A Free Market proposal for healthcare

I think my doctor does a good job.
I think his nurse practitioners do a good job. The other nurses who work there seem competent.

I like my insurance company. I think most insurance companies do a good job, the notable exception being Anthem Health.


(Please allow me a brief digression while I do something to attract Googlers..... Anthem Health Worst Insurance Company. Anthem Health Ripoff. Warnings Against Anthem Health. Anthem Health Sucks. Anthem Health Poor Quality Insurance. Anthem Health delays paying claims.) There. I feel better now.

Why does Washington want to interfere in the relationship between my doctor and me? Because they don't have enough control over it. Most people want wealth; people in Washington generally want power - a subject for another post.

I would prefer a single-payer system. I pay a doctor.

The most disheartening thing about the current healthcare debate is the lack of Free Market proposals like this one:

Flood the market with healthcare. (I work in the shipping, logistics and freight industry, and that qualifies me to comment on these issues. I also know what happened to prices when shipping, telephones and airlines were deregulated.)


Why are things expensive? Because they are scarce.


Why are doctors scarce? Ask the American Medical Association. If you control the supply of something, you control its price. As long as medical schools don't turn out too many doctors, healthcare will be expensive.

Next question.... Have you ever met a nurse who didn't believe she/he could do 90% of what doctors do? I haven't.


So why can't someone voluntarily go to a nurse for treatment? Or for that matter, why can't someone go to a neighbor who has done a little reading on the subject? Once again, ask the American Medical Association. They limit the supply of people approved to do the job. They put all those regulations in place for your own good, you know. A comparison of savings accounts might also reveal that they're making more money than you.


What about drugs? Ha! Talk to a pharmaceutical rep. By the time a medication is certified, licensed, pedigreed, registered, lawyer-proofed and put through trials, the pharmaceutical companies have spent somewhere around a billion dollars in development. Is there anyone out there economically illiterate enough to state that this expense doesn't stifle the development of new drugs?


What would happen to the cost of healthcare if we simply opened the doors for more practitioners? If I have the flu, I know going into the doctor's office that I'm going to leave with a prescription for Ampicillin and a warning that I need to lose some weight. Is there a nurse out there who could do the same job in less time for about twenty bucks?


Yes. If you choose not to visit this nurse, that's your choice. I am the owner of me. You are the owner of you.


Doctors whine and moan about the high cost of malpractice insurance. What would happen to the cost of medical care if patients were given a lower-cost option in exchange for signing an "I won't sue the doctor" waiver?


The internet (and I assume TV and newspapers) has been abuzz with editorializing about healthcare being a "right". Maybe it is, but there are different ways of stating this right. I believe that I have the right to make my own decisions about medical care. If those decisions involve University of Texas M.D.'s, Homeopathic remedies, Santeria goat sacrifices, or even something as risky as a V.A. hospital, the choice should be mine.


But, you ask, what if something goes wrong? What if there are bad nurses, bad drugs, or ineffective Santeria priests? What will we do if we're not all in the nurturing bosom of Uncle Sam?


We will do this:


Avoid Anthem Health. Anthem Health's computer system BLOWS. DO NOT SIGN UP FOR ANTHEM HEALTH.


I think the savings would be enormous.


Pics from here and from this guy who also had issues with Anthem Health.

Joe Biden Said That ????

It was bound to happen.

There is now a website called Joe Biden Said That?

George Bush, Bush Light, and helping feeble race-mongering Democrats down the steps

An odd thing happened before the recent Beer Summit at The White House.


To end the recent unpleasantness between Sergeant James Crowley and Harvard's African-American Studies professor Henry Louis Gates, our President, (now known on these pages as Bush Light - the beer that never lifts you up, and always lets you down...)

....decided to have Professor Gates and Sergeant Crowder over to the White House for a Bud Light.
Charges of racism, racial profiling, and stupidity had been thrown around. We'll never know exactly what happened during the arrest at Gates' home, but the black officer who was on the scene with Crowley has his opinions. Crowley and Gates left the meeting "agreeing to disagree", and I bet Gates is going to milk the incident on the academic lecture/vaudeville/victimology circuit for the rest of his life.

But I digress. Here's a picture of Obama, Professor Gates, and the supposedly racist cop leaving the White House for the "can't we all just get along" Beer Summit.

Note the compassion and empathy that Bush Light is showing to The Perfesser, who has to walk with a cane. Take note of the racist cop.

Amazing. Truly amazing. Bush Light can't get even the smallest details right, and half the nation still wants to trust him with most of their money and all of their health.

Here's a picture the older, non-light, budget-busting Bush with Senator Robert Byrd (Mommy Party, West Virginia), a former community organizer for the Ku Klux Klan.

Bush was a financial disaster, but at least he knew how to help a feeble race-mongering Democrat down the steps.

Fresh coats of Whitening to The American Thinker, Hot Air, and LGF2 for the info and pics.

British retailers against sharp revolving wheels attached to a handle designed to slice through baked crust, cheese, and the toppings of your choice

First they came for our rifles.
Then they came for our pistols.
Then they came for our kids' playground equipment.
And then the diving boards at public swimming pools.

Then they came for our sharp pieces of metal that don't have "a blunt round nose".

(I don't make up any of this stuff; I just condense what I read elsewhere....)

And now if you're in the U.K., they're coming for your sharp revolving wheels attached to a handle designed to slice through baked crust, cheese, and the toppings of your choice.
Yes, British retailers are now asking for I.D. before you purchase a freakin' pizza cutter.

Here's a corporate shill for the Marks and Spencer retail chain:

Staff are required to ask for identification from any customer who tries to buy alcohol or a bladed item and appears younger than 25.

A spokesman said: "Our policy is not to sell knives or bladed articles to persons under 18, and a pizza-wheel fits into to that category. We are a responsible retailer, and our customers expect us to be vigilant in providing blades if people appear to be underage."

By the time I left elementary school, I had used axes, knives, tomahawks, hatchets, trenching tools, shovels, pruning shears, and razors - many of them for their intended purpose. Most of us carried pocket knives to school. And now the British don't trust anyone under 25 with a Pizza Cutter ????

This is the nation that produced Admiral Nelson, Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, James Bond (I know, fiction), and Benny Hill.

Unbelieveable. The glory has departed.

What Are You Prepared To Do ?

I run a small trucking company as part of my Jukt Micronics shipping manager job.
The biggest challenge is finding good drivers.

It's hard to find people you can trust with a company credit card. It doesn't matter how well they drive, or how well they can find their way around if you can't trust them to go out on the road without blowing the bank. Say you've got a new driver, and the only load you have for him is a long way off, someplace truly horrible like Seattle or Key West or Bangor, and you have no choice but to put him on that load. You're nervous the first couple of days, but then you start to relax.

Then you start getting emails from the credit card company....


Mr. Sepulchre,
Employee number _____ has charged $_____ at Cracker Barrel, The Interstate 20 Beer Barn, Majestic Liquor, Uncle John's House Of Babes, and Larry Flynt's Hustler Club.
Thank you for using American Express, where we charge higher interest rates than the New Jersey Mafia.

