The Cowboys, The Vikings, The Democrats, and The Republicans

A friend from work got me some tickets for Thursday night's Cowboys/Vikings preseason game. These games, of course, mean nothing. They are an opportunity for each offensive team to play against someone besides their own defense, and vice-versa.

Sam Hurd sprained his ankle in the opening drive, which is a bummer. You don't want to risk good players in a meaningless game. The Special Teams looked like death warmed over. (I played junior high football at North Sunflower Academy in Drew, Mississippi. That qualifies me to comment on these things.)

I always show up at these games armed with a radio. Mrs. Whited Sepulchre (whose father coached high school football in the 1960's) can follow everything without radio commentary, but my mind tends to wander unless I have announcers telling me what I'm seeing.

Placing bets on these games is pointless, because winning isn't the primary objective. The teams are there to try out new players. They want to learn which ones are worth keeping, and which should be cut from the team. Very few NFL teams try new plays during these games. Therefore, they're usually dull.

I switched over to the Democrat National Convention before this game even started, which allowed me to see and hear meaningless events simultaneously. (At one point in all this, I ate a totally bland $7.00 Red Barron Tasteless Pizza, and experienced a nihilistic trifecta of sight, sound, and taste.)

But If I thought the Cowboys/Vikings game was pointless....
Obama was throwing out stuff left and right. "I will lower taxes on...." "I will fight for...." "I will lift up my hands to the heavens, and fix...." "If you have enough faith, you can touch the hem of my garment and the tumors will be gone...." Et cetera. Etc. Etc. et freakin' cetera.

These issues are the Democrats' draft picks for the 2008 election: Change, lower taxes for people like us, getting out of Iraq, Change, cutting out corruption, punishing people who aren't like us with higher taxes, Change, and a charismatic black guy. Most of this stuff won't stick, despite being Focus Grouped, Mall Tested, Photoshopped, and Field Surveyed. And if, for instance, the Democrats' official objection to drilling for oil in Alaska fails to resonate with voters? That proposal will be cut from the team quicker than a 12th round draft pick.

Obama could've come out strong on gay and lesbian marriage, he could've proposed reforming our idiotic drug laws, and he could've said something about bringing the troops home from the 45 nations where we're currently paying them to sit. He didn't mention them, despite those issues being "owned" by the Democrats.


This week, McCain and his new draft pick from Alaska might advocate Free Trade, genuine Free Market agreements, school choice/vouchers, getting the insurance companies and lawyers out of my doctor's office, breaking the lobbyist stranglehold, and cutting the size of government by about 50%. He might mention those issues, but if elected he won't do anything about them, despite those issues being "owned" by the Republicans.
The main reason?
They don't have to.
They can get by with just talking about it. As long as these problems remain out there, unresolved, they're effective wedge issues. What would happen if, for instance, "Morning After" contraception was suddenly available from vending machines? What would that do to our carefully defined political dividing lines if the abortion issue was taken off the table? Can you imagine the chaos? Voters would wander off into different herds.
We've gotten very good at fighting over abortion, and would miss it terribly.
The Dems and Reps know you won't "waste" a vote on anyone else. They want you to think that you have no other choice. (I've stopped using the term "3rd party". I'm now calling the Libertarians a 2nd party. Rep's and Dem's are the first party.)
You're being told that there's a battle going on for the soul of the nation, that all of this is very significant, and that this matters more than who wins American Idol.
That's total horsecrap. This election makes the Cowboys/Vikings preseason game look like The Battle of Thermopylae.
The only battle is for driver's seat. Neither of these groups will change the direction of the car.

The main differences between Thursday's Cowboy's/Vikings preseason game and the Democratic and Republican Conventions?

The football game really did have two different teams on the field.

Go Bob Barr !

Cowboys/Vikings photos from ladybugbkt on Flickr. McCain/Palin from Castro News Network. Obama/Biden from The Holy New York Times.

Happy Labor Day ! ! !

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Labor Day, and comes back to work Tuesday ready to dig a little deeper....

Jim Sullivan doesn't believe any of it.

Jim Sullivan doesn't believe that Barack and Hillary love each other.

Caption this guy's picture

I need a caption for this picture, or the picture that this guy is taking. Take your pick.

Determining last week's winner was a problem, since the committee initially declared that Gar had the best caption. But he'd already won the week before. I had lobbed for Flee winning it, since she logs on from Saginaw, Michigan about 8 times per day just to see what's going on. Fembuttx, of course, is permanently disqualified. However, after consulting with the rules committee, it was decided that Snoopy The Goon was the winner because the bylaws specifically state that no contestant can win for two weeks in a row. If this sounds really confusing, it's because I've been watching the Democrats try to be totally fair to everyone during their convention.

Photo from WorthaLaugh.com

Obama Fatigue

I just finished reading Time and Newsweek. Guess who they're writing about, almost to the exclusion of anything else? And guess who is on the cover for the 8th or 9th time?

Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama there's geeky sexy Barack Obama Omaha for Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack ObamaBarack Obama Barack Obama I can't tell you how much we love Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama there's a thrill up my leg when I hear Obama my sweet sweet Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Obama Obama ObamaObama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama is the name of my next baby Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Look through the prophecies of Nostradamus for references to Barack ObamaBarack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama the transfiguration of Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama overcame hardship Barack Obama Barack Obama Obama Obama Barack Obama Barack ObamaBarack Obama will stop the rise of the oceans Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama and when they were finished with Barack Obama, they talked about Michelle for a while.

Good Lord in Heaven, they're setting this guy up for a Britney Spears/Michael Jackson fall. No human can live up to those expectations.

It's time for everyone to get on board with it. In keeping with the current level of Obama frenzy, I've written a Haiku in the great man's honor. Here goes:

Barack Obama
o yes, Barack Obama !
Barack Obama

I think it's pretty dang good. Next, I shall immortalize the Senator with a limerick:

There was a black Dad and white Mama,
Whose son was "The Chosen", Obama.
He'll keep us all fed,
Heal the sick, raise the dead,
End the war, plus he'll capture Osama.

I haven't had time to compose a sonnet, but it's a long time until November. Someone please email me the appropriate rhyme scheme. I want to convince the Texas A&M marching band to spell out the name Barack Obama at halftime. I want to blast Teddy Roosevelt off Mount Rushmore so we can start chiseling the Christlike visage of Barack Obama in Teddy's place. Let his utterances be bound into the book of Obama, and may it replace the Gospel of Mark (which is kinda weak and non-miraculous) in Holy Scripture. I want to hire a few dozen Tibetan monks to meditate on the sound of the name that men soon will dare not speak aloud: B_____ O____.

In the meantime, Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack ObamaBarack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama I worship the Mama of Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama I love that I'm typing the name Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack ObamaBarack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama I LIVE ON THE SAME PLANET WITH Barack ObamaBarack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack ObamaBarack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama Barack Obama don't we all love us some Barack Obama.

Teaching truth as fact

"In the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn't pick up things with it. But there was one Elephant—a new Elephant — an Elephant's Child — who was full of 'satiable curiosity, and that means he asked ever so many questions…"
That's the first sentence of "The Elephant's Child" by Rudyard Kipling. It's one of a series called "Just So Stories" that he wrote for one of his daughters. The story is about a baby elephant (full of 'satiable curiosity) who up until that time had only "a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot" and who has his nose stretched by a deceitful crocodile.

