Are you a Libertarian?

Are you a Libertarian? 

Go here to take yet another test. 

(These folks have been promoting their site on just about every message board, discussion group, blog aggregator, and recipe page.  Go there.  It's good stuff, sponsored by George Mason University's Institute For Humane Studies.  The lists of links under "Get Involved" and "Learn More" are worth bookmarking, BTW.)

Rick Santorum on Libertarians

Now that Bachmann, Cain, Perry and Gingrich have had their day in the sun, it's Rick Santorum's turn.

Here are the Republican Flavor Of The Month's quotes on the concept of government leaving people alone.  This is from an excellent rant in Reason magazine:

In a Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon in Harrisburg last summer, Santorum declared, "I am not a libertarian, and I fight very strongly against libertarian influence within the Republican Party and the conservative movement."


In that regard, Santorum has a pretty impressive record. By voting for the No Child Left Behind Act, he helped give President Obama the power to micromanage the nation's schools from Washington; and by supporting a prescription drug entitlement for Medicare, he helped saddle the taxpayers with a $16 trillion unfunded liability.

Well, at least his votes are consistent with his beliefs. 

"This idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do," Santorum complained to NPR in 2006, "that we shouldn't get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn't get involved in cultural issues ... that is not how traditional conservatives view the world."

Getting involved in everybody's beds, bongs, bullets and babies would take a HUGE fat honkin' government, wouldn't it?  Yes it would. 

Santorum voted for the 2005 "bridge to nowhere" highway bill, has backed an expanded national service program, and his compassionate conservatism has the Bono seal of approval: "On our issues, he has been a defender of the most vulnerable." Rick Santorum: He's from the government, and he's here to help.


Santorum's 2012 campaign platform even includes a pledge to "re-direct funds within HHS, so it can create public/private partnerships ... for the purpose of strengthening marriages, families, and fatherhood."

Anyone who thinks that giving the Department of Health And Human Services another dime?  That person is not a Libertarian.  That person is an Obama wannabe.  Rick Santorum doesn't want to turn the car around.  He just wants to drive it and stop at different restaurants than the Democrats. 

But his words and his beliefs are consistent.  That counts for a lot. 

God Help Us All ! Obama is now promoting manufacturing jobs !

Barack Obama is now promoting manufacturing jobs.  Hit this link. 

I work for a manufacturing company as their shipping manager.  This is terrifying.  Doesn't he care about my child?  Our investments in our companies?  Our very way of life ????? 

This is the man who won the Nobel Peace Prize, then kept all the current wars going and got us into a few others.  Now he's going to promote manufacturing?  I can already imagine the Manufacturing Shop Bankruptcy Auction notices I'll be getting in the mail. 

We need Barack Obama promoting manufacturing jobs about like we need his Surgeon General and his wife stomping around the country trying to stamp out obesity. 

Barack Obama is the man who has achieved a teen minority unemployment of 48%. 

This is the man who has had to replace 3/4 of his totally failed economic team, but hasn't changed any of their policies !!!  (You can go ahead and cross out Larry Summers on the far left.  Long gone.)  Geithner is supposedly wanting out also, but he knows that Congress wouldn't dream of letting Obama nominate someone else for the job.  Hell, who would he nominate now that Marx is dead and Castro and Hugo Chavez are both ill? 

In an effort to kick-start Detroit, Barack H. Obama destroyed 650,000 cars with his stark raving mad Cash For Clunkers program.  That's the same economic philosophy of the old Soviet factories that made things, melted them down, and then made them some more.  It guaranteed full employment, it destroyed valuable resources, and was stark, raving mad. 

Barack Obama decided to invest your money in Green Energy.  His pet investment, Solyndra, went bankrupt a while back, and they just pulled the plug on LightSquared. 

Did Barack Obama inherit a bad economy?  Yeah, but at this point, most of us are sick and tired of Obama talking about what he inherited.  There are entire families of Rockefellers and Hiltons and Vanderbilts who don't talk about what they inherited as much as Obama has. 

Barack Obama tried to help the economy by ladling out pork to donors at unprecedented levels, $650 billion worth.  Call it the stimulus plan, the porkulus plan, whatever.  It didn't work.  Hell, he could have mailed out $6,500.00 checks to the 100 million households in America and at least gotten a political bounce out of it.  But no, it went to cronies and pet projects that Democrats had wanted to get under the Christmas tree for a long, long time.  I challenge you to name a half-dozen of those projects that an impartial jury would declare successful.  No fair Googling.  If someone spent $650 billion for your benefit, you should be able to remember something to brag about. 

Barack Obama presided over our downgrade from AAA to AA+.  Most presidents would spend the rest of their term hiding out in the Rose Garden, but Obama is out there trying to help manufacturing !!!!!

Do I need to mention "Recovery Summer"?  Way back there in 2010?  Do you feel better now?  Recovered? 

