The group that killed Eric Garner is protesting against the group that killed Eric Garner

Sometime yesterday, Congressional staffers (government employees) walked out on their jobs to the front steps of the House of Representatives to protest the laws (written by themselves) that led to the death (at the hands of other government employees) who were enforcing the will of government employees. Instead of meaningless symbolic gestures, why don't they protest by making it legal to sell "loosies" without a punitive tax that pays their own (government employee) salaries? Lord have mercy, what a pack of doofuses....

 

Our government is like a bad factory

Next week I'll be going to Indiana. 

My employer purchased a percentage of a company up there.  It's an 8 million dollar per year operation that somehow managed to lose 3 million dollars. 

Yeah.  3 million. 

How in the hell can that happen?

Well, here are the basic reasons....

1) The old owners were not present.  "Everyone" was supposed to own the factory.  Therefore, nobody owned it.  The inmates were running the asylum. 

2) There were no incentives to keep costs down.  They were buying things from buddies and family.  (And they're still trying to, which I will end about one hour after walking in the door.)   

3) The place has a strong union mentality.  One co-worker of mine went up there to help out for a few weeks, and he swears that they weren't going to ship $300,000.00 worth of products because they had run out of #8 machine screws.  He drove down to Home Depot and bought some freakin' machine screws, and the orders shipped on time. 

4) Everyone was getting raises like clockwork, profitability and performance be damned. 

Those are the big reasons why the factory was losing money.  We almost have the place sorted out, but there's still a lot of work to do.

Does that factory remind you of another organization?  It should.   

Here are the reasons government doesn't work. 

1) Nobody owns the government.  "Everyone" is supposed to own it.  Therefore nobody owns it.  The inmates get to run the asylum. 

2) There are no incentives to keep costs down.  Bureaucrats are actually incentivized to create bigger budgets and hire more and more people. Therefore, their pay scale goes up. 

3) Government has the strongest union mentality in our nation.  Examples abound. 

4) Everyone working in government can probably tell you, plus or minus a few percentage points, how much they'll be earning five years from now, efficiency and performance be damned. 

That's all I got.  Hope you've had a good weekend !! 

 

Judge Andrew Napolitano on "Trusting Goverment"

Words to live by from Andrew Napolitano:

Repeat after me: Government is power. Government is not to be trusted. Ever. Even if you believe that some government is and will always be necessary, that ‘necessary’ piece of government should always be regarded as a prudent lion tamer regards the big carnivorous cats that are ‘necessary’ for him to make a living. To imagine that seemingly subdued purring lions can be trusted to be dealt with in any ways that do not include the use of strong cages, leashes, ceaseless and deep suspicion, and escape hatches is the height of romantic absurdity – wishful thinking of the most extreme and inexcusable sort. Government is by its very nature a dangerous, untrustworthy, dishonest, arrogant, slippery entity – characteristics that are by no means reduced anywhere near to insignificance by a wide franchise, regular elections, and sturdy ink-on-parchment documents called “constitutions.”


Unless you are a high-ranking government official, government - no government – is ever “Us.” It is always “Them.” And They are not to be trusted. Ever.

On Milton Friedman's Barking Cat

Let's start off with some vintage Milton Friedman:

 In a recent column (Newsweek Jan 8, 1973), I pointed out that approval of drugs by the Food and Drug Administration delays and prevents the introduction of useful as well as harmful drugs. After giving reasons why the adverse effects could be expected to be far more serious than the beneficial effects, I summarized a fascinating study by Prof. Sam Peltzman, of UCLA of experience before and after 1962, when standards were stiffened. His study decisively confirmed the expectation that the bad effects would much outweigh the good.    The column evoked letters from a number of persons in pharmaceutical work offering tales of woe to confirm my allegation that the FDA was indeed "Frustrating Drug Advancement," as I titled the column. But most also said something like, "In contrast to your opinion, I do not believe that the FDA should be abolished, but I do believe that its power should be" changed in such and such a way - to quote from a typical letter.    I replied as follows: "What would you think of someone who said, " I would like to have a cat, provided it barked"? Yet your statement that you favor an FDA provided it behaves as you believe desirable is precisely equivalent. The biological laws that specify the characteristics of cats are no more rigid than the political laws that specify the behavior of governmental agencies once they are established. The way the FDA now behaves, and the adverse consequences are not an accident, not a result of some easily corrected human mistake, but a consequence of its constitution in precisely the same way that a meow is related to the constitution of a cat. As a natural scientist, you recognize that you cannot assign characteristics at will to chemical and biological entities, cannot demand that cats bark or water burn. Why do you suppose that the situation is different in the "social sciences?"

