The Left Wing Redneck

There was a time, before  nanny government inserted their big feet into unfettered free enterprise, when it was possible to derive commercial benefit from your children, as opposed to paying through the nose for their care and maintenance.  A mere 150 or so years ago you could have sold your six year old to a chimney sweep, one of a class of tradesman always on the lookout for small and agile assistants.   Charles Dickens made an excellent living describing the various ways minor children could be turned to useful employment, but now in the so called free world, the labor market has been severely restricted from capitalizing on the unique capabilities of children. There still remain some opportunities,  Mr and Mrs. Lloyd and Dorothy Bridges were able kickstart young Jeff's career at a mere four months of age, but clearly, there was an element of nepotism involved, what can a parent do if they are not themselves a movie star?  In Canada, the canny parent seeking to recoup some o

thanks wikimedia! When I was twelve or so, I used to hang with a group of neighborhood kids, we would play Cowboys and Indians in the local woods, and when we got tired, we would sit around and ask each other stuff, like 'if I see a color as blue, how do I know that you see it as blue? I mean like, if you saw blue as red, but your mom and everybody told you that color you saw was blue, but you saw it as red, you would say red was blue!'.   One of us, I forget who, proposed that for all he knew, we were all in one of his dreams, and that when he woke up we would all be gone,  I think he got that from a Twilight Zone episode. We all knew this could not be true, unless of course, we were the dreamer.  Ethics received attention whenever we were playing baseball on the vacant lot two doors down, these discussions were often resolved with someone taking their ball and bat home. We wondered why we were here and what was the point of it all.  Then somebody shared their Dad's P

  I just came across both a funny and slightly disturbing book called The New Bride's Guide to Training her Husband , by Emily and Ken Addison.  I thought it was going to be a joke, but no, these people are serious (either that or I missed the punchline). It isn't even the only husband training book out there, but this particular book's thesis is that men need to be dominated, and that women are better suited to manage a marriage and husbands,  and therefore, should be in charge of both. I grew up in the Dick and Jane era, when "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father knows best" were not reruns.  Then in my late teens, the bras were burned, white and male Dick's role was to be forever typecast as the perennial "Don't Bee"   screw up in every elementary school post structuralist morality play. Reading the New Bride's Guide got me reflecting on something that has been bugging me for a long time.  In the post WWII "Mad Men" e

If you hate taxes you will love this guy . Death and taxes,  the only two sure things in life.  Is this really true?  I will let you know on the death part later, but is it possible to run a country without taxation?  Zero income tax, sales tax,  property tax?  Well as it turns out, the answer is yes indeedy, one country has managed to pull off this magnificent accomplishment, tax free since 1974.  The people's utopia of North Korea .  Next question. Perversely, that the DPRK has no taxes may be the best illustration of why taxation is a good thing.  There are a handful of other countries that do not have to rely so much on taxes for revenue, such as some of the  oil rich nations, or the countries  that get their revenue for providing international loopholes for banking, gambling, corporate registration, flags of convenience and such.  The thing  most of these countries have in common besides low taxes is low democracy.   People may be apathetic about their leadership, but

From 20 plus years spent as an uncivil servant, the Redneck would like to share what he learned about government and how it really works. The clowns  politicians who you vote for have little to nothing to do with the faceless bureaucrats  dedicated public servants who actually do government. One interaction between elected politicians and the public service that matters is the budget.  Every year politicians decide how much will be spent and what it will be spent for.  This determines how much the bur.. err dedicated public servants can do,  it doesn't change what they do, only whether they do it or not. Government money mostly comes from taxes in one form or another.  Nobody likes to pay taxes, the only reason we do, and that politicians are still marching around with their heads attached to their necks, their bodies uncoated with tar and feathers is because we the people get real or perceived benefits from government spending. The budget tells everyone who cares what

So you wanna know why electric cars are stupid?  Because all cars are stupid.  Electric cars will never be 'green'.  Being green is about not wasting resources and reducing impacts.  So how efficient is using a ton and half or more metal, plastic, exotic compounds made from rare elements, rain forest rubber etc. to move a few hundred pounds of flesh from here to there? Every time  a few tons get shoved around,   a few tons of energy are burned to make it go and a few more yet to make it stop.  Newton explained this in the 17th Century.  Was nobody paying attention?  It matters little where the energy comes from, sunshine, dead dinos, nuclear fusion, energy costs, the more you use the more it costs. Alternate energy vehicles will not stop urban sprawl or traffic jams.  One hundred years ago, the Model T, the first car built for everyman, meant freedom to go places.   But it turned out that the price of  mobile freedom was a new form of slavery.  We have paved a good part

In a post last April the redneck ranted about   explained why political opinion polls may no longer be accurate.  Based strictly on my opinion, totally unbiased by research, data or methodology (known to be susceptible to errors and misinterpretation)  I am predicting the the polls are going to be spectacularly wrong in predicting the outcome of the November 2012 US presidential election.... like way more than a percent or three. For a combination of reasons, pollsters are no longer getting a representative sample of the population, mainly the growing number of people who no longer have a 'landline' phone, combined with privacy laws, call display and annoying telemarketers destroying telephoning for accurate information gathering. Lessee how prophetic this is, it is Sunday morning, November 4th, the Wall Street Journal is calling it a dead heat . Before the telephone pollsters used to go door to door.  That might be a problem today for so many reasons, at least one of wh