If you've been to many pro baseball games, you know about New York Yankees fans. Loud. Arrogant. Abrasive. They have a reputation for sticking with their team no matter what. But things have changed, haven't they? Last night's TV viewers were shocked to see so many empty seats behind home plate (and elsewhere) during the 8th inning. Why in the world would someone pay so much for a New York Yankees vs. Texas Rangers Championship Series ticket, and not stay for the entire game ???
Fortunately, we have some survey results. These give us some insight into the minds of the "new" New York Yankees supporters. 1,000 guys were asked one simple question as they were leaving during the 8th: "Why aren't you staying for the entire game?" Here are the top responses.
1) If you don't arrive by 11:00 p.m. at Barry Manilow's "Midnight and Moonlight Central Park Concert", all of the good blanket spots are taken.
2) Macy's has an Early Bird Special on handbags. Gotta be rested.
3) The postgame spinach quiche at Tavern On The Green is simply to die for. Fabulous.
4) A direct quote: "Mom gets anxious and irritable if she can't tuck me in before 11:00 p.m. In my basement bedroom. With all my Yankees penants. And my Mickey Mantle posters. And my Derek Jeter action figures."
5) There's a new tradition of leaving a few innings early to stroll arm-in-arm and do some
window shopping along the beautiful tree-lined boulevards of The Bronx.
6) Once you've heard Prince Poppycock, the Yankees' new Harry Carey, stick his head out of his skybox, and sing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" during the 7th inning stretch, it's all downhill from there.
7) After the 8th inning, the only security on the subway is provided by New York police officers.
From Commentary, my favorite conservative Jewish political magazine (not that there's a lot of competition for that spot):
“The irony is great here. A cadre of pundits cautioned the GOP after the 2008 wipeout to move to the center, to accommodate Obama’s agenda, and to recoil from the small-government philosophy that, the self-appointed gurus told us, had no sell with voters. With a big assist from Obama, the Tea Partiers have proved themselves much savvier than the punditocracy (damning with faint praise, I know). An entire populist movement built not on specific positions (e.g., anti-war) but on philosophical principles is a remarkable phenomenon; even more remarkable is the degree to which those principles have resonated with the public at large. . . . The left understood all too well what the Tea Party was about, tried its best to strangle it in its political crib, and now has seen its worst fears come true.”
And....
One should never underestimate the historical illiteracy of the liberal intelligentsia. And it is also the case that the left did not merely misunderstand the Tea Party movement but actively distorted and vilified it. When unsubstantiated claims of “racism” start flying, you know the left is running scared. Certainly the Tea Party was the repudiation of the notion that the recession and the election of Obama had moved the country to the left. It simply couldn’t be that there was a broad and principled objection to this hypothesis. And when the rabble — that would be fellow citizens — showed again and again that the movement was genuine, determined, and deeply principled, the left had a collective meltdown, railing at the supposedly crazy citizenry.
Thanks to Instapundit for the link. I went to the first Cowtown Tea Party and it was an impromptu rally behind the Cowtown Bar & Grill. They had to have the most recent one at the Tarrant County Convention Center. Heh.
I've long thought that if election results really matter to you, then your government is too big. Elections should matter about as much as choosing a new lawn service.
....in the spirit of bipartisanship I’ll go ahead and endorse Alvin Greene in addition to Paladino and O’Donnell. Politics is a ridiculous profession populated by ridiculous people. Maybe if we elect increasingly clownish candidates, the public will eventually come to realize this, and finally realize that it’s probably not a good idea to put larger and larger portions of our lives and livelihoods in the hands of people who have achieved success in a field that rewards character traits you spend your entire tenure as a parent trying to teach out of your kids.
I’m kidding about endorsing Greene, O’Donnell, and Paladino, but only because their election would give them actual power. But I see no particular reason to root for their opponents, either. And I see no reason to instinctively cheer for Republicans over Democrats. Or vice versa. At least electing transparently crazy people will make us more cautious about how they use their power.
Seriously....is Alvin Greene that much sillier than Nancy Pelosi, Trent Lott, or any other Pork Merchant?
Me, I’m cheering for elections to matter less, and for politicians to have less impact on my life. I dream of waking up to find the results of the November 2 election on page A-10 of my November 3rd newspaper—because no one cared, because very little was at stake, because we stopped pinning our hopes and dreams on the results of a perverse process dominated by generally horrible people who have made a career of accumulating power for the sake of accumulating power.
Incidentally, this is also how you “get money out of politics.” You make politics and political outcomes less important. I’m amused by people who are surprised that as the power, scope, and influence of government grows, interest groups are correspondingly willing to spend increasingly more money to purchase a piece of that influence. I actually once heard a prominent lefty journalist express this very sentiment. They’re shocked by this!
Yes, without exception. Shocked, I say! Shocked !
