Seth Rubenstein’s Neighborhood

Well, it's Christmas at last, and from the sound of you all on Twitter your cards are sent, and your presents wrapped. It's been great hearing all your cries of delight recently, as your poor postmen and women have struggled with packages through the snowy weather! Hope those of you who have time off over the festive season get everything you wish for, and those who are working have more fun than you might be expecting. We've published the dates we're working over the holidays, so if you find yourself in the office, you might well have company here in the UK, or over with the MOO Crew in the US. We've had a great few weeks spotting unique gifts and ideas created with MOO, here's a few of our favourites: A tetrabox advent calendar, by Bcome Also by Bcome, this lovely looking memory game, complete with a great pattern on the back: This super-cute Mosaic Frame, created by thisiswoly. Filled with 20 Minicards, it features the beautiful baby Sarah. These wonderful looking alphabet game cards, by taraghb, which look like they were as fun to make as they will be to use! And last but not least, look at this! another entry into our MiniCard Gift Box competition! Created by emusing-emma, it's really bought an extra flutter of Christmas cheer into MOO Towers. We love his little sledge! Fancy joining in the fun? Closing date for entries to our competition is midnight PST 28th December 2009. Why not grab some festive paper, and see what you can do! More competition details can be found right here. And now all that remains for me to say is a Very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from everyone at MOO!

Well, the last order dates for the holidays have passed, and Santa's final sacks of festive MOOs are filling up fast. We're still taking new orders though, and we'll be shipping them out as fast as we can - so don't hesitate to order thank you cards for all your lovely pressies!

Just so you know, here's our warehouse and customer service closure dates over the holiday season.

Thursday 24th December - LIMITED HOURS: we'll be shipping orders in the morning, but going home in the afternoon to wrap presents.
Friday 25th December - CLOSED : we'll be at home feasting on mince pies and turkey.
Monday 28th December - UK CLOSED: we'll be buying new trousers to fit our expanded waistlines!! (please note this is a UK Holiday only).
Tuesday 29th December - OPEN: business as usual.
Wednesday 30th December - OPEN: business as usual.
Thursday 31st December - OPEN: business as usual.
Friday 1st January - CLOSED : we'll be trying out our New Year resolutions and nursing hangovers.
Monday 4th January - OPEN: that's it, holidays over, back to work!

It's also important to note that our StickerBook turnaround in the UK is severely delayed over the holidays. Any orders placed after the 20th December will not be dispatched until the week of the 4th January.

That's all for now - Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the MOO Warehouse Crew!

He Who Shall Not Be Named wants to know what drives people to criticize him for his swooning over She Who Shall Not be Named the night before regarding his invitation to the White House Christmas Party.

Now it's typical for this idiot not to understand the basis of things, but it was interesting that he was significantly miffed at Laura Ingraham earlier when she too light-heartedly criticized him for gushing about the White House Dog.

He accused Ingraham of being a blind ideologue. I'll spare you my furhther characterization of him - for now.

Does intensely disliking someone who is ugly in every sense of the word and who is certanly every bit as much a criminal and a traitor as her husband constitute blind ideology? You make the call?

Apparently people are waking up to the fact that the tea party participants are on the right track about what's good for America, and I've demanded that people like Limbaugh get behind them and tell Republicans that they'd better get vocal about espousing their principles or they'll be the third party come 2010.

But of course there's a problem: what if the Tea Party because a recognized political party? It's not just that they would dilute the right wing vote, it's that the name, Tea Party, would render it DOA. I would never call myself a Tea Party member, and it has nothing to do with the aspersions cast on it by the left. it's all about the name, stupid!

And I think that no one is paying attention to that which would be consistent with conservatives never getting anything right (ha-ha).

Polls show that more people support the tea partiers than they do either Democrats or Republicans. That's a wonderful thing. But Mike Gallagher and some other guy were on He-Who-Needs-Beheading's show just now, and Gallagher was asked if he wanted tea partiers to "overwhelm the moderate Republicans," To which Gallagher responded in typically confused conservative fashion that "overwhelm" is a loaded word and he'd like them to be 'welcomed" by Republicans.

Do you see the problem? Tea partiers are not going to be welcomed by Republicans - ever. Did they welcome Sarah Palin? Why? Because as big a dope as she is, she represents things they abhor - like fiscal responsibility.

Which brings me to the bigger point Gallagher failed to realize - Republicans aren't MODERATE. They're scum! A few of them would likely embrace tea party principles and be embraced back, but there is no place in the tea party movement for 99.8% of Republicans, and what support they have left is due mostly to inertia on the part of their constituency.

So let's hope the tea party movement grows stronger - and smarter. The former seems almost inevitable. The later is doubtful, and we'll know the result if and when the party takes a name. it has to be nothing short of brilliant - like the Brilliant Party maybe!?!

Glenn Beck opened his show today with a rant against health care as a right. He said that it's nowhere in the Constitution, which is why Roosevelt proposed it when he advocated for a second bill of rights.

Which begs the question: what the hell's wrong with these conservative nuts?

