Sooo….I just heard on the radio that he’s coming to Dallas on his world tour in July. And as much as I have distanced myself from my junior-high Wham! days, as much as I find the man politically repugnant now, I totally want to go to that concert.

In fact, I am going to go. And I will take pictures, and I will blog about it, and people can just deal with the fact that even rational, logical chicks do stupid shit like go to George Michael concerts.

Surely I’m not the only one though. Surely there are other women out there who still know every single word of every song on every Wham! record, and maybe half the songs on George’s first solo record? Come on, admit it. Own it.

Okay. That should do the trick. I haven’t gotten any hate mail lately and it’s high time I did.

Except for people who have been hiding in caves or living in denial, it’s pretty widely understood that a substantial number of those voters — in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and elsewhere — will not vote for a black candidate for president. Pennsylvanians themselves will tell you that racial attitudes in some parts of the state are, to be kind, less than enlightened.

At the bottom of the article, he says:

No one has an obligation to vote for Mr. Obama, and it’s certainly not racist to vote against him.

Mmkay. He also says:

…the senator can make it clear that it is wrong to dismiss a candidacy out of hand solely because of the race…of the candidate.

Yeah? Kinda like all the people who are voting for Obama because he is black and de facto dismissing the candidacies of Clinton and McCain because of their race (not black)?

Anyway. Whatever. The sentence I want most to bitch about is this one:

One of Mr. Obama’s strongest points early in this campaign was his capacity to make people feel good about their country again.

And that right there is the molten core of what liberals so badly misunderstand about average Americans who are decent. (Which is a whole other post subject in itself, needing to distinguish between decent or not, because the fact is that a lot of average Americans are total douchebags.) Here’s the deal:

If most of us do not, in fact, feel good about our country (which is a whole other question again), the source of that lack of good feeling stems almost completely from the results of liberal/progressive thinking and behavior. In other words, it’s people like Obama who make us feel bad about our country.

For me personally, 100% of my bad feelings about America are rooted in the horror and disgust I feel about the rampancy of unwed mothers, unwanted children, abortion, the sexualization of children, the horrible way public schools are run, the lack of appreciation for the military, the theft of my money via the IRS to give to people who make bad decisions, the government’s bloat and inefficiency, the Marxist attitudes of so many elitist assholes, the hypersensitivity that surrounds every discussion about race, the labeling of anyone but white men as “victims”, and so on.

Those are the things that make me not feel so great about being an American.

And the very last thing that would cure any of those problems is an extreme leftist liberal like Obama as president.

This might be another great time to point out that I’m not even a conservative, and I still feel this way. It seems that guys like Herbert and Obama want to think that anyone who’s against him is some sort of uneducated redneck Bible thumper. Time to get a clue. Not nearly as many people are buying what you’re selling as you think.

That shot straight up Sunny’s nose is for commenter Recovering Liberal. You asked.

To supplement today’s Daily Dog photos, I have a gripping story of danger and intrigue.

First, I am here to tell you, Cesar Milan is RIGHT. He’s right about everything he ever said about dogs and aggression and calm assertiveness and all that shit. Here’s the scoop:

Last Friday evening, I took my dogs to the school/park down the street as I am wont to do. We got around behind the practice fields where it’s safe to let them off leash, which I did, and everything was great. Then I saw off across the whole complex, three kids with a dog on a leash. I kept my eye on them as they went into the fenced area surrounding the main football field. This was good because it meant their dog and my dogs wouldn’t have to interact, and I was glad for that because I could see immediately that these brats didn’t have any control over their animal.

As soon as their dog saw me and my dogs over 100 yards away, it keyed in on us and flipped its shit trying to get loose from its leash. Sunny and Maggie heard it barking at them aggressively and that got their hackles up but they remained calm because I have been devoted lately to doing what Cesar says and dominating them the right way. I’d already noticed a huge change in them around the house and on walks, but we hadn’t encountered another dog since I got drop-dead serious about this.