In other words, to wish for an efficient, non-corrupt, economical government service is to wish for a "barking cat".  

Now let's go to something more recent, from the UK's Mail Online.  Britain's dreaded National Health Service has killed something like 1,200 people through sheer godawful neglect, and the government flunkies have responded by (pick one) simply 1) firing those responsible 2) privatizing their system 3) vowing to keep government out of citizens' lives, or 4) paying whistleblowers to shut the hell up.  

Hit the link.  Check out the comments.  A good number of the Brits are saying sensible things, but far too many are wishing for a barking cat.  And there's no such thing as a barking cat, no matter how you design it, or what was intended.  Sad.

If these idiots spent the money on 750 nurses, they probably won't need to gag any one !

The original principle was beyond reproach but sadly I believe it has lost it's way, been allowed to get too big, and 'governed/controlled' by self serving idiotsIf the government was serious about tackling this abuse of power, they would declare all these gagging clauses null and void. Also they would take steps to ensure that the authoritarian, bullying managers who are responsible for this state of affairs, are sacked.

Revelation after revelation but what will be done ? NOTHING ! What will change ? NOTHING ! It never does. This would be bad enough if it was confined to the NHS but it isn't ! Every public sector departments are riddled with overpaid, 3rd rate middleweight, incompetent managers who are never held responsible for their failures as they would be in the private sector. They demand to be paid the going rate for a first class manager but none would last 5 minutes in the real world. There needs to be a complete pay and conditions restructuring from the top down in all departments not just the NHS. Without this things will only get worse !

Being open and honest and fully accountable about problems and accepting and recognising there is a problem is the first step to resolving the problem. Preventing legitimate organisational operational concerns and problems being discussed, resolved and publicly available lead to the same problems being repeated and cause serious problems for patient's blighted by hospital blunders and mistakes. Only by learning from previous mistakes and taking real decisive action to prevent repeating mistakes with a genuine will, can the preventable suffering of future patients be avoided. It does not take a consultant to work this out do why does continue to be the case inquiry after inquiry for decades? The culture of secrecy surrounding mistakes needs to stop now and the superiority culture of the medical hierarchy that say they are always right must end.

Sorry boys.  You can fire all the government managers, you can re-structure your government programs, and you can rant and moan and express your outrage in the comment fields of your newspapers all you want.   

You can't make a barking cat.  

Gary Johnson will end The War On Drugs

A sincere question about the Fort Worth Federal Aviation Administration Headquarters

My largest warehouse is on Meacham Boulevard in Fort Worth, just down the street from Fort Worth's massive Federal Aviation Administration building. 

They're supposedly in charge of keeping all the planes in the sky for as long as they're scheduled to be in the sky, with landings equalling takeoffs.  They have the most sophisticated security system on our street.  Gated parking with guards, cameras everywhere, and all the other things required to keep terrorists from shutting down our air traffic. 

They do some inspections, write some regulations, and approve some designs. 

They are supposedly vital.  To hear some people (see: Fort Worth Star-Telegram) tell it, we would have chaos if we were to privatize this government agency.  (see: Canada)

The FAA has a massive Washington headquarters, plus Central, New England, Great Lakes, Northwest Mountain, Alaskan, Southern, and Western-Pacific branches in addition to the Southwestern branch, the one just down the street from where I am writing this. 

