median income ratio.

I don\’t know the nationwide figures but for my area they seemed to have settled in that range. Which I think is probably what is historically sustainable.

UPDATE : It’s been pointed out to me that I’ve been negligent on my prediction for a draft. In the run up to the elections for both 2000 and 2004, liberals tried to scare college kids into voting for the Democrat by insisting that Bush was going to instate a draft. This claim was made with absolutely no evidence but that didn’t stop them.

Yeah, no draft either.

Again I have to repeat….damn I\’m good.

Well Christmas is over and what a great break it was.

It\’s finally here…the event you wait for all year every year….No, not Christmas, it\’s Dave Barry\’s year round-up.

Typical Obama, all fluff no substance.  Obama got criticized for his handling (or non-handling) of the Fort Hood shootings so he wanted everyone to know he\’s \”on the case\” of the Christmas Day attempted Northwest airline bombing.  Unfortunately by \”on the case\” they mean they are constantly updating the media but not actually doing anything or keeping anyone in the government itself informed on anything.

Poor Obama, none of the world leaders want to hang out…or even talk with him.  Isn\’t this the guy who claimed he was totally better at foreign policy than Bush??  At least Bush could organize a coalition.  Obama can\’t even convene a meeting.

Have you ever thought that some of the bills that come out of Congress have to have been written by drunken buffoons.  Well, perhaps because they are.

The polls continue to deliver bad news for Obama and the Democrats.  For the first time a plurality now believes the stimulus did more to hurt than help.  As far as Obama\’s personal approval rating, I think we can forget him getting above 50% again….now the question is can he keep his Strongly Disapprove rating below 50%??

2010 SHOULD be a revival for Republicans.  Unfortunately the GOP is full of incompetent boobs and leaderless.  Which is why it\’s no surprise but still sad, that essentially they\’ve had to oursource the game planning for 2010.

A picture is worth a thousand words

If this health care bill is so great, why does it require so many bribes that even MSNBC has to report them.  You\’ll find a the full (and lengthy) list of all the payoffs here.

Remember how progressive are constantly telling us how evil private insurers are? After all they refuse coverage to people that desperately need it.  Well turns out the talking points don\’t match reality.  The reality is that government health care denies people at a greater rate than private insurers.

It really is amateur hour in Washington.  The House finally got around to passing a Jobs bill, costing $39 billion.  Problem is very little of it actually goes towards jobs, as most of it just goes towards government inefficiencies.  So it\’s sort of a jobs bill….a government jobs bill.  And only half of it gets spent in the next decade….only 1.7 billion gets spent in the next year, so you know it\’s very responsive.  I mean seriously, they aren\’t even trying to bullshit us anymore are they?

Nomination for Person of the Year is Straw Man….it\’s a fair nomination, as according to Obama, he\’s been an incredibly busy and influential man this year.

Who owns the debt of the United States….it\’s rather interesting to see the breakdown.

The initial NTSB report for that Northwest flight that forgot to land at MSP and instead flew past it for about an hour.

A continuation….SFW

Wow, no sooner did I resurrect the Red Foreman Dumbass Award, due to extreme jackassery than I get a flood of worthy nominations for that award.  And today brings one from beyond the grave, in reference to Ted Kennedy comes this quote from his second wife….

“Nobody had a better gut sense of what was right\”

Yes the man that left Mary Jo Kopechne to drown at Chappaquiddick to save his political ass, truly has a great sense of what is right.

Yeah, I wish I had a moral compass as rock solid as that.

If leaving someone to die due to your own actions is \”right\” I have to wonder what it \”wrong\”.  Just how far does the moral compass have to spin before it points to wrong??  Surely things like genocide are still kosher right?? I mean that\’s just the logical extension of Chappaquiddick isn\’t it?

I tried to get an opinion from Mary Jo Kopechne, but she was unavailable for comment.

Congrats Victoria Kennedy, you win the Red Foreman Dumbass award for your severe lack of non-dumbassery.

Definitely worth the watch, but probably NSFW

Part 2 tomorrow

Oh goody, another email from his holiness.  It\’s so nice when he takes time from frivolously spending my money to actually talk to me via a mass email.