Anyway, so they remained calm while this other dog, far away, continued to flip its shit. We had to go closer and pass by it in order to get to the car, but I wasn’t worried because there was a fence separating that little furry asshole from us. So we got closer and by the time we were at the closest point we would be, the other dog, which I could now see was a pit bull (OF COURSE) was completely enraged and was literally dragging the boy across the grass towards the fence. No shit. This was a 13-year-old boy, at least 110 pounds, and that beast was pulling him on his butt across the grass for about 20 yards.

Which, understandably, made my dogs flip their shit, and they rushed the fence just as the pit bull reached its side of it, and they all started fighting through the fence. At which point, the three kids (2 girls and a boy, all about 11-13 years old) commenced flipping their shit. Screaming and yelling “GIZMO NO! GIZMO NO! ARGHGHGH!”

I thought that was a little bit of an overreaction and I told the kids to be silent. They all looked at me in terror, which again I thought was an overreaction, but as soon as they fell silent, the dogs immediately relaxed. Go figure. So then trans-fence sniffing took place, everything was fine, and I put my dogs on their leashes and said “let’s go”. We went. Then it got interesting.

As we came round the opposite side of the field, still fenced, the pit bull freaked out again and tore back towards us. Maggie still has some work to do as far as realizing when she is outmatched, so of course she engaged the pit bull and charged back towards her, ripping the leash out of my hand. Unfortunately, the fence at that spot was a little high off the ground, and the pit bull in its frenzy squirmed under the fence and went completely APE SHIT.

First she attacked Sunny, who had just been standing there like a loaf (good girl). That was a bad move on pit bull’s part, as Sunny does weigh 95 pounds and is protective of me and Maggie. So within a split second, she and the pit bull were going at it while Maggie came in from the side, and I admit, it was pretty fuckin’ scary. Two huge, tough bitches going at it is not a sight for the weakhearted.

And guess what, children tend to be weakhearted. All three of them were screaming at the top of their lungs by this point, and in the two seconds it took me to assess the whole situation, I felt - and I am NOT JOKING HERE, SHUT UP - the spirit of Cesar Milan come over me. I mean it, shut up. I am telling you what happened, and that is that I genuinely saw in my mind’s eye a lightning-fast replay of everything I’ve ever seen on Cesar’s show, and in those two seconds, I went from thinking I was about to see a dog get killed (who knew which one) to feeling like a master of worlds.

As I took a few steps quickly but calmly over to the canine melee, I shouted firmly at the kids: “STOP YELLING. BE SILENT.” They obeyed. Then I addressed the animals just like Cesar always says, with calm assertiveness. The key is calm, and it is something I never would have felt in this situation even a few weeks ago. It was pretty damn scary what was happening but I knew I was the only creature of the seven present who could make anything good happen, right?

So I calmly but very, very dominatingly approached the fighting dogs, said “Ay!”, and kicked Sunny gently yet firmly on her fat rump. She let go of Gizmo the pit bull, looked up at me, lost her balance, and fell on that very same fat rump. Which for some reason completely disarmed Gizmo for a few seconds. I nonchalantly reached down and got hold of Sunny’s leash, and at the same time, Maggie let up and pulled back from the scene, and I calmly acquired her leash. As I did this, I watched Gizmo out of the corner of my eye and she just stood there, seeming disappointed that none of us wanted to let her rip our throats open.

Once I had my dogs in hand and behind me, I faced Gizmo head-on and she started to growl at me and showed her teeth. I took another step towards her and held out my hand at her JUST LIKE CESAR and said “zzzzt!” And most importantly, I meant it.

People. It worked. The second I thrust my hand towards her and zzzt’ed, her ears went from the forward “killing” position to the back “hey how ya doin” position, and she averted her eyes. All of which of course made me positively DRUNK with power and success. So I took another step toward her with my hand still up, to make sure she knew I was completely goddamn dominating her, and she turned around and trotted away.

BOOYAH, BITCH!