It’s even cuter that they think they can continue to expand the size, scope, and influence government and prevent the government from being corrupted . . . by giving the same government yet more power, in this case to prevent itself from being corrupted. Inevitably, these new powers then manifest as new restrictions on our ability and freedom to criticize politicians. Because that’s their solution to the corruption of our politicians: Less criticism of politicians!
You cannot decrease government corruption, bribery, earmarking, pork-barreling, featherbedding, and favoritism by writing more laws. The purpose of those laws is to sell exemptions to those laws. The only way to decrease the size and scope of the problem is to make the government smaller. Much, much smaller. Small enough to drown in the bathtub.
Go here to listen to Steve Martin's "Let's Get Small".
I know that I am a sinner.
I have no business asking you for anything. One of my earliest blog entries was based on a pun on the name of your servant, Oral Roberts. I called it something funny just to get a lot of hits. It's still getting them.
Anyway, I'm sorry. Please hear my prayer, and I'll delete it.
Tonight, The Texas Rangers will face the despicable New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series.
The Yankees have won the World Series 27 times. Until we put away The Devil Rays a few days ago, we'd only won one playoff game. Ever.
The Yankees have had Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, Reggie Jackson, Billy Martin, and Mickey Mantle on their roster.
The Rangers once had Mississippi taxidermist Ned Yost.
I know that the Ballpark in Arlington is built on stolen land. I know that George W. Bush threatened to pull the team out of Arlington unless he got a sales tax increase and a $205,000,000.00 subsidy. I know he bought the team for $86,000,000.00 and then turned around and sold it for $250,000,000.00 I know that he never properly thanked the taxpayers.
But the Yankees are worse. They've won it all so many times that they now personify evil.
I know that when Major League Baseball had their last big strike/lockout about 15 years ago, and I had to lay off about half the staff of my close-to-the-ballpark retail store as a result, I swore I would never again care about this silly game. I know. I know.
This is about The New York Freakin' Yankees. All God-Fearing people in this great Republic hate The New York Freakin' Yankees.
Anyway, I'm not asking for much, God. It just wouldn't be right. We are all sinners, but can't you agree that some teams are worse than others? I mean, seriously....
I'm not going to ask for a victory over the Yankees in the ALCS, and I wouldn't dream of asking for the Rangers to win it all.
But is there any way you could arrange for Josh Hamilton to hit the game-winning RBI in World Series game seven? That wouldn't be asking for too much, would it?
The pictures of typical Yankee fans came from here.The picture of She Whose Name Is Not Spoken came from here.
Leader of Absurditoptia (A): I say, leader of Stupidia – we demand that you stop occupying that contested strip of land. If you refuse, we’ll have no choice but to shoot our own citizens.
Leader of Stupidia (S): You don’t scare us! That land is ours. And if you do kill some of your own people, make no mistake that we will immediately – and just as cruelly – commence to killing our own people. Courage is our national motto!
(A): Ha! You’re bluffing. But I’m not. I’ve just courageously ordered my troops to mow down in cold blood ten percent of my fellow countrymen. Take that!
(S): How dare you attack you like that! You leave us no choice but to attack us. I am ordering the Stupidian army to slaughter 15 percent of innocent Stupidians here in Stupidia. How do you like them apples?!
(A): You are cruel and inhuman to damage us by killing your people. I hereby instruct all of my fellow Absurditopians to commit suicide! Only then will you nasty Stupidians get your proper comeuppance and we Absurditopians the justice that we are due!
(S): You can’t beat us, you Absurditopian you! Listen up. I’m ordering all of my fellow citizens – Stupidians all! – to commit suicide. We’ll see who emerges victorious!
….
Then a long, long silence.
Try looking at it this way. If the top executives at Neiman Marcus could pass laws to discourage you from shopping at Target, they would do so. If the top executives at Target could pass laws to discourage you from shopping at Neiman Marcus, they would do so. And if you learned that those executives had written those laws, you would have them tarred and feathered. You would be outraged.
But when U.S. companies pass laws making Chinese tires or Canadian lumber more expensive, we roll over and take it. Go figure that one out.
Because of reconnecting with old friends on Facebook, I've been doing a series of posts about what makes someone go from political near-apathy to rabid Libertarian. You can hit the "Why I'm A Libertarian" label down below if you want to see the others.
From the 3rd grade to the 12th, I was educated in a small private school in north Mississippi called North Sunflower Academy. At NSA, generations of students learned history and social studies from a lady named Ruby Sue Issa.
By the time the class of '79 came along, Mrs. Issa had been at it for decades. She had a list of stories and anecdotes that she used to illustrate the topic of the day. Most of them had been in circulation for a while, and for the most part we were all too cool to pay much attention. But some of it, against all odds, sunk in. Or maybe it sank in. Sunk? Sank? Should've paid more attention in English. I have no idea which one is the past tense. Mrs. DuBard, please advise....
