A Ukrainian Feminine Protest

Established in 2008 by a group of Kiev university students, Femen says its main aims are to improve the role of women in Ukraine’s male-dominated, post-Soviet society.

“We want to show that our women have a demeaning role in our society. Their place is seen as in the kitchen or in bed,” said Alexandra Shevchenko, a 22-year-old economics student who regularly plays a leading role in topless protests.

Men's Vision is Usually Distorted by these type of Images

How to Relax in the Pool : The New Version

In Which This Blogger Goes To The Beach...

....and takes off for a few days, for some sun and fun on the Jersey Shore.  Need to recharge the batteries a bit, and a blazing week on the beaches of the OC (in New Jersey, that's what we call Ocean County) should do the trick. Although I think I might actually be in Cape May County, but that's just nitpicking...

Should be back by Friday.  Maybe Saturday, depends on how much fun I am having.  In the meantime, here's hoping it is...hot, "Jersey-style":

So I'm signing off, so to speak - for a short space of time, anyway.  Which always makes me feel a bit forlorn.  I leave you with this random thought, perhaps more recognizable if you're a tad older, and you remember TV or radio stations "signing off" for the night before going dark:

Thinking about signing off, the listener also could have a curious feeling, too. He/she could be listening to a human voice and feel a kind of connection back then. Announcers were supposed to talk in a relaxed, informal and friendly manner, unlike what you hear on today's radio. You felt as if you were being talked to, not being talked at.

When you heard the sign-off, there was a feeling of disconnection with that person who had been sharing something with you. At the end of sign-off, there would be a brief moment when the sound was over, but the transmitter was still on. Then the transmitter would go off, and the hiss of and open frequency would be heard along with a background scramble of distant stations still broadcasting. The connection was severed, leaving a moment or two of continuation of thought and feeling....

So, for a short while...

Hope Solo ; The American Goal Keeper

Chris Christie tries to cut our electric bills. Predictably, Greenies flip out...

The Jersey Greens have been suckling at the taxpayer teat for years, and like a fussy infant, are wailing now that they are being weaned off:

Investors in New Jersey have feasted on an abundance of energy subsidies, traditionally for fossil fuels, but heavy emphasis has been placed on renewables in recent years. Homeowners also have been cashing in, and more than 9,000 solar projects have gone online in the last 10 years, reaping $354 million in rebates from three state programs.

Christie’s controversial 141-page document strikes at the heart of some of the generous rewards for green projects, saying the costs are unfairly shouldered by businesses and other ratepayers.

Yeah, "controversial". OK.  Maybe because maybe Christie realizes this is the most insane, if not Orwellian, line item that can possibly appear on a consumer's utility bill:

...utility bills typically carry a societal benefits charge (SBC), some of which pays for efficiency incentives and clean energy development. The SBC adds up to nearly 4 percent of the bills. Utility companies spent $698 million on SBC programs last year.

[ The SBC is $1.68 on this imaginary $42- energy bill (about five days of usage for the average NJ home owner).  4% on the nose.  Atlantic City Electric defines the line as "Costs associated with state-mandated social programs".  In other words, passing the cost of the Green initiatives on to you.  Note the "Market Transition" line on this bill, that's "The costs associated with the transition to a competitive electric market".   First Energy, however, defines it as "The provision of electricity to any consumer who has not or cannot choose an electric generation supplier for any reason".  In other words:  Welfare, paid directly by New Jersey's electrical consumers monthly. Note how this makes the state budget seem more balanced, since it's not a appropriation of taxpayer money - it's just forcing energy users to pay it out directly, under threat of having their power cut off. F*cking gangsters. ]


So the "Green revolution" in New Jersey is being funded by each and every homeowner and apartment dweller in the state. Thus it is no surprise that the Greenies are insatiably greedy, and that -

New Jersey’s electric ratepayers pay the fourth-highest retail power rates in the United States.

But that's A-OK with the Greenies, who mix a philosophy of reality and insanity to justify their robbery of Jersey's taxpayers:

But Matt Elliott, the clean energy advocate for Environment New Jersey, argues that a policy maintaining support for renewable energy “is definitely the way to go,” though he concedes renewables currently have a higher cost.

“But that’s primarily because we subsidized fossil fuels for years and years. We’re trying to create a whole new green energy market and that doesn’t happen overnight, though the cost of solar energy is dropping every year and we’ve had hundreds of green energy companies come to New Jersey and set up shop,” Elliott said.

“We’re driving toward the day when solar is as cheap as coal,” Elliott added.

Yes we are. And that day will be in five hundred years, even with the ongoing rape of the New Jersey taxpayer. Of course, if you told Elliot that perhaps the best way is to let the market work it's course, and that market driven in house research might best speed up the pace, he'd turn purple. Because there's no money in it for him that way...

The Sierra Club is flipping their lid as well:

The New Jersey Sierra Club’s Jeff Tittel said Christie is “gutting” environmental best practices by “scaling back renewable and clean energy targets in favor of expanding natural gas generation.”

“These cuts will cost the state green jobs. It sends the wrong message to companies that develop and promote clean energy. The message is to go to some other state,” Tittel said.