Please, Barack, stay at the house.  I apologize for dragging your wife into this at the top, but hell, she doesn't know what she's talking about.  You don't either.  Admit it.  Please stay home.  You've got two beautiful daughters who need you, just like I need my job.  I like manufacturing. 

We have a lot of competition from overseas, and but we don't need any protectionist legislation or goofy new tax schemes coming from Washington during your administration.  The last thing we need right now is your help. 

There's an old handyman/manufacturing/contracting poster that goes something like this....

Our rates are....

$50.00 per hour


$75.00 per hour if you watch


$100.00 per hour if you help


$150.00 per hour if you did the job, then called us to fix it

Our great-grandchildren will be fixing your "job" for a long time. 

Please, please, please, don't promote manufacturing.  I'm begging. 

First they came for the Twinkies....

You occasionally hear stories of Totalitarian regimes like Iran and China charging a "Bullet Fee" to the families of executed protesters.  They prop your kid against a wall, shoot him, and then charge Mom and Dad for the bullet. 

If you step out of line in the U.S. it's not as severe.  But they'll charge you for the chicken nuggets. 

The food police at West Hoke Elementary School looked at a 4-year-old's homemade lunch, declared it to be counter-revolutionary, and made the girl eat some chicken nuggets (she ate three of them). 

Yes, you are paying for food police. 
Yes, if your child goes to a government school, they're looking at the lunch you pack for them. 
Yes, they have nothing better to do. 
Yes, the children they're harassing are going to be paying for the Food Nazi's retirement and pension programs for a long, long time. 

The little girl's family was charged $1.25 for the chicken nuggets.  Why the breaded chicken nuggets were superior to the turkey sandwich that Mom packed, well, that remains a mystery. 

While the mother and grandmother thought the potato chips and lack of vegetable were what disqualified the lunch, a spokeswoman for the Division of Child Development said that should not have been a problem.


“With a turkey sandwich, that covers your protein, your grain, and if it had cheese on it, that’s the dairy,” said Jani Kozlowski, the fiscal and statutory policy manager for the division. “It sounds like the lunch itself would’ve met all of the standard.” The lunch has to include a fruit or vegetable, but not both, she said.

There are no clear restrictions about what additional items — like potato chips — can be included in preschoolers’ lunch boxes.

I'm dealing with a similar situation at work.  The fire inspector doesn't want to see pallets stored inside the warehouse; the environmental inspector doesn't want them outside.  When I bring up the contradiction, both sides back off.  They don't want attention drawn to themselves, they want to keep serving as Civil "Service" lifers and collect their retirements at a ridiculously early age.  The system is the point of the system - not fire prevention or the environment. 
Enough of my problems.  Back to the Carolina Journal:

“With a turkey sandwich, that covers your protein, your grain, and if it had cheese on it, that’s the dairy,” said Jani Kozlowski, the fiscal and statutory policy manager for the division. “It sounds like the lunch itself would’ve met all of the standard.” The lunch has to include a fruit or vegetable, but not both, she said.


There are no clear restrictions about what additional items — like potato chips — can be included in preschoolers’ lunch boxes.

“If a parent sends their child with a Coke and a Twinkie, the child care provider is going to need to provide a balanced lunch for the child,” Kozlowski said.

Ultimately, the child care provider can’t take the Coke and Twinkie away from the child, but Kozlowski said she “would think the Pre-K provider would talk with the parent about that not being a healthy choice for their child.”

Well, I would think that the kid's lunch was non of Jani Kozlowski's freakin' business, but I'm apparently wrong. 

These people can't reliably deliver Sports Illustrated. 
They've blown every penny you've sent to Social Security. 
They're a totally owned subsidiary of a gaggle of lobbyists. 
They're spending a third of the money you give them to blow up, slaughter, and maim some brown people overseas. 
They're the object of the derisive cliche "Good Enough For Government Work". 

You're going to let them tell you what your kid should eat? 

Here's a picture of the Department Of Agriculture's old food pyramid.  Note the 6-11 servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta that they recommended. 

Eat that for a year and let me know how it works out for you. 

Starbucks Appreciation Day !!!

About 10 years ago, my friend Brent brought some blueprints into the metal shop we were co-managing.  They were plans for a WWI-era machine gun. 

I'm not a particularly good machinist, but I can program the heck out of a Hurco Machining Center. 

I could have made that machine gun. 

You can pass Victim Disarmament Gun Control laws until your hands are cramped from signing and voting and patting yourself on the back.  I can still make a machine gun.  As long as you don't have access to a Hurco Machining Center, I can OWN you.   

In the meantime, some places are already designated as "gun-free" zones.  I totally understand.  If it's your property, you can set your own rules.  For instance, our ridiculously expensive military bases are mostly "gun-free" zones because one of our presidents, in a fit of self-righteousness, declared them to be so.  Therefore, a psychotic Major at Fort Hood was able to shoot up the place at will until an off-duty civilian policewoman showed up and almost sent him to enjoy his allotment of 72 virgins. 