I remember Mrs. Issa talking about the U.S. Constitution, and the issue of illegal search and seizure. One of Mrs. Issa's stories had the Mississippi Highway Patrol pulling someone over for speeding, and they pumped his stomach because they thought he ingested a baggie of some sort. Mrs. Issa was outraged.
Our class, however, didn't understand the outrage. Even those who had "illegal smiles" knew, just knew that if you were carrying weed or anything else, that's just the risk you take. Why, if the Highway Patrol can't pump your stomach, how are they supposed to do their jobs? Plus, regardless of lifestyle choices, we we knew that all badness must be punished by any means necessary.
But Mrs. Issa planted a seed that day, and it grew into this: I belong to me, and you belong to you. I own myself, you own yourself. We don't belong to King George III, George Washington, George Bush, Barack Obama, or The Mississippi Highway Patrol. This is mine, dang it. Keep your grubby little hands off of it.
She did her best to teach us about the Constitution and how it shouldn't be abused, even if intentions were good. She saw history as a long, long story that kept looping around and repeating itself. A story where people kept making the same types of mistakes over and over again. The purpose of the Constitution was to be sure that we avoided those mistakes in the future, regardless of the "emergency".
Before Mrs. Issa started teaching me, I used to wish that I had grown up in a place where history happened. Somewhere near Civil War battlefields, or New York City, or anywhere except the Mississippi Delta.
Mrs. Issa told us about what it was like when her husband's cafe in Ruleville was first integrated, and what a big change that was for her. She told us about the sit-ins and the Freedom Riders. This was in a segregationist academy, and Mrs. Issa was a product of her time and place, just like all of us were (and still are) regarding race, but I think she kinda enjoyed holding up contradictions between our supposed ideals and our actions.
Bob Fisher and I both remember the time she told us that "All barbarian invasions come from....The North."
She told us (multiple times) about Bob Dylan coming to Greenwood in 1963, and playing "Only A Pawn In Their Game" at a Civil Rights rally. We didn't get it. By 1978/1979, Bob Dylan was as dated as Bing Crosby, and by the standards of the time, Bob Dylan couldn't sing. (I now own every non-bootleg Bob Dylan has ever recorded, BTW.)
But because of Mrs. Issa, it eventually dawned on me that I was growing up in a place where important things were happening. I was in The Most Southern Place On Earth, the Ground Zero of our biggest societal change since the Civil War. I started paying attention to the news, and seeing U.S. history as a story of our progress toward liberty - first for white landowners, then for white men, then for black men, then for women, then for gays, lesbians, people who want to smoke weed, people who don't want to buy health insurance, people who own 200 guns, or guys who want to put on womens' clothing and walk around the mall.
I own me, you own you. If it doesn't harm you, it's none of your business.
So it has taken me about 30 years to figure it out and to acknowledge it. Thank you, Mrs. Issa. Some of us really were paying attention. It sunk in. Or sank in.
Mrs. Issa's picture came from Duff Dorrough's Facebook page. One other thing....Mrs. Issa was a huge fan of Teddy Roosevelt. Here's a picture of President Roosevelt riding a swimming moose, just in case you ever need one.
Mr. Marr is the former political director of The BBC, which would sink like a stone if the British government allowed a true competitive market in broadcasting.
"A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed young men sitting in their mother's basements and ranting. They are very angry people," he told the Cheltenham Literary Festival. " "....the so-called citizen journalism is the spewings and rantings of very drunk people late at night."
Marr is wrong, wrong, wrong. I'm not young ,socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed. spewing out drunken rants late at night.
I'm fairly old and married. The late night drunken rants are produced at my own dining room table.
Here's a little more on the BBC, where Andrew Marr is still employed. This is courtesy of Wikipedia (Yeah, Wikipedia. I'm in a hurry. Gotta get a lot of work done early so I can get drunk tonight and start typing....)
. The BBC is an autonomous public service broadcaster that operates under a Royal Charter. Within the United Kingdom its work is funded principally by an annual television license fee which is charged to all United Kingdom households, companies and organisations using any type of equipment to record and/or receive live television broadcasts; the level of the fee is set annually by the British Government and agreed by Parliament.
Good Lord, can you imagine the self-righteous crap we would have to endure if National Public Radio and Public TV were 100% supported by the Feds with some help from involuntary "donations" from every U.S. household? And no real competitors were allowed ?
Hell, the hardware stores would instantly sell out of torches and pitchforks.
I keep wondering how much longer the Brits are going to put up with this.
Be afraid, Andrew Marr. Be very afraid. We're angry, pimpled, inadequate, and drunk. And we're proving that ANYBODY can sit down and start typing.
The picture of Andrew Marr's pasty Brit complection (that doesn't show his baldness level) came from here.
If you need some help finding the correct answers:
The word "sucks" is hidden away inside the second "O" of "Too Big".
"Crooked" is above the "T" in "Too Big".
"Out Of Control" is immediately above "Incompetent".