And that, dear children, is why elephants have long noses. You can look it up.

Kipling wrote about a dozen of these stories, including:

*How the Whale got his Throat - Explains how the whale was once a fearsome predator who ate humans, but was changed by one of his victims.
*How the Camel got his Hump - Explains how the idle camel was punished.
*How the Rhinoceros got his Skin - Explains why Rhinos have folds in their skin and bad tempers.
*How the Leopard got his Spots - You can guess.....
*The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo - The story of how the kangaroo turned from a grey, wooly animal with short, stubby legs, to the athletic animal we know today.
*The Beginning of the Armadillos - The story of how the hedgehog and the turtle transformed into the first....armadillos.

None of these stories are factual. None of them happened. None should be given equal time in a science textbook.

Some of them, however, contain truth. Not TRUTH, but truth. For instance, the truth in "The Elephant's Child" is that when a gullible person runs into a deceitful person, bad things happen to the gullible person. Or perhaps the truth in the story can be found in the cliche "Curiosity killed the cat".

The Jewish/Christian scriptures also give us some stories. They include:

*Why is there a rainbow? - Genesis 9:12-16. This story explains how God put the first rainbow in the sky, as a promise to never again destroy the earth with a flood. The truth in that story is that even if you live in London, it will eventually stop raining.

*Why do people speak different languages? - Genesis 11:4-8. This story explains what happened when people tried to build a tower (The Tower of Babel) that would reach to heaven, and God put an end to the project by giving everyone a different language. The truth in that story is obvious to anyone who has worked in China for a month.

*Why don't snakes have legs? Why do people have to work? Why does it hurt women to have babies? - Genesis 3:14-19. 1) If snakes had legs, they'd be lobbyists. 2) Obama and Biden are asking that same question. 3) We'd be overpopulated otherwise.

You get the idea. These are stories. Some of them are good. Some of them, like the story of Abraham attempting to sacrifice his son Isaac, are barbaric and should be avoided.

Many Christians obsess over the story found in Genesis 1:26-27 . (Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.) They want to be sure this story gets equal time in science classrooms. They try to influence textbook publishers and purchasing committees. It influences how they vote. They give biology teachers hell. They take the issue to court.

So where are the people who should be protesting against "Godless Linguistics"? Do you remember the chart that was usually in the front of your middle school Grammar and English books? The one that showed all the different families of languages? The chart makes no mention of The Tower Of Babel ! ! ! Where's the outrage? Where are the protesters?

Remember your elementary school science teacher shining light through a prism and explaining the color spectrum? Did he take time to explain that this phenomenom didn't exist before the flood in Genesis? Did he explain that the resulting rainbow was a promise from God, and not a mere reorganization of light? From now on, shouldn't the Genesis Flood Story be given equal time when Optics is taught?

Spinal blocks and epidurals during childbirth are immoral, since they are an attempt to lessen the curse found in Genesis 3. Am I missing something here?

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Fundamentalists are very selective in their protests.

There are some great, great stories in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. Like Kipling's "Just So Stories" they're an attempt at explaining why the world is the way it is. They were the best we could do at the time. When we read them, we should be looking for the truths, not the facts. That's what the person who created them intended.

"When I was a child I spoke as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things." I Corinthians 13: 11

So put down your picket signs. Stop lobbying textbook publishers. Leave the biology teachers alone. Grow up.

Death And Taxes

Someone has put together a chart called "Death And Taxes". It depicts the requested 2008 budget for the federal "discretionary" budget - the amount that is requested by the President, and that has to be approved by Congress each year. It doesn't include Black Holes like Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid (money that is supposed to be supplied by other contributions).
This poster represents 1,075 billion dollars. I have no idea why it's represented as 1,075 billion instead of 1.07 trillion. Maybe numbers become ridiculous when they grow that large, and this is the easiest way for us to digest them.

Click here to see close-ups of the chart. Don't go in there unless you have plenty of time. Don't go in there if you still have sentimental attachments to the Daddy Party (R) or the Mommy Party (D), since those two groups are going to spend this money like drunk cowboys regardless of our current level of debt.

There's a little penny in the bottom right corner of the poster. The penny represents the total budget, not just the discretionary portion. For the 2008 fiscal year, Daddy and Mommy are going to spend 2.902 trillion dollars. They're only going to receive 2.662 trillion dollars. The difference, which will be passed along to the kids in the back seat of the family car, is 239 billion dollars (2% less than last year ! ! !)

The Daddy Party (R) and The Mommy Party (D) can't be trusted with the family car, or the credit cards, or the keys to the liquor cabinet, or staying out of expensive fights with people across town, but they want to keep driving and spending for another four years.

Check out the chart, and ask yourself if you really believe these two groups are ever going to change.

Go Bob Barr (L).

Earliest Known Picture Of Michael Phelps

This is a rare cartoon submission from The Mother Of The Whited Sepulchre.

Press "1" for English (and pay $50.00)

I ran into this all the time in China, where there would be an unspoken Chinese price and a "Barbarian" price.

This is the first time I've seen the English/Spanish variation.

Shouldn't those who have more be asked to pay more? Or does that idea seem kind of offensive?
Discuss amongst yourselves.

Photo from Flikr.

"Clinton Wasn't Vetted, Chet Edwards Was" and "If You Don't Vote For Obama, You're A Racist"

I try to at least browse the offerings on Salon and Slate every day, kind of like some Lefties claim to "monitor" Rush Limbaugh.
It helps innoculate me from getting enthusiastic about anything done, said, typed, or attempted by Republicans, plus their Arts & Entertainment essays are usually top notch.
And even though I know going in that I'll see some political opinions (which shouldn't have survived The Dark Ages) labeled as "Progressive", the trip is usually worth it.

Not today.

Let's start with this somewhat breathless investigation by Alex Koppelman, from Salon.com: "Clinton wasn't vetted, Chet Edwards was".

Let me retype that. "Hillary Clinton, who got almost as many votes in the Democratic primaries as Obama, wasn't seriously considered as a plausible Vice-Presidential candidate but obscure Texas congressman Chet Edwards got to turn in all his documents and answer a lot of questions from the vetting committee and that's not fair."

(Politico's Mike) Allen quotes one unnamed Democratic official as saying that Clinton "was not asked for a single piece of paper. She and Senator Obama have never had a single conversation about it." The source also says that Clinton never met with Obama's vetting team. In his article on all this, Allen pointedly contrasts this report with Obama's having frequently said Clinton "would be on anybody's short list."

Responding to the story, a Democrat sympathetic to Clinton told Salon, "If Mike's right, the PUMAs (a delightful acronym that means "Party Unity, My Ass") are going to burn down the Pepsi Center" (where the Democratic convention is being held). Many Democrats have believed, however, that a formal vetting process wasn't really necessary when it came to Clinton, as all the information that would normally be examined is already public.

Once again, can you imagine what questions a vetting committee would have for The Clintons? Click here for my shortlist.

Moving on to Slate.com's crime against logic, someone named Jacob Weisberg has written "IF OBAMA LOSES: Racism is the only reason McCain might beat him".

Wow.