All three of the kids were crying by this point. I asked them if Gizmo was always like this and why they were so upset, and they said she had torn other dogs up and just recently, had gotten two different males by the throat and pinned them. (This bitch was lactating, by the way, I could plainly see her nipples, and I figure that has something to do with it.) And then one of them pointed at Maggie and sobbed, “She’s bleeding.” Sure enough, blood was trickling down sweet Maggie’s chin, but she was fine - in fact I think one of her own teeth got caught on her lip and gave it a little cut.

So basically the kids thought either Gizmo was going to kill my small dog (Maggie) or that my big dog (Sunny) was going to kill Gizmo, and that in any case, I was going to call the cops and have Gizmo destroyed. I didn’t do that because the truth is, my dogs were partly to blame because they didn’t completely ignore Gizmo, and nobody got hurt, not to mention the fact that my dogs were off leash anyway. So I just told the kids, get that leash back on that animal, go home, tell your parents you cannot handle Gizmo and that she got in a bad fight, and never ever take that dog out by yourselves again until she gets trained. I will call the cops next time (and definitely won’t have my pigs unleashed next time, either).

Anyway. I just made a short story long didn’t I? Tough titties. It was exciting and I was incredibly proud of myself for handling the situation. After I got home, I spent the whole night reading on the internet about dog fights and dog attacks, because it hit me that I was still shaking an hour later and that I could have actually gotten hurt, but was pleased to learn that in fact, I’d done everything 95% right. (Not completely, I am still learning after all, but obviously good enough for that situation. I’d even grabbed a stout stick as soon as I saw Gizmo’s bad attitude from 100 yards away and was going over in my head what to do if she attacked me instead of my dogs, such as shoving that stick straight down her throat.)

But the most important part of the whole story is how I rewarded Sunny and Maggie for submitting to my will when it really mattered: green beans. They love them.

Below the fold: another green bean. I think it’s funny. Your mileage may vary.

(more…)

…the out-and-out confrontational confidence of the totally ignorant is, in my experience, gendered.

Men explain things to me, and to other women, whether or not they know what they’re talking about. Some men. Every woman knows what I mean. It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence.

This syndrome is something nearly every woman faces every day, within herself too, a belief in her superfluity, an invitation to silence…

More extreme versions of this syndrome exist in, for example, those Islamic countries where women’s testimony has no legal standing; so that a woman can’t testify that she was raped without a male witness to counter the male rapist. Which there rarely is.

Yes. It is exactly like that. I provided a great example just the other day when I ranted about guys getting all needlessly “helpful” at the gun range. I thought that was just annoying but now I know it’s really sexist-oppression-lite and that if I don’t get to fighting this war with the other feminists, it’s just a slippery slope to the day I’m in a burka.

Sorry, I’m having trouble even being sarcastic about this because it’s just so stupid. The premise satires itself.

What I really hate about articles like this one is how the author takes a handful of personal experiences and turns them into conclusions that are not supported by broader evidence. That evidence being that anyone who has ever spent an equal amount of time with men and with women knows that, in fact, women are just as obnoxious, pompous, and know-it-all as men. It’s a personality thing, not a “gendered” thing.

But more importantly, even if you do grant her premise that men are more likely to condescendingly lecture women, to extrapolate that out into something even remotely resembling the situation for women in Islamic countries is downright offensive. It’s just like when people compare, well, anything going on in the U.S. today to Nazi Germany. Doing that is wrong because it dilutes the horror that was Nazi Germany. It’s like comparing the poultry industry to the Holocaust (which has actually been done).

I’m not saying there aren’t pompous assholes out there who feel free to tell you what’s up even though you know better than them; I’m just saying that half of them are women. Maybe my perspective is skewed because (1) I’ve always worked with mostly women and (2) all the men in my life have always been very nice and considerate of my views and respectful of my intelligence. All I know is that, as I try to remember the last several times someone just would not SHUT UP about something they knew a lot less about than they thought, they were all women.

Everybody does it. And that’s the thing, that’s why feminists aren’t taken seriously by a lot of perfectly decent people. They pathologically give a pass to women for the exact same behavior they crucify men for. Which is in itself condescending and patronizing towards women. How can they not understand that?