I hate writing about this almost as much as I hate answering the insane disconnected comments of the Snowys of the world, but I'm going to do it because I would have thought that the events of this past year had finally convinced conservatives to understand that it's the height of immorality to deny people cures simply because they cannot afford them. I mean, isn't that the opposite of what the Dems are proposing with their death panel approach?

Now I'll admit that there may be a huge unforeseen obstacle in the implementation of proper care for all, but one would expect conservatives, especially those who profess their love of God, to not just understand the moral dilemma of refusing care based on economics, they should be in the forefront in pushing for it. Isn't that what God would want? It's the Devil that's in the details.

Besides, who is Beck talking to? Are you watching him rail against universal care and agreeing that you and your family shouldn't get care if you can't afford it? Are you going to admit to your cancer-struck child that he has to die because you're a failure? I mean, you can't expect your child to earn enough for his own care, right?

Getting back to Beck's opening, he says that health care isn't in the constitution or Bill of Rights. That's a matter of -opinion-.  Lot's of things have been interpreted by the Supreme Court to be "in the Constitution," no doubt a number of which would horrify the Founding Fathers. But if we believe that, then isn't it possible that some of the Court's interpretations would have also pleased the founders as they realized they'd overlooked something obvious?

If we take Beck literally, the Declaration of Independence isn't in the Constitution - the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Yet we hold them sacrosanct. Or do we?

If the right to life doesn't include the right to procedures and treatments that preserve that life, then perhaps Jefferson should have said something less definitive like "the right to live unimpeded by other entities?"

I'd say "shame on Beck," if it weren't so much bigger. Because once again, an insensitive conservative obstructionist is proposing - nothing. He'd be happy with the status quo, and why not? He can afford anything and go anywhere to get it. You can't. Fourteen years ago, I demanded that conservatives DO SOMETHING... and they did.. they called me every name in the book. You might at least propose taking everything liberals have to pay for healthcare for conservatives?

Obamacare is our ultimate ruin and we're likely to get some version of it. Then it will be the Republican rally cry to reverse it - back to the mess we have now? That's good enough for you? Where you play Russian Roulette with your life, hoping that you don't get struck by the catastrophic disease bullet where you'll either die because you can't afford treatment or you'll face economic ruin for the rest of your life?

It's too late for conservatives to propose anything now. We're at the mercy of fools and thugs, and it's all because doing nothing was perfectly OK with many of you for so many years. Now, instead of starting with a blank slate and enacting meaningful reforms, we have to reverse the damage (which may not be possible). If we succeed, then what? You'll thank your lucky stars for the opportunity to die broke?

God will be so proud.

They've ruined your retirement fund

They've ruined your savings

They've ruined your property values

They're about to obliterate lower tax rates

They're about to ruin health care

And they'll ruin your life completely if any global warming initiatives pass

In my recent post about remembering when, I purposely left out what I said about health care five or six years ago - that if Republicans didn't take steps to lower costs and insure more people, we were going to get exactly what conservatives feared most.

At the time, conservatives had virtually no concern even though I'd been complaining for nearly a decade before that, and when I started speaking out more forcefully, I wasn't just dismissed, I was treated the way liberals are treating Lieberman today. One of my best online friends even turned on me and labeled me a "collectivist."

And that was the kindest name I was called. So one wonders what those people must be thinking and saying today, but I don't... I just hope they're all dead... or at least broke.

Because apologies are worth nothing now. The time to act was long ago, and they, like Republicans, did nothing.

That's why whenever I start to trace back to where the fault lies for all this, it ends with conservatives. Anyone can see the opportunity that was squandered when Republicans were in the same position that Dems are now, and instead of implementing conservative programs that would validate conservative principles, they became Democrats. And that allowed Democrats to become full-fledged communists.

And the worst part is that even if Republicans regain some control, at best, all we have to look forward to is a return to the Bush era. Because Rush Limbaugh is leading the charge against a 'third party." And let me remind you that if there is one person who is more to blame than any other for where we are now - it's Limbaugh.

Hey Rush, How about making Republicans the third party? It's the least you can do to try to make up for the damage you've caused. Tell current Republicans what your pal GW said long ago when it meant something but he didn't mean it: "You're either with us or against us." Your listeners would follow your lead en masse.

Beck, Hannity, Savage, Coulter, Malkin, Ingraham... all of them together don't have the ability to do what you can do. Oh, and O'Reilly should just be beheaded.

Taranto (who will be on Hannity's panel tonight, but he's not nearly and witty and brilliant on-air as he is in print, although that could be because he's mostly been on CNN up to now):

An Erection in Indonesia
"A statue of President Barack Obama as a boy erected in a Jakarta park has been targeted in a Facebook campaign by thousands who say it should be removed," the Associated Press reports from the Indonesian capital:

The Facebook group named "Take Down the Barack Obama Statue in Taman Menteng Park" had attracted more than 10,000 members by Tuesday since the 43-inch statue of 10-year-old Obama dressed in shorts and a T-shirt was unveiled in the downtown park on Thursday last week. . . .

The statue cost more than $10,000. The money was donated by eight Indonesian patrons, a television station and a disaster relief charity.

