Schadenfreud

...or, Mr. Law Of Unintended Consequences Strikes Back!

And people wonder why I'm suspicious of "easy" solutions which will
"make everyone happy". What could POSSIBLY be wrong with protecting da
innocent widdle chilluns?

Posted by Lizard in Schadenfreud at 20:04 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Ask for whom the bell tolls, for it might be for some bastich we're all better off without.

Posted by Lizard in Schadenfreud at 12:24 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Now, our favorite clown is threatening to nationalize the banks and the steel industry if they don't do what he says. You know, I never dreamed I'd hear rhetoric like this again in my adult life. It's almost heartwarming, in a way. For today's children, the total and comple destruction of personal and economic freedom by a kleptocratic thug won't just be something they read about in a history book...it will be happening right on the front page...well, OK, more like page 7 or so...of their newspaper. If they read newspapers. Er...it will be somewhere on the home page of CNN, but in a smaller font than "J Lo Gains Five Pounds, Threatens Suicide", but in a larger font than "George Bush Claims Yet Another Law Doesn't Apply To Him".

Some choice quotes...and Lizardian replies:

Chavez made the announcements in a televised speech, urging Venezuelans to cast aside materialism and recalling independence hero Simon Bolivar as he said the country must close the gap between rich and poor

"We do not expect to pay out money in order to arrive at some arrangement with the companies,"

"If the company Sidor ... does not immediately agree to change this process, they will force me to nationalize it," Chavez said, arguing the company should be giving priority to supplying national industries.

All of those who voted for me backed socialism, and that is where we are heading."

Posted by Lizard in Schadenfreud at 12:40 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

(Under Schadenfreude instead of Politics because I'm enjoying this waaaay too much....)

Step 1:Accuse people of being "horders".
Step 2:Nationalize the food.
Step 3:Famine!

"Schadenfreude is chocolate for the soul. That's why ours are full of cavities." (RK Milholland)

(And you really gotta love the 'take time off to study socialism'. I'd do that. "Hey, boss, sorry, can't come in to work today. I've got to read 'Das Kapital'. In the original German. So, uhm, I'm going to also need to learn German. So, well, I'm going to Germany for a year or two. At YOUR expense. Or off you go to the gulag. Ha ha, sucks to be you!")

This is just so great. I missed the era when leftists made excuses for Stalin's atrocities...now I get to see them stumbling all over themselves to justify the actions of El Presidente. I am so happy, I am hugging myself in glee. (Well, yeah, sucks to be the folks living in Venezuela right now, and they're probably wishing that CIA-backed coup had worked out after all, but hey...with any luck, their forthcoming misery will keep the rest of South/Central America socialist-free for a few years.)

Posted by Lizard in Schadenfreud at 12:29 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Or, in legal parlance, he is facing a "disciplinary hearing".

He'd probably enjoy being spanked, come to think of it. Possibly by someone wearing a Mario costume.

IAE, it's all sort of moot. Disbarment wouldn't seriously slow him down; he hasn't done much real lawyering in a long time. His career now consists of promoting himself and trying to force states to throw taxpayers hard earned dollars down the toilet. (I wonder how much he collects in 'consulting fees' from the lawmakers he tries to seduce down the primrose path to "mus pay all defendants court costs"?)

However, the ability to constantly refer to him as "disbarred attorney Jack Thompson" would certainly be some sort of prize.

Posted by Lizard in Schadenfreud at 06:57 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Oh, gods, I hate situations like this. On the one hand, you have the numb-nuts who (allegedly) claim they couldn't figure out that newly-released (or in some cases, unreleased!) movies and songs weren't just going to be given away for free to anyone who wants them. On the other hand, you have the con men at Kazaa who, while playing the "perfectly legal uses" card, knew full well their spyware infested piece of crap was only being used by people to get material they had no legal right to, and which engaged in deceptive and fraudulent marketing practices to gull those computer users too dumb to use Shareaza or other free, open source, tools to do their stealing with. So, do I point and jeer at the idiots stating, for the public record, that they couldn't figure out it was a big scam, or do I wallow in delightful schadenfreud that the crooks are being sued by those they managed to trick into downloading and installing their software?