I read another article last week, can’t remember where it was but it was some feminist blog, in which the thesis was that men are lying manipulators and thus keep women from becoming fully part of a relationship. Women want to “connect in” and “nurture” a relationship but they can’t because men lie so much. I kept reading, waiting to get to the part that recognized that as actual human beings, women also lie because that’s what human beings do, but that moment never came. I wasn’t surprised.

And they wonder why their ideas about gender relations never change, and all the while they are the ones who keep shoving women into the victim category, keep condescending to women by pretending their own shitty behavior is not something they’re responsible for. They themselves see women as nothing but reactionary children who can’t overcome the oppressive tactics of The Man.

Anyway, this whole subject makes me want to clarify some things about my post the other day regarding men who give help at the range without being asked. Because the thought that anyone would think my feelings remotely align with those of the article above makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit.

I realize that in general, men know more about guns than women, and that in many cases, their unsolicited advice is nothing more than an expression of their interest in shooting. And the only reason that post was all about men annoying women is because the situations took place at a gun range, which at any given time is populated by 90% men, at least. If I went to a quilting party, by the time I left I would have several women on my “Need to Shut the Piehole” list, trust me.

“I didn’t say it was well as I could have,” Obama confessed today during a town hall in Muncie, Ind., in response to the controversy he described as a “political flare-up because I said something that everyone knows is true.”

He then launched into a broad explanation of what he was trying to express: “There are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my home town in Illinois, who are bitter. They are angry… So I said, well ya know, when you’re bitter, you turn to what you can count on. So people, ya know they vote about guns or they take comfort from their faith, and their family, and their community, and they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country, or they get frustrated about how things are changing. That’s a natural response.”

But these traditions that get passed on from generation to generation are important, he said.

“People don’t feel like they’re being listened to,” Obama said. “And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families. You know this in your own lives. And what we need is a government that is actually paying attention, a government that is actually fighting for working people day in and day out, making sure that we are trying to allow them to live out the American dream.”

For the love of God, if what we need is a government that’s actually paying attention and helping WORKING PEOPLE - note the WORKING part - then I think you and I can come up with some suggestions that have nothing to do with magically regenerating jobs in old mining towns.

How about abolishing the IRS? How about a flat tax or a fair tax or whatever else the hell kind of tax would let people like us contribute to shit that needs done (military, roads, etc) and keep the rest so that we can live out “the American dream”, whatever that even means anymore.

Every single one of the things he listed as a symptom of bitterness and anger stemming from hard financial times are things that people cling to and take comfort in even when they’re not remotely bitter or angry. Most of you have and enjoy guns, religion, family, and community, right? Is it because you’re pissed that your town’s mill shut down 25 years ago?

And who ISN’T “mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country”? Jesus in a frosted mug.

Really, every time he tries to spin and explain, he comes off sounding like even more of a dipshit than he did in the first place. I love it so much it hurts.

Check this out - one of Michelle Malkin’s readers made the best graphic ever:

So yep that’s me, my skating helmet, my stupid grin, and one of my own Viva La Rachelucion shirts. I photoshopped ‘retard’ onto the helmet but you know what, seeing how great it looks makes me think I might need to paint it onto the actual helmet. People will leave me alone then, for sure. Especially if I wear it not only for skating but also for general lifestyle activities such as grocery shopping and getting the oil changed. Oh! What about the gun range? No? Might not go over so well there? Dangit.**

As you can also see, I’ve given the Saddest Bee her rightful place right in the header. This is because she is finally earning part of her keep. The Saddest Bee greeting card on my Zazzle store has sold about 25 copies and was voted “best card” three days in a row. Hey, you gotta start somewhere. I figure my profit on those cards so far ought to feed Sunny for about…two days.

The stuff I ordered from my store to check the quality finally came yesterday, and I’m so pleased. They’re really good! The Saddest Bee cards? I’m sorry, but even though I’ve seen that picture a thousand times now, I’ve never seen it on thick, high-quality glossy cardstock and it MAKES ME LAUGH. Anyway the cards are so nice, I’m totally going to create a whole line of them using Sunny’s posing talents. Christmas, Valentine’s, birthday you name it, that bitch will have a card for the occasion.