So you've got this driver out there 3 days from home. He's spending your money like there's no tomorrow. Unless you bring in The Law (at a huge expense) there's almost no way to get him out of the truck unless he cooperates. You call him and tell him that somebody's gotta pay for all this spending, and it ain't gonna be you. The driver claims that there's no problem. He says that there aren't any unnecessary expenses going on the company credit card.
When the driver gets home in 4 more days, he's going to be fired. You know it, and the driver knows it.

So once he gets unloaded in Seattle, do you find him a backhaul in hopes of breaking even on the trip? What if the backhaul keeps the idiot out on the road for a few days longer than absolutely necessary, and gives him even more chances to blow your money? Or do you bring him back into the barn as soon as possible?

What if, just what if, he arrogantly told several other people how much he planned to spend while he was out of the road? What if it was a staggering amount, an amount equal to years' worth of revenue?

The man has your credit card. He's running wild with something you've let him borrow.

What are you prepared to do?

Pics came from here and here and here. Picture of projected Obama deficits from The Washington Post.

Claude Marshall LaMastus - R.I.P.

One of my best friends ever was the late, great Stan Norwood of Drew, Mississippi. We met in kindergarten. Stan lived next door to a guy named Claude Marshall LaMastus, who was about 12 years older than we were.

This is the story of how, back in the early 1980's, Stan got Claude to the hospital after a uhmmm....hunting trip. But first, some background.

When we were about 14 or 15, Claude Marshall had a terrible car accident. He was coming home from Clarksdale, ran off the road, flipped his car, and was thrown through the sun roof. Claude was paralyzed from the waist down.

Claude hadn’t had much to do with Stan and me until the accident. But once Claude was confined to his wheelchair or crutches, we became his chauffeurs, running buddies, duck and dove retrievers and all-around gophers. I helped him with his physical therapy in the swimming pool a few times. In exchange, Claude let us hang out with him, let us make mix tapes from his record collection, etc etc etc. This was at the beginning of the “Outlaw Country” era, and Claude Marshall and Mike Ellis taught me to love that music. Stan and I were marching band and choir geeks; Claude was a semi-rich guy with some money. Remember, he was 12 years older. It seemed like a good deal at the time.

That’s all you need to know to appreciate this story. I’m going to tell it the way that Stan told it to me. I’m sure that I’m going to get some of the details wrong. If anyone in Drew Mississippi wants to correct or improve on this, please use the comment field.

One day in the middle of winter, Stan and Claude were going down the Sunflower River in a fishing boat, ambushing ducks. It was freezing cold. Claude was in the front of the boat with a shotgun and Stan was running the outboard motor. I don’t know the reason why, but Claude decided it was his turn to drive.

Imagine a paraplegic in full wintertime camouflage trying to get from the front of a metal fishing boat to the back. It was a doomed idea to begin with, and it was complicated by all the guns. Ever since the accident, Claude had become a little bit paranoid. Maybe he felt helpless without the full use of his legs. Most of the time he was armed with an amazing array of guns, ammo, and knives, and that was just for riding around town. I remember thinking that he looked like a cross between Franklin Roosevelt and Pancho Villa.

When Claude had scooted about halfway down the length of the fishing boat, one of his guns went off. The bullet entered one of his legs, and left a heck of an exit wound. The exit wound was nowhere near as bad as the entry wound the bullet made in the hull of the boat. Yes, Claude Marshall had shot himself AND the boat. Because of his paralysis and various pain medications, the gunshot wound didn’t bother Claude very much. Stan started freaking out because the boat was taking on water.

Once Claude got shot, they abandoned the plan to change drivers, turned the boat around, and headed toward the pickup and boat trailer which were about two miles away.

They were bailing as fast as they could but the boat was taking on more and more water. They started throwing out ballast. They threw out the ice chest. They got rid of the seat cushions. They got rid of some fishing poles and paddles and tackle boxes, and they threw out the extra gas tank. They were still taking on water.

When they were about halfway to the truck, Stan looked down at his remaining fuel tank, the one hooked to the motor. The needle was banging on empty, which was enough for Stan to imagine that the engine was starting to sputter. Various obscenities were shouted at the heavens. The motherhood of all gas tanks was questioned. Stan turned the boat around and went back to try to find the gas tank they’d just thrown overboard.

Fortunately, the tank had a half inch of air in the top and was bobbing in the current when they got back to it. Stan fished it out, swapped the tanks, and then made another effort to get back to the truck. In the meantime, they were both wet up to their thighs and were freezing.

Stan finally got them back to the truck. He backed the trailer into the water and started winching the boat (with Claude in it) onto the trailer. Once that was done, Stan had to figure out a way to get Claude into the pickup.

“Hell, don’t worry about me,” Claude said. “I can ride back here. Just get me to the hospital.”
Stan didn’t feel right about it, but he got in the truck, turned up the heat, and pulled the boat and Claude Marshall LaMastus up the riverbank. Once they got onto paved roads, Stan pulled over and suggested they stop at someone’s house, someone who might help get Claude into the cab.

Claude refused. So Stan got back in the truck and pulled Claude and the boat (in sub-freezing weather) all the way to the Ruleville hospital. Stan claimed there was ice in Claude’s beard by the time they got there. I can imagine the looks they got going down Highway 49, looking like a “Field & Stream” Christmas Parade Float.

When they got to the Emergency Room entrance, which had a loading dock, Stan removed the outboard motor from the boat, and backed the boat straight to the dock so they could unload Claude.

Stan said he hung around the Emergency Room for a little while, figuring they’d want to ask him some questions. Nobody ever did.

It was the Mississippi Delta. They’d seen it all before.

A few years after this happened, Stan Norwood was killed in an automobile accident between Drew and Memphis.
This afternoon I got word that Claude Marshall LaMastus was killed in a one car accident on the Drew/Merigold road.
Our world is now a much less interesting, much less colorful place. But if there’s a heaven, Stan and Claude are now shooting at low-flying angels from The Pearly Gates. They know they can't hurt anybody; they just want to keep things interesting.
My thoughts are with the LaMastus family tonight.
This is a song I first heard in Claude’s record archives. Here’s Waylon:

Caption Contest - I really can't describe this one

I need a caption for this picture.




vampE won last week's contest, simply because vampE's caption was the least insulting.

The Burning Hell, Part Eight, Tim Gets Saved

For the last couple of months I've devoted my Sunday blog space to the cinematic wonders of New Albany, Mississippi's Reverend Estus Pirkle.

Back in the mid-1970's, this guy's movies made their way through most of the Baptist churches of the southeast. Back then they were horrifying. Why? Because they were the only movies we'd ever seen about the Hell we heard preached from pulpits every Sunday.