Former President Bill Clinton stumped for fellow Democrat Jack Conway on Monday, delivering a strongly-worded repudiation of Republican Rand Paul and his “radical ideas” for a smaller government.
We might as well start there, with the "radical ideas" for a smaller government. There is no moderate, prudent, incremental way to get out of a 14 trillion dollar debt. Screw it, it can't be done.
Kentucky’s U.S. Senate race is between a practical, progressive moderate who has a plan....
....O God, another Democrat with a plan. He's also a "moderate". I'm sick of moderates who reach across the aisle in a bipartisan effort to work with the other side to move the agenda forward and "get something done for the American people". I wish we could boil our choices down to the extremists in each camp.
Moderates have almost compromised us out of existence.
.... versus a guy “with radical ideas and no record to back it up,” Clinton told a few thousand people gathered outside the Administration Building at the University of Kentucky.
Once again, the job is going to require radical ideas. Radical ideas aren't a defect. They're a selling point.
Clinton said Paul would roll back federal protection for people with disabilities....
When time permits, go here to see how much the Americans With Disabilities Act has helped Americans With Disabilities. (Their employment rate was increasing nicely until our government decided to help 'em out.)
.... while pushing tax cuts for rich people.
This dead horse has been beaten until it's a pulpy mess that even vultures are avoiding. The top 50% of the earners pay 97% of the taxes. If taxes are going to be cut significantly, if we're going to get more money out into the productive economy, if we're going to stop politicians from giving your money to their friends, contractors, military suppliers, drug warriors, hangers-on, deadbeats, regulators, worry-warts, global warmists, human barnacles, bureaucrats, slot-fillers, inspectors, teachers who can't teach, African Genital Washers, border guards, obesity police and ethanol subsidizers, then the tax cuts are going to have to go to the people in the top income levels. It really is that simple. You can't cut any lower than zero, and the non-rich are already at zero.
He also mentioned the possibility of cuts to food safety....
These are the people who gave a huge thumbs-up to Oxycontin, but continue to outlaw medical marijuana. For decades, they advised that you eat 6-11 daily servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta.
....air traffic control....
Heck yes ! Privatize it !
....education....
Oh, for the love of God and all things holy. Is there any dollar amount that will ever be enough? In the last 25 years we've almost doubled the spending on education, and the needle hasn't budged. Privatize it tomorrow. Let a thousand flowers bloom. See what else works and watch parents flock to it.
and workplace training
In the last 9 months, I've probably cycled through 100 Temp Employees. Almost all of them have been through some kind of workplace training, courtesy of Community Colleges, Job Training Boondoggles, or even Porkulus funds. One of them, one out of a hundred, could do a halfway decent job of making some numeric signs with Microsoft Word. I think we can cut Uncle Sam's workplace training programs with no loss of national productivity.
....among other things. Republicans try to portray Democrats as the party of big government spending while claiming to be the party of restraint, Clinton said.
Well, he got that right. Until Obama, Reid and Pelosi made them look like skinflint penny pinchers, Republicans spent more than Democrats. If you're interested, here's something I wrote back in the bright sunshiny period of 2008, back when I actually thought that there was no way ANYONE could EVER outspend George W. Bush. It's pretty funny to look back on.
Sheesh. Obama has made Bush look like Ebeneezer Scrooge.
Anyway, back to my point....There is no moderate way to get us out of a 14 trillion dollar hole. Seriously, can you imagine the Republicans shutting down the Department Of Energy? It's the biggest waste in Washington, but no Republican candidate has mentioned closing it. Department of Education? No way. How about privatizing Social Security, or at least letting us opt out of the program? Nope. That's the 3rd rail.
Republicans spend like there's no tomorrow, usually on a war against drugs or terror or imported wheat or illegal Messicans.
So please consider the Libertarian Party this November. We don't want to run anything, we simply want to kill The Beast. We don't want to lead you, we want you to be left alone. We want to march on Washington and demand.....nothing.
And remember what Bill Clinton said, and what has been the case for the last 30 years or so. If you want a smaller government, voting Republican is a wasted vote.
Please gather around, boys and girls. Our children's sermon today is the sad story of The Dallas Cowboys, The Tennessee Titans, and the recently constructed Tower Of Babel. Did you know that the Tennessee Titans just beat the Dallas Cowboys 34-27 ??? Children, have you heard of the Tower Of Babel? The Tower Of Babel is in Arlington, Texas. I'll show you pictures of it in a few minutes. This story is in a book that we call "The Bible", and this little story is from the Bible's book Of Genesis, Chapter 11.
1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.
2 As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.
4. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves....
and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building.
6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."
8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city, (and they also stopped any plans for being in a hometown Super Bowl).
9 That is why it was called Babel —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
And that, boys and girls, is what happens if you steal peoples' homes to build a sports arena. God gets angry, and your team loses.
A friend and I have been having Spontaneous Entrepreneurial Seizures (that means we want to start a small sideline business).