I like Obama ok, considering that he's a Democrat from the Chicago machine who has the foreign policy experience of Emily Dickinson. His most significant executive experience was with former terrorist William Ayers, and you're not going to get to see the documents relating to that experience until December. The guy just hasn't done a lot yet. McCain has.

What would happen if we did a reverse "Lincoln Osiris" treatment on Obama, and turned him white? What if we gave him the name Barry O'Reilly? And what if we gave him the identical thin resume? Does anyone believe that generic two-year senator Barry O'Reilly could've beaten The Clintons, much less go up against John McCain?

Mr. Weisberg doesn't understand that Obama's race has helped get him this far, and if he wins the presidency it will be because his race was seen as a positive that outweighed his lack of experience. No white candidate could've defeated the Clintons. Impossible.

As a former Mississippian who grew up in a racist environment, with segregated schools and doctor's offices, I'm glad to see a black man get this far. I think our first black president will do a lot to finish healing the damage. I'd be happier, though, with a first black president named Colin Powell.

The fact that I'm going to vote for Bob Barr instead of Barack Obama doesn't make me a racist.

And someone needs to point out to Jacob Weisberg that they're having a big sale at Clues-R-Us. Maybe he'll get one.

Joseph Biden is Barack Obama's pick for Vice President of The United States

Joseph Biden is Barack Obama's pick for Vice President of The United States.
I hope.

Let's look at his other options:
*The Clintons - They're too divisive. Barack ran on "Change", and these two don't represent that. These two are the only thing that could rally the Republicans. Yes, they've been vetted, but so has Mussolini.
*Al Gore - I can't see it happening. He'll be making millions cooling the earth. All the future graft from his consulting work would have to go into a blind trust.
*John Edwards - He had it all, and blew it.
*Tim Whats-his-name from Virginia - Obama needs someone with some experience and reputation to balance his lack of both. This guy makes Obama look like Henry Clay.
*Evan Bayh - Dan Quayle defeated his father (Senator Birch Bayh) in the 1981 Indiana Senate race. There's no telling what something like that can do to a family.
*Tim Pawlenty - seems like a good guy, but he's only a year older than Obama. He would bring a lot to the ticket. Oh, wait, never mind. He's on the Republican shortlist.
*Bill Richardson - another good guy, but wouldn't bring much to the ticket. Would've been a better fit with The Clintons, who now despise him.

I may have forgotten some others, but for the sake of our nation I hope it's Biden. The Mommy Party will need to prove that they have an adult in the room, and Biden can handle a debate. He's been in the Senate longer than almost anyone who still has his wits about him, he's helped with the vetting of more Supreme Court justices than anyone.
He's a good foreign affairs guy.
He once got into trouble for plagiarizing something, a vice that I regularly practice on these pages. I've liked him ever since live-blogging this debate back in October.

I hope that its Gore, just to add excitement to my life. My money's on Biden.

Update from 3:00 a.m. on Saturday. It looks like I nailed that one ! Joe Biden is the nominee. I just got the text message announcement from the Obama camp.

William Ayers and Barack Obama and 132 boxes at The University of Illinois at Chicago

Former terrorist William Ayers is finally getting some attention from The Daddy Party (also known as The Republicans).


I wondered at great length in a previous post about when this was going to happen. (Actually, I've been wondering if a Republican campaign against Barack Obama would ever happen....) Here's some analysis of the video from a great site called "The Campaign Diaries", a site that's worth bookmarking if you're a political junkie.

The ad’s goal could not be more explicit, and this is the clearest attempt yet to define Obama as a Manchurian Candidate. It strokes voters’ perception of Obama as a mystery that is simply too dangerous to go for, a mystery so huge that Obama could in fact be an anarchist terrorist looking to get in power to bomb to destroy the Capitol. (The moderators of the ABC debate in April had already raised the Ayers connection.) The Washington Post fact-checking division provides some details as to the Obama-Ayers relationship, which it describes as a “tenuous” one.

As of today, I wouldn't trust the Washington Post's fact-checking department to review the orders at the McDonald's drive-through in Yazoo City, Mississippi. Their bias in favor of The Mommy Party (also known as the Democrats) has been established for a while, and then we get to this, an editorial is by John Kass, writing for the Chicago Tribune, about the adventures of journalist Stanley Kurtz and his efforts to review various documents related to the "tenuous" Obama/Ayers relationship:

When Daley says shhh, library is quiet on Obama
John Kass

....Kurtz's research was to be done in a special library run by the University of Illinois at Chicago. The library has 132 boxes full of documents pertaining to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation vested heavily in school reform. Kurtz believes the documents may show Obama and Ayers were close—far closer than Obama has acknowledged—over oodles of foundation gifts on education projects the two worked on together.

First the librarians told Kurtz yes, come look.

But by the time Kurtz landed in Chicago, the librarians changed their minds. The donor of the documents hadn't cleared his research.

Perhaps they'll let him look at the documents on Nov. 5.

The relationship between the ambitious Obama and the unrepentant Ayers is a subject that excites Republicans, who haven't really thwacked that pinata as hard as they might.

It really irritates Obama and his political champion, Chicago's sovereign lord, Mayor Richard M. Daley. "This is a public entity," Kurtz told us Wednesday. "I don't understand how confidentiality of the donor would be an issue."

Kass goes on to explain that if Mayor Daley doesn't want the review of the documents to happen, it ain't gonna happen.

But wouldn't it be fun to go through those boxes?

Here's the Kurtz article on his difficulties with gaining acces to The Ayers Archive. For the sake of future generations with time of their hands, I'm also copying the entire piece here.

Alisa In Wonderland on Iowa and Beijing

As a public service, I try to alert everyone when Alissa In Wonderland starts typing in English instead of Hebrew.

First, check out her post about our ongoing ethanol scam. (Note to Iowa senators Tom Harkin and Charles Grassley: They've figured you out everywhere but in the United States. Great job, guys!)

Then check out what she wrote about the Olympics Opening Ceremony in Beijing, and the trade-offs between collectivism and individualism.

I hesitate to jump into the comment fields on Alissa's posts, because the threads toggle back and forth between English and Hebrew. If English was good enough for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Jesus, why can't these people use it? Can you imagine how difficult it would be to translate something like Genesis, Exodus, or Leviticus from English into Hebrew? Why can't they use the King's English like King David did?

Ungrateful 70-Year-Olds Who Don't Appreciate The Blessings Of Socialism

Here's the New York Times:

BEIJING — In the annals of people who have struggled against Communist Party rule, Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying are unlikely to merit even a footnote.

by Ng Han Guan/Associated Press

The two women, both in their late 70s, have never spoken out against China’s authoritarian government. Both walk with the help of a cane, and Ms. Wang is blind in one eye. Their grievance, receiving insufficient compensation when their homes were seized for redevelopment, is perhaps the most common complaint among Chinese displaced during the country’s long streak of fast economic growth.

Those weren't their homes. The land and everything on it belonged to the state. That's one of the blessings of Socialism. It makes it easier to achieve the greater good.

But the Beijing police still sentenced the two women to an extrajudicial term of “re-education through labor” this week for applying to hold a legal protest in a designated area in Beijing, where officials promised that Chinese could hold demonstrations during the Olympic Games.
They became the most recent examples of people punished for submitting applications to protest. A few would-be demonstrators have simply disappeared, at least for the duration of the Games, squelching already diminished hopes that the influx of foreigners and the prestige of holding the Games would push China’s leaders to relax their tight grip on political expression.

