Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.
Quick: name a utopia that worked. By that, the Czar wants you to name a society that mapped out its infrastructure in advance, performed extensive individual economic planning, established a volunteer military, eliminated financial concerns, and provided for the continuously … Continue reading →
Updated: Guess who agrees with us? President Jimmy Carter declared Rep. Joe Wilson a racist on Tuesday, for calling President Obama a liar during the latter’s health care sales pitch last week. The White House, in a little recognized story, … Continue reading →
It seems like one of those science fiction clichés, where a news story from the future drops some weird headline that seems very implausible by today’s standards. And yet, here it is. The country of Lesotho is officially open to … Continue reading →
Confucius* sagely wrote: Alas, Lane failed to ask the Mandarin if he could borrow his helicopter to shoot the crowd from above… Lane should know the Mandarin would not only loan him the helicopter, but several BMG .50s to shoot … Continue reading →
Patrick Swayze is dead. The Czar is of three minds on this man. On the one hand, he will be forever tormented by the day Swayze walked into his roadhouse. He called himself Dalton, then, and was nice. Until it … Continue reading →
Sorry, Volgi. The Czar just loves being embarrassed like this, although he believes the computational method quite sound. Except that photograph submitted to him indeed was incorrect. The Czar asked the okhrana bunch to go pay the dude a visit … Continue reading →
Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times really wants President Obama to make him czar of something. Anything. He is well qualified. For one thing, he likes “pragmatism,” and he thinks national socialism is a good idea. In an … Continue reading →
Wow, we’ve seen some bad press on ACORN lately, haven’t we, boys and girls? ACORN, which stands for Acronyms Created Outta Radical Nonsense, is a taxpayer-funded effort to mobilize the under-served voters and work for social justice. As you know, … Continue reading →
Imagine. The Japanese elect a blatantly liberal government, and the next thing you know they are shocked, shocked, to learn that the new government is already cranking up anti-business regulations under the guise of environmental protection to where manufacturers have … Continue reading →
Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine takes on the state of America’ healthcare system and manages to get everything pretty much dead wrong. Obviously, he is a sucker for a single payer—that is, Federally run—system. He couldn’t be printed in … Continue reading →
Like almost anyone reading this, the Czar remembers exactly where he was eight years ago. The weirdly blue and open skies. The strangely hushed start to the morning. The people gathering by anything like a television. The Czar only glances … Continue reading →
A Boeing plant in South Carolina voted to oust its union, by a vote of 199-68. This means that the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers is done, gone, out. It of course means that a new or different … Continue reading →
The Czar has read the President’s speech, which of course was posted far too late for schools to do anything about it. The Mandarin is aware of some school districts—and the Czar has similary heard—that school principals are saying “Screw … Continue reading →
In his Labor Day speech, President Obama said that paid leave, minimum wage, and Social Security “all bear the union label.” Indeed they do: 1. Paid leave was intended to prevent minorities from grabbing white jobs when the jobholders went … Continue reading →
Ha‘aretz is reporting some encouraging news, in that a senior US official believes an unspecified number of Arab states have agreed to make overtures to Israel, perhaps as a prelude to normalizing relations with Israel. Presently, only two Arab countries … Continue reading →
The Czar, and it is safe to say the rest of the Gormogons, are hardly fans of the current Presidential administration and Congress. Yes, we would gleefully enjoy a 2010 Congressional enema, and would prefer to see a Republican president … Continue reading →
Boy, the whole Obama Czars thing is getting a bit nuts…on the conservative side! We are hearing all sorts of strange claims. Fox Military Analyst Ralph Peters says that President Obama “needs to knock it off with the czars and … Continue reading →
FoxNews is reporting that we live in a conservative writing boom. Three of the New York Times top ten list are staunchly conservative, and none is remotely liberal. Conservative blogs appear to outnumber (drastically) liberal blogs, and book publishers say … Continue reading →
The Czar is not a fan of the President’s czars. And why should he be? They are but pretenders. But who are all these czars that the President continues to appoint? Are they advisors? No—because advisors have no authority. On … Continue reading →