We've been brainstorming the thing for a while, looking at possibilities.
This afternoon, I was going through an online checklist of things to consider before taking a large step like this one. One of the items was employees. Where are you going to find them? What are you looking for? How much will you have to pay to attract the talent you need?
Without even thinking about it, I made a note to myself to call a couple of Temp Services on Monday.
Temp Services? What the heck?
1) Temp employees cost anywhere from 50% to 100% per hour more than the same employee is willing to work for as a permanent employee.
2) The temp will leave you at the drop of a hat if he finds something better (and he often has the temp service in his corner working to achieve that objective.)
3) My "keep to hire" rate with temps is somewhere below 2%, and I bet I've worked with more than 100 this year alone. I spend a lot of time re-training.
4) My "keep for the lifetime of the project" rate with temps is somewhere below 25%. Many of those guys are not invited back to work the next day. Some don't even last until the first 15 minute break.
So why in the world would anyone hire a temp, instead of hiring the worker outright?
1) The employer doesn't have to mess with tax witholding (income tax withholding has been a temporary wartime measure since 1943). I don't want to be in charge of paying anyone's taxes for them. It is totally insane.
2) If I hire an employee who doesn't work out, he or she can sue me for a large number of real or imaginary offenses should I end the work relationship. It is totally insane.
3) There's something in the works called ObamaCare ® . You may have read something about it. It is totally insane.
4) The business we're considering is not particularly dangerous. But have you looked at Worker's Comp insurance rates lately? I'd rather insure an offshore oil rig than 10 typists. It's totally insane. Temp Services take care of insurance for you. Yeah, it's included in the rate you pay, but the Temp Service deals with the government, not you.
5) Then there's the gloriously mis-named Employee Free Choice Act, which would do away with secret ballots in unionization votes. It's totally insane.
6) In all of our conversations about starting this little sideline, we haven't had a single conversation about "Saving And Creating Jobs". Not a single one. We've only talked about creating something that people will value more highly than the amount it will cost us to produce it. Can you imagine us pitching our idea to a legit bank or investor and starting the conversation with "We've come up with a way to create 50 jobs ! ! !"
No, if we want to be taken seriously, we'll have to walk in the door with a scheme that involves fewer people, not more. The current bunch of Thieves & Looters in D.C. seem to reward people for taking the opposite approach, don't they?
So until that mindset changes, I don't see us hiring anything but short-term temps. The current political mess it totally insane.
7) All businesses are forced to pay into an Unemployment Compensation Fund. The amount you are charged depends on the number of people you release back into the marketplace without just cause. I don't want to go through a demeaning song and dance of finding reasons to fire someone who hasn't done anything wrong, when I could pay a bit extra and have the problem taken out of my hands. The mess my employer goes through in Human Resources is....totally insane.
That's the way I see it right now, on 10-10-2010. I could change my mind tomorrow. Temp Services rule ! !
OK, Next question: Why aren't more businesses hiring?
Fresh coats of Whitening to here and here and here and here for the pics.
There are lots and lots of reasons to dislike foreigners, immigrants, and people who aren't like us. Look what we're having to put up with, courtesy of WGN in Chicago:
An elderly couple says Cook County sheriff’s police on a drug raid smashed into their Southwest Side house late Thursday night, terrorizing them before admitting they had the wrong house.
With her husband already asleep, 84-year-old Anna Jakymek was just turning out the lights when she heard loud noises at the back and front doors about 11:30 p.m.
Ok, let's start there. What kind of name for an American is Jakymek? Americans should be named Smith, Jones, or Patterson.
Her initial thought was that her 89-year old husband had fallen out of bed, but she realized something else was happening when she looked into the front room.
“I see maybe 20 guys come in and see the door knocked open,” she said…
Son Andrew said the most potent drug in the home is aspirin.
Right. With a name that sounds like something from a bad brewpub? Jakymek? I'm not buying it.
“They don’t smoke, drink or even watch TV. They believe in America,” he said.
He added that his father, Andrij, suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease and has terminal cancer.
“He won’t even take pain medicine,” he said…
Andrij ?? Andrij ?? Someone named Andrij isn't rolling up a fat one every night? Gimme a break.
His mother, he said, called him after the raid at the request of the supervising sergeant on the scene. When he got there, he said he was told the officers had raided the wrong home.
“When I arrived the officer explained they had misinformation, but said his job was over, and he was leaving. They left a copy of the warrant, but he absolved himself of any responsibility for the raid or the damage,” Andrew Jakymec said.
Don't these freakin' foreigners know that there's a drug war going on? And that we're in a constant battle to save people from....themselves? Can Andrew Jakymec pull his Eastern European head out of his rear end long enough to see the truth? We need to preserve the monopolies of the Mexican Drug Lords and the Afghan Opium Poppy farmers. Every once in a while, somebody's gonna get hit with friendly fire. Don't try playing the victim card just because you have a funny name. We're in a drug war. Love it or leave it.