I have one question. 

If they're so vital and important, why aren't they working on Sunday? 

Hope you're all having a good weekend !! 

Beaten for driving while diabetic

Here's a video of some government employees beating the crap out of a guy who is in a diabetic coma.  They think he's drunk. 
It's featured in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. 



The victim got $250,000 in restitution from....you.  The cops involved walked away fat and happy, of course. 

Go here to read the Vegas Review-Journal account of the mess. 
Go here to read Radley Balko's commentary on the incident, posted under the line of police dialogue "Stop resisisting, Motherf***er", and also includes the following observations:

•This certainly isn’t the first time cops have mistaken diabetic shock for intoxication—and with similar results. We’ve also seen a number of incidents where cops have mistaken epileptic seizures for aggressive behavior, often resulting in a Tasering. The root problem here is the same as that with the cops who mistakenly mistake a bounding or territorial dog with an aggressive one, and then kill it. The cops get excused because they made “honest mistakes.” (Though in this case, the honest mistake ended with mistaking low blood sugar for intoxication.) But that means they haven’t been trained properly. At some point, enough of these stories should have made the news that departments across the country would begin to implement such training. That doesn’t appear to be happening.

•Note that at one point in the video, after they’ve just beaten a helpless man, one cop asks his fellow officers if any of them are hurt.

•Not only were none of these cops criminally charged, every one of them is apparently still protecting and serving the public. The story indicates one seargeant was “disciplined,” but we aren’t allowed to know what that discipline was. The department also claims to have changed some policies in response to the incident. But we aren’t allowed to know exactly what those changes are, either.

•We also aren’t allowed to know the names of any of the officers in the video. This is inexcusable. It seems pretty clear that there’s a culture problem, here. Mistaking a diabetic for a drunk is bad enough. Beating him senseless when he clearly posed no threat is criminal. And yelling “Stop Resisting!” at a man who is clearly not resisting is indicative of a police culture in which excessive force is common enough that the officers know what to say as they’re beating someone to give them cover later. Laughing after you’ve just beaten a man, and after you’ve just discovered he was a diabetic is straight-up pathological. All of which means there’s plenty of reason to doubt this particular department’s internal review process. These officers names need to be released, so journalists and police watchdog groups outside of law enforcement can look into their histories on the job.

•Greene and his family were given a $292,500 settlement, which of course will be funded by taxpayers, not the cops who beat him senseless. This too needs to change. The cops who beat green should be forfeiting a portion of their paychecks to him for the rest of their lives. And those paychecks should preferably be compensation for work other than police work.

Rod Blagovich - a symptom, not a disease

Rod Blagovich, former Illinois governor, was convicted of trying to sell the former senate seat of The Teleprompter Jesus to the highest bidder.  There was plenty of other stuff involved, but that was my favorite of the indictments. 

He's the 4th Illinois governor (see: Otto Kerner, Dan Walker, and George Ryan) to be sent down the river in about 35 years. 

So why do people want to keep giving more money and power and responsibility to politicians? 

It costs far, far more to win the election than the job pays.  In return for their contributions, most supporters of a candidate are going to be wanting far more than they've contributed. 

What results are we expecting?  Who are these angels that we apparently believe are going to flap down into these roles and govern honestly after spending millions to get a job that pays in thousands? 

The only solution to this problem, IMAO, is based on libertarian principles:

1) Institute a Flat Tax, with no exceptions for saving the environment, employing more people, growing wheat for ethanol, or saving the whales.  Anyone granting a tax break to a constituent can be assumed to be corrupt, and gets to go live with the Illinois governors. 

2) Shrink the size of government to the size of an infant dachshund.  They're going to spend about two billion on the next presidential election campaign.  Why?  Because it's worth it. 
If the government were to be involved in roads, infrastructure, the court system, defending the borders, and nothing else, (see: U.S. Constitution) the opportunities for graft would shrink exponentially.
Any politician wanting to get the government involved in activities in which government sucks (education, energy, housing, literacy, nutrition, changing the weather, etc.) can be assumed to be corrupt, and gets to go live with the Illinois governors.   