But, but, but....why? When socialism is so pure and wholesome?

"The Jewel of Medina", Sherry Jones, Random House, and Censorship in the name of safety

Here's something about an act of intimidation, censorship, political correctness, and whichever fourth horse of the apocalypse you want to add. I worked in the Literary Retail industry (which puts a premium on Free Speech) for quite a while, and this kind of thing makes me sick.

US publishers cancel book on Prophet Mohammed's wife
NEW YORK (AFP) — A US publisher has cancelled the publication of a novel about the youngest wife of the Muslim prophet Mohammed amid a growing controversy over the book.
"The Jewel of Medina," a debut novel by journalist Sherry Jones about Mohammed's child bride A'isha had been due for release in the United States last week.

Random House is the publisher that now puts out "The Satanic Verses" by Sir Salman Rushdie. I wonder how long they're going to keep that one in print.

But publisher Random House released her from the contract amid the controversy and her agent said Jones is now looking for a publisher in another country to pick up the rights.
"Random House made the decision to cancel its US publication of the novel 'The Jewel of Medina' after much deliberation and with great reluctance," a statement from the publisher sent to AFP said.

This is what the whimper of whipped dogs sounds like. Listen closely. You'll be hearing more of it during the next decade.

"The decision was based on advice from scholars of Islam, among several creditable sources, that publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community and could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment."

Mark Steyn's book "America Alone" was widely ridiculed for predicting this type of organized sensitivity. Then Steyn's book was banned in Canada. By Canadians who sit on "Human Rights Commissions" and believe that if the head of someone's religion marries a 12-year old, the delicate sensitivity of the adherents of that religion trump the free speech/free press rights of everyone else.
(I'm not talking about Mormon fundamentalist Rulon Jeffs and his 12-year old fiance, either.)

Reports said Monday that a Serbian distributor, BeoBooks, had ordered bookshops to remove from bookshelves some 1,000 printed copies of a local edition of the novel under pressure from Islamic leaders.

And let us go and do likewise. We should ask ourselves more often...."What would the Serbs do in this situation?"

Mufti Muamer Zukorlic, one of Serbia's main Islamic leaders, had compared the book with the controversial Danish cartoons that sparked Muslim outrage and violent protests when published in 2005.
"This is a work that absolutely stopped at nothing in order to desecrate something that all Muslims hold sacred," Zukorlic said in a report by the Serbian broadcaster B92.

The controversial Danish cartoons weren't controversial. A small group of Sand Preachers tried to make them controversial. At first they failed. They tried again. They failed. Then they had someone draw a cartoon of Mohammed with the body of a pig, which turned out to be an AP photograph of a French pig-squealing contest, and added it to their collection of offensive material. Then, and only then, did they succeed in creating "controversy".

Random House added that it stood "firmly by our responsibility to support our authors and the free discussion of ideas, even those that may be construed as offensive by some.
"However, we must weigh that responsibility against others that it also bears, and in this instance we decided not to go forward with this publication out of concerns for the author, employees of Random House, booksellers, and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel."

Disregard the fact that those two sentences are total contradictions of each other. Disregard the weasel phrase "those that MAY be construed as offensive to SOME". Go ahead and say what you're afraid of. Say it. Say it. Awww....Never mind.

This is the whimper of whipped dogs.

Jones, writing in the PostGlobal blog moderated by Newsweek magazine and the Washingtonpost.com, said she had been stunned when Random House told her a university professor had warned the company of possible reprisals if the book were published.

A university professor warned them? A representative from our last bastion of free speech, diverse opinions, respect for the views of others, and tolerance of the "other"? Say it ain't so.

She added that she had expected to stir some controversy as her novel was about "women's empowerment, never a popular theme among fundamentalists of any faith."
But Jones wrote: "Given the respect with which I treat the Muslim prophet, however, I never expected to be killed because of it. I still don't."

Well, they sure killed your book.

Thanks to here and here for the pictures.

Caption This

It's Wednesday, so I need an electrifying caption for this picture.
Congratulations to Gar, who submitted the best caption last week. A two dollar donation has been made in his name to The Whited Sepulchre Foundation For Those Still Incapable Of Getting Digg Icons To Appear On Their Websites.

Photo from Flikr.

The Tortilla Curtain

A few days ago, Marvel Variants and I were talking about The Maginot Line, France's failed attempt at keeping the Germans at bay prior to WWI. The Maginot Line was a lot more than a fortified wall. Here's the group-effort Wikipedia description:


Although the name "Maginot Line" suggests a rather thin linear fortification, the Line was quite deep, varying in depth from between 20 to 25 kilometers. It was composed of an intricate system of strong points, fortifications, and military facilities such as border guard posts, communications centers, infantry shelters, barricades, artillery, machine gun, and anti-tank gun emplacements, supply depots, infrastructure facilities, observation posts, etc.


It was quite an undertaking for its time. I've always imagined someone like The French Knight from Monty Python And The Holy Grail, peeking over the walls and hurling insults at the German army.


According to The Coyote Blog, "the 350 mile long Maginot line cost France about $150 million in the 1930s, or about $2.3 billion in today's dollars. This puts the cost of the Maginot line, underground tunnels, bunkers, gun emplacements, and all, at $6.5 million current dollars per mile...."



It was quite an accomplishment. Parts of it were linked via a system of underground railways.

But when the German army decided to invade France, they just went around it. If I remember correctly, they actually drove through it in a few places. The big guns couldn't do a 360-degree rotation and were useless once an enemy had passed through the line.
But I digress. According to Mr. Coyote, $6.5 million per mile was nothing. Chicken feed. Pocket change.
The latest section of Border Wall going up between San Diego and Mexico? $57 million for 3 1/2 miles of wall. That's $16.3 million per mile, or two and a half times the cost per foot of the greatest defensive structure of its time.

There are people in the U.S., smart people, people who can feed themselves, who actually believe these projects are about keeping illegals out of the country.
Wrong.
These projects are about contractors, donors, pork barrels, make-work, bureaucracy, and unfortunately, making a visible but useless effort to fight an unfortunate group of scapegoats who are merely trying to find a better life.
Later on in his post, Mr. Coyote has another epiphany about the U.S./Mexico border fence and France's doomed Maginot Line:

"....one end of this San Diego wall hangs in the air, meaning it just ends hundreds of miles before the border does, allowing it to be easily flanked."

Well, yeah. They're not going to kill the goose that can lay $16,000,000.00 golden eggs. There are more elections coming up, with new rounds of donors and lobbyists to be rewarded. Getting this thing across the entire border could take up another dozen election cycles. At that point, public sentiment toward illegals will have probably changed. (Heck, somebody has to pay into the Social Security system....) Who knows how much we'll then be paying per mile to have the wall torn down.

You'll have to go to The Coyote Blog to see the comparisons he makes with government run healthcare.