The Facebook group is now over 23,000 members--not bad considering it isn't even in English. The idea of a disaster relief charity paying to erect a statue of the president seems to rankle people especially, but to our mind it makes sense. Just as the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize was followed by an escalation in Afghanistan, giving Obama awards before he's actually done anything may remove some of the incentive for him to engage in harmful actions. If the statue in Indonesia stops ObamaCare, it will have been disaster money well spent

It's far worse. They matter so much that they don't want you to hear them - or give anyone a platform to present them.

I saw a reporter attacked in Copenhagen today. It's because the issue of global warming is settled in their teeny, tiny ostrich minds. The reporter was talking to Neil Cavuto when the crowd became unruly. First came the random catcalls, then came chanting, and then singing. Suddenly, someone Berlusconied the reporter with something in the fruits and vegetables food group.

With the feeling of imminent real danger palpable, Cavuto tried to get the Irish fellow to safety when he said, "I've seen worse in Belfast on a Friday night?"

That sent the "protesters" scurrying to check Irish newspaper archives for ideas.

I've been very hard on conservatives, and I'll continue to be until they at least realize that passivity is no longer an acceptable counter-measure against the insane. But therein lies the biggest obstacle. You know all liberals are insane, but you fail to realize what that means. The law precludes the mentally ill from doing many things, and the dangerous ones get put away.

All liberals are dangerous. If you doubt that, consider a reply I got from Snowy which I didn't approve for obvious reasons as I'm sure you'll see as you read:

Snowy:

Man made climate change... Neither of us can know who is right. Just as the denialists point to believers with hidden agendas, so it is also true to say that denialists also have hidden agendas, even your beloved Taranto. You don't rally(sic) think that he's about truth, do you. He's about protecting profits of those who pay him well to propagate their point of view. Sheesh! And you call me stupid! (Editor's note: "stupid" is one of the more complimentary things I call him)

But at the end of the day, if the believers are wrong, we'll still have done something about conserving finite energy sources. If the denialists are wrong, then a lot of people are going to suffer. I don't know if you have any kids or not, but I happen to care what sort of world I leave my three. I don't need a Taranto to figure that out for me.

How do you respond to any of that with anything but ridicule? At minimum? And I concede that Snowy is one of the least insane liberals I've encountered. When he rereads his comment, I'm sure he'll see nothing wrong with anything he wrote - it all makes sense to him, and he'll fault me for not offering a counter-argument.

And I admit that my original intent was to take his comments point by point, but what point would there be in that? It's easier to argue with a child that it is someone whose entire life experience has lead him to such irrational conclusions.

So we stand, as Bobo said yesterday, on the "precipice," one, he indicated, that represented an accomplishment if all the Dems fell off and voted us into health care oblivion.

But I agree that we all stand on the precipice, and we don't know how much more our society can take before we're all in free fall.

But we do know that the general answer is "not much." And we also know that members of Congress will be the last to join us in our fall. We keep thinking that something will intervene to restore sanity before it's too late. But when you compound insanity with corruption, and you see that those people are one and the same - people who have cut off all debate, and put roadblocks up on the traditional avenues that would lead to corrections... when you see that ACORN has its tentacles into virtually all aspects of government and political correctness has overwhelmed our military in both it's make-up and in how we wage war, you know that you're the last line of defense.

Sure you can sit by, do nothing, and wait. It only took Russia 75 years to realize its "error." So how bad could it get? I mean, we're not Russia. But if you decide to fight back, realize that you can't reason with the sort of things that come from Snowy, and even if you try, one of his cohorts will hit you with a tomato - or worse. Because reason has no place in their world. And it will have no place in yours if they prevail.

I saw all this coming, and you probably did too, but I admit that I didn't anticipate how quickly the destruction would come and how vast it would be, but in my defense, I was under the illusion that more people were rational than there actually are, and I thought that if all else failed, the military would save us. So while this isn't the first time I was wrong (I thought McCain was the most viable candidate of the bunch - although that was actually true)...

This time it's serious.

You don't debate the criminally insane

Remember when some conservatives excused the Republican spending of years ago because "the deficits would make it impossible for Dems to justify more if they ever got control?" So how did that work out for you?

Remember when a lot of conservatives said that "the conscience of the Senate," Joe Lieberman was one liberal they could support? I said then that Lieberman was scum/ So today, it looks like he's close to a sellout on health care. So how did that work out for you?

Remember when I said I didn't like it because we weren't killing enough Iraqi soldiers? War is about overwhelming force and no war we get into should last longer than a day. Yet we've just learned the "rules of engagement" in Afghanistan, and here they are:

The actual ROEs are said to be classified U.S. and NATO secrets, but based on individual soldier accounts, those restrictions include the following:

• No night or surprise searches
  
• Villagers are to be warned prior to searches
  
• Afghan National Army, or ANA, or Afghan National Police, or ANP, must accompany U.S. units on searches
  
• U.S. soldiers may not fire at insurgents unless they are preparing to fire first
  
• U.S. forces cannot engage insurgents if civilians are present
  
• Only women can search women
  
• Troops can fire on insurgents if they catch them placing an IED but not if insurgents walk away from where the explosives are.