The Gormogons miss nothing, and today we send our thoughts to the people of Ouagadougou, who are enduring catastrophic floods with desperate—and largely unanswered—pleas for help from the world community. Severe flooding has killed several and left hundreds of thousands … Continue reading →
Unemployment hits 9.7%, indicating that the recession—which the news media has declared over or, as of yesterday, showing signs of sure growth—is still very much with us. Stimulus spending has failed to produce tangible results. Cash for Clunkers proved to … Continue reading →
We love the words of our Presidents, especially the ones deemed so eloquent. [W]ere it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to … Continue reading →
Well, as you have likely heard by now, the Secretary of Education is pulling back on the Obama-related activities students are to partake in before, during, and after his address to the youth of America. Oh, and as ‘Puter reminded … Continue reading →
The Czar is getting good mail lately and thanks you all for it. Jennifer (you know her!) often visits the Castle, and generally leaves a fresh-baked pie in a neat cardboard box at our door, and rings the doorbell and … Continue reading →
Obama is now at 46% popularity. After 30 weeks. “Yeah, but that’s still higher than Bush.” True enough. But Bush took 159 weeks to get there. And Carter? Took him about 53 weeks to drop down to this point. Seems … Continue reading →
The great and illustrious Carbon Fibber writes in to ask what the Czar thinks about Atlanta’s mayoral situation. Quickly, Atlanta has had a black mayor since 1974, with a little over 57% of the population being African-American. There are five … Continue reading →
GorT – Remember that financial institutions are also exempt from the Do Not Call registry. The Czar of MuscovyБожію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in … Continue reading →
GorT, Calls from political organizations, which includes a Congressional office, are exempt from the Do Not Call registry. The Czar is surprised you only received one call. The Czar household receives about one call per month from the local Congressperson. … Continue reading →
Download: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter to all school principals that POTUS Obama will speak to school children on September 8 on an unprecedented internet feed. Millons of school children will stop their day, gather in classrooms … Continue reading →
Little Sally is on the mend. She has accepted the fact that this weird place is her home now, and has figured out where in each room her favorite napping places are. Sally sleeps a lot, more than any dog … Continue reading →
Can someone explain to the Czar who the foxtrot puts a charlie foxtrot like Barney Frank in charge of the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee? Is it the deep commercial banking experience he lacks? Or the investment management … Continue reading →
The Gormogons have contacts far and wide. We stay in touch with some of the folks who built the Castle Gormogon, like Freda, who helped (a) build the Mandarin’s magno-weapon that rises up from the roof, (b) put in the … Continue reading →
The UAE is not generally hostile to the United States, and while most people do not always recognize who or what the UAE are, they all seem to know about the manic, over-the-top construction efforts that range from man-made islands … Continue reading →
News in Japan is not promising. Lower House elections are taking place tomorrow (or today, by the time you read this), and the polls seem to indicate that the long-serving Liberal Democratic Party is about to be thrown out of … Continue reading →
Regular Gormogons readers know that we tend to keep global warming and global cooling discussions at arm’s length, because most of the proponents of anthropogenic climate change (which covers warming or cooling) are shout-down liberals who call everyone else a … Continue reading →
Evidently, a Texas-sized piece of trash is floating loose in the ocean, and it seems to be a bad thing. Associated Press has this photograph of it (<—click the link). Or of something that isn’t it. The Czar remembers Texas … Continue reading →
The Czar really hates the United Nations. You all know this. Muscovy, for example, is not a member of the UN and never will be. Neither is the nation of TJICistan. The UN, if you don’t realize this, is an … Continue reading →
You’d think this is a hoax, but only if you were sane. Congress has decided it has had enough of Cash for Clunkers. After all, the program proved to be unmanageable, has completely run out of funding, and still has … Continue reading →
Quick clarification to GorT’s followup regarding AT&T and Apple agreeing to block the iPhone’s integration of VoIP technology. VoIP does not make calls over the internet; it merely uses a switched, digitized, and packetized transmission using the internet protocol (IP), … Continue reading →