One place where this type of shooting is less likely.....Starbucks. 

Starbucks allows its stores to abide by whatever state and local laws are in place at their locations.  No signs about "Starbucks Is A Gun-Free Environment".

 This has generated outrage from the Statists, of course.  There is now a Brew, Not Bullets boycott starting today.  Here's the BNB strategy:

1. Sign our Starbucks email, feel free to add comments.


2. Like us on Facebook


3. Tell us how much you will stop spending at Starbucks

4. Sign up for email updates


5. Starting Valentine’s Day 2012:
Stop going to Starbucks.
Don’t buy their products wherever they are sold:


VIA instant coffee packets,
Single cup coffee and tea pods,
Ice cream, Frappuccinos etc.


6. Download, print, and leave our flyer behind at Starbucks stores.


7. Tell your network of family, friends, and share on social media: Copy this link, “Press Release Starbucks Boycott” into an email and/or social media message and send it.

Blah, blah, blah, blah freakin' blah. 
If you carry a gun (because policemen are too dang heavy)....
If you believe that when seconds count, the cops are just minutes away....
If you believe that an armed man will kill an unarmed man with monotonous regularity....
If you believe that those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who did not....
If you believe that carrying a gun doesn't make you paranoid, because at that point you have nothing to be paranoid about...

Then you should go to Starbucks today, buy some stuff, and thank them for allowing their shops to reflect the rights expressed in the 2nd Amendment. 

I suggest the double-espresso. 

Here's a website giving more info on the Buycott. 
The Clint Smith gun control quotes came from here. 
T-shirt came from here. 

First, they came for the KVWN-TV Channel 4 Action News Team

First, they came for the KVWN-TV Channel 4 Action News Team, but I did not speak out, because I was not on Ron Burgundy's KVWN-TV Channel 4 Action News Team. 

Then they came for Tim Robbins' Channel 2 Action News Team, but I did not speak out, because I was not on Tim Robbins' Channel 2 Action News Team. 

And then they came for me.....Well, not really.  I just love using that "First they came for the blah blah blah's" quote any time the Statists start another witch hunt. 

Here's The Daily Caller, on an attempted purge of "Deniers" (also known as people who own a thermometer and know how to use it) in the weather forecasting industry.

Concerned that too many “deniers” are in the meteorology business, global warming activists this month launched a campaign to recruit local weathermen to hop aboard the alarmism bandwagon and expose those who are not fully convinced that the world is facing man-made doom.

The Forecast the Facts campaign — led by 350.org, the League of Conservation Voters and the Citizen Engagement Lab — is pushing for more of a focus on global warming in weather forecasts, and is highlighting the many meteorologists who do not share their beliefs.

“Our goal is nothing short of changing how the entire profession of meteorology tackles the issue of climate change,” the group explains on their website. “We’ll empower everyday people to make sure meteorologists understand that their viewers are counting on them to get this story right, and that those who continue to shirk their professional responsibility will be held accountable.”

According to the Washington Post, the reason for the campaign can be found in a 2010 George Mason University surveys, which found that 63% of television weathermen think that global warming is a product of natural causes, while 31% believe it is from human activity.

So far, the campaign has identified 55 “deniers” in the meteorologist community and are looking for more. They define “deniers” as “anyone who expressly refutes the overwhelming scientific consensus about climate change: that it is real, largely caused by humans, and already having profound impacts on our world.”

Meteorological McCarthyism at its finest.  Hit the link to read the rest. 

From a northern neighbor

I found this comment under a brilliant Fisking of a New York Times non-story about government giveaways:

Most Americans don't see where this is going. Here in Canada we have universal health care, which is just another way of saying that you're forbidden to use a private doctor.

After a decade or two, society loses all memory of private care and starts to see the govt as the only source of comfort. The choices in elections come down between more spending on govt health care and a lot more.

Usually it's a lot more because Canadians are waiting several months to see specialists, wait over a year for surgeries and are sometimes lucky to have a GP.

But we don't remember what private health care can do, and besides, the care is free at point of use, so most Canadians think it's just free, even as health care costs are rising just as fast as in the US and health spending now eats up half of our provincial budgets. (Ontario, our biggest province btw, has a per capita deficit and debt larger than California's).

So big govt is now like cancer of the brain stem. It's attached at the cellular level can cannot be removed. It can only grow and that unrestrained growth will eventually kill us. But that's okay, because there are no other choices.

The chart of Canadian Waiting Room Times came from here.  (I love this guy, BTW.  The tagline to his blog is "Think Globally, Act Locally, Demand Handouts.")  Here's the video that always comes to mind when the issue of total dependency arises.