I no longer believe in the hell for infants.
I no longer believe in the hell for Chinese 10-year-olds who die without hearing about Jesus.
I don't believe in the hell for Brazilian teenagers who die in some remote part of the Upper Amazon without access to the broadcasts of Jimmy Swaggart.
I don't believe in the hell for old men who can't believe that God created us with "original sin", then impregnated a Palestinian virgin with himself as her child so he can have himself killed as a sacrifice of himself to himself to save us from the sin that he originally condemned us to. (If you can't follow that, you're not alone.)
I've gotten to know a lot of preachers in the last few years who don't believe it either.
I don't even believe in the hell for serial killers, Chairman Mao, or Stalin. I don't believe in the justice of eternal punishment for a temporal offense.

I do believe in giving Estes Pirkle hell, though. So let's continue.

You can hit the Pirkle tab at the bottom of this post to see what's happened in previous episodes of THE BURNING HELL. In short, two hippies named Tim and Ken have rejected Brother Pirkle's theology of Hell. When they're riding away from the church, Ken has a motorcycle accident and his head is cut off, so Tim staggers back into the church for some preachin'.
Pirkle's sermon is illustrated by actors from his congregation, the B-movie troupe that followed Ron and Tim Ormond into the Christsploitation film industry, or whichever Mississippians were wandering past the set that day.
Pirkle also supports his argument with cameo appearances by Jack Hyles and Bob Gray, two famous preachers who were later accused of molesting their flocks. Especially the little ewes.

God, I know that I'm a sinner, and I ask that you, and the victims of these two witch doctors please forgive me for making that joke. Couldn't help myself.

Let's get started. If you find my commentary helpful, it continues below the final excerpt from THE BURNING HELL.



:00 An early example of waterboarding gone wrong. There are reports that Nancy Pelosi knew about this, although she denies it.

:55 Tim has hallucinations of biblical murderers.

1:10 Satan appears, looking like Cesar Romero as The Joker in the old Batman TV series.

2:30 "He's steeyull uhlaave! He's steeyull uhlaaave ! But this tahm, ah'll kill 'im !"

3:20 Tim snaps out of his Pirkle-induced trance, overcome with the vivid pulpit imagery.

4:00 The altar call begins. "Why don't you get up from where you are right now...." If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that phrase, I could outsource this website to some other bitter ex-southern baptist.

4:35 Tim kneels at the altar. In a few minutes they're going to vote him into the church, they're going to come down front and "extend the right hand of Christian fellowship", and then they're going to take up a collection to get that boy a haircut.

And that's all there is to see of THE BURNING HELL. I think next week I'm going to start dissecting another Pirkle production called "If footmen tire you, what will horses do?"

I think she's onto something.

Listen very, very closely. I think she's onto something.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

A lengthy digression on Thomas Friedman's Carbon Footprint

The "settled science" of Anthropogenic Global Warming takes yet another hit....here's the abstract of three Australian scientists who claim that any Global Warming Climate Change Climate Turbulence we've experienced throughout the last 50 years is due to Mother Nature, not people with large houses and SUV's. I doubt that this paper (peer-reviewed, BTW) will make much difference. The fix is in.

Speaking of large houses, here's Thomas Friedman on the subject of whatever it is we're trying to prevent by driving a Prius. Friedman has written some great books about globalization and the benefits of Free Trade. That got him booed on college campuses, and there was a pie-throwing incident by a group called The Greenwash Guerillas.



(Note to self: do some research on whether college campuses are the most likely places for attacks on free speech.)

To recover some fashion cred, Friedman then wrote "Hot, Flat, and Crowded", which basically said that the gods aren't happy with everything you're doing so they're going to heat up the earth. The Thought Police began to smile again on Friedman.

Anyway, back to evil people with large houses. Here's Thomas Friedman in the New York Times:

....this bill’s goal of reducing U.S. carbon emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 is nowhere near what science tells us we need to mitigate climate change. But it also contains significant provisions to prevent new buildings from becoming energy hogs, to make our appliances the most energy efficient in the world and to help preserve forests in places like the Amazon.

Here's Thomas Friedman's house.

Where are the Greenwash Guerillas now that we really need them?

Two layers of Whitening (with a primer coat) to the good people at Small Dead Animals for the links.

Government Takes Over; Venezuela Runs Out Of Coffee

I found a site called "The Return Of Scipio" on Leonidas's blogroll.
According to Scipio, the Hugo Chavez'x Venezuela has run out of coffee.
I repeat, Venezuela has run out of coffee. They're having to import it.

Here's Scipio:

It seems Venezuela’s dictator Hugo Chavez has been meddling with the economy again. One marvels at the mentality that can cause a nation’s most common product to become as scarce as chastity in a whorehouse. Really, one cannot swing a dead cat in Venezuela without hitting some coffee planter. It would be as if Cuba were running out of sugar—oh wait, it is. Castro and Chavez have the same understanding of economics....

The entire discipline of economics since Adam Smith has escaped Chavez. Why could this idiot not open any Econ 101 text and turn to ‘price controls?’ Here are the results of Chavez meddling in areas far above his pay grade.

On-and-off food shortages for years have dogged the government of President Hugo Chavez, a former paratrooper who has nationalized several industries and expropriated land as part of his socialist revolution.

Hit the link to read the whole thing. It's worth it.

The Return Of Scipio: "Writing not for fortune or fame, but because God is watching."

Ever have one of these days?

Have you ever been in charge of implementing a totally ridiculous program in your workplace? Have you ever known ahead of time which employees would give you a hard time over it?
Have you ever had to put on your game face, and charge ahead with the rollout, even though you knew that every word you were saying was totally insane?

I've had to do that before.
So has Rep. Russ Carnahan, (Mommy Party - Missouri)



Our thoughts and prayers go out to Rep. Carnahan, and we all wish him a speedy recovery.

The Beer That Never Lifts You Up, And Always Lets You Down

To our friends who voted for The Teleprompter Jesus....
Let's start with this expression of disappointment from Talking Points Memo:

"....allowing detention without trial creates a dangerous loophole in our justice system that mimics the Bush administration's abusive approach to fighting terrorism."

Then there's Charles Krauthammer, who has been pissed off since Election Day:

If hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue, then the flip-flops on previously denounced anti-terror measures are the homage that Barack Obama pays to George Bush. Within 125 days, Obama has adopted with only minor modifications huge swaths of the entire, allegedly lawless Bush program.The latest flip-flop is the restoration of military tribunals. During the 2008 campaign, Obama denounced them repeatedly, calling them an "enormous failure." Obama suspended them upon his swearing in. Now they're back.

....Observers of all political stripes are stunned by how much of the Bush national security agenda is being adopted by this new Democratic government. Victor Davis Hanson (National Review) offers a partial list: "The Patriot Act, wiretaps, e-mail intercepts, military tribunals, Predator drone attacks, Iraq (i.e. slowing the withdrawal), Afghanistan (i.e. the surge) — and now Guantanamo."

