My mother had a tradition of eating sauerkraut for good luck to start the new year.

To me, eating sauerkraut was just about #1 on my do-not-do list. If I ate sauerkraut to start the year, that was the worst thing that could happen. From a start like that, things could only get better.

I am going to do what I normally do for New Years: Sleep through it. It’s no big thing for me any more.

If you’re partying tonight, take care, use a designated driver and watch out for the amateur drunks.

I have read many quotes from all of those people capping off 2003. Right Wing News has a top 10 list of his favorite feedbacks from the Democratic Underground. This one is my favorite.

“What we MUST realize in order to win – Americans are stupid and uninformed. This is very important because in order to win we must understand the way the average American thinks. I’m afraid WE have nothing in common with them.

I came to the two following conclusions when I saw the large number of people who voted for Bush back in 2000.

#1 – I would dare to assume that most of us here are in the upper 1%-20% of the population intelligence-wise. We must come to the realization that the majority of the population is in the lower 80% to 99% percent of the bell-curve. WE are not the norm. The Republicans understand that the average American is not very bright. They cater and pander to the masses. The Democratic Party tries to appeal to the population about “issues” that these people just don’t understand.

I’ve heard it said that the reason that Clinton’s sex scandal resonated so strongly among “the people” was because it was a scandal that the average American understood. The average person can’t understand a financial scandal.

In addition, people of average or lower intelligence tend to not be as logical or reasoned as those of higher intelligence – they deal with emotion. Therefore they are more likely to get riled up about someone burning a flag rather than a illogical tax cut.

#2 – The majority of people do not read the newspaper OR listen to the news, CNN, etc. Therefore -they get their news from the Tonight Show, Letterman, Oprah and Saturday Night Live. Or, they get their news from talking to their co-workers at the water cooler.

Also, for the few people who DO listen to the news – who do they hear it from? Fox News and Bill O’Reilly are the most popular. Most newspapers and media outlets are owned by Republicans.

THIS is what we are fighting against people. In order to win we will need to start pandering to the masses.” — Janekat

This is the fringe that is presently control of the Democrat party. I’m glad. As long as the rabid zealots run the house, they will scare away the moderate swing voters that will make the difference.

These people actually remind me of schizophrenics. People who suffer from untreated schizophrenia are in their own world, responding to things that the rest of us don’t see, hear or understand. Schizophrenics are easy to spot, however. They hear the TV talking to them, schizophrenic believe that computers are beaming thoughts into their brains and the like.

Now you tell me. Re-read the quote I have up there again and tell me this person does not have a serious disconnect from reality. Janekat does not imply, she says it in plain english that she thinks most Americans are stupid. They have to be not to see how right she is. It doesn’t even occur to Janekat that she might be wrong. That is simply not possible. She’s too smart to be wrong. Her stance on “The Democratic Party tries to appeal to the population about “issues” that these people just don’t understand” doesn’t even consider that the majority of people have already looked at their issues and just don’t agree with them. She doesn’t think that these people have the right to disagree with her. After all, she’s right.

Yeah, right.

God bless the ACLU is a rather scary look into our possible future. Do your best not to let it happen.

In 2007, the American Civil Liberties Union was finally successful in getting Ten Commandments plaques removed from public buildings in all fifty states. In addition:
1. They forced the Ten Commandments to be expunged from the Supreme Court building;
2. They obliged the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to fire their chaplains;
3. They won a ban on official chaplains in the military;
4. They removed “In God We Trust” from all currency and public documents;
5. They removed “Under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance;
6. They removed all crosses, Stars of David and crescents from the gravestones of American soldiers in military cemeteries around the world.

The last part that I didn’t quote is the scariest of all.

Read on.

While I am felling better than yesterday, it’s not by much. Getting to have lunch with my family yesterday and do some shopping with them helped with my mood. My family still loves me. We are apart because of my condition and lack of emotional control. That’s it. If I could handle normal stress, If I could be a positive asset for my wife and her struggles, I would be home today. But that’s not going to happen for a long time, if ever.

This time of year has been very rough with me ever since I got sick. Most of my hospitalizations have been in the winter months. My wife thinks I have Seasonal Affective Disorder on top of everything else.

I’ll shoot for a 7 tomorrow to start off the new year.

Another great article by Victor Davis Hanson. The Western Disease goes into the why some of us are ashamed of our success.

Our Western intellectuals are sheltered orchids who are naïve about the world beyond their upscale hothouses. The Western disease of deductive fury at everything the West does provides a sort of psychological relief (without costs) for apparent guilt over privileged circumstances. It is such a strange mixture of faux-populism and aristocratic snobbery. They believe only a blessed few such as themselves have the requisite education or breeding to understand the “real” world of Western pathologies and its victims.

Read on. It’s good for you.

I found this in The Washington Times, about the BATF and their quest to be the secret police. Bill limits gun-buyer database means they are trying to keep records on those who buy guns legally.

And if they get away with a 90 day record keeping, then they will go for 6 months, then a year, and so on until it becomes permanent. They are already permanently digitizing and archiving all of the 4473′s from gun shops that have gone out of business. A 4473 is the ATF form that you fill out when you buy a gun from a gun shop or someone who owns a Federal Firearms License.

This is not an aberration because the BATF is trying to do the same thing for rocketry as well. Years ago, they decided to add Ammonium Perchlorate to their explosives list, without checking to see if it really was an explosive or not. AP is the major propellant used in high power rocketry. In fact, it’s the same stuff used in the two boosters used on the space shuttle. Now the BATF wants to regulate it out of the hands of rocketeers. You need to have a license for it, you need to store it in such a way, you must record when you use it and so on.

And my mental illness precludes me from obtaining a license for AP, just like a firearm.

The BATF is an enormously aggressive force, grabbing everything they can, never letting go and always hungry for more. It needs to be given close oversight control and be reined in severely. You can find hundreds of anecdotal incidents out there that range from destroying law-abiding citizens lives all the way down to killing kittens.

This article, Criminals Owe Debt to Victims, Not Society has been bandied about for years. I myself wrote about this subject in an earlier version of The Conservative Zone.

Most people realize that the court and penal systems in North America are seriously broken and must be fixed. With the possible exception of China, the United States currently imprisons more of its population than any other nation: the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports 2,033,331 imprisoned as of December 31, 2002.

I wrote that upon conviction, a fine should be assessed the convictee, to cover court costs, victims recompensation and enough so that the criminal, upon release, has a substantial nest egg (~$10,000) to help start a new life.

A large portion of those behind bars today are there for drug related crimes. While drugs have many parallels to alcohol and prohibition, there are many important differences. To get into them would be a digression I am unwilling to take right now, maybe later.

Suffice it to say our judicial system needs a capitalistic overhaul. Most of us have to pay our way through life, I see no reason for those who break the rules to do any different.