Kevin –

What up O-dog?

Early this morning, the Senate made history and health reform cleared its most important hurdle yet — garnering the 60 votes needed to move toward a final vote in that chamber later this week.

They certainly made history all right.  This is the first time something this big has been passed on a party-line vote.  This is the first time that it\’s so blatantly obvious that votes have been bought and sold.  It\’s the first time that Congress has so completely ignored the will of the public.  It\’s the first time (that I know of) that cloture was passed on a bill that nobody has actually read except for the majority leader and a few of his staff.

I\’m not sure this is the type of \”history making\” you want to brag about.

This marks the first time in our nation\’s history that comprehensive health reform has come to this point.

That\’s a feature, not a bug.

And it appears that the American people will soon realize the genuine reform that offers security to those who have health insurance and affordable options to those who do not.

That would be great if ANY of it were true.  People who have health insurance will lose it because the penalty for employers to NOT offer insurance is less than the cost they pay to provide insurance.  And there are no \”affordable options\” because this will artificially raise demand, while capping supply.  This will cause prices to skyrocket and rationing to happen.  As evidence of my assertions, please reference any and every time ANY government has ever tried this sort of approach.

I\’m grateful to Senator Harry Reid and every senator who\’s been working around the clock to make this happen.

Ever stop to think they wouldn\’t have to work so hard if this were truly a good piece of legislation? If this is what would truly fix the problem, and if this truly was what the public wanted, legislators would be climbing all over each other to support it and be seen as the person that fixed health care.  That not being the case…..

And I\’m grateful to you, and every member of the Organizing for America community, for all the work you have done to make this progress possible.

Heh, don\’t blame me, I did what I could to stop this piece of shit.

After a nearly century-long struggle, we are now on the cusp of making health insurance reform a reality in the United States of America.

The word \”reform\” usually refers to an improvement.  This is more of a clusterfuck.  Congrats by \”reforming\” health insurance, you just killed the \”health care\” industry in this country.  You did realize there was a difference…….right??

As with any legislation, compromise is part of the process.

And apparently so is bribery, backroom secret deals, bigotry, and threats if your parties conduct so far is any indication.

But I\’m pleased that recently added provisions have made this landmark bill even stronger.

How exactly did the $100 million bribe to Nebraska make this bill stronger?

Between the time when the bill passes and the time when the insurance exchanges get up and running, insurance companies that try to jack up their rates do so at their own peril. Those who hike their prices may be barred from selling plans on the exchanges.

Ahhh, I can already see this is going to be a positive relationship between the government and what little private industry you\’ve allowed to survive.  Don\’t you DARE try to cover your costs so you can stay in business, or else Uncle Sam will put you out of business himself!!

And while insurance companies will be prevented from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions once the exchanges are open, in the meantime there will be a high-risk pool where people with pre-existing conditions can purchase affordable coverage.

Please explain who you plan on making that financially sustainable.   They are high-risk because they are likely to incur huge health care bills, which is why they are charged higher premiums, to offset that risk.  If you make those premiums \”affordable\” you\’re not offsetting the risk (read : LOSING MONEY).  Of course with people like you in charge, using this type of logic, perhaps that explains why Medicare continues to go broke.

A recent amendment has made these protections even stronger. Insurance companies will now be prohibited from denying coverage to children immediately after this bill passes. There\’s also explicit language in this bill that will protect a patient\’s choice of doctor. And small businesses will get additional assistance as well.

You realize all this could be done without hijacking one-sixth of our economy and replacing it with an economic model guaranteeing failure, right???

These protections are in addition to the ones we\’ve been talking about for some time. No longer will insurance companies be able to drop your coverage if you become sick and no longer will you have to pay unlimited amounts out of your own pocket for treatments that you need.

If this was such a common occurrence you\’d think you\’d be able to provide an example.  But so far, every time you try, it turns out to be complete bullshit you made up.