Here's the L.A. Times Top Of The Ticket blog:

The still sort-of-new Barack Obama Democratic administration has again adopted another policy straight out of the administration of his much-criticized Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.
Obama administration officials have rejected a watchdog group's request for a list of healthcare industry executives who've been meeting secretly in the White House with Obama staffers to discuss healthcare changes being drafted there and in Congress.

The Top Of The Ticket people go on to quote the Obama campaign's website back when it was tut-tutting about Dick Cheney doing the same thing.

Let's throw in one more, this time from The Heritage Foundation:

*President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. President Obama would add another $1 trillion.
*President Bush began a string of expensive finan­cial bailouts. President Obama is accelerating that course.
*President Bush created a Medicare drug entitle­ment that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade. President Obama has proposed a $634 billion down payment on a new govern­ment health care fund.


They list several others, but this is already becoming tiresome. You can go here and here and here to read even more comparisons of the two.
The typical anti-Obama rant usually ends with "How's that Hopey-Changey thing working out for you?"


Instead, let me offer a Bush Light, "The Beer That Never Lifts You Up, And Always Lets You Down".

(You could've had a Bob Barr !)

Bush Light can provided by Hammer.

The Weekly Radley - This will be discussed for decades

From Radley Balko's Agitator blog:

So if you’re going to be a pedestrian who mistakenly calls the cops because you see a black man trying to pry open the jammed door to his own home, and if you’re going to be the responding cop who then questions said black man for possibly burglarizing his own home, then arrests said black man for subsequently taking offense and getting uppity with you, both of you should probably make sure said black man is not Henry Louis Gates, the famed Harvard professor of African-American Studies.

Uh-oh. I bet Gates is a mite irritated. Here's The Washington Post:

....in a country where one in nine young black men are in prison, where racial profiling is still practiced, the arrest of a renowned scholar on a charge of disorderly conduct in front of his house last Thursday has fueled an ongoing debate about race in America in the age of its first black president.

....The white officer who arrived found Gates in the house (the driver was gone) and asked him to step outside. Gates refused, and the officer followed him in. Gates showed him his ID, which included his address, then demanded that the officer identify himself. The officer did not comply, Gates said. He then followed the officer outside, saying repeatedly, "Is this how you treat a black man in America?"

The charge against him (Gates) was dropped Tuesday, but Gates said he plans to use the attention and turn his intellectual heft and stature to the issue of racial profiling. He now wants to create a documentary on the criminal justice system, informed by the experience of being arrested not as a famous academic but as an unrecognized black man.

The harsher side of the experience was "deeply painful and traumatic," Gates said. "I'm outraged that this could happen to me in my own home, but I'm outraged that it could happen to any individual."

He said his documentary will ask: "How are people treated when they are arrested? How does the criminal justice system work? How many black and brown men and poor white men are the victims of police officers who are carrying racist thoughts?"

According to Michael Meyers, executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition., Reverend Al Sharpton has already chimed in. Here's The Washington Post:
Rev. Al Sharpton: "I've heard of driving while black, and I've heard of shopping while black. But I've never heard of living in a home while black."



Meyers continues:

Give me a break. Why isn't it enough that the charges of disorderly conduct have been dropped against Gates? The question answers itself: The race activists need to posture that the nation has to pause and contemplate and endure yet another round of guilt around their "truth" and constant observation of racism by cops. "See," they exclaim, "in postracial America, the black man with a Ph.D. can't get into his own home without causing suspicion and getting arrested."

The real truth is that Gates did not get arrested for being black or even for being suspicious or for breaking into his own home. He was arrested for disorderly conduct - for failing to do what civil rights activists and race experts always advise innocent black men, and all others who come into contact with the police, to do: cooperate.



It makes sense to repeat this message now, especially for the benefit of young black men. If the police confront you, don't go demanding badge numbers and reading the cops the riot act. Be courteous and calm. Explain yourself and, if asked, present ID.
If there has been a constitutional violation of some kind by the cops, that can be taken care of once the police have left you alone, moving on - let's hope - to investigate other suspicious behavior.

So which way should Professor Gates have responded?

The Weekly Radley - This will be discussed for decades

So if you’re going to be a pedestrian who mistakenly calls the cops because you see a black man trying to pry open the jammed door to his own home, and if you’re going to be the responding cop who then questions said black man for possibly burglarizing his own home, then arrests said black man for subsequently taking offense and getting uppity with you, both of you should probably make sure said black man is not Henry Louis Gates, the famed Harvard professor of African-American Studies.

Fighting In The Shade, Leonidas, and Libertarians

Note to all varieties of libertarians:

I met an interesting guy, also named Allen, at the Blodgmeet last weekend. All I knew about Allen was that he was retired and his wife was from Scandinavia. They have a boat. He spells his name properly, with two "L's" and an "E". He doesn't talk much, but when he does, it's worth listening to.

For some reason, I never got around to reading or linking his website until he left a comment on mine.

Check out the "About Me" section of Allen's blog, "Fighting In The Shade".

I feel better knowing that Allen is on our side.

Forget Walter Cronkite. Gene Elliott has declared that The War needs to end.

The war on drugs has lost the support of Gene Elliott.
Gene Elliott is a retired food wholesaler. He's one of the best-read people I know, and one of the most interesting. Every now and then Mr. Elliot sits down and types up some hot sports opinions and blasts them out to everyone in his email address book. I ALWAYS read them.

Here's an excerpt from the latest one:

If you want to be concerned about our country, try this. Recently, in a two day golf tournament in Wichita Falls, I spent two rounds on a golf cart with a man, recently retired, who was warden of a maximum security prison operated by the State of Texas....

I asked him what percent of prisoners are there because of drugs. He said about 65% if those are counted who are there because of crimes committed to support drug use. When I asked his opinion of a solution, he did not hesitate one bit. He said take the profit out of drugs for illegal drug dealers. Make them available through the drug store at normal commercial prices. That would let the air out of the balloon for drug dealers who are supplying drugs that, not only support enormous profits for criminal drug processing, transportation and sales, the price to users includes cost of corruption of law enforcement and other public officials.

I've never heard it said better. (In case you're wondering, I can't imagine Gene and Flo Elliott sitting down in the den with some weed and Zigzag papers and rolling up a fat one. They're not that kind of people. Well, Flo isn't.)

Slight change of subject....According to The Aggie, there was never a time when she couldn't buy marijuana at her high school. Why? Because, despite the penalties, there was a huge profit in doing illegal bidness there. What would happend to those profits if marijuana could be bought and sold to non-minors like any other form of farm produce? Do you think the Mexican border might suddenly be more livable?

When everyday users are caught and convicted, they go into prison as non-violent offenders. Many of them come out as extremely violent offenders, and spend the rest of their lives as fodder for the parole officer/counselor/probation industry. (I hire a lot of those guys, and I'm convinced that the probation industry has perverse incentives for keeping people in the system for as long as possible.)

