Blucie Blog 2008-12-04T05:39:11Z http://blucie.com/atom.aspx Quick Blogcast No White Flag tag:blucie.com,2008-07-28:e12cb86a-5298-4481-b2d3-74302e47eaae Hannah Jordan 2008-10-22T23:58:45Z 2008-07-28T19:07:00Z
In one ring, we have those who want us all to fork over our rights to avert "climate change."  When I was a kid, the prevailing climate fear mongering was that we were heading toward the next ice age and we were all going to freeze to death.  Now they're telling us we're going to boil over.  Incidentally, it was when the world cooled that we had major disaster; remember the Dark Ages?  Anyway, since it's a such a travesty that the climate is changing (isn't that always the case?), I'm supposed to give up my incandescent light bulbs.  Incandescents, by the way, turn on immediately, offer more flattering light, and coincidentally (???) have a much lower profit margin for GE, one of the companies who lobbied for the change because . . .  they're so concerned about the environment.  Isn't that sweet?  So yeah, let's all save the planet by making everyone buy fluorescents and help GE make a profit while we're at it. 

In the other corner, we have the 9-11 fear mongers.  They have expanded Big Brother like I never dreamed possible prior to the big, bad day.  The Patriot Act rendered our constitutional liberties worthless.  It's all in the name of protecting us though, so that's supposed to make it okay. 

Our forefathers warned us about people who would promise us security in exchange for small losses in liberty, but as far as I can tell we didn't hear a thing they said and are diving in head first.   

So this time I am a one issue voter: FREEDOM.  This November I will not hold my nose as I vote, and I will not walk away from the voting booth ashamed.  If I must write in my candidate, so be it.  Both major candidates promise to protect from different villains, but their promises will go up in smoke, along with our liberties.  I was fooled before, but not again.  If I must, I will go down with this ship.  There can be no more compromise or there will be no more freedom to give: Go RON PAUL 2008.    ]]> Mini-blind Operators Needed tag:blucie.com,2008-07-15:dda93b81-106e-4805-bf02-8ccea6101251 Hannah Jordan 2008-07-28T21:53:49Z 2008-07-15T15:08:56Z
In thinking about popular shows (Seinfeld, Friends, Sex and the City, etc.), friends are like that.  They barge into each other's lives and mess with each others' programs.  This morning as I was lying in bed in my clothes from the night before at an hour too embarrassing to mention, I wondered if anyone has real friends like that.  I had a kitchen full of dishes, a pile of work looming over me and my daughter sighing bored moans.  Andy Anderson would have been a welcome sight. 

Don't get me wrong, I have great friends, but I don't know anyone who has friendships like that.  I can't be the only one who thinks that sounds appealing.  Why else would that be such a popular storyline? 

We could be and have friends on par with SATC, etc. - I'm sure of it.  And if I paid attention to the needs around me of those I care about, I know it would motivate me to get my own butt in gear.  All it would take is truly listening to one another and being willing to take risks.  Those mythical people have nothing on us: The people I know are just as flawed, ridiculous, talented and funny as the rest of them.

Anyone need Caribou tomorrow?  ]]> New Police Community Service: Unsolicited 3am Wake-up Calls! tag:blucie.com,2008-06-26:de66e471-af8f-4f77-8821-174f6a94a8b4 Hannah Jordan 2008-07-29T12:14:31Z 2008-06-26T22:17:00Z
Or so I thought.  Apparently some Lakeville, Minnesota cops disagree.  Last week Troy Wolde left his garage door open and two officers let themselves into his home and woke him up by banging on his walls at three o'clock in the morning as a reminder not to leave his doors unlocked. 