He estimated the damage to broken doors, locks and windows at up to $3,000.
“Everything was violently opened. Cabinets were ripped open, clothes and sheets were everywhere, and pieces of wood where the doors were rammed were all over the place,” he said.
Radley Balko is claiming that the Jakymeks came here in the 1960's from the Ukraine. Something about escaping Soviet oppression. Well, if they're going to be bitching and moaning every time our police bust up the wrong house looking for small amounts of marijuana, they can take their asses back to Russia. How are we going to justify building a border fence without a drug war, Mr. Radley Balko? How can we "save and create" jobs for border patrol guards unless we continue our twin policies of drug prohibition and sharia law? Do you think we can continue fighting in Afghanistan for the next century without giving our enemies a monopoly on opium products? Why, if we were to end prohibition, the Taliban would go broke in a month. Then who would we fight? Now that I've had time to think about it, what kind of name is Balko? It doesn't sound Texan.
Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit has looked upon my typing and smiled.
This is my second "Instalanche" - that's what they call it when Reynolds links to something you wrote and sends you a small fraction of his 300,000 hits per day.
If I'd known this was gonna happen, I would've used spell-check. Go here. I'm the 4th link from the top.
And yes, being excited about this makes me a total geek.
Since everyone else is attacking Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville Kentucky, I can't help but jump on the dogpile.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Southern Baptist leader who is calling for Christians to avoid yoga and its spiritual attachments is getting plenty of pushback from enthusiasts who defend the ancient practice.
Southern Baptist Seminary President Albert Mohler says the stretching and meditative discipline derived from Eastern religions is not a Christian pathway to God. Mohler said he objects to "the idea that the body is a vehicle for reaching consciousness with the divine." "That's just not Christianity," Mohler told The Associated Press.
Well, it will soon be Christianity, if enough people decide that it is.
Sometime around the year 325, people decided that "The Trinity" was Christianity.
About 1500 years after that, Protestants decided that Infant Damnation was no longer part of Christianity. They invented something called "the age of accountability". It worked, it was handy. Everyone felt better. The Catholics already had a place called Purgatory, so it helped us keep up with 'em.
Religious beliefs are fluid. They change. They evolve.
Tortillas were not a part of traditional Christianity, since Christianity first grew and developed in the Middle East. Tortillas originated someplace in Latin America, perhaps more than 10,000 years ago. Many Christians, even in Louisville, Kentucky, have been known to consume tortillas.
Mohler said he objects to "the idea that the body is a vehicle for reaching consciousness with the divine."
Good lord in heaven, what a bass-ackward witch doctor is Albert Mohler. Let's start from the top: Christians kneel. Christians clasp their hands in prayer, as a gesture of supplication. Christians sometimes lift their hands, with their palms turned upward, as if to receive whatever heaven is offering. Christians bow their freakin' heads. Those are the examples most likely on display in the Protestant churches of Louisville.
Branch out geographically and historically, and you'll find examples of Christians fasting, mortifying the flesh, flogging themselves and going through all sorts of other contortions to escape the idea that "this" is all there is.
It boils down to this: Yoga is different from anything that Dr. Mohler grew up with. It's also a threat. You don't need Albert Mohler with you if you're going to practice yoga.
There's nothing in the curriculum at Dr. Mohler's Louisville Angel Factory that prepares him for this. If current trends continue, theologians will suddenly discover a pre-existing Baptist/Yoga tradition that goes all the way back to W.A. Criswell.
I could go on and on with this, but I'm starting to break out in stigmata.
The picture came from Christian Yoga magazine. Additional pic at the request of Cedric Katesby (see comments). This statue depicts Mother Earth being nuzzled by an infant Al Gore. Also from Christian Yoga magazine. I don't think Cedric gets out much.
You've probably heard about the South Fulton Fire Department - the one that wouldn't put out a house fire because the homeowner hadn't paid his yearly $75.00 fire protection fee.
This thing is a great parable/metaphor for about a dozen different things, but let's hit some of the high points.
* Let's start by saying that most of us would've put out the fire if we owned a fire truck. We would have done it at no charge. Once. Maybe five or six times. But after that....
* People fear what would happen if libertarians got their way and more and more government services were privatized. (People wouldn't have access to government services if fees weren't paid, etc.) Well, that's already happening with government services, isn't it?
* Do you think that a lot of people who had not yet paid their $75.00 fee to the South Fulton Fire Department have now done so? In a hurry? Ya think?
* If the South Fulton Fire Department had put out this fire, do you think anyone in his right mind would have paid the $75.00 fee next year?
* If you were in the business of putting out fires for people who had paid a yearly $75.00 insurance policy, how many fires could you put out for no charge before you went bankrupt ? Would anyone ever pay your $75.00 insurance policy if they knew that you were always on call and willing to sacrifice your time, equipment, and/or life for no charge?