Here's Senator Jim Webb, speaking on the senate floor:

Let's start with a premise that I don't think a lot of Americans are aware of. We have 5% of the world's population; we have 25% of the world's known prison population....
There are only two possibilities here: either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States; or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice. . . .
The elephant in the bedroom in many discussions on the criminal justice system is the sharp increase in drug incarceration over the past three decades. In 1980, we had 41,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200%.

A 1,200% increase since 1980??? How is this possible?
It's possible because it's a great excuse for government spending. It really is that simple.

When alcohol was prohibited during the 1920's, we saw an incredible upswing in alcohol related violence. Fortunately, people could still remember that things weren't that bad prior to 1920, and Prohibition was eventually repealed. Bootlegging violence dropped off.

Unfortunately, very few people can remember when marijuana was legal in the U.S.
Will the ridiculous prohibition of, say, marijuana go away now that scads of police officers, prison guards, parole officers, and testing facilities have their jobs on the line?
Who knows.

Speaking of wars, much has been written and broadcast in the last couple of days about the passing of Walter Cronkite. Cronkite was famous for....well, he only did one thing that really mattered.
Cronkite was the newsreader who declared that the Vietnam War was over. And he did it long before the fat lady sang. For some harsh and pointed criticism of that action, you can go here or here.

I can't say that Vietnam was 100% right or wrong, much like I can't say that our current Middle Eastern adventure is totally right or wrong. But I can unequivocally say that our War On Drugs is being fought for a lot of very bad reasons.

When LBJ heard about Cronkite's statement, he supposedly said "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America."

Well, the War On Drugs has now lost the support of Gene Elliott.

Sanity beckons.

We'll only be singing the 1st verse of each hymn....

I saw this banner on a church someplace south of Waco, and had to do something with it.

MINIMUM WAGE INCREASED ! (men, minorities, hardest hit)

The minimum wage will increase one more time on July 24th.

men, minorities, continue to be hardest hit.

From a blog post of about a year ago:

This (unemployment rate) is exactly what is happening at the lower end of the wage pool with today's minimum wage increase. There will be another mandated increase a year from now. A few months from now, start looking for bewildered print and online editorials about increased unemployment among teenagers and low-skilled minorities. The funniest ones will have no sense of irony, and will end with calls for our government to do something about the problem.

Camp Blownstar - Unplugged

This morning I got a chance to play some music with Denny, of The Grouchy Old Cripple blog. More and more YouTubes of this weekend are surfacing.

Don't ask why I'm the one in the wheelchair.

Don't ask why Denny is wearing a Mikhail Gorbachev hat with an "OBAMA 08" logo.

I've wanted to meet this guy ever since I started reading him three or four years ago. It was worth the wait. Denny is a great guy whose laugh comes from waaaay down inside and lasts for a long time. Last night, the owner-foreman of the ranch where we're staying in Bandera had Denny and me laughing until we cried.

Don't ask me about any of the dog jokes. Just don't. Don't ask why I'm holding a bottle of red "Leninade" beer. It came with the hat.

Don't ask. Just. Don't. Ask. I have laughed more in the last three days than in the last three years.

And if that's not enough....

Will post some of Denny's songs as Leslie posts them. BTW, check out Leslie's site when time permits. Leslie lives in Chicago, and has a site called Leslie's Omnibus. Interesting stuff.

Why You Should Pray For The Continued Health Of Barack Obama

(CNSNews.com) – Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate is for the government to spend more money.


“And folks look, AARP knows and the people with me here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable,” Biden said at the event on Thursday in Alexandria, Va. “It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it now. It can’t do it financially.”

“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said. “Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’” Biden said. “The answer is yes, that's what I’m telling you.” (Listen to Audio)Click here to read the rest.

A fresh coat of Whitening to The Kitten Accounting Corps for the link, and Theodore's World for the picture.

Camp Blownstar Demotivation Poster - Charlie Delta Edition

Caption Contest - Awkward Familiarity Edition

I'm at the Camp Blownstar Blogger Meetup, somewhere between Bandera and Kerrville.
I need a caption for this portrait.




Fembuttx, continuing a disturbing trend, won last week's contest.

Gerald Dickens in Nature Geoscience: the climate change models are wrong

From USA Today:

Could the best climate models -- the ones used to predict global warming -- all be wrong?

Yes.

Maybe so, says a new study published online today in the journal Nature Geoscience. The report found that only about half of the warming that occurred during a natural climate change 55 million years ago can be explained by excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. What caused the remainder of the warming is a mystery.

But the Global Warming Global Cooling The Sky Is Falling Chicken Little Regulatory Busybodies Climate Change prevention advocates have long been saying that Global Cooling Global Warming Climate Change is "settled science".
What gives? I thought we were about to redesign and remake our entire economy based on the prophecies of Saint Albert, The Goracle Of Music City? And what about the Climate Change bill that is still sitting on The Obamessiah's desk? Does it need to be reworked in light of new info? Is this study in Nature Geoscience the equivalent of a last minute reprieve from the Governor?

"In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record," says oceanographer Gerald Dickens, study co-author and professor of Earth Science at Rice University in Houston. "There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models."

Oh shit.

Note to my friend in Korea, Cedric Katesby: Please find out if the journal "Nature Geoscience" is peer reviewed. I still haven't made it to the TCU library to research the 1970's journals. Am thinking this might happen sooner, rather than later.

Note to everyone who votes: There's no such thing as "settled" science. That's the difference between, say, science and theology. People talking of "settled" science are generally seeking more funding from the public tit.

The Emily Litela "Nevermind" video came from "Yid With Lid". The Yid also has a few more excerpts from the study, which at this point can only be accessed with the proper academic credentials.

The Pipe Creek Junction Cafe - Go There. Eat Catfish.

After searching since Christmas of 1983, I have found it.
It's only 300 miles from my home in Fort Worth; therefore I shall return.

I have found a Texas restaurant with good catfish. It's called the Pipe Creek Junction Cafe. (9878 Highway 16 South, Pipe Creek, TX 78063 830-535-6767)

As a Mississippian, I was spoiled from an early age. People there know how to catch (or raise), clean, fillet, cook, and serve catfish.
In Texas, I think they confuse catfish with ground beef. Or Armadillos.

Don't tell me about yer "Catfish and Company" in North Richland Hills. It's not even close. Hold those fillets up before they're battered, and I bet you could read a newspaper through them.
Don't bring up the old Bill Martin's places that used to be just outside Tarrant County, where I think they served Mud Cats in Hush Puppy batter.
And for the love of all things holy, don't suggest the industrialized, freeze-dried mess they bounce off the platters at Long John Silver's. I once took some LJS leftovers home to the dachshunds, and they ate the stuff. But they licked their rear ends for 30 minutes trying to get the taste out of their mouths.

The Pipe Creek Junction Cafe does catfish right. The batter isn't too thick and isn't over-spiced. The fillets are thick, and are composed of an actual 1/2 catfish. (Restaurants and wholesalers screw up when they try to slice these sections in half, giving some customers the false impression that they're eating more fish. Actually, it just doubles the batter and no one is fooled except Yankees and people from Dallas.)