A Sincere, Heartfelt Prayer

Dear God,
I know that I am a sinner.
I know that I don't live according to your rules and laws, and I have a tendency to disregard the rules I don't like.
I know that in the post before this one, I ridiculed the very idea that someone/something as big and powerful as you could ever get involved in politics, or any of our other concerns. I take it all back.
God, please, please, please, let this one thing happen for me.
It would bring a level of intense focus, purpose, and determination to my next 80 days that has perhaps been lacking in my previous 47 years.
You see, I need this. I need it badly. There would be a kick in my step and a twinkle in my eye, if you could just intervene one time and make this happen.
I would miss meals to sit down every night and type about this, God. I'll give the world delirious rants and foam-at-the-mouth fiskings the likes of which they've never seen.
Napoleon supposedly wrote that one should never interrupt his enemy when he is in the process of making a mistake.
So if they're planning on making this mistake anyway, never mind. I'll give you credit however it happens. I'll make a pilgrimage to Baylor Baptist in Waco, or at least the Seventh Day Adventist college in Keane. I'll stop bearing false witness during our morning production meeting. I'll honor my mother by playing Skip Bo with her more often. I'll stop coveting my neighbor's ass, if that's what it takes.

Please let this one thing happen.

Amen

Praying For Rain On Obama's Parade

Here's a video from Focus On The Family's Stuart Shepard asking like-minded believers to pray for rain in Denver at Mile-High Stadium on August 28th.

Shepard specifically wants "torrential rain". What my father called a six-inch gully-washer. A chunk floater.

If you don't get the significance, that's when and where Barack Obama is going to be addressing the Democratic Convention.



Shepard claims he's doing this because “I’m still pro-life, and I’m still in favor of marriage being between one man and one woman. And I would like the next president who will select justices for the next Supreme Court to agree.”

This guy wants you to pray for God to send rain at a specific time and place in Denver so Barack Obama's appearance at the Democratic Convention will be cancelled and that will increase the odds of McCain being elected and preserve marriage as between one man and one woman, disregarding the earlier biblical model of marriage as "one man and as many wives as he could afford".

I think I got that right.

Ok, let's stop there for a moment. Let's assume that there is a higher power. We could know this higher power as God, Jesus, Allah, Zeus, Thor, or the little girl on the planet Nekthar whose Grow Your Own Planet Earth Kit we all inhabit.

Take it a little further, and assume that the higher power cares about us.

Let's assume that this higher power cares so much that he/she/it occasionally intervenes in our everyday chain of cause and effect. We're not talking about The Blind Watchmaker of Richard Dawkins. This higher power wakes up in the morning busy, and stays busy.

Take another step. The higher power intervenes in response to prayer. We can influence this higher power if enough of us ask in unison, in the right way, for things the higher power cares about.

And then we have to throw in the assumption that the higher power is benevolent.

If such a scenario were true, would we have to pray for rain to prevent Barack Obama from being President? If a benevolent higher power was going to intervene in the Denver weather, wouldn't he do so because it was the right thing to do, and not because Stuart Shepard and James Dobson's Focus on The Family convinced enough of us to pray?

Or can you imagine Obama getting elected and after two years of horrific one-party government, with a Clinton on the Supreme Court and Al Gore as Energy Czar, and then we ask "God, how could you let this happen?"

And God says "Hey, I coulda made it rain in Denver on 8-28-08. But nobody asked me to."

Ridiculous.

I Can't Believe People Still Fall For This, Part 3

About once a week I get emails that are variations of "The Spanish Prisoner" con game.
Somebody has died, and left me all their money. Their law firm needs access to my bank account so they can deposit some of the money. A little bit of money would go in, and I'd get to spend it. Then all of my money would disappear, usually to Nigeria.

I've been posting the emails here, just to get Google search hits from the thousands (out of the millions of people who get spammed) who are curious enough to research the names involved.
Most of the emails originate from Nigeria, with a few coming out of London, and the spelling and grammar make me look like Henry James.

Very few of them make me laugh out loud. But then I got this:

PRUDENT CHAMBERS
ADDRESS: Edgware Road,
London W2 2HZEngland.

PRUDENT CHAMBERS? PRUDENT CHAMBERS? As in, I don't want to make out in the middle of the street. Let's rent a Prudent Chamber....????
I looked up Prudent Chambers (I might name our next dog Prudent Chambers) and came up with this law firm Suleyman Consulting (Formarly Prudent Chambers). Of course, they're in Nigeria.

Re: Attention,

Re means "in regards to" or "what the letter is about". This one is apparently about "Attention".

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE
This message is intended only for the use of the individual or organization to whom it is addressed. It contains information that is privilege and confidential but exempts from disclosure under the applicable law(s). If you are not the intended recipient, employee or agent responsible for delivery of this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that dissemination or copying of this message is strictly prohibited.

No, let's go ahead and show it to the world. If they don't really know if I'm an individual or an organization, I don't think Prudent Chambers is going to sue me.

NOTIFICATION OF BEQUEST We act as solicitors and our services have been retained by MR ANDREAS SCHRANNER now late herein after referred to as our client. On behalf of Late MR ANDREAS SCHRANNER....

Andreas died? NOOooooo..... Not Andreas ! ! ! We were at band camp together ! I helped him with the trombone part to "Make Me Smile" and "25 or 6 to 4" by Chicago, and helped him learn to march and play scales at the same time.

I write to notify you that my late client made you a beneficiary to the bequest sum of US$5,500, 000.00 Million (FIVE MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS)....

Just in case we were having trouble counting all those zeros. I like it when law firms spell those things out in huge capital letters for me.

....in the codicil to his will and last testament. My client, Late MR ANDREAS SCHRANNER who died on 31st July, 2000 in a plane crash with his entire family at the age of 64.

He left all that money to me? To me? His mother (Old Lady Schranner) always told me that Andreas came back from band camp saying I was the best friend he'd ever had ! ! !

Until his death, he was a member of several non-governmental organizations and he was also a great philanthropist and a property magnet.

Dorky little Andreas became a property magnet. Unbelieveable.

You can find more information from this link:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/859479.stm

I also like it when law firms put links to newspaper articles in their emails. Helpful.

This bequest is for support of your activities, humanitarian services and help to the less-privileged.

I'm gonna spend it all on activities.

In accordance with our inheritance laws you are required to reply back to me for documents of proof as the bonafide beneficiary.

I'll have to spend the rest of the day looking through my old scrapbooks for that letter from Andreas, the one where he thanked me for being his best friend ever.

We are perfecting arrangements to complete the lodgement of this money into your desired bank account.

Yes, yes, keep perfecting arrangements for that lodgement. I bet the real Andreas Schranner's surviving friends and family (hit the link above) wish they could perfect arrangements for the lodgement of a brick up your rear end.

Please acknowledge the receipt of this letter immediately.

Congratulations!

Best regards,

Consider the letter acknowledged.

Rick Warren, Barack Obama, and John McCain (but not Bob Barr) at the Saddleback Church Civil Forum

A few things about the Civil Forum at Saddleback Church....

1) I thought Barack Obama did a good job. He's going to get some heat over listing his wife, grandmother, and Ted Kennedy as people he thought of as "wise" and that he would listen to as President. McCain, on the same question, instantly came up with General David Petraeus, Georgia Congressman John Lewis, and EBay founder Meg Whitman. But Obama has now demonstrated that he can speak fluent Evangelical.

2) John McCain did a good job. He's going to get some heat for joking that you're rich if you make upwards of five million. McCain's answers came so quickly that he appeared incredibly decisive. (Addition from Monday August 18th....Rick Warren joked that during Obama's question and answer session, John McCain was backstage in a "Get Smart"-style Cone Of Silence. People are starting to question the integrity of Warren's precautions.)