The coffee mug is really good, too, although I didn’t notice until I held the mug in my hands that got the stupid rainbow upside down. Red at top, purple at bottom, right? Not on my mug. I’m a rule-breaker. A rebel.

There’s no good way to model a coffee mug, so I used Sunny for the purpose she is best suited.

**Update on that paragraph: Carbo has now suggested it say ‘Wachel’ instead, which he doesn’t even know how funny that is. See, I actually said my name that way until I started 1st grade and the teacher made me learn how to say my R’s. No shit, true story. So I changed it because that makes me laugh more.

After a few glasses of wine and watching 30 Rock on the DVR, I now feel more like this:

It’s cool. I’m no longer pissed off; that’s never a state I can maintain for long and all it really took to get over it was a nice long walk with the pig-dogs and a nice long phone call from Rupert. He’s doing well, by the way, just slogging through the boredom that’s occasionally punctuated with actual purposeful activity. He should be getting his orders to join a unit later this week.

And he’s close enough to his parents’ town now that he was able to go to their place for the weekend, and his mom took pictures of him in his uniform to email to me. It would have been appropriate for the note to say nothing more than “you’re welcome Rachel” because oooohhh yeah, baby. Give me some orders, sir yes sir!

I am doing my taxes.

And you know what, right this second, I’m NOT proud to be an American. I’m not even proud to be a human being today. I am certainly not enjoying the fact that I share air and a planet with whatever assholes invented and maintain the IRS.

It makes me want to blow shit up. Not people, that would be taking it too far, but definitely shit. Like watermelons and outhouses and maybe even a taco truck.

So far, after a basic run-through with Turbotax, it looks like I’m gonna have to write a check for over $11,000. THIS IS MORE THAN 30% OF MY TAXABLE INCOME. About 23% of my gross income. What is this, goddamn commie Russia?

So in honor of this day of misery and brimstone, I would like to offer some heartfelt sentiments to certain people.

Are you on welfare? FUCK YOU.

Do you have children you can’t provide everything for all by your widdle self? FUCK YOU.

Are you on unemployment because you just can’t find a job that’s good enough for ya? You don’t want to work at McDonald’s temporarily because you have a college degree? FUCK YOU.

Are you hoping for a bail-out because you’re too stupid to buy a house you can afford? FUCK YOU.

Are you a federal employee who has anything to do with making the government inefficient, bloated, and more costly than necessary? FUCK YOU.

Let’s cut the crap: Do you take any money from the federal government for any purpose due to your own poor decision-making? FUH-HUH-HUCK YOU STRAIGHT TO HELL.

Seriously. I hate those people and everything they represent. They’re the worst kind of parasites, sucking vortexes of need and stupidity, and I am genuinely enraged that I spend a huge chunk of my life working for those people. They take and take, never giving SHIT back, and you know what the actual worst part is? We put up with it!

We keep working harder and harder, trying to make something of ourselves and our lives, and we put up with having a huge portion of the fruits of that labor forcibly stolen from us so that lazy worthless assholes can live in luxury compared to real poor people. Knowing that I’m directly subsidizing lazy fucker’s rabbit-like reproductive practices makes me literally sick to my stomach, but I keep doing it.

What’s the alternative? Give up and become like them? No can do; I have pride. Refuse to pay the taxes? No can do; I don’t want to go to prison. Become an activist? Frankly, judging by the evidence, that’s just a waste of time. Nothing is going to change.

It might if paycheck deductions for taxes were eliminated and everyone had to write a check every year like I do. (Yes, you can pay quarterly but I refuse to let the government earn interest on my money when I can instead.)

Back to the tears and hair-pulling now. No joke, I really have been in tears for the last hour or so. For some idiotic reason, I anticipated my taxes being a few thousand lower than they’re turning out to be, and this is a MOST unpleasant surprise. My fault entirely, but it’s butthurtful nonetheless.