The go-withs at Pipe Creek are good (although it's hard to screw up corn on the cob and a baked potato). The staff seems to be all high school kids, and they leave you alone and let you read in peace while you eat. Refills on the all-you-can-eat catfish arrived promptly.

I don't think anything I ate came from a can, or spent time in a microwave, or had time to dwell under a heat lamp.

Great stuff. I'll be eating here again on my way home. It's on Highway 16 between Helotes and Bandera. The quest for good Texas catfish is over !

Now I have to find someplace other than Red, Hot & Blues with decent pork barbeque.

Picture from this guy at Flickr

Global Warming leaves the northeast, said to be "looking for more gullible nations"

If Congress intends for Kleiner-Perkins-Gore and Generation Investment Management to make money off a Global Warming bill, they better get it signed quickly.



Can you imagine the nerve of someone selling the Global Warming con, ramming it through Congress, and then having to sign it with this happening? Or this? Or how about this?


A fresh coat of Whitening to Now Hampshire for the video link.

Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK. A Fisking.

A large percentage of the stuff I read online is either wrong, insane, or propaganda for something that is wrong or insane. I argue in the comment fields of various blogs a lot, trying to change people's minds while also trying to maintain the viewpoint that we all come to our opinions because of different life experiences.

Or maybe it's just DNA.

That was before The Kitten Accounting Corps turned me onto this rhetorical nightmare at a blog called Tax Research UK. It's part of an outfit called Tax Research LLP, which helps the British government create goofy-assed tax systems.

The author, a guy named Richard Murphy, is in my opinion so deeply and profoundly wrong on so many issues that he makes my head hurt. I'm trying to find something, anything, nice to say about what he's written, so I'll affirm that Mr. Murphy's grammar and punctuation are both excellent. I'm envious.
NickM has already done a Fisking on this, but dang it, I want to get my shots in too. Every now and then you can catch a Statist saying what he really believes. In the words of Rahm Emmanuel, you don't want to let these opportunities go to waste.

So.....
I'll be needing a few tools....
Scalpel - thanks.
Laptop - got it.
Righteous Indignation - I've got plenty.
Various Free Market, Libertarian and Christian websites - check.
Copy of Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics (3rd edition) - got it.
Chainsaw - yep.
Metzenbaum scissors - check.
Let the Fisking begin ! Here's Richard Murphy with Tax Research UK.

Traffic on this blog has been very high of late.
I have noted (and those who read the comments on this blog will also have noticed) that my blogs in support of government spending – which is the only (and I stress only) way to avoid depression in the UK and other economies - have not gone down well with the libertarian community.

I'll start with the easy part first. Government spending will not help you avoid depressions. Government spending (as the current rising employment rate shows) doesn't help end depressions either. All economies have occasional recessions. Achieving a depression requires lots of people in government, all working together as a team. (See Roosevelt, F.D., and Obama, B.H. Just wait.)

They think that all tax is theft;

Yep. Taxation is a necessary evil, but it's theft all the same. If a little old lady on a fixed income doesn't pay her taxes, big men with guns will take her away and seize her assets for taxes. That's called "theft" in most circles, but it's the only way we've found to pay huge subsidies to millionaire corn farmers in Iowa.

(They think) all government activity is bad and those who win a mandate for government spending from democratic electorates are ‘statists’.

No, we don't think all government activity is bad. I believe you're thinking of the Anarchists. Libertarians generally believe that the more government activity is minimized and the more individual liberty is increased, the more society will prosper. Libertarians tend to believe that society needs a functioning courts system for the enforcement of contracts. Some libertarians believe that government should provide basic infrastructure, like roads, sewers, and an electrical grid. There are a few differences between the U.S. libertarians and the U.K. libertarians, but we tend to have the same guiding principles. And the greatest of these is smaller government.

These people – who wish to undermine society as we know it and who would end all social security, state pensions, public health services, state education and much more besides – want to overturn society as we know it.

Well, of course we do. But I wouldn't say "overturn". More like "re-turn".

As one said recently – we should rely for support on our families churches, synagogues or mosques – but not the state.

I don't know who this "one" is, but I'd like to meet him and shake his hand. Here in Fort Worth, we have BAYLOR/ALL SAINTS Medical Center, Harris METHODIST Hospital, The SALVATION Army, The PRESBYTERIAN Night Shelter, The Broadway BAPTIST Agape Meal, and numerous other programs paid for by churches, synagogues, and mosques.

This ignores the fact that many are simply outside those communities of support.

Yes, at Baylor Baptist Hospital and the Broadway Baptist Agape meal, all those in line are asked if they have accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior, following him in Believer's Full Immersion Baptism since that sprinkling stuff the Methodists do just doesn't quite wash away sin.
Does anyone really believe that people are turned away because of beliefs?

For them I suspect the workhouse would beckon.

Ah, the workhouses....

"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"
- Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

I hate to go into Scrooge mode, but I live in what is politely known as a "diverse" neighborhood. From time to time, people come by asking me for money. I give it to them, but usually it is after leaves are raked, street gutters washed out, etc. Does that make me evil? Who can afford perpetual handouts?

This Victorian concept of grudging charity is what these people promote – with the consequence of a random lottery of survival – and destitution for many.

Richard, Richard, Richard....we've avoided grudging charity in the U.S. for a long time. Now our government has a random lottery chance of survival - with destitution for many.

I do not believe in this callous, self interested view of life. It offends my Christian beliefs that suggest we have a duty as a society to fulfil the instruction – present in all major religions – but not in libertarianism that we love our neighbour as ourselves.

What in the hell does giving money to Barack Obama and his henchmen have to do with loving my neighbor? Can someone, anyone, please explain that for me?
Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.
Give unto God the things that are God's.
As someone named Sam Duncan pointed out on the Counting Cats site, Christian Socialism is a contradiction in terms. The welfare state is the opposite of Christian charity, not its embodiment. Taking care of each other is an individual responsibility, not a societal responsibility.
One thing I've noticed from reading and traveling. The more government provides, the less the concept of charity is respected. In China, the idea is ridiculed. In England, not quite so much. In the U.S., it's revered. I wonder why.

Of course that requires that we love ourselves and that means we have rights – and that they should be respected. But there is no way an earthy civilised society can ignore the needs of others – and tax is the way we meet this need in our modern, complex society in which expectations of medical and social support are high –and the cost of meeting them as high.

Nobody is saying that the needs of others should be ignored. Most of the large L libertarians that I know try to help meet the needs of others. But if you want to make a total mess of things? Get the large S society involved. Our "modern, complex society" will take at least .50 cents of every charitable dollar for themselves, all in the name of "compassion".

Those who say otherwise are not offering an alternative within our society – they are suggesting we tear down our society and replace it with another. In doing so they show complete contempt for many, some (most, I suggest, by far)of whom are in the positions they are through no fault at all of their own. One on this blog has called those in need ‘an underclass’.