3) I grew up in churches that didn't clap, applaud, or cheer. The idea is that you're there to bring glory to God, not man, so I get squirmy when people are applauded in a church sanctuary. (I'm going somewhere with this....) I believe that McCain came out ahead in this format, but McCain was getting most of the applause from the Saddleback congregation and that could've swayed me. It would be interesting to have some creative recording engineers reverse the applause between the two candidates on the soundtrack, and then play it back to a group that didn't see the original broadcast. Perhaps the perception of that viewing audience would be dramatically different.

4) Rick Warren (an alumni of Fort Worth's Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) came across well. Did he seem to be spoon-feeding McCain some of the questions? It seemed like Warren's queries to McCain went on a little longer before they finally got to the question mark.

5) Libertarian candidate Bob Barr was not invited to participate in this program. This is from the email that went out yesterday from the Barr campaign:

This Saturday, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain will take the national stage for their first combined national event. It will take place at Saddleback Church in Orange County, California. For the past several weeks, we have put in requests and phone calls to the church's pastor, Rick Warren, who was quoted this week in Time Magazine as saying, "I want what's good for everybody, not just what's good for me. Who's the best for the nation right now?"

Unfortunately, Pastor Rick Warren doesn't care to know the true answer to that question as he has willingly excluded Bob Barr and other candidates from his forum on Saturday. After weeks of negotiations and calls to Saddleback Church from leaders from every corner of the political spectrum supporting Bob Bar's inclusion, we've been left out in the cold. The only people getting into the event are Obama, McCain and those who reportedly paid $500 to $2,000 to the church to sit in the audience.

Yesterday, I reported to former Congressman Barr that we've exhausted every avenue. I told him, "We've had calls placed to Pastor Warren from very powerful leaders from the left and the right, we sent in our personal request, and placed numerous phone calls that have not been returned. You are not going to be included. "Our only option left is to threaten to file an temporary injunction as our attorney's believe they are in violation of the law."

Bob responded by saying, "No, don't threaten to do that . . . Just do it."

As you read this, our attorneys are filing an injunction against Saddleback Church to include Bob Barr in their forum this Saturday. You are the first to hear about this. The complaint is based upon a violation of McCain/Feingold campaign finance legislation. While we're no fans of that legislation. However, we don't write the rules, we're just forced to play by them.

In this case, we're using McCain/Feingold to our advantage.The reason I am disclosing so much to you is because this is just the beginning.At every way you look at it, we're at a disadvantage.

- We are being blocked from the national stage by the media, debate commissions and now evengroups like Saddleback Church.

- Both the campaign and our party have put most of its manpower and money into getting on the ballot in every state.

- And we have our hands tied behind our backs by laws like McCain Feingold that benefit the two major parties.We are being blocked from the national stage by the media, debate commissions and now even.

6) I hope people don't think they saw a debate tonight. I hope they don't confuse any of this with sharing varying points of view.

What we saw tonight was a discussion between The Daddy Party and The Mommy Party about who is going to drive the family car down the highway for the next four years. Unless 3rd parties are given access to these "debates", Daddy or Mommy might slide the seats back, change the radio stations, or turn down the air conditioner. The winner might stop for lunch at McDonald's instead of Burger King. The winner might speed up or slow down.

But neither one of them is going to change the direction of the car. The Daddy and Mommy Parties have already shown that they share the same map.

This is your brain. This is your brain on audio files designed to induce drug-like effects. Any questions?

Our "Weekly Radley", the name I've given to the best post each week from ultra-libertarian Radley Balko, is about digital drugs.

Yes, digital drugs. Those mind-numbing, perception-altering, hallucination-inducing tracks your kid downloads into his iPod. Those who produce these "special" recordings claim that by subtly manipulating the beat patterns in the MP3's, they can help you reduce anxiety, overcome addictions, or help you lose weight.

Here is where it gets interesting, says tech radio host Kim Komando.

However, most sites are more sinister. They sell audio files ("doses") that supposedly mimic the effects of alcohol and marijuana.
But it doesn’t end there. You’ll find doses that purportedly mimic the effects of LSD, crack, heroin and other hard drugs. There are also doses of a sexual nature. I even found ones that supposedly simulate heaven and hell.

I worked in the Literary Retail industry during the beginning, peak, and end of the New Age boom. We used to sell New Age subliminal message music cassettes that would supposedly help you lose weight, be more assertive, stop smoking, stay out of the passing lane, and overcome a great host of other maladies. Customers would ask me if they really worked. If I was feeling particularly bold, I would respond with "Do you believe they work? That's 90% of their usefulness."

Most customers would laugh, and say something about a sucker being born every minute. But the True Believers would always look disappointed with that answer. So I would then sell them an expensive bag of special crystals and a book about where to bury the crystals around their house in order to improve their overall sense of optimism and well-being.

(I don't need to buy an audio file to simulate Hell, since I'm probably going there....)

Anyway, these digital drugs are something different and evil. We're talking about sounds that can replicate the experience and sensations of LSD, crack cocaine, and heroin ! ! ! !

It's just a matter of time before a politician decides we need government intervention.

I'm betting that the first one to do so will be a Democrat. Anyone think otherwise?

Free Association Friday, belated Saturday edition

Way back in October, I went out on a limb and predicted this.  The current presidential election will probably cost $1,000,000,000.00

If these hunches keep paying off, someone is going to make a fortune during football season.

Thanks to Robert Love for for the link. He's got a great general economics blog, and I wish he would post more often. 

Robert has also posted a link to an interactive graphic that ran on the New York Times site that shows how they calculate the consumer price index. If you go there and spend less than five minutes clicking on the various pieces of the pie, then you have the soul of a ditch-digger. Almost any category of stuff you could purchase for a household is inside that pie, growing and shrinking every day.  Mr. Love notes that "consumers spend the same amount (about 1% of total) on cable service as on doctor visits. The portion of consumer spending allotted to "computers" has declined 12% year-on-year."   Possibly because most of us now own one. 

Speaking of how some costs decline while others go through the roof.... Wal-Mart never gets enough credit for holding down inflation. Yes, the squeeze their suppliers. Yes, they don't pay their employees a penny more than they have to. And yes, especially for those at lower income levels, a lot of people are better off because of it. Not all of us can afford to shop at places with 600 kinds of cheese.

I've held onto this next link for a few months, waiting on a place to use it. Wal-Mart has been accused of a lot of things, but this one is a first: Someone named Peter Flaherty has accused Wal-Mart of being too liberal and politically correct. Let me try typing that again, just to be sure my fingers won't explode. Wal-Mart is too liberal and politically correct. Wal-Mart is too liberal and politically correct. Wow.

Speaking of Political Correctness, Dr. Rowan Williams - the Archbishop of Canterbury - recently declared that Christian doctrine is offensive to Muslims.  Here's Andrew Ian Dodge at Dodgeblogium:

Dr Rowan Williams also criticised Christianity’s history for its violence, its use of harsh punishments and its betrayal of its peaceful principles.

Muslims would probably get worked up over that.  The Spanish Inquisition and The Crusades are a major distraction from Allah's work of hijacking airliners, hand amputations, clitoridectomies, stoning adulterers, executing apostates, and all-around jihad.   