3) There is no #3. 

Hey, it works for Westboro Baptist Church !!!

Stay classy, folks !!

Go here for details. 

The Columbia Missouri SWAT team is still breaking into homes and shooting dogs

For those of you with limited time, go ahead and forward to the 5 minute mark.
This is from the Keep Columbia (Missouri) Free website.

This is a video of the Columbia, MO SWAT team serving a search warrant for marijuana on 03.07.2008 at the home of Mr. Jonathan March.




According to Attorney Dan Viets, “Mr. March had no prior felony convictions” at the time of the raid and he did “possess firearms which were absolutely legal and constitutionally protected.”

During the raid, 5 concussion grenades were exploded in and around the home. One of the grenades exploded near the feet of the young lady visitor, seen in the video, who, at the time, was seated on the couch. Two additional grenades were exploded subsequent to the arrest on the premise that the CPD needed to prove that the previous 5 grenades had done no damage. The grenades left clear charred remains on the carpet and other areas of the home.

During sworn testimony taken by Viets, the SWAT officers who executed this raid acknowledged that they had shot to death two dogs with their machine guns. Both dogs were shot in the back while retreating. One of the dogs is shot at around the 6:30 mark in the video as an officer tops the stairs, passes a suspect on the floor, and steps into a bedroom. You can see a glimpse of the dead dog as the officer stands in the doorway. The dog is obviously facing away from the officer. At 6:55 you can see another injured dog struggling in the hall.

It is important to note that this raid took place before Chief Ken Burton accepted his position with the CPD. Due to the overwhelming public outcry stemming from a more recent yet similar raid under his command, Chief Burton has, for the time being, reigned in the use of his SWAT team to serve search warrants for non-violent crimes and criminals.

While the prevalence of violent, paramilitary raids has waned in Columbia, this type of raid is happening somewhere in the United States right now. Please speak out against this government sanctioned domestic terrorism.

This next one is the real heartbreaker. 
Do we really want to be a nation that allows local Barney Fife police officers to dress up like Seal Team 6 and bust in on people who are engaging in a voluntary, victimless activity?  Isn't it now safe to say that this is nothing but a jobs program for police, jailers, the prison industry, counselors, probation and parole officers, and their suppliers? 
History would be a lot different if this had happened to Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Al Gore, John Kerry, Mitch Daniels, or any other politician who has admitted to smoking weed. 



When are we going to stop paying people to do this? 

Note to The Aggie: Aren't you tired of going to school ????

I am trying to get the child known as The Aggie through college. 

College is expensive.  Textbooks, thanks to this idiot, are still incredibly expensive. 

The Aggie wants to be a veterinarian.  She has loved mammals, reptiles, bugs and amphibians ever since she learned to walk. 

During the summers, she works as a lifeguard.  Lifeguard training and certification, if I remember correctly, required that she undergo a grueling series of qualifications, then pass a ten day lifesaving course.  The cost for all of this was $200.00

A degree from Texas A and M will cost you around $16,000.00 per year. 

Until today, I saw lifeguarding as a means to an end, nothing more.  Depending on whose statistics you believe, a good vet can bring home between 75K and 115K per year. 

But wait....Here's the Orange County Register:

High pay and benefits for lifeguards in Newport Beach is the latest example of frustrating levels of compensation for public employees. More than half the city’s full-time lifeguards are paid a salary of over $100,000 and all but one of them collect more than $100,000 in total compensation including benefits.


When thinking about career options with high salaries, lifeguarding is probably not one of the first jobs to come to mind. But it apparently should. In one of Orange County’s most desirable beach destinations, Newport Beach, lifeguards are compensated all too well; especially compared with the county annual median household income of $71,735.

It might be time for a career change.