Why not call these people "an underclass"? Who has done more, spent more, wasted more, yapped more, and done more to create a permanent underclass than The United States Government? Take the African-American underclass, for instance. If someone fifty years ago had intentionally decided to destroy the black family through legal means, could they have made things any worse than government did? I have days where I think government wants to maintain a permanent underclass just to preserve voting blocs.

Poverty was going away nicely on its own until government got involved in trying to end it.

I make clear I think this as repugnant as racism. (multiple sics)

This is where you piss me off, Richard. What does racism have to do with any of this? As I tried to post on your Comment Field, libertarians are generally opposed to racism, fascism, totalitarianism, statism, and any other doctrine that refuses to allow people to get on with their lives without interference from....you.

I would reject this language from a racist. I would reject a call from the far left to over throw society.

The act of throwing more and more money into the gaping maw of the beast isn't "society". Starving the beast isn't an overthrow.

Why is it then that this vicious, self interested and, might I suggest inherently socially violent group are allowed to make this sort of contribution –

Oh for the love of God. Vicious? Socially violent? Here's an oath you have to abide by to have decision-making power in the U.S. Libertarian Party: “I hereby certify that I do not believe in nor advocate the initiation of the use of force to achieve political or social goals.”

....as they do all over so many blogs where those with real concern for society, from across the mainstream political spectrum, seek to discuss issues in an open, rational and respectful fashion?

I'm bringing all the respect I can to this disagreement. Look at any of my recent posts where Dr. Ralph and I go at each other, hammer and tongs, no holds barred. Sometimes I win, and the other two times, Dr. Ralph wins. But if you're continually advocating ideas that should've died off during Feudalism, I suspect you're not getting much of what you think is rational, respectful discussion.

I would love, for example, to see far-right libertarians thrown off the Guardian bogs as a matter of course – which might improve their appeal to many others as a result.

Statists love an echo chamber. That's the only way their ideas can prosper.

It is time we named these people for what they are – as being amongst the enemies of civilised society.

That's a typo on your part in the 2nd half of that sentence, Richard. I like it that way. As a Libertarian,I really do find myself amongst the enemies of civilised society.

I am happy to do that. It would be good if others would do the same – and fight them as we do racists.

That's the silliest, most ineffective false analogy I've heard in a long time. Well, Richard, we're going to fight you as we do child abusers. We're going to fight you just like we fight puppy torturers. We're going to fight you the way we fought the hoodlums who stole grandmother's Bible. We're going to fight you like Luke Skywalker fought The Empire on the ice planet Hoth. We're going to fight you like we fought the.... (oops. almost broke Godwin's Law).

NB: Comments from known libertarian abusers will not be allowed on this blog entry, or any other on this site.

Please define abuse. Is it someone who disagrees with you? On this site, I delete spam. I delete comments that are off-topic. I delete stuff that crosses an arbitrary line into obscenity. I don't think I've ever allowed a racist comment (by my definition) to remain on the site. This thing is my property, and I can allow what I want on it. But those are the things I think of as abusive.

Please, please, please, let me know how you define abuse. I think it's when anyone dares to introduce other opinions into your Big State Echo Chamber.

Stop the "Art Critique Law" ! ! ! ! ! !

Procrustes and Company over at State Of Protest are rallying voters to stop the "Art Critique" law before it passes.

Email the White House ASAP, and urge President Obama not to sign this legislation ! !

Then read the comments.

A Proposal That The White House Staff Take Some Time Off. A Few Years If Necessary.

According to The Washington Post, The White House Staff are working themselves to death.

Political Washington has long fostered a workaholic culture, the expectation that the rewards of service on the big stage of national government come with 18-hour, on-call days. But even the most hardy of Obama's staff members are beginning to recognize the toll that the pace is taking.

The grueling schedule has forced most of the presidential aides to abandon physical exercise, and the few who persist -- often because of incessant goading from their fitness-fixated commander in chief -- have planned their workouts at times that stretch their schedules even further.
Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel arrives at the House of Representatives gym at 5:30 a.m.; his top aide, Sarah Feinberg, starts her workout at a Water Street gym at 5:15 a.m. By 5:30 a.m., the White House Bulletin -- a compilation of political clippings from newspapers and Web sites -- appears in inboxes and on BlackBerrys, demanding attention. By 7 a.m., West Executive Drive between the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building is filled with staffers' cars.

In the meantime, The Teleprompter Jesus has admitted that despite putting aside more than 750 billion dollars for cronies, patronage, make-work projects and featherbedding in an insane rush to pass a stimulus bill, an act that put our great-grandchildren into debt, unemployment will soon reach double digits.

The workaholics at Pennsylvania Avenue have managed to hit a ONE TRILLION DOLLAR Federal deficit for the first time ever. And we're only 9 months into the fiscal year.

Much has been written on these pages and elsewhere about Congress not having time to read the thousands of pages of legislation that Owebama is throwing their way.

In the meantime, nobody is hiring. My employer, Jukt Micronics, is laying people off. There are empty chain stores and warehouses everywhere you look.

Why? Mostly because nobody knows what insane stunt The Messianic Saviors Of Us All are going to pull next. Expanding a business, or starting a business, requires a somewhat stable environment.

But look what's coming down from Washington: the Employee Free Choice Act, The Fair Labor Standards Act, a host of potential Global Warming Global Cooling Climate Change legislation designed to punish all carbon-based life forms except those which have devolved into inorganic matter. In their free time, they're working on socialized medicine, and then working night shifts at the printing presses churning out ever more worthless dollars to pay for all this crap.

This is NOT a good way to encourage people to start hiring.

That gets us to the final question, one I've seen in anti-smoking ads aimed at tobacco executives....

Don't you White House guys ever take a day off?

Please. Think of your wives, husbands and kids. (And everyone else's. They might want to spend some money on their own one day.)

Every link in this post was shamelessly ripped off from Hot Air. Pics of workaholics came from here and here and here.

Samizdata's "Quote Of The Day"

Samizdata's Quote Of The Day for July 13, 2009:

“It has always been one of libertarianism’s insights…..that massive concentrations of government power are more likely to be used to benefit other huge concentrations of wealth and power than help the needy or downtrodden…the powerful few who benefit from government action are more highly motivated to work the mechanisms of democracy to their benefit than are the masses who all pay a little – often too little in each specific case to feel it worth fighting, or even knowing about – and thus win in the democratic game of shifting property and wealth from person, or group, to another. If a government were restricted to its libertarian minimums of protecting citizens’ life and property from force and fraud, all a corporation could do is to try to sell us something and we could decide whether or not to buy. It couldn’t tax us for its benefit, raise tariffs on its competitors to make their products more expensive, subsidize bad loans or overseas expansion, or take formerly private property on the grounds that it will make more lucrative use of it than would the former owner.”

Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism, page 589.

The Weekly Radley - Autotune The News

From Radley Balko's Agitator Blog:
I have no idea how those children do this, but it is BRILLIANT.