How thoughtful.  It feels so good to live in a country where the police don't do unreasonable searches without probable cause that a crime has been committed.  Lakeville must be way too boring.]]> Ron Paul is the Man on the Scene tag:blucie.com,2008-01-01:c51c7f44-f7c4-4796-a756-0e55cfce3af7 Hannah Jordan 2008-01-01T23:07:56Z 2008-01-01T15:37:00Z
Last night several dozen supporters with two big banners and a drummer braved the cold streets of Minneapolis for a New Year's Eve rally for our man Ron Paul.  It was fun and cold.  There were lots of cheers and honks, with occasional jeers.  A smaller group of us stood behind Don Shelby at WCCO's 10pm newscast, waving our signs and cheering.  Shelby appeared annoyed and they closed the shade.  All the negative attention just seemed to encourage us though.  When I saw the irritated face of a newsman in the window, I was filled with amusement.  Then a cute blonde woman behind me smiled at him and he warmed and smiled in return, a scene which seemed apropos in Revolution fashion.

Grassroots as it is, the official campaign seems to gravitate to cheeseball ads, but there are some great ads on YouTube that can now be supported independently.  Here's one that can't be, but worth checking out:

I showed that one to my mom (a baby boomer) and she loved it. However, there are a few in this series that can be supported. They're great too, although not as gritty or succinct:

  

 


Check out www.operationbroadcastfreedom.com for opportunities to put these on the air.
]]> My Blue Period tag:blucie.com,2007-02-26:32f9ef46-b4e6-41a6-97db-e7e2723fb3e0 Hannah Jordan 2007-06-07T12:31:28Z 2007-02-26T07:47:00Z
After Mark ran for office a second time I went through a blissful period of apathy, due to a combination of fatigue and hopelessness.  Reports would come to me of stupid things politicians in DC and here in the Minnesota capital were doing and I would laugh a hearty laugh, gaily aware that I would have never found out on my own if someone hadn't told me because - ha ha! - I didn't pay attention anymore!!!  My laughter was further bolstered because I didn't give a rip about the idiotic thing I had just heard.  It was pure heaven. 

For just a little while, I got to experience the joy of being one of those individuals who can't see beyond her own four walls, who never thinks about the big picture and never worries that we're flushing our nation down the toilet.  No wonder the apathetic are such a large bunch - they're so damn happy!   

Sadly, I'm back to being a news and policy junkie.  Maybe it's an addiction.  First I discovered Estonia and the success they've had there with good policy, which is really a ray of hope when I think about it.  But that's just the problem.  Having hope returned me to a state of dissatisfaction.  

Then the inevitable happened.  I started reading Free to Choose, which was the book that inspired the policy decisions of Estonia's prime minister Mart Laar.  It was only a matter of time before the little activist monster inside of me began to stir.  Apparently the flip side of my hopelessness was apathy, and I truly was an apathetic person for awhile.  I hoped it would be permanent.   

I should have left well alone.  So perhaps I can be beaten into hopeless bliss again, but in the meanwhile I must care.  I'm driven.

]]> I decided that, like Picasso, I'm going through my blue period. The world and the policymakers in it have been nothing but getting on my nerves lately. The good news in this nomenclature is that blue periods by definition are only snippets in time, i.e. they MUST be temporary. After Mark ran for office a second time I went through a blissful period of apathy, due to a combination of fatigue and hopelessness. Reports would come to me of stupid things politicians in DC and here in the Minnesota capital were doing and I would laugh ... Tales of a Bleeding-Heart Libertarian tag:blucie.com,2007-02-15:1b6ccf1f-0eb7-4865-b3ce-4a087a0627ee Hannah Jordan 2008-11-04T11:39:50Z 2007-02-15T21:07:00Z Somehow, in this up-is-down nanny-state of ours, objectivists have gotten a bad rap.  Growing up my dad would repeat the cliché, "If you aren't a liberal [socialist] when you're young you've got no heart."  He didn't finish the quote because he's still a socialist and I'm not sure if he considers himself old either .  In any case, as a libertarian I've been called selfish and heartless, and as a bleeding-heart libertarian, I'd like to set the record straight.