That's OK.  Let the carpetbagging leeches go to Massachusetts.  We'll replace those 15 green jobs that we lose with hundred of, you know, regular jobs, from companies who will see New Jersey as more cost-affordable, now that Christie is working to cut energy prices.

And personally, I'd like to see Jeff Tittel and Matt Elliot go up against Chris Christie, arguing why it is important for New Jerseyans to pay one of the highest utility rates in the nation in order to benefit their questionable ideology, and their business connections.

My guess"  It would be like a antelope and a wilderbeast trying to talk a hungry lion out of eviscerating them....

Team USA's Hope Solo: The Force Is With Her

Unlike Hans Solo, Hope doesn't save princesses, young Jedi knights, or the entire galaxy from an evil Empire.

No, our Hope achieved something much more significant - she secured a win for the U.S.soccer team in the Women's World Cup by blocking a penalty kick after time expired with the score tied 2-2, allowing our American girls to move into the semifinals.  This, after the refs robbed Team USA (Funny how - during international competition - those bad calls always seem to go against the Americans) by allowing Brazil a successful re-kick of a penalty shot Hope had blocked cleanly the first time.

But even poor officiating can't stop a driven American women.  And when there's a whole team of them, well...the rest of the world had best stand clear.

So what exactly makes America so great, you ask?  It's because we always have.... Hope:

And if we are talking about women's soccer, we must at least tip our cap to one of the boldest, brashest, hottest, clutch performers in US Women's Soccer history, Miss Brandi Chastain.  Who can forget 1999?

Not me...

"The Scorpion and the Frog", starring the Democratic Party as "The Scorpion"...

In the post-Carter era, the Democrats were known simply as the party high on raising taxes and weak on national defense.  Even when they somehow managed to get elected, the albatross hung around their neck, so much so that little make-work wars were created (Bosnia) just to show their mettle while forays into reason (welfare reform) were touted to show they weren't always about stealing and hiding...

So after a time, the memory of the true nature of the Democrat began to fade, as the party became a traditonal "oppostion" group, slowly regaining power by virulently opposing unpopular actions by current politcal actors, and if they needed to exaggerate, lie, and use double-standards to do so, well...the national media establishment of America, as supportive of the party as any special-interest group, gave cover to their deceptions.

This culminated in the election of radical leftist Barack Obama in 2008, primarily a result of exhaustion over the politcal wars constatnly instigated by the Democrats, and the media's obfuscation of the candidate's ugly background.  After two disasterous years of one-party government, where the nation accepted wild spending and new regulation in the hopes it would stem our economic bleeding, the people grew nervous, and elected enough Republicans to at least slow the tide of Democratic destruction.

The Democrats whined over their portrayal by their Republican and Tea Party rivals.  "We've been misrepresented, we don't want tax hikes, we want spending reductions in the tax code!  We just want everyone to pay their fair share!  And we want cuts, sure we do....and defense is just one area of many that we need to look at..."

They can talk the talk, and the media will amplify it and make it sound almost reasonable, but when the Democrats get down to brass tacks, their true colors come out, and it turns out to be no differnt from what the previous generation had learned the hard way:  The Demcoratic party is simply about spending other people's money, raising taxes, and gutting the military.  To wit:


Senate Democrats have drafted a sweeping debt-reduction plan that would slice $4 trillion from projected borrowing over the next decade without touching the expensive health and retirement programs targeted by President Obama.

Instead, Senate Democrats are proposing to stabilize borrowing through sharp cuts at the Pentagon and other government agencies, as well as $2 trillion in new taxes, primarily on families earning more than $1 million year, according to a copy of the plan obtained by The Washington Post.

Under the blueprint, the top income tax rate would rise to 39.6 percent for individuals earning more than $500,000 a year and families earning more than $1 million. That group, which constitutes the nation’s richest 1 percent of households, would also pay a 20 percent rate on capital gains and dividends, rather than the 15 percent rate now in effect.

In addition to raising rates for the very wealthiest families, the blueprint proposes to obtain fresh revenue by targeting offshore tax havens and corporate shelters. It would also scale back the array of tax breaks and deductions known as tax expenditures.

The blueprint would take nearly $900 billion from the Pentagon over the next decade....


We are the frog, folks. And now we know how he felt when, after all the assurance were given, he was still stabbed in the back:


One day, a scorpion looked around at the mountain where he lived and decided that he wanted a change. So he set out on a journey through the forests and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached a river.
The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn't see any way across. So he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back.

Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream.


"Hellooo Mr. Frog!" called the scorpion across the water, "Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?"

"Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?" asked the frog hesitantly.

"Because," the scorpion replied, "If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!"

Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. "What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!"

"This is true," agreed the scorpion, "But then I wouldn't be able to get to the other side of the river!"

"Alright then...how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?" said the frog.

"Ahh...," crooned the scorpion, "Because you see, once you've taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!"

So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog's back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog's soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.

Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog's back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.

"You fool!" croaked the frog, "Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?"

The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drownings frog's back.

"I could not help myself. It is my nature."