Scotland tends to think of itself as a near-independent country. It has its own government, flag, and bristles at the notion that it’s a hunk of land firmly incorporated into Great Britain, like Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Scotland is getting a … Continue reading →
Folks, thanks to all of you who added us to your blogrolls recently. The problem is…we don’t know who you are! Please drop any one of us a line—our email addresses are at left—and let us know if you have … Continue reading →
The Czar had an awkward moment this weekend. Gathering with friends in Indiana, the discussion at dinner turned to politics. This was unintentional: it started when our friends’s thirteen-year-old daughter shocked the table by stating—against the grain of 13-year-olds everywhere—that … Continue reading →
Thank you for all your support and encouragement. Yes, the Czar has read all 1,017 pages of the HR 3200 bill, and you can read his assessment of it. As far as the Czar knows, everyone who has read the … Continue reading →
Tea Party organizers are planning anti-ObamaCare rallies all across the country, evidently one in every congressional district this Saturday. Rats, and the Czar will be convalescing in a heated pool on Saturday. But liberals should know this, because they won’t … Continue reading →
The Volgi wondered openly to the Czar whether Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is a sociopath or an intellectual feathweight, given how he seems able to reiterate the President as completely correct even when all the evidence produced in a question … Continue reading →
The Czar announces a secret plan to increase Gormogon readership around the world by putting out international news stories with appropriate content. See, we know people from all over the world read The Big G, and we know that international … Continue reading →
To read the Czar’s review of HR 3200, pages 801-900, please click here. One of the sticking points the Democrats have had is the undeniable question: who the hell would want to be a doctor anymore? The solution is quite … Continue reading →
To read the Czar’s review of HR 3200, pages 701-800, please click here. §1781(d) contains a statment that CHIP be amended by striking the phrase “legal residents” and replacing it with “lawfully residing in the United States.” That certainly expands … Continue reading →
Somewhat disappointing news, really, from former SecDHS Tom Ridge. In a forthcoming tell-all book, Ridge exposes that Rumsfeld and Ashcroft asked him to raise the terror threat level before the 2004 election, in hopes that a nervous America would be … Continue reading →
To read the Czar’s review of HR 3200, pages 601-700, please click here. Doctors are little more than money-hungry, pocket-stuffing rich guys who drive around town lighting cigars with hundred dollar bills made out of the hides of poor people. … Continue reading →
As noted in several sources (such as the Wall Street Journal), Democrats definitely do not seem to care that the American public hates their ideas about healthcare. So they are strongly considering an end run around us. The idea is … Continue reading →
Some news that Google has been forced to reveal the actual name of a blogger who got too snarky with an uppity New York fashion model. The model did not appreciate the critic’s comments (which were Hilton-esque but not more … Continue reading →
Not that the Czar trusts Rasmussen any better than anyone else, but he quickly acknowledges that Rasmussen seems to produce the most interesting poll results. As you have heard, one in two Americans is not digging Hope and Change, and … Continue reading →
The Czar has put together the to-do list of the President’s taskforce on healthcare reform. This explains the weird actions by the White House lately, and shows the psychology that the President is operating under. The taskforce will probably issue … Continue reading →
HR 3200, Pages 601-700 To read the Czar’s review of HR 3200, pages 501-600, please click here. We now move into rather sinister territories. By now, proponents of the bill will be wagging their fingers at the Czar’s post from … Continue reading →
All right, already. By now you know that the Obama-as-Joker Photoshop bit was done by a minority, liberal, and loyal Democrat. Shock and awe, since so many on the left were too busy condemning right-wing extremists to recognize that (a) … Continue reading →
Thanks to questions from our dozens billions of fans, the Gormogon Gift Shop, in the first level of the Castle Gormogon (next to ‘Puter’s Pub and the Mandarin Grill) contains action figures for all of us. The Mandarin comes with … Continue reading →
The Czar was optimistic this headline was about healthcare: Hurricane Bill still growing, U.S. unlikely target Turns out, not. The Czar of MuscovyБожію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the … Continue reading →
The Czar’s impressions of HR 3200 are becoming a bit of a phenomenon. Thanks to the kind folks who have been linking to it. And thanks to the folks who sent excerpts of it to the AARP and the Motley … Continue reading →