What if I like giving to charity, but I have a problem with the fact that the government "charity" is inefficient, wasteful and doesn't help those I'd like to help?  What if I prefer to CHOOSE the charities I support?  I select my charities carefully - I don't throw my money at every pizza-selling fund raiser who shows up at my door and every email I get from Nigeria.  The charities I give to are all held to strict reporting standards and brag about the small percentage of their budgets that are used for administrative purposes.  When corruption is found in a private charity, they are smeared all over the press.  Then people take their money elsewhere until they get their act together or they fold.  That's accountability for you.   

The government doesn't have anything close to that kind of accountability.  They force taxpayers to give to their bloated, wasteful charity.  Never mind that I have no interest in supporting half the things on their special-interest payroll; I have no choice.  What results is waste in bureaucracy and a drain on our economy.  

I know what some detractors are thinking because I've heard it so many times before: Sure, the government's a lousy charity, but if the money wasn't confiscated charitable giving would dry up.  

That assessment is historically unsupported.  In fact, it has been in periods of the greatest economic freedom (and least government intervention) that countries not only improved everyone's lot as a whole, but charities THRIVED.  The biggest charities in this country were all started before the New Deal in the 1940s.  They saw a need and they met it out of the goodness of their hearts.  How's that for a concept?

Is it too much to ask to want more bang for my buck and for the freedom to CHOOSE where my charitable dollars go?  Personally, I'd like to give more money to International Justice Mission, and I don't want to pay for free government condoms.  Call me a Nazi, but don't worry; I won't begrudge any charitable condom-fairies out there the freedom to spread the world with condoms.  Just don't take my money to do it.  Let me support getting kids out of sexual slavery.  

What I don't like is politicians taking my money, pretending it's theirs and buying votes with it.  No one spends someone else's money more responsibly than they would spend their own.  Ever.  Certainly not a stranger's.  Politicians play on our greed and/or pull our heartstrings and bit-by-bit, whittle away the worker's wages by promising little favors to whichever group or groups they think will get them reelected.  In the end, these groups get table scraps while the bureaucrats sit down to the feast.  

So recently I asked my dad if he was concerned over this broken system we call Social Security, since soon (when the flood of baby boomers begin retirement around 2012), there will only be two workers to support each retiree.  "Nope," said the liberal, big-hearted multi-millionaire, "They'll just raise your taxes to 80% to cover it."  Awww . . . just warms the heart, doesn't it?  No wonder I'm a libertarian.
  

     
]]> Somehow, in this goofy nanny-state of ours, objectivists have gotten a bad rap. Growing up, my dad would repeat the cliché, "If you aren't a liberal [socialist] when you're young you've got no heart." He didn't finish the quote because he's still a socialist and I'm not sure if he considers himself old either. In any case, as a libertarian I've been called selfish and heartless, and as a bleeding-heart libertarian, I'm here to set the record straight. Truth, Justice and the Estonian Way tag:blucie.com,2007-02-15:8813893f-9875-43a6-abd2-cb26e5c051b7 Hannah Jordan 2007-02-15T21:06:00Z 2007-02-15T20:09:00Z
Laar was a history teacher, not an economist.  He admits he only read one book on economics, Milton Friedman's Free to Choose.  However, he knew the Russians couldn't stand Friedman and censored his writings.  He concluded that Friedman must have some powerful ideas.  

Laar was naive enough to assume that Friedman's recommendations in Free to Choose had been implemented in the West already.  Thinking they sounded practical, he decided to implement them in his own country as well. 

Consequently, Estonia had a remarkable economic recovery.  It's been documented ubiquitously.  The inflation rate dropped from the out-of-conrol 1000% down to a manageable 2.5%.  They've had numerous startups, attracted several high-tech employers, now have a labor-shortage, and most importantly, they have pulled their downtrodden country out of the mire and into a productive first-world nation.  They are now referred to as "E-stonia" and the "Baltic Tiger" because of their remarkable rags to riches tale. 