So many fools, so little time.

Posted by Lizard in Schadenfreud at 13:08 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Well, to the surprise of no one -- least of all, I'm sure, Jack Thompson, whose goal is not to pass laws but to get his name in the papers -- another video game censorship law has been struck down, this time in that bastion of wooly-headed left wing pinkoism, Louisiana. (That was sarcasm, folks.)

And, once again, the taxpayer's money has been wasted pursuing a law which anyone with two neurons to rub together knew was unconstitutional from the get-go. Lawmakers time has been wasted. Court time has been wasted. All for one purpose -- to feed Jack Thompson's ego.

And Mr. Thompson pays not one dime in compensation, spends not one minute in jail, is required to compensate the people of Louisiana to not the slightest degree.

This is justice? Not from where I'm sitting.

Posted by Lizard in Schadenfreud at 13:01 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Why is it that the folks who go on about the 'racial superiority' of the White Race are, pretty much, all data points leading to the opposite conclusion? I suppose it's because if you're a total loser as a person, all you have left to fall back on is pride in who you might be related to.

Case in point.

We have the guy who wants "edukated" women, and the gal who likes to "fist and hunt". I have to wonder how that works. I mean, I've never been hunting, but I have done some target shooting, and it seems to me it would rather difficult to aim when someone is...well, you know.

I love sites like this. It's always good to know that no matter how down you might be, there's always bigger losers out there.



EDIT: To Thom

Nothing to add, really. There are no superior or inferior ethnicities -- just superior and inferior individuals. (Anyone who thinks 'all men are created equal' refers to anything but equality in the nature of the rights they possess can just leave now.) It's been my experience that the more someone is convinced of the superiority of an ethnic group (by astounding coincidence, almost always the one they happened to be born into) the more likely it is that they can safely be dumped on the 'inferior individual' side of the scale. At the very least, they are embracing a collectivist view of humanity, a grievous philosophical flaw.

Or, as Heinlein put it:
"This sad little lizard[1] told me that he was a brontosaurus on his mother's side. I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry often have little else to sustain them. Humoring them costs nothing and adds to happiness in a world in which happiness is always in short supply."

I'm a bit nastier minded than RAH, a failing (one of a few thousand, at last count) that I admit to, and so, I laugh at those who are more concerned with ancestry than with achievements. (And those who would, given the already-rare opportunities for love in this world, narrow the field unnecessarily by excluding anyone who didn't pick the right parents.) Some would pity; I mock. So it goes.

[1]No relation, I assure you.

Posted by Lizard in Schadenfreud at 14:05 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Please note the new category.

Well, it seems that Kent "Dr Dino" Hovind is guilty of tax fraud to a major degree. He might spend up to 288 years in prison, but that shouldn't bother him, since he believes that humans can easily live to 600-800 years or so, and, besides, Jesus ought to be coming back any day now. And, yeah, I'm sure that in order to be ideologically pure, I ought to say something about how I don't think the IRS is a force for good in the world, but you know what? If I cared about ideological purity, I'd be an Objectivist, not a libertarian. And you know what else? When one thug shoots another thug, we're still down a thug, and that's a good thing.

But there's more here than a nutjob getting hoist on his own nuttery. One of the most common arguments against evolution (and I use the word 'argument' very, very, loosely here) is that it leads to Bad Ideas. That if you don't believe the Big Daddy In The Sky will spank you, you'll immediately run out and become a nun-raping pedophile drug dealer. So, then, what are the "fruits" of Creationism? If Hovind is any example (and he is!), they are fraud, treating your employees like slaves (something not at all unique to Mr. Hovind, as I have it on good authority that many fundie-run institutions like to claim that since their work is a 'ministry', their employees should not expect or demand anything like decent comensation, sane working hours, or basic human dignity), and self-delusion. You're not likely to see Richard Dawkins going up the river for tax fraud anytime soon.

Posted by Lizard in Schadenfreud at 18:43 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)