Fortunately, when ‘Puter is wrong, we know he is right and merely employing satire. For ‘Puter cannot actually conclude that legalization of drugs like marijuana will solve more problems than it creates. Drugs are not equivalent to tobacco and alcohol, … Continue reading →
To read the Czar’s review of HR 3200, pages 401-500, please click here. You know, in a weird twist of irony, the Czar had surgery done on his foot quite recently. He hobbled into a small, community clinic, paid $20 … Continue reading →
Anthropogenic Continental Drift! Check out the graphs and charts. H/T to the mighty Borepatch. The Czar reads him every day. The Czar of MuscovyБожію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in … Continue reading →
Blake, who represents our interests in Texas, writes the Czar to say: If Obama is okaying the dropping of the public option, and Dean says anyone who doesn’t support the public option needs to be primaried from the left, then … Continue reading →
To read the Czar’s review of HR 3200, pages 301-400, please click here. Welcome to the World of the Bizarre! We are now ending the first half of HR 3200, and if the previous sections made you angry or confused, … Continue reading →
…One of the best ways to bring down costs, provide more choices and assure quality is a public option that will force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest.—Barack Obama, July, 2009. Insurance companies do not compete? By … Continue reading →
Mighty Paul from Montana writes in with two notable points. He mentions that the Czar’s explanation that a larger risk pool saves more money is not necessarily correct unless the insurance company has a sufficient amount of fixed administrative or … Continue reading →
The Gormogons secret plant inside the construction industry writes in to say a couple of things worth sharing with the entire planet. I have thoroughly enjoyed your synopsis of the Health Care Reform Bill. I tried to read one of … Continue reading →
To read the Czar’s review of HR 3200, pages 201-300, please click here. Welcome back! Mastermind correspondant Jeanne asked the Czar about reimbursing early retirees’ medical claims (particularly unions or public sector employees…even those at a non-federal level). The Czar … Continue reading →
To read the Czar’s review of HR 3200, pages 101-200, please click here. Meanwhile, let’s get going and plow into pages 201-300. Poor Ronald Reagan. Perhaps you remember, as the Czar does, the astonishing Tax Reform Act of 1986. This … Continue reading →
To read the Czar’s review of HR 3200, pages 1-100, please click here. The Czar, honestly, did not expect the national attention his effort produced, and is grateful for the cheerleading to press on. Thanks, too, to Jonah Goldberg for … Continue reading →
Indeed, Happy Birthday, Grandma P! The Czar remembers her as a little girl, chasing the other kids around the Castle Gormogon. How she’s grown. The Czar knows that the ‘Puter is too modest to say, but his Grandmother pays her … Continue reading →
Brave Gormogons front-line fighter Jeanne takes a moment from her insidious plot to take over the news media from within to write the Czar on pages 1-100 of HR 3200. Go back and look at P. 65, Section 164. It’s … Continue reading →
Click here to read our introduction. Your Czar has completed reading pages 1-100 of all 1,017 pages, eager to learn how HR 3200, if passed, would make healthcare affordable to all Americans. It’s a little hard to fathom that the … Continue reading →
Let the Czar point out how anti-science the Democratic Party is. Again. Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, who is a member of the Senate Energy Committee no less, says that she can feel global warming’s effects when she flies. “Global warming … Continue reading →
The Czar has an announcement he would like to make. While sitting here scratching the insects from his facial hair (Agh! Beard lice, thy name is Legion!), the Czar realized that he has yet to read the actual proposal or … Continue reading →
Let us play a word substitution game, because you can learn a lot about someone by substituting analogues for what they say. And if they object, it’s only because they employ situation ethics. If you are unfamiliar with that phrase, … Continue reading →
Yeah, well, like most liberals, Mr. Jordan needs a history lesson. Tom Jordan attended the President’s town hall speech in New Hampshire today. Mr. Jordan, an Obama supporter and social studies teacher, does not understand some of the protest signs. … Continue reading →
The Czar generally does not vacation to happy places. He did once, and was so delighted by what he found that he had the entire housekeeping staff gunned down. The Czar is not sure why he thought to say this, … Continue reading →
The Czar enjoyed a leisurely morning at the barber shop, getting his locks shorn and the dead lice combed out. That should last him another year or two. On the television, the WGOR morning news show was offering up a … Continue reading →