Since then, the "Baltic Tiger" has inspired many Eastern European states to follow suit with flat taxes and other similiar economic reforms.  Even old-Europe Germany, which has been largely nationalized, is considering implementing a flat tax.  Laar himself is heralded as a revolutionary and has been nicknamed the Father of the Flat Tax.    

What I want to know is this: When countries like Estonia and economic-havens like Hong Kong continue to grow more prosperous, what's wrong with us?  Is it really the economy, stupid?  Who's running this place anyway?  As a former Republican, I have to say they had their chance.  They had all three houses and they stunk it up big time.  They proved, once and for all, that they are no less the big spenders and buyers of votes than their idiot big party counterparts.

I had nowhere else to turn.  So I am proud to say that I rejoined the Libertarian Party.  We may be small in number, but we have great ideas.  Great, tested ideas.  I hope we in the US don't return to insane Carter-administration levels of inflation to get the message, but maybe that's just what we need. 

Why should we choose to be less prosperous than we could be?  Beats the hell out of me, but I won't be a part of it.    

]]> In 1992, 32-year old Mart Laar became the prime minister of Estonia. At the time the former Soviet state had 1000% inflation, was corrupt and poor. Superman Is Way Cool tag:blucie.com,2007-02-14:b876a86b-7af0-4231-9bd3-64746d940ec6 Hannah Jordan 2007-02-14T16:47:00Z 2007-02-14T16:47:00Z Recently it dawned on me that Superman wasn't rich.  Sure, he had his Fortress of Solitude, but let's face it, it was sparce.  He could have used a little help from Martha Stewart there.

The thing that surprised me is that he could have been.  He could have capitalized on his powers and made himself one wealthy SOB.  But that wasn't his way.  Instead, he devoted himself to living the life of the rescuer, helping people in desperate situations.  

He is sometimes accused of being a boring superhero because he had everything going for him.  He isn't the thinking person's superhero - Batman probably wins that category.  But Superman, come on, he can fly, has incredible strength, laser vision, freezing breath - did he even need to sleep?  

So as a superhero, he's not all that challenged.  But what's inspiring is what Superman does with his gifts.  He isn't on a power trip, isn't driven by vengeance and doesn't need to amass an adoring fan club.  Instead, he feels that he has a calling, that the world needs him, and to the world he gives himself as a hero.  What a guy

]]> Recently it dawned on me that Superman wasn't rich. Sure, he had his Fortress of Solitude, but let's face it, it was sparce. He could have used a little help from Martha Stewart there. The thing that surprised me is that he could have been. He could have capitalized on his powers and made himself one wealthy SOB. If Women Could Have Eggs tag:blucie.com,2007-02-13:748161bf-7b7e-44c4-b59c-f906ac71ecef Hannah Jordan 2008-01-02T23:50:03Z 2007-02-13T11:23:00Z
Then last night my husband came up with a great idea - why can't women just deliver eggs?  A woman would feel a little tickle inside, squat and then ploop - out comes the egg.  Our bodies would be saved all kinds of torture and then couples could just take turns sitting on it until it hatches.  No abortions necessary, either.  Don't want your egg?  Don't hatch it. 

Better yet, in this age of ever-expanding technology, we would have eletrothermal egg-hatchers.  Stick it in this microwave-like hatcher for 9 months and then presto!  Out comes the beautiful baby, who didn't, by the way, need to come through a drain hose to get here.  Newborns would be so much better looking for it.       

Of course then there would always be those bucolic-idealist hold outs - they're the same people who become Nazis about having drugs at the hospital.  They would insist that the egg needs the closeness of the mother, that the mother's body rythms are essential to the wellbeing of the baby.  They would warn that because of the selfishness of using an electrothermal egg-hatcher, babies would have a lower immune system, a higher incidence of asthma and stunted intellectual development.  All because a woman didn't want to do nothing except knit baby hats and sit on her egg like a Ludite.