According to a city report on lifeguard pay for the calendar year 2010, of the 14 full-time lifeguards, 13 collected more than $120,000 in total compensation; one lifeguard collected $98,160.65. More than half the lifeguards collected more than $150,000 for 2010 with the two highest-paid collecting $211,451 and $203,481 in total compensation respectively.  Even excluding benefits like health care and pension, more than half the lifeguards receive a total salary, including overtime pay, exceeding $100,000. And they also receive an annual allowance of $400 for “Sun Protection.” Many work four days a week, 10 hours a day.

I don't begrudge anyone whatever they earn, as long as they're not taking it from someone else by force.  But these are government employees, and their compensation is taken from others by force. 
If you live in Newport Beach,  and put your foot down, and refuse to pay your share of this, and say "I'm not going to pay $200,000.00 per year to have Jack Johnson sit on a tower all day, watching damp supermodels frolic in the sand and the surf," the government will show up with guns at  your house and take your assets or put you in a steel cage. 
But all libertarian rants aside, how in the hell can you justify paying $200,000 per year to a freakin' lifeguard?  Is it possible? 
Well, yes.  You just compare the compensation to that of other lifeguards in government jobs, and it all makes sense. 

In a phone conversation, Brent Jacobsen, president of the Lifeguard Management Association, defended the lifeguard pay in Newport Beach: “We have negotiated very fair and very reasonable salaries in conjunction with comparable positions and other cities up and down the coast.” “Lifeguard salaries here are well within the norm of other city employees.” And therein is the problem: Local public worker pay has become all too generous and out of line with private sector equivalents.


On face, the compensation packages for these guards are staggering. But take into consideration the retirement benefits being paid to currently retired lifeguards and lifeguards who will retire at these pay levels in the future and the problem is further compounded. Lifeguards are able to retire with 90 percent of their salary, after only 30 years of work at as early as the age of 50.

Here's a video put out by a California Watchdog group (yes, that's an oxymoron) called Americans For Prosperity - California. 



Note to The Aggie:  Pack your bags.  Pack up Fat Kitty.  Pack up the idiot Labrador.  We're going to California !!!  (The City Of Los Angeles is hiring Duplicating Machine Operators, and I think I could work my way up to Senior Duplicating Machine Operator before retirement time.  Hit the link.) 

How to keep a government employee from falling asleep on the job - Hire one to keep him awake.

A government employee was caught sleeping on the job. 

The air traffic controller suspended for failing to respond to two planes heading into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport has told investigators that he had fallen asleep, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

The controller, a 20-year veteran, "indicated that he had fallen asleep for a period of time while on duty," according to a statement released Thursday by the safety board. "He had been working his fourth consecutive overnight shift (10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.)."
"Human fatigue issues are one of the areas being investigated," the statement read.

Federal Aviation Administration chief Randy Babbitt said earlier Thursday that the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the incident and that the air traffic controller has been suspended from all operational duties.

You gotta love the phrase "Human Fatigue Issues" in place of "sleepy".  It's right up there with "Kinetic Military Action" in place of "Blowing Up Arabs". Here's Hot Air with some more detail on what happened.  

The control tower at Reagan National Airport went silent early Wednesday, forcing the pilots of two airliners carrying a total of 165 passengers and crew members to land on their own.
he tower, which normally is staffed by one air-traffic controller from midnight to 6 a.m., did not respond to pilot requests for landing assistance or to phone calls from controllers elsewhere in the region, who also used a “shout line,” which pipes into a loudspeaker in the tower, internal records show.
An American Airlines Boeing 737 flying in from Miami with 97 people on board circled the airport after receiving no response from the tower at midnight. Minutes later, a United Airlines Airbus 320 flying in from Chicago with 68 people on board also got no answer from the tower.

Here's the Bureau of Labor Statistics on who this dude worked for:

Air traffic controllers held about 26,200 jobs in 2008. The vast majority were employed by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), while a small number of civilian controllers also work for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Here's your obligatory statement of outrage from Federal Aviation Administration Chief Bruce Babbitt:

"In my 25 years as a professional airline pilot, I've never seen anything happen like this. "I am outraged by it," Babbitt said. "We're going to make sure something like this never happens again."