UPDATE: In case anyone wonders and doesn’t already know it, I’m self employed and thus have to pay that Extra Special Just For Those Who Don’t Work For Someone Else Tax. And yes there is a penalty for not paying quarterly but I don’t give a shit. I keep my tax money in interest-bearing accounts all year and no, the interest doesn’t always cover the penalty but have I mentioned not giving a shit. I believe I have. It’s my money; I get to use it all year, not them. Assholes.

And, yep, I’ve used accountants instead of Turbotax many times, and I always compared the outcome, and it was always the same. In fact TWO different accountants missed some deductions that Turbotax found. I don’t know what kind of magic the accountants some of you have mentioned work, but there are only so many deductions to take. It’s key that I have no inventory, no overhead, no employees, no expenses whatsoever other than my home office percentage of the household bills and any new computer crap I buy. Which ain’t much.

Also, I live in Texas so no state income tax.

Oh and I know a lot of my tax money goes to military, etc. I did mention that in my other post this week about taxes. I know it’s not ONLY lazy dipshits that get my money. That’s one reason I singled out the people who make the government so inefficient for a big ol’ fuck you.

Oh and I KNOW ABOUT CORPORATE WELFARE. Sheesh people. This will teach me never to write a rant on the fly while actually pissed off, and hit “publish” before revisiting it to make sure I didn’t leave anything out. Criminy, it’s the whole system we live under, the whole fat bloated Jabba the Hut of a federal government.

P.S. I re-worked my return again and got it down to an ass-breaking $10,900. Still want to drink whiskey and blow shit up.

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Jesus in a meadow. What classic bullshit.

Jobs dry up and towns become useless: it happens. Been happening since civilization began; that’s kinda why there are thousands of archaeological sites out in the middle of nowhere. You’d think that after 25 years, people would get the hint and MOVE TO WHERE THERE ARE JOBS. Instead, they expect the federal government to magically “regenerate” the community. Of course.

But what I really love about this speech is all the ways he clarifies what he means by “bitter.” Guns and God, right at the top of the list! Clearly here is a man in touch with average Americans, a man who speaks truth to power about real life. Hopechange.

And speaking of the federal government and how it’s funded, a reader named Taylor made some Excel graphs for me based on yesterday’s poll. I can’t figure out how to get the graphs on here, but suffice to say, there are some affluent and tons-o-tax-payin’ people hanging out around here. By far, the highest number of votes were from people who paid more than $30,000 in taxes for 2007.

The total tax paid by the first 574 of you who voted: $10,817,500.00.

For an average of: $18,845.82.

Good grief. We could run our own country, which we totally should.

Heh. Now I want to run the averages on how many guns you rednecks have, too. Some commenters have suggested that all my data-gathering is a thinly veiled attempt to start building that well-funded army I’m going to need to take over Earth. I have no comment on that at this time.

Anyway, this story should win an award for being simultaneously troubling and hilarious. I bolded the part where I started laughing and wanting to smack someone at the same time.

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — A couple fighting about which gang their 4-year-old toddler should join caused a public disturbance that resulted in the father’s arrest, Commerce City police said Thursday.

On Saturday, Joseph Manzanares stormed into the Hollywood Video store where his girlfriend worked, threatened to kill her and knocked over several video displays and even a computer, Commerce City police Sgt. Joe Sandoval said.

After he ran out of the store, police were called and the 19-year-old was arrested at his home.

His girlfriend told police that they had been arguing about the upbringing of their son and which gang he should belong to. The teen mother, who is black, is a member of the Crips. Manzanares is Hispanic and belongs to the Westside Ballers gang, the woman said.

“They have different ideas on how the baby should be raised. Basically, she said they cannot agree on which gang the baby would ‘claim,’” Sandoval said.

Manzanares was charged with disorderly conduct, harassment, and domestic violence. He was transported to the Adams County Detention Facility.

So the dad was maybe 15 when the fruit of his loins was born. Awesome. And he belongs to a gang with a name involving the word “Ballers”. What a bad-ass!

I’m telling you: compulsory sterilization within 30 days of reaching puberty. Solve a lot of problems.