To assist the media with getting a jump on their competition, the Czar has assembled a Barack Obama question answerer. Simply fill in the blanks, and you already have your story. Actual words may be different from what the President … Continue reading →
If you want to see more Democratic hypocrisy, you are in luck. You never need to wait long. Because remember: Obama is the science and technology president! Scientists celebrated that the Bush days of public lynchings of physicists, and underground … Continue reading →
The Czar and the Царица were on official business in the far Southwest corner of the empire some days ago, and were heading back up I-55 North. The Царица was reading the news paper, and turned to the classified ads … Continue reading →
Only the New York Times would have the intentional blindness to consider Obama’s handling of North Korea a success. A success it is not. Bill Clinton kowtows and gets two jailed journalists freed, and it’s a miracle, for North Korea … Continue reading →
Nancy Pelosi continues to misinterpret the pulse of America as a cool disco beat, when in reality it is fingers tapping in annoyance. Indeed, the thumping of drums may follow the August recess. In a story barely starting to get … Continue reading →
By now, you’ve seen (and possibly have done) one of those on-line political quizzes to see where your political views fall on a coaxial scale. Many Gormogons readers probably fall to the right of center. Some of our readers, of … Continue reading →
And now John Hughes is dead. Frankly, the Czar never thought much of his pictures, even when he was super-popular in the 1980s. He was pretty good at exploiting pop culture, making his movies worth seeing as little slices of … Continue reading →
Special nod to Space for Commerce (the Czar reads him every day, and so should you if you want to keep that pretty head of yours), who not only saluted our inscrutable Mandarin for being so gosh darn inscrutable, but … Continue reading →
From the New York Times describing Clinton and Gore meeting at the airport yesterday. They shook hands first, and than hugged for a full five seconds, with Mr. Clinton patting his hand along Mr. Gore’s back and lingering before moving … Continue reading →
Geep—there is no coincidence. As revealed in the somehow-obtained memo from SoS Clinton, our North Korean parolees were hardly in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were intentionally breaking the law by crossing into and out of China … Continue reading →
To: All State Department EmployeesFrom: Secretary of StateDate: August 5, 2009Re: New Policies on Human Collateral Effective immediately, all American citizens being held hostage, detained, arrested, or captured, legally or illegally, may be seen as valuable commodities to the governments … Continue reading →
Exactly what’s wrong with ObamaCare, and how to fix the current healthcare situation…in only fifteen paragraphs. Politicians, if you aren’t going to read the bill, at least read this. The Czar agrees with this across the board. The Czar of … Continue reading →
Hey Mandarin. The exact text instructs us to send them anything that sounds fishy about the healthcare reform proposals. Send them the full text of the bill and say “Here; start with this.” The Czar of MuscovyБожію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, … Continue reading →
All right! POTUS42 (that’d be Bill “Bill” Clinton) is on his way to North Korea to straighten $#!+ out over there. You read that right: our former president is going over to PyôngYang (come for the 정과, stay for the … Continue reading →
Good on ’em. Many readers may not know this, but Australia is a very good friend of the United States. While many countries claim this, the Australians have quietly demonstrated it for quite a while now. Now comes word that … Continue reading →
Two technically unrelated news stories caught the Czar’s eye today. First, we must mention that the people of Iran continue to speak. As a brutal, dictatorial regime swears in its so-called “president” after a sham election, the people of Iran … Continue reading →
‘Puter asks why, when the US manufacturing industry is effectively the same size as the health care industry, would the public accept government control of the latter, but almost certainly not the former? Rather, why does the goverment think it … Continue reading →
Jimmy Orr of the Christian Science Monitor finds the perfect analogy to describe John McCain’s reaction to how the media has been treating Sarah Palin: It’s just like the old Huey Lewis song from “Back to the Future” where the … Continue reading →
That’s well and good for ‘Puter. GorT has been off time-cavorting again (last week he took the kids camping) and the Volgi is on the road as well, researching new dimensions, plotting the overthrow of certain Burmese-shaped governments, and buying … Continue reading →
On Tuesday, the Czar said that Cash for Clunkers would prove too successful, and prove to be a major screwing of the taxpayers. By now you have heard the program is out of money already. Keep in mind this was … Continue reading →