* And now the big one.... Once ObamaCare goes into effect, insurance companies won't be able to turn away people who haven't been paying insurance premiums. If you're willing to pay a (relatively) small fine up front, they have to take you as a customer and start paying all your medical bills. Will anyone in his right mind pay for insurance before he gets sick?
* I'm going into metaphor overload. Have a good day !
Of course we could get together ! We met at Campisi's in Dallas, and had a great time. The world's problems can consider themselves solved. Paul Krugman, resident Obama apologist for the New York Times, can consider himself mocked. My misunderstandings about who insures banks against robbers can consider themselves eliminated. The mysteries of Mormon underwear remain unsolved.
I would have invited more people to this gathering, but Nick (not his real name) works as an economist in a semi-government job, and must keep his identity a secret. Those who labor in The Belly Of The Beast (or at least its pancreas) have to be careful about campaigning for sanity.
Dr. Ralph, of The Journal Of Post-Ralphaelite Thought, took time out from supporting godless socialism long enough to meet us, knock back a few, and take these pictures. He was careful about not revealing Nick's true identity.
Here's Dr. Ralph, still looking somewhat like Leon Trotsky, and Nick:
One of the many cool things about being alive in the year 2010....the world is getting smaller and smaller. Dr. Ralph, Nick and I didn't even know each other three years ago. We started pounding our interests into the internet, and next thing you know we're all sitting in the same booth, eating spaghetti. Go figure.
Illinois capital-markets director John Sinsheimer and Citigroup Inc. bankers took a globe-girdling trip from the U.K. to China in June to persuade investors that the state’s $900 million of Build America Bonds were a bargain.
The seven-country visit worked. The state sold one-fifth of the federally subsidized securities abroad the next month, tapping investors who are the fastest-growing source of borrowed cash for U.S. municipalities. Illinois, with the lowest credit rating of any state from Moody’s Investors Service, dangled yields higher than Mexico, which defaulted on debt in 1982, and Portugal, which costs more to insure against missed payments.
In other words, the children of the state of Illinois are going to be forking out Payday Loan-type interest rates. All so their parents can support the political culture that produced Barack Obama, Rod Blagojevich, these 3 governors who have been to jail, Dan Rostenkowski, and the next mayor of Chicago.
Mexico is a better investment. I repeat, Mexico is a better, safer investment. Look at these three guys. Would you purchase a used hubcap from any of them??? Let it roll around in your brain for a few minutes. According to people who evaluate risk, Mexico is a safer investment than Illinois.
CAVEAT EMPTOR, dammit ! !
If you purchase the Illinois bonds, Obama is eventually going to print some money, give it to Illinois, and they are going to pay you back with .50 cent dollars. Hide and watch. Mexico is a better investment.
The test could use some clarification in places. For instance, question #36 asks "Should we abolish welfare?" I believe that publicly funded welfare could easily be replaced by privately funded welfare, and that's the way we oughta go. So I don't believe we should "abolish welfare". We should turn it back over to the churches, civic groups, benevolence funds, etc.
Question #42: "Should the FDA and Medical licensing be abolished?" Well, yes. But only after some competing certifications have a chance to get themselves established. Until then, we're like that video of Democrats stuck on an escalator. We've forgotten how to walk.
I would trust a Wal-Mart certification far more than an FDA certification. Heck, the FDA has certified Oxycontin, but won't allow for marijuana. Go figure.
Anyway, it's nice to occasionally take a test that makes me seem moderate.
My inspiration to blog issues from a libertarian angle has waned. There's only so many times you can reduce things to first principles and argue the case and get the same stupid, meaningless counterarguments....
....The ****alition is not as astoundingly infuriating as the Labour Party were. They're just as ****ing inept, thieving, misguided and bossy, but they're much nicer about it. So that's fine.
I'm tired of trying to explain the concept of anarchism as something natural and workable to people who are happy to mindlessly defend extortion with menaces.
I can't even pretend that I will never, ever blog here again. My life may change again. I have no intention of deleting the blog, and I would be flattered to think that someone, somewhere may still find some of my writing interesting or inspiring.
I'll bet dollars to donuts that Obnoxio will be back within a month or so. He won't be able to contain all the rage.
Next, my friend Stephen M. Smith, of A Beginner's Guide To Freedom, is going through a dry spell. He's only posted once in August, and about that many times in July. Stephen is probably the best Libertarian writer in these United States.
We asked Stephen about it at the last Tarrant County Libertarian Meetup, and he said something that all long-term libertarians have felt at one time or another. (Or maybe I said it, and he agreed with me because I had beer in me....)
"How many times can you explain that all government activity is theft? How many times can you point out the difference between government's stated goals and government's results? After a while, you feel like the one-eyed man in the land of the blind."
Well, it ain't easy. I know that the stuff I throw up here every day isn't always good or even coherent. But somebody's gotta say it.
Hit that link above to Stephen's site. That post about "Lesson's Learned" is the best thing I've ever read about how our nation should go about escaping from the current fog. I miss seeing that stuff every week.