Here's why Babbitt and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood need to get their shit together:

-- A March 23, 2006, incident in which a Chicago air traffic controller cleared a plane to take off from a runway on which, 15 seconds earlier, he had cleared another aircraft to cross. The pilot of the departing plane stopped when he saw the other craft in the taxiway intersection. The controller told investigators he had slept only four hours during a nine-hour break between shifts.

-- An August 19, 2004, incident in which a Los Angeles controller cleared one passenger jet to take off and another to land on a runway at the same time. The pilot in the landing aircraft noticed the other on the runway and pulled his plane up 12 seconds before they would have collided. The controller said he had slept five or 6 hours before coming to work.

-- A September 25, 2001, incident in which a Denver air traffic controller approved a request from a cargo plane pilot to take off from a runway that had been closed for construction. The aircraft came within 32 feet of hitting lights that had been installed in the construction zone. The controller said he'd slept only two hours between work days.

-- A July 8, 2001, incident in which a Denver controller cleared one passenger plane to cross a runway where another was about to land. The landing pilot hit the brakes, stopping 810 feet from the other plane. The controller said he had worked three shifts in two days.

Here's why Canada doesn't have so many problems with Air Traffic Control, according to the International Air Transport Association.  Their air traffic is supervised by an outfit called Nav Canada:

Nav Canada is a global leader in the efficient implementation and reliable delivery of air traffic control procedures and technologies. It actively engages its customers at all levels in regular and meaningful consultations. “The performance of Nav Canada has been enhanced by the right technical and operational investments following extensive cost/benefit analyses. Nav Canada’s effective management has allowed the company to reduce its charges in 2006 and 2007, and freeze them at that level ever since,” Bisignani said.



Here's the Cato Institute on what's so special about Nav Canada:

Unlike the government-run ATC system in the U.S., Nav Canada is a privately run, not-for-profit corporation. As a Cato essay on privatization explains, the U.S. system leaves a lot to be desired while the private Canadian system has been a tremendous success:

The Federal Aviation Administration has been mismanaged for decades and provides Americans with second-rate air traffic control. The FAA has struggled to expand capacity and modernize its technology, and its upgrade efforts have often fallen behind schedule and gone over budget…The GAO has had the FAA on its watch list of wasteful "high-risk" agencies for years…Canada privatized its ATC system in 1996. It set up a private, nonprofit ATC corporation, Nav Canada, which is self-supporting from charges on aviation users. The Canadian system has received high marks for sound finances, solid management, and investment in new technologies.

So are Babbitt and LaHood considering privatizing the FAA?  Are they going to admit basic incompetence and let us save some money by following the Canadian model?  Naw.  That's not in their DNA. 

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood ordered the FAA on Wednesday to schedule two controllers on the overnight shift.

Yeah.  If one government employee is failing, the only solution is to hire more.  Always, always, always, hire more. 

Pics came from here and here and here. 

Think of this when you hear how many jobs a government project is going to create

Here's something I've been pondering for the last few weeks. 

My employer, Jukt Micronics, is about to lease a new mega-warehouse.  My boss and I have been working on the deal for a couple of months. 
We already have several warehouses and had to justify the deal to the company owners, and to our president, Marvel Variants. 

(On one of our tours of the facility, Mr. Variants took this pic of me lounging at the spot where I hope to take my lunch breaks.  I consider it to be one of the greatest Libertarian portraits ever produced, and I hope the jury will remember this deed when Variants is put on trial for ripping off comic book geeks.)

Anyway, to justify the new warehouse, my boss and I had to determine how many forklifts we could eliminate.  The lease at this space is less per square foot than one of our other locations, so that helped.  We figured out how much time we could save by consolidating some locations.  The calculations for how much we would save on fuel took up a couple of days. 