As a Baptist, I'm often offended by the Methodist practice of "sprinkling" converts, instead of total immersion.  If someone blows up a Wesleyan Student Center anytime soon, well, that means they finally pushed me too far. 

But getting back to Dr. Rowan Williams.... Perry de Havilland of Samizdata had this brilliant quote about the Anglican Archbishop last year.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is like a compass-that-faces-south... always wrong but useful nevertheless because as long as he is dependably wrong, he can still be used when plotting a course.

I used to send emails copies of any of my Ultra-Libertarian posts, in hopes that they'd add me to their blogroll.  I never succeeded.  I eventually started groveling and wrote an epic poem entitled "Whoring For Links":

But before I posted it, without warning, Perry linked to something I wrote about the new trend for locally grown food.  So I put this online anyway:

When I began this little blog
To dissipate the Statist fog,
And fight against Bill Clinton’s bride,
My other goal was to provide
A Libertarian Intifada,
So I could be on Samizdata.

I said Thomas Sowell’s great!!
And criticized the Nanny State !!
I said Hayek’s pretty cool !!
And called Lou Dobbs a freakin’ fool !!
Yet all’s in vain because there’s not a
Single link from Samizdata.

I’m on Carnivals Galore,
Plus Satan’s Ho and Soobdujore.
Texas papers let me shine,
And so did Baptist friends of mine.
But there’s just one Big Enchilada,
That Limey blogroll - Samizdata.

I quoted Popper and Von Mises,
Laughed at those who think they’re Jesus,
I quoted Friedman (who’s now dead),
Plus, “Atlas Shrugged” and “Fountainhead”.
I get hits, but links? No, Nada.
Still no links from Samizdata..

But now I lay me down for sleeping,
And pray the Lord my soul is keeping,
‘Cause if I die before I’m waking
The Lord can have my soul for taking
To Heaven, Hell, or other strata,
My Blog is now on Samizdata !

But they still haven't added me to their blogroll.  What a bunch of ungrateful British pigs.  If it weren't for FDR and the Lend-Lease act, they'd all be speaking German.  And what kind of self-respecting nation still has Kings and Queens, anyway????  They should evolve into a pure democracy like us, so they can vote for their head of state.  What happens in their system if the next monarch turns out to be a total idjit? 

Which gets us back around to the beginning. 

Boy, I'm glad we'll have a chance to spend $1,000,000,000.00 to narrow our choice down to....Barack Obama or John McCain. 

The Real Minimum Wage And Its Beneficiaries

The phrase "minimum wage law" contains an inherent contradiction. You can't raise the minimum wage. The minimum wage has always been zero, and it always will be zero. Wrap your head around the implications of that, and, as Jesus said, you're getting very close to the kingdom of God.

I was looking for a chart to show what I meant. The simplest one I could find, thanks to Robert Love, contained a cat.

Here's an excerpt from Voters Mandate That More Teenagers Remain Unemployed, posted at The Libertarian Party of Colorado blog.

The Denver-area inflation rate for the first half of the year was 3.7 percent, propelled by rising energy costs.
It’s not just another economic statistic: Thanks to a 2006 ballot issue, Colorado uses the measure to set the state’s minimum wage.
Now $7.02, the minimum wage will increase Jan. 1 to $7.28, the Rocky Mountain News calculates, based on the Colorado Department of Labor’s rules.

Combine that with fun fact #2. Many long term union contracts are tied to a specific multiple of the minimum wage. That's why they lobby so hard for increased minimums.

Fun fact #3. Many government contracts specify that all workers must be paid the "prevailing wage" for each profession in that area. This wage is often expressed as a multiple of the minimum. (This is another way of stating that no government project manager will ever have to spend any significant time looking for a good deal.)

Fun fact #4. Cost Of Government Day (how long the nation has to work each year to pay for all government spending) was on July 16th in 2008.

So what does all this mean?

It means that the comedy team of Reid and Pelosi are doing as much as they can to devalue the dollar. Yes, everyone gets more dollars, but they're only worth fifty cents.

Milton Friedman liked to talk about the four types of spending.

1) When you spend your money on yourself. What you do with the after-tax remains of your money.

2) When you spend your money on other people. What you do when you purchase a birthday present.

3) When you spend other people's money on yourself. What you do with a yearly budget in a "use it or lose it" situation (sorta). What you do when you find a $50 gift certificate on the street. What you do with a government subsidy.

4) When you spend other people's money on other people. Also known as government spending.

These are ranked in order of efficiency, BTW. People make their best money decisions with category #1 decisions. They make their worst decisions in category #4.

The Colorado voters who passed this minimum wage legislation thought they were creating a new category:

5) Forcing other people to spend more money on other people.

They were mistaken. Once inflation is taken into account, they've merely given more power to the people in category #4. And guess which people wind up with most of this money?

Hint: it's not minimum wage earners.

Back to The Libertarian Party of Colorado blog (and I think they might have been inspired by the closing line of this rant at another source....)

Next year the headlines will read "unemployment rises", and the people will never put 2 and 2 together.

She's Gone

Just a few days ago, we brought our baby daughter home from the hospital. It couldn't have been more than a couple of weeks ago.

I looked up, and she's turned eighteen.

She left for Texas A&M University's orientation/indoctrination/brainwashing "fish camp" around 5:30 this morning.

Reverend Charles Johnson, the interim minister at Broadway Baptist Church, recently told us that grief is another way of saying "something ended too soon". I didn't fully agree with that statement until now.

I think we've done a good job with her. She's polite to her elders, loves animals, has a great sense of humor, knows what she's doing on a guitar, and if you ask her about politics, she consistently says she's a libertarian. People like being around her.

When I went away to college, all of my friends from my hometown drove back home at the first weekend opportunity. They were visibly homesick. Not me.

At that time, I'd had enough of Mississippi rice fields, tractors, and the flat landscape between Drew and Merigold Mississippi. When all of my friends were leaving school to go back home, I gave a friend of mine two bags of dirty laundry and a flat tire to drop off at our farm, and asked him to pick it up on the return trip.

I recognized the same look in my baby girl's eyes this morning. She was ready to be gone. Ready to fly.

Reason TV - The Ethanol Scam

Reason TV has put together a video explaining the ethanol scam.



Thanks to GW at Wolf Howling for posting it first. His commentary is helpful, as usual, so I'm scraping all of it to post here:

This is a good, short video from Reason TV discussing the utter boondoggle of ethanol. It is not a viable alternative to gas. It is driving the cost of food prices through the roof. It is hurting the environment and takes nearly as much energy to produce as it produces in energy when mixed with gasoline. In short, it is hurting America and the world.

That said, the opening scene is a real cheap shot of John McCain of the type I would expect from the NYT. They use old video of him when he supported the idea of ethanol. He long ago changed his position on ethanol, voting against the Farm Bill discussed in the video above and telling the people of Iowa that ethanol subsidies had to end. Mandates need to also.

McCain, unlike many other members of The Party Of Small Government, has since spoken out against the ethanol mandate and subsidy and oughta get some credit in the video.

Click here to read a New York Times piece written when oil was only $50 per barrel and there were not yet any 3rd world food riots. People were starting to figure it out.