I hope Obnoxio and Stephen will find it in themselves to crank their sites back into action.
In the meantime, here's a picture of Barack Obama picking his nose.
He isn't Superman.
He isn't our leader - he should only be an administrator (like every other politician).
He doesn't have a clue about what's best for me, you or anyone else.
Why would anyone give a Chicago Machine Politician this much power?
The Messiah is wearing no clothes.
He picks his nose.
Since so many of you begin your Sunday morning devotions with a visit to this site....
Our text for today comes from the gospel of Matthew, Chapter 6, verse 5:
"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."
Please put aside your bibles, and turn to your internet. Visit the site of Dr. Andy Barron, who is running for Texas governor. Dr. Barron's first priority is as follows:
Prayer as a priority - Since 1962 when prayer was eliminated unnecessarily from public schools there has been a steady decline in morals of our society.
The good doctor gives us more specifics on his Issues page:
■Prayer and Religious Speech Protected Under 1st Amendment
■Establishment Clause Requires the Government to be Neutral Toward Religion, and Does Not Justify the Exclusion of Religious Speech
■Legislative Prayer Is a Permissible Acknowledgment of Widely Held Religious Beliefs in this Country
■The Rights of Students to Pray at School
■The Rights of Students to Pray at Graduation
■Equal Access allows individuals and groups to use government facilities for prayer and worship on the same basis that other individuals and groups are given access.
By all accounts, Dr. Barron is a great guy. He has already accomplished more good in the world than I ever will.
Unfortunately, he is focused on reviving one of the problems that our nation's founders were trying to escape.
Dr. Barron grew up in Texas and went to Baylor. The organizations he belongs to are predominantly Protestant, so let's assume he's a Protestant.
Dr. Barron and other Christian Protestants can pray any time, anywhere. In between this paragraph and the previous one, I prayed a simple prayer. "God, please let this be a great post, and if it's okay with you, please let it be emailed around the world. Please help Kathie Glass be elected Texas governor. I want a pony. Amen."
You can't stop me from praying, at least in the Protestant sense of the word. You can't stop me, and I can't stop you. The legislatures can legislate all they want, and it doesn't do a bit of good.
But there's another kind of prayer, the kind that Jesus was irked about in this morning's Bible reading. Dr. Brent Beasley (of my own Broadway Baptist Church) calls this "Egocessary Prayer" (That's a play on words with the phrase "intercessory prayer", where you ask God for blog hits, election results and ponies). "Egocessary Prayer" is the kind I grew up hearing in school, at graduation services, before football games, and before most public events. It basically means "praying out loud in public".
For instance....
Before a Mississippi private academy football game, a preacher gets on the microphone and asks everyone to bow their heads, and asks God to bless (so and so). Then the preacher thanks God for (so and so), and asks that He keep our young men safe on the football field while they are trying to kill each other.
Then the preacher outlines the plan of salvation, not because God is fuzzy on the details, but because the preacher's congregation needs to know that the preacher is earning his pay and trying to convert the Catholics and Episcopalians.
Bonus points are given for length, style, use of verbs from The King James version, and for passion. I once heard the equivalent of a double reverse backflip triple-axle, when a preacher at a graduation service shoveled in something about the superiority of full-immersion baptism.
And then finally, the preacher says "we ask these things in your son's name, Amen."
Then you can go on with your football game, graduation, or city council meeting.
What will happen down in south Texas when someone is asked to lead a public school prayer, and a priest decides to take advantage of the teachable moment and educate everyone on how to pray with a rosary? (Note to Yankees, Europeans, and Aussies: No one living north of Waco can imagine this ever happening.)
Is Dr. Barron prepared to purchase storage facilities for Muslim prayer rugs?
Is there time before a high school graduation to perform the "Festival of Ramen", the only way known to appease The Flying Spaghetti Monster? Will the schools have to make reasonable accomodations for all the tongs, salad sporks, colanders, and cheese graters? And if you think kids coming to school in gang colors are a problem, just wait until those who have been Touched By His Noodly Appendage show up in full pirate regalia.
There are only 2 reasons for Egocessary prayer, as opposed to praying silently:
1) To show off.
2) To evangelize.
There's no point in the first one, and The Founders were opposed to the second. End of story.
One last thing about the Barron candidacy, check out this video. It's only 30 seconds long.
Regardless of how you feel about Andy Barron as Texas governor, regardless of how hard you work to get him elected, or whether you do everything in your power to prevent him from becoming governor, none of that matters.
You don't matter.
Polls don't matter.
Effort doesn't matter.
Planning doesn't matter.
Andy Barron wasted his time becoming a doctor/dentist. If people's health/teeth were going to improve, it was going to happen anyway.
Please check out the video. It's only 30 seconds long. I don't know why I'm bothering to ask you to watch it, since if you watch it, it was bound to happen anyway.