An Unlikely Rant About NOT Having To Pay Enough Taxes

From Boston.com

Say, did you hear the one about the congressman who was asked to do his job? Talk about funny - this will crack you up!
Well, maybe it won’t. But Steny Hoyer thought it was hilarious.

Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, is the majority leader in the House of Representatives. At a news conference last week, he was talking about the healthcare overhaul being drafted on Capitol Hill, and a reporter asked whether he would support a pledge committing members of Congress to read the bill before voting on it, and to make the full text of the legislation available to the public online for 72 hours before the vote takes place.

That, reported CNSNews, gave Hoyer the giggles: The majority leader “found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question. ‘I’m laughing because . . . I don’t know how long this bill is going to be, but it’s going to be a very long bill,’ he said.’’


Much like the Porkulus abortion, the Healthcare Demolition Act will be a very, very long bill. No one, I repeat, no one had time to read the final version of The Porkulus Package before voting. Ditto for the Climate Change Travesty Act of 2009.
Yes, The Teleprompter Jesus has pledged that all legislation will be posted online for a full five days before he signs it. Yes, he has broken that promise at almost every opportunity.


Is there anyone out there who 1) doesn't work for government, or 2) who is not a mainstream media hack, or 3) can read without moving his lips - who has a good reason for continuing to support this den of thieves?


Here's the reason no one has time to read what they're voting for (or against) any longer:
At the last possible minute, Pork is shovled into legislation with draglines, backhoes, front-end loaders, and illegal immigrants with shovels. Our futures are in the hands of Chicago machine politicians who are larding out favors to their buddies as quickly as possible before the citizenry awakes. Since most of the citizenry have been promised that they won't have to pay for any of this mess, the citizenry is going to remain asleep for a long, long time.


I've noticed that a lot of my friends from work, the Tarrant LP, church, guitar pickin's, or elsewhere think that I'm a rabid anti-tax nut.
Not really.
I'm in favor of everyone in the U.S. paying for all of this crap within 20 years.
I think everyone should have to write a check every month, with no witholding by employers.
Graduated scale. Streetpeople pay $1.00 per month. Bill Gates pays up to 50% of his income. Everyone else pays between 35 - 49% until we're out of debt.


If that were to happen, in the words of my friend Stephen Smith, the hardware stores would already be sold out of torches and pitchforks.


WAKE UP !

Picture of the Archie McPhee "Angry Mob Playset" came from here.

The Burning Hell, Part Seven, Dr. Bob Gray Edition

This is a picture of Dr. Bob Gray, who died in prison shortly before his pedophilia trial was scheduled to begin.

We'll get to Dr. Bob in just a moment, because another Sunday morning is here and it's time to visit the Mississippi Baptist Hell of Reverend Estus Pirkle.

Filmed in the early 1970's with the help of B-movie kings Ron and Tim Ormond, Pirkle's "The Burning Hell" scared the daylights out of every church youth group that saw it. I'm posting excerpts from the film each week because I saw the movie when I was twelve or thirteen, believed every minute of it, built a lot of my life around it, and therefore suffered extreme mental, spiritual, psychic, and emotional harm.

Now I'm getting even by parsing it every Sunday morning. This is cheaper than a psychotherapist, and causes less long-term harm to the community than climbing into a tower with an assault rifle.

To recap the previous episodes.... Two hippies, Ken and Tim, have a discussion with Brother Pirkle about the reality of hell. Their preacher has taught them that hell is only a metaphor. Pirkle disagrees. Pirkle vividly paints a picture of non-believers burning for eternity in a massive field of mud and slop. Ken and Tim object to Pirkle's reasoning and leave the church on their motorcycles.
Ken has an accident, and is decapitated.
Rather than wait around for the police or an ambulance, Tim decides to go to church.
You can hit the Pirkle label at the bottom of this post to see each episode in its entirety. Even if you're in a hurry, you've GOT to see episode #4 with the worms.
At the end of last week's clip, Pirkle was telling the biblical story of Dives and Lazarus. Lazarus was a good man who died poor. Dives had refused to give Lazarus any money, died suddenly, and woke up in hell. In the middle of last week's episode, Father Abraham, who has an unlikely "just south of Memphis" accent, was explaining to Dives why he wouldn't be able to warn Dives' family about hell. (Luke 16:19).

If you find my commentary helpful, it continues after the clip.




:00 Father Abraham, on loan from his job as a Memphis Mall Santa Claus, finishes his explanation about why warning Dives' family about hell just wouldn't be fair.

:08 The undead live and walk among us.

:50 Think about it. Let's assume there was a wealthy ruler named Dives. According to fundamentalists, Dives is STILL being Bar-B-Qued without a break for things that happened 2,000 years ago. This puts Stalin, Mao, Saddam and Hitler into perspective, doesn't it?

2:20 Pirkle: "Neither words nor pictures can describe all of (Hell's) terrors". Including that tie.

2:35 The timeline begins. Hundreds, Thousands, Billions, and Millions of years. Then comes the chart. Everyone who saw this movie remembers the decapitation, the worms, and this chart.

3:00 The chart. That's a lot of zeros.

3:40 Now we have a word from Dr. Bob Gray. (Pirkle likes to have guest preachers popping in and out of his movies.) While researching one of the previous guest speakers, Dr. Jack Hyles, I found that Dr. Hyles had been involved in some sex scandals.
What are the odds against Pirkle selecting two preachers with the same problem for one movie?

To read about Dr. Bob Gray dying in prison before his pedophilia trial could get underway, go here. (Gray pled the 5th amendment 150 times during questioning.)

To read about the fifteen women who came forward saying that Gray sexually abused them as children, go here.

To read about the church kinda knowing it had been going on for a long time, go here.

To read the best single page summary of the whole sordid mess this Witch Doctor created, go here.

Unbelieveable.

4:40 In an outbreak of Christian compassion, Pirkle tells Tim that Ken is roasting in Hell, and will be there forever.

5:00 Pirkle digs deep into the Book Of Revelation to find some of the creatures called Locusts that inhabit hell. They have the body of a horse, an iron breastplate, hair like a woman, a tail like a scorpion, and teeth from the Wal-Mart Halloween aisle.

5:50 Scenes of horror as the Mississippi Drama League portray Biblical and contemporary sinners of all ages being tortured forever. Why? Because they didn't, wouldn't, or couldn't agree that Jesus (1/3rd of a single supernatural being) was born to a virgin mother somewhere in Palestine 2,000 years ago and was killed by the Roman army in order to satisfy an obscure requirement in Jewish rituals about animal (blood) sacrifices being required for the forgiveness of sins.

6:45 The story of Cain and Abel.

7:24 Back to Dives, resting with his souvenir from Burger King.

I started posting clips from this movie as a joke, more or less. This thing really did have an impact on me when I was a kid. The more I look into it, 35 years later, the more perverse satisfaction I'm getting from learning that clowns like Jack Hyles and Bob Gray had no more spiritual or moral authority than anyone else.

Never, ever trust authority.