Under this bill families will save on their premiums; businesses that would see their costs rise if we don\’t act will save money now and in the future. This bill will strengthen Medicare and extend the life of the program. Because it\’s paid for and gets rid of waste and inefficiency in our health care system, this will be the largest deficit reduction plan in over a decade.

You do realize you can\’t just legislate unicorn farts into existence right?

And it\’s not paid for, the CBO has repeatedly shown that this program saves money only in the very short term.  After that the extra costs skyrocket.  It doesn\’t strengthen Medicare, in fact it slashes huge parts of it.  And the CBO has shown that premiums for most people would stay the same, for everyone else they would go up.

So in short, nothing you said is actually true.

Finally, this reform will extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans who don\’t have it.

Please explain why we have to screw up health insurance for the majority of the country that already has it, to pay for the few that don\’t.  And that 30 million number has been repeatedly shown to be untrue.  Most of those people could get health insurance affordably if they wanted to, they choose not to because it doesn\’t make sense for their situation.

These are not small changes. These are big changes. They\’re fundamental reforms. They will save money. They will save lives.

Clusterfucks remember, not reforms.

They will not save money and it will likely cost lives because by artificially raising demand while capping supply you are virtually insuring that rationing will happen.

And we could accomplish most of your goals without hijacking one-sixth of the economy.  Simple things like allowing people to shop across state lines.

And your passion, your work, your organizing helped make all of this possible. Now it\’s time to finish the job.

Not to mention your bribery, threats and misinformation.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

No problem Larry

[Crossposted at True North]

It\’s times like this I really wish I understood the \”progressive\” mindframe…

An Eagan principal who let a parent shoot balloons with a BB gun in the school gym called his decision \”unwise\” on Monday after questions about the incident led to a school district investigation.

The balloon-popping took place after a ceremony held the evening of Dec. 8 for students graduating from a drug-awareness program at Red Pine Elementary. The kids got certificates, cake and helium balloons — some of which floated up to the ceiling. To get the balloons down, Principal Gary Anger let a parent volunteer bring a BB gun from home to pop them while a few people finished cleaning up the gym.

The BB gun troubled some adults in the school district, where students caught with weapons have been expelled. After Star Tribune reporters learned of the incident and started asking questions on Monday, officials in the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan District said they were investigating it.

My brain gets to \”…..ok, so what??\” and then seizes up because I can honestly not fathom what the problem is. Balloons in the rafters, parents comes up with a fairly clever idea to get them down.  Nobody is ever in even a remotest possibility of danger.  Why are some \”adults\” supposedly \”troubled\”?? Or have they gotten so completely insane that simple the sight of something resembling a firearm causes them to wet themselves.

Even the Star&Sickle admits that no laws were broken, but that doesn\’t stop them from having an emotional breakdown over the incident.

So to all that find alarm in this story, this is for you:

Calm the hell down and get ahold of yourself.  We\’re trying to have a civilization here.  Firearms have been, and remain, an important tool in building and maintaining that civilization.  If you\’re going to wet yourself every time you\’re within three states of something that resembles on we\’re gonna be constantly cleaning up your piddle and that\’s just no way to do things.  So either put on some pampers or get a hold of yourselves.  That is all.

[H/T Andrew]

Sixteen months ago, my sister and her (then) fiancee took in a rescue dog, that past owners had apparently had problems with.  It soon became obvious that this said more about the previous owners than it did about the dog, because this particular dog was one of them friendliest labs I\’ve ever had the joy to meet.  Which being a lab, a breed known for it\’s friendly nature, says quite a bit.  Friendly, good tempered, eager to please and an excellent hunting dog, it seemed my sister had hit the jackpot.

Until the last week when Bear\’s health started to fail and despite desperate attempts to save him, renal failure finally took him at four years of age.  It\’s too bad that just when Bear had found owners who appreciated him, he had to leave us.  I know my sister and her husband miss him, as do all that got the chance to meet him and experience his spirit. To them, he leaves a hole in the heart.  To everyone else, he serves as a lesson to cherish those that are with us, no matter how diminutive their stature or species.

Goodbye Bear, you are missed.

[H/T Dee]