I need an OK caption for this picture

I need a Presidential caption for this picture:

Congratulations to Sandersonmom for submitting the best caption last week. In the words of the evaluation committee, "we're just relieved that she can finally get something right". A two dollar donation has been made in her name to The Whited Sepulchre Outreach Ministry And Social Club For Shipping Personnel.

What Is A Libertarian?

One of this blog's Serial Commenters recently asked me "What is a Libertarian?"

My off-the-cuff answer was something like this: "You know all the personal freedom issues that the Democrats seem to support, like Gay and Lesbian rights, reform of drug laws, and abortion rights, but never do much about? Libertarians support your right to personal freedom. And all the economic freedom issues that Republicans seem to support, like limited government, free markets, and free trade, but never do much about? Libertarians support your right to economic freedom."

I thought it was an OK answer. There are hundreds of sites out there trying to define libertarianism. This is my shot at doing it. The other question that I get is "Why can't you people ever get elected?"

The difficulty with getting Libertarians elected in the U.S. lies in the very nature of Libertarian beliefs. Imagine every state, county, city, town, and individual in America pouring hog slop into a large communal trough. Let's call this feeding trough "The Treasury".

Various people campaign for the right to stir the swill, and spoon it back out to the states, counties, cities, towns and individuals that contributed it to the trough. Let's call these people "Politicians".

Politicians are considered effective when they can give your hogs more swill than they contributed. They are considered ineffective and corrupt when more of your swill goes to other hogs than back to you.

For instance, Fort Worth TX doesn't need a huge air force base. There is no eminent threat from, say, Oklahoma. But when it came time to downsize the military at the end of The Cold War, politicians from both of the major parties fought the closure of Carswell Air Force Base. It was the leading conduit of hog slop back into the city.

Another good example would be Alaska's infamous Bridge To Nowhere. There was no real need, but that's irrelevant. Ted Stevens, The Alaskan Swineherd (R), was doing his job, and doing it well.

So any group like The Libertarian Party that wants to shrink the hog trough by 90% is going to have a hard time raising funds. Libertarians don't want to throw any graft your way. No lucrative contracts, no subsidies, no quotas, no set-asides. Very few people understand that the savings would be massive, the economy would boom, the displaced government workers would have a relatively easy time finding employment, but perhaps have a difficult time finding employment that's as easy.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on Libertarianism. Note that it's synonymous with "Classical Liberal", a fact that I had a good time with on this post. Liberal is a good, honorable word, and we need to reclaim it from the Big Statists.

Here's some attempts at a definition from The Cato Institute. Good folks.

Here's The World's Shortest Political Quiz - a chart that lets you see where you fit on two different political continuums. It's also one of The World's Most Biased Political Quizzes, since most of the people who take it test out as libertarian, but they don't vote that way.

Here's a link to a better than average sampling of libertarian vs. collectivist quotes. Here are a few contrasting examples, provided as a public service:

"Among other grand achievements, F. A. Hayek had a remarkable career pointing out the flaws in collectivism. One of his keenest insights was that, paradoxically, any collectivist system necessarily depends on one individual (or small group) to make key social and economic decisions. In contrast, a system based on individualism takes advantage of the aggregate, or 'collective,' information of the whole society; through his actions each participant contributes his own particular, if incomplete, knowledge—information that could never be tapped by the individual at the head of a collectivist state." -- Sheldon Richman

"A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him"-- Alexis de Tocqueville

"The unity of a nation's spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual; and that the higher interests involved in the life of the whole must here set the limits and lay down the duties of the interests of the individual." -- Adolph Hitler

"We need to stop worrying about the rights of the individual and start worrying about what is best for society." -- Hillary Clinton

"...we understand only the individual's capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow men." -- Adolf Hitler, 10-7-33

"We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." -- Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, June 28, 2004.

"To be a socialist is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole." -- Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, National Socialist German Workers' ("Nazi") Party

Thanks to the Middle Class Myth blog for the photo of piggies at the trough. Thanks to Sheldon Richman and de Tocqueville for the great Libertarian quotes. Deeply heartfelt thanks to Hillary and various Nazis for the excellent Collectivist quotes.

Doctors Against Sharp Pieces Of Metal That Don't Have A Blunt Round Nose, Part 2

A few weeks ago, I posted something about British doctors lobbying to eliminate kitchen knives.

Here's an excerpt from the BBC article:

One idea, first proposed in 2005, is a response to a grisly mundane truth expressed by Met chief Ian Blair this week - that "the most common knife involved in these deaths is a knife from a kitchen".
The proposal came from three emergency medicine specialists, and it's a simple one: getting rid of the points on the ends of longer kitchen knives.

Now, since the grisly beheading of a Greyhound bus passenger, the Canadians are making similar proposals. (Even if you know all about the beheading, go ahead and hit that link. I bet you didn't know that God allowed the beheading to take place because Canada has legalized same-sex marriage, did you?)

According to The Toronto Sun....

Some of our parliamentarians have been getting a bit too much sun during their summer holidays.
That's the only explanation for the discussion by some opposition MPs about the possible introduction of a knife registry, following the gruesome, fatal attack on a Greyhound bus passenger late last month.

You've got to ask yourself this question: What the hell are they thinking? There are millions and millions of knives in Canada. Canadians go hunting. Canadians cook things. Canadians cut ropes. Canadians are ready and able to cut just about anything but their ties to England. (Sometimes I think they would've done that years ago, if it wouldn't mean a victory for the French-Canadians.)

Here's Kerry Thompson again, writing for the Toronto Sun:

A knife registry? Really? What would I have to declare, paring knives, a bread knife, the plastic knife I used to put tuna on crackers while I was having lunch at work the other day?
Most knives are sharp. That helps them serve their purpose, you know, to cut things. There would be no way to single out knives that are used for hunting and ones used to cut chicken for that stir-fry you're making for dinner. Or ones used to, say, kill people?

Now we get to the good part. Doesn't Canada already have a gun registry? Here's Thompson again:

I'm not going to say the gun registry has turned out well, but I think there's a need to register firearms. But knives? In terms of dollars, if you think the gun registry went over budget (ballooning to $1 billion from an estimated $2 million), try to imagine the cost to register millions of knives (how many come in each new set of flatware from Ikea alone?) in this country.

The freakin' gun registry budget went from $2,000,000 all the way up to $1,000,000,000 ? How often do people get budgets wrong by that many orders of magnitude? Have you ever taken your car to in for repairs, gotten a $200 dollar estimate, and then gotten a bill for $10,000 ? (I think I got those ratios right.)

Here's more Kerry Thompson, who stated above that there's a need to register firearms, even if "the gun registry has not turned out well". This is the second thing that Thompson gets wrong:

This is clearly a problem of some politicians failing to think before they speak, something they're known to do from time to time. In this case, the summer sun obviously got to them.

No, Mr. or Ms. Thompson, your politicians knew exactly what they were doing. They once sold you a two million dollar gun registry, and charged you a billion dollars for it. You, for one, obviously bent over and took it. You're a journalist who can't find a way to speak out against your country's Victim Disarmament Laws.

Now, they're coming back for another billion. Yes, billion. And we're talking about valuable Canadian currency, not the USA play dollars that are already devalued from being overcommitted to political schemes like this one.

This is about expanded government control and expanded government revenue, nothing more.

And if you need to have something cut, mail it to me.