Here's the big one, the one that probably closed the deal for us....
We won't have to hire as many people. 

I repeat - we won't have to hire as many people. 

I think my employers have a good relationship with their employees.  In years past, they've actually gone to the bank to borrow money so they could give Christmas bonuses!!  But the process of purchasing labor from people is only a means to an end, and that end is to provide display fixtures to grocery stores in exchange for money.  We do not have a goal of saving and creating jobs. 

(Otherwise, we would lobby for the government to outlaw forklifts and trucks.  Think of all the jobs that would save or create.) 

Now, think of the yammering you hear when Congressman Felcher is trying to justify a new project in his district. 

This new Perpetual Motion Facility will bring 1,397 new jobs to North Texas ! 
Our investment in Bottled Fairy Flatulence will employ 257 citizens of the D/FW area ! 
The Porkulus Plan has saved or created 2 million jobs since 2009 ! 

And on and on and on.   The higher the number, the more likely the boondoggle will come into being, right? 

So if you had control of your tax money had an extra $15,000, and wanted to invest it in a place that would use it wisely, where would you put it? 
Would you want to give the money to John Boehlout Boehner and The Teleprompter Jesus so they could hire as many people as possible?  Even if a lot of those people are just standing around or doing busywork?
Or would you want to invest it in a project that was trying to use the money as efficiently as possible? 
How much more would you be willing to pay for a computer that was produced by 6,000 people instead of 4,000 ??

One last question....Since Washington is now infested with Keynesian economists who are trying to stimulate the economy by "creating jobs", is there any doubt in your mind why our economy is in the tank? 

Leave employers alone to fight it out and compete.  Stop using tax money to fund insanity.  The entrepreneurs, not the Community Organizers, will come up with the best use for it.  The jobs and the prosperity will follow. 

A new goal

I have many, many goals to achieve in my remaining years of life. 

One of them is to make it onto this list. 

Jesus tries to make a triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Without a permit.

For the last 6 months, I've been putting my theological training to work by re-examining our deeply flawed Bible translations.  Hit this link for a few examples. 
Since it is almost Easter, I thought I would translate part of the Gospel Of Mark, Chapter 11, where Jesus makes his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. 

1.  As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples,
2.  ....saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find an ass and a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie them and bring them here.

3.  If anyone asks you, 'Why are you doing this?' tell him, 'The Lord needs them and will send them back here shortly.' "
4.  They went and found an ass and a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied them,
5.  .....some people standing there asked, "What are you doing, untying those animals?"
6.  They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go.
7.  When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it.
8.  Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields.
9.  Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, "Hosanna!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"

10.  "Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!" "Hosanna in the highest!"
11.  Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple.
12.  And then the City Council Of Jerusalem approached him, asking, "Why, Lord, did you not apply for a parade permit?  Where was your protective Roman Legion, required to block traffic at major intersections, as per Caesar's statute CDH-30978?"
13.  Then the Lord answered him with a parable, saying "In a far country, there was a man who...."  but the Lord was interrupted by a woman afflicted with a demon.
14.  "Who do you think you are?" said the woman.  "A man of your weight riding that young colt !  You are a species-centric monster !  For you disregard the rights of animals, casting demons into herds of swine, and who knows what else."
15.  And the Lord began to answer her, saying "Away from me, vile spirit !  I shall name thee PETA, and upon this crock I shall build my...."
16.  But before he could continue, a small man approached Jesus, saying "Lord, Lord, did you prepare an environmental impact statement before allowing palm branches to be strewn about the streets of Jerusalem?" 
17.  And the city officials of Jerusalem turned Jesus over to the Romans, who forced the Lord to complete administrative paperwork and travel about the city for permits for the rest of his days.

18. And many years later, as he died, Jesus let forth a loud cry, saying "Father forgive them, even though they have no idea what they're doing."   

Pics came from here and here and here and here.

Three reasons why public sector unions are killing the economy

More brilliance from Nick Gillespie of Reason magazine.