Well, who needs 'em?  I'm PRO-EGG-HATCHER!  I'm pro-egg!   

]]> Then last night my husband came up with a great idea - why can't women just deliver eggs? A woman would feel a little tickle inside, squat and then ploop - out comes the egg. Your body is saved all kinds of torture and then couples could just take turns sitting on it until it hatches. No abortions necessary, either. Don't want your egg? Don't hatch it. Keeping the World Safe From Terrorism & Logic tag:blucie.com,2006-11-27:33c45e87-e03a-44fc-9705-c792499299b8 Hannah Jordan 2006-11-27T20:26:59Z 2006-11-27T19:48:00Z Safe from Terrorism & Logic

Mark and I flew out of the Denver airport a few weeks ago. As we checked our bags, I asked what items might be the contraband du-jour so I'd know what to ditch from my carry-ons. I thought to check my executive lighter (it's titanium and lights up when you lift the top, very slick) and of course I remembered to check my nail-clipper-of-death.

All set, we headed for the security checkpoint. In line we were greeted by a dynamic lightboard informing us that liquids, gels, etc. had to be removed from purses or bags and placed in a bin and sealed in plastic bags. It also stated that any liquids or gels in quantities higher than 3oz were not allowed. I grabbed a bin early so as not to hold up the line. And although I figured I was being more compliant than necessary, I took every item of makeup out of my handbag and placed it out in the open in my bin. I didn't want any trouble. We then lined up to go through security, dutifully took off our shoes and gave our bins a shove down the little assembly line.

In line Mark warned me not to give them any lip. I've been known to shoot off my mouth when confronted with irrational policy seasoned with injustice. It's my least favorite combination platter. So I agreed, but I didn't mention that my agreement was based on the condition that they not give me any problems. I'd play by their rules and they had better leave me alone. Those conditions met, no lip.

The security guy assisting the bins pointed to my pile of cosmetics and warned, "Next time these need to be sealed in a plastic bag, alright?" giving me the nod. "Sure," I told him, annoyed, thinking how lovely that I'm already getting hassled and I've been such a good little Nazi. My next bin approached the scanner and he asked, "There a laptop in here, ma'am?" "No," I said, "It's my camera equipment." "Is it a video camera?" "No - it's a still camera." "Okay," in a tone that told me I had been warned. About what, I have no idea.

I walked through the metal detector and as I waited for my bins to come back out I noticed a cute blonde woman having an altercation with a security guy at the end of the line. He was on a diatribe and gesturing with her half-full bottle of perfume. Although it clearly didn't contain the verboten 3oz, the security guy told her that the bottle was shaped wrong and he was going to have to confiscate it. He also wanted to cart off with her collection of MAC makeup, which is a small fortune, not to mention that it's powder, not liquid or gel. She was livid, talking about being a chemistry teacher and viscosity, but the bumbling Neanderthal would hear nothing of it. He was on a power trip - saving the world from MAC cosmetics and perfume.

As I was watching all this, I was thinking that we had plenty of time, maybe I should offer to exit security and take her stuff and mail it for her. Then from behind me I heard, "Weheheell, what do we have here?" The security guy had pulled a jar of lotion from my backpack. Confused, I said, "It's my lotion." I made a move toward him and he backed up and challenged me with a raised eyebrow, "I can't let this out of my hands." 

The lotion scrimmage caught the attention of the chemistry teacher. Since she had already decided to send her boyfriend out of the secured area to mail her perfume and cosmetics, she said "I'll mail her lotion too," giving the Neanderthal the evil eye.  Now there's a woman after my own heart. So I gave her my address and chatted a bit while she waited for her boyfriend's return.

I'm sure the Neanderthal congratulated himself that the world was safer thanks to his keen observant eye.

Just last week we went to South Carolina, and this time we drove.  I was afraid another trip to the airport might cause  major stomach upset. ]]> I've been known to shoot off my mouth when confronted with irrational policy seasoned with injustice. It's my least favorite combination platter.